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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: Managed to fly from ABQ to Orlando today on Delta Airlines. Not a bad flight, but I did manage to get in ALL my steps today in the Atlanta airport. Walked from Terminal A to terminal F which ended up being about 3 miles. Long freaking way. I did check my bag, so at least that wasn’t a hinderance.

It was an interesting flight from ABQ to ATL. I overheard (when the baby behind me wasn’t screaming) a lot of people who were saying they had relocated to Atlanta or the east cost from New Mexico and they’d never live in NM again. Great place to visit but they wouldn’t live there. Baffling to me because I love it. Like anyplace it has it’s ups and downs and it’s not Seattle or Texas but it is its own unique place with its own unique beauty. I love the beaches in Florida and the East coast, but I couldn’t live there because you have to evacuate every year during storm season. Not my cup of tea. The West coast is rugged and beautiful, but cold and wet a lot of the time. While my kids live there, and I miss the heck out of them, socially, politically and economically it has changed so much from when I grew up there that I don’t recognize the place. And I can’t afford to retire in the Seattle area. And Washington in general is a mess. So everyplace has its issues, but where we live in New Mexico is a bit of a bubble and it is our place so I’m happy to be where ever Wendy is happy. And the house building is continuing. The front loader showed up today, so now to start building the pad!!

After I landed in Orlando, I grabbed a taxi to the hotel. I arrived at the hotel, checked in and walked into the room, tired and hungry. I set all my stuff down and hung up some clothes then went into the bathroom. When I entered, it struck me – a REAL TOILET! And a shower that I could just turn on and stand in. I was dumbfounded. I guess I’d gotten used to RV living or at least numbed by living in the RV. While the RV is nice, it is still 36 feet long and 8 feet wide. There’s only so much glamor you can pack into that space, and it’s definitely NOT THE BATHROOM! So tomorrow, I’m taking a nice LONG hot shower, siting on the toilet until it leaves seat marks on my ass and generally lounging in the bathroom until I have to go to meetings!!

I think my hesitation to make this trip was because of all the change that’s happened over the last year. I’m noticing that as you get older, routine and sameness becomes a safe harbor. While I embraced change when I was younger and in my pseudo prime, as I get older I find the routine is comforting. I have to wonder why that is. In thinking about it, I think it’s because as we age our ability to process change slows down, and we can’t focus on the end results as effectively. So NOT having to do that is comforting and doesn’t drain our mental energy. And it’s less frustrating as you don’t have to deal with making more decisions about how to manage change. And I remember my mom saying that as a kid, they wouldn’t tell me where they were taking me because I’d get so worked up that I’d vomit. That sez a lot about me because I’m finding that as I get closer to retirement, sometimes change at work makes me mentally vomit and tires me out. But that’s a different topic for a different day.

This work meeting is good for me. I complain how every day that I’m at home, isolated and not connected. Well, now I’m forcing myself to be social and connected. While it’s painful and uncomfortable, it’s good for me to network and keep connected to work peers that I don’t get to see in person very often. Much needed, but still stressful. I need to focus on letting them talk and not me talking about me. Listening is much more rewarding than talking/telling. Network, network, network.

Okay, it’s 10:30pm here on the East Coast. A good dinner, some nice wine and now I need to get some sleep and recover from traveling today. Tomorrow is a long day of meetings. Thanks for listening to my prattling, I just had to write about the reality of a real bathroom… The simple things….

Take care.

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….

Gary’s post: Less madness yesterday and today. Yesterday was my contractor hauling dirt into the property to build up the pad for the house. As I said earlier, we’re going to build it up 3′ to keep the foundation out of the flood plain for FEMA. That will reduce our insurance quite a bit.

From the picture, we’re at about 7 piles of dirt. They are going to move more on Monday and Tuesday which should bring us to 21 piles of dirt. Then the contractor will bring in the front loader, spread it, compact it and leave about a foot of extra dirt to spread on top of the blanket. Our GC is going to spread a blanket and insulation over the pad, then cover it with more dirt which will keep the house from moving and the slab dry and warmer. That will help keep the floors warmer in the house. My GC has ordered the wall panels and windows for April. That would imply that by May we should have a shell up and a roof. Pretty exciting.

Got some rain last night, about .05″ with a couple of lightning strikes. That’s one feature I like about the Tempest weather station is that it detects lightning strikes and determines how far away they are. In NM, monsoon season is rich with lightning and NM has one of the highest incidents of lightning behind Florida. Crazy stuff. This morning was a light dusting of snow. Now we have dirt that’s just wet enough to stick to your shoes and the dogs’ paws. Time to get out the wet mop and mop the floors of the trailer.

Speaking of dogs, finally got them schedule with a vet for some shots, heartworm meds and checkup. I’ll take them to the vet on 3/18 after I get back from Orlando. We’ll feel much better once they have a checkup and are groomed. Here, there is heartworm which will kill them. And we live below 5k feet, so there are critters that will give them all sorts of diseases if they are not vaccinated. I’m waiting for them to tangle with the skunk that’s living under my brother-in-law’s mobile home. That’ll be a treat.

Today is just some routine stuff. Grocery shopping, get some breakfast and then focus on taxes. Probably do some wine tasting at the local winery and do more updating of our EV. We’re considering getting a side-by-side UTV to ride with Wendy’s brother. I believe I talked about that a couple of blogs ago. For those interested, I think we’re focusing in on this particular vehicle:

Holds two people, turbo charged and should be a ton of fun to drive over the ditch banks and trails. We’re thinking that we can take this to Moab and do some riding there also. Will probably have to get a spare tire and some racks to carry gas. We’ll see.

Enough for today. Need to get going and feed us and get shopping done. Enjoy the weekend and every moment you have with family and friends.

Take care everyone.

Gary’s post: Yesterday started the process of building out house. We had 5 piles of dirt delivered before the wind got so bad that they quit. It was blowing the dirt to the next pasture. Crazy wind again, 55mph gusts. I expect today will be more dirt delivery and the front loader to the property. My general contractor posted the worksite sign and order the porta-potty for the property. That’ll all get delivered next week. I’ll be interested to see how much work gets done while I’m out of town.

Not much happened yesterday, it was a crazy day to be outside with all the wind. It does get bad here during the spring. Air quality was terrible with all the blowing dust. There was a dust storm advisory for Albuquerque and Los Lunas yesterday – the air was brown. It’s crazy how the weather here dominates the news so often. Driest winter on record here – no precipitation since November 17th. 100+ days. Hoping for some rain today and tomorrow with snow in the forecast. I’ve been graveling the main areas that we walk on to help eliminate the mud issues when it does snow.

And with the warmer weather comes the weeds. I’ve been spraying them with some serious herbicide, and they just seem to think it’s fertilizer. I can’t kill them. I’m only doing the gravel areas and letting them grow where there’s dirt. Keeps the dust down. I am targeting the sticker bushes – they get these nasty spikey seeds in Harps fur which are a pain to get out.

Going to get the dogs a Vet appointment today for week after next. Once I get back from Orlando, I’ll focus on getting our support set up – dog sitting, dentist, doctors and vets. We’ll need that going forward so that travel and appointments are more routine. It’ll be a pain getting doctors here, but patience and persistence will be the keys.

Jaret is somewhere in Moab, camping. He’s having fun but not enjoying the snow and wind up there. Fortunately, he has a truck camper on the back of his Tundra which keeps him warm at night. He’ll do some mountain biking today and tomorrow and then head to Filmore to start his new job on Monday. Finally, hopefully, he’s found his place in the world. Looking forward to hearing how he’s doing. He does keep in close contact with his sister, so that’s a good thing.

Lauren is looking to buy some property in Utah as a second home to get away from the stupidity in Seattle. That would be excellent for us and Jaret. She’d be closer and we would see her more often which would warm my heart. I miss her and Matt and his family. I’ll be going back to Seattle in April, but Matt and his family will be in Europe. It’s so good for the grand children to travel, and I’m glad that Step pushes Matt to travel with the family. It opens their minds and hearts.

With more room in the RV now, I can get back to doing my basic exercises until the house is finished and we can create a workout room. Thinking about getting another outbuilding and making it Wendy’s workout room and she shed. We’ll see how much space I have in the shop once it’s cleared out. For today, it’ll just be some basic stuff to get the muscle mass back.

We’re thinking about getting a side-by-side to take out into the desert and trails. There’s lots of open space and desert here for outdoor activities and trail riding. My brother-in-law has his and he seldom rides it since his wife passed. We’re thinking if we get one, he’ll ride with us, and we can get him out of the house and start his rehabilitation. It’s not standard therapy but just getting him interested in life again would be progress. We’ll see how that plays out.,

It’s that time again, to get ready for the day. Lots of work to do and errands to run. Dunno what the contractors have planned, but my GC will probably call around 7:30am with the plan for the day.

Happy Friday to those who are reading this blog. I wish you all a great weekend and slow down to enjoy your loved ones and every moment. Take care.

Gary’s post: Sad day today. Jaret left yesterday and we’re watching his dog, Juni. She’s pretty bonded to him, but she’s also bonded to me. She’s on the sofa, missing her person. Lots of love and attention for the next week and she’ll get better.

More wind today as a massive cold front moves through. We were supposed to get dirt yesterday but that didn’t happen because the contractor was behind on the job in front of us. With the wind today, which is supposed to be worse than Monday, I doubt we’ll see any progress today. Tomorrow is supposed to be rain, but that changes every two minutes. In NM, if you don’t like the weather, just walk 20 ft and it’ll change.

Today doesn’t have a lot of meetings, so I can focus on getting some work done. With the wind, it’s not fun going outside, especially if there’s blowing dirt. Supposed to take out the garbage to the curb but I’m considering passing this week. If it’s blowing a lot, Hwy 47 will be covered with our garbage. Not a good look and a traffic hazard. I’ll probably run it out to the curb and if the wind picks up, I’ll go check on it to make sure it doesn’t get blown all over the place.

Now that we have our trailer back but with an extra dog, we can clean a bit this weekend and wipe down the fine dirt. I REALLY need to get the dogs to the vet for their heartworm and shots. Both of them need an allergy shot and some supplements to help with dry skin and scratching. Harp as a grooming appointment in two weeks, so bath and haircut. I’ll try and get Juni in for the same, so she gets cleaned up. It’s hard because of all the dirt, the dogs just lay in it and play in it so it’s everywhere. This fall, I’m going to really work on getting the pasture and dirt planted in grass, so we don’t have all the dirt blowing around.

I’ve been thinking about buying myself a compact tractor instead of using my father-in-laws. In reality, I think it makes sense for me to take his tractor into the dealer and get it completely serviced along with a hydraulic service which should update it, and it’ll work better. Jim is good at taking care of his equipment, but he’s not as anal as I am about maintenance. And with his stoke, it’s really hard for him, so I’ll take care of it for him.

We’re learning about how different it is to drive an EV. Last night we went through the videos. You don’t think about all little things that effect range. And with ICE (Internal Combustion Engines), weather does not play a huge effect. With an EV, weather plays a huge role in range an on the battery. These batteries like 70 degrees, so the car works hard to keep the battery at 70. And there’s preconditioning, driving technique, how heating you use all of those use energy from the battery which reduces range. So, for now this car seems to get about 220 miles which takes the battery to about 20%. She has to charge it every other day. That’s very really different than her XC40 which is a tank of gas once a week. And with this car, it’s almost like you should just plug it in whenever you’re not driving it because it’s using power to keep the battery warm or cool, monitor the surrounding area and attaching to Wi-Fi. It’s essentially a computer on wheels. Fun to drive, nimble and great for around town. It’s a different experience and you think about the car differently. More things to consider.

Time to get ready for the day. Wind, wind and more wind. Tiresome just as much as the constant rain and cold in Seattle. Everyplace has its issues. If you’re reading this, take care today, enjoy the moments and breath. Life is too short to miss any moments.

BYLTR – Blog You LaTeR….. 🙂

Gary’s post: Today starts the dirt work on our house. Super exciting. We get a lull in the windstorms today, so hoping that we can get all the dirt dumped. The dirt work is to create a compressed building pad that’s 3′ above the current grade. That will take the house out of FEMA flood plain and reduce our insurance. Once the pad is compressed, then the plumbers come in and place the plumbing rough outs and the foundation is poured.

On the flip side, our youngest leaves today for his wildland firefighting training. He’s going north to Moab to spend a few days camping with some friends and doing mountain biking. Then he’s headed to Filmore, Utah for 8 months. He’ll be leaving his dog, Juni with us until he’s done. Hard on the dog as she’s really sensitive and bonded to him. I’m sure she’ll transition as she’s been with us for two years before this and it’ll be good for Harp.

Things are beginning to become a bit more routine, so that’s good. Hard to get Itron work done though as there’s always something happening that needs attention. This weekend will be cold with snow, which is rare here. That’ll limit what we can get done outside and in the “Where House” to organize things. We need to move all our wine into my brother-in-laws house until our place is built. That was supposed to happen this weekend. On the flip side, if it’s crummy and cold, then I’ll do taxes this weekend and get them off my plate. And I can get ready for Orlando travel on Wednesday.

I ordered some hydrant socks for the water hydrants that supply the RV. I was trying to keep them from freezing when it gets cold. I checked on the shipping as they are late. Well, typical Amazon, they shipped from Texas, arrived in Albuquerque, then went back to Texas and now are delayed in transit because of the severe weather in Texas. No wonder Amazon’s shipping is losing money, they have monkeys routing the packages! Ridiculous. And the saying “You get what you pay for”, is so true with Amazon.

Need to get out of my head today and be more positive. It’s hard living in this trailer all day w/o a lot of people contact. Just me and the dogs. I need to start working on reaching out to my kids more and connecting via video and voice to stay engaged with them. I tend to be more of a hermit and just be a grumpy old man. REALLY need to stop that behavior and mind set. Hopefully it’ll get better as we have contractors coming every day.

Short post today. Need to get moving and get Jay out the door, lots of work meetings and I need to schedule some meeting for next week in Orlando.

Blog ya’ later….