August 14, 2014

Some Blog Rearranging & Thoughts

If you look closely you'll notice some slight changes to the blog. I guess it's a lot like rearranging furniture in a house, some people like to do it and some don't. I don't rearrange furniture anymore because I have downsized to just having enough. I do like to make changes to the blog though. I won't do anything drastic like change the template but I've changed the font and colors in the past.

Well yesterday during my cooling down period after mowing the yard while mumbling to myself, I decided to play around with the blog. I decided instead of decreasing the number of blogs on my sidebar like I had been doing, I would bring them all back from my Feedly account. At one time I had around 60 blogs I have collected over 2+ years to read. Some of them had disappeared from my roll without explanation ... just poof, were gone. I found those missing ones and brought them back to the list.

Since I had so many blogs I follow, I decide only they would be on the left sidebar. I moved my profile, the search box, email follow box to the right sidebar. I didn't know what to do about the favorite posts so I left them. I went back and forth trying to find the right colors for links and links that had been read. They still might be changed later, as well as the font type of my blog posts. I like the changes so far.

I then had two long side bars, each side of my section of posts. I had thought about changing to a 2 column blog, looked at it but didn't like the way it looked, so I kept it 3 columns and then increased the number of posts to show trying to match the length of each side bar. I know as long as my posts are never the same length, those sidebars will never match. That's ok. So a long list of good blogs I follow and some I found within the first week of my RVing interest in October 2011.

My major priority today well be get into the FJ and go buy some groceries. My dog's have plenty of food, with a new bag of Fromm's Golden dry food still unopened. In the past Sadie would have tore into that bag the first chance she got, to do her tasting test but not now ... maybe she is calming down as she ages. In the meantime as they eat well, I would tell you what I am down to in the kitchen but it might scare you. I have been eating out more this month though ... maybe that's the reason for my lack of grocery shopping.

I find it interesting that I am driving less and at times it's really hard just to go buy groceries? Is that weird?  I've driven 12 miles to the Super Walmart to buy groceries a couple of times this past week, they have a great produce selection, and each time I have returned home not buying a thing. I looked, but walked out. Interesting.

I find the news recently to be somewhat disturbing, things going on in the USA that you would never think would happen. I usually don't discuss news or politics here and no plans to in the future, but it's surprising what's happening in our country right now. To put the icing on the cake, a picture of a high school football team from a school to the west of Indianapolis, shows up on Facebook today that will take the internet by storm. The photograph has some of their team members in football uniforms standing on different parts of a black Hummer (extreme police vehicle) holding automatic weapons. It was a photograph the school/team was using to advertise the opening of their season. Hopefully they will use another photograph and that one will get pulled.

I think a picture like that tells a sad sad story about society today.

Off the soapbox .... looking at my list of trailers this morning. I have one that has lowered the price, it is about a 5 hour drive north of me through two major cities. It is all so tempting but the size of the tanks are a possible issue. Of course on the other end of the spectrum, those tanks are bigger than what I would have tent camping, so maybe they are workable. Some very high quality refurbished work has been done with a long of changes I like and the asking price is good. It has moved closer to the Camp Lite Livin Lite 13QBB trailer I have had my eye on.

I guess that is the enjoyable part .... the search. 

I was reading The Bayfield Bunch blog as I do every day, and saw that Al is already talking about their trip back to Congress AZ and set the departure date of September 27. I looked at that date and couldn't believe it was just a six weeks away. I'm finding out again just how much time is moving faster in retirement than when I worked all day. I haven't had one day during my four months of retirement where the day felt like time was crawling, whereas I remember quite a few days working you would have swore the clock had stopped moving.

Last week my long time friend and one of my college roommates from 1975, stopped by for a short visit. He had just returned from Colorado with a couple of weeks of hiking. He had a great 2012 Jeep Wrangler with some self-modifications to carry all of his gear. It looked to be a great vehicle for off roading and getting to campsites off the grid. He called me yesterday during my time after mowing the yard to just talk but also said the jeep was at the body shop and he may have totaled it last weekend NW of Indianapolis. I told him those jeeps are built like tanks and it would be awfully hard to total one.

After he told the story of his accident I began to wonder if he might be right. It has been great weather all summer in Indiana  but it had rain in the Indianapolis area on Friday, some heavy misting on Saturday and Sunday morning. Well what many forget and what happened to him ... with the rain and heavy mist, it could have brought a light coat of oil being to the surface of the highway. 

He was following a friend, going he thinks about 30mph, on a two lane country highway with no shoulder. As he moved through the first of two curves in the road, he thought he felt the rear of the jeep kinda slide and by the time he hit the second turn he was on a surface like ice. His jeep proceeded straight across the second turn, down an embankment about a 45° angle and hit a tree head on. That impact employed his air bag and sent his jeep hard into the tree behind them.

All in a matter of seconds, both his front and rear end of the jeep had heavy damage.

He is physically fine. His jeep is totally mangled, maybe not repairable. It just shows you how things can change in your life so quickly, in an instant, when you don't expect it. I remember when I was in a bad auto wreck in 2010 just how fast it happened, no time to react, and remembering nothing but hearing a loud explosion. I had been sitting at a 4-way stop on a US Highway, waiting to make a left turn heading home after work. A large Dodge Flatbed truck, with a modified huge steel bumper, pulling an empty horse trailer of horses but had a huge highway concrete machine inside the trailer ... hit me at 65-70 mph. (from police report) I don't remember anything. It happened so fast I didn't know what happened ... I was out consciously in less than a second ... but that is a whole different story.

What I am trying to say is, you never know when something bad can happen in your life .... so it's best to live each day the best you can. 

I am remembering that statement as I make my decision to leave with the hounds and not wait.

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