Bad Air Daze

Saturday: (08/29) Leftover blintzes and sausage for breakfast. Another bad air day. I tinkered on the computer in my man cafe (RV) Chili for lunch. Lou picked up dinner from Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City. the usual prime rib for them and lasagna for me. Meatballs with squash for dinner.

Sunday: (08/30) A bad air day. I tinkered on the computer all day in the RV. I did get called into service to replace a broken pipe and faucet at the neighbor’s house. She had gotten the replacement faucet but her son in-law couldn’t get the faucet replaced. I did get it off but the pipe nipple was broken. Fortunate for her, I had the replacement nipple that was needed. I got it from the recycle bin. I emptied a crate of old used pipe fittings I’ve collected over the years into the bin this morning and they would have been gone in a couple of days. I haven't gotten into the box in the last 15 years so I figured I didn’t need the contents. Granola and diced apple for breakfast. Leftover lasagna for lunch. 

Monday: (08/31) Another bad air day. Granola for breakfast. We all took a shopping drive today. No big reason, just a need to get out. I did need a couple of pipe fittings. We stopped at Lowe’s in Sunnyvale, Target in San Jose Westgate, Big Lots in Sunnyvale, and a few thrift stores. We had lunch at Aqui Mexican Restaurant in Cupertino. That brought us home near 1600. I took a nap due to the exhausting day. Dawn made pasta with salmon and broccoli for dinner.

Tuesday: (09/01) I prepared a nice ham and eggs with home fried potatoes breakfast this morning. The air is bad again today so it’s a do nothing day inside. I spent the morning in the house and the afternoon in the RV, just for variety. Lou picked up salads from our nearby Corner Bakery Cafe. Ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. 

Wednesday: (09/02) I walked over to Happy Donut and got a sausage egg and cheese English muffin and a fritter. A nice cheat day. It’s another bad day. I drove Lou to an appointment at Kaiser in the morning. We picked up lunch at the First Wok Chinese restaurant in Sunnyvale on the way home. I installed a grab rail by our kitchen/garage door. With those exhausting tasks completed I needed a nap. Dawn made some vegetable soup for dinner. I really need for the air to get better so Lou will let me outside more.

More Paving Under Ernie's Trailer

Thursday: (08/20) I spent the day removing the red bricks from under Ernie’s trailer. I chipped all the mortar off and stowed them away. I’ll be replacing them with the same bricks as make up the rest of the walkway and patio in the backyard. The weather was unexpectedly nice today. The skies were blue again and the temperature was much lower. We had an onshore wind today that got rid of our smoky skies and brought some cool ocean air. Lou and Dawn were busy working in the garden. Granola and banana for breakfast. Tuna and cheese sandwich for lunch. Baked stuffed squash with roasted tomatoes and French fries for dinner. 

Friday: (08/21) I made an estimate of how many more brick pavers I’ll need and counted my remaining bricks and headed off to Home Depot. I don’t shop at Home Depot any more but have to break that rule to match my bricks. I weighed one brick and estimated how much I could carry and decided I can carry 35 bricks. I need 95 bricks. We checked the air quality and it was in the green so I headed off. I only made one trip because the air quality turned red. I relaxed inside the rest of the day. Granola and banana for breakfast. Tuna and cheese sandwich for lunch. Lou made tomato veggie meatballs for dinner.

Saturday: (08/22) With another bad air day due to the fires, Lou wouldn’t let me go outside. I mostly relaxed all day. I did attend a webinar about WordPress’s latest upgrade. I also spent some time moving things around and cleaning out stuff from the study. Dawn has moved into my study and needed some room to work. Granola and banana for breakfast. Diced ham and fresh pineapple for lunch. Sauerkraut, potatoes and sausage for dinner. 

Sunday: (08/23) I relaxed indoors doing nothing all day. Lou and Dawn were busy doing their thing. Lou made fried eggs with fried sauerkraut potatoes for breakfast. Lou made some ham and pineapple coleslaw for lunch. I picked up dinner from Panera Bread Restaurant in Mountain View. I had some nice French onion soup with a steak and cheese sandwich. Dawn and Lou had broccoli soup.

Monday: (08/24) Lou and I went to the Home Depot store and I got more bricks. Lou got some shipping wrap. Back home I unloaded the bricks and returned for another load. Two loads of 35 bricks or 1200 pounds total. Pretty good loads for my little Hyundai Accent. I should have enough now to finish the patio by Ernie’s trailer. Otherwise another relaxing day inside out of the bad air. Granola and banana for breakfast. Tuna and cheese sandwich for lunch. I made corned beef hash and fried eggs for dinner.

Tuesday: (08/25) Leftover corned beef hash for breakfast. Lou and I were off early to do our shopping at the Walmart neighborhood market and at Smart and Final. Tuna and cheese sandwich for lunch. Stuffed squash for dinner. Dawn made soup for dinner.

Wednesday: (08/26) I relaxed in the morning and then attended my Wednesday AlphaAnywhere webinar. A nice day. I rather hated to waste the morning inside but today is my webinar and I didn’t want to get dirty before it. The air quality was pretty good all day. I welded a hand trowel back together to start, then spent some time digging to expose the piping under Ernie’s trailer tongue. Granola and a banana for breakfast. Leftover soup for dinner. A pork chop sandwich for lunch. Soup for dinner.

Thursday: (08/27) Another good air quality day. I tried to estimate the parts I'd need and then I went to Ace hardware and got some parts for the piping modifications by Ernie’s trailer. Of course there are a few things I missed. I spent the afternoon doing more digging and then relocated the sprinkler lines from under Ernie’s trailer tongue. I Also spent some time weeding Dawn’ new garden. Lou and Dawn were busy working in their garden later. Breakfast from A Good Morning. Lunch from Super Taqueria. Lou made chopped chef salads for dinner.

Friday: (08/28) Today we are back to bad air so no outside work today. Lou and I made a special trip to Target in East Palo Alto to get laundry sanitizer. We’re almost out and it’s difficult to find. Target online said they had a limited supply at the EPA store. They were out. So, we went next door to Home Depot. They showed up online as a possible source. They had a couple of jugs for us. This is the second time in the past two years or so that I’ve had to shop at Home Depot which I boycott because they are a tRump supporter. The other was to get matching brick pavers for our patio expansion. Back home Lou made fresh peach blintzes for breakfast. Leftover soup for dinner. 

Baylands Explorations

Monday: (08/17) Waffles and sausage for breakfast. I took a bike ride out to the Palo Alto Baylands and Bixbee Park this morning. Only a couple of hours. It was nice outside with the breeze in my face, especially since we are having these extremely high temperature days. Green Pea salad for lunch. Chili beans for dinner with toast and apple pie. I received my new phone this afternoon and went to my local T-Mobile office to setup an account and transfer our phones. Mine was easy, getting Lou and Dawn from Verizon was difficult. I eventually succeeded getting theirs started about 2100.

Tuesday: (08/18) PBJ toast for breakfast. We relaxed in the yard in the morning. Later we all drove over the mountain to Santa Cruz. We stopped at the San Lorenzo nursery, in particular to look at plants. They have the best selection of plants of any nursery anywhere nearby. They also have an excellently stocked hardware and lumber store. Next stop, of course, was a stop at a thrift store. They on downtown for a look around the Santa Cruz Bookstore. We had lunch at the Walnut Cafe. Wonderful food there. Finally we headed up Highway One toward Half moon bay. Near Waddell Beach, lots of smoke and flames on the hill and the beaches were still packed with people. It was actually burning the shrubs and grass on one side of the road and had a packed beach on the other side. Santa Cruz was hot at 87 degrees. Only 71 degrees above Davenport. 66 degrees in Half Moon Bay. Also from Santa Cruz up to above Waddell Beach the smoke clouds were brown and the ocean water looked brown as well. Not pretty. We received an evacuation notice text message as we passed through. Back home to the heat we enjoyed the Democratic Convention on TV.

Wednesday: (08/19) Waffles and sausage for breakfast. I attended my Wednesday AlphaAnywhere webinar this morning. Lou prepared roasted tomatoes and bacon for “make your own” sandwiches for lunch. After lunch Lou and I went shopping at Sprout’s market and Target. I spent the rest of the afternoon tinkering on the computer in the RV. We have serious air pollution now due to a huge fire in the mountains between us and the ocean. We passed it yesterday when it was much smaller. Evidently 10x bigger today. Weird orange skies and ashes falling everywhere. This along with our unusually hot weather make for fun times. Dawn made some fish over rice for dinner.

Interesting Summer Rainstorm In High Temps

Friday: (08/14) I made home fried potato and ham hash with fried eggs for breakfast. Since today the high temp will be near 100 degrees I ran all the sprinklers for the plants and lawn an extra time this morning. I drove to my nearby t-Mobile store to check on their senior phone plans and on bringing Lou and Dawn’s phones with my new phone to be to T-Mobile. No problems and it will be even cheaper than I had thought at less than half what we now pay for less. I picked up lunch, sandwiches at Subway, on the way home. I was relaxing in the RV and Lou came out to rescue me because she thought 97 degrees was hot. I relaxed in the cool of the house, just for her the rest of the afternoon. Lou made a ham and pea salad for dinner. 

Saturday: (08/15) A relaxing day inside out of the 100 degree weather today. I did organize some of my recent photos. Maybe I can get them up on the blog. Leftover hash and eggs for breakfast. Cottage cheese and peaches for lunch. Instapot non-skewer dinner.

Sunday: (08/16) We were awakened by thunder and lightning with heavy showers. Leftover chili on bread and some peaches for breakfast. My morning was spent working on clearing the drain for our kitchen sink and our laundry sink. It took all morning to get it open. After a good shower due to the mess of drain cleaning and sweat caused by the high temperature, we headed off to get some Chinese food for lunch from the China Bistro. Dinner from Subway Sandwich shop.

Windy Hill OSP Razorback Hamms Gulch Hike

Thursday: (08/13) I drove over to Portola Valley and hiked some Windy Hill OSP trails. I hiked up via the Eagle and Razorback trails. Then along the ridge on the Lost Trail. And finally back down on the Hamms Gulch Trail. About 8.6 miles hiked. Back home, I relaxed. It was a little warm. Tomorrow will evidently be a scorcher. Granola and a banana for breakfast. A nice Corner Bakery chopped salad for lunch. Lou and Dawn had pizza. Dawn made a savory tomato pie for dinner. 

 

 

Back Home for more Shelter In Place

 Saturday: (08/08) PBJ toast for breakfast. I relaxed all day. I didn’t even get dressed until late afternoon. I did give myself a beard and haircut this evening. For dinner, I made stuffed pepper rice. Actually green peppers from the garden, cut into chunks with onions, ground beef and chorizo. 

Sunday: (08/09) PBJ toast for breakfast. I did a little gardening in the morning. Later, I took the bike out for a spin. I rode over to Stanford and looked around the Arizona Cactus Garden. I also stopped at Coupa Cage for my Tiger Chai Latte. I then rode through Old Palo Alto and through East Palo Alto to the newly opened section of the Bay Trail. I returned via Los Altos Taqueria and picked up a late lunch. Unfortunately, no dining in was available so I had to improvise how to carry my lunch. I ended up tying it under my seat so it could remain upright. I stopped at Mitchell Park to eat my lunch. For dinner we picked up some burgers from Jack In The Box. 

 

 

 

 

Monday: (08/10) I managed to enjoy wasting another fine day. I fixed a couple of thing on Dawn’s computer. I got called over to the neighbors house to repair her back door lock. Granola with banana for breakfast. Leftover peppers with rice for lunch. Leftover spaghetti for dinner. 

Tuesday: (08/11) I drove down to San Jose with a few things I’ll be needing down there, if I’m ever able to work on the paint job again. On the way I stopped at Lowe’s for a few things like some primer, bondo and a blind for the kitchen window. I dropped all the stuff off at the house and loaded up all my food and some tools since I won’t be staying here much in the near future. May just drive down to do a few tasks, mostly siding repairs. Split boards and some holes and chips. I had lunch there. Back home I put everything away. A nice afternoon nap and the day was done. I’ll have to return to get my canned and dry food which I forgot to get. It’s not too perishable though. Granola and banana for breakfast. Ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. Leftover peppers with rice for dinner.

Wednesday: (08/12) In the afternoon I worked a little on the paver installation by Ernie’s trailer. First I have to remove a bunch of red bricks and then relocate some plumbing and finally raise the grade to drain properly and install the pavers. I removed some of the bricks and dug out enough baserock to determine where the drain line is and if it can be easily relocated. It can be. Also the water and sprinkler piping can be easily relocated as well as the gray water drain pipe. 

Granola and banana for breakfast. Chili for lunch. 

 

Russian Ridge Charquin Trail Hike

 Friday: (08/07) Soft boiled eggs for breakfast. A relaxing morning in the yard. I headed off for a hike stopping at Happy Donut for a breakfast sandwich for lunch. I drove up to Skyline Drive to the Vista Point Trailhead at Russian Ridge OSP. I hiked out Charquin Trail to Mindego Trail and to the top of Mindego Hill. It was a nice 9.6 mile hike on some trails I have not hiked previously. Lou made hamburgers for dinner. After dinner we went to the Grocery Outlet Market for a few things. 

 

 

 

 

Back To San Jose To Paint

Tuesday: (08/04) Granola and diced apple for breakfast. I loaded up the car with all the stuff to move back into San Jose. Seems like it was just last week that I brought all the shelf food back to Palo Alto figuring I would ever get back soon. Lou convinced me to to start a new digging project in Palo Alto and to go back and finish the San Jose paint job. In addition, the wood boring bee holes I found need attention. They seem to prefer unpainted wood so here comes some paint. I stopped on the way down for some groceries at Sprouts, Smart and Final, and Walmart and got lunch at the First Wok Chinese restaurant. In San Jose I enjoyed lunch and moved stuff in. I also cleaned the cooler out and started it. After I was all moved in I took an afternoon nap. I had pea soup for dinner.

Wednesday: (08/05) A walked over to La Victoria for my breakfast burrito. I brought it home and enjoyed my breakfast in the backyard with a neighborhood cat. The cat was grooming and playing with something in the lawn. He also almost caught a hummingbird that got two close a couple of times. I tinkered around until my 1000 AlphaANywhere webinar. After lunch of cottage cheese and peaches, I got outside and stripped some paint by Dawn’s window. I quit about 1600 and showered before leftover Chinese for dinner.

 

Thursday: (08/06) I worked on stripping more paint from above Dawn’s door.Mrs tennant came out and complained that I was interrupting the stay at home needs. I explained that the work needs to be done. I ended up quitting early and cleaned up outside and put things away for the weekend. I was a bit upset because she always complains about any work I do. But, I will cut back to only do what is least intrusive, so no striping for a while. If this lockdown continues too long I may not be able to do the project due to age. I hope it clears up soon enough. I will be returning to do some siding repairs and come concrete work but that should be quick projects.

Waffles and sausage for breakfast. Ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. Lou made spaghetti for dinner.

Purisima Redwoods OSP

Monday: (08/03) Granola and banana for breakfast. Lou and I headed to our Walmart Neighborhood market in Santa Clara. Got most of our stuff there. We had to stop at a small Target as well to get Lou's lactose free milk. With that done I prepared to head out for a hike. I stopped for lunch from Jack In The Box on my way up to Purisima Open Space Preserve. I hiked a 10.3 mile loop down the sea side of the mountain. Beautiful Redwood forest. I started after noon and finished about 1700. Lou made salmon with rice and grilled squash and zucchini.

 

 

 

Bonfire Time

Saturday: (08/01) Granola and banana for breakfast. I tinkered with Dawn’ and Lou’s computers getting them to be able to login, connect and get email. Passwords and WiFi are real problems for some. I had some cottage cheese and fruit for lunch. A relaxing afternoon. Dinner from Harry's Hofbrau, prime rib and lasagna.

Sunday: (08/02) Granola and banana for breakfast. Working cleaning up junk from the tent. Leftover lasagna for lunch. I spent the afternoon tending a bonfire burning junk wood, mostly a couple of cabinets Lou was refinishing 20 years ago. It's been stored in the temp and leaked on. Dawn's stew from our garden for dinner.