cheesy

He's working hard at it right now.

Buster dog has decided that the new couch is acceptable. He misses his old couch, but that may be passing.

We were in the 92/93% area. It probably got 7:30pm type dark and the temp dropped a bit. For the first time in ages, there was not a cloud in the sky. My better half, myself, and Buster dog watched while having lunch on the deck. Well, Buster didn't watch the eclipse but watched while we were chowing down.

I'm on the Soviet Steeds(Ural Motorcycles)forum which also has a page on FB. I find the FB page to be more entertaining as a "What broke now and what would Ivan do to fix it" kind of page. I don't ever recall seeing anything on FB about here. I joined the forum in late '17 after a Google search once I got my parents DeSoto home from Wisconsin. That said, I'm really close to giving FB the middle finger like I did to Linkdin after I retired. Tired of the algorithms that bury my feed in stuff that I have zero interest in.

Buster dog hinting that he'd like to have what I'm having. We've had seven dogs over the past 50 years. This guy is not only the largest dog who lived with us, but also the most well behaved. He isn't a snuggler, but he can't control his licker. Lot's of kisses. He's an absolute gentleman when riding in the backseat of the DeSoto, and he has made himself the official protector of it. If someone gets too close to the car while he is in the backseat, he will let out a low growl in his throat if he doesn't know them. No snarl, no bare teeth, just the warning. Of course, if you passed him a burger, the car is probably yours.😉

It's amazing what we'll do for pets. Buster dog, a Border Collie/Pointer/Shedder mix, had his spleen removed last summer. It was a rough week for all of us. I slept on the floor next to him the first couple nights after his surgery. I don't remember what it cost but it was spendy. He's back to his big old goofy self again. He's also waiting on me to get this stupid cast off my foot so we can do our morning 2 mile walks again. Two more weeks, buddy.

Alaska has great night skies away from Anchorage. We stayed at a B&B outside of Denali and it was wonderful. I can say that the night sky in rural Iceland is pretty dang nice, too.

Enough to be dangerous.

Illannoy instead of Ill-a-noise. The taxes kind of suck but I still like it here. I have both a cheap reflector and refractor, plus a couple of spotter scopes. If I can keep the grandsons interest, I plan on getting a better reflector over the summer. I want them to see the nebula in Orions' belt next fall.

I still have that sense of wonder, even at 68. There's still a pretty decent night sky where I am in rural Illannoy and I'll point out stars and planets to my grandsons. They're pretty impressed that grandpa actually knows this stuff. The night sky where my oldest lives in Maine will knock your socks off, though.

Being in NE Illannoy, if there is a celestial event, it will be overcast. We deal with it and move on.

It's not sewage related but I had a pulley split in half on my lathe.

My oldest granddaughter when she was 8. She'll be 16 this year. She can't decide whether if she wants to learn how to drive the DeSoto or the Ural when she comes out this summer.

I'd have to say the e-brake shoe retaining pins that came with the last repair kit I bought for my Wrangler. I think they were made out of solder. I had to dig through the trash and reuse the rusty OEM pins. The shoes ran a close second, but the OEM shoes were nothing to brag bout, either.

Having watched Homer and family since it was a short on the Tracy Ullman Show in 1989, that quote just sprang to mind. I think I used it on my oldest grandson when he took an elbow to his mouth playing soccer and a couple of little girls came over to check on him.

Owowowow. I've had three knee surgeries due the friendly ol' meniscus. Only one was due to having fun/being stupid. The others were caused by mundane things. I'm planning on visiting the rink next Thursday to thank the kids that helped me up. As a 'regular', I'll let them know that I probably won't be back until school's back in session. I used to push healing but it never helped. Too soon old, too late smart.

Roller skates, not a problem. Ice skates, ehh, maybe. Skateboard, hell no. Skating was a weekly thing for me in the late 60s, early 70s. Always had fun. Both my daughters did women's Flat Track Roller Derby in their 30's. The rough play may be what led them to their current interests. The oldest does power lifting, the youngest has a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Doe and spent part of last summer in S. Korea with her oldest at a couple of tournaments. She went up against a guy from Hong Kong in the form competition and pasted him. I could read his mind over the video..."Damn, I lost to a 40 year old mom from the US. I suck."? She's boxing now. She has a stressful job and she likes punching things. My SIL is kind of scared of her.

So no hard cast. An Aircast/walking boot. I have a pair of these now, so there are plans afoot for a robot costume come Halloween. The knee is still a bit swollen but that's going down. The doc did do a double take when I said roller skate racing at 68. So, I have to wear the robot boot for a week then see the doc again. If the break stays stabilized, I'm stuck in the boot for a few more weeks, followed by a few weeks of PT. If not, surgery and more hardware in this foot with even more time laid up. When the call comes for the 18 and above races, I think I'll just take a seat and watch.

Just thought I'd bump this thread for us old guys. I partook of the 18 and above roller skate race last Thursday. I was leading halfway through the first lap when something in my stride went sideways, then so did my left knee and ankle. I scored a DNF. I was clutching my knee when I went down but when the refs tried to help me up, I collapsed like a heap, my ankle not supporting me. The visit to the ER showed that I earned a broken fibula for being the oldest teenager on the rink floor. Out for about six weeks. I am getting the 'look' several times a day from my other half and hear clucking under my kids breathe. Grandkids want to know when they can draw on my hard cast, which I'm getting today. To quote Lance Murdock of The Simpsons,(When they were still funny) "But the fact that the matter is, bones heal, chicks dig scars, and the United States of America has the best doctor to daredevil ratios in the world!"?

Here's one of the inspection cars. It was at the Illinois Railroad Museum in Union, IL in 2017.

Regarding old people and weather, we are getting hammered with snow and wind in SW Kane cty. Buster dog is a Border Collie/Pointer mix and his man parts are dragging in the snow.

I'll be running the living room fireplace a fair amount next week, just to take some of the load off the furnace. I was unlucky enough to be in South Carolina's Low Country in 2018 when they had their 'Snowmageddon'...two inches of snow. My employer moved operations down there from Elgin, IL. (I won't go into how well that's worked out) I was the senior field guy so they let me stay and work from home. They flew me down to help out with the first inventory as I had over 20 years experience doing it. The new SC staff refused to show up because of the snow and the Illannoy staff (CEO, Production manager, my boss, me, other field guy. CFO was from Vermont) was like, 'Really?' I was only supposed to be there for two days, I was there for six.

Nah, I like four seasons.

SW Kane county in NE Illannoy is getting whacked. It wasn't a heck of a lot this morning so I fired up the blower to get rid of the snowplow presents at the end of the driveways. Went to refill the tank and all three cans in the barn were empty.? So a trip to the local Mobil to fill those. By the time I got back home, it warmed up enough to turn the snow to rain and and what was on the driveways to slush. About 2, the temps dropped and it has been snowing gangbusters since. Our young neighbor has a snowplow on his side by side and he's been out since about 3, hitting the driveways for his family in da hood and us retired folks on our street.

Been there, done that.