Whoa, did I miss three weeks? Geez, what happened there. Guess I got caught up in the excitement. We’ve had visitors, we took a little vacation, we left the house a few times… It’s just mayhem out west! Our KC friends the Martins came out for a week. We all went up to the Celebrity Golf Tournament in Tahoe, which is always a good time. It would probably be even more fun if I liked golf and recognized any of the “celebrities,” but it was a great time all the same. I knew a few, like Patrick Mahomes & Travis Kelce, and Brett Saberhagen always plays in it. For the most part I recognize names but not faces. Golf tourney aside, we had some great meals too, and just general fun.

Before Martin flew out, he threw out the idea that we should try cooking a brisket from Snake River Farms. Hey, I’m game. I’ve heard of them before, but never took the plunge on buying one. The only bad news was, all they had in stock was the 20-pound behemoths when I got around to ordering. Oh well. He smuggled some good KC bbq rub out here with him, and we threw it on my smoker at 5:00 in the morning. Now, the last time I used this cooker was a full year ago. We had a big party and invited everybody up for a house warming of sorts. It went “OK” but honestly I just wasn’t happy with the ‘que. I didn’t think it got enough smoke, I had a bit of trouble with the heat, and was just a bit bummed about the whole thing. This brisket turned it all around. It was just great, and now I can’t wait to fire up the smoker again and try some more stuff. I think the biggest issue was the fancy lump charcoal I’ve been using. It just doesn’t work well in this smoker, I’ve decided. Too big. I bought some regular briquettes, and didn’t stuff it so full, and it ran like a champ. Cooked that whole 20 pound slab of beef on about 1/2 a bag of charcoal. This is excitement in my world.

As for this past weekend, it wasn’t bad either. No bbq and Tahoe, but I can’t hold that pace very long anyway. We went out to a few wineries with some friends on Saturday, and Sunday we tried out a new Mexican restaurant, which was fantastic. Service was a little sketchy, but I don’t get too bent out of shape about that, I’m there for the feed. After dinner we went home and played pool and darts all night, which was fun. While we played games, I ran back and forth upstairs and kept an eye on my exciting beef tallow project. “Uhhhh, your what?” So when I trimmed out the aforementioned brisket, I threw all the fat in a bag and tossed it in the freezer. That’s what I usually do so it doesn’t get all smelly in the trash, then I throw it out on trash day. Well, by our estimation when we got done trimming, there was about $40 worth of trash in that bag. I just couldn’t quite shake that thought out of my cheapskate mind. A little light reading turned up the tallow idea, so I tossed it all in a stock pot and got to renderin’. I guess it came out good? Not entirely sure what it was supposed to turn out like, but it looks good to me. Or as good as five cups of fat can look anyway. I have no earthly idea what I’m going to do with it, but I gave it a try at least. (Chicken fried steak is on the short list.)

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Better late than never? Well, not in every case. But, give me credit for making an effort. Or, don’t. If you type a bunch of words but don’t really say anything, does that qualify as an effort? Whoa, deep thought for a Tuesday. Hey, it’s not my fault I’ve been shut in the house for two weeks with no exciting tales to regale my two readers with. Or, maybe it is my fault, but let’s not nitpick. About all I have to go with is the story of the Great A/C Outage of ’21, so go with it I shall. This unfortunate saga began last Wednesday. I joined The Guys for dinner at a nearby place (Solid Ground, as it happens,) and then afterwards they came over to the house to play some pool. We came in the house through the garage into the basement, which stays relatively cool all summer. So, we played some pool, then they took off back down the hill to their civilized worlds. Meanwhile, I’d gone up the stairs to get ready for bed, and immediate noticed something was horribly wrong. Yep, a quick check of the thermostat showed the a/c running but it was 80+ degrees. I stepped out back to check the a/c, and sure enough it was making a loud humming noise but nothing was happening. It was dark, and late, so I just shut it off, cranked on the attic fan, and went to bed. (We just had the attic fan installed a few weeks ago, dodged a bullet there!) Thursday I got up and made some calls, and the best I could do for an hvac visit was Wednesday of this week! Uh oh, we got a situation. Not too bad though, because the weather was “tolerable.” I toughed it out until evening, then the attic fan cooled things down quickly again. The real trouble started on Friday. By 10:30 in the morning the temp had gone up to 86 in the house. By noon it was even hotter, and the outdoor thermometer showed 110. I don’t know if that is completely accurate, but I don’t doubt that it was close, it was a record day. So, I turned to the google for some DIY help. What do you know, I found that the likely culprit was a capacitor, and this could be worked around by giving the compressor fan a spin to help it get started. Interesting side note, despite my doctorate degree in electronics from CMSU, I really wasn’t too clear what a “capacitor” was, nor was I inclined to figure it out. I did, however, know what a fan was. Despite some skepticism, (seriously, what are the odds of that working?) I found a stick of suitable size and gave the fan a whirl. Hey, success! Add HVAC guy to my resume! I immediate went inside, sat under a vent, and reveled in my success. Yeah, this was a short term fix, but one I could manage until Wednesday for my service call. A few blissful hours later, I thought, “Huh, seems to be getting a lil’ warm in here.” Yep, it was back up in the 80’s. I went out back and the fan had stopped again, but this time with no hum or anything. Uh oh. Back to the google. Well no matter how many links I followed, everything led to the mysterious “capacitor.” (Option 2 being the compressor had completely burned up, which certainly was in the realm of possibility considering the age of this thing.) I started making calls, beginning with my trusty local hardware store. Alas, nobody carries capacitors. They did, however, all point me to the same place down In Town, Fergusons. Hey, I’m game, I gave them a ring. Well, this call went about as I should have expected. The guy on the other end, who to his credit did seem very eager to help, started peppering me with questions that no mortal would possibly know the answers to. “What is the microfarad rating of your current one? Is it a start or run capacitor? One or two of them?” Geez dude. Uhhhhh, “it’s ball bearing?” Realizing the conversation was degrading quickly, he finally said, “Can you just bring in the old one?” After a brief, uncomfortable silence, I bluffed “Yeah sure, I’ll do that.” Back to the google. Well, I couldn’t find a really clear solution for this one. I can’t even find out the brand of my compressor, it’s just “old.” So, I started taking screws off. I pretty quickly came across a part that I decided, with some confidence, was a “capacitor.” I based this deduction on the facts that it was one of the very few parts I would call “removable,” and it also appeared to be in even worse shape than everything else inside. It came off pretty easily, and I went on my field trip To Town. Upon arrival at Fergusons, my confidence was greatly boosted when he confirmed that yes, that was indeed a capacitor, and it had most definitely failed in a spectacular manner. Whaddya know! I got home, put it back in (luckily I took some pictures so I knew what wire went where,) and fired it up. Boom, air conditioning! Grand total, $21 for the part and a buck in gas! Considering the service call alone was $100, I was just pleased as could be. Actually the fact is, I simply wasn’t going to survive until Wednesday without A/C, I guess I’ve gone soft. The money saving was certainly a nice bonus though!

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I’ve got precious little material to go on this week. It’s a shame too, because the weather was fantastic and I wasted it. Just couldn’t seem to get out the door. This week promises to slowly inch back up to the triple digits, so I missed my chance. My excuse (this time) is that Donette is out of town and I need to stay home with the pups. Now do I really? Well, yes and no I guess. They survive, but they get terribly anxious. I cannot imagine where they get that from, but it’s a real “thing.” As soon as you get home, Nacho will circle the yard for 10 minutes screaming like a banshee (bet the neighbors love that sound,) and there is about a fifty-fifty chance Quinn has chewed something up in the house. That goes up to 100% if you forget to hide every pillow in the house. So, I just stay home with them. Good for their well-being, and my wallet. I did go out with some friends Sunday night, to The Little Italian Place down the street. Clever name… They do serve Italian food and it is, in fact, very little. I usually order pasta, but I got a pizza this time, and it was outstanding. Can’t wait to go back and try a few others. (Being somewhat devoid of adventurous ordering these days, I went with the four-cheese.) Anddddd that about covers it.

I guess I can ramble on about my hummingbirds. Wow, that experiment got out of hand quickly. I have a feeder my sister sent me a few years back, and I try to keep it filled up regularly. Usually when you look out the window there would be 4 or 5 birds flying around it, but only one seems to eat at a time. All the rest just chase each other away in their little hummingbird gang fights. My solution? Get more feeders so everyone has a spot. I’m up to five so far. What I didn’t expect was, all it did was attract more birds. If you walk out the front door now, it sounds like you’re in the middle of a bee hive. You have to get out and close the door quickly or they will fly in the house. And man do they eat. It’s a never ending chore. OK yeah, it’s just stirring up some sugar water and boiling it a few minutes. But then you have to wash the pots, spoons, etc, not to mention all the feeders. (They’ll get moldy if you don’t keep on top of it.) And then there’s the sugar; I’m buying a ten pound sack every 1.5 weeks. I just don’t go to the grocery store that often! Oh well, I guess I could cut them off to survive in the wild again. I’m about 1/2 afraid they’d attack me though.

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Oncall weekend. I am just way too old for that mess, and that is not an exaggeration. I don’t bounce out of bed for that 2:00 a.m. page like I used to. Heck I haven’t for ten or fifteen years, but it’s gotten even worse. Woe. Despite that unfortunate situation, I did leave the house a few times. I went to a 21rst birthday party Saturday night, which was fun. If you find it odd that I went to a 21 year old’s party, well, I am so old that my friends kids are turning 21. So, I was able to score a spot on the guest list, and had a good time. They had a taco truck, and it was a good one. I over-ate as usual, it’s just what I do. Sunday we went to brunch at The Purple Place, which I’ve not been to in a long time. (It’s well out of our radius of entertainment since we moved.) I do miss that place, it’s always good fun. That said, they were off their biscuit and gravy game a bit this week. Not sure what happened there, I usually like them. Unusually bland. Might have to go back and try again! After brunch, we went to a theater and saw a movie!!! What?!?! Madness! Yep, just walked right in, sat down, and watched a movie. Good times. I found it a little odd that there were only about ten other people in the theater, not sure what was up with that. We saw “Quiet Place 2,” which I thought was supposed to be an anticipated release? Who knows. We saw it on the Imax, which was rather obscenely priced, maybe nobody wanted to pay that much.

I have no pictures this week! I guess I did not see one thing worth capturing in the past seven days. Well, I do have a photo of a rather attractive chicken sandwich from Solid Ground, but I’ll spare you that one.

I was on a little mini-streak there with regular updates. Then boom, missed two weeks. Not without reason though, I’ve been out in the RV for the last two weeks. Not that I was without Internet during that time… I just didn’t feel like it, so there.

Week one was my designated “birthday week.” I took the entire week off from work and we drove down to the Russian River area. Of note, this was our first time towing the car. It was not without challenges… Had a few errors. I very carefully went through the steps I found to get it out of gear, properly attached, chained, lights hooked up, etc etc. Somehow I missed the last step though; Release the parking brake. Doh! Might need a brake job after that little slip up. Luckily we had to drop by Costco on the way for fuel, so it wasn’t on too long. Side note: Fueling that behemoth at the current prices is not an inexpensive exercise. Diesel is currently just under $5, and it takes a whole lot of it. But anyway, despite the initial “whoops,” the tow-car was a definite upgrade to the trip. I can sit around a campground doing nothing as well as anybody, but it’s nice to have the option to go out and eat, see some sights, and do a little general exploring.

Week two was back at good ol’ Ponderosa Campground. This is the place 20 miles from our house, but we go there a lot. Donette helped get set up, then took the car and went back home. I was working all week, and apparently sitting in an RV watching me type all day isn’t considered an interesting prospect. Who knew. Hey, I enjoyed it though. Another guy brought his RV up and joined me, and we had a pretty good time of it. I think maybe the best part was walking up to a nearby cafe on Friday, where we caught a good blues band. It was a great show, and convenient. We spent quite a bit of time sitting by the river too, which is just relaxing.

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