It's Only Been 7 Months Since My Last Post, I'm On A Roll! 

We only worked at the campground this year for personal reasons, we didn't even camp for one day. With the help of a fellow seasonal camper we were able to run the jacks so they actually level the rig. For the first time in a few years the battery is still good at the end of the season, I'll take that as a win. 👍

We will be working the store next year, with work being very busy plus re-doing 2 of our offices next year I'm going to be slammed so might not be at the campground every weekend. We do plan on camping, Ronda wants to be rid of the 5th wheel, it's been 8 years and we'd love to now go back to RV'ing on the road to different places again. Financially, we probably have to wait until 2023 before we can make that move.

Health wise, I finally have my blood sugar in better control but my feet and hands worsen progressively over time. Considering, I can't complain, many have lost family and friends the past year so I'm staying positive. 

I hope everybody is doing well!! Till next time.

 Well, seems that I keep waiting a year between posting 😕

Almost a year has passed since my last post and we still have the Pandemic going on. Remote workers are all back in the office as of March 8th and hopefully we can now proceed with many of the stalled projects we had been planning on, we'll see. Per the new President if we don't "unify" by July he may initiate lock downs again, without trying to get too political his speech didn't make much sense to me, I'll leave that end there.

 We will be working the campground store again for the 6th year I think, I lose track of time these days. It will be our last year working the store, the neuropathy has continued to worsen and is now up to the calfs and is in my hands now as well. Considering I type on a keyboard all day it makes working interesting, as each finger hits a key I get a little party of nerves responding to it.

I have an appointment with a new Doctor on the 23rd, she wants to do a  full physical and blood workup. With my feet getting worse it's getting hard to do my day job and much harder to work the store, getting firewood used to be so very easy to do, now I have to be extremely careful when grabbing wood off the pile or filling up wood crates. One slip and an open wound occurs (a piece of wood touching my leg can cause an open wound) and it takes a long time to heal. So, I'm going to give it the 'ol college try for this year but it will definately be my last.

Ronda doesn't want to do the camping anymore, she is done with the sitting in the same place each summer, so am I. We miss driving the Class A to different places a few times a month like we used to do until 2013. Time has flown by and the reasons for staying in place no longer apply. Sadly the 5th wheel isn't worth much of anything no matter how nice it still looks.

When we locked up the rig last October the landing jacks didn't place the rig in the right height and the middle jacks stayed up, so we will likely have to have somebody come out and check them for us, hopefully it's an easy fix.

Last year in September we had the rig power washed, he did a great job but water got into the fridge area so everything in it went bad. I found out if you use a strong magnet you can realign the little balls that separate when water hits the breaker module, learn something new every day.

We have about 3 weeks before we can go and check the rig out, we're crossing our fingers everything is fine and maybe we can try and see if we can enjoy it like we used to, we'll see.

I'll try to post more often, have a great weekend everybody! 

 

     

 

 

It's Been A Year Since I posted Last

Update after a whole year of not posting. It's the year of Covid-19 and Ronda is working from home most days and going to the office for mail and paperwork each week. I work every other week at home and found out I am not a work from home kind of person even though I thought I would love it. Many projects are on hold due to social distancing orders and all that gobbledygook.

The campground opened on time but was very restrictive and wasn't allowed to have recreational campers. Starting this Saturday they can accept recreational campers but the store has to stay off-limits, they can come to the window though and get supplies that way.

My diabetes has progressed and my feet are worse. They're swollen pretty much 24x7 making it impossible to enjoy the motorcycle so I am going to pay it forward and let the Blackhawk campground sell it during their fall auction for the person in need they'll be doing the auction for. My best friend gave me this motorcycle and I wanted to keep it forever but it will just sit and that isn't good for it, he is ok with me donating it for somebody in need which is great.

The RV is doing well, everything works and winterizing was easy, so was de-winterizing. The front cap however is filthy and I need to have somebody come out and clean it and then buff and wax it. The rest of the rig is clean including the roof but the front simply refused to wash off. Hopefully with restrictions being loosened I can get somebody out to get the front looking like new, this is one seasons worth of gunk, incredible.

We removed the bushes from the side of the garage and this summer I need to fix the lawn that recedes more each year due to root growth and too much shade.

Before

Unfortunately I have to hire people to do most of the outside work, they cut down the bushes and now we are going to have the house re-painted this summer and some trim work repaired.

After

I'll post another after picture once the house has been painted and we have our lawn back. The grass around the rest of the house looks fantastic. We are still hoping to sell the house soon, we'll see how this year goes.

I added studio monitors to my computer in my home office, the main monitor in the middle is now a 43" LG 4K monitor, the monitor on the right is an HP Omen 2K 32" monitor and the monitor on the left is my old Dell 27" WUXGA monitor. Having such sound quality near field is incredible, I never knew so much dynamic powerful sound could come from such small monitor speakers!

I hope all of you are healthy and stay that way! Have a great holiday weekend! I'll post more when projects are completed.

Remember The Windows 2000 to 2012 Server Migration? Updated

The person I busted my ass to migrate his network, last year I received a court document stating his business was going into bankruptcy. Keep in mind he had no problem buying a $35,000 Harley, then modifying the engine for more output as well but pay his bills, nah.

He was into me for over $3,500.00, lesson learned, always do contract work with payment in advance and never trust anybody, period.

Life Comes At You, Sometimes Hard

I know I haven't been posting a lot, staying at the same campground every year things stay pretty much the same, the time zips by like the wind. Work keeps me busy, family things, wow, getting older sucks because you see family die, friends die, bloggers I read die. 

The last few years have been rough, my Brothers wife died, Ronda's Mom died last year from Alzheimer's, my best friends Mother has it, my Father has it. A week ago my Brother was rushed to the hospital where he spent a couple of days with no final diagnosis, just a maybe it was a TIA and dehydration, unless something jumps out from a test they know nothing and they don't even bother to show up to your room to tell you which I guess is telling you, 'eh?

I found out this morning that my Dad's wife is in the hospital, they claim she may not make it. He has Alzheimer's and can't care for himself. They moved to the Philippines to save money 4 years ago but apparently made no plans (are you kidding me?!? no will???) for if something happened to either one of them such as dying or ending up unable to care for the other.

What do you do when you receive an email from her family that says, quote – “we can't take care of him, what should I do with him”.... incredibly insensitive like he is a sack of potatoes rotting in the kitchen. I know they don't mean it that way but, that's how it came off to me.

They moved to the Philippines, clear around the planet without keeping an address in the USA so he has no residency here anymore (he is a green card holder) so I can't just spend $3,000 in tickets to pick somebody up that can't make it through customs. All of the money they had in savings has been spent on their care in the Philippines and for trips to the US. My Fathers inheritance of $40,000.00 from his Mother, also gone.

Responding to his wife asking me for help a few months back I went to nursing homes in my area and they gave me a list 5 pages deep of the things that will have to be done before they can do anything. I sent that to the Philippines and have heard nothing back until I got this latest email earlier today. I also talked to the Norwegian Consulate and his advice, get Immigration and Medicare attorneys. With what money, I have no clue and I have not heard back from her except for the email from her Niece this morning who from previous emails had been pressuring his wife to get rid of him so she could relax and write a book, nice 'eh?

So his wife is very ill, he is incapable of caring for himself and is on the other side of the planet in the care of hired caretakers and family that has no wish to keep doing so even though her retirement pension would cover the cost, I have zero idea legally what my options are since they are in the Philippines.

I'm not looking for a way out, the door was slammed in my face when they moved around the globe and made no plans, I mean seriously zero plans for their future. She has a full retirement pension, they are married so isn’t she supposed to have a will or something that states what is supposed to happen to help care for her husband? I'm blown away by this and her Nieces email, black white, cut and dry “What should I do with him”……

Life comes at you hard is how I titled this, my Father was the boogyman for the first 18 years of my life until the day I walked up to him, stared him in the face as he was threatening to kick my ass once again that on that day, if I wanted to I could beat his ass into the concrete and he knew it. I walked away from him and our business together until 1993 when we both sat down and I forgave him for the past.

Through the years since we had grown close, I ignored him when he discussed the past in revisionist fashion, his way of coping with it. When needed I reminded him, because at that moment he needed reminding, something I hated to do but he doesn't get to dictate his sins with new twists and turns that took blame away from him, why did he feel the need to open his mouth and do that, I don't know but we stayed close even still, you only get one Father. 

Fast forward to 2019 and he is alone and apparently with people who have no wish for him to be there. Tomorrow I'm going to make some calls and try to reach out to family in Norway where his brother still lives and find out if any of them are willing to help out for the first time since he moved away in 1964, what are the odds I'll be able to reach anybody.....

After that, I have no clue, I'm sure by the morning I'll have a new email to absorb, hopefully it has usable information other than what do I do with him.

Update

Wow, it's been a year since my last post. We had family over last weekend just like last year at this time. I forgot to take pictures, life has been so busy the past few years, my job is very busy, we are going through a major remodel at the main office, I hired help finally and we are still crazy busy.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with two forms of skin cancer, did I post about this? I don't remember but I had surgery for both and I think so far so good.  Unfortunately since then my feet have succumbed to severe neuropathy and morton's neuroma in my left foot.

EDIT: I left out the one event that has changed my life. 2 months ago I fell down the stairs going to the basement. I was carrying laundry when I went to take the 2nd step and I found nothing but air so I went straight down and landed on both knees and into the laundry basket with my feet wedged behind me caught on the riser above where I landed. This hyperextended both feet, the left one severely so it took a while to heal from the cuts but to this day I'm dealing with swelling, that never seems to end.

This makes walking a  bit of a chore and very painful, at work I try to get through the day but by the end of the day I'm wiped but still don't sleep much at night. So we take each day one at a time. I'm not posting this for sympathy, more for tracking so a few years from now I'll remember what was going on.

I'm down to 195lbs, that's a pretty big change from when we bought the Fifth Wheel and I was over 250 or 260 at the time. I may post a before and after pic, we'll see.

The RV is doing ok, the rear AC unit still doesn't work, we're going to have it repaired when it's needed. So far the front AC handles the hottest days with no problem so, we'll wait. All other systems this year have been fine, I know what a shocker right? The front LED lights don't work again, but they were replaced each of the previous years anyway, so now we don't use them.

We have had a very busy year at work so we haven't been at the rig every weekend like in years past but next year we will be. Ronda has decided to work at the campground store every Saturday next season so we will definately be up there every weekend, I may not be because of work, we'll see.

I'll post pictures when we have Halloween at the campground on October 6th, until then I hope everybody has been having a great camping season!


Erik

Getting Ready For Halloween and Winter

We are going to start decorating the site in 2 weeks for Campground Halloween on Oct 7th. In the meantime I found out the RV dealer won't be able to pull our rig out to winterize and store it. So the rig will be staying in the campground this winter and I will be winterizing it myself for the first time.

A few updates on the rig, this is the first year we have not had to have any repairs performed since we bought it new July of 2013. We still need the main AC unit replaced but we haven't needed it so it can wait.

I believe a chipmunk is in the rear cap, no amount of traps or other attempts has gotten rid of or caught the little bastard so he/she may have an entire winter to do damage. So I'm going to do what I can to get it out of there. Cosmetically the rig looks great, but one stripe on the front is starting to peel in small places, something I have worried about, but can't do anything about.

Also the LED's on the front of the rig that are so bright in this picture, have been replaced 3 times and need replacing once again so I don't turn them on anymore.

Here is a picture from Labor Day, you can see how dirty the rig is on the front cap, the roof is black. All of which I'll be power washing this weekend, I power washed the patio blocks because with all the rain we've had moss had started to grow like crazy.

Picture of family over on Labor Day for a cookout on the firepit and to have a bonfire. It was a bit somber, Ronda's Mom died a few weeks before from the devastating disease Alzheimer's. We miss her very much.

Till next time, get out there and enjoy the vast beauty around us, we are only here for a short time.

The movie "The Circle", Scary How Society Is Going This Way

I'm watching "The Circle" and holy bag of cats, this is how the world is going... pure insanity. It got 2.5 stars which makes sense considering how it mirrors how society is going.