Author Archives: Mike Kuper

Roughing It

Things went according to plan last Thursday – except for one thing. We noticed our fresh water pump would run for a few seconds with an interval of a few minutes before it ran again. I checked for drips and didn’t find anything. Before we left, I saw a drop of water fall next to the left rear wheels. This would only come from a leak up high – I was guessing the bathroom sink area. We’d left the pump turned off all night. I couldn’t deal with it where we dry camped, so we hit the road.

We drove north through the Petrified Forest National Park, then hit I-40 eastbound. After about 20 miles, we exited on US191 north through Navajo Nation land. It was an uneventful drive until we were north of Chinle, then we hit a series of construction areas where work was being done on bridges, leaving only one lane available. These stoppages added several minutes to our drive.

The road surface also deteriorated north of Chinle as we hit unexpected dips and heaves in the roadway. We turned northeast at US160 and that road had a number of bad areas that rocked us. This route took us to the northwest corner of New Mexico – about a minute later we left New Mexico and crossed the Colorado border. The Four Corners monument where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet is less than half a mile off US160.

We entered Mountain time and lost an hour when we left Arizona. We made it to La Mesa RV Park in Cortez around 3pm local time. The camp host, Jim, said we had our pick of three sites – 7, 11 or 13. He said satellite reception should be good at any of the three. I took 13 to get us as far from the street and car wash as possible. This turned out to be a bad choice.

We set up without any issues. Donna heard a drip behind the back of the kitchen counter. She pulled out the bottom drawer and we found the leak. It’s coming from the water supply line to the shower. The problem is, it’s up high between a wall and the shower stall with no access point. Until I can figure out a way to get to it, we aren’t using the city water supply. Instead, we only run the fresh water pump with a faucet open to prevent pressurizing the shower supply line. This is a real pain.

At that point, I tried to tune in the Dish satellite TV. No good. The tree at the back of the site has grown and was leafing out enough to block reception. I talked to Jim and told him I didn’t want to go without satellite TV for a month. We decided to move to site 11 in the morning. I wish I had checked the satellite reception before we set up. Tearing it down and securing everything to move 50 feet is just as much work as securing everything to move 100 miles.

Friday night Donna manned the grill and made barbeque chicken thighs. She made barbeque sauce from scratch with a base of tomato paste, maple syrup and sriracha along with a few other ingredients. It was excellent. She served it with garlic mashed cauliflower with chives.

Barbeque chicken thigh with mashed cauliflower

Later, while she was washing dishes, the water pressure from the fresh water pump dropped and only a weak stream of water came out of the kitchen faucet. When I checked it out, I found the sprayer head on the faucet we clogged. We chalked it up to eight months of storage. I took the sprayer head off and soaked it in vinegar. After soaking overnight I could blow through it – it wasn’t clogged anymore, so I put it back together.

The water volume didn’t improve and now we aren’t getting hot water – only lukewarm on the hottest setting. We had this issue seven years ago – I wrote about it in this post. I think the check valve is bad again. I ordered one from Amazon and should have it tomorrow, but I might have another problem. I only packed a few tools that I thought might come in handy. I didn’t include a 1-1/8″ socket, which is what I usually use to take out the hot water heater anode to drain it. I’ll see what I can figure out when the parts come. Meanwhile we are roughing it with low water flow and no hot water.

Saturday morning we went to the pickleball courts at Centennial Park. The Cortez pickleball club had a social event with round-robin style play. We had a good time. I felt I played really well. Donna said she was a litlle bit rusty, but she had fun.

Saturday night we went to the Loungin’ Lizard downtown for drinks and dinner. Our friend Rocco Gerardi raved about this place when we met up for a cold one at Wild Edge Brewery here a couple of years ago. He was right – the beer was cold and the food excellent!

The weather is agreeable – it was cool when we arrived on Thursday – in the mid 60s. Daily highs have varied from mid 70s to mid 80s since then with overnight lows in the mid 30s to low 40s. It’s very dry – humidity is only 10-15%. But we’re used to that as it’s dry in Mesa, Arizona too.

Moving Out

Last weekend, Donna started packing up stuff that we’ll need over the next four months for our summer vacation. We moved our departure date back by one day – we learned last year that it’s too much work to try and pack four months of necessary stuff in one day. Donna obtained a two-night parking pass and I parked the motorhome in front of our park model home.

Our park model is hidden behind the coach

The first thing I did was fill the fresh water tank and dose it with Chlor Brite. Chlor Brite is a product from Leslie Pool that’s basically granulated chlorine. Sodium diclor is the active ingredient – it’s 99% of the product. It’s a concentrated form of chlorine and a little bit goes a long way. When used in swimming pools, as little as three ounces will treat 10,000 gallons of water. Chlorine in drinking water is at a much lower level than swimming pools use.

I mixed a fairly strong solution, filled the fresh water tank and left it in overnight. After sitting in storage for eight months, I wanted to sanitize and remove any contaminants from the water tank. Early Tuesday morning, I dumped the tank and refilled it with filtered fresh water. We use a two-canister filtration system – the first stage is a five-micron sediment filter followed by a one-micron carbon block filter.

This is what 100 gallons of water quickly dumped in the street looks like

The dump valve on our fresh water tank is relatively large and empties the tank quickly. I dumped 100 gallons and it created a small stream in the road. During a storm in last summer’s monsoon season, our neighbors told us the street was completely flooded and ran all the way down through our carport to the shed! I can’t imagine how many gallons of water had to dump from the clouds to cause that.

Most people not from the area don’t realize Arizona has a monsoon season. In central Arizona, that season usually begins around mid-July and runs through August. Flash floods are common as these storms can drop a lot water very quickly.

Our neighbor across the street from us on the 1600 lane just bought the place. Donna told him we planned to place a barrier at the shed end of our carport to prevent flood water from entering our shed. His Arizona room addition is built on a slab at the back of his carport. Last year it flooded and suffered water damage – all the carpeting had to be ripped out. He was leaving the next day to go back north. He asked me if I could put up a water barrier for him – he gave me $100 for materials.

I found a product called Quick Dam Flood Bags. These are cloth tubes filled with a gel product that swells and seals the tubes, creating a useful flood barrier. They are stackable, so I bought enough to stack two high in front of our shed and his Arizona room. When they’re fully activated, they will create a barrier six to seven inches high.

Flood barrier for our neighbor’s Arizona room

I used a garden hose to activate his Quick Dams and make sure they’ll work. Job done!

I put Midget-San up on jack stands for summer storage. Then I removed the wheels – not only will this prevent the tires from flat-spotting, it’s also an anti-theft measure. It’s pretty hard to steal a car without wheels. I fastened the car cover over it for the summer.

Last Thursday was Cinco de Mayo – our anniversary day. We planned to celebrate our 16th anniversary with dinner at Baja Joe’s. Donna wasn’t feeling up to night out after her trip back from Vermont, so I ordered take-out from Baja Joe’s. Donna had her favorite shrimp dish with poblano cream sauce. I had the chef’s special fish filet with a seafood sauce containing pieces of shrimp and octopus. It was excellent – we’ve never had a bad meal at Baja Joe’s.

Saturday evening I manned the grill and cooked a pork tenderloin that Donna marinated in her mojo marinade. She served it with Cuban rice and a steamed vegetable medley. Another nicely balanced and nutritious meal.

Donna had shrimp again on Sunday when she grilled it and served it over cilantro-avocado-lime sauce. Tasty!

Grilled shrimp, Mexican corn and grilled shishito peppers

We had a warm weekend with the thermometer reaching the upper 90s – it was 99 on Saturday! The temps held in the 80s as we packed on Monday and Tuesday. Packing for four months is more like moving from a furnished apartment to another furnished place. It’s not like we’re just heading out for a weekend.

We hit the road around 9:15am. Our route took us over Usery Pass to the Bush Highway past Saguaro Lake and on to the Beeline Highway (AZ87). We climbed to Payson which sits at an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level. It was much cooler – in the low 70s there – and continued across the Sitgreaves National Forest to Heber on AZ260. This road runs through pine forest all the way to Heber – not what most people picture in Arizona.

At Heber, we turned northeast on AZ277, then AZ377 to Holbrook. The wind really picked up at Holbrook – it’s a steady 30mph wind with higher speed gusts. We’ve stopped for the night near the entrance of the Petrified Forest National Park. We stayed here last year – it’s a dry camping spot. I positoned the coach near the leeward side of a building to shelter us from some of the wind gusts. This is about the halfway point to tomorrow’s destination – Cortez, Colorado. We’ll spend a month there. Tomorrow we will go north through the National Park, then head east a short way on I-40, then north again through the Navajo Nation past Four Corners and on to Cortez – that’s the plan.

Meatless Mondays

I took a break from writing this blog for about a week and a half. I bemoaned the high prices in my last post. I’m sure everyone is feeling the squeeze of inflation and high fuel costs. High fuel costs creates more inflationary pressure as the cost of transporting goods rises.

I usually fill up our Nissan Frontier whenever we get down to about a quarter of tank of fuel. I could fill up for less than $30 a year ago. By January of this year it was costing me nearly $50. Last week I paid almost $70 for the same fill-up.

The cost of diesel fuel is higher than regular unleaded gasoline. We have plans to get out of the heat here in central Arizona and spend the summer months in southwest Colorado, New Mexico and northern Arizona. This means we will miss spending time with family and grandchildren this summer.

In my last post, I wrote about our swamp cooler here in our park model home. Even with temperatures reaching the upper 90s, we have yet to run our air conditioner this year. This is a great saving in energy costs and the house maintains a comfortable temperature in the mid-70s.

The thing that has been uncomfortable for me is the pollen levels. It seems like everything is blooming and my allergies have really kicked in over the past month or so.

More flowers here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort

Last week on Wednesday, April 27th, we were up before dawn. I drove Donna to Sky Harbor Airport (Phoenix). She had a flight to Albany, New York to visit her parents in Bennington, Vermont. Her father fractured his hip and had to stay in a rehabilitation facility until it was healed well enough for him to begin putting weight on that leg. He was due to come home on May 2nd. Donna wanted to help out around their house and be there to assist him when he returned home.

That left me in temporary bachelor status while she was away. Donna served up a couple of fine meals before she left. She started this meatless Monday thing, which I’m not exactly crazy about. On the Monday before she left, she made a spanakopita pasta casserole.

The day before her departure, she served blackened tilapia over cheesy grits with green beans on the side.

I didn’t observe meatless Monday while Donna was away. I also didn’t quite meet her standard of meal preparation. She returned late last night and now we’re preparing to close this place and hit the road. We plan to pull out of here on Tuesday.

While Donna was away, we had daily highs in the low to mid 90s. It’s forecast to hit 98 on Saturday before we cool down to the 80s on Monday and Tuesday. That will be a relief while we load up the motorhome.

Swamp Thang

I mentioned how well our swamp cooler works in my last post. When our friends Ginette and Greg were visiting, they were amazed to find we weren’t using our air conditioner and kept the house cool with the swamp cooler. In fact, they had never heard of a swamp cooler.

They live on Vancouver Island, Canada where a swamp cooler wouldn’t be very effective. Swamp coolers are evaporative cooling devices and are most effective in dry climates. They take advantage of the physics behind the effect of changing water from liquid to vapor. The swamp cooler is a simple device – it pumps water over a matrix – in our case, it’s batting material made from cellulose fibers. This batting is held in the louvered housing on three sides of the cooler. The fourth side is a duct connected to our Arizona room.

The batting is soaked with water drawn from a sump in the bottom of the cooler. A large squirrel-cage fan sits inside the housing of the cooler. This fan draws air through the louvers past the wet batting and pumps the air into the Arizona room. As the hot, dry air passes over the wet batting, the water absorbs heat from the air and changes from liquid to gas (evaporates), thus cooling the air. The drier the air is, the more effectively this change of state occurs.

This also has the benefit of adding some moisture to the dry air in the house. It’s common to have relative humidity levels under 20% here in central Arizona and last week we had single digit relative humidity.

We typically see a change of temperature in our house of about 20 degrees – it’s about 20 degrees cooler inside than the ambient outside temperature. So, last week when we had temperatures in the 90s outside, our house was comfortably in the 70s inside. The swamp cooler doesn’t require much power – only a couple of amps to run the fan and water pump. Considerably less than the demand of a compressor on an air conditioner unit.

When we bought this place, the previous owner said the swamp cooler didn’t work very well when the temperature reached triple digits. I wondered about this – it should still provide the 20 degree drop regardless, unless humidity rose high enough to slow the evaporative process.

By the way, the 20 degree drop is an average of the interior temperature versus outside. Swamp coolers don’t have any temperature regulation – it’s not governed by a thermostat. I checked the temperature of the grill where the air from the cooler enters the Arizona room with a non-contact infrared thermometer and it’s typically 60-62 degrees. To regulate the interior temperature, I leave a window and the front sliding glass door open, otherwise it would get downright chilly inside!

When it was in the upper 90s, I noticed the swamp cooler seemed to struggle – in fact, it quit working. I checked it out and found the problem. The water supply to feed the sump was feeble and couldn’t keep up with amount of evaporation taking place at that temperature. I could see the water dribbling from the supply valve – it has a float arm like you would find on a toilet ball cock that opens the valve as the water level drops.

Swamp cooler side panel open – you can see the batting on the side, the squirrel-cage fan, sump, pump and water supply valve below the fan

On Monday, I went to a shop that sells swamp coolers about a mile from here and bought a new supply valve. I took the old valve off and found the water supply still only dribbled a small amount of water. Hmmm.

I went to the other end of the water supply line and took it off the fitting – still only had a dribble. The clamp over the water pipe holding the water supply feed line was mis-aligned. Once I straighten that out, I had ample water flow to the swamp cooler.

Now the swamp cooler works better than ever and maintains plenty of water in the sump. Job done!

Last week, I played pickleball six days without a break. After taking Sunday off, I played for the next four days. That’s a lot of pickleball and my 65-year-old legs were feeling it. When I first started playing pickleball, I bought a Pro-Lite paddle. I used it for a few years, then I replaced it with a Head paddle. I bought the Head right when they hit the pickleball market – Head was well established as a tennis racquet supplier also sold ski equipment.

Head had their pickleball paddles manufactured in China. As an early adopter, I was a victim of poor quality control – my Head paddle literally fell apart. Then I met a Paddletek representative in Colorado and bought new Paddletek paddles for me and Donna. Paddletek makes their products in the USA – Niles, Michigan.

I’ve been using the Paddletek paddle for over three years now and I decided it was time for a replacement. I did a little research. The biggest factor in pickleball paddles is arguably the shape. The rules give a restriction on overall dimension, but it can be long and narrow or shorter and wider to meet the specification. My game is more of a control and shot placement game rather than power and speed. I opted for the more traditional shape rather than the elongated power-paddle.

I settled on a paddle branded by the tennis racquet company, Prince. These paddles are actually made by Paddletek right here in the USA.

I found it on sale at Pickleball Central for $103 and they included a nice paddle cover. These regularly sell online for about $130 and the cover is an extra cost $17 option, so I think I got a pretty good deal. I’m liking it so far.

As always, Donna is feeding me like a king. Here are a few examples. Last Saturday, she made a new twist on chicken – garlic-roasted chicken thighs with carrots. She served it with guasacaca sauce, a Venezuelan sauce made with avocado, jalapeno, rice vinegar, zest and juice of lime, plus loads of fresh parsley and cilantro. The sauce can be drizzled over grilled flank steak too or used as a dip so it’s very versatile not to mention tasty!

Roasted garlic chicken and carrots with guasacaca sauce

For our Easter Sunday dinner, she grilled wild Alaskan salmon and served it over asparagus with peas and capers in a brown butter sauce and chantilly potatoes on the side. Yummy!

On Tuesday we had real man-food. I grilled New York strip steaks with bok choy and Donna made jalapeno poppers to go with it.

As I mentioned, we had some hot weather. On Monday and Tuesday the thermometer hit 96 and 97 degrees respectively. If the weather guessers are correct, we might see triple digits for the first time this year next Tuesday.

Speaking of next Tuesday, I have an appointment to change the oil in the coach in preparation for hitting the road. Last time I had an oil service, I think I paid $280. Now, every place around here is charging around $400 for the seven-gallon oil change plus filter on a Cummins ISL diesel engine. I don’t see any plan from the current administration to curb inflation and energy costs. It’s disheartening to see these price hikes while my investments are losing value.

Snow Birds Head North

The season is really winding down here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I haven’t taken time to update this blog and I’ve mostly neglected to take photos when I had the opportunities. I’ll start this update going back to a week ago Saturday.

Mike Hall met me Saturday morning at 202 RV Valet where our Alpine Coach is stored. You might recall, we had a mishap in Utah near the end of last summer. The driver side panel in front of the left front wheel broke loose. I made a few attempts at roadside repairs and finally got it secured well enough to limp to a campground. I made a better repair and it held up as we made our way back to Mesa, Arizona.

But, the panel didn’t quite line up the way it should. Mike looked at it a few weeks ago and came up with a repair plan – he’s a paint and body man among his other talents. Saturday morning we put his plan in action – well, he handled most of the action while I watched and learned. With judicious use of a floor jack, he aligned the panel then riveted it into place. I did some clean-up of tape residue from my temporary repairs by wiping it with laquer thinner and it was job done. I don’t think Mike spent more than 30 minutes on the actual work. Thanks, Mike!

Saturday afternoon I put the Heritage duroc babyback ribs on the Traeger – I wrote about duroc pork in my last post. Our friends, DIck and Roxy Zarowny joined us for happy hour and dinner on the back deck. The duroc babybacks were a hit – I think it’s worthwhile to spend a little extra for the premium duroc pork. In fact, I went back to Fry’s this morning to see if they had them – sold out for now. If I can’t find them in the next day or two, I’ll go to Chuck’s Fine Meats and see if he has duroc or Berkshire pork babyback ribs.

The rest of the week seems like a blur – Donna had tennis most days while I played pickleball. I spent some time learning new songs on the guitar and did a lot of reading. It was hot outside with the temperatures in the 90s from Tuesday through the weekend.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to Lucky Lou’s for a couple of cold ones and a cigar on the patio. I did that on Friday and met up with Mike and Jodi Hall there. The usual suspects – Leendert, John Huff, Bob and the other John and one of the other Mikes were all there.

I learned on Saturday that my old friend in San Diego, Bob Babich passed away. Bob played for the San Diego Chargers and the Cleveland Browns. He was drafted by the Chargers in 1969 in the first round – the 18th player drafted that year. He was an NFL linebacker for 9 years. He was part of the Bay Park crew I often hung around with at Offshore Tavern and Dan Diego’s whenever we stayed in San Diego. He would have turned 75 on May 5th. RIP Bob – you will be missed.

Yesterday we were joined by our friends Greg and Ginette DeCoteau for happy hour on the back deck. It got interesting a couple of times when wind gusts threatened to take our shade umbrellas away! Greg and Ginette are Canadians, their home is in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. They’re heading back to Canada on Thursday of this week.

I have some dinner plates to close out this post. First up was last Tuesday’s dinner – grilled chicken with Italian seasoning served with spaghetti squash and marinara and steamed spinach on the side.

Grilled chicken with Italian seasoning, spaghetti squash with marinara on the side

The next night Donna came up with turmeric black pepper chicken with asparagus over rice.

The next dish might be a bit of an oddity, but it was delicious. Last Saturday Donna made duck sausage roasted with onions and grapes. The side dish was cauliflower risotto with chopped asparagus and mushrooms.

Yesterday I broke down another whole chicken and Donna grilled the wings, legs and thighs and prepared an Asian dipping sauce made from mayonnaise, mustard and sambal oelek – an Indonesian chili paste. We had grilled shishito peppers on the side.

Grilled chicken with Asian style dipping sauce and shishito peppers

The forecast calls for cooler weather – only in the mid-70s for next couple of days, upper 80s on Friday and back into the 90s for the weekend. It hasn’t been bad – we haven’t even used the air conditioning. The swamp cooler and fans have been good enough to keep the place comfortably in the mid-70s, even with the front slider open and only the screen door closed.

*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!

Time for Summer Plans

April 1st – I promise, no April Fool’s lines in this post. This is the time of year when many people pack up for the season and leave Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, especially the Canadian visitors. I’d be willing to bet that we have only 50% occupancy two weeks from now.

Donna and I have been discussing plans for our summer season. I think we’ll need to scale back from our original thoughts. With the current price of fuel, we’ll be burning over $5 every eight miles! The current administration wants to blame the high cost of fuel on the Russians, but it doesn’t take much memory to go back two months, well before Russia invaded Ukraine, when fuel prices had already increased by 48% over a year ago.

I don’t see any real relief anytime soon and with it, inflation will continue unabated. I don’t see any cohesive plan from the White House to provide a real solution. So, I’m going to be conservative in my spending for the foreseeable future.

We’ve booked a month in Cortez, Colorado. This has been a favorite area to visit over the last few years. We also have a month booked in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’ve pretty much scrapped our original plan to head back to the Pacific Northwest. We’ll hang in the Northern Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico regions this year when we escape the heat of central Arizona next month.

A couple of days ago, I went into my geek mode and ran some tests of our stereo sound system. I found some surprising results with an oscilloscope on the output of the Elekit integrated stereo amp. First of all, looking at power output, I found that only one watt of power could bring the sound to a reasonable listening level in our Arizona room. The room is approximately 24 feet by 16 feet with a peaked ceiling and is acoustically challenging.

Nevertheless, running the power up to five watts will drive you out of the room as it is loud! My speakers have an efficiency (sensitivity) rating of 93db. The low power requirement really took me by surprise. I wish I still had my decibel meter to make meaurements of sound pressure levels, but it’s long gone.

The other thing I looked at with the oscilloscope was the waveforms creating the sound. It always amazed me how a speaker can reproduce several sounds simultaneously. I can easily separate and hear the difference between drums, bass, other instruments and vocals all at once. How can this be?

Oscilloscope trace of speaker output from stereo amplifier

When you look at the waveform trace in the photo above, you mostly see the composite signal. The scope is set for 5 milliseconds per division, so beginning to end we are looking at 0.6 seconds of material. What’s hard to see without enlarging further is the jagged appearance of the trace. This jagged appearance is due to other frequencies of lower amplitude that are overlaid on the larger amplitude overall signal. In other words, the signal trace we’re seeing is made up of thousands of smaller peaks and troughs that make each individual sound. I don’t think I’m putting this phenomenon into words very well, but it’s a topic that fascinates me.

The past week was a little less busy than the week before. My last pickleball clinic of the season was cancelled on Tuesday when we had high wind and thundershowers. I managed to play on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and hope to get a few games in this afternoon. Donna played tennis and had an epiphany last week. Her friend, Lorraine, lent her a racquet to try. Donna was amazed at how much easier it was to handle and how much her accuracy improved.

The first thing she noticed was the grip diameter. She has been using too large of a grip. She has small hands. Tennis racquets can be had in a variety of grip diameters that go up in 1/8-inch increments. Her racquet was 4 1/2 inches, the one she borrowed was 4-1/8 inches. We searched online and found some grip size recommendations. Using one method of measuring hand size it appeared she should be using a 4 3/8 inch grip.

I didn’t believe this was right – especially since she found the 4 1/8 to be comfortable. I ordered her a new racquet and split the difference and went with a 4 1/4 inch grip. She used it yesterday and liked it. She’s played with it again this morning and felt much more confident with it. So we made the right choice!

As I stated in the beginning of this post, it’s the end of the season for a lot of the park visitors. Our friends, Dick and Roxy, from Spokane, Washington will be leaving soon. We invited them to join us for happy hour and dinner tomorrow. Yesterday Donna stopped at Fry’s grocery and saw some Heritage duroc pork babyback ribs, but she passed on them because they were $8.99/pound.

This morning I went to Fry’s and bought a rack – playing the Fry’s VIP card game I got the ribs for $6.99/lb. I’m surprised to find duroc pork at a grocery chain like Fry’s. I would expect to find them at a specialty meat market. Duroc pigs are what’s called a Heritage breed – this is like heirloom vegetables – it’s an old breed that’s come back into favor. Duroc and Berkshire are the most popular of the Heritage pig breeds and are known for their high-quality meat. Duroc is known for juicy meats due to intramuscular fat and mild flavor. They are the second most popular Heritage breed behind Berkshire – also known for its tender, mild-flavored meat.

I’ll prep the ribs later today and smoke them for tomorrow’s dinner. Speaking of dinner, we went out to eat on Wednesday evening. We thought about Fat Willy’s but they had a 30-minute wait for a table on the patio. We went to an old favorite Thai restaurant instead – 5R Cha. We used to go there years ago when we lived here.

I went for the old standard – chicken pad thai. Donna was more adventuresome and ordered a green curry with fish. When she asked the server what kind of fish they used, she just said it was a white fish. Hmm, sounded a little shaky to me. Donna went for it anyway. She’s sorry she did. She had an upset stomach Thursday morning and it persisted all day. I suspect the “white fish” was probably swai. Swai is a fish that’s farmed in Vietnam and it’s not the healthiest fish option. It’s sold under many different names – it used to be called Asian catfish, but that name is no longer allowed in the US as it’s misleading. Anyway, I’ve heard and read many reports of people having digestive disorders after eating swai. We won’t be going back to 5R Cha.

We haven’t had any complaints about Donna’s cooking. Last Sunday, Donna prepared chile-glazed pork tenderloin with a sweet potato-spinach hash.

Pork tenderloin with sweet potato-spinach hash

Monday I made my almost famous – well it’s famous among immediate family members – Japanese fried rice. Donna grilled shrimp to serve with it. Japanese fried rice is always labor intensive for me. I cut the ingredients carefully, trying to keep things uniform. Donna laughs at me for using four different knives during prep. I use the Japanese method of selecting the proper knife for each task – traditional Japanese kitchen cutlery is very specialized.

Ingredients in the wok before rice is added – and yes, that’s fried spam in the other pan to be added to the fried rice

Monday’s dinner plate – Japanese fried rice and grilled shrimp

As I mentioned earlier, Tuesday was a rainy day. Donna kept it simple and made a beef ragu served over angel hair (capellini) pasta for me and spaghetti squash for her.

Last night, we ended the month of March with blackened tilapia. We are always careful when buying tilapia – some parts of the world are known for shady fish farming practices while others have better regulation and use acceptable modern methods. This tilapia was purchased at Costco and came from Costa Rica.

Blackened tilapia with green rice and baby squash

Last Sunday was warm and the high reached 93 degrees. The stormy Tuesday was only 66 degrees. We reached 81 yesterday and will probably hit 83 degrees today. The forecast looks good for the week ahead – maybe on the warm side by the end of next week. Long range, April looks to be comfortable temperature wise.

Party Time

I’ve been adding to our music collection by purchasing a variety of recordings on compact disc (CD). I like the CD format – they’re fairly rugged, easy to store and with a good, modern digital to analog converter (DAC), they sound great.

I’m really enjoying the sound of the Elekit TU-8200R single-ended vacuum tube stereo integrated amp I built from a kit. In fact, I like my entire set-up right now. When I posted about the Klipsch speakers I’m using, my friend Peter Swingle commented that he couldn’t get used to the sound of the Klipsch speakers – he much preferred soft-dome tweeters in his speakers.

I thought about this a bit and wondered if he ever listened to Klipsch speakers driven by a vacuum tube amplifier or was his experience with solid state? About 20 years ago, I put together an expensive sound system based on Pioneer Elite series components (solid state) and used expensive Infinity floor standing speakers with soft dome tweeters. I remember being somewhat annoyed by the amount of sibilance that was apparent in some recordings with that set-up.

I recalled how the sibilance was pronounced when I played back Talk of the Town by the Pretenders. As Chrissy Hynde sang, when the lyrics had certain words like “such” and “shots” the “ess” sound came out almost like a hiss. I broke out my Pretenders CD and gave it a listen on my current system. No sibilance, just nicely balanced sound. I know, it’s not a scientific comparison, just my memory of the sound of two different systems in completely different surroundings.

Since I started this music buying spree, every time I open YouTube, I see performances by different artists. This has influenced my choices in new music. One of the YT suggestions was for an American jazz singer named Melody Gardot. She has an excellent voice that’s very pleasant to listen to. When I read her back story, I had to order her CD.

In 2003, when Melody was 19 years old, she was hit by a SUV while bicycling in Philadelphia. She sustained head, spinal and pelvic injuries that were serious enough for her to be hospitalized for a year. One of her physicians thought music would help her recover from the brain injury. After a period of time, she could hum along with different songs. Slowly she began singing along. Finally she could really sing and started writing songs. It’s quite a story and she advocates for music therapy.

Our calendars had some social events this past week. On Sunday, we had the annual Viewpoint Pickleball Club general membership meeting and dinner. It’s always fun to get together with the people we usually see only at the pickleball courts. It’s kind of funny – a few times I’ve run into fellow pickleballers at the grocery store or somewhere offsite and hardly recognize them in street clothes.

On Monday, we had a block party for Viewpoint residents of the 2500 row. It was a potluck and BYOB at the southpoint recreation area. Viewpoint has three recreation areas – the main pool area which has two swimming pools, hot tubs and shuffleboard. The northpoint recreation area has a swimming pool, hot tub, gym and a clubhouse with an upper patio deck. It’s adjacent to the softball field which has bleachers and a kitchen area. The southpoint recreation area has a swimming pool, hot tub, gym and a large patio area with gas barbeque grills. It’s directly across from Fat Willy’s bar and restaurant and the golf pro shop. It was a fun little party and a chance to meet some of our neighbors.

On Wednesday Donna went to northpoint for an end-of-season party for her tennis team. Donna was one of the organizers – she’s really involved with the tennis club. She’s also a Residents of Viewpoint Association (ROVA) street captain. ROVA advocates for the residents here and raises issues with the Viewpoint management and parent corporation – they generally keep the management on their toes and make sure any maintenance or safety concerns are voiced and documented.

We recieved another party invitation on Wednesday. Our neighbor and fellow pickleball enthusiasts from Washington, Kay and Jay, are having an early happy hour with appetizers and BYOB at their place on Tuesday. However, today we found a notice left at our door saying they had to cancel the party as they both tested positive for Covid-19. I hope they’re okay and recover quickly.

With all of the parties and eating out, I only have a couple of dinner plates for this post. Both plates happen to be chicken dishes. On Saturday, Donna made turmeric chicken and she reserved some of the turmeric sauce to put over some leftover champ potatoes.

Yesterday I broke down a whole chicken and Donna used the breasts to make chicken Lombardy. This is a favorite dish for sure.

Yesterday I trimmed and cut a London broil for jerky. I marinated it overnight in a soy-based pepper marinade. It’s on the Traeger now – it usually takes about four to five hours of smoker time. I started with two pounds of beef cut into strips. After smoking and dehydrating, I should end up with more than a pound of jerky. The London broil was on sale and I got it for $7. The soy sauce, worcestershire, brown sugar and spices don’t amount to much cost. All in all, it’s way better than paying eight to 10 dollars for a 1/4 pound of jerky at the market.

The weather held pretty much to the forecast with the exceptions of a few raindrops Sunday afternoon. We’ve been seeing low to mid 80s since then and will be over 90 degrees today and tomorrow. The forecast for the week ahead shows mostly the same with one anomaly on Tuesday – they say it’ll only get up to 64 degrees on Tuesday and we’ll have rain.

Two Concerts and a Parade

Another busy and fun-filled week has flown by. Saturday morning Donna had her final rehearsal with the Viewpoint Concert Band. When she came home, Mike and Jodi Hall picked us up and we headed out to Apache Junction for the Superstition Blues and Brews festival. The festival was in a park at the junction where Apache Trail heads northeast toward Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flat.

We found parking in a dirt lot across from the park and checked in at will-call – we’d purchased our tickets in advance. They had a large crowd – more than expected. It was a beautiful day -clear blue skies and the temperature reached the upper 70s. We unexpectedly ran into our friends, Kelly and Frank Burk there. We sat on the grass in camp chairs we brought and enjoyed an afternoon of music and craft beers in the sun.

Superstition Mountains viewed from our spot in the park

It was a good time. After the concerts – there were a number of good bands performing, we went to Frank and Kelly’s place. They ordered take-out Chinese from J&M and we had an impromptu dinner.

Last Sunday, we drove out to Buckeye to visit my daughter, Jamie, and brought her a couple of goodies. She’s in a back brace and her mobility is somewhat limited. One of the items we brought her was a “reacher” – a mechanical picker-type device so she could pick things up from the floor without bending over or reach things above her on a shelf or cabinet. We picked up take-out from Jersey Mike’s and had lunch together with her and Francisco and I was glad to find her in good spirits.

Sunday was Donna’s concert day – it was actually in the evening. The concert band performed from 7pm to a little past 8pm and put on a good show. The seating arrangement of the band changed and now Donna was in the front row alongside the other two clarinets and I could hear her better. I was put in charge of a crew that collected donations for the band near the end of the show. The donations go into the music fund for the band – with a large concert band, sheet music for all of the instruments adds up. They typically pay over $800 for their music folio.

The rest of the week was mostly typical – pickleball, tennis and great weather. Of course, yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone pretends to be Irish. I played pickleball in the morning. When I left the courts, vehicles – mostly decorated golf carts – we’re queuing up for the park’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were a couple of old green hot rod cars in the parade. I thought, “Midget-San is green, why not?”

I came home and wiped the dust off of the car and fired it up to join the parade.

There were about 100 vehicles in the parade. The route took us around the park and people were lined up everywhere to watch and collect candy thrown from some of the carts.

It was fun and something different to do. Donna was out getting groceries, but said she wants to be in the parade next year to throw out candy.

Last week, Donna picked up a cat perch from a woman in the park. She’d bought it for her cat, but her cat never used it. Donna set it up in the Arizona room and Ozark has put it to good use. She likes to get on the top platform and nap or go inside a little cubby a couple of feet off of the floor.

After months of living in our home, I wonder how Ozark will react to life in the motorhome this summer.

As usual, we had some interesting dinner plates last week. On Thursday, Donna grilled a pork tenderloin with bourbon brown sugar sauce. She served it with brown rice and broccoli.

On Sunday, she cooked chicken thighs in the slow cooker with bacon, fennel and onions in white wine and chicken broth with a little tomato paste. She shredded the meat and served it over mashed potatoes with fennel fronds.

Of course, yesterday was the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal. She had corned beef with carrots and onions in the slow cooker all day and added cabbage in the afternoon. She made sides of champ – mashed potato with sliced green onions steeped in hot butter and heavy cream – and freshly baked Irish soda bread. We had our St. Patrick’s Day meal out on the back deck before sunset.

The weather has been fantastic – most days have been in the low 80s except for Tuesday when we hit 87 degrees. We should be in the low 80s today and tomorrow before the temperature dips to the low 70s on Sunday and Monday – then we’ll be back in the 80s. I need to sign off now and go buy an oil filter for the Nissan truck – it’s oil change time.

Good Times, Bad Times

Most of the citrus trees here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort have been picked clean. There are a few grapefruit trees that still have fruit, but that’s about it. The orange trees are beginning to blossom. That means my pollen alergies are kicking in. It’s become a real nuisance as my eyes are constantly watering – it was bad enough by the beginning of this week for me to start a regiment of benadryl tablets.

The weather was a little on the wild side by Friday of last week. We had some rain and gusty winds. Speaking of wind, we had an interesting thing happen the week before when we had stormy weather. A few days after the stormy weather passed, Donna noticed one of our back patio umbrella shades was missing. We looked around and it was nowhere to be found.

Donna inquired at the pro-shop to see if it might have blown onto the golf course. They didn’t know anything about it. She also posted on the Viewpoint Facebook page to see if anyone might have found it and picked it up. I was convinced that someone took it – we have three umbrella shades out back, maybe they thought we had one too many.

Donna was talking to our next door neighbor, Lois, one afternoon and mentioned the missing umbrella. Lois asked if she meant the one that was on our roof! From her back patio, she could see it on our roof. Apparently a wind gust pick it up and deposited it on top of our house. Mystery solved.

Last week, when I met up with Leendert at Red, White and Brew, he lent me a book called The Psychology of Money. It’s a collection of short stories broken down into 20 chapters that outline the author’s philosophy of financial management. It’s a worthwhile read.

I want to mention a few other books. In these trying times with rampant inflation, divisive politics and Russia invading Ukraine, it’s easy to believe we live in the worst of times. These books might bring you to understand how far we’ve really come.

Abundance – The Future is Better Than You Think

Enlightenment Now

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

I don’t want minimize the extent of destrution and human suffering taking place in Ukraine – in fact, I’ve read first-hand accounts of horror faced by the guy and his family that I bought vacuum tubes from in Melitopol, Ukraine. On the other hand, it’s nice to see the good that’s taken place in the world as well.

Closer to home, I had some bad news on Tuesday. My middle daughter, Jamie, was in a car accident near her home in Buckeye, west of Phoenix. She has a couple of spinal compression fractures and an ankle sprain along with general soreness from taking a beating in the accident. Hopefully she’ll be discharged from the hospital today, but she faces a recovery in a back brace for the next 12 weeks or so.

Last Friday as the stormy weather approached, we had some clouds and it made for a spectacular sunrise over the Superstition Mountains.

Donna came up with some nice recipes for dinners. First up. we have shrimp in purgatory – a tomato/garlic marinara with capers over spaghetti.

That was Saturday’s dinner plate. On Sunday, we had another garlicky dinner – she pan seared, then baked chicken thighs with a garlic butter sauce. I had it with rice and asparagus.

On Monday, Donna bought a hunk of fresh ahi tuna. She made a topping with sliced jalapeno peppers, cilantro, lime juice and soy sauce. She grilled bok choy while I seared the ahi.

Seared ahi tuna seasoned with salt and pepper

Seared ahi plate with bok choy and brown rice

Wednesday she tried a new recipe for a whole chicken roasted in the oven with a curry sauce. She served it with rainbow cauliflower – this is naturally colored cauliflower – and asparagus.

Roasted chicken with rainbow cauliflower

As always, I’m eating well even though Donna’s following her Bright Line Eating plan.

We have a busy weekend coming up. Saturday morning Donna has her final rehearsal for the Viewpoint Concert Band March performance on Sunday. Saturday afternoon we’ll join Mike and Jodi Hall for the Superstition Blues & Brews Festival. Live music and local crafted beers – it should be a fun time.

We should have a nice, sunny afternoon on Saturday with temperatures reaching the upper 70s. Long range it looks like we’ll have upper 70s to low 80s for the remainder of March.

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!

RC Airplane Flashback

A couple of weeks ago, Donna introduced me to her friend, Deborah and her husband Scott. Turns out Scott and I had something in common. Scott flies Radio Controlled (RC) airplanes and competes in AMA Pattern. I flew RC giant scale airplanes and competed in IMAC aerobatic competition. AMA and IMAC have similarities, but compete under a different set of rules and utilize different types of airplanes.

AMA refers to the Academy of Model Aeronautics while IMAC is the International Miniature Aerobatic Club. AMA pattern planes are purpose-built designs that have to meet size and weight limitations to compete in pattern events, which require pilots to perform a schedule of aerobatic maneuvers and are judged on the geometric perfection of the maneuvers.

IMAC planes have fewer limitations, but are generally scale representations (or close to scale) of full-size aerobatic planes that compete in the International Aerobatic Club. Where AMA pattern planes can weight no more than 11 pounds, my last IMAC plane was a 40% scale Edge 540 with a 10-foot wingspan that weighed 32 pounds.

Last Saturday, Scott was competing at an event held at the Arizona Modelers RC Flying Field in east Mesa only a few miles from our place at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I participated in an event at this field over 20 years ago! After lunch, Donna and I drove over to the airfield and watched the competition for a couple of hours.

The chairs give a sense of scale – these airplanes are large yet lightweight

Donna’s friend and tennis buddy Deborah came out to the field shortly after we arrived to watch her husband compete. Scott told me Chip Hyde was competing – I knew Chip from the RC Tournament of Champions (TOC) days. The TOC was an international competition started by Bill Bennett in 1974 while Bennett was running the Circus Circus Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. Later, Bennett bought the Sahara Hotel and Casino and continued to sponsor the invitation-only TOC until his death in 2002. He put up over $150,000 in prize money for the TOC event each year.

In the late ’90s, I participated in the TOC as a caller for Jason Shulman. The caller stands behind the RC pilot and calls out each maneuver for the pilot to keep him in sync with the schedule of maneuvers. The last time I called for Jason, we came in third behind Christophe Paysant–LeRoux from France and Chip Hyde from Las Vegas.

Enough background – I saw Chip and we chatted for a bit. He remembered me from 20 years ago – I was surprised by this. Chip was at the top of the game for a lot of years – and still represents the USA in international competition. He was the AMA USA National Champion pattern pilot 10 times. He was the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Champion four times! It was fun to reminisce, but I quit flying RC airplanes after I won the IMAC National Championship twice and haven’t flown in years.

After my last post, I received a message from my friend, Leendert Hartoog. Lendert wanted to meet up and hear more about the Elekit stereo amplifier I built. We got together on Tuesday at Red, White and Brew and I filled him in with all of the particulars. After a couple of cold ones, I told him I would send him a couple of links for more information and ordering. When I got home and looked up the website for the US retailer, I found that Tube Depot had the kit on sale until midnight. I sent the link to Leendert and told him of the sale status – he ordered a kit. I told Leendert I would build it for him if he wanted me to, but I think he’ll want to experience building it himself.

I keep the stereo mounted on top of my guitar amplifiers – the vacuum tubes get hot and I wouldn’t anyone to accidently burn themselves. The 6L6GC output tubes run at about 330 degrees +/- 10 degrees or so. The 12AU7 preamp tubes are only about 180 degrees, but that’s still hot enough to burn fingers.

Amp corner – Elekit integrated stereo amp on top

Last Thursday, Donna made a bean soup with andouille sausage and spinach for dinner. It was a great meal on cold day – the temperature only reached 56 degrees that afternoon.

She’s still following the Bright Line eating plan – it’s taken a few pounds off of me although I cheat and still drink beer. Saturday’s dinner was pan-seared chicken thighs with herb-roasted tomatoes and a side of asparagus.

Pan-seared chicken with herb-roasted tomatoes

On Sunday, she grilled shrimp with Mexican spices along with peppers and onions and served it with Mexican street corn and avocado. Delicious.

Grilled shrimp with peppers and onions and Mexican street corn

Saturday was 10 degrees warmer than Thursday’s 56 degrees. The pictures from the flying field show blues skies, but it was still on the cool side. Sunday was a little warmer and on Monday we hit the low 70s.

Yesterday we were back in the low 80s. Donna had me slice a flank steak and she made a stir fry for dinner. I had it over white rice while she had her serving over riced cauliflower to adhere to her eating plan.

On Monday, I went to the Verizon store and traded in my Samsung Galaxy 5 which I’ve had for seven years or so for a new Samsung Galaxy S22. The guy there couldn’t believe I’d had the same phone for that long. Donna upgraded to an S10 a couple of years ago. My Galaxy S5 was first released in 2014. Since then they released the S6, S7, S8, S9, S10 usually in March of each year. In 2020 they changed their nomenclature to coincide with the year, so after the S10 came the S20 then S21 and now the S22. The S22 was released in the USA last Friday, so I’m truly up to date now.

Getting the files from my old S5 to the S22 was problematic. I have over 4,000 photos stored on the SD card in the S5 and it was running so slowly that the S22 indicated it would take four hours to load the data! I was trading in the S5 to get the discounted price of the S22 but the guy let me take both phones home and complete the data transfer instead of hanging around the Veizon store all afternoon. I really appreciated that. I got it done and returned the S5 to the store first thing on Tuesday morning. Now I have to learn the new phone – finding my way around it can be a little frustrating at times!

We should reach the mid-80s today and stay warm until the weekend when we have a couple of days back in the 60s forecasted. We’ll see how that works out.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Author Archives: Mike Kuper

Roughing It

Moving Out

Meatless Mondays

Swamp Thang

Snow Birds Head North

Time for Summer Plans

Party Time

Two Concerts and a Parade

Good Times, Bad Times

RC Airplane Flashback

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