New Grill Assembly

While Josie suffered through another horrible commute day - both ways - I was home assembling our new grill. As mentioned yesterday, we ordered a new grill from Home Depot that was finally delivered at around 1 PM. It is a Dyna Glo grill with 5 burners, plus a side burner and rotisserie that should last us forever.

Below is the summary of the effort, starting with the unpackaging and preparation for assembly:

It was a lot more physical than I anticipated as the grill weighs over 125 pounds. The instructions were very good but I had to utilize muscles that haven't been used for some time and I ran out of gas at the very end. Actually, all that is left to do is to finish connecting the side burner and placing the grates inside the unit. Otherwise, it looks like this:

I will wait for Josie to come home today before moving it outside which should be an easy task with the coasters that are on the bottom. I put all of the packaging material in the box that it came in and placed it outside this morning with our other trash that was being collected today. Surprisingly, they took the entire box containing the Styrofoam, cardboard and plastic bags. Good timing.

Josie works today and tomorrow before getting her two days off on Monday and Tuesday. The commute is so much easier on the weekends so she may request that she be scheduled every weekend which would relieve some of the commuting pressure. One of the activities we have planned on her days off is to pay a visit to our 5th wheel which we haven't seen in well over a month. That should prove interesting...

Ready for Football Season

Last night's game between the Eagles and the Falcons to kick off the new season was a great start to the season. I was happy to see the Eagles get by a very good Atlanta Falcons team and hope that it is a sign that the Eagles will be there at the end to contend for a repeat Super Bowl Win.

The consensus of opinions that I have seen so far do not hold much hope for the Cardinals or the Seahawks to be real contenders. Especially the Seahawks who are in transition and have lost many of the  players that were instrumental in their success over the last 5-8 years. Every team has to go through this but I wonder how a team like the Patriots accomplish this transition seamlessly and never lose a beat. Maybe I'll be wrong about the Seahawks and the new players will rise to the occasion. I hope so, and also hope the Cardinals surprise a lot of these so-called football experts.

The weekdays are really tough on Josie's commute. She again took 1.3 hours to get to work this morning. Tomorrow will be much better as the weekends provide some relief in the traffic.

I expect our new grill to arrive today from Home Depot. The model we purchased is not available in the local stores, so it was shipped from the Midwest somewhere. That means that some of my time today will be spent assembling the grill and making sure it works. Maybe we can try it out tonight....

Mini Crisis Situations

I have been experiencing a worsening problem with one of my hearing aids over the last couple of weeks. It seems that the volume has steadily declined to the point where I needed my Audiologist' opinion. Yesterday, I received the bad news that the microphones were failing in the one hearing aid and it would be a very expensive fix to rectify. Not what I expected or wanted to hear. To make a long story short, I got all the information on replacing both hearing aids with new ones and feel like the best decision I can make is to bite the bullet and acquire a new pair. These hearing aids are almost seven years old, out of warranty and expected to continue to be a cash cow for the foreseeable future. More on that as I get closer to finalizing the deal.

Josie came home from work frazzled almost to tears. Her commute, already difficult and stressful, is made worse now with the sun rising and setting in her face every day as the days grow shorter. She drives east - into the rising sun - each morning, and drives west - into the setting sun - each evening. This creates even more traffic congestion than is normal. I feel bad for her but I can't do much of anything - except provide emotional support - to get her through these situations.

Are we having fun yet??...

Golf

Our final day of the Labor Day Weekend was spent taking advantage of one of our Rec Center benefits. The miniature golf course has been one activity that we have had on our to-do list for a long time. It won't be so long before we try it again.

We went to the course in the morning before it got too hot and did the 18 holes in about an hour. There were no other players, so we zipped through the course. It is a very nice course with some challenging holes. Josie won the front nine, and I won the back nine to beat her for the match by 4 strokes. I had some real problems getting used to the speed of the new carpet that is on each hole and finally got used to it midway through the round. Following the round, we went to the George's Café next to the bowling alley and had some breakfast. It was a fun time at the Rec Center on a nice day.

We did some things at home in the afternoon and didn't get caught in any of the heavy traffic that we heard was all over the Valley. I did some research on gas grills which is something we have needed for our house and ended up ordering one from Home Depot to be delivered next week. Our traveling grill will not cut the mustard for the house where we expect to have a much heavier use than on the road. That one will be returned to the RV for future use.

We hope everybody enjoyed the holiday weekend...

Holiday Weekend

With this being the Labor Day Weekend holiday, it would be the perfect time to make a visit to someplace special. It is also a bad time to be on the highways as it is one of the busiest weekends for traffic. Since Josie has been working such long days with her stressful commute, we decided to stay home and stay safe. We heard about a serious accident on the I-17 freeway in Black Canyon City yesterday which is most likely the road we would have driven to go to northern AZ somewhere. That is a common occurrence on that section of freeway.

We watched some good shows that we had on our recorded list and did a salmon barbecue in the evening.

All in all, it was an enjoyable and relaxing start to the holiday weekend....

Final Service

I watched all of the proceedings yesterday for John McCain. I also copied them for Josie to see when she got off work at 3 PM. I don't know what happened with the recordings, but the major portion of the service - Meghan McCain's speech and those speeches of the other dignitaries - were not copied. Everything else was. The situation was that all of the shows had to be copied that were on the guide list from the time the events began at 5 AM yesterday until they ended after noon. There were probably a half dozen of those shows. The shows were obviously preempted by the memorial services and I had to copy each one individually. I guess I missed the one big one in the middle which lost all of the main speakers. Sheesh!

The only event remaining this week is the burial which takes place today. That is a preceded by a private service, so I don't think there will be much, if anything, televised live today.

Josie has the next two days off for the Labor Day weekend. Right now, we have no set plans, but will probably do something that takes advantage of her free time...

Continuing Memorials

The memorial services and events continued yesterday for Senator John McCain. He was in the Capitol Rotunda all day yesterday and thousands of people walked through to pay last respects to him. Today is the Memorial Service at the Washington Cathedral and I will have more on that tomorrow.

Josie had the day off and we watched the events from AZ up to, and including, the final departure from the state These were the recordings I made on Thursday while she was working. It was just as emotional the second time for me.

We then went to Costco to pick up a few items after stopping at IHOP for brunch. It has been quite some time since our last visit there and it was a good meal as usual. The rest of the day was a relaxing one as Josie went into work early this morning for her final day of work until Tuesday...