More organizing around here; there are still boxes in the garage from the move. But I have made some progress the past week.

Lowe’s was kind enough to let me buy some more garage cabinets. They are the basic formica-covered pressboard types, nothing fancy, but are easy to put together. They are 24 inches wide and 72 inches tall, with two adjustable and one fixed shelf, and a door. Nice hardware, pre-drilled holes for those lock-down screw connectors, and well-made. I got four more to help store all the garage stuff. I got them put together in a couple of hours, and emptied another dozen boxes of garage junk.

I also picked up a 4 foot by 4 inch by 1 inch pine board, sprayed it with some off-white spray paint (found in one of the boxes I unloaded), and stuck six basic coat hooks on the board. Mounted that on the garage wall between the two garage doors. It’s use will be for winter coats and gloves that will be used when there is some winter snow to clean off the driveway and walkways. (That will be a new experience for this California boy.) I plan on getting a large and thick floor mat for that area to place snowy boots on during the winter. Maybe a small oil drip pan to catch snow melt. I’m guessing here; I suspect one of my two readers from the snow states might have some advice. Pam is insisting that I get a snow blower, as she doesn’t want me to overtax my heart with any snow shoveling duties.

Today was lawn mowing day. I just have the front yard to mow at the moment, and only got half a bag full of clippings. The lawn has never been fertilized while the house was empty, although I did spread a bit of fertilizer last week to strengthen up the lawn. I still need to do a bit of edging with the string trimmer, but that task is on tomorrow’s schedule.

I did get a bunch of cardboard boxes taken to the local recycling bin, so that helped get a bit of the garage a bit cleaner. I still have some big empty boxes, but the grandkids have been using those to play in when they visit, so those are still around. I have been saving all usable moving boxes; most are the letter/legal size (the ones you get at the office supply store). Those are available to anyone in the neighborhood that is moving, along with some bubble wrap – at least the bubble wrap that the grandkids haven’t popped.

The big ‘quit your job and we’ll give you a going-away bonus’ check came this week, so we’re going to get the landscaper to start on changing the back yard from a weed patch to lawn. It’s not going to be really fancy. There will be a garden are for some vegetables (no squash for me; tomatos and cucumbers and whatever else grows around here). The beds will be raised ones, I think. Probably won’t be able to get anything planted this year, though, due to the lateness of the growing season here in Utah.

Pam also wants a ‘meditation area’ with some flowers/bushes/trees and a garden bench perhaps with a small overhead covering. Some pavers for the bench area, I think. It will be a “Jason’s Retreat” area in honor of our late son (see www.jasonhellewell.com ). Since his gravesite is in California, this will be an area to remember him.

We don’t plan on any fencing in the back yard. Although we are in a subdivision, we are surrounded by empty/unsold lots. We plan on some concrete edging, with an planting area around the edges of the lot (and as a buffer area for the weed-strewn empty lots). Sprinkler system will be connected to the irrigation water supply. (In this area, there are separate water systems for house/potable water and irrigation/lawn/garden water. There is still a lot of farming around here (corn, alfalfa, hay mostly) that uses irrigation water. But you only get irrigation water from mid-April to mid-October (I think), and then it gets shut off during the cold-weather season.)

So, have been keeping somewhat busy, although I do have lots of spare time. We spend some of it with the grandkids, and have taken a couple of short half-day road trips to explore the area. And staying indoors in the basement during the hot parts of the day.

If your children are bored, just grab a couple of large empty boxes (appliance ones are good). Cut a door and a window in them. Give them some crayons and markers, and they will be happy for days.

At least, that’s what I have noticed. Every time the grandkids come over, they want to play with the boxes. Happened again yesterday after dinner. Even though it was in the 90’s, although they did play on the covered patio, so it was shady.

Until the wind picked up in advance of a small thunderstorm on the lake. We all had to quickly put away the boxes in the garage before they blew around the neighborhood.

As for today: mowed the lawn, and then put down a bit of fertilizer, on the advice of my neighborly landscaper The lawn has never been fertilized, although it was mowed and watered regularly until we moved in. I only got about a half-full lawn clipping bag. The fertilizer should help the lawn get a bit stronger and thicker.

I got the quarterly 401K statement today. The results were much better than before; an increase of about 11%. Much better than the negative amounts in the past 2-3 quarters.

This morning’s project was a light de-weeding of the back yard. Mission accomplished before it got too hot outside.

And then the three youngest grandkids came over. It was our job to watch them while their Mom and Dad and Aunt Stacy took the two oldest ones off to see the new Harry Potter movie. So we all went down to the basement to watch “Mickey’s Clubhouse” and play with the toys.

The dishwasher repairman came by. His prognosis was a bad water valve and control panel. Which he ordered, but he won’t be back until next Thursday. That means some dishwashing duties for me. But since there is just the two of us, not a difficult duty.

After the kids left, I did some testing of a new way to upload files for the “FileHurl” place (free unlimited file transfer service at www.filehurl.com ). Not entirely successful; it uses Flash forms for uploading, but the upload fails with an error. I’m testing it on my local ColdFusion sever – that’s the one with minimal memory, so that might be related to the error. But the Flash form might be interesting to play with a bit.

Stacy’s car is “feeling much better now, thank you”. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out the show with that quote.) New spark plug wires were the fix. When replacing them, the one for #3 did show a bit of discoloration in the wire insulation. Or it could have been just a dirt spot.

In any case, the new wires resulted in a much smoother running engine. A test drive confirmed that: much more ‘oomph’ (an automotive technical term) on acceleration. So I am calling that a fix.

And I got my laptop to talk to the laser printer via the Netgear wireless print adapter. It required installation of the printer drive while connected via USB cable, then running the Netgear wireless installation program.

The next computing step is to get some more memory for the eMachines box that is running Windows Server 2008 and ColdFusion 8. I stole the memory from it for another computer a while back, and never got around to getting some more. The folks at Crucial memory (www.crucial.com) have a 1GB PC3200 module for $43, which is a pretty good price.

On tomorrow’s list is some yardwork – weeding and mowing. But tonight is “Burn Notice”, so off to the DVR to watch that.

Today’s project was Stacy’s car. It’s a 98 Camry, and running a bit rough. The diagnostic code indicated bad sparking in #2 & #3 cylinders, at least that’s what the Toyota shop said with their interpretation. They wanted to replace the spark plugs and fuel injectors, for about $700. I figured I could check it out a bit cheaper than that.

So I picked up her car in SLC after my job interview yesterday (went well, no offer yet, unsure of my response at the moment). I grabbed some new sparkies and some Seafoam brand fuel injector cleaner (good stuff, by the way). Replaced the sparkies, which were easy to get to. They looked a bit worn, but no gunk on them. Put the can of cleaner in the gas tank (it was about 1/2 full), and drove it home. Ran a bit rough at idle, but freeway speeds were OK, although not much ‘oomph’ as would be expected. But I got it home OK. By the time I got home (about an hour drive, which would be the commute for that job, which is a consideration), it was running a bit better, but still idled a bit roughly, and the ‘check engine’ light was still complaining.

Today I cleaned off the battery terminals (lots of fuzzy gunk on there, probably not related to the problem, but still needed to be done). Listened to the fuel injectors with the magic engine stethoscope and they were clicking normally, so those are working OK. Then wandered to the local Autozone to borrow their diagnostic code reader. The code translated to misfires in #3, which could be bad spark plug wires, so grabbed a set of those ($45) to put in tomorrow.

The current theory is gunked-up fuel injectors, maybe failing spark plug wires. I’ll also give the new spark plugs another check. If that doesn’t fix things, it will be off to the local repair shop. But a $70 investment in new plugs and wires, plus a couple of cans of fuel injector cleaner could be the fix. We shall see.

Last week was interesting. Dr appt on Monday, and then an ‘a-fib’ episode for the rest of the day (after visiting the doctor, go figure). That lasted longer than usual (six hours), which must have messed up my digestion, which was Tuesday’s problem. (Don’t you hate it when you can’t decide if you should sit or kneel at the porcelain alter?). So I took things easy on Tuesday/Wednesday after that digestive episode, using Rice Chex and water to keep things settled down and get back to normal.

I was feeling better by Thursday, so Pam and I took a drive up to Midway (UT) to see my two sisters who were staying in my older brother’s other house. It’s an historical house belonging to his wife’s grandfather (I think). They have restored it quite nicely; a two-story cottage with period furnishings (mostly) plus a few modern conveniences (like bathrooms inside the house, rather than outside). It’s in a nice area of Midway, which is near Heber City (along US highway 40). It was a nice drive (about an hour) from our house to there, and we had a nice visit.

We watched all the grandkids on Saturday afternoon for a while. They had way too much fun with some large moving boxes. I cut a door and window in the sides, and they got some crayons and markers to decorate their ‘house’. All five of them had fun doing that for quite some time. It was a nice day (in the 80s F with a light breeze), so it was fun to watch them play in their cardboard houses.

We also had a water softener put in last week. The water hardness around here is about “16 grains”, which makes the dishes a bit spotty (when the dishwasher works; it has a problem at the moment, but the builder is very responsive in getting things fixed).

Although our retirement finances are comfortable, I am inclined to find another job just to keep me from turning into a full-time couch potato. I have a second interview this afternoon for a job that looks interesting, although it would be about a 50-minute commute. Not sure how that would work during winter and snowy roads, but the snow pack is usually under six inches and they keep the roads pretty clear. The commute is freeways and main roads, so could be manageable.

We had a landscaper come over last night to discuss what to do with the back yard (currently a weed patch). We’ll probably keep it pretty simple: mostly grass with a small garden area for vegetables, and a few trees. Sprinkler system, of course; around here you get a separate landscape water source during the growing season between May and October. It will be different living in a somewhat colder climate. But the house is very comfortable, and since it is new, well-insulated.

Another Monday. Got to make some plans for today, I guess. A visit to a new doctor today to arrange for the monthly blood tests to make sure my INR level is OK with my current dosing of Coumadin (a blood thinner).

Significant event this weekend. I was able to empty and rearrange enough boxes that both cars are now in the garage. It’s a huge garage, though, so there are still many boxes to unpack. I did get the four 24-inch cabinets put together, so now there is a good place for the garage stuff.

Got the lawn mowed Friday, so it looks good. The weeds in the back yard may need a bit of trimming this week, although I did spray some Roundup on some of them. We need to put together a rough plan for getting a lawn and some trees in the back yard.

The town here has an anti-weed ordinance, so all property owners need to keep their weeds cut down. There are a lot of empty lots in this subdivision, and the town code enforcement guy was driving around the neighborhood this week. The lots here are owned by several builders; there’s about 10 empty lots around my house owned by the same builder. The builder had a guy with a tractor mower out here Friday cutting down the weeds in those empty lots. He was a lot faster than me with a string trimmer. So all the weeds around my house were cut down, which made the local bird population happy, as they can now get to the insects much easier.

Our 4th was fun; we had the whole family over on the 3rd for dinner, and set off a few fireworks. Then over to the Jensen’s for the 4th, with a traditional meal of BBQ steak, beans, potato salad, garlic bread, and watermelon. Quite good.

It gets dark later here than at our CA house, around 930-10pm it was dark enough to set off our collection of fireworks. The two youngest grandchildren (Dane is 3, Lucas is 18 months) were a bit reticent about all the noise, so I took them into the house and watched from an open window in the front room. That worked out good, since the mosquitoes were a bit aggressive. We got done a bit before 11pm.

We had the gang over for dinner yesterday, and watched the Wimbleton via DVR delay. Quite a good game, even though I am not a big sports fan.