Going home (bleah)

We got out on time, but traffic suxxxxxxed. We lost an hour overall. I was hoping to get out before the mad weekend rush, but no such luck.

I poked Mason awake on the home stretch, and suggested he get his shoes on so he could run inside when we got home. He was still dressed for Florida, and it was 41°F at home.

Charlie was still up when we got here, and laughed when I hugged him. Then I put him to bed.

The Orange Crate averaged about 30MPG on the way down, and a shade under 29MPG on the way home. Downhill and uphill.

And one final pic of the boys on the beach:

It beat being at the manor.

Boogie in the surf

We took the boogie board to the beach today. Mason actually did pretty good.

A guy about my age had a surfboard, and offered to let Mason try it. That was fun to watch.

He told me later, “I just hang out and try to get people hooked on surfing.” Nice work if you can get it, dude. :-D

After lunch (well, before lunch actually), Mason was worn out and just wanted to hang around. That was OK with me.

Supper was ribs and shrimp, and it was really good stuff. Solar brought coleslaw from KFC (which seems to be considered pretty good here), and Mom baked beans with bacon.

After supper, Mom and Mason went for a walk, and left Solar with me. He got a new-to-him truck to replace his van (it’s rusting away), and gave me the run-down on what he was doing to clean it up. Maybe we should see if we can sell The Boy’s old Acura, the way used car prices are now. Solar said the stealership offered to buy back his Civic for more than he paid for it.

Mom was talking about how much she streams stuff these days. I told her about the wife binging The Good Place, and we watched the first four eps. I kind of wish she had talked me into watching it with her when she started.

Raining tomorrow. We had better luck than I’d expected with weather, and it will be clear for the Friday drive home. So tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to hang with Solar while Mom takes Mason to a movie or other indoor entertainment.

Wife texted late in the afternoon... big storm at home knocked out power. I told her where to find my portable charger, and what it looks like. 

Parks

The morning started out, um... interesting. Wife sent me a pic of her iMac screen, showing a blinking question mark over a folder. Figuring she just needed a repair, I looked up the “what to do” stuff and sent it to her.

So far, this week, we haven’t managed to go to the pool. But Mom’s cat, the one Mason has tortured since he was 2, decided to be nice. Mom thinks she’s trying to clean up her act enough to get to Cat Heaven.

I’m trying to enjoy this.

Mason and I hiked over to the nature park this morning, while Mom was trying to get her library card straightened out (or renewed). We talked with a woman who had a red-tailed hawk and was giving him some air. I told her about the ones that live near the manor. We walked out onto the pier, and Mason openly wondered how safe it was. I pointed out new boards, showing him that they are maintaining it. He saw some interesting marine life, anyway.

Since last time we were here, they’ve “paved” the walkways with rubber shavings, bound together somehow. I forgot to ask them whether they fused the shavings together with heat or used some kind of compound. In any case, it puts a spring in your step.

After lunch, we went to Largo Park so Mason could goof off on the playground. There weren’t many kids there, let alone any his age, so he got bored pretty quickly. Mom thought the locals were on spring break this week, but we passed a middle school that was full of cars and bicycles, and they were setting up crossing guards, so I guess it’s not this week, anyway.

We went to the end of Walsingham for ice cream. Kind of nice, after all the walking we’d been doing. Mason wanted to browse the shops, so I agreed we could do that and walk home, and Mom could just motor on back. We went south until we ran out of shops (where the road runs alongside the water), then north a ways.

Then I grilled some burgers on the grill out back. I had to scrub the spatula with the wire brush, trying to get some of the rust off. Mom said the burgers were perfect, so that was a win. I thought they were pretty good, too.

On the way back from the park, Daughter Dearest texted me about the wife’s computer. They still hadn’t gotten it to cooperate. DD ended up calling me; she thinks the hard drive might be fried, and mine was dying, so she might be right. I replaced mine, so I should be able to do hers.

Of course, her computer had to pick this week to take a dump.

A day (of several) at the beach

Mason and I went to the beach this morning. We brought The Boy’s old skimmer board, and Mason actually did better on it than his dad did. 

Mason didn’t bring a chair, but he did have a shovel… and that worked out fine.

Custom fit!

After lunch, we went to Publix for stuff. I needed cherry juice, and there were other things we needed. Mom heated some rotisserie chicken for supper, and did little Yukon Gold potatoes with some good seasoning. A fruit salad rounded things out. 

Solar came, and we all hung out for a while. After Solar left, Mom got out the dominoes and we played Mexican Train. I won the first round, and Mason won the second after getting deep in the hole to begin with. What a comeback!

We’re in Florida—no foolin’!

Well, Mason and I are. Wife can’t leave the farm unattended at the moment, and Charlie has some therapy appointments he couldn’t miss. Mason had a snit when I opted for the Orange Crate instead of the Miata, but he was bringing his dad’s old skimmer board and a boogie board, and they wouldn’t have fit. I brought the drone, in case there was a day with not much wind.

I was hoping to leave around 10, and we did manage to get out around 10:30. I've observed before, the fewer people you have in the car, the less late getting out you'll be.

I was hoping that leaving on Sunday would shield us from the traffic jams... nope. It was mostly slow from the beginning of the express lanes, almost to the rest stop just before taking the Macon bypass. Then there was another stretch of heavy traffic from Valdosta down to the state line. One or two more in Florida (im)proper.

But we’re at Mom’s, and Solar has a break!

Pitter-patter, part 3 (home again, home again)

The dynamic completely changed, once Charlie was in the mix. Mason went full-on micromanager, completely losing his shorts over the most trivial things.

As for Charlie, his happy place is the pool. Put floaties on him, toss him in the pool, and he’s good. The outdoor pool at the clubhouse is usually pretty cold (with 2018-2020 being exceptions), but Charlie doesn’t care about a little cold. (A lot cold is enough to get him out, but this wasn’t a lot cold.) Mason insisted on the indoor pool, but the outdoor one was tolerable even for me. So Charlie and I played around, while Mason sat in a chair and sulked because he wasn't getting his way.

After maybe an hour (I’m not keeping track of time on vacation, what’s the point?), Charlie decided he would be okay going to the indoor pool. Mason, finally getting what he wanted, joined in.

At this point, I should point out that there’s a third pool, next to the waterslide and close to the diner and country store. It was closed for much of the week, since some moron had gone tubing, didn’t shower, and introduced algae. For some reason, this pool is often warmer than the outdoor pool at the clubhouse, but it had a definite green tinge. I’m not sure why that would be a problem, since the lake is also a good place to swim (and is often warmer than the outdoor pools, and I have no idea why). Maybe the algae had some irritant qualities.

But I digress. By Friday, they had dumped enough chlorine into the pool to kill the algae, and re-opened it. Charlie was so happy to be in the pool, he wanted to hug everyone in the area… literally. He spun around with a huge grin, arms wide open, making his happy noise. Several folks thought it charming, anyway. It was noticeably warmer than the clubhouse outdoor pool, and it also has a “real” deep end (8 feet). People invited Charlie, then Mason, into their games, and I just hung out and kept an eye on the rugrats. Mason complained about the amount of chlorine in the pool, but he was wearing a diving mask so I’m not sure what his actual issue was (besides just complaining).

Mason brought a couple of R/C vehicles along for the final leg of our outing. Charlie enjoyed watching them whizz up and down the lane. Someone came up in a golf cart, and suggested a “race.” The R/C truck won (those electric motors can go from zero to top speed pretty quick).

By Saturday morning, I’d had all I could take of Mason’s attitude, his constant ordering everyone around (especially Charlie) and refusing to help. He’s been throwing up all this anti-spanking “evidence” at us, trying to dodge the consequences of his actions, so I simply told him he could have no electronics (no iPad, no Xbox, no Switch, no nothing) until his attitude got better. That probably hurt more than any spanking, anyway.

I’d loaded all the non-essentials into M.O. the B.B. Friday evening, so (with Mason’s ultra-reluctant help) we broke camp Saturday morning and headed on back to the manor. The outdoor rug stank with mildew, and needs a good cleaning, and the Starflyer needs some attention as well. I’m trying to decide whether to get the A/C fixed, or just replace it with an exhaust fan and stuff a window A/C unit in a convenient spot. Whichever way I go, I’d like to have it completely functional before I sell it and go with something else. Then again, campers are going for a premium right now… anyone want a lightweight camper with a few minor issues?

We got home, to find the wife there. They had drove up to their retreat, then the sister-in-law hosed up her foot when they went to get groceries. And when I say “hosed,” it was several times worse than either of mine. They ended up coming back. BUMMER. The wife needed a break more than I did, and I had somewhat of a break even with Mason making things as miserable as possible.

Back to work, and everything else. The boys will be in school soon, although I don’t know how long Delta will let that happen.

Pitter-patter, part 2

Rain on a popup is a special kind of noise. What hits the bunkends is a nice pitter-patter sound, actually quite soothing. What hits the roof in the middle is anything but soothing: it’s somewhere between a pop and a snap noise. And that’s what we contended with for much of the night.

The Starflyer’s A/C isn’t working, despite my replacing the starter capacitor, so we had to make do with fans. I claimed the fan/light combo, since Mason swiped it last time. He groaned, but didn’t press the issue. Fortunately, it never got out of the low 80s (F) for highs each day… I guess the rain helped with that.

Staying dry on a wet night

With the awning and the EZup, and no wind pushing the rain around, there were dry spots to take a chair and a beer outside while Mason was zorched out (or doing late-night iPad sessions while pretending to be asleep). The EZup framework also provided a convenient place to hang swim suits and towels, to get them a little dry, anyway.

So this was our routine, the first few nights. Charlie has his therapy sessions on Monday and Tuesday, and the wife was going to have some fun with her sister on a long weekend starting Thursday, so we went home Wednesday afternoon.

The foot improved with (not enough) rest. By Thursday morning, I could walk on it almost normally for an hour or two before it started giving me grief again. Extra-strength Tylenol helped to extend the time I could use it, and propping it on a pillow at night made it less cranky in the mornings. We took a brief bike ride on Wednesday, and it was okay. Our campsite is at the bottom of the hill, so we could coast back “home.”

Thursday, Charlie had a neurological evaluation scheduled at ENEC in Decatur, so I drove us down there. In the vein of combining trips, wife had her bags packed and in the back of the van, and all we had to do was figure out where to get lunch and meet the sister-in-law. We settled on a place called Grub (Burger Bar), that served up what the wife described as “the best burger I’ve had in a long time.”

So they tossed the wife’s bags into her sister’s vehicle, Charlie told them “bye-bye,” and away they went. We also went… back to the manor, to get Charlie’s stuff and get Mason while we were at it. M.O. the B.B. chugged on back to the campsite, and we did manage to get about 40 minutes at the pool before it closed for the evening.

Pitter-patter, part 1

Pretty similar to last time

The wife’s sister decided the two of them needed a long weekend out. Wife floated it by me, and I thought it would be a good idea for her to have a little fun time, far away from FAR Manor and the adjacent farm. Plus, maybe I could take the boys out camping or something, right?

So I called the resort to see if I could swap our week in September for something in July. Nope! All the condos were slammed. EVERYONE is (or was) trying to get out and enjoy some vacation time in that brief period before the Delta variant decided to try culling the idiots who have made such a mess of things over the last… oh, who am I kidding, my entire lifetime.

But I digress, as usual. The woman who runs the condos gave me the number for the campground (different part of the resort) and they had openings. “You can have slot 38.” As we have a new pastor at church, and I’m nominally head of SPRC (what passes for HR in a Methodist church), I decided to go in Sunday afternoon and leave Saturday morning.

On Saturday, I decided to buzz up to the resort to see what #38 looked like, because M.O. the B.B. isn’t exactly the easiest thing to maneuver around in tight quarters. I took the boys with me, so we could hit the pool as well (the pool is Charlie’s happy place). Turns out it’s the same space I had last time we came up!

Sunday afternoon involved lots of packing up. Wife bought a Thermacell gadget (it does a pretty good job at repelling skeeters and the like) at Tractor Supply a while back, but they didn’t have any extra fuel cartridges at the time. I ordered a pack from the Mighty Zon, who told me they would be in on Friday… then Saturday… then Sunday. (Can someone explain why I’m paying Prime fees when 2-day delivery is 4 days so often?) Fortunately, the shipment arrived before we were ready to go.

Lots of rain in the forecast, but we had a good dry slot as I rolled M.O. the B.B. into the road around 4:30pm. It stayed dry long enough to get the essentials set up, too. This time, I brought the EZup to put over the picnic table (instead of dragging it under the awning). With Mason’s reluctant help, we got it hoisted. I’m trying to get screens for the EZup, but their website isn’t cooperating and they weren’t really needed for this trip.

I’ve had a little more practice backing a trailer over the last two-ish years, but not enough. I did realize I needed to position the backend of the Starflyer at the edge of the driveway, this time. It only took two tries, rather than five or six, to get it into position this time.

Mason and I both brought our bikes, but I’d managed to hose my right foot… just as the left was feeling better. Mason was trying to wheelie his mountain bike back on Thursday, and I thought maybe a visual would help him. I stuck my sandal’ed feet into the toe straps, put the bike in granny gear, and gave the pedal a good push. The ol’ Raleigh lofted all the way up, and spit my right foot out of the strap. The pedal put some impressive gouges in my lower leg, and I’m still trying to figure out what I hit my heel on. The upshot is, I’m once again gimping around—two days after getting over whatever was wrong with my left foot.

Fortunately, for now, it’s just Mason and me. Charlie has therapy Monday and Tuesday. We’ll run home Wednesday night and bring both boys up on Thursday. Of course, I forgot several things, and we ended up making a Mal*Wart run (because I had no other choice) to get them.

Staycation, pandemic-style

We were supposed to be in Florida this week, hanging out with Mom and hitting the beach. Instead, we’re at FAR Manor.

Over the weekend, I finally got the new front derailleur on the Fuji dialed in. Hooray, time to take a ride! Um, no. The rear inner tube had partly separated from its stem. Well, Solar had suggested I put wider tires on it to improve the ride, anyway. There’s not a lot of clearance at the front fork, but thought maybe I could go from the current 25mm width to 32mm. I have a pair of 47mm tires, but they’re definitely too wide and the wrong diameter anyway. So I made plans to run over to the bike shop on Monday, and maybe get Charlie a bike with training wheels. Meanwhile, Skylar’s bike (the one he has here) needed shifting and braking adjustments. I got him rolling as well.

In the vein of “don’t go out unless you have to,” I called the bike shop before going. Nope, the shop guy opined, there’s not enough room. And they didn’t have any Charlie-sized bikes in stock. I thought we had a small frame laying around, so instead of driving to another bike shop I thought I’d try to Frankenstein a bike from bits and pieces.

Needs a little cleaning along with training wheels

Instead, I found an entire bike with a 12” frame! It was one Mason had for a while, until he outgrew it. The tires, amazingly, still held air. Some WD-40 got the chain loosened up, and I regreased the bearings on one wheel. So it rolls, it pedals, and the coaster brake works. I ordered a set of training wheels, and almost added a Trailgator (basically a towbar to pull his bike behind mine). The price—$65 for a metal bar with clamps on either end—put me off, though. Anyway, I raised the seat an inch and it fit Charlie perfectly.

All that, actually, was in between the ceiling fans. Daughter Dearest had ceiling fans for each of the kids’ rooms (three in all), and asked me to put them in because Sizzle is still working while the rest of us are on spring break. I succeeded, only after multiple trips back to the manor to fetch hardware, tools, and at last I had enough and brought everything. That turned out to be the way to go, and the fans are all happily spinning away.

I mentioned Skylar… he’s been spending weekdays at the manor because his nominal guardians are both working. He brought his bike up (the one I adjusted) over the weekend, and an HP laptop. “Do you have a cord for this?” he asked, repeatedly, until I told him to knock it off and let me do it when I had a chance. Before the fans, I scrounged a power cord and had to shave a little off the female end to make it fit in the power supply. I pushed it in, using as much force as I dared, and a light came on when I plugged it in. He wanted to start it right away, of course, but I told him to give it a few hours to let the battery get charged.

Finally, after everything, we started it. Black screen, and the Caps Lock LED was flashing. I realized it was a pattern—three long, two short—and I looked it up. Memory error. “Well,” I told myself, “it hasn’t been run in a while. Maybe if I reseat the RAM, it will be OK.”

So I flipped it over, opened the little door on the bottom, and… no RAM at all! I found out later, from Skylar, that a house guest had scrounged the single memory stick to put in his own computer. Nice guy. So I couldn’t reseat the RAM, but I had a 4GB stick on my desk from when I upgraded the iMac. It looked to be the same style, so I used the “cat in a box” formula: if it fits, it sits. I buttoned it up, plugged it in, and hit power. It coughed to life and displayed a login screen for the Microsoft thing. Yuck. Of course, I didn’t have the PIN it requested, although I tried some of the common ones (1234, 9999, etc). I configured the BIOS to boot from a USB drive, stuck one on and rebooted, and I soon had a Kubuntu desktop. Things seemed to be working properly, and exploring the hard drive suggested there was little or nothing (besides the OS and apps) on it. Skylar thinks his grandfather (Big V’s widower) knows the PIN, so he should soon be off and running.

So that was my first day of staycation: mostly fixing other people’s stuff. But I’ll soon have a new inner tube for the Fuji, and I’ll at long last take it on its shakedown cruise.

Campy New Year!

I think a lot of us are relieved to see 2018 in the rear-view, and perhaps are directing a forest of Meaty Middle Fingers its way. But it had its moments. Charlie’s continuing to learn new signs, even if he isn’t speaking out loud yet, and is starting to put two-word sentences together (often things like “eat sandwich”). At any rate, the year ended well.

I’ve been looking for a popup camper for the last couple months. The wife is on board—she won’t tent-camp, but she actually encouraged me to buy a (far smaller and less-equipped) popup some years back. The money didn’t shake out then, but a couple months ago I had a surprise moneybomb—the workplace is being acquired, and I’d had a standing order to sell some stock if it hit $30. So, all of a sudden, the hunt was on. I set a budget, found Pop-up Portal, and started learning all I could from a deep hive mind.

Searching Craigslist, I immediately found one local to me; it was 20 years old, but solid and a lot roomier than I remembered them being when the parents rented one (the slide-out dinette probably had a lot to do with that). The price was well within my budget.

There were snags, though, and it was probably all for the best. I thought I’d set up a transfer from the broker to my checking, but I hadn’t, and doing the setup (of course) took longer than I wanted it to. I was annoyed with myself, because I felt like I was stringing the seller along, and told them to go ahead and sell it if someone else came by with cash in hand. Meanwhile, I used the time to research what I could. Good thing: turned out our vehicle can pull 2000 lbs, and the camper weighed in at 2600. That wouldn’t have ended well.

Off to Craigslist again. This time, I had a specific set of criteria. Absolute requirements: 1800 lb or less, A/C (Planet Georgia summers can be horrid without it), camp-ready. Nice to haves: 1600 lb or less, a toilet, full 12V setup. The latter is not a given; all the sellers I talked to always camp at places with full hookups and don’t have battery power hooked in.

After tossing obvious scams, newer campers that were way over budget, and big amenity-laden models that blew away my weight allowance, I ran out of local options. Expanding my search radius turned up a promising find that checked all my “must” and “want” boxes, but it sold before I had a chance to go look at it. Another one turned out to be a scam (“I sent it to an eBay dealer in Omaha who will deliver it for free”)… yeah, right. I reported that one to the FTC. There were a couple of promising leads in Alabama and South Carolina, but the logistics (especially around the holidays) and the weather just wouldn’t cooperate. I decided to give it a week and see what happened next, and seriously considered upping my budget.

So Friday, a new listing, um… popped up. It was slightly over budget, but I thought “hey, that map looks familiar.” Turned out it was local! I called to check it out on Saturday, and the seller said “I thought that listing went away. But I’m on my way over to the storage unit now, we can meet there.” It was, like many of the days have been around here, rainy and crappy, but we did crank up the top so I could have a look at the not-actually-canvas (it’s called Aqualon™). It was intact, if slightly grimy.

He said, “the rain is supposed to let up tomorrow, why don’t I bring it over to your place and we can set it up?” Sounded great by me, especially since our car has a hitch but no wiring just yet.

So here he came, in a gigantic diesel 4-door pickup (white, imagine that), big enough to pull a gooseneck trailer, with a 1500-ish pound popup behind. I doubt the truck even felt it. Negotiating our horrid driveway involved him rolling his front wheels onto the grass, which dug some pretty deep divots. Couldn’t be helped. We unhooked and pushed it in front of my Miata, then commenced to setting it all up.

It was less grimy inside than out, except for the floor and ceiling. The upholstery is intact, and there’s already an outdoor rug—one less thing to get. There’s also a space heater and a case and a half of bottled water. I worked the hand pump at the sink, and to my surprise water came out. Turned out the 10-gallon water tank had about 3 gallons in it.

2001 Starcraft Starflyer

Long story short, he knocked the price down to exactly my budget, and I cut him a check. We had a break in the rain today, so I spent much of New Year’s Day attacking the ceiling and A/C unit (I don’t think anyone ever cleaned those filters) with disinfectant wipes while Mason cleaned up the beds with a Dirt Devil.

The dining table is the size it is, because it doubles as a spare bed (spanning the dinette benches), but it makes things a little tight. I’d like to include something narrower for our trips. There are a few minor repair items to address as well, but it’s supposed to be sunny this weekend. Mason is already wanting to set up and sleep in it. Charlie likes clambering around in the bunk ends as well.

I’ve got it folded up for now, because I needed to get the Miata out of the garage tomorrow. Still some cleaning to do—mainly the cabinets on one side, vacuuming under the seating area, and scrubbing the floor. I’m going to have to graft in a battery system, because a couple places I want to take it don’t have hookups. Holiday’s over, but we’ll have a few of our own holidays in the months to come. Sooner than later, I plan to clean up the other side of the detached garage so it has a dry place to live.

For the future, we may do some remodeling. I’m looking over Pop-up Princess for ideas. For now, I’m digging on the geeky model name, “Starflyer.” Not only did it come with a name, the shelf in the king-bed front bunk is called a “Space Station.” I added a bunch of accessories to my Amazon wish list, as much to remind me what to get as anything else.

So we should have some new vacation destinations in 2019. I’ll be glad to share. Maybe I won’t have to burn off a bunch of vacation time at the end of each year…

Sliding Into Six

It's our timeshare week, and Mason's birthday was yesterday.

Splashdown!

Today is the last day the waterslide is open, so we made the most of it this weekend. DD, Fizzle, and his kids all joined us Friday night, but left Saturday so Fizzle could get to his mall cop job. We went back to the manor for Mason’s party. To my shock, Snippet called for the first time in a long time. She texted me pics of her other two kids; I sent her a couple recent shots of Mason.

Of course, even though we’re on vacation, Mason keeps waking up at 7am and insisting on asking me questions instead of playing quietly until I’m ready to shamble out to the kitchen and start some coffee. We spent all morning at the waterslide, pool, and lake (where there’s a slide going into the water, as I demonstrated last year). He was seriously worn out, but a warm bath and lunch got him roaring back to life. He was hungry, he ate: a piece of bread (aka mayo sandwich), a slice of pizza, a piece of ham, and a cheese stick. He left one corner of the bread uneaten. Now, he’s badgering me to take him to the clubhouse.

And they call this vacation? :-P

Home Sweet Hole

It was too much to ask, vacation going on forever. Every time we head home, it seems like there’s some “reason” to get there in a mad rush. This time, it was Fizzle needing to pick up his kids for back to school shopping.

I did get to see Dad one more time Friday morning, and that was fruitful. I realized, from the things he talks about, that he’ll remember something that makes an impression on him. Like the old lady on his floor that came walking into his room and tried to make herself at home. “This is my space,” he said, circling a hand around the room. “She thought she could just come in here. Well, I showed her the door.” Then there was the nurse who woke him up one morning and got him down to breakfast: “She seems to think she knows everything, but she doesn’t.” He also remembered her as… oh, rather hefty. So chances are if you rile him up, he’ll remember that!

Now that we’re back to the manor, it’s about time to start school. Michigan has a much more reasonable schedule, letting people have their summer so they don’t have to rush vacation and lose all of August. Here on Planet Georgia, Daughter Dearest is already going in to prep and socialize with her co-workers; Mason starts kindergarten on Friday.

As for me, it’s back to work. I weeded my email from home yesterday afternoon, leaving only things I needed to take action on today and the rest of the week. At least we have another week off in September.

Escape from FAR Manor: Family

For pix of the beach trip, scroll down or jump to the previous post…

These trips north give us all a chance to escape the free-range insane asylum, and gives me a chance to see my family. Dad has Alzheimer’s these days, which makes it difficult for him. He’s in a facility where they can keep him comfortable, and I suppose that’s the best that can be said. Other Brother and his family lives nearby, so he at least gets regular visits.

Despite the issues, he’s still Dad. He reads quite a bit. Remembering how to work a TV remote is a little beyond him, so one of the staff turns it on for him and he just unplugs it when he’s ready for some quiet. He does retain some of what he reads; he could tell me a little about the book he was reading when we came in. I think I should send him a monthly letter with pictures; maybe it will help.

He has a rather odd narrative of how he ended up here: he was at an assisted living joint for a while, and liked it there. He says two guys from the place invited him out for a walk, then abandoned him; he got cold-cocked and woke up in this place. What actually happened was that he got an infection in a leg muscle that got to the point of blood poisoning; between that and the Alzheimer’s, he doesn’t remember the hospital stay or the transfer.

Some of my other uncles are not doing so great, so we’re planning to see one or two tomorrow. We’ll hit a winery while we’re out. Combining trips is important when you have to leave Friday for the old grind…

Escape from FAR Manor: Reaching the Beach

In an attempt to stretch vacation, I took Thursday and Friday off as well as the entire week. We made the hotel reservations, and only afterwards found out DD’s fiance was coming with.

BTW, I have the fiance’s blog-name: Fizzle. (Future Son In Law → FSIL → Fizzle) This name will last unto the wedding, at which point I’ll come up with another one.

There was no problem at neither the hotel we spent the night at along the way, nor the one we have set up camp in. We couldn’t get two rooms at the Ramada like we did last year, which was bad because that pool has a waterslide and good because their wi-fi sucks so hard, so we ended up a couple miles farther out at Crowne Plaza. We arrived Friday evening, unpacked, got food, and crashed. Saturday we mostly dinked around. We went to a local park so Mason could hit the playground, but that was about it.

But Sunday… ah, Sunday. We loaded up and headed to Saugatuck. We went to the beach there many times in my youth, climbing Mt. Baldy and running full-tilt-boogie down the other side. The “in my youth” part is significant here. They replaced the uphill slog with steps:

Stairway to Heaven?

Wife took one look and said, “nope.” DD echoed the sentiment. To my surprise, so did Fizzle. Mason wanted to do it, and I would have been OK with it, except I knew my knee would start screaming well before the day was over.

So we piled in the car and took the less up-and-over route to Oval Beach. Being a summer weekend in Michigan, with temps in the mid-80s (F), we were far from the only people going to the beach. There was a rather long line of cars waiting to pay the $8 and get through. When they got to us, they said, “you’re the second to last car.” Yipe!

We found a spot, a rather decent location in fact, and hucked our chairs, cooler, and bags to the sand. It was rather crowded, as you can see here.

We have reached the beach!

The gatehouse to the parking lot had info posted, including the water temperature: 65F. eep But the air was warm, the sand was downright hot, and there were people in the water. As it turned out, the water was cold, but it didn’t feel all that cold. Fizzle and Mason were gung-ho to get in, DD skeptical, and I took my sweet time but joined them.

Did I mention the sand was hot? Yup. In one of those “reality is stranger than fiction” things, the sand was actually hotter than the pavement on our tender bare feet. If you were standing in one place on the sand, you could dig under the top inch or so to a more comfortable layer.

The wife stayed with our stuff, high up on the beach, while the rest of us gamboled in Lake Michigan. She took plenty of pictures, including this one of the four of us:

Me, DD, Fizzle, and Mason

She took many other shots, but there was this one woman who seemed to like to photobomb us a lot. Or maybe she knew I’d appreciate it…

DOUBLE photobomb!

She got right in the way of DD and Fizzle’s happy embrace. Jeez.

After a few hours, we were all ready to move on. After a late lunch at a local bowling alley/restaurant, Fizzle and I ended up at the Saugatuck Brewery for a taste of local craft beer.

Bottoms up!

The Beer of the Day was a dopple-bock that was very good, even if it had a tarragon note. The Singapore IPA is a middle-of-the-road IPA, nothing weird. I was less impressed with the Oval Beach Blonde, even if we had just come from its namesake. I got a variety 12-pack to take back to Planet Georgia.

So, a toast to vacation—may it go on much longer!

Vacation Slides Along

On Monday, we signed out a paddleboat and took a little tour around the lake:

Faster, Granddad!

There's a beach area on down a ways, that has a slide going right into the water, and Mason was all hot to do that. So next morning, away we went!

Splashdown!

There's also a raft, not something I see a lot of here in the South, although lots of lakes had them up north. On Monday, I steered the paddleboat up to the ladder so he could climb up for a few seconds, but yesterday he wanted to swim out there. Fortunately, the lake water was reasonably warm. His floaties did the job, and he got a pretty good idea of how things were when I was a kid in summer. (I hadn't swam out to a raft in decades, so it was fun for me too.) He did get to shivering after a while, so I got him up on the raft and sitting in the sun for a little bit until he warmed up.

OK, I'll skim across the water and make the turn...

As you can see, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. That was kind of a pity, but I guess with it being the week after Labor Day, all of the kids are back in school. I hope we can get over here on daytrips next summer; Mason already wants Daughter Dearest and me to chuck him off the raft. I told him he has to learn to swim without floaties first, so he has an incentive. He really wore himself out yesterday, and slept a long time, almost until 9.

Last night, we found a playground, and there was already a little girl his age there. Both of them were glad to have someone else to play with, so they let the parental units talk among themselves for a while. The downside of that is, Mason's now bummed when we go somewhere and there aren't any other kids around.

I'm not hurling, just spinning!

Too bad it's just him and me. DD is sick, and the wife is (as usual) tied up. I've got a little cold myself. But he's trying to get me to take him to the pool up at the clubhouse, so I need to leave this here. More vacation fun, you know!

Maintenance Monday

A vacation in Michigan is wonderful, but then there’s the return to the routine and outright misery that is FAR Manor. Nevertheless, I took an extra vacation day yesterday, partly to get a little rest before getting back to work and partly to take care of some things.

Vacation was altogether lovely. We stayed at the Ramada Plaza, at 28th St. and East Beltline, the heart of the retail district and a 10-minute drive from both Other Brother’s place and the place where Dad is now staying. The Plaza has a shallow pool with a high waterslide, and Mason loved the pool. He finally worked up the nerve later in the week to take the waterslide, first with Daughter Dearest and then with me, and then on Friday (our last night) he unlocked the “go it solo” achievement.

The day before we left for Michigan, my phone (iPhone 4) began acting up—powering down and restarting whenever I tried to do anything that involved the display (and that’s why I have no pix to share for now; DD will share soon). I assumed the phone needed to be restored, and worked through it that night with no luck. During the week, I figured out that I could use it for hours if I left it plugged in, which pointed to the battery. Fortunately, iFixit has parts and entire replacement kits (which include necessary tools), along with extensive instructions and videos, and the kit was $25 including shipping. Fighting the Ramada Plaza’s thoroughly crappy hotel wifi, the biggest downside to the place, I managed to place the order and the kit arrived on Monday.

But the mail runs around noon at FAR Manor, so I had the entire morning to change the oil in the Miata. This was something that needed doing a few weeks ago, so it got priority. Turned out I already had enough oil, and just needed a filter. (And an oil drain plug gasket, but we’ll get to that shortly.)

Changing oil is pretty straightforward: put the car up on ramps, loosen the filler cap on top of the motor, the drain plug underneath, and the filter on the side. The top and side can be done by hand, the bottom requires a 19mm wrench. You want a pan to catch the oil, a few rags to wipe up spills… and a new plug gasket. I’d neglected the last part, and ended up with the car spitting a cup of oil on the garage floor when I started it for the leak-check. Off to the parts store for a replacement, which required the van. Since the van needed new wiper blades, no problem. I lost another cup of oil when I loosened the plug, although that was expected. I kept a thumb over the drain hole and put the new gasket on with the other hand. Sloppy, but not difficult.

Then, I figured out what was needed to fix the windshield washers—a Y-connector had come apart and the fluid was going down the rain drain. Since the wife was going that way again anyway, I tagged along to get a replacement.


With the car dealt with, I finally got to the phone surgery. I have a floor lamp with a magnifier, and at my age it’s not an option for doing detailed things like this. To keep tiny screws from escaping to freedom, I did everything inside the shipping box. I was struck by the similarities between the battery swap and the oil change: three screws, a couple of specialty items (ramps vs. plastic pry tool), a little care when reassembling… and each took about the same amount of time. The differences were primarily those of scale and sloppiness.

The insides of an iPhone4,
with the new battery ready to install.

With repairs effected, and vacation over, things can get back to normal. Ouch.

Looking Back on Vacation

I realized a long time ago, when I need a car, it will come to me at the right time. My Civic has over 450,000 miles on it (the actual mileage is indeterminate, as the speedometer only works about 5% of the time these days), it uses oil now, and the gas mileage has been dropping off. So when we went to Florida in January, and my brother Solar said he was planning to sell his Miata come spring, I told him I wanted first dibs.

When he got ready to sell, and realized I was serious about buying it, he waxed enthusiastic. “Yeah, you can fly down, we can go to the autocross. We’ll have a bro-weekend, and you can drive it home!” Works for me… but then the wife realized she didn’t have a lot going on, that week after the 4th, Daughter Dearest hunted down a resort near the beach (like across the road), and it was vacation time!

I still flew down in advance, to spend the weekend with Solar. I packed enough stuff to get me through the weekend, in a bag that tucked easily under the aircraft seat, and the wife agreed to drive me to the airport so we wouldn’t have to pick up a car later on. So we bolted out the door Saturday morning, got two miles, and Daughter Dearest called. “Does Dad want to take a copy of the resort reservation?”

“I don’t think he’ll need it,” saith the wife.

“Well, he left his phone, too.”

Sigh. Turn around, grab the paper and phone, and now we’re on the way. Since my phone was making a bunch of chirps and bings, I stuck it between my legs for easy access. Of course, that meant I left it in the car when I got to the airport. Fortunately, the wife found it and called Solar, to let him know what had happened. I bummed a phone call off the guy sitting next to me on the plane, when we arrived in Tampa, to find that things had been arranged for the pickup. Whew.

So Solar and I had a pretty good time, eating, drinking, being merry, and flinging his 240SX around at the autocross. That took us to late Sunday afternoon, and he handed me the Miata keys so I could meet the rest of the family at the resort. We got there almost simultaneously!

We mostly spent mornings at the beach, the pool in the afternoons. Solar came over for dinner a couple times, and we ate out some, but his job is finally picking back up so he wasn’t around all the time. Our one touristy thing was a trip to the Suncoast Bird Sanctuary, just a few miles down the road. They rescue and (where possible) rehabilitate injured seabirds, but those with permanent injuries have a safe place to live out their lives. There were plenty of free-ranging birds there as well; I think they figured out that handouts were a regular part of life there.

For the rest of this post, I give you a slideshow (with captions). Sorry about the Flash trash, I figured Google would have embraced the HTML5 future by now…



The trip home was interesting. I expected to have to be careful to not leave the wife behind… but she was driving that minivan like Shirley Muldowney up I-75, and I was wailing pretty hard to keep up. I think someone wanted to get home. :-)

Recaptured

Vacations always have a sunset clause

The problem with escaping FAR Manor is that I can’t stay escaped. And the recapture always happens a day or two sooner than it should. OK, I shouldn’t really complain. Much. For one thing, the weather was near-perfect for vacation. They need some rain in Florida, but we got lots of beach and outdoor time. Mason wasn’t the only one who had a wonderful time. The only thing I didn’t get to do was meet up with some of my Twitter friends.

I got to take care of some of Mom’s computer issues, and that turned out to be fun. Dozeboxes and their software is always more than a little weird, and Vista flat refused to load the drivers for Mom’s HP all-in-one off the CD. It claimed it needed to run from an admin account, and that’s what we were doing. So I downloaded the drivers and ran it from there, and it worked.

That's me on the left

With all that working, we started scanning pictures. Mom had me get a miniature cedar chest off a high shelf, and she weeded out a few shots that nobody really wanted. The scanning software let us run several pictures at a time, and we made quick work of it.

One of the pictures was this one, complete with someone’s pencil marks. That’s me (on the left) and Other Brother. There was no date, but I figure it was early 1961 when I was in my Terrible Twos. I was an adorable little rug rat, huh? Now you know where Mason gets it from. :-D

On the Beach

Mason shows us his latest shell

The first couple days of vacation, with a toddler, are best spent simultaneously unwinding and establishing a routine. As warm as it is, we do the beach in the morning and then spend some time with Mom through the afternoon (working around Mason’s naptime, which does limit afternoon mobility). Mason loves playing in the sand, finding shells, and getting his feet in the (somewhat chilly) water.

Daughter Dearest found a huge whelk in the water, and there’s pictures of me holding it up. It protested the only way it could, by spitting water, but I was holding it the other way. After a handful of pictures, I returned it and it started digging as quickly as such an ungainly thing can.

Last night, Mom, Wicked Stepfather, and Solar-bro came over for a little cookout. The cottages here have a couple zillion grills scattered around the common area, and I did burgers and dogs in the dark. A Hispanic lady in one of the other cottages came over and brought a cup of fresh salsa—as in warm off the stove fresh. It was eyeball-melting hot, and very tasty, so I dabbled some on my bratwurst and really liked it. Unfortunately, Mom tossed the rest of the cup. I was going to get some chips and see if I could melt beach sand with my breath.

I continue to be glad the girlies made it this time. Wife has actually started to relax, and Daughter Dearest has about caught up on her sleep. As for Mason, he wakes up at 8am, whether the rest of us are up or not, and finds a new strange place to play until the Big People get moving. This morning, it was the closet in our bedroom. Mom got the girlies tickets for some local production tonight, and I’ll have to see if I can tweet-up with some of the locals.

Escape from FAR Manor!

For the first time in far too long, we all got to escape FAR Manor. Wife-o-licious tried to get her dad to come, but he flip-flopped around most of the week then finally decided to stay home. That meant the wife did a mad scramble to line up people to keep an eye on him, but line up they did. Mom found us a cottage off the road, across from the beach, and near her place. Daughter Dearest had to work until 3 on Saturday, but that gave us time to pack (and forget a minimal amount of stuff). Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when we got moving with everyone in the car.

Since we were planning to leave so late in the afternoon, I booked a hotel room in Valdosta. It turned out to be right in front of the freeway exit—no left turn, no right turn, just go straight across and into the hotel parking lot. There were two people in front of me to check in at the front desk, and I think it took each of then ten times what it took me, just because I had a reservation. Mason slept through a cavalcade of snoring, and I’ll admit it wasn’t all from the wife and daughter… although both of them did more than they let themselves believe.

So this morning, it was up and on the road again, with a toddler who spent all of his waking hours in a car seat. Nap? Hah! But as we crossed the Howard Frankenstein Bridge (as the locals call it), Mason got his first-ever glimpse of the ocean. He was excited, as you can see.

Mom was helping some other ladies decorate the condo, so we grabbed some lunch and ate at the park across the road while Mason blew off some energy on the playground. (Did I mention it was warm enough to do that?) An older boy was there, and wearing the same color shirt as Mason, so they were suddenly Team Orange and hung out all over the place.

The cottage got a rare Wife Seal of Approval. It’s spacious, and has a big open area for Mason to run around in. So he got to blow off a little more energy while I parked in a lounge chair with my Kindle. Oh, and the place has wifi, which means I get to write a blog post…

So I hope there will be much relaxing through the week, for all of us. I did all the driving, after they said they’d pitch in, so I hope I’ll be one of the relax-ers too.

Tomorrow is a non-vacation post. If I get more post-worthy photos, they will be seen here too.