I haven’t updated this blog for the last ten days! Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough hours in a day. But when I really think about it, I do a lot of leisure activities that take time. It’s not like I’m toiling away.

Four or five days per week, I play pickleball for about two hours in the morning. This ends up taking most of the morning – I usually need a snack after two hours on the courts and rest. Then there’s always an errand or two to run.

Lately, I’ve devoted about two hours a day to guitar practice. I’m slowly regaining my chops and relearning some songs I used play regularly. I haven’t played through my handwired vacuum tube amps in a long time. These amplifiers work best when the power tubes are pushed into high output – it creates a responsiveness and touch sensitivity in the guitar. The thing is, pushing the power tubes means high volume!

I used to run my Marshall 18 Watt clone through an Avatar speaker cabinet loaded with two 30-watt Celestion 12-inch speakers. I had an identical – except for color – cabinet for my Trainwreck style amp. When we lived in Michigan, I practiced in our finished walk-out basement. The houses in our neighborhood were separated by large yards – we were hundreds of feet away from our neighbors. Playing loud was not a problem.

I brought one of the Avatar cabinets with us when we hit the road. Unfortunately, it was in our trailer when those Dirty, Rotten Thieves stole it. I still had a practice amp and speaker Donna bought for me and I had an Egnater Tweaker 15-watt head and cabinet with one 30-watt Celestion 12-inch speaker. This cabinet handles the Marshall fine, but the Trainwreck is too much power for it. The Trainwreck is rated at 36 watts, but this is misleading. That rating is when the output is clean with no clipping or distortion. When pushed into clipping, the output is in excess of 50 watts.

Now we have neighbors with about ten feet of separation. I ordered a Power Soak speaker attenuator to put inline between the amplifier and speaker cabinet. This device is basically a voltage divider that absorbs some of the power output of the amp and tames the speaker while I’m pushing the output into the distortion range. I can play at reasonable volume while enjoying the response these amps can provide.

I’m still concerned about the Trainwreck overpowering the 30-watt Celestion speaker and blowing it out. I ordered a new speaker cabinet with a Celestion speaker rated at 80 watts to use with the Trainwreck. It’s my favorite amp. With the volume knob on my guitar set around 4 – zero is off and 10 is full power – I get a clean, sparkly sound. Turning the knob up to around 7, I get a fatter, distorted sound and anything higher than that is full on crunch, while the volume doesn’t change much. Love it. I quit playing it though until I get the new speaker.

Last Thursday, my eldest daughter Alana and her fiance Kevin visited us. They came down to the area from western Washington to visit her mother, golf and see us. Donna grilled sockeye salmon and we enjoyed dinner on the back deck. It was a nice visit, I always enjoy visiting with my daughters and always wonder when we’ll be together again when they leave.

Friday morning, I was up early to drive Donna to the airport. She flew back to Vermont to visit her parents, so I’ve been on my own for a week – Donna will return Thursday night. So that means I’m the cook – something else that occupies my time. I’ve been spending more time in the kitchen lately even when Donna’s home.

Saturday I met up with friends at Lucky Lou’s. We shared a table on the outdoor patio – it was Mike and Jodi Hall, Frank and Kelly Burk and another Mike ( I don’t know his last name). We swapped tales and enjoyed couple of cold ones, just like old times.

On Monday morning, my youngest daughter, Shauna, gave birth to our third granddaughter in Washington, D.C. Her name is Petra. I have three daughters and now three granddaughters. Baby and mom are doing fine and we feel blessed to have them.

I’ve been tackling some minor issues in our new-to-us park model home. One of the things that needed updating was the connectors on the coaxial cable for the televisions. This isn’t hard to do if you have the right tools. Without a proper crimper for the f-type RG6 connector, it’s not a do-it-yourself thing. I ordered tools and connectors from Amazon. I’ll probably put them in the shed and not need them again, but it was necessary. The old connectors were falling apart and if you moved the cable the slightest amount, you would lose the signal.

Last week before Donna left, she made a couple of outstanding dinners. First up was pork kabobs with pineapple, mushrooms and peppers.

Next up was plate of shrimp and shishito peppers and fried rice. I made the fried rice – it’s becoming my specialty.

She also made grilled chicken thighs with butternut squash risotto and asparagus.

The weather remained hot last week with daily highs in the upper 80s or low 90s. The swamp cooler in the Arizona room has been very effective. We use a box fan to circulate air to the front room and didn’t run the air conditioner at all! This is a great energy saver. It was overcast and cooler yesterday. Last night, we had a couple of rain showers and it was cloudy again this morning, but now the sun is shining. It’s only supposed to get up to 70 for a high today and 79 tomorrow. From Thursday, the forecast calls for mid-90s through the weekend. Just in time for Donna’s return Thursday night.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!