Thursday, Jan 17th

A nice day in the valley of the sun.
  We went to the koffee klatch this morning and as luck would have it the donuts were paid by one of the residents.  The meeting was over in pretty good time, well for me any way.  Marg had to stay as there was a board meeting after and being on the entertainment committee she attends those meetings.  Anyone can sit in and hear the discussions, but I walked home instead.  There is a hunt for a treasurer for the association and I have taken great care to not appear interested, in fact have turned down several people, with my long laundry list of why I can't do it.
  I went for a bike ride, there were 4 of us this morning.  We made about 5 miles and that was enough for the two of us that have not rode for a few weeks.  It was nice to get back out on these morning rides.  There were two more guys, but one wasn't prepared so passed and the other had a flat tire and had to go for a tube so passed.
  Later in the morning we were treated to a show right out front.  The neighbour across bought a shed and it was delivered.  The shed is large about 10 x 14 and is from one of the places in the area that makes and sells them.  It came on a big trailer pulled by a single axle Kenworth.  The truck had a small forklift type machine that crawls off of and onto the frame of the truck behind the cab.  The trailer has long slides and has a chain under the bed that can move the shed along the slides.  The forklift has very short forks [2 or 3 ft] but a cool set of wheels the operator puts under the opposite end.  The operator stands on the machine and it is so maneuverable he can position the shed within millimeters of where he wants it.  The large truck trailer also had a small set of wheels mounted sideways where the axles are and they could lift the trailer and move it sideways.  All in all a well set up piece of kit.
   Marg did some laundry today and had several visitors.  I worked on the wall where we had the water leak back when we first got here.  She was after me to paint the wall where I had taken it apart, but I wanted to make certain there were no other problems, so I opened it up again.  I really wanted to see the repaired line, but it turned out the other one had a very small trace of water on it.  It had the same goofy fabricated fitting as the one I previously repaired.  So the laundry work was suspended while I shut the water off and cut the line.  I took the fitting to the same fellow at the hardware store and he got the plastic fitting out of the brass part so I could put a shark bite fitting in its place.  Then put the wall back together again.  I should have replaced it when I did the other even though it was not leaking at the time.  There was still enough time to finish the laundry.
 Marg had Lynett and her daughter visiting in the afternoon and then the Wangens seeing us stopped in, so the six of us had happy hour here.  It was a common thought that the larger gatherings at happy are not as great and it is much better to be able to visit with a few people.
  We had supper in tonight and then went off to animal races.  They were well attended tonight and I won 5 races, Marg won 6.  I always bet #1, the elephant and for some reason never on #8 and that was the difference, she kept the faith and bet the elephant.  I may lose my position as the head of the elephant lovers of Apache Junction.