Retirement

A Personal History

Planner

I attended a time management seminar as a requisite to becoming a senior technical group leader when I worked in the aerospace industry in 1991. The seminar was based on the popular Franklin Planner organizing tools.

For over fifteen years, I faithfully recorded notes, personal and vocational goals in my planner. I retained the records in binders, one for each year I used the system. I was organized, believe me.

As we cleaned out the old stuff from the house in California after completing the sale, I elected to bring my volumes of planner with us to Arizona, so I could review, and dispose of the old notes as appropriate.

There were a lot of important events I recorded. I looked in the initial 1991 volume today and found the page where my first grandchild was born. That was the granddaughter who just recently gave birth to my first great grandson last month.

It will be conflicting to me, but, since we don’t really have a place to store them, I will probably gather them up and have them shredded. Way too much personal and potentially dangerous (i.e. identity theft) information. Nothing too incriminating . . . 😉

Two Games

Two Games

While we often watch two simultaneous sporting events, this is the first weekend of 2014 that we can watch our baseball team and some NFL pre-season games. On the top TV, Mark Trumbo prepares to bat for our favorite Arizona Diamondbacks and on the bottom TV, the Baltimore Ravens are playing the San Francisco Forty-Niners in week one (of four) pre-season scrimmages. Earlier, we were watching NASCAR on one TV and baseball on the other. Click on the image to enlarge.

We don’t just spend our weekends watching sports; we cooked some meaty pork baby back ribs in the crockpot and finished them up on the grill outdoors. They were served with baked beans, Cole slaw and broccoli. Drool alert!

No Fishing From Bridge

No Fishing From Bridge

We went down to the West Valley area today to shop for some things. Shopping in the summertime in the Phoenix Metro area is better in the summer because the stores are not as crowded due to snowbirds gone for the season.

We shopped at Walmart for several sundries not always available in our little town. We also shopped at Lowe’s where Gas Grills were on sale this week. We need a replacement for ours that we junked yesterday.

As we passed the Pedestrian Bridge over the Hassayampa leaving town this morning, I took a picture of the NO FISHING sign. The sign has been there for a long time, dating back to pre-2009 when Highway 60 still used the old bridge. It strikes us funny that such a sign would be on a bridge over an underground river that flows less than one percent of the time during monsoon season. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Scrap Heap

The Scrap HeapI posted about a minor disaster a couple of weeks ago on the other blog. I had some foil-wrapped vegetables roasting on the grill with the lid closed. As I usually do, I set up the umbrella behind the grill to provide shade for me and to keep the sun off of the external shelves. The umbrella was mounted to a very heavy base which is supposed to weigh the lighter part of the rig down. Unfortunately, when I went into the house to get the meat we were going to grill, a wind gust lifted the umbrella into the grill and the whole business did a plant onto the concrete driveway. We heard the noise and ran outside to discover the mess.

That was then – today, Damsel and I disassembled the remains of the grill to the point where we could get it into the truck and drove it down to the salvage yard near the airport. The scrap man had us put the grill parts in a dumpster. He then used a fork lift to move the dumpster to a scale inside the hangar bay in their building. The grill and a couple of other scraps we had weighed in at eighty-four pounds. The rate for mixed scrap was $0.05 per pound, so he had me sign a receipt and handed me $4.20. It was hardly worth the effort to disassemble and transport, but it’s out of the garage now where a brand-new grill will be sitting by the weekend.

Blue Paloverde Flowers

Blue Paloverde Flowers

Yes, I know the flowers aren’t blue. However, the host tree, Parkinsonia florida, is commonly called blue paloverde. Damsel took this photo while we were out and about today.

Damsel takes lots of photos of the spring flowers, so let’s enjoy them while we can. Summer will be here soon and there will be fewer flowers, but there will be flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.

Musical Mesquite

Musical Mesquite

Bob trimmed up my “Musical” mesquite tree along the RV drive a few weeks ago before most of the new green growth started to come back. He removed much of the growth overhanging the RV drive to clear the way for towing the trailer up the drive and cleaned up some of the dead and tangled branches to give the tree a more open look.

The work made it easier to see my wind chimes and other colorful and interesting decorations I have hanging on my Musical Mesquite as well as clearing the drive for the trailer. Click on the image to enlarge.

Back Lot Panorama

Back Lot Panorama

I took a couple of images from approximately the center of the back property line in the “unimproved” part of our property this afternoon. I combined the images into this panoramic image using Canon’s ZoomBrowser Photo Stitch software.

The image from left to right shows the west corner of the house at the left and gradually sweeps to the right to cover Damsel’s cactus and rock garden, the southwest property corner, the little wash with all the natural desert vegetation and the several neighbors buildings in the distance. The northwest property corner (circled in red) is just above the bottom of the wash below and approximately halfway between neighbor’s house on the hill (right of center with the flags) and the house with the Spanish tile roof on the right side. Click on the image to enlarge.