Sunday not Monday

One of the things about Memorial Day that isn't sad is the extra Monday of nothing. You might fill it with things but it's really for remembrance of the fallen and what they in fact gave to keep us all in our silly non thinking safety. I say that as one who did volunteer. I salute those that did give their all and those out there that may have to.

We lost my Father In Law five years ago so its rather somber here. He had a good life and more years than expected but still...

Baby's are for 20 year olds.. This fifty thing is busted. Parents can only be gone for two hours max. Hahahaha... Emily got all giggly when I was making funny wolf sounds and seing if she would pull herself up by my fingers. So far she still has only a little coordination. She is holding her head up much better and looking around. She looks just like her mother did at her age. So I think that is good.

Yesterday I spend way too much time on Fallout and I completed the Far Harbor DLC. Chasing around and farming my settlements has now gained me exactly a million bottle caps. So that is a self assessed milestone. Water carrying is over 50,000. It's all downhill from here. Today I started searching the shore of Far Harbor and found more gnomes. The Gnomes are back. I have not set them up yet as I am still searching around. I did create one settlement inFar Harbors area. I think I have found four or five so far but the only viable one was the lumber yard. Two more I will build once I have enough supplies. Fun City.

Below is the upgrade of the Castle. Didnt know if it was possible to create a great house here but it worked out fine. Upgraded power, sealed, upgraded waster...upgraded entry and weapon positions.

The standard Armor forward overwatch in place over the main gate.  One generator I didnt scrap. its hooke in parallel and I was too lazy to remove it. Fully Fusion power now.

Side of the great house. The walkways extend across the side and support pillars are in place.

1,000,000 bottle caps on the nose! Awesome fun trying to save it enough. Too bad you can't do it this easily in reality.

VIM armor sitting in place. Doubt it will go anywhere but I will set it up sometime so it can be viewed

wood dump. All the boards and bats I collected so I can salvage the wood from them. One of the ways to get wood.

I interrupted a Gnome. he was taking too long in the toilet so I had to just bang on the door.

The lumber mill cleared ( nice loads of wood everywhere ) Great house located and walls u Had a bugger of a time in a few places but it worked. Now to see where the raiders pop up from. Main building is empty. Can't build a radiation cleaner on the island. Stupid.

On my wander around the coastline I found some models and loads of nasty creatures. Gauss rifle works great on them. Have to mod one with a good scope.

So a load of fun and some running around. By making two people leave the island I was able to save and not kill all three main settlements on the island. I still have the nuke key and the windfarm code. Hah! No Nukes for you. I noticed that the Dalton home could be completely scrapped. Bethesda needs me make it so you can do that everywhere in Fallout 4. I have not built a few places because of the buildings and the dead things that never go away. Hates it I do.

On NOT FALLOUT NEWS.... I wored on the balloon line drawings but they are too fuzzy to getthelines exact. Will try and work on it more tonight. I also have to work on my own pin but that will ahve to also wait till tomorrow.

Tomorrow I AM going to pull my burners out. Connect up one side and test it for leaks. I got worried and need to verify them. Then I will play with the drawings again.

I am thinking of putting all my DVDs to files and backing them up. I have far too many movies that I never watch because they are on DVD and not files. I have to find a fast and free ripper.

Other than that... Its been a nice weekend and I get to watch my granddaughter get bigger and bigger and prettier and prettier... Worth every minute.

Hope you all have a peaceful and safe weekend.

Framily weekend

1. Quick but very busy week.

2. Weekend started Friday with a road trip with Granddaughter to my Fathers 85th birthday ... Surprise birthday.

3. He has a degree in Criminal Science... yeah..

4. One thing let the cat out of the bag and you could just see the flags popping up all around him to tell him .. sometin funny was going on.... He was happy to see all of us kids standing against the wall and none of us were in trouble.

The above was Dads pasta party day 2 created by Carolyn with Marys assistance. They only tried to burn the house down twice so that was good and the pasta sauce was most excellent. But let me go back one day first.

So yes.. We got to "surprise" Dad. Mom walked in and saw us all and didnt give it away. Emily tried to blow the whole thing by squalling just at the wrong moment but didnt or was cut off with a finger to chew on... Dad was happy... And before that Mary was surprised as her birthday was the day before and as usual we don't do anything here... there... as I knew but didnt tell there was a home made by Genny chocolate chocolate mouse cake.. which was awesome.... So then it was burger, hot dogs, brats and salads... as my little sister about her pickable lettuce bowl. It grows in the bowl and you cut what you want off... and it grows back.. so weird...  There also was family members Kimmie and Cara and our second cousin Kate ( I abbreviate ) who is a chemist in town and we just found out a while ago... Finding family that are so close is pretty neat for us who live out West.

Day 2 which was the pasta day was loud.. very loud.. it always gets loud but it was loud. As Aubry said.. the space station was calling in noise complaints. It was a lot of fun. We never did get around to playing cards of r dice.. we did chatter away till late at night. Lots of wine was had ( I was dehydrated so I was on the water kick ) the pasta sauce was excellent as I said and there was some to come home but we forgot it in the work getting Emily settled for the drive home.

It was an awfully good time.

The drive back down into New Mexico was novel. From Denver to lower C Springs it was a little rough with the cars and traffic and people who wanted to side swipe me because they were not looking. No... no look before changing lanes without blinkers almost into the side of the Honda.... After C Springs it opened up and most of the traffic was zipping out. The sillyness didnt start until we hit Santa Fe.. then it was people who were driving without the ability to think and were driving all over the place.. blocking traffic... just being seriously unable to consider anything but themselves... so.. It was nice to break free of the nuts and cruise home.

We took four generation pictures with Mom, me, Aub and Emily and they looked good in the camera display. I'll pull them off the camera tomorrow and process them. Nothing formal. Just some nice couch pictures.

Some of the sillier shots taken with my cell phone below.

Emmers with a stuffed animal Aub won.. she had it and was not letting it go.. along with another toy. She is very well aware at 4 months of cameras on cell phones. She will stare at your until you do what she wants. No.. really!.

Fam relaxing.

Kitchen overload.

 One of my new undamaged pilot switches from Lindstrand USA. THere are two but the second one was old and was mistakenly shipped too. Replacement coming soon.. then expect shots of both along with the damaged ones. Ill point it out. THey are sooooo.. nice!

Emmers when she was dropped off to me at work last Thursday in front of my desk. She was like... can you get me some milk? How bout we find some toys... maybe just let me bank my hands on the keyboard... She is the cutest little girl. It is going to be less that impossible to not give her whatever she wants. Yikes.

 So... Emmers travels very nicely. She only got upset only when wet. She watched movies and slept a lot. Id travel with her anytime. I wonder how she is on planes.

It was a grand weekend and Dad turned 85. Fantastic. Hope your weekend was as fun filled.

Allotments of Time and Fallout 4

How do you spend your time?

Is it parceled out or are you just winging it through the day, week, month and year.

What is the better spent moment or day. Is it outdoor activities or just vegging in front of the television or computer. Which is more worthwhile. Both or neither.

I would say its dynamic, changeable and up to you what you think is worth what and what is not to bother with. If you enjoy that walk or ride great. If you would rather binge on Netflix go for it. Time will cause you to change and do something else for most people. There are some who can over do things. Unless they are directly causing you problems let them alone is my motto. So go have that bag of chips or watch the Walking Dead season one through five. Enjoy your time. That's all there is...

Enjoy it.

I think I will spend my afternoon enjoying my Granddaughter and see what new faces she can display and what control she has now.. It should be worth the time. She is a hoot to look at and watch over.

Soon the spoiling will begin.

The facebook banners and logos have been interesting. Waiting until I am ready to change the postings to come up with an idea is much better for me. An idea always hits...sometimes its been the whole day that inspires me towards one direction and sometimes I change my mind at the last minute and design a completely different thing. Here are a few from this week.

 Found scratches on my burner knobs. Tried to buff them out. No go. Omage to my old knobs as I am replaceing them.

We did a Beta test for a radar upgrade. It went very well with only a few bobbles. We are rocking a much better receiver system now.

Got a request for shots I took of Fiesta. Very nice to be asked for photographs. I always worry that every shot looks like every other shot.

Ran out of time while working hard and late. Had the thought to scribble a design. The stick men are supposed to be zebras giving thunbs up. One looks less that happy with that finger.

Situations in the ballooning community cause me to have to balance what is fair over what will ruin a good thing.. but if its bad then it should be stopped.. correct?

Cutting cheese for cheese and crackers and drinks after flying at the Sunday AAAA meet...which didn't happen due to the rain and wind.. so it will be cheese sammiches for lunch this week.

The stormy stormy clouds overhead caused a general limit out of limits error in the earthly global computer systems. Rain error, storm error, water damage error highlight level 1, soggy feet error level 3 and a general protection fault kept me in bed texting crew to stay in their beds and warm.

It is one of those days to consider the amount of work that goes into getting ready to fly and then the niceness of just sitting in your chair with a hot cup of coffee playing games instead. I miss the conversations and the impromptu breakfasts at which ever restaurant is nearby but it was nice to be at home.

Listening to a version of Matjora Is Still Alive by Johannes Schmoelling. Its very good music for a day like today. Rumbly and a beautiful chord dance.

Next up with me sections of Adele and some Tangerine Dream. Then the kids get here with Emily.

I had a good time ( figuratively ) with Fallout 4 this week. Rebuilding of settlements continued with the new building materials. Before it was hunt wood up as much as possible.. buy wood when you could.. now its steel. Steel and copper and rubber and ceramic. There is a new generator and its fusion. I didn't think there would be a need for a thing that big or powerful.. hah.. Yeah.. retrofitting every place with them. 100 power. I can use that up now fast installing powered gun turrets and lights and lots and lots of water. I have to go back and adjust a few things but about 26 settlements have been updated and set with loads of water processing. Water is the life blood. It even sells very well.

If it was not for the raiding that happens it would be a o k. Sadly the game keeps hitting me with three or four attacks on settlements at the same time so I have to race from flare up to the next.. wipe it out or oversee it then jump to the next one since if I don't show up in time it breaks things in the settlement I have to then fix. One bad one was enough for me to upgrade a wall of guns. Warlord class Mutants in a group. Took me standing toe to toe with my explosive shot gun to knock them back. You would think the game would wise up and stop raids but that would be too astute of a "game".

Some of many screen shots.

Big decisions with limited supplies is to rip apart a settlement and upgrade it. You always loose part of whatever you are salvaging. Since I moved to community living in a secure strong structure with facilities and a single room for each settler..this was the easiest and most economical way to go about it. Twenty rooms on two levels with bath and toilet and beds and a community living and dining area.

THis is the Starlight Drive In. Completely revamped. From this spot you cant see the furnishings inside but you can see the water plants in the top right corner. All surrounding the "hot springs" in the middle. It even has a basketball court. Hah!

Night shot of the area. Wish you could have more than 21 people living there.

Another tough mod. The Slog. Huge amount of area to manage and locate the housing. Power and water are protected behind curtian walls. Power Armor ready to go on its mount.

By day The Slog is quite nice. Tempted to take the water filtering units from the pool...Loads of weapon positions to protect it.

Pain Wall. This is at Summerville Place. Since the game pops raiders into the middle of it regardless of the huge walls I have put up and the weapons everywhere.. I have made a wall of pain. All powerfull automatic rocket launcher and laser positions. If they still pop in I might add another level.

Tenpines Farm. This was the first place I upgraded using the new building materials.. It didnt come out well but gave me the ideas to hone into what I create now and how... with as little extra supplies necessary. Now all the crops are farther down and protected. There is a large open area for traders to arrive in. The housing has windows all around and its subjectively nice to come to.

Norhagen Beach was a tough nut. It was a large area but the housing I had there was ok. I completely changed and raised the curtain walls and the housing is up another level and wider. A nice platform for traders to arrive at. Its nice too. I still have to flip the crops around.

Opposite view showing the housing and support columns. I try to create supports for all this as you would have to in the real world if I can.

Jamaica Plane. A very limited place to build. You cannot build high here. I have the roof of the housing as high as you can go.

Daylight in Jamaica. The odd angles is due to the odd angle of the building space. It was very hard to get that right.

Spectacle Island. This place. Its so huge that the supplies needed to make it right would be enormous. I decided to try it and see if I could get the people out of the scrabble together wood shacks they were in. I decided to cover the very rough terrain with flooring and grow crops in orderly places instead if in and around bushes and crap. It in the end turned out very nice indeed. Ada hamming it up in front of the camera again.

Looking South East. A very nice terrazzo and wonderful place to walk and tend the crops. Lighting and benches and gun turrets to keep it all safe and sound. The big box in the middle that is now the Local Armor point is a shack you cant remove full of dead people who never go away. So I covered it.. added up-lighting and a place to set my Armor. Turned out nicely. even added lion statues and a fountain.

Inside the community's great room. Art on the walls. Seats to sit and silly Ada in the middle.

Looking North at the Armor and fountain. Shops are on the main terrazzo.

Front the North East corner. There is even cows behind and a little patio in the back to let off steam with an overlook of the Atlantic Ocean. Even the dog box has a sun and rain cover.

The fusion generator in Jamacia Plain. Armor above in case you get ideas.

I have spent a lot of time on this game. I love it because I can build what I want to build... perhaps not as wildly or where I want but its fun... Much more fun than the other Fallout games. Think how fun this would have been in New Vegas and 3.

Was or has it all been a huge waste of time..... No... for a few reasons... Its fun to go blow things up or save people or just remove raiders from existence after a frustrating day... its cool to see what you can come up with for living arrangements for people who only exist inside the game but after a while of dressing them in clothes and giving them jobs its nice to see them going about their days... and seeing the happiness meter going up.. silly huh.. And the game has let my mind sit on that instead of reality's harsh crap it was driving through every night instead of letting me sleep. I was dreaming of building instead of going over conversations in my head incessantly... Back to almost normal sleeping patterns.. And silly dreams of silly things. So the game and the amount of time I have spent playing it have been worth it for the peace it gives me... Blowing things up is fun too.

On the 19th a new segment ( DLC ) drops with a large zome and new storylines.. Far Harbor.. and supposedly.. ELEVATORS!!! I get to add elevators to some of my settlements.. that should be fun.

I hope you have been wasting your time in things that make you happy. Go waste some more.. because its never a waste if it help you get through those rough spots in the life we live. Enjoy.

Happy Mothers Day! and sites.

A quiet Mothers day...as we usually run these things.. Just like Father day and Valentines day and every other concocted day to remove money from your pocket for some made up event. Don't fall into it. Though I will wish a wonderful Mothers day to my mother and wife and daughter and friends now..I am not going to go buy things for them because its "that" day. I can do that at any time of the year and its much more heart felt if its spontaneous than set to a day or date. If you note Walmart you can see that they have a holiday set up so that one leads into another so you are forever buying stuff your loved one really doesn't want or need. If... and I qualify this.. If your significant other insists you buy expensive stuff on specific days..... maybe its not you but what you give that has drawn them to you... Just saying. My opinion.

The most wonderful person is the one that is not into things or bits of stuff. For your consideration.



I have spent that last week or so refiling my files. I had split my photographic files into Raw and Jpg but it got out of hand trying to back those up and onto multiple drives and all through a Windows Surface computer that will not allow more than 7 items to be hung off a USB device. That is one of the most annoying things about a Surface is that limitation that they still haven't fixed. Seriously irritating. But I digress. So... Moving files around.. verifying.. finding bad or corrupt files ( that's why they are backed up ) and moving them.. we are talking terabytes of data. Its a pain in the butt. I am re-backing up a drive because due to a corrupt file I cannot delete it. So for one folder I have to format the whole drive if the chkdsk wont clear it. Ugh! I have hopes.

Work related... I had to take some leave as I had run past the permissible limit on a type of time.. If they paid it out on time it would have been a lot less and I was also not aware of the limitation so... regardless I had to bring my time back down..which I have almost done. I have 45 minutes to clear off still.. Probably next week I will leave early. Its put a crimp on my work load. Works still there but times not so I have to consider what is more important first and that changes as people walk into my office. It makes it all the more interesting. Fun most times. A great job but don't tell anyone I like it.

The facebook banners have been dark this week as I am in a mood. Not explaining. No.













The last one came to me while my mind was thinking of something entirely different.  A good tether is very important in ballooning and the only time its not used is if its dead calm and its still a good idea to use it. It keeps your balloon from taking off before its hot enough to go up. Surface winds will at times take a balloon off the ground while it is not inflated of hot enough to lift.. which is called false lift and you will smack down right after if you let it happen. Bad things happen then.

Which reminds me that I forgot to add something to the CB so I will be doing that right after I finish here... sheesh. The CB has been problematic this month.

Fallout 4... Irritated.

With the new building mods available its still a pain in the ass to figure out how to build things around objects you cant move.. some are so irritating ... wow... just reverted to an old save for the third time since the location I wanted to mod was so unfix-able. Ugh.

Some of the others...

County Crossing is one of the easier places to upgrade except for one tree and two power poles.


Coastal Cottage sucked due to trees again. If there are trees they should be removable damn it.


My Army awaits. Heh.


Yeah.. frustrated and a new DLC is on its way... Maybe I should just wait for it to arrive. Sigh.

Now back to your regularly scheduled viewing.

Oh. I had my burners out of my hands for a while and my pilot light switches got damaged. Well I received a nice call from the builder about how to fix them.. Which I will do this week. No time to hit a store for supplies  so I will get to it. Nice that I am able to remove the knobs myself. Hoping I can polish them out without changing their look. If not......