I've been working on a Yukon this week, as much as possible. That's been the bulk of my shop work. Trying to get it to the stage of firing. Not far off now.

We had family needs this week again. Some might recall that Kelly's Mother is in the final stage of Altzheimers. We were called around 12:30 am Tues., to respond. We called 911 ... co-ordinated with the EMTs. Went to the home, helped the EMTs. Took Kelly's Dad to the hospital (following the ambulance). Her Dad is 80 and; with Kelly's help, he's been trying to care for his wife of 58 years. It's been a huge job. We spent much of the night at the emergency room. I waited outside. Finally went home, as there was nothing I could do. Kelly got home in time to get an hour and a bit of sleep before work started in the morning. Her Mother is being placed in a facility today. It's a bummer, at Mother's day.

It's best to carefully choose your parents. Middle age can be dramatically affected by caring for them, and settling impossible matters that they were unable to complete. I've been at it now for a decade, 5-6 years actively, 3 1/2 years intensely. Several of those actually in court, hearings, depositions ... attorney's offices, court houses, tax offices, banks, and private businesses. It's been quite a load.

Yes, I know you don't come to the Airgun Rendezvous for downer news. Me either. I've come here quite a few times this week. Hoping for a bit of a lift. Of course, nobody is shooting. Nobody is posting.

Oh ... I fought four string trimmers last night. Two of the gasoline ones would not start. One electric one kept spewing out it's cord, endlessly. The fourth one (also electric) ... worked for three feet ... then coughed out it's last length of cord in an orange blurr. I quit attempting to trim at that point. I'd had enough fun ... have to pace myself.

Fascinating, I know. God help us ... I guess everybody else who has one of my guns is going thru the same thing as me. Back to the wall - last thing on earth they are gonna do is shoot and post a smiling pic or thought. And, everybody else who has one of the eight hundred million other airguns is also in the same boat. Darned dreary world it seems, if I'm not dancing on stage with a quick joke. Jerry says he thinks I used to be a Jewish mother ... as guilt and dreary news are a specality of mine. I know (at least suspect) he's not entirely serious. Might be though. However; what's that number by my name now? Must be well over 2,000. Guess a few of them were interesting and humorous. Sure would be fun to see a few other folk's numbers go up.

Don't bother responding to this one. Post something new if you have something we might share. I just get tired of coming here for a break, just to read my own posts.

Gary

Gary,

Cheer up buddy, hopefully I'll get back in gear soon and be able to add some content.

I'm waiting on pins and needles for approval on my loan any day now. My credit is not a problem but one never knows if the association will pass the solvency test of a bank these days. It just burns my tush that they were giving homes away for three times the price for nothing down but, "Starting with me" they're going to clean this mess up.

My ex mother-in-law had a serious stroke yesterday so I can empathize with you on the caring for elderly parents. My son is really shaken by it.

Next week I should know for sure one way or the other whether or not I'm moving and either way I'll get some normalcy back into my life and start enjoying my friends and hobbies again.

Lon

Uhmmmm....let's see...good news...cheerful stuff...

I know, I've got it! I FINALLY found ONE specific case where waiting in a long line may actually have a beneficial effect. Personally, I never thought I'd ever see how that could happen, but it appears to be true. To explain, I gotta tell a story, don't worry, it'll be short(ish).

We just got back from a family trip to the Kingdom of the Evil Mouse (aka Disneyland). For whatever reason, my wife just adores the place and seeing as the kiddo is kindergarten age we're in the window where it's more or less unavoidable anyway.

We had some family who were interested in going along, so we rented a condo within "walking distance to the park". Of course, "walking distance" is a VERY subjective phrase, and in this case it turned out to be about five miles round trip. Oh well, I guess we all could use some extra exercise seeing as we're going to be living on cotton candy and crappy theme park food for the next few days. The pedometer built into my phone (whoda thunk?) says we walked about FOURTEEN MILES the first day, including back and forth from the condo. Gee, I wonder why my feet hurt?

After various cousin's broken arms and unexpected surgeries for Auntie pop up the week prior, we ended up with a bare minimum of extra family members joining in. This turns out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise seeing as the "luxury condo" is dirtier than a Pakistani-run hotel in the low-rent district. You can hardly tell the color of the stairway wall through all the greasy handprints, for example, and the carpet is better off not discussed at all...yuck. We better damn well get our "cleaning deposit" back, seeing as we had to clean the bathtub ourselves before we could use it.

Weather-wise, it's a good thing we routinely pack raingear on our trips because that week the temps in legendarily "sunny Orange County" are in the low-to-mid-fifties, and it's raining on and off. Not the warm weather and sunshine we expected; in fact, it's warmer back home up in SE Alaska! On the positive side, it doesn't take much bad weather to keep Californians hunkered in the bunker at home, and the crowds are pretty sparse. We never waited longer than 15 minutes for a ride, and most of them were more like five minutes. It literally took longer to thread your way through the "people maze" than it did to wait in line, those things can be pretty confusing when there's nobody to follow and all the shortcuts are roped open.

We'd bought the three-day park pass, but after a couple of days with basically no waiting in line you've pretty much seen all there is to see at Mickeys joint. The upshot is that I ended up taking the older kids (our exchange student and a couple buddies) to Knotts Berry Farm on Day Three instead. For those of you who've been there, I don't have to explain that the roller coasters at Knotts are WAY bigger than the Disney variety. They're faster, taller, rougher, tougher, have more loops and whirls and high-G turns and all that stuff that's designed to agitate your breakfast and toy wickedly with your sense of balance and equillibrium. And there's almost nobody at THAT park EITHER....

With literally NO waiting in line, you can just go from one ride to the next to the next to the next to the ...ooohh...suddenly I don't feel so good...

Well, to make a long story short, perhaps a bit of time waiting in line for giant roller coasters ain't such a bad thing after all.

Even getting a late start, we'd had pretty much our fill of giant roller coaster pretty early in the afternoon. The mid-day meal of greasy fried chicken, while tasty, was in retrospect not perhaps the wisest decision either.

Hello Sean,

It sounds like an absolutely ..... delightful? ...... trip. I appreciate you posting. Especially, since it's been quite a few years now, since I went on vacation ... I don't even want to now. haha.



Gary

Hey...look at the bright side. There ought to be some smoking deals on beachfront hotels all up and down the Gulf Coast in the next few days/weeks/months/years. As long as you don't mind walking the beach in a disposable Tyvek suit and respirator, that is.