Tuesday, Jan 19th

Probably the nicest day yet in the Valley of the Sun this winter.  The sun came up in a cloud free day & started delivering it's warming rays to the snowbirds desperate to celebrate their good fortune in the sun.
  My morning started with a quick trip to Bob & Shari's with my truck to help taking all the chairs and tables back to the hall after last nights deep fried turkey feast.  I thought Bob would be short of help, but was pleasantly surprised when about a half dozen guys showed to help him put things back.  As a result I missed out on the morning bike ride & is seems our numbers are increasing.  We are up around 8 or 9 riders now, although they don't all show every day.  We are thinking of splitting the group to minimize traffic problems on the ride.  There will likely be some natural selection happening between the long & short distance.
  While this was happening Marg & Linda met with a group of ladies to chop vegetables for the turkey soup.  Unfortunately the buyer here [there is one guy who mainly looks after this] never bought the vegetables, so they had to reschedule for after lunch.  It was kind of fortunate as she was able to go to water aerobics for the first time this winter.  She really likes this and although the lady who organizes it was sick, but they know the drill well enough that they were able to continue on and her morning was good.  Me, I worked on the eves around the Az room.  The birds have been pilfering insulation for their nests, so I have been installing a mesh to keep them out.  Almost done, but working on a ladder is tough on old guys, so I quit for lunch.  While I was out back there were two guys from Mediacom fixing the cable.  Funny, this morning I had called to complain about the intermittent tv & wifi service and they never knew that service was being done here today.  I am scheduled for a service call for the same problem tomorrow.  I almost called to cancel, but it's not quite right yet, so did not.  Doesn't seem like a very good system over there that they just send guys to the same line for the same problem.  I mentioned it to the guys and there response was that they couldn't do anything without a work order.
  After a sandwich, I left for my commitment.  I had agreed to meet with the tenants association treasurer to review the prior years financial results and reporting.  They like to call it an audit, but it is anything but.  Hard to get them to understand the implications of referring to it as such, but it has implications on the level of detail and the fiduciary responsibility the auditor assumes.  None of which I will accept, so we just kind of carry on.  In the end I write a one page report for the board and it leaves the tenants a warm feeling.  The treasurer like it as well, says he feels like it clears the air on what he is doing.  While I was doing this, Marg and the vegetable choppers of Apache Jctn completed their task with the recently arrived vegetables for tomorrow's big soup day.
  After the review I went and played pool for about an hour.  One of our oldest residents who has moved on was there.  One of the guys goes to pick him up periodically and well all enjoyed playing with Elmer, so I wanted to see him.  Actually I would like to have played him, but there were already 3 other guys he was in with, so I played at another table. Played well for me and won about as many as I lost, so it was all good.  Near the end I pulled of a win against two quite good players, but only after hooking them on the 8 ball twice.  Jim's comment was - I guess it pays to play that way, to which I agreed.  I always believe defense is as much a part of the game as offense, so agreed with him.
  It was happy hour, so Marg fixed up a caesar and I with my beer went for a part of an hour.  Some interesting stuff, mainly at the gals table.  We talked about haircuts and the bike ride and other important stuff.   Oh yeh, I told Larry I was still using his ladder and he was not concerned as he no longer gets on it, so told me to take my time.
  It was back to the trailer for supper.  It was fortunate that Marg had it in the slow cooker, so we were eating as right away and it was very good.  She is pretty organized, especially on Tuesday because of the hall bingo at 6:30.  Bingo was good, started off with a win on the early bird game.  This is a good payer, $85 tonight so we were ahead right from the start.  We were both close a few times, but alas that was our only win.  Gave the money to Marg to take when she goes to the Fort, sometimes lucky money brings luck again.  Fingers crossed.
  Big change in our readership with the United Kingdom showing the highest numbers, followed by Canada and then the USA, not sure who or why, but interesting none-the-less.