It’s a sad and a happy time for me now. I’m leaving all of my friends at CARE and heading back to Lake Texana State Park, where I will be camp host for at least a month.
The work at CARE has been harder for me this year. I am sure that it is not that the work has been harder – just that I am losing some of my younger year’s energy. Dan Duryea, the volunteer coordinator has done an excellent job of organizing the volunteer job and I appreciate that the job has therefore become easier. The work is the same however and volunteers are scarce these days. We only had 3 teams this month – 5 teams is the desired number. Since the new September teams are now arriving, our team is bidding adieu to the routine and going back to our regular (?) lives.
I have been working feverishly in my spare time to get a program to more easily load my geocaches in both my hand-held and my auto GPS units. A couple of days ago I succeeded and I now have over 470 caches loaded – ready for the Victoria area! I did manage to have enough time to get to a few of the new geocaches in Livingston – but I have to leave a few for next time. I will be returning to Livingston for a cardiologist appointment in late October.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Lots of changes in my life
After the trip to Kristi’s in Clear Lake south of Houston, where I gave Mary some books and picked up a new antenna tripod, I got down to work. The tripod helped a little – then I extended the pole to 20’ and that helped a little more. But, alas, it was not quite enough. So I ordered an 8 bay Channel Master Antenna from Fry’s.
SUCCESS! Now I get a great picture on 34 Houston channels free (for about $137 in parts). I am happy with the results and now I think I am ready for the Lake Texana park host job again, since I will be able to get TV there as well.
Another of my ongoing projects is my LOCKet. It is a USB memory stick with a secure program on board where I have now stored all of my passwords, credit card information, addresses, medical information, and other sensitive information. The information all stays in the LOCKet which now is my secure vault. I have backed it up to another memory stick, so as not to worry about losing the information. My computer doesn’t contain any sensitive data, so I don’t need to worry about identity theft via e-space. I have also found it real convenient to have all of this information so handy. If you are interested in the LOCKet you can go to http://www.technorv.com/ – that’s the place that I got it at the Escapade in May.
I have also made a dramatic change in my bookkeeping procedures. I have perfected my use of Quicken 2009 and it has totally freed up the time I spent in reconciling all of my financial files. I still have to do a little manual entry, but very little! For only $9.95 I even have an offsite backup that I can access, if (when?) I have a computer failure. With the Locket and the new Quicken backup I am free of fear of a crash of my computer now.
Another new thing in my life is a program to develop better visual skills and improve my reading speed (which has always been slow). The program is called eyeQ. I have only done one day of the eye exercises and reading practices, so I can’t tell how good it is yet. I’ll let you know in my next blog if it seems to be working – and how good.
My time at the CARE Center has been greatly appreciated. There are only 3 volunteer teams left and there are lots of needed chores. Most of them center on getting meals prepared and served to the residents, staff, volunteers, and guests. Sometimes that comes to as many as 70 people. Here is a picture of our great kitchen and dining room serving area.
We also drive residents to appointments, shopping and some eat out events. The other day 12 residents and volunteers had a great dinner in Coldspring TX. Our other chore is being on call for the needs of the residents overnight and on weekends. Sunday I will be going to Kristi’s to take care of the greatgrandkids while Kristi takes Victor in for his hip replacement. I am cramming that in between “on call” and kitchen duties.
I have not had much time to go geocaching, but there are quite a few new ones in the area – maybe in the next few weeks……..
SUCCESS! Now I get a great picture on 34 Houston channels free (for about $137 in parts). I am happy with the results and now I think I am ready for the Lake Texana park host job again, since I will be able to get TV there as well.Another of my ongoing projects is my LOCKet. It is a USB memory stick with a secure program on board where I have now stored all of my passwords, credit card information, addresses, medical information, and other sensitive information. The information all stays in the LOCKet which now is my secure vault. I have backed it up to another memory stick, so as not to worry about losing the information. My computer doesn’t contain any sensitive data, so I don’t need to worry about identity theft via e-space. I have also found it real convenient to have all of this information so handy. If you are interested in the LOCKet you can go to http://www.technorv.com/ – that’s the place that I got it at the Escapade in May.
I have also made a dramatic change in my bookkeeping procedures. I have perfected my use of Quicken 2009 and it has totally freed up the time I spent in reconciling all of my financial files. I still have to do a little manual entry, but very little! For only $9.95 I even have an offsite backup that I can access, if (when?) I have a computer failure. With the Locket and the new Quicken backup I am free of fear of a crash of my computer now.
Another new thing in my life is a program to develop better visual skills and improve my reading speed (which has always been slow). The program is called eyeQ. I have only done one day of the eye exercises and reading practices, so I can’t tell how good it is yet. I’ll let you know in my next blog if it seems to be working – and how good.
My time at the CARE Center has been greatly appreciated. There are only 3 volunteer teams left and there are lots of needed chores. Most of them center on getting meals prepared and served to the residents, staff, volunteers, and guests. Sometimes that comes to as many as 70 people. Here is a picture of our great kitchen and dining room serving area.
We also drive residents to appointments, shopping and some eat out events. The other day 12 residents and volunteers had a great dinner in Coldspring TX. Our other chore is being on call for the needs of the residents overnight and on weekends. Sunday I will be going to Kristi’s to take care of the greatgrandkids while Kristi takes Victor in for his hip replacement. I am cramming that in between “on call” and kitchen duties.I have not had much time to go geocaching, but there are quite a few new ones in the area – maybe in the next few weeks……..
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Because I CARE
Well I got everything Cathy could think of up to date – installed the French drain, fixed the dryer, installed the ceiling fan, got the refrigerator replaced – and so I headed south.
The first stop was Dallas, where I went to my Red Cross chapter and did the monthly maintenance on the mobile kitchen. While there I also completed my papers and details about my “promotion” to supervisor. I won’t be doing anything different for Red Cross but I guess it makes them happy to be able to call me a supervisor. Also while in Dallas I got together at Outback Steak House with David one afternoon. He was able to check out the kitchen and I think he would make an excellent replacement for me as its custodian. Of course he would have to retire first – and maybe buy an RV. He didn’t sound too interested though, so I won’t hold my breath.
After Dallas I went to Livingston to the Escapees CARE Center (Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees). It is staffed by volunteers and in the summer it is hard to find people to volunteer because of the south Texas heat and humidity. I will be here for at least a month and maybe in my spare time I will be able to catch up on some of the new computer programs that I have acquired. Many of the volunteers will be leaving this month so I may not have much spare time. It feels good to work hard for a good cause, so I am not complaining.
A project that I have started this week is to improve my TV reception. Livingston is on the fringe of Houston and the reception is very poor – especially since the analog to digital changeover. So far I have added a yagi reflector bar to my portable antenna and that has made a big improvement. I still lose channels off and on. I have ordered an antenna tripod so that I can get better clearance for the signal. I will let you know next week blog (2 weeks) how well it works.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will go to Houston to see Mary and the Ingurgios and pick up the antenna.
The first stop was Dallas, where I went to my Red Cross chapter and did the monthly maintenance on the mobile kitchen. While there I also completed my papers and details about my “promotion” to supervisor. I won’t be doing anything different for Red Cross but I guess it makes them happy to be able to call me a supervisor. Also while in Dallas I got together at Outback Steak House with David one afternoon. He was able to check out the kitchen and I think he would make an excellent replacement for me as its custodian. Of course he would have to retire first – and maybe buy an RV. He didn’t sound too interested though, so I won’t hold my breath.
After Dallas I went to Livingston to the Escapees CARE Center (Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees). It is staffed by volunteers and in the summer it is hard to find people to volunteer because of the south Texas heat and humidity. I will be here for at least a month and maybe in my spare time I will be able to catch up on some of the new computer programs that I have acquired. Many of the volunteers will be leaving this month so I may not have much spare time. It feels good to work hard for a good cause, so I am not complaining.
A project that I have started this week is to improve my TV reception. Livingston is on the fringe of Houston and the reception is very poor – especially since the analog to digital changeover. So far I have added a yagi reflector bar to my portable antenna and that has made a big improvement. I still lose channels off and on. I have ordered an antenna tripod so that I can get better clearance for the signal. I will let you know next week blog (2 weeks) how well it works.
Tomorrow (Sunday) I will go to Houston to see Mary and the Ingurgios and pick up the antenna.
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