California

Optometrist Day

Optometrist Day

Today, we went to the optometrist. It was my turn to get new clear glasses. Last time, I got new sunglasses (prescription, of course). The doctor said everything looked OK except that my old clear glasses were out of date.

I picked out a pair of frames that are really lightweight. This image is of some of the many frames that were available. Click on the image to enlarge.

Maintenance Day

Maintenance Day

Here I am on the roof of the “Albatross” sawing off a dead palm frond. I also sawed off three palm berry pods. Our eventual plan is to have four of the palms removed from the property, but that won’t happen until next summer when some new financial arrangements will be made.

In the meantime, we have to make trips to take care of some of the maintenance items. Verna removed most of a prickly pear cactus that fell over since we last were here. It’s a pain for now, because we have to remove ourselves from our beautiful Arizona home to attend to matters here.

The Noses Have It

The Noses Have It

We traveled to the California House today to do some business there. While we were on the road, I snapped this image of Bob driving us there being helped by lookouts Bay Bay and Cabela. Cute. Click on the image to enlarge.

Crassula Falcata

crassula-falcata.jpg

Sadly, I can’t seem to get this to grow in Arizona, although “they” say it is possible. On this trip to California, the timing was right to enjoy this beautiful cluster of flowers with a nice delicate fragrance. Click on the image to enlarge.

Wikipedia says:

Crassula falcata, known by the common names airplane plant and propeller plant, is a succulent plant endemic to South Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope. The foliage is gray-green with striking texture, on plants that grow to 2 feet tall. The flowers are tiny and scarlet red, that rise in dense clusters above the foliage for a month in summer. Crassula falcata is cultivated for use in drought tolerant and succulent gardens, and in container gardens.

New TV Set

New TV SetVerna and I are football junkies. So much so, that we brought our DirecTV tuner with us to watch a rare Wednesday night NFL game. The plan was to hook the converter to the California dish (still there) and our old analog TV (still there) and watch the game. Unfortunately, the tuner we brought did not furnish the voltage that powers the electronics in the dish like the old tuner.

Image – the new TV with a Tony Romo sack in progress. Click to enlarge.

After thinking the problem over for a while, one solution would have been to get a coaxial power supply for the dish that fits between the tuner and the dish and plugs into the AC power. I checked around and found that I could not readily get the item in time for the game.

The solution we chose, was to simply get an HD digital TV for the California house and hook it up to the outside TV antenna (still there). We found a 26″ TV on sale at one of the local discount stores, hooked it up and now we’re in business.

We decided to swap the new TV with the one in the office in Arizona (smaller screen size). We’ll dispose of the old analog TV that is in the California house.