My boy Riley thinks I should get a hobby. I have a hobby: writing pathetic lame shit, sending it out to the world, shoving it down my quickly shrinking list of friends throats, then trashing the post.

What I need is a new hobby.

Daniel and I drove over to Pulaski today, ate some homemade bbq at a local place called Hickory House, then we hit the Home Depot and a place called Gimme 5, where everything is five bucks.

Just cruising through life, Daniel is talking on the phone to some women he has never met, in Oklahoma, with big tities. I told Daniel earlier today that I have not held a women's breasts in my hands for over four years. So I think he is trying to hook me up, but Oklahoma is a ways to drive for that.

Hmmm, is this my new hobby?

Some recent blog posts of mine have been hovering around neurotic lately, had to trash them.

I guess that's what happens when you're seventy six, with no life to speak of, and some old addictions are still hanging around.

Apologies, my few friends.

So what's next? No fucking clue. Most folks have a plan, I absolutely have none at the moment, taking each day, one at a time.

Some recent blog posts of mine have been hovering around neurotic lately, had to trash them.

I guess that's what happens when you're seventy six, with no life to speak of, and some old addictions are still hanging around.

Apologies, my few friends.

So what's next? No fucking clue. Most folks have a plan, I absolutely have none at the moment, taking each day, one at a time.

I am currently sitting here with my teddy bear in my lap, talking to him, and texting with Farmer Katy about her honey.

I'm nearing my end, I can feel it in my soul but I've been ready for this for a while now. I wish I could go out in better shape, but my reality is sick, depressed, confused and lonely.

It's like a switch has been thrown in my brain lately, everything looks off, different. Like I've slid into a parallel universe, just a smidgen carnunculated.

I don't like this, I enjoy life, even if it is challenging, but it feels out of my control right now.

So what do I do with my end times? I still have some money left, I could bop down to Tampa and watch Irma come in, or boogie up to N/Y and watch migrants get off busses.

Or I can just stay right here, buy a couple bags of Reeses, and delusion myself into thinking any kids are going to knock on my door at Halloween.

Maybe I could wander around downtown looking for homeless people, and buy them all a meal. We can sit around the same table and shoot the shit, you never know what you might uncover.

I've been writing a lot of weird shit lately, letting it stay up for a day, then taking it down. It's been self therapy for me, it feels really good to my brain to write words that describe my life.

The mistake I've been making is to send the post out to my small group of friends and associates, forcing them to do one of three things: mutter "God, not another OMJ post!" then deleting it, or reading it and wishing they had not, or getting a kick out of my old weird experienced brain, and smiling.

That's a totally selfish, looking for reaction bullshit place on my part, and I apologize to the folks on my list. This is the last text notification you will receive from me.

A blog should stand on it's own. If someone want's to know what's going on with OldManJim, they can drop on in.

If they get freaked out by my words, they can move on. If they like what they read, then please, read more.

Simple as that.

Most websites these days are monetized in some manner, where clicks matter, and they make money. OldManJim is not monetized in any manner. It's just a place for me to share my photos and express my opinions about life.

I've never made a dime off the many websites I have created, since the dawn of the Internet. I did place second in a nationwide programming contest a while back and won $2,500, a trip to Pheonix, and a great time, but that was diferrent.

This is a pivotal moment in my blogging experiance, I'm going to keep writing my words because of our wonderful First Amendment, but I'm no longer forcing them down anybodys throat.

And to my sacred and valued friends, of which are few, thanks for putting up with my stuff for all these years!

I love you, your friend,

Jim

I think my nephew Brian, driven by a force out of our control, picked a perfect gift for Ariella. It was a stuffed cat in a sleeping bag. I was right there as she opened it, and the ohhhs and ahhhs to her reaction, were palpable.

Jess just posted some recent shots showing Ariella holding the cat, so I grabbed them. She said the baby loves it, and plays with it every day.

I then texted Jess reminding her of the teddy bear I was given when I was born, and I still have to this day, over decades of living. She gets it.

My grand-daughter Taylor just delivered her twins in an emergency c-section. They're premature so they are in ICU, but they will be just fine. She's living up in Minnesota and doing well, but I'm waiting till next summer to go visit.

The Hamilton last name continues to expand. I have 14 grandkids, eight of them I have never met. They are all adults now, and some of them may have kids of their own.

Anyway, welcome to the world girls!

I have spent the morning feeding peanuts to my little buddy Chipper.

I have conceived a new plan. I want to find a young homeless pregnant girl, and give her a roof. I don't have the biggest place, but we can make it work.

I will be here for her as she delivers the child, then help her raise it. For a bit.

Meanwhile we're working on all of the social resources available to her, and hopefully find a match.

I think it would be very cool to help someone in this way. I could take her to doctors appointments, the place of delivery, and back home.

I'm not talking about taking on a large debt over this, I'm just providing a roof, meals, and transportation. There has to be social services available for the rest.

How would I find someone in this position? I would love to keep it local to Lawrenceburg, TN. So here you go, young pregnant and homeless, hit me up!

Or maybe I should just get a rabbit...

I went to the Lawrence County Fair today. Ten dollars to park, seven to get in. The place was mostly food trucks (I had a barbecue sandwich) and rides. It was not busy at 1100 and a lot of the operators looked bored and were messing with their phones.

I was told there was a livestock building so I checked that out. Turns out it was all about rabbits. I saw a few that were really cute. I wonder what would be involved in raising a rabbit as a pet.

And what in the hell, is a Funnel Cake? No thanks.

Click the photo below to see the shots I took, if you like.

I was laying under my blanket this morning, watching TikTok on the tablet, when a very strange thing occurred.

My brain went blank. I didn't know where I was, or how I got here. I shut down the tablet and started reassembling my memory.

I rolled over and saw stuff that looked familiar, but I couldn't make any connections. I finally figured out that I was in Lawrenceburg, TN, but how did I get here? I literally could not remember.

I finally put it all together: I came here with Steph from Driggs, ID, thinking I was going to start a new life, with her grandkids and family.

It's interesting to reconstruct something like that in your head, and then say to yourself Man, that sure got messed up.

Anyway, that was damned weird. I sure hope it's not a sign of something going on in my head. Living here is interesting enough, but I still want to remember it.

Dave and Sue are my oldest friends in Washington. Dave and I spent a Christmas Eve putting together a motorized car for Riley in his mom's living room when he was about five or six. They loaned me their tent when I was homeless and living in the field that is now a Target store. They dropped by to see Steph and I in Driggs, spent a few days and soaked in our hottub.

They returned the favor on this recent trip and Brian and I soaked in their hottub up in the Auburn hills. Dave retired at the top of his trade as a master machinist. Sue had a career at JC Penny. They're good people, grandparents, and they watched Riley grow up. They were family friends.

What a weird trip that was to the North West. It went south in Denver when American Airlines had to round up a fucking plane and a crew, which took four hours and messed with everything. I will never fly them again.

My trip down the Oregon coast with Brian was great. At one point I got a text from Jess saying no pot at the party, and Riley's and my friends, Dave and Sue, were not welcome. So I had to uninvite them.

Brian was holding up his sobriety great, while I partied. We did clash about it that night in the Oregon motel, and I woke up the next morning looking at those texts, and crying at my computer.

Ok, so clean and sober at the birthday party, and no Dave and Sue. I'm a grown ass man, I can handle that, lets continue this road trip and have fun. We did.

The party was nice, Brian was a bit stand-offish since he didn't know anyone there, and his sobriety has affected his ability to be social. I get that, and respect it.

So that's my summary of the trip. It was great to see Riley, meet Ariella, and travel with my nephew Brian. But I won't be doing that again.

If I'm still around, and they do a timeshare here in Tennessee, I'll see them. If not, I won't.

It is what it is, but I digress...

My ability to get people has served me well over a lifetime. I tend to be outgoing and I approach strangers with energy, and fearlessness. If I sense danger or drama, I don't approach.

Brian and I made a hell of an impression in Oregon. First off, he's more than one year clean and sober, and he's traveling with his uncle, who likes a good bar, and a little bud. More power to my great nephew!

When I first walked into that Central Oregon bar, I felt good vibes. I made eye contact with a guy in the corner who welcomed us over to his table.

Brian is way more cautious of initial encounters than me. I dragged him over to this table, and you can watch Brian's expression on the video below. Priceless...

Later we met a nice local lady at the bar, who enlightened us on her State. The Oregon adventure was on!

Now I'm home. I don't remember yesterday and I slept untill 1230. I never sleep that late, recovery mode I guess.

None of my photos made it into Jess's FB page. I didn't expect otherwise. :-)

It's 1538 and I'm buzzed, and weird. Need my buddy Daniel to come over after work, and add some solidity.

Here is a set of 65 photos from Ariella's first birthday party:

Here's some video of the day:

I had an uneventful flight into SeaTac last night, hopped on a Fly Away bus at midnight and was inside my truck in about 15 minutes.

But somebody slipped me a gift among the way and I have no idea how, or who. I woke up this morning and found a napkin and a small shot bottle of Fireball in my pocket. Inside the napkin was some sweet smelling bud. WTF?

I sat between two people on the trip, on my left was a beautiful woman, said she was a nurse, and had an amazing smile. To my right was a guy, and we chatted a bit, but I don't remember what he did. I chewed on a bunch of edibles prior to the flight, so I was pretty mellowed out.

It's good to be home. I'll give that redcap to Daniel, he drinks that shit, and now where did I put that lighter?

It was getting chilly south of Seattle, so it's nice to lose the shirt and bask in our ninty degree weather.

This is my friend, Riley's grandmother, Sharon.

These are my cool shots from yesterdays party. Normally I would collect these into a photoset, but I'm on vacation, so here they are:

Happy first birthday Ariella! You had a ton of friends and family in your backyard today, giving you the love, and your composure and smile was amazing.

I got some great photos and video but I'll wait until I get back home to sort through them. You are something, little one, and I can't wait for the second.

I hit the Shiloh Inn hot tub and steam room early this morning, finally got Brian down there, and we planned our day.

First stop, the restaurant next to the hotel, for breakfast. Brian was trying to be conservative because folks around here serve big meals, so he ordered french toast. I ordered some of their in house hash, potatoes and eggs.

The french toast was this giant round thing, and there were two of them. My meal was quite tasty, thank you.

The remaining french toast, and a dollop of my corned beef hash were than placed into a food box.

And then we drove to downtown Portland. Been hearing all this stuff about Portland being messed up, so we went. I have a history with this town, so I was curious.

Ya know, I got a pretty good vibe from the place. I had the window down letting everything flow.

The downtown was pretty together, the homeless camps were in the outskirts, but an occasional tent can be found.

We spotted one on the right, with a turnout area, and we stopped. There was a toothless guy with a big smile and I reached over and clicked the horn.

As he acknowledged and approached, I grabbed the food box from the back seat and handed it to him, saying it's french toast and hash. He was excited and grateful, calling down into his tent for his partner to join him.

We did Portland, and continued on, smiling.

Our intention was to arrive back at Riley's in the early evening and settle down in the camper. But in the meantime, we had time.

The plan was to travel due north, avoid all the big city stuff along I-5, slide into Washington and take the back roads to Orting.

At a pit stop I chatted with a local and he directed us to the side highway system that rolls north and south, avoiding I-5.

So with Brian driving, and me navigating, we pulled it off! Never touched I-5 again, dodged all traffic issues, rolled through beautiful country that reminded me of Tennessee, and landed us back at the trailer.

Brian and I are in Salem, OR staying at the Shiloh Inn. Great room, with a hot tub and a sauna downstairs. I've been there twice now, Brian once.

We had an amazing fish and chips meal at McGrath's Fish House, I subbed for mashed potatoes.

The meal was preceded with two terrific crab cakes... but I digress.

We left Astoria this morning and mosied down Hwy 101 to Seaside, where we had breakfast.

Then we hit Cannon Beach, walked out to Haystack Rock, and I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean. Bucket item checked.

Tomorrow we head North along I-5 and see what lies ahead.

Brian and I are on an Oregon coast road trip. We just landed in Astoria, OR, I bought three pre-rolls from the local dispensory, we're checked into the Columbia Inn, and we're ready to go explore. Just thought I would post an update, much more to come. Road trip, baby!

Tomorrow we continue down the coast, and land where we land. The next day we will head inland a bit and make it back to Riley's by Friday night, just in time for the birthday party.

Spent the night in Riley and Jess's trailer, with Brian, still hanging out here.

Here's a walkaround video of their back yard:

My Seattle trip has performed perfectly within the plan, so far. Hung out with the Tubing crew yesterday afternoon, ate some food and had a nice time.

Then I drove to a Love's travel center north of Nashville and parked between two large white vans, which were still there when I got up at 0500. The parking lot for my truck was just down the road and caught the shuttle to the airport with no issues.

Breezed through security, shoes on, and didn't have to take my electronics out. Very smooth. Then I found a table with a power outlet and everything is all charged up, and I've goten two blog posts up, and two videos.

I shot some footage of the tubing crew yesterday, where I shoved my camera in everyone's face and told them to say their name and who they were.

I got everyone but Rocco, Madie, and Rachel, I must have hit the photo button by accident, so I just have a picture, and missed Rachel completely.

I'll still create a video, but it won't be all that I wanted...

Daniel contained the ball, I shot the footage.

I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do this fall and winter. I really don't like this season. Cold weather, I like it hot. Halloween, nobody comes to my door. Thanksgiving, I have no family here and I always spend it alone, and hungry. Christmas, is the worst. I had to be on a cruise boat last year to endure it.

I've been thinking about getting a dog, but I don't know if my heart is into it, or if I could endure another ultimate loss.

My neighbor Daniel thinks I should get a job as a Walmart greeter. With all due respect, fuck you sir.

I have no programming projects, no hobbies, and no ambition to do either.

Is this my end?

So, I bought my round trip to Seattle a couple of months ago thru Priceline.com, They sent me the itinerary and I decided I would wait until almost travel day to figure out how to turn a confirmation number into a way to make it on the plane.

That day was today, and I had no idea what I was doing. So I started texting with my brilliant, well traveled, very tech savvy grand-daughter Shelby.

The flight leaves Nashville just before noon on American Airlines, lays over in Dallas, and Alaska Airlines finishes the trip to Seattle. The return flight is on Alaska and is a straight shot.

Shelby's first advice was to download the American app, sign up, then add a trip with the confirmation number off my Priceline printout. I did that, but it wasn't showing the Dallas leg. She told me I had to swipe left to see it, really?

Now I'm a little bit of a savvy tech guy, but I didn't see that option. Ok, American has my info now and twenty four hours before the flight they will send me a boarding pass that I can use from my phone. Cool.

Then I downloaded the Alaska app, signed up, and all they showed me was the return flight. What about the inbound leg, I didn't see it? Once again, Shelby explained that the flight was covered by the American app, and was just a slide to the left away.

Ok, I finally get it, but man, what a process. What if you didn't know what you were doing, didn't have a phone, or didn't have a Shelby. You would be walking around the airport waving a bunch of printed pages around and yelling "Help Me"!

Yesterday I thought either my phone battery, or the charging unit, had gone bad. The cable was the culprit.

It was a good quality thick standard USB to C cable. When I got the phone message about moisture on it, is when it went bad, on it's own, no moisture.

I plugged the phone into my laptop using a C to C cable, and she charged up fully in an hour. I'm calling my new friend at Fix N' Go in Florence at 0900 and bailing on that trip.

At least I've found someone to work on my phone, when things really do go bad.

My phone battery is heading south, and she ain't bouncing back up. I've been searching all over Lawrenceburg, TN for a phone repair shop this afternoon and we don't have one.

Heading to Seattle with a dead phone is not an attractive option. Ok, just found a place down in Florence, AL called Fix N' Go. He has one Samsung Galaxy S20+ battery in stock, and he can do the job for $90.

The guy was really knowledgeable, had me go to settings and get the exact model type, and he had it in stock, as opposed to his other two competitors in town, who I tried first.

Cool, I've been trying to figure out what I was going to do tomorrow. I told him I would be there at 0900 sharp.

But, what if it's not the battery? The other day I had a moisture alert for the charging port. What if I damaged it by not letting it dry out completely, before using it?

Man, maintaining your stuff is getting really complicated in 2022. In my early life, things were simple. As I approached middle age I was absolutely convinced that I would never make it to the year 2000, much less hold an amazing computer in my hand twenty two years in.

Around 1980, I coordinated the purchase and delivery of an IBM storage system (hard drive) for Interocean Steamship Corp in SF. We hooked it up to their Sys3, Model 38, which was a large computer. It would take up to 1/3 the space of my living room.

The big drive arrived and everyone was excited. It was on rollers, stood four foot square, and sided right up to that IBM mini-computer.

Ya wanta know how much space was on that drive?

One megabyte. One measly million bytes. But for this growing company, it was like data from heaven.

One byte consists of eight bits of binary data (0 = Off, 1 = On), representing a value from 0 to 255. Mapped against a character set, one byte represents one unit, whch could be a letter, a number, or a special code.

For example: 01101111 is the binary version of lowercase o. Think of a byte as one character.

One megabyte=1,000,000 bytes. One gigabyte=1,000 megabytes. One terabyte=1,000 gigabytes.

Today, we deal in terabytes, which is one million of those $65,000 one megabyte IBM drives.

If our society survives another ten years, can you imagine what lies ahead?

...but I digress

My new electronics travel bag arrives Saturday. I have this cool cable and dodads organizer to put in it, along with my laptop and tablet. I can carry it over my shoulder and present it as a package to TSA as I fly to Seattle to meet my newest grandchild.

On Sunday, I'll load it up, along with packing up my rolling bag. Ha! I'm putting my bulky Garmin GPS and a crazy light ball into the bag, I guess I'll have to notify them...

At 1600 I'm going to drive up into the park and hang out with my fellow CSTC crew for an end of the season gathering.

Then, drive to one of those layover gas stations near the Nashville Airport, and spend the night on the memory foam bed, inside my canopy.

In the morning, grab some coffee and an egg biscuit. Then I have an easy shot over to the Fly Away parking spot for an 0800 check in, that I have reserved and paid for.

My flight is around 1100, plenty of time to get on a plane.

My boss just sent me a text. She's been catching up with my blog and made this fine comment. This is why I do it.

I bought this cool little flying ball off Amazon, and it showed up today in a small box, transported by a large UPS truck.

I charged it up, turned it on, and the lights began to flash. Nothing happened, the rotators inside weren't turning.

So, I read the directions and learned you had to give it a shake to wake it up, oh cool.

It's supposed to hover in your hand, or return to your hand if you throw it up at an angle. I thought it would be a great ice-breaker to my new grand-daughter.

So, I'm in my chair, shake it, and throw it up at an angle. That SOB started flying around all over my house, lights flashing, bouncing off walls, buzzing my head, until it finally dropped to the floor and stopped.

Whoa, it was crazy. So I picked it up and took it outside. Once again, powered it on, shook, and threw it at a 45° angle.

It flew straight up about 15 feet, and headed West, over my carport, over Daniels house, and it probably landed in the downtown square. OMFG...

Click the image to check it out on Amazon.

Update: I found it down the road, hiding behind a bunch of leaves...

I eat a lot of eggs, and I love getting hold of the good ones. Kroger offers Pasture Raised eggs for six or seven bucks, but you really don't know what your getting. Sometimes you need to go to the source.

I've been following a lovely lady with the handle farmerkaty from Lawrenceburg, TN, on TikTok. She talks about her farm and her animals, but particularly about her chickens.

I decided to drive out to her place this morning so we hooked up via email and text and I was off on an adventure for some farm raised, free range eggs.

It was a twenty mile drive out into the country, on beautiful little roads I'd never seen before. Katy was charming, I met her family, then met her chickens. She even pulled three eggs out from under a laying hen, placed them in my hands, and they were warm.

They just recently started adding minerals from volcanic ash out of Utah, to the feed, so the eggs should be healthy and delicious.

I got four dozen eggs, two unwashed, for $4 each. The unwashed have a layer on them called the bloom and they can go un-refrigerated for three weeks. Both types can last for three months if refrigerated.

I can't wait to taste them. Here's the unwashed eggs:

And the washed:

And I met my first TikTok influencer today, very cool. Here's her Facebook.

And this is Farmer Katy Eagle. She lives on that beautiful farm with her husband, and her mother and father. Real, down home folks.

Happy Labor Day, to all of the hard working people doing actual labor. I guess that included me this summer.

I worked hard out in the sweltering heat, the noise from the office conditioner along with the compressor was loud, it may take months to get the glue out from under my nails, and today it was over.

I never missed a shift, always there early, I even showed up a few days that we called off. Granted, I only worked three to four hours a day, until the immediate patching was done.

I could have pulled a full day shift if I wanted to, there were some tubes there that needed hours of surgery to bring them back to life. I consider that just running out the clock, cheaper for the company to just replace it.

So here's the status of my office on this last day. First off, it's cleaned up and organized. Towards the back there are three stacks of tubes:

 • On the left, the surgical repairs, tubes damaged badly or proven to not be quickly patched.

 • In the middle, the tubes whose new patches are curing for 24 hours. There are currently three. This new technique has worked great, btw.

 • On the right, behind the box of new green tubes, are the tubes that were killed in action and have become patch material, to cut out and make your own, depending on the color of the tube. I believe all colors are represented.

On the left shelf are the tools and cleaning supplies. I have contributed many of the items there, to the company, just to make my job easier. Ricky, consider this a gift to the next person who does this job! If they need training next season, hit me up.

So, job done...

Brian, here's our hangout space in Rileys back yard. No expensive hotels, and he's providing a car. We are free to enjoy my family and friends, maybe make an epic drive down the Oregon Coast, then make it back for Ariella's birthday.

Or if you want to stay local, I'll show you Seattle :-)

We really havn't planned this other than to meet at Seatac around 1800 for Riley to pick us up.

Can't wait to see you, my nephew, my friend!

Here we were four years ago at Lava Hot Springs: Water Buddy

I create, therefore I thrive. I need it, to stay alive.

My coding days are gone, but the creativity is still bursting out of me, in the form of writing. I love to write!

A blog post is the process of starting a thought, expanding on it, and then completing it to satisfaction. Kinda like sex.

When I first got to Lawrenceburg and had my internet set up, I knew it was time to start a new blog. My old one, BusDriverJim, used the WordPress CMS (Content Management System), and it was great, but I wanted to try something new.

So I chose Joomla, and I love it, a perfect choice. During construction, I had to make a critical decision, wether or not to allow comments. I chose not to.

My initial blog did, and it turned into a social media event. It was fun, but I realized I wanted my own platform to speak my truth clearly, with no feedback to blur it.

Drop into the Stuff menu item and see what I've built with this CMS.

I turned twenty one during the Summer of Love, 1967, and I was hanging out on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, eating fish and chips from a newspaper and trying out every drug they had going on.

I crashed and burned from that scene, and I was a mess. My grandmother intervened and got me over to Reno, NV, to stay a while with my uncle Morris, her nephew the Catholic priest.

He was cool, young people would come to his door and he would lay his hand on their head and say "God Bless You Children", facetiously.

He was also straight, which was unusual at the time. Towards the end of my one week visit, I talked him into wearing some street clothes and go into downtown Reno with me, and we went to a strip club.

My poor uncle was one flustered dude, hell, I don't know how it works becoming a priest, maybe he had never been with a woman. Religion is so weird, especilly the Catholic one.

The shuttle service for the Teton River is a fascinating model.

People with their own floating equipment, call them, say where along the river they will be putting in, and what time. They are then told to figure out a place on their vehicle to stash the keys, along with the $30 to $35 for the service.

Two shuttle guys show up. One gets off, grabs the keys and cash, then the vehicle and whatever it's hauling is driven to the customers pull in spot.

Keys are returned to the hiding spot, cash pocketed. I assume the other shuttle person just followed behind, and they are ready to move on to the next job.

Wow, if they had 274 people running (in groups of course) like we did one Saturday, they would need multiple vehicles and multiple drivers, it would be crazy.

But fun! I know all of those dirt back roads that run along and across that river. I made a living driving a bus there for a long time.

I just received a newsletter from the mayor of the little town I recently lived in for twelve years. Driggs, Idaho, in the middle of Teton Valley, at the base of the Grand Teton mountains.

The first image I saw on the page was people floating down the Teton River, which flows through the valley. This is one of the top fly fishing places in the country, and it looks like a pretty cool place to float these days.

Then, I tracked down the folks running the float, and it turned out (logically) to be Peaked Sports, our great outdoor shop downtown.

Here's Peaked, and here's the shuttle service.

Ha! If I was still there I might have been driving for them :-)

According to Joe I'm a MAGA Republican, part of an extremist group trying to destroy America. Wow.

So I've come up with an acronym for Biden and his party: MAFA. I'll let you figure out what the F stands for.

My new patch ring is working out great. Before you had to put the patch over the hole, hope you have it centered, then draw an unsightly circle so you know where to put the glue, and the patch.

With this technique you can center the hole directly in the middle, then draw a circle that will appear under the patch, then apply the glue with an additional 1/8" border radius.

Here are two older patches, alongside my patch. I got just a touch of glue on the right side, but hey, I have Parkinsons.

I found an all-inclusive resort down in Costa Rica called Hotel Riu Guanacaste.

Here's their blurb:

Located on the seafront in the beautiful region of Guanacaste, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The resort boasts 701 inviting guest rooms, four dining venues, six free-flowing bars and five conference rooms. A host of daily activities and nightly entertainment compliment the surrounding lush landscape. The resort's prime location allows guests to take in all of the sights and sounds of the tropics. Pristine beaches, bird watching, sport fishing and jungle treks and much more are all within reach at this new all inclusive resort.

What this doesn't mention, is the jacuzzi suite with an ocean-view hot tub on the terrace.

Here's the room:

Here's the terrace:

The base room rate is $192 a night, and I havn't dug deep enough to determine how much this would cost for a week, a couple grand I suppose. Heck I made that much patching tubes this summer! Or maybe not...

The Monkey Lala is unique to Roatan, Honduras. It contains rum, vodka, kahlua, baileys, rich coconut cream, then blended with ice. It will not cause blisters on your skin, or invade your backside.

I've been there twice and never had one, next time. Why do I bring this up? I was just scrolling through some photos, and saw it on a bar board.

The first trip down there was not scheduled. I was on a cruise boat three years ago that got stuck out in the Carribian, due to a hurricane heading towards Miami.

So they changed a seven day trip to an eleven day trip, folks that had to get back to their lives, bailed at Cancun, the rest of us sailed on down to Roatan. Every onboard package was extended at no cost, four extra days, courtesy of Royal Carribian. ...the post

Then, last Christmas, I cruised with Shelby and Andy to a scheduled stop there. They rented a car and we toured the place in style. ...the post