Category Archives: Health

Gucci USB

Happy New Year, first of all. I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday season and a merry Christmas. We certainly enjoyed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Donna’s Good Neighbor group shared holiday meals with many older residents of Viewpoint that were homebound or alone over the holidays.

We’re staying busy as usual and settling into our winter routines. Of course, Donna is involved with many more activities than I am – she’s always on the go. I’m running pickleball coaching sessions once a week and taking tennis lessons two days a week. Something that has become a habit is Friday afternoon/evening visits to RJs cigar lounge with Mike Hall. We catch up on events and solve world issues. Sometimes Mike’s wife, Jodi, and Donna join us. I usually puff a premium cigar with rum on the rocks.

Donna has been after me for a while to do something about hearing impairment. I have hearing loss – it’s no wonder really. A lifetime around shop machinery, playing electric guitars, racing motorcycles and shooting guns takes a toll. For some reason, I’ve resisted checking out hearing aids. Since hearing aids were approved for over-the-counter, prices have dropped dramatically.

I did some online research and found that traditional hearing centers convince patients that their services are required and they offer expert advice at no cost. In reality, they bake the cost of their enterprise – building rent, employment expense, etc. – into the price of the hearing aids. Nowadays, hearing tests can be done online with decent headphones. Test results can be analyzed and hearing aids with custom correction profiles can be ordered and shipped to your home.

I chose a company called Jabra – they’re part of the GN Hearing group. They’re headquartered in Denmark. I took the test on their site and submitted my results. I ordered a pair of their Enhance Select 100 hearing aids for $1699. I also downloaded an app for my Samsung Galaxy that connects via Bluetooth to my hearing aids – I can adjust them for different surroundings and scenarios on the fly with my phone.

I can hear so much more now. I love them and wish I would have done this earlier. If you are interested in their products, I have a link to a discount for referrals. I have an online Zoom appointment with a Jabra specialist on the 11th to go over any questions that may have come to mind after using them for a while. They can also customize the settings if I wish to modify it. The purchase price included three years of warranty and support.

When I go to the Cigar Lounge, I change the hearing aid setting to “Restaurant.” This makes nearby conversation easy to hear while muffling background noise and conversation. On the tennis or pickleball courts I switch it to “Outdoors.” This blocks wind noise and muffles loud sounds. Pretty convenient.

I’ve been putting time into astrophotography – nothing new there. It takes about five hours for a two-and-a-half-hour imaging session when you consider set-up, calibration and tear-down. In October, I imaged M31 – the Andromeda Galaxy. This galaxy has been a nemesis. I’ve had a hard time getting enough usable data to process a good picture. It seems like Murphy’s Law strikes every time I go for this target. One night I had good conditions and set everything up only to have communication failures between my gear and laptop. After two hours, I gave up. I ordered some replacement cables. Then I had to wait for another clear night with good seeing conditions. It finally came about and I captured about two and a half hours of 60-second exposures on December 14th.

A week went by before I had good astrophotography conditions again and I set up at the east tennis court parking lot here at Viewpoint. I captured another three hours. After culling out bad frames, I stacked and integrated 297 frames for four hours and 57 minutes of data. I’m fairly happy with the result and I can give Andromeda a break for a while. Maybe next year I’ll see if I can improve it as my skills increase with more experience.

M31 – the Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away from Earth. I used my new William Optics GT71 telescope with a 0.8 reducer/flattener and Player One Poseidon cooled astrophotography camera. I used an Optolong L-Pro filter to fight the light pollution and moonglow.

Next, I wanted to capture something new. After looking at the best possibilities, I settled on NGC 281 – the Pacman Nebula. I chose it because it would be high in the sky from 7pm to 10pm. Telescopes work best on objects that are near the zenith – that is, overhead. That’s because when the objects are nearly straight up, there’s less atmosphere to penetrate. If we shoot at a low angle, we have to deal with much more atmospheric disturbance.

Once again, I set up and ran through calibration only to find communication errors. Data wouldn’t transfer from my camera to my laptop. After much wrangling, I isolated the problem to the USB hub. Most modern laptops only have one or two USB-A type ports. I need a minimum of four, so I use a hub for more ports. I was kicking myself when I realized the hub was the problem. I had all this software and equipment and I link it through a $20 hub from Amazon. Not smart.

The demands of an imaging camera and a guidescope camera along with mount guiding commands and so on put a lot strain on the hub’s ability to quickly distribute and transfer data. I did some research and found that most guys are using independently powered USB hubs – they don’t pull any voltage through the laptop USB port. That way constant voltage is supplied through a separate connection and the laptop port only handles data. I found a number of complaints about cheap hubs not working when it gets colder outside. This makes sense if you consider they are designed to work in your home or office where the temperature is fairly constant and only ranges from maybe 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

I decided to bite the bullet and get a good hub. I ordered a Pegasus USB hub that is considered industrial grade. It has a certified working temperature range of -40 to +185 degrees Fahrenheit. It took a bite out of my wallet at $200 versus the Amazon $20 hub, but I’m confident this one will work. Actually, I hedged my bet – I also ordered an Amazon $40 powered USB hub for back-up purposes. There’s no worse feeling than to set all of the gear up for a night of imaging, only to fail to even get started because of equipment failure – especially something as simple as a USB connection.

Once I had the new hub – which my friend Mike Hall calls the “Gucci” hub – I had wait out the weather. I finally had a promising night on December 30th. I set up at the east tennis courts and everything calibrated fine. There was a full moon, but as it was rising in the east, I was shooting almost straight up slightly facing the northwest.

This turned out to be the first time I experienced what appeared to be clear skies, but with so much atmospheric turbulence that I struggled to get usable images. After an hour and half or so, things seems to settle down and the session improved. I knew I didn’t have enough to create a decent final image though.

The next clear night was January 2nd. This turned out to be excellent seeing conditions and I captured more than two and half hours of 75-second exposures. The moon didn’t rise until about 9pm so I had good skies most of the night, light pollution notwithstanding.

I had to throw out about half of my first night’s effort, but kept nearly all of the second night – I think I only culled three or four frames out of 125. I had three hours and 52 minutes total integration time. The Pacman Nebula is in the constellation Cassiopeia, about 9,500 light years away from earth. If you remember the video game Pacman from the early 80s, the nebula resembles the Pacman about to gobble up some stars.

NGC 281 – the Pacman Nebula

I captured this image with my AT115 EDT telescope and ZWO ASI533MC Pro cooled astrophotography camera. The light pollution and moonglow made it difficult to capture much of the oxygen gases that emit blue light, but I’m happy with the final result.

Donna got an air fryer and has been experimenting with it. It’s a story in itself, how she acquired the air fryer through a generous gift but then traded with a friend for a smaller air fryer. The original air fryer was too large for our small kitchen and storage space. Her friend Deborah had a new smaller one and was interested in a larger one, so they swapped.

One of the meals she made was air-fried tilapia. A simple meal ideal for the fryer.

Best wishes for 2024 – another trip around the sun.

Good Neighbors

I posted less than a month ago, but it feels like a long time ago. I guess that’s because we had an eventful November. Most of it good with a couple of exceptions.

Donna started a group here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort over the summer and things got into full swing in the last month or so. It’s called Viewpoint Good Neighbors. She organized a group of volunteers to help some of the elderly residents of Viewpoint. They can provide companionship, help with household chores and also provide meals for people that are mostly alone and/or homebound. She has over 40 volunteers in the group and she’s kept very busy as residents reach out to her and she finds volunteers to accommodate them.

She also has band practice with the Viewpoint Concert Band and she’s a board member of the band. As they gear up for another season, she’s been busy with meetings and planning. On top of that, she’s on the Viewpoint Tennis Club Executive Committee. Whew!

I’ve been taking tennis lessons twice a week and also getting out to practice a bit – so I’m on the courts three times a week usually. I haven’t had much time for pickleball – the lower courts are still closed for refinishing and the upper courts attract a crowd. I’ll be starting my pickleball coaching sessions soon – I think.

Of course, Thanksgiving was a busy week. Donna had several meal deliveries and various assignments for the Good Neighbors. They provided relief for many of the elderly people with no local family and she can be proud of what they accomplished. We enjoyed the dinner Donna prepared – she bought a brined turkey breast from Winco. It was actually a whole turkey minus the wings and legs – I mean a full bone-in breast and back. She stuffed it and served a traditional style meal with sliced turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy with sides of roasted brussel sprouts and butternut squash. She fixed plates for our neighbors and a 94-year old man that was alone at home.

Last week, I found a whole USDA Prime beef tenderloin – about five pounds of super-tender beef. I trimmed it and cut it into filet mignon steaks. Donna vacuum sealed and froze seven or eight steaks plus some tips from the trimming that she will turn into steak bites – yum. I grilled two filets for dinner last Wednesday and they were outstanding. Donna added sauteed mushrooms and onions along with broccoli and baked potatoes on the side.

Now, for the not-so-good stuff. First, I had some sensitivity in one of my teeth and chewing was sometimes painful. It was a lower molar on my right jaw (tooth number 30). I went to the dentist and he scheduled me for a root canal. Ugh! We got it done along with a new ceramic crown replacing the old gold onlay. But I wasn’t finished with the dentist.

Two nights later, I got up in the night to use the bathroom. I’m usually careful about standing up too quickly after I’ve been down for a while – sometimes my blood pressure drops and I can get dizzy. I had a painful episode of this a while back when we were in Cortez, Colorado. This time I must have stood up straight away and took a few steps into the bathroom. The next thing I knew Donna was helping me up as I spit blood and pieces of my teeth into the bath tub. I had a syncope episode – that is, I briefly fainted and fell into the shower tub unconscious.

I was disoriented and had four front teeth broken, rib pain and a bloody lip. I also hit my forehead and had a concussion. Donna was worried most about that and called 911. I was transported to Banner Baywood Hospital for tests. After four hours or so, they sent me home. They didn’t find any conclusive abnormalities and the dental damage was the worst of it. I went back to the dentist the next day and they had to extract what was left of one tooth and make a temporary bridge and crown. I’ll finish the dental work in February.

Meanwhile, Donna had a veneer come off one of her front teeth. She then had a temporary that kept falling off, but she has the permanent veneer in place now and is good to go. So much for the dental stories.

I finally had a chance to take out my William Optics GT71 telescope last Saturday night. The moon was rising late and the forecast called for clear skies. The “seeing” forecast wasn’t the greatest and some atmospheric disturbance was predicted.

I had a few challenges – astrophotography isn’t easy and I often remind myself of that. Figuring out my issues took some time and I started imaging later than I planned. Then I had some high, thin clouds that ended my session. I made a major blunder – I had my software set up for the Player One astro camera, but I was using my ZWO ASI533MC astro camera. By the time I realized this, it was too late to make any changes. This resulted in a noisier image than what I should have captured, but it’s okay. I need to get out again and add more data to get a really good image anyway.

I shot 130 captures of 60 seconds each. I had to cull some of them for various quality reasons and ended up with 102 minutes of integrated data of the Pleiades star cluster. Pleiades is an interesting target. It’s called various names – Pleiades, Seven Sisters, Subaru. The name Pleiades comes from ancient Greek mythology. The star cluster has nine named stars though – the seven sisters are Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maya, Taygeta, Celeano and Alcyone. The other two stars are named after their mythological parents, Atlas and Pleione.

Pleiades – the Seven Sisters

I’m pretty happy with the color in the image – the William Optics GT71 triplet has great color rendition. The bluish nebulosity seen in the photo are from the stars shining through space dust. Pleiades is the closest star cluster at a distance of about 440 light years from earth. I captured this photo from our light polluted neighborhood in Mesa, Arizona. Pleiades was the first deep-sky object I imaged, although I did that from the darker sky found at Weaver Needle Viewpoint. From there you can easily see Pleiades with the naked eye. In cities, it’s very hard to see. With more time on target, I should capture a larger field of nebulosity.

As usual, I’ll close with a couple of Donn’a dinner plates. First we have grilled salmon and bok choy over vegetable fried rice.

Next up was a real winner – Alaskan pollock gratin with green beans.

We had a little rain Thursday night and Friday morning, but the sun was out by noon. It has been colder than usual with highs around 60 in the last few days, but 80 degree temperature should return by tomorrow.

A Big Step Forward

Daniel commented about the lack of photos in my last post. He was right – to paraphrase a boss I once worked for – “Too many words, not enough graphics.” Okay, here’s a recent photo of Donna’s raised vegetable garden.

Broccoli in the foreground, tomato plant in the back

This is a shot of the worm bin in the raised garden bed. When I feed the worms, I bury the kitchen scraps along with some used coffee grounds, ground egg shells and shredded cardboard. The used coffee filter is there to mark where I last buried the feed – it will eventually break down and be consumed just like the cardboard.

In-garden worm bin

When I fluffed the soil and fed that bin yesterday, every handful of soil had dozens of juvenile worms. I have no doubt the population in this bed exceeds 1,000 worms now and it keeps growing.

I also mentioned the external worm bin I created out of fabric garden pots.

20-gallon fabric garden pot, doubled up and converted to a worm bin

I started with 600 red wigglers in this bin. It’s about five weeks behind the in-garden bin, but I saw several worms yesterday that appeared to be ready to drop cocoons. I think a population explosion is about to erupt in this bin.

Worm habitat in the external bin

Look closely and you can see a few worms lounging on the surface. Worms do not like sunlight – red wigglers usually hang around below the surface to a depth of six to eight inches. In another month or two I expect to start sifting a pound or more of worm casting garden fertilzer from this bin weekly.

I started discussing astrophotography equipment in my last post. Astronomy can be as simple as looking up at night and maybe sketching the constellations – or maybe using binoculars to look at the moon or planets. Once you get a proper telescope, there are many paths you might want to follow. Photographing the night sky can become a long, winding road with many potential potholes and expenses along the way.

Once I went down this rabbit hole, there was no turning back. The sky is the limit when it comes to equipment and costs. It doesn’t have to be super expensive, but be aware – it ain’t gonna be cheap!

The mount for your telescope is arguably the most important piece of equipment. It needs to be very solid, reliable and have the ability to track the apparent movement of the celestial objects. This is not too difficult with the moon or planets – they are large, bright objects and can be followed fairly easily with a simple altitude-azimuth type mount. You may have to make periodic manual corrections after a few minutes of tracking.

If you want to image deep sky objects (DSO) like star clusters, galaxies or nebulae, you need a more sophisticated mount. A German equatorial mount (GEM) is most often used. This type of mount needs to precisely aligned with the celestial pole – north pole in the northern hemisphere. This type of mount tracks in two directions, one called Right Ascension (RA) and the other is Declination. This allows the mount to compensate for the rotation of the earth as it tracks the apparent movement of objects in the sky. Stars appear to “rise” in the east and “set” in the west. In reality, they only appear that way due to the earth’s rotation. Additionally, their position in the sky will be different as the earth revolves around the sun, making seasonal star charts necessary.

I have a SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro GEM mount. It has two electric stepper motors to adjust RA and declination respectively. It has an onboard control unit to point at objects in the night sky and track them. This works okay – it’s more than good enough for planets and the moon – but it requires some manual correction. It comes with a hand controller to direct the mount. To use this, I fitted my telescopes with a red dot aiming device that I aligned precisely with the telescope. That way, I could easily find the desired object in the red dot non-magnifying lens, then fine tune the telescope position. It’s a big sky up there and it’s easy to get lost trying to find an object through the small field of view of a telescope.

Trying to find and track DSO targets is much more difficult. In the light pollution found in any populated area, many targets cannot be seen with the naked eye. A red dot device is useless if you can’t even see the object. Upgrades are needed.

First, I ditched the hand controller and I bypassed the onboard control unit of my mount. I now control it with a laptop, ASCOM drivers and different software. I have a program called Cartes du Ciel (French for Sky Chart) that I use to find my target. The target coordinates are then imported to a program called NINA (nightime imaging and astronomy – think of the second “N” as an acronym for “and”, like Guns’N’Roses). NINA is my main software and it directs everything else. I set up a sequence in NINA and it connects to Cartes du Ciel, then activates a program called EQMod to control the mount and another program called PHD2 that handles the tracking calculations. Once these programs are properly configured and working together, I can get the ball rolling with a few key strokes.

But, it’s not so simple. Now, instead of a red dot finder, I have a guide scope mounted on the telescope. The guide scope is a mini-telescope, the one I use is an Altair 60mm ‘scope with a focal length of 225mm. I have a ZWO brand ASI120MM mini-camera on it. This ‘scope doesn’t need to be precisely aligned with the main telescope as long as it is rigidly mounted and moves with the main telescope tube with minimal flexure.

The mini-camera is connected to my laptop and PHD2 uses this camera to identifiy stars. I run through a calibration sequence that allows PHD2 to “learn” how to keep a target centered in the frame. This can take up to 30 minutes to complete. Once that calibration is done, I start NINA and it points the telescope to the target I imported from Cartes du Ciel. Once on target, PHD2 identifies up to nine nearby stars and “learns” where in the sky we are pointing. It tracks those stars to keep them in position in the guidescope, thus the main ‘scope stays in proper position to track the target. Through EQMod, it will send tiny pulses of electricity to the mount stepper motors to keep the ‘scope on target. It’s pretty amazing.

Once this is accomplished, NINA starts the imaging process. Deep Sky Objects are very far away and usually faint – if you can see them with the naked eye or even binoculars, they look like cloudy smudges in space. To resolve them into a usable imge, it takes a lot of time to collect enough light photons emitted by the object onto the camera sensor. We need long exposures usually taking anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes or more. This is why precise guiding is necessary. If we don’t remain aligned with the target, the apparent movement of stars across the sky from the earth’s rotation will make the stars turn from pinpoints into streaks across the image.

The next issue that arises with long exposure time is heat generated by the electronic sensor. As it heats up, anomolies start appearing – some hot pixels will develop and white spots can appear in what should be a dark area or color shifts will randomly appear. To avoid this, DSO cameras use thermo-electric cooling (TEC). This is usually done with a Peltier cooling device – it doesn’t use any gases or fluids, it totally electronic. My ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera has this type of cooling and I run it at 10 degrees fahrenheit. NINA monitors the sensor temperature and controls the TEC to maintain that temperature.

Planetary or lunar imaging is so simple by comparison, but it has its challenges as well. It took me about three months of continuous improvement before I had an image of Jupiter that I was satisfied with – it’s my header image for this blog now. I expect DSO to take at least a year before I can start recording useful images.

Friday night was the first time I got everything working as it should – all of the software calibrated and communicated together and the ‘scope found a target I couldn’t even see. I programmed a sequence of 50 exposures at 90 seconds each. In between each exposure, the software did something called dithering. This is where PHD2 moves the telescope a miniscule distance – the image shifts on the camera sensor by a few microns. This small movement allows correction of any hot pixels in the process, as they don’t continuously appear in the exact same spot of every frame. PHD2 then waits several seconds to make sure there’s no residual vibration in the ‘scope from the tiny movement, then it takes the next exposure. Some guys will run their ‘scope all night long to get the maximum amount of exposures to process into an image.

Processing the data acquired through the digital camera sensor requires another suite of software and it’s a whole ‘nother learning experience. I won’t get into that now, as I’m just beginning to learn.

Unfortunately, on Friday night, I wanted to check the status of my Bluetti power supply after a couple of hours. It provides portable power – 120-volt AC for my laptop. 12-volt DC for the ASI533MC cooled camera and several 5-volt DC USB ports. I pressed the wrong button and it cut off power, shutting my camera and USB connections off and killing my session after 23 of the planned 50 frames were shot. I was happy that I had everything working right up that point, but the lack of frames and exposure time meant the resulting image was poor. It lacked color and detail, but I felt like I made a big step forward and it will only get better from this point.

A weak image of the Andromeda Galaxy – 2.5 million light years from earth
Equipment used on Friday

If the forecast holds true, I think I’ll head out on Thursday or Friday to the Weaver’s Needle Viewpoint and try another shot at DSO from a darker area. I think I’ll use my AT 115EDT instead of the WO Z73 telescope. I have quick release mounts on both telescopes so I can switch the guide ‘scope and camera between them instead duplicating equipment.

I’m making progress on another front. It’s been three weeks since my gall bladder surgery and I’ve regained a lot of strength and stamina. The surgeon, Dr. Garner, warned me against doing anything strenuous or heavy lifting for four weeks. He said “Don’t do anything that makes you constrict your core or grunt.” I’m taking heed of that warning. Donna is helping me keep my strength up with her usual delicious, nutricious culinary skills.

Here is a rice bowl with salmon, cabbage, nori, cucumber and avocado drizzled with a sesame marinade as presented.

Sesame salmon bowl

And here it is with everything tossed.

Fresh collard greens from the garden.

Collard greens saute in olive oil with garlic, chicken broth and apple cider vinegar. Served with grilled shrimp with chile and garlic and cheesy grits.

Grilled shrimp, cheesy grits and collard green saute

We’re looking forward to a visit from Alana and Kevin – they’re coming down from Washington next weekend. In March, my daughter Shauna, her husband Gabe and my granddaughter Petra will visit from Bermuda.

Hopefully, next time I’ll have a better DSO image to share.

Edit: After playing around with Astro Pixel Processor I was able to slightly improve the Andromeda image.

Three Trips Over the Holiday

We’ve had a few activities outside of the daily norm here over the past two months – some good, others not so much. In chronological order, we get to start with the fun stuff.

Donna and I booked a flight out of Mesa Gateway Airport to Spokane, Washington on December 9th. We flew on Allegiant Air – they have a direct flight to and from Spokane out of Mesa, but you’re limited to only a couple of flights scheduled per week. Our best choice was to depart on Friday, December 9th and return on Monday, December 12th. Our reason for heading up to the snowy north country was the graduation of our granddaughter Lainey from Washington State University College of Nursing.

Like her mother, my oldest daughter Alana, Lainey earned her RN-BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) Degree.

Lainey

We picked up the rental car around 3:30pm and it seemed like we should have plenty of time to reach the Cowles Auditorium at Whitworth University for the convocation and pinning of nurses. But wait, this is the snowy north. The roads were treacherous, covered with snow and ice. A light snow was falling and it was dark. I chose an alternate route to avoid the inevitable rush hour traffic on the usual routes into north Spokane.

We had little traffic, but most of what we encountered was understandably moving along slowly. Occasionally, a testosterone-filled driver of a lifted four-wheel drive truck would blast past – disregarding the fact that he couldn’t stop that three-ton mass much quicker than anyone else. We made a shortcut crossing over a residential street from one main thoroughfare to another. Unfortunately, a clueless driver stopped in the middle of this narrow street at the top of a small rise. The car behind it made it worse when he went around her left side, slewed diagonally, stopping to block the rest of the roadway. Luckily, they were able to get the first car to the side of the road after several minutes. I wasn’t about to back down the short hill into a busy street to reroute.

We made it to the commencement and pinning just in time. From there, we drove to the east valley where Alana and her husband, Kevin had rented a large AirBnB home for the weekend. There were enough rooms for everyone, including Kevin’s son Kyle, his mother Donetta, Alana’s mother LuAnn and her husband Jerry and Lainey’s sister Gabi.

The actual WSU Commencement was scheduled for Saturday in Pullman, Washington. We woke to winter storm warnings and possible treacherous driving conditions on the way to Pullman. Lainey gave everyone a free pass and said she’d understand if anyone wanted to forego what was sure to be a two-hour-plus drive in bad conditions for a two-hour ceremony. Donna and I took the pass.

On Saturday night, we went out for a celebratory dinner at Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar. Our party numbered a baker’s dozen – I think we had a table of 13. The dinner was fun and the food was great. Back at the BnB, it was party time. I didn’t take any photos – don’t ask me why. I guess I’m out of the habit of making a record of our activities.

On Sunday morning, everyone packed up to head home. We checked in early at the Hampton Inn on the west side, near the airport. We couldn’t fly home until Monday due to the Allegiant Air schedule. It was worth the extra day to be able to fly out from and into Mesa Gateway. It was hassle-free and only a 15-minute drive from our place AND half the price of flying out of Phoenix Sky Harbor.

The next event was less pleasant. Donna’s parents live in Bennington, Vermont and are in their twilight years. Her mom had medical issues arise that resulted in brief hospital stay. When she came home, they needed assistance. Donna’s sister Sheila flew out for several days, then realized they weren’t ready to cope on their own. So Donna flew to Vermont on December 19th to take over with the intention of returning on Christmas Day.

Her parents’ needs exceeded her expectations and although Donna devoted 24/7 attention, her mom wasn’t improving. She made the decision to extend her stay until New Year’s Day. It was a good thing, because then her dad took a turn for the worse. They are both getting help every day now while Donna and her sisters try to arrange for them to move to assisted living. While Donna was working herself to exhaustion, I had nothing but time on my hands over the holidays.

On Thursday, December 22nd, I packed up my two refractor telescopes, mount and gear and headed up to the Weaver’s Needle Viewpoint and rest area to try my hand at deep-sky astrophotography from a darker, less light-polluted area. I failed miserably. Deep-sky astrophotography is a whole ‘nother world from planetary or lunar imaging. It requires different gear, software and techniques. For the next couple of weeks, the weather deteriorated so I spent the time studying the subject.

During the day, I would read articles and watch YouTube tutorials to try to figure out this hobby. Eventually, I had my ideas on what I needed as far as software and some hardware. I would study by day and in the evening I’d shop online, cocktail in hand. Most of the software I intended to use is available as freeware. However, you can’t do much in the way of hands-on learning with it unless you have the necessary hardware. I started spending money. I won’t go into the hardware details here – that’ll be another subject for another post.

I did buy a dedicated deep-sky astrophotography camera. I also needed a guide scope to accurately stay on target during long-frame exposures. This miniature telescope needs its own camera to track stars. It goes on and on. I took my time deciding on gear. I wanted to buy once, cry once, instead of just buying based on price only to have to upgrade later.

For a guide scope, I settled on the Altair 60mm guide scope with a focal length of 225mm. Again, I’ll go into more detail on this decision in another post. It was only available in England. I placed the order and was happy to see DHL delivered it within a week.

Altair 600mm guide scope with anodized aluminum mounting rings – Mont Blanc pen for scale

The guide scope will ride piggy-back on whichever primary scope I’m using at the time.

Donna returned on New Year’s Day after an uneventful travel day. I’m not sure if she was surprised to find I had added a bunch of new gear. She needed a few days of rest – she had been a 24/7 live-in caretaker for two weeks straight!

The last event I want to relate is somewhat bizarre and very unpleasant. On Sunday, January 8th, I woke up and thought it’s just another day. I had breakfast and coffee as usual and settled in front of the widescreen TV in the Arizona room for the last weekend of the NFL season.

Around 10:30am, I had a bloating sensation in my belly. It wasn’t very comfortable. By noon, my stomach was somewhat distended and I had no appetite. The bloating started to hurt a little. Later, my back ached as well as my lower ribcage and right shoulder. By dinner time, I knew something wasn’t right – it seemed like more than just indigestion.

When I went to bed at 9:30pm, I couldn’t get comfortable. If I lay flat on my back, the pain along my upper abdomen-lower rib cage was unbearable. Donna asked if I thought I needed to go to the ER and I said yes. I don’t take a trip to the ER lightly. My daughter Alana is an ER nurse and I’ve heard so many stories of people abusing the idea of medical emergency.

We went to Banner Baywood hospital which is only a few miles away from here. As I waited to check in, I couldn’t help overhearing the guy ahead of me. He was complaining of a persistent cough. When asked about when this condition started, he said, “About a month ago.” There you go – he’s been coughing for a month and instead of making an appointment to check it out during that time, he decides now it’s an emergency situation. I don’t know anything about his condition or final disposition, but it didn’t seem like a reasonable course of action to me.

After waiting for about 90 minutes – my pain level continuing to increase by the minute – I was called back for an EKG. I told them there was no way I could lie flat on my back without pain management. They made do with me propped up and suffering extreme pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen. Then I was sent back to wait some more.

Eventually I was called back to an exam room. A young female PA conducted the exam. She was very competent and quickly zeroed in on a possible gall bladder issue. She ordered an ultrasound and also chest x-ray to rule out other possibilities. Once they had the ultrasound results, things started moving. I was given pain injections while a treatment plan was developed. It’s a bit blurry in my mind, but the way I remember it, they gave me 50mcg of fentanyl before I had the ultrasound. This did nothing to dull the pain. I later read that 50mcg is a minimal dose for someone my size.

Later they switched to dilaudid, then morphine injections. They moved me to 6th floor and scheduled surgery. I met the surgeon, Dr. Garner around 8:30am. He was pushing to get me into the OR ASAP. I was in pre-op a little past 9am and in surgery by 10am. In pre-op, I told the anesthesiologist that transferring me to a supine position on the operating table would be more painful than I could bear. He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll see to it so you won’t feel a thing.” He was right. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in recovery.

Dr. Garner was concerned that an open-type surgery would be required to sucessfully remove my gall bladder, but he told me he would do his best laproscopically first. He managed to succeed. He found what he suspected. The ultrasound revealed a thickening of the perimeter walls of the gall bladder. This indicates infection and possible gangrene. He said the gall bladder had many gall stones and the walls were dangerously gangrenous. He told me that certain infections can create necrosis and gangrene within 24 to 48 hours! I hadn’t had any previous symptoms that I recognized.

In hindsight, I may have had referred pain in my right shoulder and back during pickleball over the past couple of weeks, but who would associate that with gall stones and gall bladder infection? Dr. Garner told me that life-threatening sepsis was a real possibility if the surgery hadn’t taken place in time. I didn’t have any time to spare!

I spent the next two nights at Banner Baywood Hospital. I give the nursing staff a huge thank you! They were awesome – competent and attentive to my needs. Dr. Garner was great as well. The other doctors I have to say weren’t so impressive. They assign what they call a “hospitalist” to each patient. However, my hospitalist was a different doctor each day that spent about 30 seconds looking at my chart, listening to my lungs (which the nurses did several times a day) and then moving on to the next patient. In the old days, we would have what was called an attending physician that was more in-tune with the patients on his rounds. It seemed to me the hospitalist was more concerned in keeping the hospital out of trouble than really taking care of the patient.

I’ve been resting and taking scheduled antibiotics and pain mangement since I returned home on Wednesday, January 11th. They gave me a presciption for oxycodone, but I’ve avoided using it. I haven’t had good experiences with that drug. I’m managing pain with a cocktail of tylenol (500mg) and ibuprofen (2 x 200 mg tablets) every six hours. The tylenol knocks back the pain and combining it with ibuprofen fights inflammation and further relieves pain. I learned this at the hospital and it’s surprisingly effective.

I took the last of the antibiotic today and am gald to put that behind me. I’m still battling bouts of fatigue as I recover and type this – I’m feeling rather dull-witted at the moment. Tomorrow I have a follow-up with Dr. Garner and he’ll remove the drain tube from my abdomen which I’ve had since the surgery. From there, with any luck, I’ll be back up to speed in a couple of weeks.

It’s raining here today and probably will continue through the night. It should clear up by tomorrow afternoon. It has been an unusually wet winter to date – we’re more than a tenth of an inch above normal for the entire month and we’re only halfway through it. It doesn’t look like we’ll see 70 degrees for the remainder of the month, but I can’t complain about high 60s in January.

Disaster Averted

We had a near disaster with this site. For the past month or so, I’ve been receiving notifications several times per day telling me that the site is unresponsive or offline followed by another notification saying the site is back up and running. A couple of weeks ago, I tried to log into the site and kept getting a database error. Donna looked into the site back-ups in WordPress and Jetpack, but the site no longer existed!

Donna did some research and found several other people complaining of the same issues with their sites on our host provider which is Bluehost. She contacted Bluehost every day for three days and got the same response every time – she was told they had server issues and no time frame for resolution of the problem! I thought all was lost.

This morning, Donna found the site back up and running – no explanation for it, but we’re thankful we didn’t lose nine years of archived posts. Actually, I’ve been struggling a bit with thoughts for posts. We aren’t on the road, so I can’t write about new adventures across the country. We’ve settled into life at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. It seems so ordinary.

Take our basic transportation for example. When we first became full-time Rvers, we had a Kymco scooter for our daily driver. We used it to go shopping and sightseeing. Later we upgraded to a Can-Am Spyder three-wheeled vehicle. It was a fun and sporty ride, but it also had limitations. We followed that with a 1972 MG Midget. Now we had four wheels under us and far fewer limitations. We needed to trailer the Midget behind our motorhome to have a vehicle as we moved about.

Later, we sold the trailer and bought a Nissan Frontier pickup truck which we towed behind the coach. This gave us a reasonably comfortable ride with no concerns over weather conditions – and it was easy to hook up.

Now that we no longer have a need to tow a vehicle, I replaced the truck with a SUV – a Jeep Compass. This feels like a luxury car to us after eight years of compromise with vehicles that would fit our nomadic needs. I like the amenities the Compass offers and I like the styling as well.

My friend, Peter Swingle, posted a picture of a poster that really made me think twice about modern styling. Compact SUVs are ubiquitous and they all look so similar, it seems that automotive styling is dead. Looking at the poster, I had to wonder if the form has followed function to a logical conclusion and there’s no place for innovation, or are we just stuck in a copy cat world. Bicycles come to mind – the bicycle frame settled into a basic format that’s been relatively unchanged for a hundred years – the odd recumbent type here and there notwithstanding.

Not much innovation here – photo from Peter Swingle’s Facebook post

So, we’ve become quite ordinary. We no longer live an extraordinary life on the road with less-than-mainstream transportation. We are right in there among the average American – although we still have the Midget. That leaves me struggling for topics to post about.

That’s not to say we’ve retired to the rocking chair on the patio. We are still very active. Donna plays tennis on a regular basis, she joined the women’s golf league, she plays clarinet in the Viewpoint Concert Band and she volunteers with the Residents of Viewpoint Association. In her spare time, she helps elderly residents and also does some pet-sitting.

I have fewer activities, but stay occupied. I play pickleball several times per week and coach a pickleball clinic every Thursday. My main interest lately has been astronomy and I’ve been on a steep learning curve. It’s hard to start this hobby – there are so many considerations with regard to equipment and deciding what you really want to see. I did some research, but was still woefully unprepared. Many experienced astronomers recommend joining a club and finding a mentor.

I joined the East Valley Astronomy Club, but I’m not all that gregarious and I’m not the type to get too involved with club activities. When I started out, I thought I knew what I wanted. I went for a reflector-type of telescope – a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT) to be precise. A SCT passes light through a glass lens at the front called a corrector. The light travels to a primary mirror at the other end of the ‘scope where it’s reflected and aimed at another mirror in the center of the corrector plate back at the front of the ‘scope. This secondary mirror reflects the light again and precisely aims it through a hole in the center of the primary mirror at the back of the ‘scope where it is focused into the eyepiece.

Utilizing this mirror arrangement allows the light path to be “folded,” creating long focal lengths in a compact package. Just right for someone with limited space. While I was researching, I kept reading that aperture is king. The bigger the opening at the objective end of the ‘scope, the more light it can gather and the greater magnification and detail possible. So, I figured if bigger is better, I needed as large a SCT as I could afford. I bought a Celestion NexStar 8 SE. This has an objective diameter of eight inches – 203mm. The effective focal length is 2032mm. Magnification of up to 400x is possible.

I soon realized that my interest wasn’t just in observing the night sky, I wanted to photograph it. Astrophotography brings a new set of equipment considerations and lots of learning. It didn’t take me long to figure out that looking at the planets and stars was one thing, capturing images was something else all together. I learned about atmospheric disturbances and “seeing” conditions. Bigger might be better, but greater magnification also means atmospheric disturbances are magnified as well and most of the time, I couldn’t use the magnification available in the eight-inch SCT.

Then I learned about things like field of view and other things to consider when capturing images of the night sky. I went in the opposite direction and bought a small refractor-type telescope. Refractors are the oldest telescope design and are what most people think of when you say telescope. I found a good deal on a used William Optics Zenithstar 73. This has a 73mm (2-7/8″) objective lens and a focal length of 430mm. It’s lightweight and compact. I found it very easy to operate and perfect for lunar photography. It provides excellent views of the moon, even when it’s full. I learned to love the ease-of-use of refractor telescopes and the clear, high-contrast images this ‘scope provided. But, its short focal length restricts the magnification and getting planetary images wasn’t so great – even if I doubled the native magnification with a 2x barlow lens.

So, I had a big ‘scope – the SCT – and a little ‘scope – the Z73. Then I found my Goldilocks ‘scope. I bought an Astro-Tech AT115EDT refractor. This has a objective diameter of 115mm (4-1/2″) and a focal length of 805mm. With a 2x barlow, I can have a focal length of 1610mm and planetary imaging works well.

Astro-Tech AT115EDT

So, why have three telescopes? They are all different and excel at different things. I think I’m set now. The Z73 with it’s short focal length is great for the moon. The AT115EDT can be used at its native 805mm focal length for great moon close-ups or at 1610mm with a 2x barlow for planets. The SCT can be used at its native 2032mm focal length when conditions allow for planets and star clusters or nebulas or I can use a focal reducer to drop it down to 1280mm. These three ‘scopes cover a lot of possibilities and I think I’ll be using them for years to come. Here are a few of my astrophotography attempts.

37% Waxing Crescent moon – Taken with William Optics Z73 Refractor telescope
Southern Highlands of the Moon – Taken with Astro-Tech AT115EDT

The photo above taken with the AT115EDT shows Mare Nectaris – the smooth dark area in the upper right. Ancient astronomers thought these smooth dark areas were water – thus the name Mare (latin for sea). They are actually large basalt fields from volcanic activity millions of years ago. Near the center of the photo, left of Mare Nectaris, you can see a vertical squiggly line that veers off to the right. This is the Altai Scarp – a mountainous ridge with peaks ranging from 10,000 to 13,000 feet above the surrounding terrain!

Jupiter – taken with Astro-Tech AT115EDT with 2x Barlow Lens – One of Jupiter’s Moons can be seen on the right

I have a long way to go with astrophotography, but it keeps me up at night and out of trouble. I plan to keep learning and progressing with it.

Last month, I had three malignant squamous cell lesions removed from my face and head. The dermatologist was concerned about a number of actinic keratosis (pre-cancer) spots on my head. This is the result of years in the sun, starting very early in life. He felt that developing cancers was inevitable and we’d be playing “Whack-a-mole,” trying to keep ahead of it. He recommended photodynamic therapy (PDT). This involves a chemo treatment that sensitizes the skin to light waves. Then, a concentrated amount of light is focused on the affected area. The result is like a sunburn and for the next several days you have to stay out of the sun while the dead skin cells are sloughed off of the affected area. Once that happens, it’s like you have new, smooth skin instead of the dry, rough actinic keratosis.

I went for it once the areas where he removed the squamous cell cancer healed. It involved a technician “painting” a compound on my head, temples and ears. Then I had to wait for two hours before my head was positioned inside a special light box with blue flourescent lights. I think I was in there for 1,020 seconds – 17 minutes. After a few days of recovery, my dome is smooth again and hopefully no cancers develop.

PDT Blue Flourescent light box

Last Friday, Donna and I flew out of Mesa Gateway Airport to Spokane, Washington. We went there to attend the graduation ceremony for our granddaughter, Lainey. Lainey graduated from Washington State University School of Nursing with a RN-BSN degree. She is following her mother’s footsteps and will work in the ICU at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane. Congrats, Lainey!

While we were there over the weekend, my ex-wife’s niece, Julie, visited. I haven’t seen Julie since she was a little girl. She told me she read this blog and she inspired me to write another post. She gave me what was probably the most positive compliment ever – she said she feels a little smarter after reading this blog! With that, I’ll sign off.

Chasing Sound

I’ve been known to chase a certain sound or tone with my guitar set-up, but I wouldn’t say I’m an audiophile by any stretch of imagination. There was a time, around 20 years ago when I got into home theater that I started down the audio rabbit hole.

I was living in Arlington, Washington at the time. I spent some time at a local hifi shop nearby in Marysville and ended up buying a 5.1 Surround System featuring Onkyo components. It wasn’t long before I wanted to upgrade. I started hanging around a higher-end shop in Seattle near the University District and started spending some money on a higher-end system – things like Rotel separates and better floor standing speakers. I had some reliability issues with this temperamental set up.

After a while, I settled on Pioneer Elite series components that served as a hifi stereo rig as well as a 5.1 Surround Sound system. I bought higher end Infinity speakers. This equipment served me well for about 10 years before it started to need repairs. I finally sold everything when we hit the road in 2013 and lowered my expectations to lo-fi iPod MP3 music storage and barely adequate speakers.

Last year, when we bought the park model home at Viewpoint, Donna found a vintage stereo system for sale here in the park. It featured a Pioneer CD player, Kenwood receiver and Celestion DL4 bookshelf speakers. The stuff was all at least 30 years old and dated, but it was better than what we had in the coach and only cost about $200 for the whole set up. We’ve had it in our Arizona Room since we moved in and enjoy listening to our CD collection again.

A few weeks ago, I got the idea that I wanted to check out vacuum tube stereo amplification. Analog circuits utilizing vacuum tubes appeal to me. They have a natural warmth to the sound due to the second order harmonics they produce as opposed to higher odd-order harmonics in solid state amplification. There are pros and cons to either approach, but old school tube amps appeal to me.

I dipped a toe in the water so to speak by buying a cheap, Chinese integrated tube amp. In my last post, it might sound like I was really beating the Chinese produced stuff down – and in a sense I guess I was. But that doesn’t mean everything from China is junk. Having said that, I take a close look at any Chinese products – it’s buyer beware.

The Chinese amplifier I bought was branded Nobsound, it comes from Douk Audio. I knew these things had some issues, but they are easily dealt with and not expensive. I did the minimum needed to improve the reliability and used the amp for a while. Then I went back in and replaced all of the capacitors. What I found was that many of the capacitors were Sam Young brand – a Korean Company that also produces electronic parts in China. They are not considered good quality and have a reputation for poor reliability. They were made to look like Japanese Nichicon products. Four of the capacitors I removed had Vishay BC branding, but I’m pretty sure these are counterfeits – not genuine parts from Austria. I bought genuine Nichicon (Japan) capacitors from Digi-Key and installed them in place of the cheap Chinese stuff.

New Nichicon capacitors in the Nobsound

The clarity of the music through this amp improved. I think I’ve taken it as far as I can go with it though. It sounds good, but I wish it had better frequency response on the bass – it rolls off somewhere around 70-100 Hz. I have about $500 in this amp at this point and I’m done trying to make it better – it would require better output transformers for any real improvement at this point and that’s too expensive for what I have here. I should mention that some Chinese audio products are quite good, like some of the Shuaguang vacuum tubes and the tubes from the unpronounceable Chinese brand Psvane.

I’m finding myself venturing down the audio rabbit hole again. In an effort to improve the bass response of my system, I ordered a pair of Klipsch Reference R -51M speakers. These are a bass reflex design speaker with a rear-firing port and horn tweeter versus the Celestion sealed cabinet speakers I now use. We have background music playing most of the day now, playing a wide variety of music from classical to jazz and rock.

I have a feeling that even with an improvement with the new speakers – I expect them to arrive on Friday – I won’t be completely satisfied. I’m contemplating building an Elekit TU8200R integrated amplifier. These come from Japan and the kits are designed by Mr. Fujita of Elekit, Japan and contain high-quality components. They are well-regarded by hifi audio enthusiasts and reviewers all agree they perform well above their price point. I can get the kit for under $1,000 and I have the skillset to build it. I’ve seen used examples selling for $1,800 on Ebay. I’ll think about it for a week or so before making the plunge.

Other than that diversion, we’ve been enjoying our usual routines here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. Donna is like an Energizer bunny, always in motion for one activity or another. I’m a little more laid back but I still get my exercise on the pickleball courts and offer a 90-minute clinic every Tuesday – that’s been stretching to two hours lately as the participants don’t want to stop after an hour and a half.

Last Thursday, I went back to Dr. Kessler to address the spot of basal cell carcinoma on my back. The worst part was the injection of local anesthetic. The actual cutting and scaping with a dermatologist’s curette wasn’t felt at all. I was in and out of the office in less than half an hour. Now I just have to keep a dressing on it for about a week and it should heal.

As usual, Donna has been feeding me well – I always have to include a few dinner examples in my posts. She had a new take on chicken thighs called sheet pan roasted chicken and pears. It had a hint of spiciness from fresh ginger and a few red pepper flakes among other spices.

Sheet pan roasted chicken with pears

A couple of days later, she made a dish that was a more elegant take on the pizza chicken she makes. This had thin chicken breast filets with roasted tomatoes and mozzarella, red onion and sliced pepperoncini. She served it with spinach gnocci sauteed with fresh spinach.

Chicken with tomatoes and mozzarella

Sunday’s dinner was an old favorite – maple chipotle pork tenderloin with garlic smashed new potatoes and fresh asparagus. And it was perfectly timed and ready to eat during halftime of the NFL playoff game.

Maple chipotle pork tenderloin

We started off February with Donna manning the grill for fennel-crusted rack of lamb. She grilled it perfectly along with grilled zucchini, peppers and onions topped with feta cheese.

Rack of lamb and grilled veggies

The weather has been fabulous with daily highs in the low to mid 70s. Yesterday it clouded up in the morning and early afternoon – it almost looked like it was going to rain – but we still had a high of 68 degrees. Today and tomorrow are forecasted to be what Arizonans call “wintry weather.” The forecast high today is 60 degrees and only 58 tomorrow. We should be near 70 on Friday and back in the 70s for the weekend and week ahead. Just right for a visit from my daughter Alana and her husband, Kevin next week.

*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!

New Year Surprises

Well, we’re a week into 2022 already and I can hardly bring myself to write the year as 2022. The last two years have been a little tough on everyone with the covid restrictions. I’m hoping for a better 2022, but we’re off to a rough start.

Last weekend – New Year’s Day – had the coldest nights of the season. Saturday and Sunday nights were clear with lows in the 30s. Wouldn’t you know it, our heating unit went out on Saturday afternoon. We made do for the weekend with space heaters, but it was far from ideal.

Our central heat is integrated with the air conditioner unit. It’s not a heat pump, it has what’s called an electric heat strip. The hot air is forced through the same fan and ducting that the cooling unit uses. Donna had a referral to an HVAC guy, but it turned out he had retired. He referred us to another guy that was able to come out before noon on Monday.

He quickly found the problem. I was guessing the blower motor had fried as I smelled an electrical burnt odor much like what I would expect if the motor winding had shorted. Luckily it wasn’t that – it was a corroded connector that created excessive resistance and burned the feed wire to the blower motor. That was an easy fix, but the bad news was, it didn’t solve the problem.

When the wiring burned it also took out the double pole 50-amp breaker in the pedestal. The good news was, he had a replacement part on hand and fixed the power pedestal. More bad news was his bill – he charged a total of $450 for the repair, which I felt was excessive, but I didn’t complain, I just paid him.

He also gave us a quote for a replacement air conditioner with a heat strip – a Day and Night 3 ton unit for $5,500 installed. I told him I would have to think about it. Our current air conditioner unit is over 30 years old and it’s not a matter of if it goes out, it’s when. Looking inside the unit, I believe that will be sooner rather than later.

30+ year old air conditioner

I set appointments for two more replacement estimates. In the meantime, I did some research to help me understand my options. The first estimator came yesterday from a Phoenix outfit called Liberty Heating and Cooling. He looked everything over and recommended a 2.5 ton unit with an 8kW heat strip. This was more in line with what I thought we needed. He included a prefabricated concrete pad – our current unit has a 6kW heat strip and is mounted directly on the ground. His quote came to a total of $3,900 – much better than $5,500.

I’m a little concerned about the quality of the unit they use though. The brand they install is called Broan. These are made by Nortek, the parent company of several brand names. Most of the reviews I’ve read aren’t positive, but it’s a small sample size.

We’ll have another local company, Gleeson Mechanical, come out on Tuesday to give us a quote. They use several brands and all are top notch. I’m curious to see how the price stacks up – I expect it to be somewhat higher than the Broan unit, but it may be worth a little extra for higher quality and reliability.

I had another issue that doesn’t make for a good start to 2022. On Wednesday, I had an appointment with a dermatologist. I had a couple of skin issues I wanted to get an opinion on. I ended up getting a full body scan. I had some pre-cancerous lesions on my face which he froze. But the bigger deal was a spot on my back that appeared to be basal cell carcinoma. He took a biopsy and yesterday, the pathologist confirmed it’s cancerous. I’m not overly concerned about it. Basal cell carcinoma usually isn’t very aggressive – it’s a slow growing tumor and can usually be found and treated before it spreads.

Unlike my previous bout with cancer (I wrote about it in a series of posts here), this was detected early. The lesion is only about the size of my pinky fingernail. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to have it removed. Dr. Kessler will cut or scrape a small divot in my back and cauterize it. Hopefully that’s the end of the story. Basal cell carcinoma does have a high rate of recurrence, but it moves so slowly that it can be detected.

As always, Donna has been feeding me well. Our New Year’s Eve meal was special. We had an outstanding lobster mac and cheese on a half shell from Hancock Lobster in Maine. And that was just the starter! We also enjoyed some lightly fried squid and veggies with tzatziki. A great way to end 2021.

Lobster mac and cheese on a half shell

On New Year’s Day Donna fixed a pasta dish called Quick Ragu with Ricotta and Lemon. It was on the spicy side – she’ll adjust the recipe.

Ragu with ricotta and lemon on pasta

On Mondays during the football season, Donna knows I’ll be watching the Monday Night Football game, so she keeps it simple. Fish street tacos are a quick and easy dish and I can easily eat them while watching the game. We love fish tacos and Donna makes a great sauce for them.

Blackened baja tacos

Another tasty dish was a beef ragu over spaghetti squash.

Beef ragu over spaghetti squash with fresh grated parmesan cheese

The weather here took a turn for the better over the last few days. The week leading up to the end of 2021 was relatively cold and wet. I mentioned the cold, clear nights last weekend but by mid-week we had highs in the upper 60s and hit 72 degrees yesterday. Overnight lows were in the 40s. The forecast calls for more pleasant weather and relatively warm nights of 50+ degree lows until the middle of next week when we might see some rain showers.

*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!

Short Days, Cold Nights

Today is the winter solstice – December 21, 2021. This is when the south pole of the earth is tilted closest to the sun and the north pole is farthest away due to the inclination of the axis the earth rotates around. Thus, in the northern hemisphere we have the shortest amount of daylight today while in the southern hemisphere, it’s the summer solstice and they have the longest amount of daylight hours. For the next six months, our daylight hours will increase daily – yay!

I haven’t posted lately as things have been fairly low-key around here. We attended a Christmas celebration at Kelly and Frank Burk’s house. We had good food, drink and great company for a fun-filled afternoon. They had a white elephant gift exchange and also a game played with dollar bills and Donna won the jackpot which she has used to make Christmas donations.

About a week ago, I found something on Amazon that seemed like a good idea. I’ve been kicking around the idea of adding a looper pedal to my guitar rig. A looper pedal is a foot-operated switchbox containing a digital recorder. You step on the switch to start recording as you play and hit the switch a second time to stop recording. With this, you can record some chords for a song’s rhythm, play it back through the amplifier and add a lead to it or any fills you want to layer over it as it plays back in a continuous loop..

I found a tiny pedal that was more than just a looper – it also had drum tracks. With this I could set up a drum beat, play rhythm over the drum beat and record it all to have a backing track for lead work. And this pedal from Flamma was inexpensive on Amazon. I ordered it and had it two days later.

Flamma drum-loop pedal – quarter is there for scale, this pedal is tiny

It didn’t take me long to figure out why Amazon had these for such a low price. It was a low-quality unit – it was noisy, introducing static, hiss and hum to the signal and the drums were hard to program and set tempo on it. That’s what I get for basing a buying decision on price and a few reviews. I was able to return the pedal for a full refund just by dropping it off in the original manufacturer’s packaging at a UPS store. Amazon issued the refund within a day of me dropping it off!

I learned something else from this purchase. Although a looper is still something I want, the drum backing was something that’s really helpful when you’re playing music alone. I did some research and bought a much better drum pedal. I ordered a Beat Buddy Mini 2 from Sweetwater Music and had it two days later. This cost more than twice what the Flamma from Amazon cost and it doesn’t have a looper, but it’s a quality unit.

Beat Buddy Mini 2

This drum machine is much more versatile and easy to set up. The drums aren’t just synthesized sounds – they recorded actual professional drummers playing various patterns and rhythms. It doesn’t crackle, hum or hiss either.

Last Saturday, Donna played in a tennis tournament here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I went to watch and tried to take photographs, but it wasn’t working out too well. From the spectator area, the players on the courts were backlit by the sun and I couldn’t get to any other vantage point.

Donna in pink on the far court

Donna and her partner won their match in two straight sets. Later, Donna went to a tennis club social hour dressed in her Santa suit and beard – I forgot to take a photo. But, she had this one on her phone with one of her tennis friends in Santa’s lap.

Donna is Santa

Donna has our place decorated for Christmas, so we’re lit up at night.

Donna’s Christmas decor – angel with a flute and reindeer.

Donna is really spreading Christmas cheer by playing traditional Christmas songs on her clarinet with backing tracks on our patio between the entry and car port. The other day, a woman stopped by saying she had to find the source of the music she heard from two blocks away.

We’re remaining healthy and eating well. Here are a few dishes from the past couple of weeks. First up, Donna tried a new grilled chicken recipe for Asian-style chicken breasts with grilled bok choy.

Grilled chicken and bok choy
Grilled chicken and bok choy

A couple of days later, she tried a different take on chicken thighs, slow cooked in a crock pot with loads of garlic, carrots and white wine.

Crock pot chicken, garlic and carrots with white wine

On Friday, I put a six-and-a-half-pound pork shoulder – a cut called pork butt – on the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker/grill for about eight hours at 225 degrees. I wrapped it in foil for the last two hours, otherwise it would’ve taken about 12 hours to reach an internal temperature of 198 degrees and risk drying out at that point. Wrapped in foil, it retained moisture and reached 198 degrees relatively quickly.

Pulled pork with coleslaw and cornbread

The pork was cooked perfectly – the shoulder blade bone slid out of the meat easily and I pulled it apart with Bear Paw shredding utensils. Donna made cole slaw and corn bread muffins from a recipe she got from our friend Georgia Eaton in Maine.

The last plate is another chicken thigh variation – garlic butter chicken served over spaghetti squash.

Garlic butter chicken

As I said, it’s the winter solstice meaning we have officially reached the winter of 2021-2022. It was definitely winter weather last week and the overnight temperature here in the desert dropped into the 30s. The rest of the month looks like we should have overnight lows in the 40s and highs ranging from the low 70s today and tomorrow before dropping back into the 60s for the next couple of weeks. We may have rain for Christmas. I’ll close by wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

*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!

A Quick Trip and A Shot

I mentioned in my last post that Donna was heading to San Diego to visit her sister, Sheila. I dropped her off at the airport a week ago on Thursday morning. She had a short, enjoyable time there. Friday she went hiking with Sheila on the Los Penasquitos Canyon Trail.

This trail is in the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve – a park jointly managed by the city of San Diego and San Diego County. There’s a parking/day use fee of $3. They hiked the trail to the waterfall – a hike of about seven miles. The preserve is located north of the Mira Mesa neighborhood and straddles the city limit. It follows the Penasquitos Creek which flows from Poway Creek in the east to the Pacific Ocean near Torrey Pines. Here are some photos she took on the hike.

Trailhead
Sheila and Bandit
A lethargic alligator lizard

There’s a small gravesite along the trail with a headstone for John Eichar dating back to 1882. He’s believed to have been a cook at the ranch that once occupied this land.

Friday night Donna attended a concert that her nephew, Connor, played in. He plays saxophone in the Bishop’s School band. Bishop’s is a private college prepatory Episcopal school in La Jolla. She said the school band is very talented. Connor performed several improvised jazz solos and also wrote a piece of chamber music for two alto saxophones and a euphonium.

While Donna was away, I modified my Marshall 112 speaker cabinet. The Marshall 112MX comes equipped with a Celestion seventy/80 speaker. I favor the sound of most Celestion speakers, but the seventy/80 turned out to be not such a favorite. It is a budget speaker in the Celestion line and I found the higher frequencies to be spikey and somewhat unpleasant. I ordered a Celestion G12T-75 replacement speaker from Avatar speakers in Idaho – they have the best Celestion prices.

The 112 cabinet back plate was very tightly fastened and it took some doing to get it opened. When I removed the seventy/80 speaker, I found some excess glue hardened into a ball where the dust cap meets the speaker cone. This couldn’t have helped its performane any.

Celstion seventy/80 speaker – note ports in the front baffle to enhance bass response
Arrow poimts to the hardened glue defect in the seventy/80
Replacement upgrade G12T-75

New speakers can be somewhat stiff and benefit from a break-in period. Avatar offers a break-in service on some of their speakers, but not the G12T-75. Their service involves 15 hours of break-in tones. I hooked my signal generator into the input of my Marshall 18 Watt amp and ran a 1000 Hz tone through the speaker for about 12 hours. Then I played through it for a few hours and I’m very happy with the sound of the Marshall 112 cabinet now.

In my last post, I mentioned a problem in the treble bleed circuit of my Stratocaster guitar. I should have mentioned that I didn’t wire this circuit originally – I’d ordered the pickups, control pots and selector switch pre-wired. However, I may have had a hand in creating the problem. When I shielded the control cavity, I needed to add a ground lug and wire it to the pot. I used some scrap16-gauge wire that I had on hand. I don’t know what I was thinking – 16-gauge is way heavier than I needed and it was really stiff. It may have interfered with the circuit once I installed the pick guard. I rewired it with 22-gauge wire which is plenty to handle the millivolts present on the ground and it’s flexible.

Donna came back Saturday evening and I picked her up at the airport. My two nights of bachelorhood were mostly uneventful – in fact, I was down for the count Friday afternoon and most of Saturday. I had shingles vaccine (Shingrex) and pneumonia vaccine shots on Thursday and it knocked me for a loop. I ran a low-grade fever (101.5) and had a very sore arm. I’m glad that’s behind me now, but I need a follow-up shot for shingles in a couple of months.

Tuesday was Pearl Harbor Day – December 7th. Eighty years ago, Hawaii was hit with a surprise attack. Four battleships were sunk, many others damaged and 2,335 people lost their lives. I always take a few moments to honor those that were in Pearl Harbor on that date.

Sunrise over the Superstition Mountains on Pearl Harbor Day

We are 12 days short of the winter solstice – the days have noticeably shorter with the sunrise coming later and sunset earlier in the evening. After December 21st, the daylight hours will start increasing again.

Yesterday Donna hit the golf course with some of her girlfriends. I was inside, reading a book when I thought they ought to be coming up to the fifth hole soon. I went outside to the rear deck just as they came into view. I watched them play the fifth hole behind our house.

Donna chipping to the green
Donna putting on the fifth hole

While Donna was away and I was feeling punky, I didn’t have the best meals. Now that she’s back I’m getting much better nutrition. Sometimes it’s a simple thing – like the green chile bratwurst we bought at The Pork Shop served with fire-roasted corn and grilled zucchini and peppers topped with feta cheese.

Tuesday night I manned the grill and grilled bacon wrapped petite filet mignon from Basha’s – I still have it when it comes to the barbeque grill. The filets were perfect. Donna baked potatoes and steamed green beans.

The weather has cooled here in Mesa, Arizona. We’ll be lucky to see 70 degrees on the thermometer today. Tomorrow is predicted to be downright cold with a high of 59 degrees – in this climate that qualifies as cold. We probably won’t see temperatures above the upper 60s for the rest of the month.

*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!

Fast Times in Mount Vernon

Today is our last full day in Mount Vernon. Two weeks have flown by and we’ll leave western Washington tomorrow. Our days here have been pretty full. On Monday, we went to Hillcrest Park for pickleball. It was very busy, but well organized. I played in the 3.5 group while Donna went into the 3.0 pool. We found their ratings here to be higher than what we’re used to in Arizona – the 3.5 group seemed more like 3.0 to me and likewise, Donna felt the level of play in the 3.0 was on the low side, so she stepped up for the last few games.

Pickleball courts at Hillcrest Park (That’s Donna in the peach jacket)

When we arrived at the park, there were players on all six courts and over 40 players waiting to get on! It moved quickly though with a four-off and four-on format. After an hour or so, the crowd thinned out – many people had arrived at 8am and we didn’t show up until 9:30am or so.

Tuesday we had dental appointments for check-ups and cleaning at Dr. Westford’s office in Everett. We both really like this dental office. The people are friendly, the hygenists are very competent and thorough and Dr. Westbrook is a first-class dentist.

As usual, I had a couple of areas that required attention. The enamel on my teeth is damaged due to head and neck radiation treatment for cancer. The radiation damage seems to never go away. I made another appointment for Thursday at 8am to fill a couple of areas where teeth had cracked and crumbled a bit.

Wednesday we went back for more pickleball and found only a handful of people at the park. We played six or seven games and had a good time. Mondays and Thursdays are the crowded days as the play is organized by the local pickleball club. Other days are just pick-up games and open play.

In the afternoon, we drove down to Kevin and Alana’s place. Kevin had tomatos, peppers, onion and a whole bulb of garlic on the Traeger for salsa he made for us. The salsa is very good! Alana wanted me to show her how I make Japanese fried rice. My method is time-consuming and laborious, but you can’t argue with the result. Everyone really liked the fried rice.

For some reason, Donna and I both slept fitfully Wednesday night. Maybe we were a little dehydrated from the morning of pickleball – it was hot with the temperature reaching 88 degrees on Wednesday. Thursday morning I was up before 6am to have breakfast and coffee before heading down to Everett for my 8am dental appointment. I wanted to hit the road by 7am, not knowing for sure what the traffic on I-5 would be like. Typically it slows down once you pass the SR529 exit and can be very slow from there.

The drive was easy and I chose to exit on SR529 and drive right through Everett to the dental office. I made it there in about 35 minutes and had to wait awhile for them to open. Originally our plan was for Donna to ride her bike to Hillcrest Park for pickleball and I would join her on my way back from the dentist. Donna opted out – she was feeling a bit off after a poor night’s sleep. I was very tired as well and came straight back. We spent the rest of the day reading and lounging around.

Friday we met Kevin and Alana and Kevin’s mother Donetta in La Conner. La Conner is a small waterfront town about 10 miles from Mount Vernon. It’s located on the Swinomish Channel which looks like a river, but it’s a channel connecting Padilla Bay and Skagit Bay. The town has a population of only about 1,000 people, but it has many attractions such as waterfront dining, breweries and tourist shops.

We met at the aptly named La Conner Waterfront Cafe and dined al fresco on their deck.

View of Swinomish Channel from the Waterfront Cafe

La Conner is a cool place, but parking can be problematic. We all had to park blocks away from the restaurant as their small lot was full and street parking was also full all through the waterfront area.

We made plans to meet again the following afternoon – I had purchased tickets for the Brewfest on the Skagit. This event was organized by, and benefitted, the Lincoln Theater in Mount Vernon. It was held at Edgewater Park in Mount Vernon just a couple of miles from Skagit Valley RV Park. The Lincoln Theater is an old, historic vaudeville and silent movie theater in Mount Vernon built in 1926. Currently they have concerts as well as some movies and plays there. They host community events and work with local school districts to put on music workshops and also have traveling musicians teach there.

The Brewfest had a line up of more than 30 local breweries and four bands scheduled to play. Tickets for the event were $25 and included six coupons for 4-ounce beer samples. In reality, most of the breweries weren’t collecting coupons and the small samples were practically limitless.

Brewfest at Edgewater Park looking toward the Skagit River
Lots of people and brewery tents
Another view of the stage with jumbo video screen

The video screen showing close-up shots of the musicians was a nice touch. We saw all four bands and were there from around 3:30pm to 8pm. As you can see in the background of the photos, the air quality wasn’t great as wildfire smoke imported from fires in Canada filled the sky.

Lainey, Alana, Kevin and Donna at Brewfest

Alana bought a fifth ticket and our granddaughter Lainey joined us. It was a fun afternoon. Earlier in the day, Kevin golfed in a tournament and finished the day in third place on the leaderboard. He’s golfing again today as the tournament continues.

Saturday morning Donna took a bike ride and stopped at a few farm vegetable stands she discovered along the way. She also stopped at the farmer’s market for donut peaches and picked wild blackberries on the way home. On Thursday, after lunch in La Conner, we bought fresh corn in Conway that was superb. It was so good that Donna had to cook the remaining two ears of corn after we each had one for dinner – seconds were definitely in order. We’ll get more today.

Donna’s farmstand haul

I spent Saturday morning dismantling my Buddipole Versatee vertical HF ham radio antenna and packing it away. Then I broke out the compressor and set the tire pressures on the coach and also the Nissan Frontier in preparation for the road tomorrow. I’ve always been a stickler for proper tire inflation and over the last eight years, it’s served us well.

I still haven’t decided our route or even our destination tomorrow. It looks like it’s too hot and smoky to consider eastern Washington or the Idaho panhandle. I’m thinking maybe we’ll head down through Yakima and on to Bend, Oregon or maybe head to Walla Walla and down through eastern Oregon. In any case, we’ll meander southward and end up back in Mesa, Arizona around the 15th of September, giving us a month to get there.

*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!