Cactus Needles Hurt

Saturday: (08/24) I made corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast. I tinkered in the yard a little in the morning. I finished sawing off the slide from the swing. I went through 4 blades because the 'new" saws-all kept loosing its blade, damaging the blades when they came loose. I did get the job done though. Later, we drove down to Gilroy for the day. I stopped at the Camping World store in San Martin on the way looking for some parts for my broken drain pipes on the RV. They had nothing, at all. I was rather surprised! We continued to Gilroy to the outlet mall there. We saw nothing of interest. It was a very nice day for a drive though. Lunch was at King Egg Roll for me and the Black Bear Diner for Lou and Dawn. They had wonderful fruit and green salads. I had egg rolls and shrimp balls. To each their own. We didn't finish looking around until after 4:30 then headed up to home. For dinner Lou and Dawn made Shepherd's pie.

Sunday: (08/25) I prepared eggs with leftover corned beef hash for breakfast. I tinkered with the computer mush of the morning setting up to record a bunch of the '40's music Lou listens to from XM radio so she can relax in the hospital during her stay there in a couple of weeks. Then I went outside and played in the garden the rest of the morning. I positioned Lou's gigantic bird cage in my new cactus garden and planted a few more cacti adding a few needled under my skin. It looks pretty good for a bunch of junk topped with plants. Dawn was out to lunch with a friend so Lou and I went to lunch at LUU Noodle Restaurant sharing a pad Thai dish and I had some egg roll as well (my food of choice). We stopped by Walmart, as well. We were looking for a tray for Lou's scooter for under seat storage. We found a nice plastic storage box of just the right size to hang and wedge into just the right spot. Some time soon, Lou will make a better one out of sun screen fabric that will be able to remain in place when the scooter is folded. She also needed a new MP3 player. We found a nice one for $15. In the afternoon I repaired my broken saws-all reattaching the blade collet. It works great, again. Lou made pastrami with corn on the cob and spaghetti squash for dinner. I then packed up and headed home to San Jose.

 Monday: (08/26) Granola for breakfast. I headed off to the stores this morning. I wanted to get another sample of paint and continue looking at paint sprayers. I finally decided on a Wagner Flexio 590. It's not an airless but is a handheld. The way I'm piecemealing this job, a big airless sprayer wouldn't be much help. The 1.5 quart cup on this sprayer should work well and get the paint on the wall quickly followed with a little smoothing with a roller and/or brush. I got back just before lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich. I spent some time reading the manual and playing with the sprayer. Then I finally started a little real work caulking some until I ran short of that. I'm really organized today. So off to get some more. A nice day playing around. I headed back to Palo Alto tonight so I could take the RV down to San Jose tomorrow to get the generator repaired.

We went over to IKEA. Lou had paid a visit earlier in the day and had found a nice (enough) TV cabinet to sit under our BIG TV. We purchased it and I loaded into the JEEP then we had dinner. I had meatballs, Lou had chicken and Dawn had salmon. After dinner we took a look around before going home. When we got home Ernie helped me get it into the house and I moved the DVD and VCR stuff to the new cabinet. It turns out the old cabinet will make a good end table for the bedroom.

Tuesday: (08/27) I was up early, hitched up the Jeep and drove the RV down to Air Cooled Engine's in San Jose to get the RV repaired. The starter just spins but doesn't crank the motor. I had an appointment this morning. Greg pulled out the generator (1 hour) Found a sheared gear on the starter, replaced the starter (10 minutes) and reinstalled the generator (1 hour). This is an example of bad design both by both the generator manufacturer, Generac, and by National RV. Slides or placing the starter on the outside would definitely have helped. The generator was all fixed up and I was headed home by 11:30 just a little over $400 less in my pocket. Actually much less than expected. Now we could take a trip if we needed to with all systems go. I got off so early and had planned to drop the RV and go have breakfast but I wasn't chased away so I watched the repair. It should help if something needs to be done in the future. Myself and the shop dog Chance made sure everything was done properly. Lunch was at home, ham and cheese pieces with corn chips and apricot jam. Interesting. I returned to San Jose with the idea of doing some more work. That didn't happen though. I evidently was a little under the weather so I didn't get into gear. I did remove one of the decorative arms that "supports" the roof. They really don't support anything but over time the edge of the roof has warped a little so the hanging roof joist on the outside edge of the eve had dropped nearly an inch causing the decorative arm to sag away from the wall leaving too much space to caulk and still have the work look good. It was held in with some rather big nails most of which were only penetrating the 1/2 siding. I removed one, cleaned up the area.

Wednesday: (08/28) Granola for breakfast. I spent some time re-installing some software on my computer. I then went out and reinstalled the decorative arm. I dropped it about 1/2 inch down the wall and it now looks straight. I used screws to attach it and made a spacer block to help support the bottom. Due to the beveled angle on the siding it only actually touches the wall at about four points. The bottom didn't quite touch to to prevent future sagging. Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich. After lunch I climbed onto the roof and prime painted the chimney. i also made and installed some molding to close off a large gap on the transom like windows near the fireplace. The wood looks better then 3/4 inch caulk. The windows aren't operatable any more nor have thy been previously. Dinner was some leftover apricot blintzes with sausage.