What Goes Around, Comes Around

Rule Number 79 Comes Into Play

You remember Rule Number 79, don’t you?  Rule Number 79 states, “Always Listen To Your Wife!”  Remember the last time I didn’t pay heed to Rule Number 79?  I ended up with a hole in the rubber roof!!  Well, this time I must pay real close attention to Rule Number 79.  Wifey says that the weekly blog posts are too long.  She suggests something between a weekly post and a daily post.  Oh well, ya win a few and ya lose a few, so I think that I’ll just go back to daily posts and keep ‘em short.  That way Mikee will have something to digest with his coffee each morning.

So starting tomorrow, which follows on the heals of my two week vacation from the daily blog, we’ll restart entertaining you with “almost” daily posts once again.  I should be able to scrape up enough dirt to write about something and the katts have, also, promised to write a few “Katt Tales” entries here and there.  Maybe we can force Miss Judy out of retirement and into her corner to scribe a few verbiages occasionally as well – no promises on that one.  Anyhow, check in again tomorrow to see what words of wisdom we have to share with you.

Alex Katt Returns To Normal – Almost

Alex was a good kitty in that he let us remove his stitches without medicating (either him or us).  We did get some sedatives from the vet, but decided to try removing the stitches without administering them.  Judy kept him occupied while I removed the first four stitches.  He got fidgety, so we waited awhile before removing the last three.

We got the results of the biopsy and the cyst was benign; that was welcomed news.  The only other issue was that Alex aspirated some of the antibiotics when I squirted it into his mouth.  This caused him to develop a cough which lasted for several days.  He’s over that and we know that he is feeling much better because you hear the phrase, “Alex, no!” a lot more often.  Yep, he’s getting back into his routine of getting into everything again.

Friends Arrive At The Plantation

Rich and Diane Emond, fulltime RVing and world traveling friends of Norm and Linda, arrived last Thursday.  Norm and Linda invited Judy and I over to join the four of them for an appetizer travel day meal.  We stayed until waaaay past midnight (remember when midnight is for Rainbow Plantation inhabitants?) while chatting, chewing, and chuckling the time away.  It was good to see them again; hard to believe it’s been almost a year. 

Rich and Diane are just returning from a trip to Budapest and Paris (hence the world travelers part) and will be spending about three weeks here at Norm and Linda’s site before heading back to their winter destination of Port St. Lucie, Florida (Rich hates the cold and loves his golf so Florida becomes their winter hangout).  So, we look forward to having some fun times with them while they’re here. 

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

As you all know, back in May we upgraded to the new Verizon 4G modem (air card).  There was several reasons for doing this:  1. Verizon lowered the monthly fee from $60 to $50 per month.  2. On top of that, they allowed the veteran discount of 15% (making it a total savings of$17.50 per month).  3. Further, they now only charge $10 for each additional “gig” should we go over our monthly allotment of 5 “gig”.  4. The increased speed of 4G is superior to 3G; that is, if you are in a 4G area.

Well, the bottom line is that in two and a half years with the old 3G we never exceeded our monthly allowance and we always had fairly decent coverage; slow at times, but seldom were we “booted off line”.  Not so with this new fangled 4G hook up.  We are getting booted off line several times a day and, not only that, even though we are in a 4G area, we have slower speeds than we did last year with the 3G system.

So what’s the problem?  Is it the Pantech UML290 USB Modem or the Cradlepoint CTR500 Router.  Right now all indications are that it is an issue with the interface between the Modem and the Router.  The router is now three years old (that’s 126 in electronic years) and Cradlepoint is no longer writing updates for that router, however, I haven’t been convinced that buying a new Cradlepoint router will resolve the problem.

I packed up all my toys and headed for Norm’s house.  He has a new Cradlepoint Router and we were going to plug the Pantech Modem in that to see if the speeds improved, however, wouldn’t ya know it?  Verizon decided to experience problems with the 4G system at that time.  So that means that I’ll have to take my toys back to Norm’s house again (later today) to test the speed.

Both Norm and Rich have the LG VL600 Modem and while the three of us had our modems plugged directly into the computers we were all getting the same speeds on 3G.  But, when Norm and I were plugged into our routers, Norm experienced only a minimal drop in speed where as I experienced a significant drop – even getting booted off line.  So it’s definitely in the router interface, so, the question remains, “Will the Pantech Modem work with a newer Cradlepoint router?”  We shall soon find out!!!

This Week’s Outings

We had two outings this week, although small in stature.  The first one was to Silverhill for their Heritage Day.  Yes folks, Silverhill is so small that they only have a Heritage Day (not days).  Actually, it could be named Heritage Hour because that’s all it took us to watch the parade and to see everything else.  They did have a walking tour around town that took an hour and a half which we elected to pass on (they must have spent about fifteen minutes at each place).  But, to be fair, Silverhill is a unique little community with a lot of spirit.  We had fun and purchased some really sweet yummy tomatoes at a farm stand along with some Viper BBQ sauce at another booth.  Here are some pictures of the festivities. 

There were craft booths -

 

And kiddy rides -

 

The Parade included the Grand Marshall and the Parade Princess -

 

Marching Girls and Pretty Girls -

 

Old Cars and Tractors -

 

And who can forget the Fire Trucks -

 

“They” threw out lots and lots of candy as they passed by which kept the kids (and me) quite busy and occupied.  As you can see, everyone was having a good time.

The second outing was to the Road Kill Café with Norm, Linda, Rich, and Diane.  We always love their down home style buffets.  There is always fried chicken which is some of the best we’ve ever eaten (not greasy and not dried out – just plain yummy).  For less than sixteen dollars we had two great buffet meals with salad bar, drinks, desert, taxes, and tip.  Ya can’t beat that with a stick.

What about the Naval Air Museum?  That trip is planned for tomorrow with Norm, Linda, Rich, and Diane.  As I understand it, Marine One will be on hand in hanger one for a tour – neat.  We’ll take pictures if they let us; maybe some high tech sensitive “stuff” on board.  I don’t think it’s the one that President Obama is currently using; it’s most likely one from an earlier president. 

Rounding It Out

We’ve stayed busy over the past week with our hobbies, exercising, swimming, reading, and working on the Ta Do List.  That dang Ta Do List is growing.  We no sooner than knock one item off and two more show up at the door.  It’s a bottomless pit!!!  Oh well, it keeps us off the street and out of trouble (is that akin to “barefoot and pregnant”?).  Here is a picture taken from our patio of last nights sunset – it was much prettier than the picture portrays.

Once again, in the morning we’ll go back to the “almost” daily posts, so toggle in again tomorrow to see how I make out with the Modem/Router issue among other things.  In the meantime, remember Rule Number 79 (by the way, Rule Number 231 is “Listen To Your Husband – Maybe, Sometimes”).

Take Care Until Next Time  - - - - - - -