January 2 to 8, 2011

January 2 to 8, 2011

Sunday ; This morning was sunny and cold, warming throughout the day. The weather has been like that for a couple of days, and is expected to be like that for the next week or so.

This morning I did some chores and Joanne did laundry. After lunch we went to Yuma Park N Swap, also known as the Dog Track Flea Market because it’s behind the old Greyhound racing track. I don’t think they race Greyhounds there any more, but I’m not sure.

At 6 PM we went to the Rancho Bonitos monthly “birthday social” at the clubhouse, not sure what to expect. What we found was … a dark, empty clubhouse ! Okay … I guess our events calendar is out of date ? ! We browsed VCR tapes in the library and selected some movies to watch. I’ve had enough of Mexican soap operas !

At 7 PM we returned to the clubhouse to play card bingo. We didn’t know what that was, but we thought we should get to know more of our
“neighbours” by attending some of the planned social activities. Oh boy, I won a game. My winnings were 90 cents … in nickels !

We returned home and had a “movie date”. We watched “In The Line Of Fire” starring Clint Eastwood. I looooove Clint Eastwood movies. Ever since “Play Misty For Me” in 1971 !

Monday ; Well, it is now 10 PM and I have been working for 5½ hours on configuring my new Qwest modem / router, and getting connected to the Internet. That was supposed to be an eleven minute process ! ! !
I configured the modem / router in 3½ hours … or so I thought … and for the last 2 hours I have been trying to get connected to the Internet. Which I seem to be able to do for a few minutes at a time, and then things go wonky. I think Qwest is having problems tonight, but I can’t be sure. It might be my computer, or perhaps the new modem / router. In any case, I’m pretty frustrated with it all !

Today was sunny and cool. This morning we drove to Wal-Mart, I dropped Joanne off, then I went with Bo to Yuma Bark Park behind Wal-Mart. Bo and I spent an hour in Bark Park then we went back to Wal-Mart to pick up Joanne. On the way home we refilled a water jug and a propane tank, and we stopped at a hardware store to look for a few items. At the hardware store we bumped into a neighbour from back home at Riverside RV Park Resort.

In the afternoon I worked on monthly computer maintenance chores ; disk cleanup, disk defragment, virus scan, malware scan, backups, that sort of stuff. And then < huge sigh > I began to work on configuring the new modem. By the time we had returned from shopping, a Qwest technician had left a note on our door advising that the installation of our DSL line was complete, so I could proceed with configuring the modem. Right ! ! !

Tuesday ; Los Algodones, Baja California, México

This morning we headed to Los Algodones for our 11 AM appointments for dental cleanings and examinations. I’m extremely irritated that Dr. & Dra. Camacho have lost their ability or willingness to stay on schedule. However, they seem to be the only two dentists ( we can find ) in Los Algodones that don’t engage in a lot of “up sell” ( would you like fries with that ? ). While the Alamo Dental Clinic wanted to do over $5000 worth of root canals, implants, and crowns on me, Dra. ( Mrs. ) Camacho wants to replace one old cavity at a cost of $60 and do deep cleaning / deep scaling / gum surgery on me at a cost of $250. Dr. ( Mr. ) Camacho wants to do nothing more to Joanne after her cleaning today. But … the hour and a quarter “behind schedule” really irritates me.

We didn’t linger in Mexico, crossing the border back into the U.S. immediately after finishing at the dentists. We stopped at Family Dollar to buy an advertised special, then went to Historic Downtown Yuma to pick up some tickets at the box office of Historic Yuma Theater. There was a Farmer’s Market downtown so we bought some fresh vegetables.

I was eager to get back home and resume working on my Qwest modem / router configuration. It went so badly yesterday that I convinced myself that I had done something wrong. So … I reset the modem back to its default state and started over. Using a neighbour’s laptop with an Ethernet port and a CD / DVD drive, I reconfigured the modem / router, hard wired to the neighbour’s laptop with an Ethernet cable, using the installation CD that came with the modem … as instructed. Then … I reconfigured my netbook to the modem / router online using Wi-Fi … as instructed. Then … for about 3 hours I recorded on a spreadsheet each time the router automatically reset itself because it lost connectivity to the Internet, and how long it maintained connectivity after each reset. The longest duration of connectivity was 22 minutes. There were some one minute and three minute durations. There were many zero minute durations of connectivity. My computer was working just fine. And the modem / router seemed to be working just fine. I can only conclude that Qwest’s DSL lines are that severely overloaded. Which apparently doesn’t stop their sales people from continuing to sell their services ! I will be returning their hardware to them tomorrow ! And telling them where to shove their billing ! And then I’ll be trying to figure out what am I going to do about Internet service for the next three months ? ! ?

Joanne became suddenly and severely ill this evening. Seemed likely to be food poisoning. And … it can’t be blamed on Mexico, we didn’t eat there today.

Wednesday ; Today was sunny and mild. This morning we headed out to Yuma Palms Shopping Center to return the Qwest modem / router to the Qwest store. There wasn’t really a problem with returning it and cancelling the service, but at the same time there wasn’t much concern with my dissatisfaction either. I guess their attitude is “ya win some, ya lose some” ! We crossed the mall over to Best Buy where we did some research … in the store and online using one of their Internet connected computers … on USB modems / “air cards”. We decided to buy a Virgin Mobile “Broadband 2 Go” USB modem / air card, but not at Best Buy. It was $20 cheaper online from Virgin Mobile.

We drove to Family Dollar to buy some advertised specials, then headed towards “The Big Curve” … where 32nd Street curves around to become 4th Avenue. We do a lot of our shopping in the vicinity of “The Big Curve”. We stopped at Rally’s and had lunch. Joanne was no longer ill this morning, but still wasn’t feeling great, so she wasn’t “up“ to a Big Buford. I was ! We decided to check whether CVS Pharmacy and / or Walgreens had the Virgin Mobile Broadband 2 Go stick. Neither did, but Walgreens had a “clone”, and it was on sale this week. I bought the ReadyBroadband USB modem and a $25 top-up card, hoping for the best !

We returned home and I began the somewhat onerous task of installing and configuring the ReadyBroadband device. It didn’t go particularly smoothly, but eventually I succeeded. At last … I have Internet in the trailer ! The ReadyBroadband device uses the Sprint network, and while the Sprint coverage map shows our location as having 3G coverage, the speed of the connection would suggest that it’s probably only 2G coverage. The staff at Best Buy warned me that the Sprint coverage map is notoriously inaccurate. Oh well, it’s a bit slow, but I’m happy to finally have Internet in the trailer.

We took Bo for a long walk at sunset. While Joanne prepared supper I began working on a backlog of online work I had to do. I spent much of the evening online getting caught up.

Thursday ; Today was sunny and mild, a bit windy early in the day. Our new USB modem is a “pay as you go” way to access the Internet. Usage is “metered”. Yesterday and today we gobbled up much more “usage” than I would like. I’m going to have to learn how to “conserve” Internet usage.

This morning Joanne did some Internet research. One of the things she wanted more information on was a day trip outing by bus to the Indio Date Festival. Indio is a suburb of Palm Springs, California. So … Happy Birthday, my dear … as a birthday gift for her upcoming 57th birthday I reserved two bus tickets to the Indio Date Festival. Leave Yuma early in the morning, return very late the same night, leave the driving to somebody else ! Gee … I used to give her trips to Rome and Paris for her birthdays. Now … < sigh > … I’m giving her bus trips to Indio !

We were advised by Joanne’s brother-in-law Doug of the death a couple of days ago of a high school classmate of ours. She was a “jock”, the epitome of good health and physical fitness. She died of cancer. < sigh > There’s something strangely ( and perhaps bitterly, from some perspectives ! ) ironic about the fat smoker ( me … although now an ex-smoker ) outliving my “jock” contemporaries !

This afternoon we took Bo and Sully to the veterinarian for their annual examinations and inoculations. Everything was routine, the bill seemed a bit high, but I guess it always does ! We stopped at Peanut Patch and bought some fresh < pleasant sigh > peanut butter. We went to Kofa Ko-op to finalize pick up arrangements with Joanne’s friend Eilene who is joining us on an outing tomorrow.

In the evening I worked on setting up our dental and eye care records in the computer.

Friday ; Today was once again sunny and mild, getting warmer each day. This morning I woke up feeling … well, you know < blush … giggle >.
< insert musical interlude here > Afterwards I completed our 2010 medical expenses spreadsheet for income tax purposes and calculated our 2011 Pharmacare deductible and co-pay amounts. After lunch we headed to Kofa Ko-op to pick up Joanne’s friend Eilene.

We went to Historic Downtown Yuma, to the Historic Yuma Theater, to attend the Popovich Comedy Pet Show, the kick off to Petsapalooza, this weekend’s pet festival in Yuma. Gregory Popovich is a Russian juggler / comedian / animal trainer with a show lasting over an hour featuring about a dozen dogs and at least that many cats, as well as a parrot and a trio of ducks. The “tricks” that the dogs do are great. The “tricks” that the cats do are astounding ! ! ! Cats are not that easy to train. I know ! ! ! Most of his animals are adopted from shelters. He and his animals put on a great show.

When we came out of the theatre we walked over to Tour West America to buy two tickets for the bus trip to the Indio Date Festival, my birthday gift to Joanne. Well, three tickets, actually … Eilene is going to join us on that trip. On the way home we refilled with diesel and drove Eilene back home to Kofa Ko-op. Joanne went in to visit with Eilene for an hour while I worked online in the clubhouse using Wi-Fi. We got home to Rancho Bonitos with just enough daylight left to take Bo for his daily long walk. BRRRRR … it gets cool very rapidly out here in the desert as soon as the sun goes down. We made a great supper of barbecued beef roast with a spinach and barbecued potato salad. MMMMM !

Saturday ; Today was sunny and warm … finally !

This morning we took care of a few chores then headed out for a day of shopping. First stop was Big 5 Sporting Goods, looking for a 1½ inch parachute buckle to replace the broken buckle on my fanny pack. I have looked everywhere for a 1½ inch parachute buckle ! Big 5 Sporting Goods did not have one ! Next stop was the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. It was “50% off everything” day. We bought some clothing. Then it was over to the Indoor Flea Market, new this year, located in a huge space that was previously a large department store. I gave up on my search for a 1½ inch parachute buckle and just bought a new fanny pack.

Next week I am going to have oral surgery. Joanne wanted to go to Hometown Buffet before that to use some discount coupons that expire soon, figuring that I won’t want to go to a buffet soon after oral surgery. So … we went to Hometown Buffet for a very large, late lunch. Afterwards we spent the rest of the afternoon at a parking lot RV sale at Las Palmillas Mall. We browsed through all of the fifth wheel trailers on display, then browsed through some Class A motorhomes and Class C motorhomes. There wasn’t much we liked ! I guess 6½ years of full time RV’ing has made us pretty picky about the features that we want in an RV. We chatted for quite awhile with a couple from Missouri when we went back to take a second look at the only fifth wheel ( of a dozen or so ) that we liked. Like us, they have a 2005 Dodge one ton diesel dually and a Cardinal fifth wheel trailer, although their trailer is newer than ours.

We returned home just at sunset, just in time to take Bo for a walk. In the evening we watched a movie ; Lorenzo’s Oil. Wow ! ! !

DSK