Thursday, Feb 25th

Not much of February left, not sure who wrote or sang the song about time keeps on slipping away into the future, but some days sure feel like that.
  It was a nice day, but a bit windy.  The guys were riding, so I passed on the coffee & donuts this morning and went on the ride.  There were only four of us this morning, the pull of the donuts must have been strong, LOL.  We made about 6 miles today as we never went to Idaho, just went east of the park down to the school on Mountainview, but as it turns out the wind still blew against us on the way back.  Two of the guys took a detour to get a couple more miles in, but I rode back with Larry on the shorter route.
  Marg went with the gamblin' gals, there were 5 of them today.  The big lure of the serving dish had them fairly racing down the bush highway to make sure they got one.  Well with Nancy driving the term racing really doesn't fit, its more of a leisurely drive.  Anyway they got there and after some assistance from Marg, they all got the big red dish.  There were no winners at the bingo, in spite of  Marg helping Linda get into the bingo mode, even though that game is not really her thing.  They had a bit better luck on the slots and Marg had a pretty good result there, so a good end to the trip.
 After the bike ride, I again worked on the sink drain.  After doing my lunch dishes [yes I do clean up after myself], I discovered the roll of paper towel under the sink to be super saturated and the drain was again dripping.  The cause was split gasket ring and was no surprise as it was the same as the other day.  Got a new one in and put it together and it seems to be fine for now, although I left a bucket under there.  I went to Lowe's for some parts, I got the one to replace that old piece of drain and that will likely be the next step if it re-occurs.  When I got back I took off the door at the back of the breezeway as it is all wobbly and seems to be sagging badly.  I pulled it apart and the problem is a repeat of what I saw last year.  When I was at Lowes I came up with a solution; I am going to replace the foam core and cement it with liquid nails, but will have to get the parts tomorrow.  Being at a stopping point, I went over to see Kenny as he had told me he bought a new piece of shootin' iron.  It is a nice Smith & Weston .380 pistol, very light and much easier to operate, so he is quite happy.  He bought it off one of the cycle riding guys, but it's in like new condition.  He also showed me his Beretta .380 which is an older model, but a little more hefty and seems much more like a hand gun ought to.  We talked about taking them out to try in the desert to a range, now that would be a hoot, but we'll see.  Had a beer with him and we went to happy hour for a bit. 
  That was about when the gamblin' gals got back, so we went back to pick up the salad Marg made and a few more beers.  We had an invite to a dinner put together by some folks up the other side of the hall.  There was a pot luck affair and the food was very good.  As it turned out there were lots of folks there, about 25 I would guess.  The food was very good and I even got a piece of the dessert Smitty made, which in itself is remarkable as it goes very quickly. 
  After supper it was out to Walmart to get my watch battery replaced.  It died tonight and I had only replaced it 10 days ago.  They replaced it at no charge and Marg needed kitchen saran wrap, so it was only a very brief stop.  When we got back home, Stan stopped in with his son-in-law [who we met last year] to ask about going golfing with us on Monday.  A couple of scotches and the son-in-law fell asleep in his chair.  It seems he had been up since 3 AM so they could get to the airport in time in Minnesota, so they left when their drinks were finished.  I have a decent selection of scotch here at this time, so was able to give them a taste of a couple they have not previously tried.  I could tell they were well experience as they don't use ice and only a splash of water to release the flavour.