Thursday

 My bowling was not a lot to howl about today but I improved as the day advanced and I consider that a good sign, 133-124-147. After bowling I had a coke with the team then drove to Caren and Ron's place to introduce the kids to chess. Colter was not interested but the 5 year old attempted to understand what I was explaining. I brought home a couple of 2X4 blocks to put under the head of my bed per the snore doctor's suggestion. I told Ron I was reluctant to do that because the heart doctor is worried about my feet swelling. He wants my feet to be higher. I told Ron I should take four blocks with me and raise both ends of the bed. That way both doctors would be pleased. He laughed, he's a good guy.. . . Caren sent me home with what I think is a Mashed potato pie. It was delicious and I have enough left over for another meal. I have several too many potatoes around here, I think I will attempt my own version of that pie.She also gave me some Strawberry Shortcake. I will eat that with my ice cream tonight. I'm looking forward to it!

Wednesday

I have two or three new videos pasted on YouTube as of last night. Perhaps this link will help.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6iJRj5UZaA Today ChiChi did our little walk down to the river. Rain was falling on the freeway as we started out but it didn’t move our way until the last ten minutes of the walk. We got home safely. I changed into a dry shirt right away just to be on the safe side. It was a light rain at the house. A one day drought is to start during the weekend, who knows what day that might be. Or which weekend for that matter.

Try to Google celford52 then try YouTube

Tuesday

I was at the snore doctors office early and luckily they were able to get me in an out rather quickly. I thought I might go practice some more bowling after leaving there but the bowling alley does not open until 11am so I went to the dollar store and bought a new book and drove home for the day. The doctor gave me some nasal spray that he claims helps a lot of people who snore a lot. He wants to see how that works before going any further. He said my exhaling problem is probably caused by the little gadget in the back of my mouth that block my exhaling through my nose. Hr feels that can be corrected with a little 'snip'. He said he is reluctant to do that because I am on blood thinner and again wants to see how the nasal sprays work. If they do work he said he will write a prescription for more and if that does not do the job he will consider 'snipping' the back of my mouth. The threat of rain was in the air all day so I never ventured out for a walk. I think ChiChi was disappointed, he likes to get out and go places every chance he gets. I posted a few pictures to Facebook this afternoon and I am still working on a 'Bird Feeder' video for YouTube.

Monday

Cloudy and cool again this morning. I downloaded my pictures that were in the camera. I will eventually post the Balloon pics on You Tube and maybe a couple on my blog.  I have taken pics of the ‘lane’ ChiChi and I use to walk to the river; I may post a couple of them on the blog too. After lunch ChiChi and I drove to the bowling alley. I am happy with today’s results. 169-150-144= 154. That is the way it is ‘posed to be. So now I wait for the Thursday results. LOL. This evening I started a YouTube project staring Barbara’s Bird Feeder. I had the video camera recorder aimed at it for a couple of hours 4-5 years ago and caught a few birds and squirrels eating peanuts from it. I might be able to capture five minutes of excitement off the tape.

Sunday

ChiChi and I did our walk today. Close to three miles, I want to drive the course next time I am in the car and determine exactly how far it is. On the way a very young buck deer stood on one side of the road and looked at us as we looked back. He was curious and in no hurry to move along so we gazed at him from nine steps away for 3-4 minutes. ChiChi got bored and walked around me, getting tangled up in the leash in the process. The sudden movement spooked the deer and with two bounces he disappeared into the brush. One more of those times when I did not have my camera with me.

I took a lot of pictures last night but have not yet downloaded them. I was on the puter today, cleaning up all of the old unwanted pictures and safely storing the wanted ones on my portable memory chip. Now if the puter goes down I will have all of my important stuff saved.

This was popcorn and apple night, I watched a comedy I had seen 3-4 years ago. the name was BEST MAN. It's a lot of fun along with comedy, blood and gore.

Average Hollywood stuff these days.

Saturday

. .Today I finished posting the remaining pictures of my 2010 road trip across Canada and back. That is a lot of fun, I enjoy it. I hope you all will check in and take a gander at my work. My YouTube user name is celford52. I left for Tigard this afternoon in time to get to the Balloon Festival and take pictures of the colorful excitement going on there this weekend.  The balloons arrived just before dark and inflated but never did take off. Terri and I had ribs and beans down there for dinner then tried a local ‘Stout’ for dessert. I am not a great lover of ‘Stout’ beer. We left the fairgrounds close to 10pm and I got home about 11:30. Doggie was glad to see me!   

Friday

Friday       I am happy to say that ChiChi got better as the night progressed. I was awake at 2:30 this morning and found him to still be lethargic. He had never gone to his bed and was sleeping on his pillow in the living room. I got him to eat a small helping of ice-cream, something he has trouble refusing any time, and then I went back to bed and turned off the light. I could hear that he had followed me to his own bed and was settled in for the rest of the night. At 6:30 I was awake again and when he noticed  he slowly came over to my bed lazily wagging his tail. He was willing to go outside to take care of his business but did not wish to eat anything that was in his dog bowl. When I had breakfast I placed about half of a scrambled egg on top of his dog food and he ate that. He has not eaten a whole lot more than that so far today. We braved the dark clouds that have been hovering overhead all morning and walked down the lane to the river and back. We were lucky regarding the rain. A few drops fell but the clouds were so high in the sky that I didn’t expect much. ChiChi showed excitement when I approached him with the leash so I felt he would do fine. After we entered the lane I removed the leash and he acted as healthy as he ever has on our walks. I would feel better if he got hungry but I am sure that by tomorrow everything will be fine.     

Thursday

I began the day by feeding my hungry dog at 5:30 and going back to bed. I awoke at 7:00 and realized I had to have the car in the shop by 8:30 so I was a bit rushed. I was out of there by 10am and a bit later left the house for bowling. The bowling was not good, 155-111-128. I was not feeling too well about half way through the second game so I ate a small burger and that perked me up but not enough to recover from the terrible 111. I had another snack after bowling then headed for Safeway to spend $47. I purchased lots of goodies that will go in stir fry experiments I am going to try in days to come. Wish me luck. I did sit in front of the TV while O'Reilly was on tonight but after that ended I started in on the vegetables. It took me almost an hour to chop up 6 servings of stir fry vegetables. I am going to freeze 5 of them for later use. I hope my little idea works, it is difficult for me to understand why it wouldn't. A couple of days ago I prepared and froze a dozen slices of French Toast. I had one of those for breakfast this morning, pretty good but it didn't last me through bowling. Next time I should have an egg with it. I think the extra protein would be good for me.

I found doggie was sick while I was away today and he is really under the weather this evening, has no appetite at all and wants to crawl off by himself.Poor guy. This has happened in the past and by morning he has always felt better, I hope that is the case this time.

Wednesday

Worked on my next YouTube posting for a while today but by 3:30 I was so ‘stove up’ I had to get some exercise so I took my camera and the doggie and went walking down the lane to the river. I have been wanting to get some pictures to post here and I did do that while getting in an hour of walking. This evening I caught O’Reilly on TV and took a nap before waking up to post this at 9:30. I am awake enough now to go to bed and read myself to sleep in an hour or so.

Tuesday

Tuesday. . . . The day began with a bit of fog in the air and that was a good thing because as usual in the summer it burned away and we had a nice day. I drove  to Beaverton this morning to have lunch with Terri. After lunch we went to try miniature golf. . . .She won by one stroke………….The doctor said she will be released in the morning and the nurse thinks I should get into anger management classes right away. Terri made me promise not to kick the dog when I got home and I agreed to cool down by them. ….I left Beaverton for the drive home at 6:00 PM and 45 minutes later looked at the odometer and discovered I had covered 6 miles. By the time I got to the Hwy 26 Tunnel traffic was clearing and 8 minutes later I was across the river and on the way home. The traffic was almost nonexistent after leaving the tunnel. The temperature was 86 in Beaverton today and cooled off quickly as I approached Cowlitz county. As per usual.

You will be pleased to know I did not take out my golf score on the doggie.

Monday

Cool again today. ChiChi and I did walk for an hour, we got all of the way down to the river and back.  I also played on the puter long enough to post all of my remaining Canadian pictures to YouTube. I will next start on the return trip beginning in Maine. The weatherman has promised no rain tomorrow so I have washed my car. I don’t want to get it wet when I go to Beaverton tomorrow to accept a Miniature Golf challenge from Terri.

Sunday

I was really surprised when I Googled celford52 this morning. They have me all over the place, interesting. I tried to bowl again today but things were not working right, I feel I have no coordination. I averaged 124 for 5 lines. I did take a water pill this morning, I have never noticed any problem in the past. I came home and continued working on another video to put on YouTube. Every time I start a new project on the computer I have to learn everything all over again. I have lost all of my pictures again. They are there, I know because I found them once but forgot how I got to them. My computer performs like it has a split personality. I work fine with one of them but the other one is a bear. At the moment it is hiding my pictures from me. I decided to watch some dirt track racing on TV at 2PM and by 2:10 I was sound asleep in the recliner. I woke up in time to watch them give the winner his trophy. . . . .There was no rain today and it never warmed up much either.

Saturday

Saturday. We were lucky this morning to find  our drought has ended. We went a full day without rain yesterday and that is almost unheard of anymore.. . . I so enjoyed producing and posting the YouTube videos that I have decided to do the same in an edited form with the pictures from the trip I took to Nova Scotia a year ago. . . . . I used up the entire day working on another [4^th] video to post to YouTube. I hope you all can find it. It contains pictures of my trip across Canada in June of 2010. I lost or tossed my notes so it was done without a lot of knowledge of the scenes. I did my best. I have it posted now but have not yet attempted to play it, I guess it works. I will start part two tomorrow but I will take a break from it to go bowling. I need the exercise because today it never stopped raining. I did take a water pill today, I am bloated, and perhaps that is caused by lack of exercise. It could be caused by  worse things but I’m not considering that possibility at all. I now have an appointment with the Snore Doctor in Longview, June 28^th. 9AM, that means I will have to get up before breakfast again. I hate when that happens.

Friday

. .Early this morning I removed my video Part Two from You Tube. It had not been accepted. I mean the mode in which I had sent it had not been accepted. The plan was to work on that today. Part 3 is now finished so when I find a way to apply the proper mode to the two remaining videos I will post them.

I left the house a little after 8AM to get my car to the shop for that ball joint replacement. The mechanic drove me home and on the way I mentioned I was driving to Alaska in August so he promised to give the car a good inspection. The last thing I need on that trip is car trouble, especially if it is something that needs attention now.. . . .  I was back home by 8:40 and started work on remaking Part two of my video. Hoping I save it properly for uploading to YouTube. By 1PM I had all three parts of my Trip To Key West posted on You Tube. There was some trouble with the original link so I did change that. I doubt I will press the issue any further, if you are interested in the videos and cant find them you will email me, I hope. . . . . I strongly recommend you click on the little four poster icon in the bottom right corner of the picture frame and enlarge the scene to full screen. My total results, good and bad, are there to see. Please leave comments. More good news: Roy Hill, my landlord, has cleaned out his three car garage and offered me one of the spots to park my car. It is right next to my apartment and has it’s own remote control for the garage door. He said he and his wife were impressed with the way I fuss over my car, keeping it clean and looking good. Since he has sold his boat and moved it out they decided to give the spot to me. That was very nice of them and it made me forget all about my bad luck bowling yesterday. Following is the YOU TUBE link I hope works for all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr1HYo9GDog   Or log in to YouTube and just type in celford52. . . . The mechanic from R&R motors claims to have been here at 1pm knocking on my door to deliver the car. He said I was not here. I have not been out of the house all day. Anyway I discovered that about 4:30 when I phoned them. They had the wrong address and a different guy was delivering the car than the one who picked it up. They still had Barbara’s address on my records. A great waste of gas and it was all my gas! Thankfully the second guy had a cell phone and they were able to phone him and redirect him to my new address which I furnished the office via phone. They had also left a message on Barbara’s phone letting me know the car was ready. Once they arrived here I went with them to pay the bill, give them my new phone number and then headed towards Caren’s place for a visit. They now have a new drug baby to care for for a short time. A cute little one year old, smiles a lot and seems really happy. I stopped by to see Mel on my way home and explained why he ‘saw’ me drive by his place twice today without stopping or waving or even acknowledging that he existed. He was having trouble trying to figure what I was up to when in fact it was Ray from R&R motors attempting to deliver my car to me at Barbara’s address. Great fun!

Thursday

I forgot to mention yesterday that ChiChi and I took a two mile walk. It was almost 7pm before we left the house but there had been so much rain earlier that I was afraid to get too far from the house. We left with bright blue skies to the south but a large dark rain cloud formed overhead before we returned. Happy to say it never spilled over on us but this morning all is fogged in and everything is wet. The fog around here is good though; it usually means clear weather for the day. I thought I would take the doggie for a walk again today after getting home from bowling but I was so unhappy with my results that I was not in the mood. I bowled 93-133-88 for the three games. That is the worst I have done in many long times. I hope it is out of my system and I can make a comeback next week. I am still working on the pictures so I can get the balance of them posted to You Tube. I can not figure out why I was successful with part one but not able to get them to accept part two. Just one of life's little challenges, I guess.

Wednesday

I had my luncheon on my calendar but failed to look at it while I was busy with my photo stuff yesterday. I guess I will have to eat twice as much next month. Again, I spent most of the day playing on the computer, I am attempting to place some stuff on my You Tube account but it tells me I need to use a MWV mode and I have no idea what to do about that. The strange thing is that You Tube did accept the first part of my trip but refused to accept the second part. I would like to send out the link to all my friends but I don't know how to do that either. Tomorrow I go bowling again and if I come home in a good mood I may try to figure it out. Maybe someone out there in the Cloud will send me an email explaining it all. I also have no idea how to delete the two items that I have posted to the site that the site refuses to play.

Tuesday

. Spent most of the morning working on my pictures of the cross country trip. I have made several panoramas’ that have been posted to my Facebook page. My plan is to make a slide show and post it on You Tube. The first slide show I made did not contain any panorama’s so I am going to make another clip to post to that location. I thought I might get out and walk for an hour or so but realized just before I left the house that I had taken a furosemide tablet at noon so I decided to stay near the water closet…….Got an email this afternoon reminding me that I forgot to make an appearance at the monthly ‘52’ luncheon. I had every intention of going but forgot all about it. That is a disappointment.

Monday

Kept my doctor appointment at 8:30, all is well. He did set me up with a doctor who has a Bachelors in Snoring  that I have to see. When I sleep on my back I am unable to exhale through my nose. Something gets in the way, the doctor says it may be a polyp. If so I will have it removed. I stopped by Safeway on the way home and left them some more money. After putting the stuff away I ate a small bowl of my famous chili then waved goodbye to the doggie while climbing in the car for the drive to the bowling alley. My results were 93-167-193 then I spoiled a good average by sticking around for a 135. My average for the day was about 146 so I didn’t feel too bad about that. There was a light rain today, off and on, mostly on. The temperature got to about 64. The sun did come out this afternoon. It had to wait until it was sitting to peek out from under the cloud cover though.

Sunday

Sunday. . . It did warm up enough to go walking today, I had to wear a sweatshirt to feel comfortable but I survived. ChiChi really got excited once he caught on to what was happening. He happily ran to me and stood still while I fastened the leash to his collar. That is something new for him. In the past he has tried to get away from the leash. We took our usual 2 mile walk down the hill to the river and back, after leaving the main road I removed his leash and let him have his head. He never did get more than 15 feet away from me, that is about the length of the retractable leash I have been using. He was a good dog and he seemed to have learned a lot of good things during our long, long trip. After we returned to the main road he was willing to remain in place while I leashed him up again for the rest of the walk home……. I played on the computer this afternoon, printing and fitting together side by side pictures I had taken on the trip. I have noticed that I can get a perfect match at the horizon but the parts of the picture don’t fit exactly in the foreground. I may be able to correct that problem by using a tripod with each shot. I had my tripod with me on the trip but never did take it from the trunk of the car. Dummmmb.

Oh, by the  way, let me mention that as I look out the window at this very moment my car is soaked from the latest rain that has just drifted by. There appears to be a serious drought around here if a day goes by without some rainfall. Tonight I will try to find a funny movie to watch with some popcorn and butter. I had the apple and cheese a while ago for dinner. Earlier in the day I had some of my world famous spaghetti, yum yum. My weight is now 198. gained 5 pounds since getting home one week ago. I think doggie has gained a few ounces himself. I will go bowling tomorrow after the doctor appointment, that will be enough exercise for Monday. Not.

Saturday

. By 7AM I had my laundry caught up, the bed made and was ready for breakfast. Doggie likes to start begging for his big meal of the day by daylight each morning so what am I to do? I was pleased to see no rain drops on my car this morning, that is a good sign, around here at least.. . . I have had a nice day, it was mostly cloudy and I never did get ChiChi out but I did spend the day with my "picture hobby'. I made three 'pans' of mountains that I could never get in one picture frame. I enjoyed the work and was happy with the outcome. The pictures are long and narrow so I doubt I'll ever get them framed. Unless I take up 'frame making' as a next hobby. I watched some Indy Car racing from Texas this evening but went to bed to read at 8PM.

Friday

. I had the car in the shop at 8:30 to get the oil changed. They also looked for the latest ‘rattle’ I have discovered. He discovered  the suspension needs attention and I made a $200.00 appointment for next Friday morning to get that repaired. I left the house about 11:30 and drove to Beaverton to see Terri and take her to lunch. We then went to Borders and she showed me the pictures she took while spending last month in Hawaii. She got some great Rainbow pics. I wish I could do so well. She did borrow her friends camera though and that was the main reason for such fantastic shots. It was a fun afternoon. I got home in time to watch the last half of the O’Reilly show on TV. That was my crowning achievement for the day. Now it is bed time!

Thursday

  I was not overjoyed about my bowling scores today, 141-134-147, but it was close enough to my average to keep me from jumping off a bridge. I have not yet decided what to do about the lack of sound on my trip cd. I have had that problem before and have no idea how I solved it then. More work is due, I suppose. My plan is to run the cd in another machine and see if the sound is actually there but just not being played back on my puter. I stopped by Jiffy Lube today, still trying to get them to accept some responsibility for the plugged radiator  they supposedly ‘cleaned’. It has been over two months. The manager of the local shop took my information one more time and promised to submit it to the powers that be. Jiffy Lube drags their feet when it comes to accepting responsibility for sloppy work. I wish I had 2 million readers on this blog, that would get their attention real quick. I will put in a plug for O'Reilly Auto Parts in Kelso. I had to return a small 12 volt ceramic heater that was of poor quality and I had no receipt for. They bent over backwards to see that I left happy. I traded the poor quality item for a new one that purrs like a kitten. The first one seemed to have some bearings missing in the main motor.

Score: O'Reilly Auto Parts 1, Jiffy Lube 0.

Wednesday

Today I burned my first copy of my pictures of my trip. The pictures show fine but for some reason I can not get the sound to work. I think I will try the cd on another machine before deciding that it is not there to be heard.

We had a light rain overnight and I used that moisture to help wipe off the dust from the car. It looks pretty good now, the water here leaves a film of something on the car so I has to be wiped off after each wash. That was also true of Barbara's well water, that is the reason I used to wash my car with city water while living there.

I was not impressed with the weather around here today, I'm glad I had an excuse to be inside. I hate the guilty feeling when I don't get out and walk for an hour or so.

Tomorrow is bowling day and I am hoping to make a better showing than Yesterday.

There is talk of better weather, that is something to look forward to, I felt cold most of the day today.

Tuesday

Today is Birthday Day for Tammy! Happy Birthday, youngster! Are you still 29? That’s what I thought! I visited Bernita today, my haircut was due while I was away so it was really due by the time I sat in the chair. After that I drove into town to throw a few lines of bowling. 116-113-150. I was happy enough with the 150 so I left while I felt ahead. I stopped by Safeway on the way home and arrived back at the house around 3:00. It was cold most of the day-did It ever get above 65? This evening I watched O’Reilly on TV and spent time working with my slide show of the Key West Trip I just got back from. I hope I get it finished by Christmas. LOL.

Monday

Monday  turned out to be a good day. It was cold and lousy outside this morning but the weather cleared considerably by the afternoon. I down loaded my pictures from the camera, all 353 of them and started the editing process. At about noon [after lunch] I laid down to read and fell asleep for two hours. Ron text me a message inviting me over to have potato soup so I arrived there about 4pm. I also delivered a pocket knife to him that he had ordered from Key West. Ashton was there, he is a bright kid, and he will go far if he stays on the right track. Caren loaded me up with soup to take home and I left about 5:00. On the way home I stopped by the market in Castle Rock for some essentials and as I was unloading all of my stuff from the car Roy, my landlord walked down the hill from his place and gave me some tacos they had not been able to eat. All of those groceries! All of that food there and I plan on having ice cream for dinner tonight while watching O’Reilly at 8PM. I had missed his 5pm show because I was not here. Life is good, except for one little problem, while on my trip I lost my 77 year old silver dollar I have been carrying around for 40 years. Perhaps Tammy will search in her couch at the spot I always sat in while there and find it. I arranged a doctor appointment via the Internet today, that was a first for me. Great fun. Now it is time to settle in for the evening, eat my ice cream and get to bed.

Sunday 5th

The doggie and I have returned. I wish to thank all of those who put up with me for the short time I was visiting with them. I really had a wonderful time, driving in the neighborhood of 9,000 miles. At 25 mpg that means about 360 gallons of gas at  $3.90 per gallon and around $1400 out of pocket. I liked Key West and took a lot of pictures. Big Bend National Park was a winner too! I have to get rested up enough to get interested in uploading my camera and producing some pictures to post. I arrived home at 9am and the first thing I did was remove everything from the car except the contents of the glove box and vacuum it out. Later in the day I washed the car but have yet to restore all of those ‘things’ to their place in the car. The car looks so nice without all that stuff in there I am fighting with myself about the importance of hauling it all around. We shall see. At the moment I am going to fix a bowl of popcorn and watch a movie before going to bed. I forgot to mention I also took a three hour nap this afternoon.