Author: Gary Kessler

Gary’s post: Friday, thank goodness. Our 16th dinner was wonderful last night. We went to Season’s Grill in Old Town, the site of our first Valentines date. We attended a Spanish Wine dinner event, which was a ton of fun. Our table was the wine rep and salesman for the distributor that served the restaurant. The wine pairings with the food were amazing and great wine.

Today is all about the house and MORE DIRT. The dirt truck just keeps coming!!! We picked out windows last night, made some changes to the window package. We’ll go through the order, mark it up and also mark up a set of drawings with the new windows. Going fiberglass windows and traditional doors. The package comes with Pella, so we’re working with the Pella rep to get the package put together. Wendy also picked the Stucco colors, so now the house is coming together. We’re doing a sage color that blends with the topography and blends with the outbuildings we have on the property. We’ll do brown windows on the outside and white on the inside. Makes it easy to match paint colors.

Then it’s off to pick out tile and kitchen cabinets …. the list is long. We’ll get most of it done, but it’s going to take a bit to get things picked out.

The Can-Am is ready for pickup. I have to do it on Saturday as I asked my brother-in-law for his help. I need to swap helmets too. I tried on the helmet I ordered. I can get it on but can’t get it off without bruising my ears. Not a good thing. So, I’ll go do that today and hope Wendy’s helmet fits. We can’t ride public lands without having a helmet and eye protection. We’ll need to get all that sorted out before end of next month.

I’ll need to get a trailer. My father-in-laws offer is a trailer that’s been sitting in the sun for 20 years, so it’s rotted out. Cheaper to get a new one with LED lights and such. I’m not crazy about spending 2k but it’ll finish out the Can-Am stuff we need.

I REALLY need to get focused on finding health care here. I’ve been procrastinating and need to stop. I go to part-time in two weeks so that will give me a bit more time to work on finding health care. In the meantime, I need to book my flights to Seattle to see my current cardiologist and get off these darn blood thinners. I also need to find a good dentist to sort out my jaw issues. I’m freaking falling apart!!!

Lots to do today and I’ll probably not get any of it done. That does seem to be the direction I’m going. I’m kinda waiting on some gravel delivery to happen this morning. Then I can head to ABQ and do the helmet swap thing and get some diesel for the tractor. I hate to leave the dogs in the RV, but they seem to do fine. I like to let them run when I’m in the yard working, but I have to watch as we leave the gate open for the construction workers to come and go.

Alright, gotta run. Glad I had time to blog a bit this morning. Therapeutic and good to document stuff.

Hope everyone has a great weekend; I’m going to try. Getting excited to start my new part-time hours. It’s semi-retirement!!

Take care.

Gary’s post: Happy 16th anniversary to myself. It’s been an amazing 16 years with lots of ups, downs and sideways events that have made for an interesting and incredible marriage to my wonderful, amazing wife, Wendy. Who know that we started our relationship when she was living in a trailer in Albuquerque and now we’re living in a trailer in Los Lunas after 16 years. Life has come full circle for us.

Spring is here and winter isn’t letting go. It was 18 degrees this morning while I was taking the garbage to the curb (about 1/4 mile). F’ing cold!!! I had to warm up fingers and toes afterward because they were starting to turn blue!! Worse part is that there is humidity this morning, so it makes it even colder!!! Well, at least it’s not the northeast where it’s still cold and snowing.

House construction. Dirt, dirt and more dirt. It’s crazy how much dirt we have in the yard.

And they keep bringing in more dirt. Actually, it’s sand. They are mixing the sand with the dirt and then spreading it. It compacts more evenly and won’t move once it’s compacted. At least, that’s what I’m told. We’ll see how this all plays out since the foundation work starts next week – maybe. Organized chaos.

Well, time to get Juni to the groomers today. And I’ll get more gravel ordered so I can finish spreading the gravel for parking and dust remediation. And KILL THE DARN WEEDS that are starting to come up. It’s supposed to warm up next week. I’m thinking that I get some pasture grass, spread it around with a rake then water a bit and see if it’ll grow around the trailer. Give the dogs something to kill when they pee.

Everyone who might be reading this, have a great day. I’m going to take the day off and spend it with my wife when she comes home this afternoon. Looking forward to that!

Later!

Gary’s post: Late morning post today. Had a lot of bill paying work to do this morning. It’s a beautiful, cold morning in NM today after a really crappy day yesterday. We had 50-60 mile an hour winds which picks up all the loose dirt from the farms and blows it everywhere. It was a Haboob, which almost never happens here normally. We’ve had two this month, which speaks to the climate change happening – even though Trump has forbidden anyone to talk about it. Kinda feels like we’re living in North Korea….

Today is more work on the dirt pad for the house. The contactor managed to hit the internet cable for my brother-in-laws house which was buried 5 inches below the surface and run right where the house was going to be built – inspite of telling the cable guy not to run it there. Gotta wonder what the IQ level is of those people. Thursday Centurylink will be back out to reroute the cable and probably charge us more money to correct their mistake. Loving free enterprise.

Taking Harp to the groomers this morning to get the dirt washed out of him. Juni will have a fit, but she’ll survive. She and Wendy have a lot in common, both need to be the center of attention… LOL. Speaking of Wendy, Thursday is our 16th wedding anniversary. That woman still gives me goosebumps every day, and I can’t express how much I love her. She’s my rock and keeps me sane, my partner in crime and best friend. We’ve been living in a trailer for 2 months now and still are talking to each other. Amazing!

Not much else happening on the house – just getting the pad ready for the foundation. That’s supposed to happen next week and that will be a party when it is poured. Then we’re moving toward a house!! With spring coming, I need to get on the weeds and start considering planting some trees for wind breaks. We’re going to look at windows on Thursday for the house. And this weekend is the home show in ABQ, so we need to attend that for ideas. A lot of things to settle on for the house!!

I’ll keep it short as I have work to attend to today. Have a wonderful day, enjoy every moment and keep positive thoughts alive. Every little bit helps in this crazy world.

Take care!

Gary’s post: Today will be another crappy NM spring day. 50-60mph winds as a cold front comes through. This morning it’s beautiful, crisp and calm. Around noon through this evening will be really windy weather. It’ll rock the RV a bit. I do have to get the propane refilled as it’s around 15% and with the cold coming, we’ll need the furnace to work, sorta.

Work on the house progressed yesterday. I think they cut the Century link cable while doing the dirt work. The installer ran the cable right under where the house is going to be built, which is a dumbass thing to do. So, probably have to have the cable retrenched and spliced to the tune of $300. I have my brother-in-law on our Starlink for now. It actually works better than the worthless Century Link.

I suspect that there won’t be any work done today because of the wind, which makes it difficult to get anything done. As you can see, the trees are starting to bud out, so pollen is everywhere mixed with dust. Makes for a fun allergy season. I’m fortunate as I don’t have bad allergies to cedar, juniper and elm. Just the usual runny nose until the humidity dries it up. I think my body is adjusting to the altitude and dryness.

Dogs go to the vet this afternoon. That’ll be fun as that’s when the wind picks up. We’ll see how the truck manages driving in this weather. Should be fine. Jaret had 2 feet of snow in Filmore this morning. His truck is buried along with his motorcycle. He’ll be digging out all day, or at least until it melts later today when the weather warms up.

Well, time to get breakfast going and call the propane people to get scheduled. Stuff for the Can-Am is starting to show up. Now I just need the Can-Am which will show up later this week. I think I’m going to get a utility trailer with a form fitted travel cover for the Can-Am so we can trailer it to Red Rocks later this year. Eventually, I’ll get an enclosed trailer for it but need to be smart about expenses and spending until the house is built. For now, this setup should work fine.

Alright, going to sign off for today and tie everything down so it doesn’t blow away. Have a great day everyone.

If you’re interested, here is the link to the Tempest Weather station in my backyard. It does measure wind speed.

Tempest

Take care and don’t blow away!!

Gary’s post: Had to post this picture of the sunset last night. Such an amazing picture of the clouds. Sunday was a beautiful NM spring day – 68 degrees, slight breeze and sunny. The sunset capped of a great day. Jaret left yesterday morning early, so we were relieved that he had a nice day to get back to Filmore.

Today is going to be busy, lots of work to do for Itron and getting the messaging document done for DTECH. I need to get to the bank and order the last load of gravel for the living space to keep the dust down. Tomorrow is supposed to be really ugly winds, so more dust and trailer rocking. 50-60 mph. From the northwest, so the trailer will be sheltered by the workshop. It’ll be nasty.

Spring is definitely here. Trees are greening up, weeds are growing (damn them!) and the Sandhill Cranes are really active.

The field to the north of us is pastureland for growing hay, so the cranes use it to feed in the morning. This is a picture of a few of them. They generally are all over the field and pretty noisy in the morning. By 9:30am or so, they’ve all left and have gone south. They are big birds and fly in flocks of 15-20 generally. Occasionally you see one or two of them flying but they are beautiful and noisy. Lots of them around here as there is a lot of farmlands that are growing crops – at least for now.

Tomorrow is vet day for the dogs. Going to get them established with a vet here. Heartworm is a thing here, so they need those medications along with everything else that is transmitted on a farm. I’m taking both of them at the same time, so it’ll be total chaos.

Not much else going on, just need to get some errands done today. The contractor will be out today to start spreading dirt and building up the pad. We agreed that a 3′ pad will be needed to allow for proper septic installation. If the wind would stop this project would go a lot faster, but that’s not going to happen.

I really want to get a rototiller for the back of my father-in-laws tractor so I can redo the pasture and destroy all the weeds with it. And I could add a mower to it so that we could get rid of the riding lawnmower that’s taking up space. Then we’d have a working UTV, a fun UTV and a tractor – perfect for our gentleman farm. I do need to get a trailer for the Can-Am. Having some difficulty with finding an enclosed trailer that will hold it that isn’t a million dollars. I might end up getting an open utility trailer, covering the Can-Am and calling it good until I can afford a more elegant solution.

Time to get some work done. I’ll take a break and do some laundry today to give my eyes a break (dry eye is making life troublesome). Take care everyone.

Gary’s post: Dirt, lots and lots of dirt. This is all the dirt that’s going to be used to build out the pad for the house. The contractor will start tomorrow in between windstorms. We have another wind event coming on Tuesday, which is getting ridiculous. The severe weather across the country and the windstorms are dangerous. When the wind can push trucks and trains off bridges and throw busses through buildings – it’s time to take notice and start worrying about global warming and climate change. It’s obvious and the signs are ominous.

Yesterday was an expensive day. We finally bought a Can-Am Maverick X3 DS with accessories. Obviously, we didn’t need a Can-Am but it’s an investment in my brother-in-law to get him out and riding more.

It’s being built, so we’ll pick it up later this week. I’ll have to add the front bumper, lower door panels and half windshield. I’ll get a trailer next month, probably enclosed so we can store the can-am in the trailer when it’s not being used. That will keep it out of the sun, wind and dirt. I’ll probably buy the can-am extended warranty (36 months) for the extra $2,500 which will give me protection when it breaks. And I’ll change out the oil to AMSOIL so the engine lasts longer. When you make a purchase like this, it’s never the cost of the purchase that’s expensive, it’s all the supporting stuff you need to be safe and store the vehicle. Helmets, storage bags, bumpers, accessories to add the vehicle. You end up spending another 5-7k just to outfit the vehicle. And I still need to get a roof and spare tire. Crazy. Anyway, it’ll be a fun way to burn off stress. We can ride from our property to the desert and local trails, so it’ll get used. And we can ride it on the streets in NM as it’ll be licensed. When the kids come down, they can take it out and have some fun. It’ll be fun for them, and they can practice on the property.

Today is dedicated to finishing the taxes, getting some Itron work done and spending time with my beautiful wife. This week will be 16 years of marriage, and I’m looking forward to taking her to our dinner event on Thursday. We’re headed out to breakfast in a little while with her brother. Jaret was down this weekend to pick up his motorcycle and some other items. He just left to drive back to Filmore, UT. Juni is missing him, but she’ll be fine with us. Otherwise, things are back to normal, or as normal as can be until the house it built.

Have a great Sunday and enjoy the day, the people and the time spent relaxing and reflecting. Take care!

Gary’s post: We’ll I’m back from Orlando. I must admit, it was awesome to have real amenities instead of trailer life. The JW Marriott is a spectacular hotel, connected to the Ritz-Carlton so the property is pretty posh. Food was good, and the meetings were excellent. I do have a lot of work to do over the weekend though. I can’t wait to get to April.

Flight home was delayed due to 70 mph winds at the Albuquerque airport. We had a 3-hour delay, which wasn’t terrible as the Orlando airport is pretty well laid out, with lots of food options. We finally boarded and got home. Nice to be home and sleeping in my own bed even though it’s RV life. I’m thinking it might be nice to have a weekend in each month where we stay in a hotel with Harp. Then at least we get a break from the RV, and Wendy can take a hot shower.

Our dirt work sub-contractor brought in a lot of dirt while I was gone. We have a huge pile of dirt now and it’s all different types. On Monday they are going to start “layering” the dirt and spreading it out. They’ll do 2′ 6″ of layered dirt, then compact it. Then they lay out insulation, cover that with crusher fines gravel and pour the foundation. The bottom of the foundation is about 3′ above grade. I’ll post a picture. My GC is struggling to figure out exactly how much dirt she needs to make sure we can install a gravity flow septic. I think she’s overthinking it. Frankly, all the homes around us are at 2’11” and they all have gravity fed systems, so if we go to 3′, we should be fine. It’s all approximate anyway because how the heck is an inspector going to measure if the bottom of the drain field is exactly 4′ from the water table?

My father-in-law has to install a new drain field, so he’s wanting to park his RV over here until it’s done. I want to help him, but I DON’T want him leaving his crap over here because he’s a pack-rat/horder and my property is going to be clean or look good and not have crap scattered all over the place, so it looks like a junk yard. I do appreciate that he lets me borrow the tractor and gave us a UTV to use around the property. We’ll see how this plays out.

Today is going to be groceries and Jaret is here so we’re going to stock him up a bit. He’s taking his motorcycle to Utah since the carrier he bought is garbage and won’t hold his bike. I’m going to let him take my ramps as I don’t use them often and it’s one less thing to keep in my workshop.

Thinking today we’re going to attempt to negotiate on a Can-Am. I’m going to be an ass about the negotiations since most of these dealers don’t deal. Since I’m paying cash, I’m going to use all my leverage on them and walk away if they can’t give me a fair deal. We’ll see how this goes. I don’t NEED a Can-Am, so for me, I don’t have to buy it today or ever. We’ll see how bad they want to sell one. For us, it’s a play toy to spend time with my brother-in-law and do some bonding activities while meeting people. Always a good thing. And its exercise, getting out and moving. Plus I can get an enclosed trailer and keep it in the trailer. We can take it to Moab and do some off-roading too with Jaret. Hopefully Lauren will join us and Matt and the grandkids can use it when they come down. Alot like our motorcycles when we lived her the first time.

I must admit, I’m in a better headspace after coming back from Orlando and hanging out with my co-workers. I have to start getting out of the RV and making friends and spending time away from the RV. Better for Wendy and my marriage and keeps the tension down. I’m looking forward to next week, celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. We’re doing a special dinner with Spanish wines at Seasons Grill in Old Town, close to where she gave me my star in the constellation Drago.

My cardiologist moved my appointment, so I have to rebook my flights to Seattle for next month. PITA!! I’ll book them to leave here on Thursday, meet with him on Friday and fly home on Saturday. I’ll spend some time with LBK (my daughter), the cats and get my bloodwork done. I’m working on getting set up here in New Mexico with a good cardiologist and endocrinologist. Then I can figure out an internal medicine doctor as my primary caregiver. Once I get established, then I can stop going to Seattle. And I REALLY need to find a dentist to deal with my jaw pain. So weird that it happened overnight. It’s effects my ear canal too, causing it to ache. The issue comes and goes. Anyway, enough whining about old age pain. I’ll be happy to stop the blood thinners!!

Off the start the day. I’ve had my coffee and need to get dressed and eat so I can get going. I think today is rain, so I’m going to attempt to plant some grass and see if it grows and will stop some of this darn dust blowing around. And I get to play games with motorcycle dealers!! Fun stuff.

Have a wonderful Saturday to anyone reading this.

Gary’s post: More dirt for the house building pad arrived yesterday. I counted 25 dump truck loads. I think there are more coming today. Not sure what the plan is, but I believe the dirt work guy is going to bring in the front loader today and more dirt. I’ll keep the gate open all day; they knock off around 2:00pm so I can close the gate around 3:00pm. Exciting fun stuff.

Tomorrow morning, early, I fly to Orlando for 3 days. I’m not excited about going, but I am looking forward to getting out of the trailer for a while. It’s a planning meeting for our customer conference in October. I have a ton of Itron work to do today, need to finish or get our messaging document in better shape, so that’ll be my focus for today. So much other stuff to do also. Wanted to wash the dirt off my truck and the Volvo, get more gravel to finish out all the parking pads and lower the dust. I was thinking about trying to plant some pasture grass in some of the locations where there isn’t a lot of traffic. I guess it can all wait until I get back.

After Orlando, I’ll figure out if I’m going to get a Can-Am to ride with my brother-in-law. I think it will be fun, I just don’t know when I’ll have time to use it. And I’d rather invest in a tractor instead of borrowing my father-in-laws all the time. I probably would use the tractor one or twice a week to mow and move dirt while we’re landscaping. Dunno, I have to think about this more. I know my father-in-law doesn’t care, but for me it’s about access and making things easy and quick. I could also pay off our new EV too or buy a thermal drone and actually start my drone business. Practical versus fun. Hard choice.

Well, I do need to get going this morning. I probably won’t blog for a couple of days while I’m traveling, so looks like I’ll write more on Saturday. I’ll take some picture of the house dirt work. And the weather is supposed to be crappy end of the week – more wind and rain. Yesterday was amazing, but generally the wind sucks, worse than the rain in Seattle. More damaging.

To anyone bored enough to read this, take care today. I’ll be back on Saturday with more thoughts and progress on the house.

Later!

Gary’s post: This week is business travel. I tried to avoid it, but I couldn’t, so I’m traveling to Orlando on Wednesday. 6:45am flight, yuck. Funny how early in my career I loved the business travel and now it’s a giant pain in the arse. I think a lot of it is the novelty and having support processes set up. Once your established, it’s pretty easy to make all the arrangements for dogs, cats and mail then take off. Now it’s a panic. And with contractors coming and going from the property, it’s difficult to just leave everything and hope for the best. Fun part was digging through the “Where House” trying to find business clothes for travel. I still don’t have shoes, and a belt figured out. When I’m here, I just wear the same thing since no one cares and it’s always dirty with the constant blowing dust in the spring. Well, we’ll see how this plays out.

Cleaned the trailer yesterday. I have to start working on my attitude, it’s really starting to drive me crazy. I need to get out of my own head and get more positive. I know part of it is the isolation every day, being in the trailer all the time, working. And not being able to build new friends or support. I feel like I have to be working from 5 to 5 every day. Issue is that my body can’t do that anymore. I get dry eyes from looking at the laptop all the time, trying to do documents on a small laptop screen, hard to focus and maintain concentration and a myriad of other physical issues. I’m working on doing HIIT, spurts of work that is highly focused, then taking a break. Not sure that’s working but I’m trying. All of this is why I know I need to retire – I just can’t keep doing this until I do the dirt dance. I’m going to try the part-time deal through April and May and see how that works.

Today is more dirt hauling. That’ll be uneventful. I’ll keep the gate open for the contractors. I need to contact my gravel guys and get another 7 tons plus the 2 they already owe me. I’ll spread it around the back of the workshop so we can park the EV back there for charging and minimize the dust. Still needs to keep on those pesky weeds. With the rain last week, now the weeds think they can keep growing. DIE!!! I’ll go to Tractor Supply and get some more weed killer and ground sterilizer. Then we have the bugs. They haven’t start yet because it’s still cold at night, but they will start in June. I’m thinking I’m going to get a couple of Venus flytraps or pitcher plants to eat the Flys that get into the trailer. Living next to a cattle ranch, lots of Flys because the neighbors don’t manage their fields well.

The blog will probably go silent on end of this week as I’ll be traveling and in business meetings on Wednesday thru Friday. I’ll post when I get back.

Well, time to start a busy Monday. Supposed to be nice weather today and tomorrow with a front moving through on Wednesday and more wind (and dust). Gotta love spring in NM. Take care and have a safe and sound Monday.

Gary’s post: Sunday, jump into daylight savings time. I always loved daylight savings time but disliked getting there. Losing an hour of sleep sucks. I wish the whole country would go back to daylight standard time and drops this silliness of spring forward and fall back. Studies show that it’s harmful and blows up circadian rhythms which manifest is health issues over time. I’ll refrain from going down a political rathole and commentary on our current political and state of the country… This blog is about the craziness of building a new life at 70+ years old.

So, April 4th I’m going to semi-retire. I’ll be working 25 hours a week which will keep me busy with benefits but give me time to start expanding my interests and get some work done around the property. I’ll probably do the part-time thing through December and then retire in January when I hit 73. That seems to be a good time frame and would help if we need to get a home loan.

I know I’ve been talking about getting a recreational vehicle, which is a bit crazy, but there are a lot of opportunities here to use one. We looked at them yesterday, and it would be fun, but expensive. I’m thinking that I’ll do my Orlando trip this week and see where my head is at when I get back. Might be good to just wait a year and see where we’re at with income and expenses. Once the house is built, there will be furnishing and some furniture that we need to invest in. And I do need to get a wine cooler for our wine collection, so there are a lot of expenses to come. I’m generally pretty practical, but sometimes it would be fun to do something where we can just go and have some fun.

I’m concerned about next week and traveling. I know I have to leave from here around 4:30am or so, but I have no idea what we’re going to do about the dogs for a few days. We haven’t established daycare for them or a place where they can hang out while we’re gone. They are not outside dogs, so leaving them outside in the wind and rain isn’t a plan. I need to talk to Wendy about this as I’m sure she hasn’t thought about it their care for 3 days. If she has, she hasn’t talked to me about it and I’d like us to be on the same page.

Today we’re doing our breakfast with my brother-in-law, so that’s good. Hoping we’ll spend the day cleaning the trailer, getting ready for next week which means we have to dig around in the “where house” to find some business clothes, luggage and stuff to dress appropriately. We HAVE to rearrange that mess and create some more room. I think it makes sense to move the wine into my brother-in-laws place for the short term, get some better shelves at Costco and redo how things are stored in there. And the wind blows dust and dirt into the workshop, so everything is covered in a fine layer of dirt. Jaret kept the door open during the windstorms last week because he felt he HAD to get stuff in and out of there to prep for his trip. Love the kid, but he does drive me crazy with his drama.

Speaking of Jaret, he’s been camping in Moab for the last week absolutely living his best life. He’s been hiking and mountain bike riding in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Today, he’s headed for Filmore to start his new job tomorrow. We’re following his trip on Google maps. He’s thinking that he does a couple of years in Filmore, then transfers down to the Moab area to live there. That would be great as he’d be closer but not to close. He probably needs to talk to his sister about his plans as she’s thinking about buying some property in Utah as a second place to go and escape from Seattle silliness.

So, today will be more routine. I absolutely will have to work on taxes and get started on them. Weather should be good, but cold. Normal temps for NM. Next week is another crazy weather week with normal stuff for the first half of the week, wind on Thursday and some snow/rain on Friday and Sat. Normal spring here. I’ll be really interested to see what the status of the dirt work for the house is when I get back.

Well, enough for today. Hoping everyone enjoys their Sunday and take the time to be thankful for their time on this beautiful planet. So many joys and blessings. Take care.

BYLTR….