Louisiana Bound and Ashley & Parker Arrives

Wednesday & Thursday
May 13 & 14, 2009

I woke up early today so I could make sure I had everything loaded into the truck to take back to Louisiana before I drove into work. Gina called me around 8 letting me know that she was up drinking coffee. We talked for a little while but there was a lot that I needed to get done today at work since I was taking Thursday & Friday off for Thomas’ graduation.

Gina called me in the afternoon to let me know that Uncle Jim dropped off some fresh green beans from his garden. We are having a little get together at our house Thursday night for Ashley & Parker. They are flying back from Grenada since they have finished up for the semester. I can add that Ashley finished with a 4.0 and Parker ended with a 3.6 gpa. Ashley was extremely happy since every semester since 10 grade she seemed to always have at least one “B”. Ashley & Parker are going to medical school at St. George University in Grenada.

I finally made it to Louisiana at 9:35 and Gina was at Debbie’s house picking up a photo book of Thomas. She got back to the house at 10 o’clock and then we went to Wal-mart to buy everything to make lasagna since that is what Ashley requested. Once we made it back to the house Gina decided to start cooking and I laid down on the couch and fell asleep. I’m not sure what time she went to bed but when I woke up she had made two strawberry pies and all the meat for the lasagna was finished. She was already up and going outside cleaning up the flower bed in the front of our house. She said she wanted to get out there before the sun got everything too hot. Well we finished up in the front and then moved to her garden and carport. I got all the grass cut and then before we knew it the time had just flown by and it was time for Gina to get inside and make the lasagna.

Ashley & Parker arrived at 6:45 ready to eat. We visited for a little while since there were still people arriving. I don’t know how many people were here but the house was full. Here are a few pictures from last night.

Parker, Ashley and Thomas

Full House

Uncle Jim and his girls

After everyone ate that all went outside to the garden to see everything Gina has been doing in her garden this year. It was now dessert time and we had key lime pie that Nicole made, Strawberry pie and brownies. We had a great time visiting with Ashley & Parker. Ashley will be back to pick Gina up in the morning to go get their toes and nails done for some girl time. This has been a wonderful day!! We miss our daughter but it’s always such a blessing to see her.

Until tomorrow, Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.

Gina decides to Paint

Tuesday
May 12, 2009

Another day at work and Gina decided she wanted to paint the exterior of the house or at least parts of it. Now that Thomas is out of school I don’t get to call her early in the morning to give her a wake up call so that leaves me with drinking my coffee by myself. This morning she calls me from Home Depot asking me about what paint to buy. Now there is a story here when it comes to paint and Rollie. I do not paint, I know nothing about paint and even the Navy wouldn’t allow me to paint. If you get the picture, me and paint don’t get along. Anyway she left there and went to Lowe’s then finally to Wal-mart and bought some paint. She then made it back home and commenced to paint. When she got through with the house she then moved on to a swing that we put out by our other pond so she could watch the ducks play.

I wanted to throw some pictures in here since everyone likes pictures. These were taken back in 2006 when we renovated our house and to show ya'll that I do not paint.

Rickey spraying our ceiling

Just another picture of Rickey Painting

Gina Painting and Thomas posing like he wants to Paint

I finally made it home from work and changed clothes quick and headed over to a friend’s house to help him replace two power supplies in his air conditioning electrostatic filtering system. I got those replace but for some reason only one was working. Not sure why the other one would not function and I didn’t have time to troubleshoot the problem. I am addicted to American Idol and Fringe and by the time I finished up American Idol was already on. I missed half of the show but that was ok since my main goal was not to miss the season finale of Fringe. It was an excellent ending to the season. After that I got on the phone with Gina so she could tell me which clothes to bring to Louisiana for her. I loaded up the truck and called it a night as she was going to bed too. She said she was tired which I would have been too. I did tell her that I decided not to work Thursday and that made her happy since she said there is still a lot left to do around the house to get ready for Thomas’ graduation party.

Until tomorrow, Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.

A Slow Day

Monday
May 11, 2009

I slept in this morning as did Gina. Of course my sleeping in was only until 6 o’clock but that’s a lot for me. Now Gina on the other hand slept until 9:30. This was going to be a slow day for both of us. Gina spent her day in Louisiana pressure spraying the house and trying to move things around in preparation for Nicole & Shane to move in at the end of the month. I spent the day at work trying to earn a dollar. I thought I would put a picture of the ship as it was arriving in Corpus Christi last Saturday.

Helix Producer I Arriving

Artist Concept drawing of final configuration

This is the project that I have been working on for the last 16 months and still have approximately 8 months to go before it goes offshore and starts producing oil.

Once I got home I installed a new filter in the Rear AC unit for the truck and surfed online for a little while. I’m still researching my electrical install for the truck. My dilemma is I just don’t see a need to install solar power yet mainly due to cost so what is the best way to recharge my batteries? My thought process is that I have two choices: buy a large enough generator to run the heaviest load which would be either two Honda 2000 watt generators and operate in parallel which would charge the batteries as the power went through the inverter or buy a separate battery charger and buy a small 1000 watt generator just to charge the batteries. The normally process would be to just connect your power to the ac input of the inverter and allow the inverter’s built in battery charger to recharge the batteries. The problem is once you connect an ac power source then you cannot use the power from your batteries. If you have a generator that is big enough then there is no problem. The concept here is replacing solar panels with a small generator and battery charger. The cost of solar power for what I’m looking at is approximately 6000 dollars and the cost of a small generator plus battery charger is 1000 dollars of course this doesn’t include gas. This is a big difference to me when I’m just not sure if we are going to boondock very much. I’m not in a big hurry for setting this up but just researching.

While I was eating dinner I had a neighbor stop by and ask if he could use my powertank to fill his trailer tires to 110 psi and his compressor was struggling. I said sure so I got it out and brought it down and within 5 minutes the power tank had all four tires at 110 psi. I will tell you these power tanks may not be cheap but in my opinion worth every penny when you consider what is required to use a compressor. Mike I think you’ll be selling another power tank to a guy named Greg. He’ll also be buying a pressure pro tire monitoring system too. After I finished that I came inside and watched “House”. I tried to talk to Gina but they had a real bad electrical storm come through Louisiana and knocked out the power so I called her back later and then she cooking dinner for Thomas, his girlfriend and Malinda (Gina’s friend). She said that she would call me back. However, I never heard back from her before I fell asleep. So folks that was our day. Not very exciting but it was another great day.


Until tomorrow, Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.