Not much to report on today. The weather was superb. Mostly sunny with a light breeze out of the south and temperatures ranging from 58 to 74 degrees. (The forecast had been for closer to 80 but the cloud cover which moved in between noon and 4 PM kept it down.) The humidity was high, however, and that meant plenty of early morning fog in the valleys and even an unpredicted spritz around 3 PM. Well, it was "unpredicted" but my taking the Tundra to the car wash probably made it inevitable.
Speaking of the Tundra, I spent an hour cleaning out the back seat and straightening things up. Discovered that somewhere along the way one of the bolts anchoring the rear seat belts had gone AWOL. Since I wanted to go do some shopping for auto fluids (transmission, brake, oil, etc.) anyway, I stopped at the hardware store to get a replacement. I was unable to get the matching bolt out so as to make my job of getting a replacement that much easier--and making the missing bolt that much more a mystery--so I had to sorta guess as to the size. First choice, a 7/16 by 3/4, was nearly the right diameter but the threads were too coarse. The second had almost the right threads but it still wouldn't fit. That's when I realized I needed a metric bolt. Luckily they had a few in stock and after trying a 12mm with a 20 thread, got the match I needed in a 10mm-20.
Off to Wally World for the fluids (cheaper there), a window squeegee, an extension cord (50' of 12 gauge), and some other odds and ends. Wally carries just about everything and it's not even a Super Store. Two items they did not have were road emergency reflectors (the triangle kind) and flares. I'm pretty sure I can get those from Auto Zone which is just down the block. If not, then NAPA should carry them. Gives me an second excuse to go down the hill tomorrow.
The first excuse? I stopped by the Allstate office because I realized our auto insurance bill will be due on July 31 and we will be somewhere in either the Yukon or British Columbia. While talking with our agent about how to make the payment, he suggested I go paperless and also have my payment made directly from the bank online--at a savings of almost 15% annually. Now I may be slow, but with three cars and a trailer on the insurance.... So tomorrow I go down with the checking account number in hand and we set up the account online.
While I was running around, Terry was making arrangements with the campground in Fairbanks (actually in North Pole) to have some prescription medications sent there for her. She's got enough on hand to get her to July 20th or so but will need her meds refilled to complete the trip.
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Before going out this afternoon, I built a little wattle fence along the back edge of the onion patch so as to discourage any wandering raccoon or bruin from walking through the plants. Yeah, it's a reaction rather than prevention at this point, but only a few look to have been bent over.
While working on the fence, I saw my first snake of the season. An 18" garter snake, it was sunning itself on one of the rocks that form the planting bed's wall. I felt sorry for the poor thing. Its was so dull and gray that its yellow stripes could barely be discerned and even the scales over its eyes were nearly opaque. Clearly, this was a snake in need of a sharp-edged stone so it could begin shedding its skin.
Speaking of critters, the robins nesting on the corner logs of the garage have hatched at least two chicks. I climbed up to do a check when I did a walk about this afternoon. Momma robin sat tight when I walked past but flew off when I stopped to look back. Since she had left the nest--to squawk at me from the trees--I felt it was okay to climb up and reach in to determine if there were eggs. I didn't feel any eggs but there were a couple of squirming little bodies down in the nest cup. Not wanting to disturb Momma too much, I climbed down and left without attempting to get an accurate count. There's most definitely two, possibly three, babies in the nest. I should be able to get a better count in less than a week when their big mouths will be up above the edge of the nest looking for the next worm.
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I would be derelict in my fan duties if I did not mention that the Mets took two out of three games over the weekend from the *ptui* Yankees. In the two games they won, Jason Bay--formerly of the Red Sox--went 4-for-4 (scoring 3 runs) and then 2-for-2 (both home runs). Is it any wonder he got plunked later in the second game? Sure, it was a 78 mph curve ball, but that only provided deniability to the Yankees. Face it. It was intentional. Hell, if it wasn't, it should have been! Bay's batting average is now up to .307 for the season.
Yeah, yeah. I know the Yanks are 26-18 and in second place in the AL East while the Mets are under .500 at 22-23 in fifth (last) place in the NL East. I would like to point out, however, that the Yanks are SIX (6) games out of first behind the Tampa Bay Rays, while the Mets are just FIVE (5) games behind the Phillies. (The Mets start a three game series against the Phillies Tuesday night in CITI Field.)
The Mets announced today that right-handed pitcher John Maine has tendinitis in his throwing shoulder and will be sidelined indefinitely. Maine threw just five pitches--walking the only batter he faced--in his last start on Thursday against the Nationals before he came out of the game when the pitching coach Dan Warthen and manager Jerry Manual saw something in his delivery they didn't like.
With Oliver Perez in the pull pen for the time being, two-fifths of the Mets' starting rotation has been shelved. Hisanori Takahashi and knuckleballer R.A. Dickey will try to pick up the slack.
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Oh yeah: 15 days to go!
2 comments:
Summer's on the way here, too, if not upon us. 43 to 61 today, although the temp only topped 58 for about an hour. But lots of sunshine again, and the remaining snow on the mountains is beginning to melt quickly now. There will still be snow on the northern faces, and in deep indentations, when you get here ... at least above 4000 or 5000 feet.
There will also be long stretches of the Alcan where no cell phone service is available, unless you have a satellite phone. I was glad to read that you obtained a CB for your rig.
On the other hand, long stretches where you're "out of reach" is wonderfully freeing, these days.
I'm counting down, too.
Before you hand over the account info to Allstate, you may want to do a quick check with your bank and make sure you can stop them from taking the money as easily as they can start taking it.
Many a person has started up auto payments only to find that they end up having to close the account later in order to get them to stop!
Just talk to a person at the bank and see if they have a preferred method of dealing with this. Some banks ask that you set up a separate account just for this type of withdrawal activity. Others have other methods. I know you're about to head out on vacay - but better to check into this now than have to wade through problems later!
I have 2 bank withdrawals set up. Each is for my credit card payments and neither is set to auto withdraw. But that's just me - I tend to be hands on and want to check things before paying - just in case there is an issue. ;-)
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