Between the thunder, you can hear the v-22 ospreys flying by, can't see them in the dark; they are awesome but freaky aircraft. I see a lot of them here in NC.

Not having been in this hot humid weather for a few years, I forgot that your sunglasses instantly fog up when you go outside from air conditioning.

Sitting in the dark to better see the lighting wishing the power would go out so the parking lot lights would quit interferring with the view.

In Jacksonville, North Carolina, sitting in my dark hotel room watching some awesome lightning, hearing some awesome thunder. Now it's raining pretty hard. Nice

A Girl and A Ham Radio

Tom put a new ham radio in the Toyota. Not new but one he got last summer and stronger than the handheld radio I currently use. He put it in my car and powered it up to the rear lighter outlet in the "way back" area of the car. That's it. I went out and started assessing the situation. Ran the power cord and antenna wire under the back seat to put the radio under the driver's seat: too much electronics under that seat. Re-route the wires to put the radio under the passenger seat: not enough cord on the microphone to reach back to the driver/operator. Re-re-route the wires under the middle of the back seat and place the radio next to the driver side console. Nice, the microphone is in a comfortable position, the faceplate for the radio will be mounted on the console. Here is the result:

The faceplate will be mounted on the console with sticky magnets.
I will need to see it in the sunlight with my polarized sunglasses
to see where the final mounting place will be.

Here is the floor in the back seat, the wires are neatly tucked under the floor mat where they won't be stepped on:


Here is the "way back" of the Toyota, the plug outlet, and wires nicely hidden under the mat. I took everything out of the back to maneuver better.

After all that, I checked the radio, all in working order but find out the speaker for the radio is on the radio and not on the microphone like with my handheld microphone. So, the radio can be positioned on the console without interfering with the hanging microphone and mounted faceplate. I keep the key on in case I get a call on the radio, listening to the music on the satellite radio, put all the stuff back in the car. All is good...

...I want to check the position of the faceplate when the car would be in gear. Why does the satellite radio stop playing when I press on the brake? That's dumb. Does it again. It can't be because the new ham radio is powered up. Does it again. hmmmm, I should try to start the car. Crap, just tick tick tick. I guess I'll be calling the auto club in the morning for a jump start.

CERT Training

Today Linda & Tom participated in CERT training at Fire Station 2 in Lake Havasu City. The training was put on by the Lake Havasu City CERT Team, which were a part of. Since we are newer to the team, we participated in the exercise.

There were Teams from Bullhead City, Kingman, and Mohave Valley. There were also volunteers from the Lake Havasu City Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association that helped out playing the parts of victims. Our team coordinated all of the scenarios and it went as well as could be expected. We were also treated to a tour of the Lake Havasu City Fire Departments Rehab Rig. This unit is what the CERT team uses when were called out by the Fire Department. We were also treated to an extraction simulation from the Fire Department.

A bar b que lunch was provided also with lots of goodies as well. We also received our Training Certificates from our county training completed in April 2010.

10 Years! Lake Havasu City, AZ
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This weekend was a worldwide celebration of the 10th anniversary of the start of the sport of Geocaching. Zoonslikezoey (us) hosted an event to celebrate with other local geocachers. We had 18 cachers show up for some food and geo-jeopardy where everybody won a prize. Only 16 cachers were present for the picture, someone had the time wrong and showed up after the picture was taken. Thanks to zacoolkats for providing some door prizes. We met some new friends both from LHC and as far as Yuma. We should've had a prize for who traveled the farthest, Yuma might have won but LHC_Drat would have taken the prize for being from New Hampshire (part time anyway).

Quail Eggs

We found these quail eggs behind the tree next to the garage door. Yesterday I counted 15 but only 13 today. Last week we found an egg in the rocks about 20 feet away from here. Some are buried under the leaves but not all. Hope to see some chicks. Quails don't build nests so it will be interesting to see how mama keeps them corralled.

Passed Excel Specialist: 929 out of 1000! YAY!

Test, Class, etc.

Linda attempted another round of Microsoft Office Word & Excel exams in Glendale, AZ. Passed Word but did not pass Excel. There are too many things on the exam that I can't practice on my version of Office.

Tom & Linda spent the second weekend out of town for CERT training. That's Community Emergency Response Team. Our Lake Havasu City team is awesome and really busy. Not so much with emergencies, although we do assist the fire department at major fires. We provide first aid stations at various city events and we volunteer when we can. The team helped recently at the HavaBBQ, Travis Tritt Show, and last night, the Relay for Life. Now that we've completed Mohave County training, we can work for the county also and be covered under their insurance.

Monday night is the last class of our Citizens' Police Academy, then they provide the class dinner the following Monday night. This will culminate 12 weeks of very informative Monday evenings on the inner workings of the police department. We have never gotten out of class on time but have never minded; each class is very interesting. We've heard from the undercover officers, patrol, neighborhood watch, dispatch, hands-on CSI, K-9 demo, and much more.

We're hosting a geocaching event on May 2 to celebrate 10 years of geocaching. We had one for Pi Day and had a lot of fun playing Jeopardy so we're going to have Geo-Jeopardy, based on the history of geocaching.

Sunday morning, we went to our ham club president's house to see a demo on radio contesting. We also got some information on antennas and looks like we'll be putting our antenna outside soon. It will work more efficiently outdoors rather than strung across the den.

Ice Cream

We have had some yummy batches of vegan ice cream. First we had vanilla with chopped dark cherries. Then two versions of vanilla with mini chocolate chips. The first version was made with low fat coconut milk, 1/2 gallon @ almost $6. Bought it because I figured we'd get four batches from it. Didn't like that one as well because it was less creamy and more like ice milk. Made the same recipe with the canned coconut milk, 1 batch @ $1.37. Along with the Vanilla Almond Breeze, that version was a hit, tasted like Almond Joy. Today's batch is just coconut milk with some leftover fresh strawberries. YUMMY! In the near future (now that I actually have the recipe book there will be many varieties) will be Orange Ice Cream (with pineapple*orange*banana juice).

Got my new Cuisinart Ice Cream maker ICE-20 from Amazon.com two days ago. Put the bowl in the freezer; couldn't wait to give it a try. Wednesday, after massage, checked the bowl, nice and frozen, started adding the ingredients. Inserted the bowl on the base and put the stirrer in, hmmm, something's wrong and it won't fit properly. The milk is already freezing and the stirrer won't seat properly. Jeez, didn't think it would start freezing THAT fast. Pour out what's not frozen to save for second attempt but have to wait for the bowl to thaw to retrieve the frozen portion. Bowl back in freezer.

Second try on Thursday, after blood donation. Learned lesson this time and assembled the unit BEFORE adding ingredients. Nice since we already know how fast it starts freezing. Added already mixed ingredients (remember we tried this yesterday). We bought some frozen dark cherries but had to locate the recipe for the amount. It was almost done freezing by the time I had the cherries chopped, about 20 minutes. That was 20 MINUTES to frozen dessert! Had to hurry to transfer the ice cream out of the bowl but still lost some stuck to the still FROZEN bowl. Put ice cream in the freezer to finish hardening till after dinner.

During "Survivor" we decided it was time for ice cream, yay! Still a little soft but ready to try anyway. Both of us really liked our vegan cherry vanilla ice cream. Did I say VEGAN? Yes, indeed. A little coconut milk, a little vanilla almond breeze, vanilla, sugar, and chopped dark cherries. Mighty tasty.

I have some fresh strawberries that need to be used. Guess what flavor is next? And after that vanilla with mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (both will be vegan too.) Just waiting for the Lick It recipe book to arrive.

Excellent hotel last night, Thunderbird Executive Inn. Found it on hotels.com. Will definitely stay here again. Awesome "campus" quiet & nice amenities.

LF, sitting @ GCC waiting for test time, too early, found a cache, paid for tests, located testing room. Too much time to think about tests. No distractions. Outcome not as expected, get another chance but will have to return to Glendale, Az.

Friday pizza night @ Schlotzsky's-the line is out the door! Weather is nice & everyone is out. Mmm vegan pizza is not too bad but neither in the bbq chicken

Class #5 of Citizen Police Academy-why do citizens ask such stupid questions? Got our applications for ride along-woo hoo! Got to check the calendar for dates.

Space Station Tracking

I found this and thought it might be interesting to have on the blog. You can see exactly where the International Space Station is. The red dot on the map is our house in Havasu.

Oh happy day! a teeny bit late leaving for work, needed sunglasses for the drive: 1st time this winter!

One Vegan, One Carnivore

Linda is on day three of trying out a vegan diet. Tom is not. Finding alternatives event to meatless products is challenging. Didn't realize how many of the meat substitutes I use have milk or eggs. So far so good, had a yummy dinner of Italian meatless balls, baked sweet potato, salad with rice cheese. The rice cheese, cheddar flavor, was actually tasty. Went shopping with an Adventist friend to their bookmobile sale of grocery products, even those have egg & milk in them. My friend was surprised to know that. We have ONE grocery store in town that carries vegetarian-friendly foods. We'll see how each day goes.

~LF

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Join us for another geocache event to celebrate Pi Day. Let's fill the room, buy food, or not. Come on over for another fun time.