Verna and Bob's Weblog

Bob

Retirement Anniversary Number Nine

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Yep, today is the ninth anniversary of retiring from the aerospace mill. Truth be told, I don’t miss it a bit but have occasionally dreamed about being back in the work environment. Mostly hassle dreams where I can’t find my car or someone is being stupid. Reinforcing the notion that I don’t miss it a bit!

I made the Roman numeral nine above with Xara, a 3D graphics app that I have had for years. The text texture is from an image of a stormy and sunny Grand Canyon view I lifted from the Yavapai Point Webcam which looks at a northwestern view of the canyon from that location.

October 1, 2018 by Arizona Nerdliness Retirement

Rainbow Light Up Shoes

Verna’s Lighted Shoes

We took what is likely our last trip for this year down to the West Valley today to shop at Lowe’s and Walmart in Surprise. The snowbirds are already starting to show up and the traffic down there is bad enough in the summer, let alone when the population doubles in the late fall and winter months. Our population more than doubles here in town, but the traffic and crowds in the stores here are tolerable. I grumble some, but that’s to be expected from an old curmudgeon.

The point of this post is actually to show the electric sneakers Verna picked up in the store. She had socks on her list and they are located by the shoe department. She saw these shoes and liked them for their sturdy appearance and comfortable look. We did not realize until we were back at home that they had rainbow lighted soles.

The shoes each have a battery, a light array around the soles, a control button and a charging jack. The lights can display single or multi colors with billboard motion. The shoes came with a remote control and charging cable that plugs into a charging port. What will the techies think of next?

September 21, 2018 by Apparel Family Something Shiny

Electric Pepper Mill

Electric Pepper MillWith both of us experiencing discomfort in our hands with osteo-arthritis, we have had difficulty using simple kitchen tools like our traditional pepper grinder. The grasping and twisting motions were difficult for us to dispense fresh ground pepper without experiencing pain. Sure, the pain was minor, but, still it was unpleasant. What could we do to alleviate the pain?

Enter the OPUX Battery-operated Salt and Pepper Grinder Set! Our order arrived today which included two grinders, one for pepper and the other for salt. However, we use a salt shaker for when we dispense salt and seemed to have an extra grinder. But Wait! We could use a battery operated pepper mill for the RV. So Verna installed the batteries in both, loaded them with peppercorns and placed one on our kitchen counter in the house and the other in the galley in the RV. Perfect! Now, with the press of a button, freshly ground pepper is painlessly dispensed on our foodstuffs either at home or on the road.

September 11, 2018 by Arizona Food and Dining Retirement Something Shiny

One Year Ago Today 08/21/2017

Total Eclipse of the SunIt was a year ago that we were in Casper, Wyoming to witness one of the greatest astronomical events of our lifetimes; the All-American Total Eclipse of the Sun. We were camped in an RV park near the centerline of the eclipse. Totality lasted just over two minutes and it was magnificent.

Verna took this image (and many more) during the totality; this image was taken at about the middle of the Moon’s shadow passing across our location.

When you click on the image to enlarge, you can see a prominence at about two o’clock on the limb of the sun and the planet Mercury at the four o’clock position below and to the right of the disc. We didn’t see those specifics with the naked eye, but inspection of the astrophotography after the fact revealed those details.

Click on the image to enlarge.

August 21, 2018 by Nostalgia Something Shiny

New Birdhouse Location

Birdhouse New Location

Last Saturday evening we had a microburst monsoon event that toppled our little palo verde tree out front near the driveway. We recently posted about repairing and re-hanging the little birdhouse in that tree. Fortunately, when the tree toppled, the birdhouse was not damaged.

A neighbor helped us clean up the tree mess on Sunday morning; we cut it into pieces with a chain saw and put it on his trailer for transport to the green dump. Verna rescued the birdhouse and put it in the courtyard for the time being. There is no nest inside, so no birds were involved.

Today, we went up the hill behind the RV drive where we have the bird feeders. There is a nice little mesquite tree up there that was perfect for hanging the recovered birdhouse. I took the image above this afternoon while up on the hill out back. Click on the image to enlarge.

August 1, 2018 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

VERNABOB.COM 12th Anniversary

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Today marks the 12th year that we have been open for blogging. We don’t blog as much or regularly these days, well, because retirement finds so many ways to use your time and efforts otherwise. The following was our opening statement after converting from our old format to WordPress:

We’re now completely converted from the old stuff and functioning as an online diary/weblog (”blog”). We decided to convert our old website to the blog format of the WordPress Publishing Platform.

As we continue to add new posts here, we also plan to add new gadgets and features to this format. Most all of the features from the old website have been converted and are available in the left sidebar. Check out some of the Potpourri items or our “stuff.”

July 17, 2018 by Blogosphere

Avalon 1998

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