Visitors from Atlanta

My son and daughter-in-law just arrived yesterday from Atlanta. She had eye surgery this morning and is doing well. They were fortunate to get out of Atlanta. Their apartment there was flooded and they lost a few things. They were in the process of moving out to a house and had most of their possessions already moved.

I haven't been able to work on the tower any. I'm hopeful that I can get started back on that next week. I went to court last night because of the ticket I had received but the judge took mercy on me and let me off with a tongue-lashing (very mild).

Concussions and Other Injuries

I took the little D3 over to a friend's house today and was pushing some trees down in his pasture when a limb reached inside the operator's compartment and "whacked" me. I was bleeding like a "stuck hog" (sorry, thats an old Oklahoma phrase) and I asked the friend who was standing there if I needed an ambulance. He replied that, no, I didn't need an ambulance, but I did need some stitches.

I got Louise to take me to the minor emergency place in Sand Springs and the doctor (who went to school with my daughter) took a look at it. He said that no, I did not need stitches, since there was some material missing from my forehead which would have made it easier to stitch up had it been there. I learned two important lessons from this:

1) Don't get whacked in the head.

2) I'm getting older when I find that the doctor went to school with my daughter.

Since my camera broke on the cruise, I won't be able to post pictures of my wound. Oh, well, it's probably just as well.

Caribbean Cruise

Well, we just returned from our cruise to the Caribbean and enjoyed it thoroughly. Louise and I and Mike and Rachel and their two children went. We hit Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, three places I had never been.

Impressions? Jamaica is a sad place; we were warned to not go downtown so we didn't. Grand Cayman is a nice clean place but very touristy. The Mexican jungle is very, very hot and humid. All in all, though, it was a great cruise. Now its back to eating like a normal person.

Projects this week? Getting the tower in the air is Number One on the list. Unless it rains a great deal, I should be able to get this done. I'm also going to start studying for my extra license.

Horse Pens

Tomorrow morning my brother, Milt, and I are going to Robbers Cave State Park to set up some horse pens. He is President of the Oklahoma Equestrian Trail Riding Association and the club bought a bunch of panels to put up at the Park.

I'm gonna take the tractor down and do some levelling and gravel moving for the pens. It's about a three hour drive from here to Robbers Cave so we'll probably get down there about noon.

Joplin Hamfest

I just returned from the Hamfest in Joplin, MO. I rode up there yesterday afternoon on the motorcycle and returned this morning.

I'm really surprised that the weather is so cool. On the way up yesterday, I began to wish that I had more clothes on. It was downright cold on that motorcycle! It didn't get any warmer this morning on the way back to Tulsa. I didn't spend a lot of money at the Hamfest but did purchase several items which I had been wanting (antenna for the HT, speaker for the desk, and a Rigrunner). I did manage to avoid buying a new radio, which surprised me a little bit.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna chill out and do nothing for a day.

Dust to Dust

I was thinking yesterday that very little has changed in what I know or what I do in the past 40 years. I jokingly stated that, 40 years ago, I was soldering PL-259's onto coax and today I'm soldering PL-259's on to coax again.

A lot has happened in my life between these two episodes but it is ironic that we return to what we have done in the past. I would be remiss if I didn't include a picture of me from 40 years ago. I'm sitting in front of a radio and amplifier that I made myself from a kit. In spite of my lack of skills, both of these units worked fine and I would love to have them back today.

One other story about this radio setup: I was living in Stillwater and, one night, I was talking on the radio to someone, I don't remember who. All of a sudden, the signal meter went beserk! I went outside and discovered that someone had walked up to my garage apartment and cut the coax to the antenna with a pair of wire cutters. Apparently, my signal was not as clean as I thought it was. As Stan would say, "Oh, Well!".

Concrete Finishing

I found out today that I am not a concrete finisher. I got by but it was not a spectacular job. My "pooter" is dragging the ground and I'm not going to do another thing today.

Tomorrow is laser surgery on the lenses I had put in when I had cataracts about five years ago. They are going to go in and "zap" the lenses to remove clouding. The opthamologist says that this is a common occurance with new lenses and that they only have to do it once. We'll see!

I spent most of last night listening to 20 and 40 meters. There were some very strong signals on and I'll spend most of the evening tonight on those frequencies as well.