G Mountain Photographer

The month of October, halloween, and anything significant that happened, seems to be a blurr. Some of the only significant things to comment on was Mom's recovery from her operation. Even though she is much better, the after effects are still lingering. As part of her recovery therapy, she decided that upgrading her sewing machine was impractical and that total replacement was needed. After all, what better way to promote a return to good health than to buy a new Bernina sewing machine. Now that she's had it a couple of weeks, I believe that this medicinal treatment has made a positive impact on her health, mental or otherwise.

By coincidence, the pump on the trusty Maytag washing machine gave up completely. Fact, replacing the pump on the old machine is only a tempory measure of comfort and peace of mind. Fact, new washing machines come with just about all the bells and whistles and even extended warranty. They look cool, especially with the numerous buttons, lights, and big, round picture tube window to the world of clothes washing. At first, we wondered if we had made a good decision with the machine sliding or jitter bugging across the laundry room floor when it cycled into the spin mode. The dealer even came and replaced the unit as a sign of good faith, not wanting to investigate the cause of the dancing washing machine. Afterall, when you read the installation manual, it calls for using a level to insure the machine was placed or adjusted to a side to side and front to back level on the floor. Secondly, the principle of centrifical motion of the washer drum, with a medium load of clothes slightly off even distribution can cause the washing machine to dance, especially when in the high speed spin cycle. They only tested the machine when water was being added to the drum (no clothes added), and watched it go through a spin cycle. Anyway, the whole approach to customer service here was not solving the problem but replacing the machine. RESULT: The machine danced when clothes were added. CURE: Take the machine off the pedestal, balance the unit on the floor, and now you can add clothes when running the washing machine. LESSON LEARNED: Demonstrate the problem in actual conditions to the service people, then recommend they balance the unit, etc., etc., etc.

Now that you've experienced life on your own for awhile, and have your own families, here is another true-ism. Things, can be but not always are bad, usually happen in 3's. Well, I told you about the first two, sewing machine and washing machine, now comes the third. At the beginning of the month, Aunt Dot's husband was watching TV to keep from boardem when they visited us at the beginning of the month and one day, he's using the remote control on the TV and the picture goes blank, "poof", the transformer gives up the ghost. Well, I reckon that it was more than "about time" that it happen. Afterall, we bought that Sony TV back in 1988 in Lompoc, CA after we moved there and it lasted all these years. I now can honestly say that the Sony TV was a good one and lasted all these years. Anyway, we've been looking to replace it but the technology has changed considerably since 1988. You can chuckle to yourselves, gee, what do they need another TV in the home for? There's only two of them and the dog and they have a couple of sets. Now, I need you to help rationalize the need to replace the burnt out TV and your recommendations of what type. After all, your recommendations will be taken seriously because it will benefit you all, if and when you come for a visit. So, what will it be?

On a more enlightening note, the rest of the month was not all a less than stellar month. Work has been busy for me. I went to a conference in Pocatello for a couple of days. On the second evening, the activity was to go to a play of "Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde" that was superb. This broadway play was really good. Besides the dialog, there was lots of music and singing. It's the first time I've seen a play with lots of singing. The actors used those small face microphones that were remote and even with the mouthpieces on, it didn't detract from their character, costumes, or the play.

Since the weather turned cooler, Mom and I have been dealing with raking the leaves and other chores. We sure get lots of leaves, even from our neighbor's tree (Matt's family). One day, I guess they felt bad that we had so much raking to do that Matt help clear our front sidewalk and road area of the leaves from the big trees there. With halloween, I decided to just not rake the leaves and give it an unkept look. Well, thats another way of putting it that I didn't do the front lawn. So on halloween, we had only two trick o treaters come here. Our neighborhood must be just old folks. How dull?

We've been reviewing some of the pictures of our trip to Hawaii and here are a few more for the Blog.