As if I Needed Another Retirement Project

Last night I got the wild hare to download all the photos from my cellphone onto my computer.  You would think it would have been an easy task.  But nope.  Everything has to be fight.  In a world where you can't walk across the street at 2:00 AM to get to the mailbox without a car suddenly coming down the road at you, everything has to be a fight.

I'll have to admit that I haven't explored all of the capabilities of my smackphone..........oops, smartphone.  I learned right away that the computer and the cellphone didn't want to talk to each other, and it was at the cellphone end.  I was able to stumble upon the USB settings to allow the transfer of the photos and then to get the ball rolling.  But did all of the photos make it over to that destination photo that I created?

Nope.  Not all of them did.  Everything has to be a fight.  The first two hundred or so of them did.  The rest?  They didn't.  It might have something to do with what version of camera software was in use at the time I took the photos.  The 2018 photos went over, but I was using a different camera for them.  I can't remember how long I've now had this phone, but it might have been 2022.

Anyway, I fought with it some more, and learned how to select the phots individually.  But then they didn't want to go to the folder I wanted them to, but they would go to the "Personal" folder on this computer, which has photos from years back........and dang, did I take a lot of pictures back then, or what?  I created a folder for this last road trip.

But it wasn't over.  I had to open them in Paint, save as JPEG files, then shrink them so they would fit on a page.  The results are now available on a new page I created here last night, and I'm thinking I should have taken more photos than I did.  That means we have to do the trip all over again, right?  Sheila won't mind, but would rather see some new things and go in a different direction on the next one.  And that might be San Diego as that my mother-in-law is over her ear infections and will feel comfortable in going thru those mountains that I-8 climbs thru.

And yes, I now have a new retirement project.  I realized that one page won't be enough to house the collection, and the next photo page will be called "Recent Photos" and for the time being will duplicate what I have on the "Miscellaneous Photos" that I created last night.  I have tried renaming some pages on this blog, but couldn't make the changes look like I wanted them to, so "Miscellaneous" will remain just that and new pages dedicated to past road trips will eventually be created.

I didn't really need to take another project on, but sometimes having five or six of these going at once does make for a varied day.  Maybe deep down inside I fear boredom, and I don't do well in situations where there is nothing to do and all day to do it in.  I've changed jobs because of that.  

With that I'm going to call this a post.  I'm chained to the house for the rest of the day while covering for a major A/C job that we've got going on with the house.  So it's spend time with my projects, and maybe get a new photo page or two posted.  

I know; I could do Facebook, but this blog is as far as it goes with documenting what goes on with me.

Another Road Trip!

About two weeks ago my mother-in-law wanted to visit her friend from her high school days, who lives in El Cajon, and she doesn't like traveling alone.  Sheila and I were about to do one anyway, but we thought, OK, we'll drive over to the People's Republic, drop her off, and then have four or five days to ourselves.  Two days before our intended departure, she didn't want to be climbing thru those mountain passes so Sheila and I went somewhere else.

As has been the case with our trips, we figure out the night before where we are going to be the first night, and the second night's stop won't be figured out until we're on the way to the first stop.  We ended up in Flagstaff, staying at the Super 8 across from that Himalayan restaurant which is one of our favorite stops.  I thought from there we were going to head west and take historic US66 over to Kingman, but it didn't turn out that way.  The next morning it was decided to go east, which I was good with, since I hadn't been on that stretch of I-40 since 1986, and this time I wanted to get off the interstate where possible and retrace Route 66.

The first stop was in Winslow, made famous by that well-known song that mentions standing on the corner.  We did just that.  We stood at the corner, where some others were also, though in our case there wasn't some chick in a flat bed Ford slowing down to take a look at us.  We had lunch, walked around for two hours or so, and then it was on to our next stop, wherever that would be.

As we were approaching Holbrook, where someone who grew up there once told me, has something of a rivalry with Winslow as far as their high school football teams go, we decided that the next night was going to be in Gallup New Mexico.   I wanted to check out those trading posts in Lupton AZ, on the state line.  Once we saw the price stickers, we got back on and continued.

Gallup has a stretch of US 66 used as a business loop, and with lots of those kinds of stretches you're treated to abandoned buildings that used to be gas stations, and other abandoned buildings that used to be motels.  I'm guessing that half of those motels went under while the other half made it.  We stayed in one of them, and had a memorable meal at Scooter's BBQ.....which we'll do again our next time in Gallup.

Now at this point in the trip, road fatigue was beginning to set in, and we decided that we would spend two nights at our next stop, which was Santa Fe.  I had never been to Santa Fe before but I'd go again, and this time try to have a full weekday there so I can go inside the state capitol.  Downtown Santa Fe was interesting but there was no parking to be had since there was some event that closed off some streets and rendered the paid parking lots full.  We drove around a few neighborhoods, and then went back to the hotel for some rest.  Later on that night we ate at Los Potrillos Mexican restaurant, which was Mexico City style.  

Sunday morning it was back on the interstate again, which meant having to pass thru Albuquerque again, but at that time it wasn't the mess that we saw on Friday.  We continued on down I-25, stopping for lunch at Truth or Consequences and for the night at Deming, after passing thru Hatch and taking the shortcut to I-10.

That turned out to be the third time we've overnighted in Deming, and what used to be our favorite Mexican restaurant was closed since it was Sunday.  I had my heart set on an authentic New Mexico style of Mexican cuisine, which we found at Irma's downtown, and Irma's blew that other place right out of the water.  I had the #1 combo plate, Christmas style, which meant half red sauce and half green sauce.  

The next afternoon we were back home in Tucson, one day earlier than we needed to be, but it worked out for the good as that we got home before a very violent thunderstorm hit our side of town.  The next day it was southeast Arizona getting it, making for some adverse driving conditions.

So, I'm back home, and one thing I'm telling myself is that I need to create a photo album page where I can post pictures of our adventures.  I don't know when I can get to that.  We've got some other irons in the fire right now and one reason for our trip was to get away from them for a week.  The monsoons should be done in a week or so, and I might send out my updated resume as that I'm interested in finding out what kind of contract work is available.  I don't feel a strong inclination to come out of retirement, but I think I need to be aware of what is out there.

That's it for now.

Retired for One Year

Today it hit me that I have been retired for one year.  It doesn't seem that long ago when I was out-processing, and I couldn't wait to get home that day.  I have no regrets about going out when I did.  I miss the people I worked closely with and I am in occasional touch with them.  It was great getting to serve on that kind of team.  But situations like that are not forever, and for me it was time to get out.

Looking back, I thought I would have done more road trips than we have.  I want to reprise that one we did when we went up to Four Corners and back.  Dang, that was some really neat scenery we saw when we were up there!  But as I said in my  last post, we want the next one to be Alamogordo.

As for all those projects I told myself I was going to do..........well I've started a bunch of them.  And I'm still working on those.  The "Ugly Money" page has three times as many images as it did a year ago.  My coin collection has been worked on.  I've done a lot of reading, alternating between previously read books and those that have been on the shelf for more years than I would like to admit.  And with another heat advisory (this one "severe") underway there's been a lot of reading.  And very little yardwork.  

In spite of all of that, there have been a lot of necessary but not fun tasks at hand.  Today we took a truckload of items to Goodwill.  Some from my mother's house, some from the master bedroom closet, and some books that I know I will not be re-reading.  I guess this begs the question, what books am I keeping?

I still have all of my college textbooks.  On a rare occasion I will pull one out, thumb through it, mainly to see if I still understand what I studied 45 years ago.  Not a lot of it was used as a reference during my career.  I think the degree I earned is evidence that I was trained how to think like an engineer.  There wasn't a single course I took that addressed satellite engineering or aircraft engines.  But I had an understanding of why they worked they way in which they worked.  

I've also kept the Tom Clancy and James Bond novels.  All are interesting reading.

The Isaac Asimov novels are remaining in the bookshelf.  I have read all of them at least twice, maybe three times.

The recipe books, which I really need to dig out and get some ideas on what to cook.

So, what do I foresee in the coming year?  I'm not going to dwell on that in this post, but I can list some goals.

One, some more traveling, preferably via road.  We are looking at getting a trailer and living out of that during our adventures.  I have researched solar panels which we intend to use to power the trailer, and I've somewhat recently purchased a ham radio rig that's ruggedly designed for portable use.  

Two, have my coin collection and currency collection better organized.

Three, some more reading.  

Four, more genealogical research.  I'm not sure if I should dig some more into my Bonsall roots, or to concentrate on my Pilkington ancestry.  As of late it's the Parkers I've been looking into.  

The bottom line is that I will keep busy.  The challenge is to live long enough to get the rest of the things I want to do done.

7/9/26: Thursday

I can't say that there's been a whole lot that's worthy of report here.  We either have high heat warnings or high wind warnings, and we need more rain than we're getting.  I've spent some time scanning my QSL cards for my ham radio blog, and some defaced banknotes for my "Ugly Money" page that's on this blog.  The defaced nots are also posted on a webforum that I frequent, along with others who share this unusual enthusiasm for collecting these kinds of things.

I'm also going thru my US banknote collection and getting that organized.  I have a healthy collection of foreign banknotes, and I want to get that inventoried, organized, and post scans of that on a new page.  I have many archived scans that I could start with.  Foreign money has interested me for many years, and my collection of foreign currency is viewed as an art collection.  

And just think, in a matter of a few weeks I'll have been retired for a year.  I hear from tech recruiters on an almost daily basis and it's rare for me to respond.  I've seen two of the jobs that smell rather badly of attempts at industrial espionage.  I don't like to discuss what I've worked on in the past except in very generic terms.  I've worked on orbiting satellites, satellite ground stations, circuit cards, aircraft engine monitoring systems and cancer detection equipment.  I miss the good times when I was a satellite engineer and the overseas travel that I got out of it, but I'm not going back to it.

That said, I won't rule out updating my resume and throwing it out there.  One former supervisor has the right of first refusal if I do go forward with this.  Plan B is another supervisor who I know but did not work for.  I can think of a Plan C and a Plan D if I want to.  But I've got to work on getting my mother's house sold.  The work on the house itself that we've wanted done to it completed this afternoon and I expect we will have this one the market before the end of the month. 

And after that, I want to do a road trip.  I'm looking at Alamogordo, northern New Mexico, northern Arizona and historic 66 on this one.  Maybe then I'll entertain the idea of making some good money on the side.

Dang, I almost forgot.  Last week while doing some genealogical research I discovered that I am related, although distantly, to Jeannie C. Riley of Harper Valley PTA fame.  We share a 5th great grandfather, that being John Parker, born in 1725.  Her descent from there comes down a different son from this John Parker.   As far as I can tell that branch of the family was one of the pioneering families of what was then the Mexican state of Texas.  

There is also some information about this John Parker's forebears which, if reliable, goes back further than 1725.  If that information is true it would explain why there is a Massachusetts/Connecticut connection to the Parker family, which keeps coming up from more than one source, and one of those is reliable.  I know that the Parkers owned land in Virginia and North Carolina because I've seen the property tax rolls as well as other documentation.  But did they own land down south while living up north?  I can't prove they were in New England at this point in time.

I think with that I'll call this a post, and watch some Looney Tunes.  

Those were some of the best cartoons ever made.

Buc-ee's Has Come to Arizona

If you don't already know it, Buc-ee's is a famous chain known for huge amounts of gas pumps, a huge store, a huge selection of items, and is fast developing a following.  I have known about them for some time but have never been to one.  I've had a few people tell me I should go at least once, but I don't plan on going out of my way to get to one anytime soon.

Anyway, they opened up their first Arizona location in Goodyear, right off I-10.  I honestly would have thought they would have opened in Eloy first.  The opening was a big event here in the state, with hotels being booked to capacity and law enforcement having to re-route traffic.  I don't know if the hubbub has died down yet, and I don't have occasion to pass thru Goodyear.  If I need to use I-10 west of Phoenix metro, I take the bypass thru Gila Bend to avoid Phoenix.

I could criticize those who camped out for a few days before the grand opening, which if I do, then I'd have to hope that no one ever finds out I stood in a long line here in Tucson when In-N-Out Burger opened their first location here.  The honest truth of the matter is, those people who are fans of Buc-ee's aren't out robbing liquor stores, and I consider them more desirable to society than lottery addicts.  

As for why I don't see myself going to Buc-ee's, it's for these reasons.  One, I'm something of a Quik Trip loyalist.  They opened up in Tucson some years back and it's my convenience store of choice.  Two, if you buy something to eat from a Buc-ee's kitchen, they don't provide a place for you to sit down (some, but not all, of the Quik Trips do).  Three, I don't like crowds very much.

Now if I happen to be on the road somewhere and need some gas, I might stop there to check it out.  I'm sure I would go in and wander around some, to see what they have.  I might even grab a brisket sandwich to see what that's all about.

All of that said, it has to be noted that what we have here in Buc-ee's is an American success story.  They are doing something right to have the kind of following that they have.  Bucky Beaver is on his way to becoming as recognizable as Ronald McDonald.  

And I just might be missing out on something if I don't check it out.

To Virginia and Back

Last week Sheila, Courtney and I boarded a plane to take us to Sheila's sister out in Chesapeake, VA.  After connecting in Atlanta (my first time thru that airport) we arrived at their local time at 1:00 AM.  The folks at the Avis counter were top notch in that one, and Delta Airlines managed to regain some points with me.

I had met my sister-in-law when she was here in Tucson, but I had not met the rest of her family.  They were great hosts and I felt an instant connection to my brother-in-law.  Side trips were made to Virginia's Eastern Shore and down to Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina where I got to visit the spot where the Wright brothers changed the world on one cold December morning over 100 years ago.  

While in the Tarheel State, I sampled some eastern North Carolina barbecue, which I had when I was last there in 2012.  This time it was a different place, and no offense to anyone there, but I just wasn't impressed with it.  Don't get me wrong, it had flavor, but my palate seems to be more favorable to what I had in Texas and what I've had off of my grill.  It's that I won't go out of my way for eastern NC barbecue, but I hope that sometime next year I will be in the western part of that state to try it Piedmont style.

Virginia is a beautiful state, and was when I lived in Manassas in 1975.  My memories of Manassas are very fond, and for a long time I wanted to go back there and live.  While in Arlington on business in 1989 I drove to Manassas and saw that it had changed so much that I wouldn't even consider living there now.  It's grown, the traffic was worse, and I'm sure that it's reached the intolerable point some time ago.

I should post some pictures of this, which means I might create a photo album page at some point in the future.  I'm still too jet-lagged to do anything like that today.  We got back late Wednesday night, and I'm slowly unpacking and getting things back to where they used to be before we left.  We enjoyed that trip very much and definitely want to do it again next year.  

There's still some traveling we want to do.  Our next road trip will take us over into the Land of Enchantment, as that I want to visit the Space Museum in Alamogordo as well as some other places.  After that I'm thinking Prescott and Sedona.

Before I go, one announcement that I didn't think I'd be making.

I'm giving some thought to coming out of retirement.  No, I am not bored or anything like that.  It's that some of the jobs that the recruiters have been contacting me about look like they'd be really fun and interesting to do.  I have turned down lots of interview requests recently, but I'm thinking, why not update my resume, throw it out there, and see what happens?

Ideally it would be a part time contracting gig, and one of my former employers would offer me that, and possibly another former employer.  The money would be useful and would help further my recreational pursuits.  

It's something to think about some more, but I can't tell you which way I will go on this.  

But as busy as I have been in retirement, if I go back to the workforce then I could get some rest.

Mexican Restaurants in Tucson

For very many years I have had a weakness for Mexican food.  There are some good places in San Jose.  I know of a good one up in Mesa.  There was one in El Paso I was at many years ago that was good.  Not that I'm biased or anything, but I think Tucson has some really excellent places, and after a great meal that we had two nights ago, I figured I would do a blog entry about what we have here.  And all that I mention are recommended.

The Mexican cuisine here is heavily influenced by our neighboring Mexican state of Sonora.  If you know where to go here you can get Mexico City style or New Mexico style.  In no particular order, here are the places we like to eat.

In South Tucson, we have had a lot of fine meals at Guillermo's Double L.  This place features Sonoran cuisine, with the #1 combo meal on the menu being my go-to.  My most recent visit was with two friends who were co-workers when we worked at Paragon Space Development.  

Over in Catalina, north of Tucson on state highway 77, is Carlota's.  I've met the same two friends up there as well.  I was introduced to it on my first day on the job when I was with Tucson Embedded Systems.  Their lunch combinations are all good.  They have since moved to the western side of the highway and have expanded their menu.  Folks, they have some selections that I haven't seen anywhere else.   You can't go wrong here.  And it's Sonora style.

On the east side here in Tucson, is Poco & Mom's.  This place features New Mexico style.  As far as I've been able to determine, it's the real deal.  I have eaten New Mexico style in Deming and Silver City.  This style has some more zing to it than Sonoran style, which means "mild" is zing and "hot" is rocket fuel.  The breakfast sopapillas are a favorite.

Also on the east side is the family-run Los Nopales at Golf Links & Harrison.  My way home from work took me by this place, and I noticed that their parking lot was always full, even on a weekday.  A full parking lot is usually a barometer of how great the food is, and when Sheila and I tried it we learned why the parking lot is almost always packed.  It's Sonoran style, generous portions, and family-run.  They close on occasion for vacation, during Holy Week, Fourth of July week, and of course Christmas.  We were there two nights ago.  

Over in midtown, there is La Parilla Suiza.  This is Mexico City style, with some selections you're not going to see elsewhere.  Sheila and I had our first date there.  There are other La Parilla Suiza locations and I've heard that one or two of the others are not as good as this one on Speedway, but I haven't verified that.

While we're still on the Mexico City style, this can also be had at any of the Guadalajara Grill locations.  This was founded by a husband and wife team, and they added a second, and maybe a third location, before they divorced.  Two of the locations mysteriously burned down to the ground when the divorce proceedings started.  That was some fifteen years ago.  Anyway, they are back in commission.  I've always enjoyed the food here, but I happen to like the others you just read about somewhat better.

One other Eastside Tucson gem is El Sur on 22nd.  This is a family run restaurant, somewhat hole-in-the-wall, and excellent honest Sonoran cuisine.  The drawback is the parking is a bit challenging.  And the inside is almost always packed too.

Finally, one local chain here is La Herredura.  We are partial to the one on Tanque Verde near Bear Canyon.  Their menu selection includes some seafood dishes that I don't see elsewhere.  One seafood dish pictured in the menu, I'm guessing it's filete ajo or something like that, is a favorite.  Their #7, red chile and green chile combination, is another excellent selection.  I need to get back there in the near future.

With that, it's a wrap, and a bit different type of article than the others I've written here.