Playing Catch Up

The last few days have been very hectic, and I’ve been trying to play catch up and not succeeding all that well. But I’ll try to bring you up to date.

We went out to dinner with friends Thursday evening at a place called Riptide’s here in Edgewater. It’s always been very popular, but to us, it seemed like the quality of the food had deteriorated since our first visit, and we stopped going a couple of years ago. But our friends had never been there and wanted to try it, so we thought we would give it another shot. Big mistake! Our server was excellent, but the food was just not good, and I don’t think anyone finished their meal. By the time we left, three of the four of us were not feeling all that great, and we were up all night with stomach distress.

Then we had to be up early Friday morning to be in Port Orange for an appointment with a new neurologist about my head pain. We were dressed and ready to leave by about 8 a.m. when the doorbell rang. It was someone from the surveying company who had told us it would be several weeks before they could do the survey we needed before we could apply for our building permit. He said ours was a pretty simple job, and he was in the area, so he wondered if he could go ahead and do it then. Sure, help yourself! We appreciate it.

The appointment with the new doctor went very well, and while he was not yet able to tell me what is causing my issues, he did rule out some things that were concerning us quite a bit. So that’s a good thing anyhow. Once the results of the MRI I had done on my brain last week are in, we will hopefully know more. But apparently it’s not anything terribly serious, just painful. I’ve lived with so much pain for so long that I’m no stranger to it.

When we were done with the neurologist, we had to go to the Daytona Beach VA Medical Center for lab work for an upcoming appointment I have there. Though I use a civilian doctor for my primary care, using Medicare, I still have to see a VA doctor twice a year to stay enrolled in the system, just in case of some kind of catastrophic incident or disease. I was in and out of there in about half an hour.

On Thursday evening, our 55-inch Samsung TV suddenly had sound but no picture. A couple of hours of online troubleshooting helped me figure out that the backlight was gone. As we all know, we live in a throwaway society, and nobody fixes things these days. It seemed like finding anybody to repair it would be about impossible and probably cost more than the TV was worth.

What a week. First Facebook was down for a day, and now no TV. I felt like I was living like I did as a kid. I didn’t like it then, either. I was going to say that’s why I grew up, but who am I kidding? So after having lunch, once I was done at the VA, it was time to go TV shopping.

There are so many choices and options in TVs these days that it will leave your head spinning. We do like watching TV in the evening, and we went in looking for something about like what we had. But instead, we walked out with a 65-inch Sony Bravia OLED 4K smart TV with the most amazing picture and sound quality I’ve ever seen on a television. It’s probably overkill, but you only live once, right? And it was on sale, so even better yet!

Back in Edgewater, we stopped at Gary’s Meat Market for a few things, then we went home and unloaded the TV from the van. Then it was back out the door to Publix for grocery shopping and to get our flu shots. It had been sprinkling and then rained real hard for a few minutes and tapered off while we were in the parking lot, so we decided to go ahead and get inside the store. We got about two feet from the van when the sky opened up and dumped on us. We were soaked by the time we got inside the store. We had about a fifteen-minute wait to get our flu shots, which were no problem at all, and then bought groceries. The rain had tapered off a little bit but started up again as we were loading everything into the van, keeping us soaked even longer. At least when we got home, we could pull directly into the garage and unload everything.

With all the groceries put away and us dried off, it was time to start setting up the TV. Or at least I thought it was. As it turned out, the two of us couldn’t get it out of the carton, attach the legs, and get it onto the stand where we keep it without help. Fortunately, my buddy Jesse Bolton from across the street is always quick to lend a hand. Even though it was after 8 p.m., he came over and spent over an hour helping us get it unpackaged and in place.

I spent an hour or so trying to get familiar with the new TV, then we relaxed a little bit, but were so worn out that we called it an early evening and went to bed as soon as I posted a repeat blog from our days as fulltime RVers.

Yesterday I was busy answering tons of emails that have been neglected, then started downloading some of the many apps for the TV. We only watch a few network shows and local news, but we like a lot of documentaries, things on the History Channel, and true crime shows. With some of the apps we now have, we have so many options for documentaries and movies and things that we may never leave the house again!

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an RV camping journal donated by Barbara House. Barbara makes several variations of these, and they all have pages where you can list the date, weather, where you traveled to and from that day, beginning and ending mileage, campground information including amenities at RV sites, a place for campground reviews, room to record activities, people met along the way, reminders of places to see and things to do the next time you’re in the area, and a page for notes for each day. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – Science doesn’t care what you believe.