Month: November 2018

First of all, we hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. And, if you hit the “Black Friday” sales, we hope you found deals on all your purchases. (We don’t do “Black Friday” ourselves.)

It is with sadness that I compose this post as our foster cat, Solette, had to be euthanized last night. She was suffering from a feline disease called FIP which is untreatable. The symptoms are similar to pneumonia in humans; lungs fill with fluid and eventually cause death. Solette was about 7 months old. Pam is very upset but there is nothing any human could have done to make the situation right.

Foster kitten Solette

Thanksgiving Day itself was pleasant. We joined in with a few neighbors to have a small community lunch. Pam baked an apple and a cherry pie for the event. Several neighbors attended and we met a few new people. The food was good and typical; turkey, bread, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and quite a few deserts were spread out for a help-yourself lunch.

As is our habit, we put up our outdoor Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. (Indoor decoration will come in a few weeks.) We decided that when we move we will replace most, if not all, our decorations as they are getting a bit old (dating from Old Vic in Whitewater). The lights do look good when lit up at night.

Today will be quiet as there is a storm coming in later. I will get out to fill a small grocery list and get gasoline for the car. After that it will be working on the computer and watching some college football.

And I mentioned in a prior post, I am converting my galleries collections into a new format. I have 16 done so far with about 30 more to go. The biggest difference is video presentation; under the old format I could put a video clip directly into the gallery. Now I have to add a separate link and have the video(s) open in a new page. It works and in some ways I like this arrangement but it does make coding the pages a bit more complicated and adds a few more files. In addition, video clips must be in at least two formats, .mp4 and .webm, so they will play on most devices. The old service did this for me; now I have to do this myself. It takes extra time to set up each gallery. This project will continue for a while.

For those who might care, I am using two programs to convert videos and create the web pages: Prism from NCH Software handles the video chores and JuiceBoxBuilder-Pro produces the gallery code. Prism is a free download (for non-commercial use) and will run on both Windows and Macintosh computers. JuiceBoxBuilder-Pro costs about $50.00 for a lifetime license and also runs on Windows and Mac platforms. Adobe Corporation’s Air (also a free download) is required for JuiceBoxBuilder.

In medical news, I went to the dentist last week and found I need a new crown on one tooth (as I had chipped a corner off it) and an existing crown has to be replaced as well. A root canal may also be needed if the tooth under the old crown has deteriorated. The dentist said the crown had been ‘leaking’ and some decay has formed under it. Oh joy. First work will be in early December, second job in January as my dental insurance is based on calendar years. Splitting the work between 2018 and 2019 will save me several hundred dollars of out-of-pocket expense, but I am not looking forward to having to go  in twice.

Other minor stuff: I put the new belts in the washing machine and Pam reports the spin cycle now completely empties the drum of water. I put the new tire on the John Deere tractor; nice to have it ready to go instead of having to add air every time I wanted to use it. (So far I have not removed the mower deck and mounted the snow blade on the JD but will probably do that next weekend.)

Monday it will be back to the usual grind. Right now I need to be off the the grocery store and gas station.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Solette is the poster child for what rescue has become in this neighborhood.  What used to be the joy of births and bittersweet goodbyes of successful adoptions has now become rides through the dark to vet services and gruesome deaths.  The local cat population has certainly become inbred, which contributes to the decline in general feline health.  Solette is the fourth kitten I’ve buried this year; in addition. one other adult male was euthanized at the shelter after being diagnosed with feline leukemia.

The sadness takes its toll on me, as does the impact on our household budget.  I daily weigh the dilemma — do I feed the strays and keep them alive only to watch them die of diseases later?  Rescue work is no longer satisfying; not likely I’ll become a hoarder.

Happy Trails.

Our daughter Felicity had a “house sit” in Louisville, a community northwest of Denver. We had arranged to drive over to that part of the state to visit her, stay overnight, then drop Felicity off at the Denver airport the next day so she could catch her flight back to Portland.

The drive over, on Saturday, was uneventful. We met up with Felicity at her house, visited, then went out for dinner at a place called Huckleberry’s. The food was good and the house’s specialty tea was a big hit with Pam. Then we retired back to the house, visited for another few hours, then went to bed.

Sunday morning saw several inches of new snow on the ground. We had expected this storm but had hoped it would arrive later in the day; that was the original forecast. Apparently the storm arrived early!

Jerry and Felicity walking to breakfast in the snow

After breakfast we dropped Felicity off at Denver International Airport and began the westward trip home. Driving through Denver was more than a bit tense, as we saw a few cars spin out and our own tires slipped a few times. Getting up into the foothills and leaving the storm behind seemed to be working, until we exited Eisenhower Tunnel and began the ascent up Vail Pass, which was socked-in with snow. The eastbound lanes (traffic traveling toward Denver) were hard hit, with cars spinning out and stopping traffic.

Eastbound traffic stopped on Vail Pass

A bit further along on Vail Pass, the state police has closed the eastbound lanes, something we had suspected due to a sudden and complete lack of eastbound traffic. What a mess.

Colorado does have a law that requires passenger cars and commercial vehicles to have “adequate snow tires, traction devices, or 4-wheel/all wheel drive” for winter driving. Obviously the passenger cars we saw causing the problems did not have this equipment. Fines for noncompliance can run several hundred dollars. If only one or two cars spin out, the pass gets closed to all traffic, irritating other travelers and causing big headaches for the 18-wheelers.

We ran out from under the storm right about the bottom of Vail Pass. After our wild ride through the snow belt, the rest of the trip home was uneventful.  Arriving home after dark, we unloaded the car and called it a night.

I had Monday off to observe Veteran’s Day but had several projects to work on. First was putting in a temporary repair on the clothes washer; one of two belts had bit the dust, making the machine  inoperative. A trip to the nearest NAPA got me two auto belts, not an exact match but something that would work until I could order new belts through Maytag. The washer works but Pam has to run the spin cycle a couple times to get all the water out of the drum. New Maytag belts will be here next week and I’ll finish the repair then.

Another chore was leaf collection and mulching. I worked on our lawn, including mowing the grass for the last time this year, and a neighbor’s yard as well. At least the weather was decent – sweatshirt temperatures for the most part – and dry, making this job go pretty well.

The Ford F-150 had developed an engine miss so I replaced a fouled spark plug. Truck is currently running fine again. Along those same lines, my John Deere garden tractor had a front tire that decided to give up the ghost. It frequently goes flat in about an hour after I fill it with air, so time to replace it. A new tire was found online for $20.00 with free shipping and the nearest Walmart mounted it for$5.00. As I use the JD for snow plowing in winter, I want the tires to be in good shape.

Holiday Preparations: Thanksgiving is coming up next week. The day after Turkey Day we usually put up our outside Christmas decorations. We’ll be watching the long-term weather forecast, which shows a storm coming in — but — we are still several days away and that may change. Pam is working on this year’s Christmas (actually Solstice) cards, which will be hand-made, similar to what we used to do years ago.

We hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

While it was great to have a nice, long, face-to-face chat with Felicity into the night hours, I am so done with drives through Colorado mini-blizzards over mountain passes.  Done.

However, I did have both a lovely [Fall-spice-flavored] Chai tea at dinner in Louisville and a Culver’s pumpkin shake on the way home. Simple pleasures.

Happy trails.

Another quiet week, except for the elections. I see Scott Walker is out as Governor of Wisconsin; wonder what changes the new guy will put into place? Maybe he’ll fix the “Scott-holes” (pot holes).

We had planned to visit Felicity, who is in Colorado for a house sit, last weekend but the weather turned bad and we postponed the trip until this next weekend.

True to form, the first major snow of the year caused accidents on I-70 though Glenwood Canyon, closing east- and west-bound lanes. Some of those bridges can get really slick, particularly where the change in elevation causes a transition from wet to snow-packed surfaces. We were better off staying at home last weekend!

Halloween was very low-key this year. We had no trick-or-treaters at all and I saw only one small group going house to house in another part of town. It was cold, granted, but there just didn’t seem to be much interest in trick-or-treating. It was a mid-week school night, and I think the local community center was running the Halloween party.

On the other hand, eggnog is now in our grocery store. The holiday season must be in the air.

There will be a few changes in my galleries and blog posts going forward. The company that I’ve used for several years to host photos and videos just raised their rates astronomically, from $225.00 per year to $1,000.00 per year and I am not going to renew my contract. Instead I am looking at software to create and host slide shows and video files on the server thats hosts this blog. I may have to pay a bit more for additional storage but rather that than pay a ransom.

The home-grown slide shows may not be as slick as the ones created to date; the home-grown shows will have a different (and simpler) look. I’ve started practicing on shows I create at work, which gives me a chance to experiment and learn as I go.

The biggest problem is that I can’t upload any more photos to existing galleries; I am “over limit” for the number of photos and video clips my $225.00 plan will accept. That is why no new images have made their way to, say, The Lot gallery, showing off the work we did this summer.

It will be a bit of effort to convert the existing galleries but, in the end, I will have more control over them and save some money to boot. Sigh. As Anna RoseAnna Danna would say, “It’s always something.”

Locally, our high school ladies soccer team made it to state finals. How do I know? This sign on our local city office:

Sign on city office door

I’ll have to ask around to find out how the team did.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny:

Poor little Solette is having a rough go trying to recuperate from her spay operation. I hate seeing a kitten in discomfort.

I’m “celebrating” a significant birthday, ending with a “5.” I begin my pension through the State of Colorado.

Happy Trails.