Let’s Have Lunch

Sister’s House -- Citrus Heights, CA

    

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had lunch with my son Michael at a place called “South’s” at 11th and T streets in Sacramento.  Not fancy by any means, but the food was sure good.

Michael works in the State Capital as a staff member for a prominent committee for the State Assembly.  Although all (if not all, nearly all) state’s have a State Senate, some states have either a Assembly, General Assembly, State Assembly, House of Delegates, or House of Representatives…California has the State Assembly system.  Since the house and senate are essentially on break, although they still hold hearings and committee meetings during this time period, it is a slower time for Michael, and going out to lunch was an easy meet up.  Besides, he wanted to buy his dad lunch for my birthday which I had last week (see previous blog).  So I picked him up just before noon, and we headed to South Chicken Restaurant.  While still adhering to my low carb diet, I had the Fried Chicken Kale Salad and tried pulling off the crispy batter from the chicken the best I could.  I am not a huge fan of Kale, but I really liked this Kale Salad topped with herbed buttermilk dressing, toasted pistachios and goat cheese (also comes with onions which I passed on).  Michael had the fried chicken…which looked even better than my salad, although I don’t think I could have handled the cooked kale greens that came with it.  Only thing missing was his fiancé Anna who is also a state worker, but had a 1:00 meeting which she could not have missed.  They are getting married next year in July, so you can guess where we will be next year with dad turning 90, mom and dad celebrating their 70th anniversary, and son Michael getting married…and in between a few of these events, we will probably go to Yosemite (one of my favorite parks) and we plan to be in Southern Oregon for at least a month, probably 6 weeks.

Today (Wednesday) mom had a regular checkup with her primary doctor at 1 pm, so Marcia, Mom, Dad and I went to Claim Jumper in Roseville for lunch.  Claim Jumper is a Landry’s Restaurant, and I have a Landry’s card, and for my birthday they give a $25 birthday credit if you come in on your birthday month (or before the 15th of the next month).  We like Claim Jumper, although the price can be up there…but lunch is more reasonable.  Long time blog readers know that mom and dad use to live on the same cul-de-sac as my sister…where we stay with our motorhome when we visit the area.  There is only one house between where mom and dad lived, and Sandy and Arny’s house…and the man of the house just happens to be a manager at Claim Jumper…and he worked today…and he had not seen mom and dad since they had to move.  Well, he made sure our orders were perfect…and they were…and he tossed in a free piece of birthday cake for me which I gave Arny and Sandy. YES, the picture to the left is what it looks like…it really is that big.  Marcia and I in previous years…before diet…would eat at Claim Jumper and purchase a dessert or two to bring back to Sandy and Arny which would feed the six of us (remember, mom and dad were still next door back then.)

In my next blog I plan to share pictures of Christmas lights around the neighborhood...Arny is still working on his, and some of the neighbors are already finished.  When you have a bunch of lights, the pain is making sure they all work.  Arny asked me to order a few tools which helped find the bad areas...and I will share pictures of that process with you all then too.

NOTE:  The only picture I took for this posting was the one of the Capital...all of the others came from the Internet, and are noted as such if you place the cursor over the picture.

Major Screw Up – or Should it be ‘Down’?

Floor Jack, RV Jack, Pneumatic Lug Nut Gun on grass…Yep, a sign that putting on the Tire Pressure Valves did not go as easy as it should have.

SOMEBODY…OK, it was me…broke the valve stem while putting on an extender in order to attach the passenger side front tire monitor device to the tire.  First mistake, I did not think the front tires needed any extenders, so I did not get any through Amazon.  Second, the first set I got from Autozone were not long enough…but came in a pack of four.  So I put two together just to see if that length (2 1/2 inches) would work, and it did, but I was not going to have two of these together because it was too flimsy, and too much room for fault / failure.  So I went to Napa Auto Parts, and they sent me 13 miles into Sacramento (15 from where the Napa Store was located, 13 from the RV) where I got two solid 2 1/4 inch extenders.  Got back to the RV, and took off the smaller connected extenders, put these on…no pressure.   So I took the Tire Sensor off and pushed the extender…no air pressure.  So I took the extender off and saw a small o-ring from the smaller extenders I previously bought, which was fouling up the system.  Removed it, put on the extender, and there was pressure.  Put on the monitoring sensor, and it worked.  But the small locking screw was up against the wheel’s rim, so I tried screwing the extender on a bit more and BAM, it twisted right out, air rushes out of the tire, I feel STUPID.  We have another FLAT! 

If you look closely, you can see the broken threads of the valve inside the extender.  Arny was able to get that out with a back-out device on his drill, so the extender was saved...the valve to the tire is history.

So after we got the tire lug nuts off, I take the tire down to America’s Tire (same as Discount Tire)…and they are being slammed with Business.  However, since they did not have to pull a vehicle into a bay to take the tire off the car (RV in my case), they were able to get right on it.  But they ran into a snag….they did not have the valve.  So back to Napa, this time in Rockland…and they need to send me, you guessed it, all the way back to the Napa 13 miles from Arny’s house, 20+ miles from America’s Tire, and 19 miles from the Napa in Rockland.  Now I am hitting up against a deadline…we are all going out to dinner at 4:00, and it is just past 3:00 pm.   Also, there is no “for sure thing” that the part I am going after is the correct part, but it looks like it is.

So back to Napa, this one shown above from a Google Street View.  I call Arny and let him know what is going on, talk to Marcia and tell her that she will need to ride to the restaurant with someone else, and to bring me a clean shirt to change into.  At 3:45 I call and let her know I am 10 minute from America’s Tire, part in hand. I call at 4:00 to let them know I am in the car headed to the restaurant, tire fixed and in back of the HHR.  America’s Tire fix me right up…did not charge me a dime.  How nice we bought that $22 per tire guarantee! 

Here is a cell phone picture of us at dinner…Arny’s mom, at the end of the table in a wheel chair, insisted on taking us all out to dinner before we left for Alaska.  Dad is there too, but out of the picture to the right, Marcia can barely be seen to the left.  I took the picture, so I made it too!  In fact, I pulled up next to them as they pulled into the parking lot, and mom and dad pulled in right behind me.  We have a GREAT dinner at Claim Jumpers, which we always seem to have, and David, our server, was real good.

   

Tire on left is the front, you can see the sensor to the bottom right, and that shinny thing it is attached to is the new valve and the extender.   Tire right is the rear tire, with a sensor in the four o’clock and the ten o’clock positions for these dully tires.  Got them all filled up with air to the right pressure, got the non-flow through sensors put on the car, and everything is working and talking to the monitor.  Arny is always, make that ALWAYS, a big big help in these situations.  It is so nice to be able to park in their backyard, just ask Bubba and Skruffy.

So I left the RV at 10 am to get a few errands done, including picking up the first set of extenders…and ten hours later, all is well.  But it was a bit of Hell getting there, that’s all I have to say.  Tomorrow is departure day…Alaska is the destination.  I hope I don't have to fix anything for the next three months...but of course, we all KNOW that is just a dream.