Another Lifetime to go

27th September 2024

Another Friday at the range, we’re getting quite proficient at it now, however I still get my thumb in the wrong place and it gets hit by the sliding bit. So with blood dripping I kept going.

The range we used was a bit worse for wear, some inconsiderate person had shot through the structure that hold the panels on to which the targets are pinned. That is the main thing that is mentioned during the new members introduction meeting, these are difficult to replace especially the vertical ones that are buried in the ground.

Kelli’s shooting was a little better than mine, although we have improved our grouping.

There is talk about what disruption might happen in the coming months. It is suggested that neighbourhoods should organise amongst themselves to store and possibly share food, and even protect each other. We have started to collect extra tinned foods to store in the room off the garage. I can’t believe this kind of action is needed in the twenty first century, but this is a strange and troubled America.

A lot of the independent media are warning of criminal gangs that have been allowed through the southern borders are make their claims in certain large cities. The mainstream media say nothing of this, it’s like this is planned by the Democrats, they have allowed millions of undocumented migrants into the country, and it’s getting out of control.

On a more positive note, we did finish something.

We took pictures and posted the latest dresser to emerge from the garage.

26th September 2024

I finally took the truck back to the tyre place to get them to check two of them for pressure loss.

I had all four replaced back in June but over time the two on the driver’s side kept losing pressure.

Fortunately I have a small compressor that I keep in the truck, so I was able to top it up when necessary. I needed to get it sorted before I flew back to the UK so Kelli didn’t have to worry.

I explained the issue to a technician, he had a quick check, couldn’t find any nails, then booked it in to be looked at.

I took a walk to Lowes to get buy some materials, when I returned I was greeted with some worrying news.

Being in the US means, (to me,) that they will always find something to relive me of money, whether is be replacement windscreen wipers or a new vehicle.

When there is a slight intake of breath and a sad eye expression, I know something is up.

I was told that the seal between the tyre and the rim was where the air was escaping. This was because the rim had corroded. I had a suspicion that it could be the problem even before I drove to the place, but tried to convince myself that it had never happened to me before. Anyway, the short answer was four new rims, so with that and the tyres I’ve doubled the value of the truck.

I attempted to pay with my card, although I didn’t have the physical one, I had a picture of it allowing me to enter the details. That was fine until I came to the postal  code, or zip code.

It did not recognise the English one, so the transaction failed. The next option was to use Applepay. That went well, but was declined at the end. My last option was Mastercard on Applepay, I didn’t hold much hope on this, but to my surprise, and the tyre man’s delight, it worked. He then instructed his men to change the wheels.

Things were not over, I then received a voice mail from Barclaycard to call regarding a potential fraudulent transaction.

I then spent over half an hour sorting all that out and getting my card reinstated, talk about a traumatic day, and it was only twelve o clock.

25th September 2024

Bang!  Came from the kitchen area, I was sitting in the living space, and Kelli was in the bathroom. This time it wasn’t a power module exploding, but I didn’t know what happened. I had visions of something falling on the glass hob top, but that was intact. We both looked around looking for evidence of some catastrophic disaster.

It was Kelli that found the cause, the cork had rapidly exited a bottle of sparkling wine and hit the bottom of a wall unit. We did have a good laugh over that, and a sigh of relief.

Apart from being a shopping day we went to get a new screen for Kelli’s phone. It had a crack on it for a while, and it did affect the workings, but as she didn’t want to get a new one, this was the next best option.

It was repaired in the time we were doing our shopping, which now means there won’t be any moaning and bad language when the thing doesn’t do what it should, that, in itself will be worth the money.

24th September 2024

Not a good day, it rained all day restricting what we could do in the garage. 

The chap turned up for the drawer I repaired, that saved me a trip.

The rest of the time I spent stripping some drawers.

In the evening I discovered that my email was not sending out any messages. It must have happened when I changed my BT password.

I went into my email account and changed the password to match, but it didn’t verify. I checked the web site and followed the instructions but still it would not get past that spinning ball.

By the end of the evening I was frustrated and angry with myself, because I’ve done it before, and fixed it, but I had forgotten,that’s what made it so maddening.

I guess I will have to call someone tomorrow.

23rd September 2024

Autumn is definitely in the air, one of our trees is losing its leaves early, normally there is another month before the great sweep. 

Kelli started to clear the wild patch at the front. It had been looking really bad with grass that had taken over strangling any flowers that tried to grow.

I managed to stain two dresser tops, then I had to go to Elaine’s to fix the decorative piece above her porch. Now it had been painted, once it was up there it looked pretty good. 

When I arrived back I joined Kelli pulling out the grass and the mass of roots under the soil.

I had to be careful as to not pull out the wild flowers that remained, on pain of death it turned out.

I also repaired the drawer I collected yesterday, that should be ready to return the next time we go out.

22nd September 2024

Well my bangers and mash was a bit of a disaster, the rain was a bit of a downer, but more importantly so were my bangers.

The grill was going well, coals were up to temperature when I put the sausages on. I felt I started early enough, maybe a little too early.

I may have bought the wrong type, as these were pre cooked. By the time we were ready to eat, they had been on the grill longer than they should.

As I was placing them on a plate I picked one up, I didn’t know whether to crack it open or smoke it like a cigar. The only saving grace was that it didn’t turn to dust when I cut it, but the skin was over a quarter of an inch thick.

Thankfully the mash and sauerkraut was fantastic, but my wife was in charge of that.

Next time she better take charge of everything.

So that was our anniversary party, there was sparkling wine and ice cream, and good conversation, I think that took peoples minds away from the sausages.

Earlier I drove back to an address that I dropped a dresser off on Thursday. We had a message that one of the drawers got dropped by their son and damaged asking if we could repair it.

As I arrived, the lady was just leaving, and had no idea what I came for. She then messaged someone in the house to bring out the broken drawer. 

The door opened and this tall black guy, looking like he just got out of bed,  stood with the damaged item. I explained what I was going to do, quite a simple repair.

He asked if there would be a charge, hi said no, he seemed happy and gave me a fist bump, of course I did not know what that meant, I’m not from the ghetto you know, bro.

21st September 2024

It is the eve of our anniversary, so we planned to do no work, instead I went off to buy stuff for tomorrow’s bangers and mash party.

Well not so much as a party,  more a gathering of the family.

We decided not to hold a proper do, because we were let down by so many people last year. It would have been appreciated if we were told ahead that they couldn’t make it, that way we could have adjusted our catering.

Although it was a “bring a bottle” invitation, some even took the bottles back that they brought. And I never did find my cool bottle opener. 

So we decided to keep it small, however Cameron and Greer couldn’t make it so it’s even smaller.

This afternoon we did took a trip to Saugatuck to walk around the shops, visit the bookshop Kelli used to work at, and then on to the Saugatuck Brewery for an early dinner.

It has been a while since we last eat there, and I noticed quite a change. I chose the fish and chips, although the menu said fish, and I had to order the chips as a side dish, not a good start.

My memory was the plate was huge, the chips were thick and fat, not the skinny ones that accompanied my serving. The burger that Kelli had also seemed thin, unlike the thick and generous ones of old. 

I have to get used to being disappointed, and change is expected, but it should also enrich not let down, I will leave a comment on their website.

I must admit I came away hungry, which is not really the point.

20th September 2024

It was back to the range, this time very quiet compared to last week.

We chose a shorter range to save our legs, the 100 yard one can be quite tedious.

I pinned four targets for each of us, I wanted to be a bit more scientific with our shooting accuracy. 

Kelli had talked to the guy who gave us training at the beginning who advised that the trigger finger arm should be more relaxed than the support arm, which is easier said than done, but that was the purpose of our session.

Kelli was first up, aiming at the first target, the shot was wide of the target. She was disappointed, it’s easy at this stage to loose interest, which she could easily have done, but she persevered. The remaining shots were more central and grouped well, she smiled, was this the breakthrough?

I was up next, mr know it all himself. Off I went, the first few shots were on the target but not where I wanted them to be. I remembered the the advice, and relaxed the trigger arm. My next shots were clustered around the centre of the target, that was an improvement.

And that’s how the session went, ending with a positive result and a hundred and fifty empty shell casings.

We headed home, Kelli had some things to pick up on the way, not furniture thank goodness.

By the time we had lunch it was mid afternoon, not the best time to start anything, but I forced myself to start work on a dresser that needs a lot of work to get the drawers working properly.

Kelli finished the piece we had collected from GR a couple of days ago, not a masterpiece, but hopefully someone will like it.

19th September 2024

It was a busy day for moving furniture.

The heavy bugger was collected today, a young girl and her mother drove up in a truck ready to receive the beast.

She intends to use it in her living room, and to use it as it was. It took all four of us to lift it into the bed of the truck. We didn’t get a lot for it, but we have a lot more space to handle smaller items, and hopefully not get something so large and heavy in the future.

We also sold the tall dresser only after a couple of days. I was to deliver it on my way to beer tasting with Lloyd.

The GPS took me to a community of duplexes, and I pulled up outside of number 260.

A black lady came out to greet me, and asked if I still needed help to unload. Not wanting to strain my greens I nodded. She then shouted to her son who was inside the house, no one appeared.

I managed to carefully remove the dresser from the back of the truck, and started to remove the drawers. I then handed them to the lady, still no lad appeared. I then managed to carry the carcass close to the door, the lady continued to shout for her son. 

Finally he appeared, dazed and generally disinterested to what was expected. I explained the best way to carry then we proceeded to get it through the front door. At first I thought the place had been ransacked, there was stuff all over the place, it was one of those times when I wanted to get away as quickly as I could, no offence to the lady, but it made me feel like I should help clean the place, but Lloyd was waiting.

He was there before me this time, standing at the bar getting the orders in. I asked him how he was knowing that he had recovered from Covid last week. I reminded him about our conversation last time when he was looking forward to his next Covid shot, I stopped short of saying, “well how did that vaccine work for you” I didn’t want to gloat.

18th September 2024

The big heavy bugger was sold, thank goodness. Not long after Kelli posted it there were two interested parties. We were asking a modest amount as we didn’t do anything to it except giving it a clean. This will be picked up on Thursday, I can’t wait.

There was a trip to Grand Rapids on the cards for today, stopping off at a house in Holland to pick up a free coffee table. 

The drive to GR was pleasant, especially on the main 44th street.

The place to were directed to was a leafy suburb, quite pleasant,  not the usual craziness of the downtown. The piece was outside on the porch, as we approached, the garage door opened, an old guy dressed in his pyjamas greeted us. He apologised for not being able to help carry it blaming a shoulder surgery. 

We said that we were used to carrying things about, and set about loafing it into the truck.

It was not a brilliant piece, the typical KD furniture, but with a bit of cleaning and a fresh coat of paint on the top, we could post it quickly.

We then rushed back to do our usual grocery shopping.

I only managed to do a bit of work, it had been a busy day, and I looked forward to my dinner.