Category: Leisure

December 11, 2024 – Can’t Stop Genetics

December 11, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I have always admired people that have a dog that will stay with their owner and act under complete control. I suppose that there is an element of trust that the owner and the dog need to have with each other. I have never had that either or maybe I haven’t had the nerve to try.

It has been a few months since I have written about my dog Raya. I wrote all of this and I was going through my pictures and I saw one from August. So I had to come in and edit today’s. See https://altf4.co/september-4-2024-something-about-a-dog/ She is a Covid dog. After our beloved Snowflake tragically died we had to give it a break. That was all pre-Covid so once we had been homebound for several months we changed our minds about getting another dog. It seemed like we were always home with nowhere planned to go, so might as well.

Unlike Snow, Ray is not a pure breed. She is a mix between Golden Retriever and Burmese Mountain Dog. This makes for some interesting characteristics. I used to believe that she was mostly Golden with the look of Burmese but now I think it is the other way around.

When Snow was young (about a year) and I was training for the half marathon, I would run with her. As she got older, she would just flop on the floor after a short walk. I attributed it to being out of shape but I think that it was more than that. Because Snow died from overheating on a very mild late summer day and Raya comes from the same blood line, I keep a wary eye on Raya for the same thing.

But, Raya has become my training partner of sorts. Sometimes I take a short loop and drop her off before I go out for longer. That way I don’t feel guilty about leaving her at home all the time as I put on the miles for my future hike. My plan is to slowly work her up in fitness level.

Raya has some of the exuberance of a Golden, but you have to get past the Burmese first. She has a very instinctual protection trigger. Anytime someone comes to the door she barks ferociously. She barks when she can see people outside the window. She will growl or bark when we are outside and anyone walks by.

Snow used to lay in the driveway as the school kids would walk by and they would come up and pet her. Raya will leap off the deck eight steps up, barking and snarling. I keep her inside for the expected thirty minutes of school traffic now because there is no reason to subject kids to that. She have never been violent and I don’t think she would but she is going to let you know that this is her territory.

However aside from the barking, I have never seen her act aggressive. If people ignore her, she will eventually start warming up to them. Pretty soon, she will not leave them alone. With me and others in my family she is always underfoot. The picture was taken next to the bed where she lays until I kick her out before I go to sleep. Often times, I find her against the door in the morning. I have actually come to appreciate that she can seem aggressive but really isn’t. It makes me feel like she can play a role in defense of the home without me having to worry about unwanted attacks.

The reason that I am writing today is that we took Raya to Montana. Sometimes she can be a real pain. When she excited, she can pull like a sled dog so I let her off the leash even though you are not supposed to in a national park. But there were very few people at the park anyway.

We took a short walk in the snow and Raya was herding us. She would run to the back person and then up to the front person. She was keeping us in line. I have never seen that before. Dogs were bred to have a job and she was having the time of her life doing hers.

End Your Programming Routine: A boy and his dog. I sure miss Snow because she was so loveable. But Raya is her own kind of special. She is protective, loyal and loving to her pack. My wife actually trained Snow to go get the paper every morning. She lived for that. Raya has her own job, I am just looking at how to harness it.

December 5, 2024 – Not Even Close

December 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The first thing that we did on the day of our arrival was to go on a hike. This is called the ‘M-trail’ at the University of Montana. It is essentially a mile up a very steep hill. I was interested to test my readiness and progression. Plus, it is like a bonus training exercise which I have been pretty lax about lately with lack of daylight and poor weather.

The M-trail goes to a giant letter M on the hillside. You get a complete look at the college as well as most of Missoula. It was very popular as we probably encountered at least fifty people going up, down and waiting at the top. Some were running, some were dogs, some were students and others were families clearly visiting for the holiday.

I did it. I wasn’t wearing a pack and I did have to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. I am not claiming to be in good shape but I think some of the strain was that we started at 3500 feet to begin with. Then we went straight up. I felt OK and maybe a little tired by the time that we were done.

The way that I looked at it though, is that I need to be able to do this ten more times with a loaded pack. The section that I am planning on hiking has some 20 mile stints between water sources. Granted, it probably won’t be this steep but the starting elevation is close.

I definitely felt it in my shins, they were sore the next day. I am not sure why exactly but I think that it has to do with rotating the foot, toes up and heel down. I am thinking that stretching movement was the cause. I am not too worried about the temporary pain but it does make me wonder if I can keep that level of strain for a week.

Clearly, I need to push myself more. It is difficult because we have no elevation to speak of. I walk the dog with a weighted pack but even then, I am only going an hour or hour and a half at a time. When I was younger, I would have dealt with it. But, at my age I don’t recover as quickly. I also noticed that I have been having some arch pain. My wife thinks that it could be the beginnings of plantar fasciitis. That is also something that you don’t want to come up on the trail, miles from anything.

It was a good check to see where I was at with readiness. Clearly I need to do more and fortunately, I have time to keep at it. It those days that the weather is nasty and I didn’t get out early enough that I need to not lose because I don’t have much time to waste.

End Your Programming Routine: You cannot tell from the picture, but my wife is in it. I was kind of torn between staying with her and pushing myself. Ultimately, I decided to continue on and wait at the top if she was going to make it. Believe it or not, the trail does continue to go up. We stopped at the official terminus but multiple people we met kept going up. It makes me wish I had something like this for my training purposes.

November 14, 2024 – What Is New?

November 14, 2024 /

Is there any news on the cancer front? No news is good news.

Am I reading anything else? No. I just finished reading the ‘Art of War’ this week and I still need to finish the Greek cookbook. It has been a slow grind this fall.

How about some exotic or fine cooking? No. Actually my wife has been doing a lot of the cooking lately. I figure that if she wants too, why not.

Did I start selling junk like I intended in the late summer? No, I took the pictures but have been lazy and not done anything.

Any big projects coming up? Nothing new. I want to get back to the wine cellar but it has been kind of out of sight, out of mind.

So really, my life has kind of stalled? In a way, yes.

If this was a job interview, you would have no choice but to take me at face value. And I admit, I wouldn’t hire myself based on those answers. I would argue that not all is as it seems. I want to be open about my humanity but I don’t want to leave myself appearing as a slug either.

Currently, I am waiting for the CB base station pictured below. I bought it on Ebay and the seller is taking his sweet time shipping it. I imagine that there is some kind of health problem because the date keeps getting pushed out. So I will patiently wait. The truth is I don’t have a suitable antenna anyway. I am just going to test mobile to mobile while I decide what direction I exactly want to go.

I mean, lets get real. CB is a low powered, very short range pursuit. We are talking about a couple of miles at best. However, this unit was cheap at $35. As I plan on gearing up with radios, why not learn and play in the cheap space. This had lead me to consider my workspace, battery back-ups and related topics.

I can’t express how the impact of training has on life. It becomes the number one optional priority. I realized this when I was training for my half marathon. It seemed like the only thing I ever did. If I wasn’t actually training, I was scheduling around it or scheduling training around other things.

This week has been miserably rainy. For that reason I haven’t done a lot of training. But, I am currently waiting for a reflective poncho so I can go out at night, in the rain. Once again, training has come top of mind.

Way too late in the election cycle, I realized that the future is uncertain. Right now, ammunition and reloading components are about 80% of pre-covid availability. I started building up my supply again. I pretty much stopped shooting regularly since Covid and what shooting I have done has been out of my inventory.

Fortunately, with the election results being what they are I anticipate at least four years of good fortune on that front. But as all good preppers should behave, it is the time of plenty that is the proper time to stock up. I have been inventorying and organizing trying to figure out where the gaps are and working to fill those gaps before the next shortage.

Now that my wife is back in action, the calendar has far fewer gaps than it did earlier in the year. Also with school in session, there have been a lot of activities. Trap finished up mid-October, trap fundraiser, the last weeks of my son’s cross country season and other family affairs.

Last week, we did something that we have done once before. It was the pumpkin shoot. We took our surviving jack-o-lanterns out as well as other decorative pumpkins and blasted them. We also shot hand thrown clays in a family friendly competition. If I had taken any pictures, I would have been writing about that exclusively, not just a paragraph.

We are going to Montana for Thanksgiving. I am not loathe to get too involved in anything until we get back. There are also some things that I need to finish up in the mean time. I would call that preparing for the trip and then there is the holiday season. Another dead spot in productivity.

End Your Programming Routine: It’s going to be OK. This has been a tough year and by all accounts I think I made it through pretty well all things considered. I wish that I could just go all the time, but there is a reason that nature has a season of rest. Consider that now as the time.

November 13, 2024 – Sometimes You Run Across the Darndest Things

November 13, 2024 /

I haven’t talked about this much, but at my age and fitness level I see my upcoming Pacific Crest Trail hike barreling at me. My wife tries to convince me that I have six months and plenty of time. But I see the evening darkness and prevalent rain kind of crimping my style. Living in the elements is part of the deal but I sure don’t want to get hit by a car because it is dark and cars can’t see me.

I am trying to get my walks in during the daylight. In order to do what I can, I am packing weight. I need to be able to pack a full load up to twenty miles. This is between water sources on the trail so it is pretty much a necessity. Anyway, I am worried that I am not doing enough, fast enough.

The bike in the picture below used to belong to my eldest son. He was in sixth grade when we bought it for him for Christmas. It was replaced by an e-bike three years ago. So then, this bike went to my younger son. Despite constant cajoling about locking the bike up, one day it was not in the bike rack after school.

How do I know that it was son’s bike? Well, there are quite a few things. First, it was the bike that my son was using when he was hit by a car. We replaced the petals. One crank was worn out so we bought a mis-matched crank that was used. The most telling part is the last time my son put on tires, we put road tires on a mountain bike. It meant that they didn’t wear out so fast.

Part of me was kind of glad the bike got stolen. I was hoping that the lesson would sink in about our guidance was for a reason. It was also hoping that walking to school the rest of the year would be payment enough. As a result, no police report was filed. No record of the crime exists.

One day I was walking and I saw the bike. There it was sitting in front of a house. I don’t know them though I am pretty sure the house has kids. I never expected to see the bike in one hundred years. When my locked bike was stolen in college, I never saw it again and I lived there three more years. I always looked for it.

My walks are part of my mechanisms to keep an eye on what is happening around town. I check on the progress of the new sidewalk work happening on my street. I walk into the new neighborhood to see what lots are starting to get built and what houses are finished and no longer empty. I see the new places homeless people hide their tents. And apparently, I see where my son’s stolen bike ended up.

End Your Programming Routine: There was a small part of me that wanted to get on the bike and ride off. There was another part of me that wanted to confront these people. But then, I have no proof that we ever owned the bike and no record it was taken. It has been gone years now, my guess it that they probably need it more that we do at this point. Keep your eyes open, you never know what you will see.

October 31, 2024 – So Long, Old Friend

October 31, 2024 /

It was on my recent fishing trip that I found out about the permanent draining of a reservoir of my youth. It was where we water skied and fished. It was where we tubed and it was the first place I took my boat. I knew that I wanted to go see it for old times sake.

It was a 2023 court decision that finally put an end to the reservoir. Basically, this is a last ditch effort to save the spring Chinook salmon run. The plan is to let the river flow unless there is a major water event in which case they will use the dam to mitigate extraneous flooding. The dam was put in in 1967. My dad grew up along the river (below the dam) and he said that it flooded every year before the dam. It has done it’s job as well as providing a lot of memories for me.

The way that deer hunting goes around here, I don’t hold my breath. I threw my rifle in the car, but the real plan was to go explore. I wanted to validate what I had heard and reminisce about what was lost. If I happened to run across a good spot to hunt, I might want to come back. That is a good way to get my wife to go along as well.

At the beginning of the journey, we stopped at the dam. In all of my years and all of my trips, I have never looked over the edge. We walked about halfway across the dam and I never realized that there was a road on the other side. We didn’t go on it because we had a mission to follow the river up.

This picture shows the exact spot on the reservoir that we used to ski. It is called the Quartzville arm of Green Peter. If you follow this road beyond this point, it turns into a picturesque western stream. I had only gone beyond this point once in my life. At that point, I was probably in middle school so it was really new to me.

A couple of miles up the road, it turns into a dispersed camping area. It really means that there are no services, but it also means that there is no cost. All of the spots are along side the river and include a fire ring. Bring your own water and expect that the nearest toilet might be a couple of miles away. Other than that, it seems like a perfect place to spend a hot summer weekend or a quiet fall hunting trip.

After we stopped multiple times to look at potential camping spots, it was time to complete the journey. We followed the forest service road all the way through. We ended up on the the next east/west highway to the north. We headed west and home just in time to avert a major rainstorm.

End Your Programming Routine: These are difficult and complicated situations. I don’t want to see major flooding or the demise of the native salmon or the loss of excellent recreation. You might call what I was doing was deer hunting but really it was a Sunday drive with my wife. I will miss the reservoir but I have a new appreciation for the area.

August 8, 2024 – Are You Enjoying the Olympics?

August 8, 2024 /

The Olympics are almost over for another four years. If there is any silver lining in being cooped up in a hotel/hospital room is that there is not that much to do. I would never sit down and watch hours on hours of TV especially not day after day. But yet here I am with the TV on most days. Sometimes it is background but sometimes I watch glued to the TV.

It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of the Olympics. I wrote about it as I was traveling in 2022. That was another occasion where I didn’t have much to do except flip the TV on at the hotel. This goes all the way back to my first exposure in 1984. While I didn’t see much of it for various reasons it sowed the seeds for a lifetime of fandom.

Here is what I have seen so far. It appears to me that the United States has lost its complete dominance of the summer games. If you go back a few years ago to the golden era of Micheal Phelps who won everything that he entered, it seemed like the US could not lose. These games, I am watching gold medal favorites land Broze medals.

The media likes to skew the overall results by posting the US having the most medals of any country. When you look at the breakdown of medals, the US does not have the the most golds, They have triple the bronze to gold (side note: I am writing this a week before it posts). I see a much more equitable distribution of talent than I have ever have in the past.

Of course I am always going to root for the US first. But, part of what I love about the Olympics is the human interest aspect. There was a story about some divers from Mexico that paid their own way to get there and promised to auction any medals as proceeds to repay debt on the trip. Fortunately, somebody stepped up on their behalf but this is the will and the drive to sacrifice everything for a chance.

I have already watched so much that I have seen events I have never seen before. I caught fencing for the first time. I watched equestrian riding, triathlon, water polo and rugby for the first time. My son played rugby one year. I told my wife that I have forgotten more about rugby that I currently know. I won’t say that I get it totally know but seeing teams that know what they are doing kind of make sense now. It always seemed like sort of senseless melee when middle schoolers were playing.

I don’t know if I have a favorite event. Like a lot of things in my life, I admire people that are passionate about what they do. At this point, I am more than double the age of most of the people that have dedicated their lives to a specific pursuit. That means that I have been out of shape longer than they have been alive. But, perception is reality and to them, this is everything.

I used to have infinite will power. I could set my mind and sacrifice until the end of the earth. Some of that is still buried in my somewhere but unfortunately for me, I have never been much of an athlete no matter how much I willed and sacrificed for it. What that process taught me was that anything reasonably achievable could be accomplished with a plan and work. That part I still have. I just had to go after the right goals that fit my abilities.

As the Olympics wrap up, it seems like our banishment to Portland is going to end as well. The trends and motions that the doctors are making leads me to believe that we are a few days from going home. It may not feel as good as winning a gold medal but I am feeling like a million bucks in anticipation of this experience being over. I will take this change in perspective that is watching the Olympics to pass time to really enjoying it while it lasts.

End Your Programming Routine: I am actually surprised that my wife has had the Olympics on nearly continuously. It certainly is something different than binge watching all the shows that she normally watches. We haven’t talked about it, but I think that we kind of feel the same way about the human interest. We are not 100% different, but pretty close. Finally something that we can agree on.

August 1, 2024 – End of an Era

August 1, 2024 /

About two months ago, we turned off the home phone service. The picture in the box below is the old phone equipment that used to be around our house. It has been cluttering up my reloading bench all this time. That is OK since I haven’t been home much anyway.

I will let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t a true land line. It was actually a cell phone that had a cable connection to hook up to the old phone line system. We added this line in the late 2000s. This was long before fifth graders had cell phones. The main purpose was provide phone service for baby sitters and later our kids to get ahold of us, if necessary.

In the last couple of years, we go really no calls on the line and it sometimes lead to confusion. Old contacts (like doctor’s offices) would sometimes call and leave messages on the line. We never checked it because 99% of the calls were junk. We would have to weed through satellite TV offers and car warranties on the voicemail every couple of months just to clear it out.

I would have kept the line except for the fact that it was costing $360/year. I was under the impression that it was only costing $10/mo for many years. This is one of those vampire costs that made little sense. My in-laws would call when the kids were young but since they have both died, nobody calls the number.

At one time, I had an extension in the shop. I liked it because I could more easily hear the ringer and see the light than the phone in my pocket. But then again, my wife would not call the line anyway so I would have to listen to the ‘I couldn’t get ahold of you’ speech each time. This was one of the reasons she bought me the smart watch.

In the true spirit of redundancy, I like the idea of having redundant communications. The idea however is that you would have a different provider or a different technology. A landline or a different carrier even is a much more robust strategy for that. Adding another line does very little unless you are using the phone for a specific purpose, like a business.

End Your Programming Routine: I remember the day you would schedule the service and wait for the phone to be hooked up. It was the same era that if you didn’t have a phone book, you lacked fundamental knowledge for navigating the world. I would like to just give away this techno junk if someone wanted it. Unfortunately, it has very little value to anyone. I may give it a try, but most likely it is going to the electronic recycler. It is not worthless, just not practical. That makes me sad.

July 30, 2024 – Terrible Photos, Fun Time

July 30, 2024 /

If there is one thing great about a wife with cancer, it is that people invite you to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Think about it like a less fatalistic ‘Make-a-Wish’. We were invited to go down to the pits and hang out during a race called the ‘Lucky-Dog’. This is an endurance race that spans over two days.

I don’t know a ton about it but from what I was told, it is a step up from 24 hours of Lemons. In that race, you are supposed to run a car that cost less than $500 for a 24 hour race. Lucky Dog had three classes (don’t ask me what they are) and the car has to be older than 15 years. I could use my pickup or my Navigator next year.

Because there were three classes, I saw Corvettes and Mustang GTs but I also saw VW Rabbits, a Sirroco, many Miatas, a Pontiac Fiero, Nissan 240 and many BMW 3 series. My host was running a Mini Cooper. Who doesn’t want to win? But the main object is to have fun.

My son is very into cars and I have been a race fan for a lot of my life. I have been to open wheel races and NASCAR multiple times. These days I am more race adjacent than I am an ardent fan. To really get into it, you need to have a driver to follow and my last driver retired five years ago. Also, without cable or a sports streaming package it is extremely difficult to watch the races. Networks share the season and races jump time and channels depending on how popular they are. What I am saying is there is no consistency so unless you are really following, it is pretty easy to miss.

The truth is, most racing in this country is bootstrap, like the Lucky Dog. This is the passion of everyday guys that wrench on their own cars and trailer their own cars and spend the weekend at the track for no money. Depending on what part of the country you live in, there may be a dirt track in every little town. There sure was in South Carolina.

A friend of my wife’s husband was racing. I have only met him once and that was over a year and a half ago. After my kids met us in the hospital for a visit with mom, we headed to the track. We had the pit number and I had in my head what he looked like. But after wandering around in pit row for a while I didn’t see him.

I had a deadline to be home, someone was bringing us dinner. So we started heading to the car. I told my son that he didn’t have to leave because he had his own vehicle. I was itching to go home. My son said “well you are leaving, I might as well”. I responded with “Do you wan’t me to ask around for you”? He said “I guess”. It is not my strong suit to inject myself into strange social situations but I suspected that he would want more if he could.

We meekly wandered to the pit area again. This time, I asked the first person I saw “Do you know so and so”? The young man responded “No. Never heard of him. What does he drive?”. I said “No Idea”. Then he chimed in with “Check with the next door team, we share a pit space.” So off we went to check with some old guys wearing racing suits. Turns out, our host was on the track (not surprising).

We watched and chatted as long as I could and then I had to leave. I asked my son if he wanted to stay and he said yes. There was only about another hour remaining anyway in the race. He stayed until the end with two guys he didn’t know. I wish to have sat in a chair all day and watched but I was ready to get home after four straight days at the hospital.

I told my son that if he was bold enough, he could probably volunteer to help with the car and races. The guy lives a couple of miles from us and who would turn down help. We will see if he steps out of his shell and that ever comes to fruition. I suspect that he would prefer to be the car owner rather than crew but you have to start somewhere.

End Your Programming Routine: I am glad that I stepped out of my shell and we made that memory. My son asked if I would drive if he put a team together. I said yes. I don’t know exactly where my love of racing came from, it was just something that I got interested in as a teenager. Thanks cancer. I doubt we would have ever done this without you.

July, 25 2024 – Fat and Slow

July 25, 2024 /

Things have clearly slowed down for me on many fronts. One of them for sure is my air rifle shooting. I told myself that the next schtick was testing out those speed loaders I had with different pellets and different rifles and getting used to handling those rather than individual pellets. It has been less inspiring than I really thought and I have been dragging my heels.

Since I started this journey, I have been on a quest to try all different kinds of ammunition. I have gone through a lot of different ‘heavy’ pellets and now I am on the lightest of the bunch. The current group I have been shooting is the Gamo Blue Flame. I am going to talk about my impressions of this particular load.

The Gamo Blue Flame is a lead free, pellet of 5.4 grains. It is commonly referred to as PBA or Performance Ballistic Alloy. It is made of tin even sometimes plastic and the theory is lighter is faster is more energy. This also comes at a cost of about $0.12/pellet versus about $0.02 for lead.

While I clearly understand the value of energy, I think it comes with a compromise of other factors. Take noise for instance. Air rifle pellets can break the sound barrier causing a supersonic crack. I am also not convinced that they are as accurate. The rifling is optimized for projectile weight and my testing has yielded less than ideal groups. You can see from my picture that I have some scope work to do to get them on target but the grouping is rather large.

I think my biggest complaint is the quality of the product. The picture does not show it well but at least five of the pellets came out of the can severely deformed. One in fact was not even able to be loaded. Four of the pellets had the blue polymer tip fall off in which I painstakingly hand applied and re-crimped. By my calculations, that is a 9% defect rate. And just think that only two of these pellets equals one 9mm cartridge in cost.

Another reason things slowed down for me is that I was last shooting 14gr pellets. As a result of my testing, I feel like my rifle performs best in the 7-10 grain range. My personal favorite right now is the Crossman Piranha at 10 grains. It is just a little harder for me to find on retail shelves. I know Walmart carries it but I do not have a Walmart close and I despise ‘mommy may I’ games.

This last one isn’t on the pellets but the rifles. Just like you never get EPA rated mileage, I have not gotten manufacturer velocity results. I have published my results but truthfully I have only seen about a 5% increase in velocity and 250 fps less than advertised. I am measuring no where near the stated potential.

End Your Programming Routine: Granted, I have primarily done most of my shooting with the Crossman 1000, results could change with different platforms. My honest opinion is that PBA pellets are not worth the money. I am sticking with the fatter and slower loads because they are also significantly cheaper as well. Dead doesn’t come in degrees but accuracy and money do.

July 18, 2024 – Home Away From Home

July 18, 2024 /

It is such a mixed bag. I would dearly love to not be away from home for extended time. That being said, it sure is convenient when appointments are just across the street. No traffic, no parking and no real planning. When my mother-in-law was receiving treatment in Houston, I got to see another version of this housing which was more like a one bedroom apartment. Here, I would liken it to a hotel room.

Being over an hour away is not the end of the world. My neighbor who lives just a block from us makes this commute every day. In fact, there are a lot of people who do. I would never want that, but my point is that it is not unheard of to live where live and work in Portland.

The hospital’s main point is that this is specialized treatment. Should something go wrong, not having direct access to the care team knowledgeable about the subject is too risky. They are afraid that a local emergency room would not adequately coordinate or even know what to do. Secondarily, there will be follow-up appointments. They really don’t know when they will be so being at the ready is really a convenience for them.

The first picture at the upper left is the room. I feel like this could be any hotel room. There are two queen beds, a TV, desk, chair, refrigerator, microwave and bathroom. What makes this not a hotel is the upper picture to the right. What you are seeing is the communal kitchen. Since we have medical, dietary restrictions this is a must for us. It seems like most of us staying there are in the same boat, but the accommodations are not strictly for cancer patients.

The picture on the upper left is also on the communal floor. It is a little alcove with a desk along the wall. This is where I worked when I would get up in the morning to not disturb the sleeping. Not a bad view and nobody was there anytime I was working. Other people came to the floor for phone calls and such but not consistent working.

It is the upper right that is the kicker. This is looking out the window while my wife is having chemo July 4. What you see is a little park with tents setup because the craft brew festival is happening. Staying at the family housing not alcohol is allowed. But, right across the street a three day beer festival was happening. I could have gone but it was $50 and 100 degrees, so I decided to keep my money, But what an opportunity,

End Your Programming Routine: There is some give and take. I am not so far from home that I couldn’t go if I needed something. It is just inconvenient enough that I really think twice about running back and forth. In retrospect, this is a better setup than the RV would have been and the last four really hot days probably would have been miserable. It all worked out for a reason.