What's New

It's another blue sky day in Yuma at Country Roads. It started out at 55 and on the way to 75 degrees Fahrenheit today. We've been at our house for going on seven weeks. Time flies when one is retired. It helps that Mackie and I keep busy with volunteering, pickleball, walking, and visiting with our friends and neighbors.

I'm going to highlight a couple of items we've done this week.

Outlaw Karaoke

Karaoke is incredibly popular here. We have a few couples that have Karaoke equipment and volunteer to put on events. There's at lease one every other week! There's around 150-250 people at each event. Last Thursday was another fun event. 

The outlaw group puts clues out every other week, and then it's up to the individuals to find the event. A number of people brought propane fire pits, some adult beverages, and a great attitude for singing and dancing!

 

Saturday Morning Breakfast

The Building Fund is a community group that is open to all homeowners and residents. They sponsor a number of events and raise money that groups can apply for to support their activities. They've raised over $500,000 since 2007, and each year it goes higher. 

This year, they purchased two new table saws and a planner for the wood shop. And, a new kiln for the pottery studio.

One event put on by a different team each week is the Saturday Morning breakfast. This was Team Flap Jack's turn, Mackie and I are on this one, and we had regular and pumpkin pancakes, ham, eggs, orange juice, coffee, fresh apple butter (Mackie and Linda Hamilton made it), and fresh whip cream for those that wanted it. 

It takes a big team to serve over 150 meals in less than two hours! Great job everyone.

https://www.facebook.com/1195320317/videos/808958180340011/

A picture of Darrel and I manning the grill.

Next week

There's quite a bit on tap for next week. Mackie and I are both in a pickleball tournament, there's a community meeting or two, and Thanksgiving is coming up! How did I find time to work???

2022 1st Go

 How has it been nearly a year since I've last written anything? So much has happened in so little time.

We're finally coming out of the pandemic, and yet, there is so much in flux for so many people. One can either choose to be part of the chaos, or you can choose to live you best life. Mine has been all over the place in 62 years and while I'm critiquing my own life, I choose to let others do their own.

Last time I wrote was about upgrading a computer. I find it poetic as I tried two or three laptops and nothing seemed to work. Instead, I got a new Dell All-in-One last night at Costco. 

My old Samsung laptop has served me well for the past 10 years. Yep, 10 years! It's an Intel CoreI7, one of the earlier versions, and has done well except for the past few months. The "blue screen of death" has been my constant companion and yesterday I just had enough. Mackie suggested we head to Costco in East Lansing and pick something out. 

Round and round we go again. I'm really not seeing anything that floats my goat. It's a different time in life where I don't need to carry a laptop any longer. After an hour or so, Mackie found the all-in-ones and asked me, "what about this"? A clean Dell 11th Generation Core i7 with tons of memory, two hard drives, a 27 inch monitor, and an nVidia graphics card. The heavens opened up and it was in the cart. 1 1/2 days in, and I couldn't be happier.