Category Archives: Arizona

Time for Summer Plans

April 1st – I promise, no April Fool’s lines in this post. This is the time of year when many people pack up for the season and leave Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, especially the Canadian visitors. I’d be willing to bet that we have only 50% occupancy two weeks from now.

Donna and I have been discussing plans for our summer season. I think we’ll need to scale back from our original thoughts. With the current price of fuel, we’ll be burning over $5 every eight miles! The current administration wants to blame the high cost of fuel on the Russians, but it doesn’t take much memory to go back two months, well before Russia invaded Ukraine, when fuel prices had already increased by 48% over a year ago.

I don’t see any real relief anytime soon and with it, inflation will continue unabated. I don’t see any cohesive plan from the White House to provide a real solution. So, I’m going to be conservative in my spending for the foreseeable future.

We’ve booked a month in Cortez, Colorado. This has been a favorite area to visit over the last few years. We also have a month booked in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’ve pretty much scrapped our original plan to head back to the Pacific Northwest. We’ll hang in the Northern Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico regions this year when we escape the heat of central Arizona next month.

A couple of days ago, I went into my geek mode and ran some tests of our stereo sound system. I found some surprising results with an oscilloscope on the output of the Elekit integrated stereo amp. First of all, looking at power output, I found that only one watt of power could bring the sound to a reasonable listening level in our Arizona room. The room is approximately 24 feet by 16 feet with a peaked ceiling and is acoustically challenging.

Nevertheless, running the power up to five watts will drive you out of the room as it is loud! My speakers have an efficiency (sensitivity) rating of 93db. The low power requirement really took me by surprise. I wish I still had my decibel meter to make meaurements of sound pressure levels, but it’s long gone.

The other thing I looked at with the oscilloscope was the waveforms creating the sound. It always amazed me how a speaker can reproduce several sounds simultaneously. I can easily separate and hear the difference between drums, bass, other instruments and vocals all at once. How can this be?

Oscilloscope trace of speaker output from stereo amplifier

When you look at the waveform trace in the photo above, you mostly see the composite signal. The scope is set for 5 milliseconds per division, so beginning to end we are looking at 0.6 seconds of material. What’s hard to see without enlarging further is the jagged appearance of the trace. This jagged appearance is due to other frequencies of lower amplitude that are overlaid on the larger amplitude overall signal. In other words, the signal trace we’re seeing is made up of thousands of smaller peaks and troughs that make each individual sound. I don’t think I’m putting this phenomenon into words very well, but it’s a topic that fascinates me.

The past week was a little less busy than the week before. My last pickleball clinic of the season was cancelled on Tuesday when we had high wind and thundershowers. I managed to play on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and hope to get a few games in this afternoon. Donna played tennis and had an epiphany last week. Her friend, Lorraine, lent her a racquet to try. Donna was amazed at how much easier it was to handle and how much her accuracy improved.

The first thing she noticed was the grip diameter. She has been using too large of a grip. She has small hands. Tennis racquets can be had in a variety of grip diameters that go up in 1/8-inch increments. Her racquet was 4 1/2 inches, the one she borrowed was 4-1/8 inches. We searched online and found some grip size recommendations. Using one method of measuring hand size it appeared she should be using a 4 3/8 inch grip.

I didn’t believe this was right – especially since she found the 4 1/8 to be comfortable. I ordered her a new racquet and split the difference and went with a 4 1/4 inch grip. She used it yesterday and liked it. She’s played with it again this morning and felt much more confident with it. So we made the right choice!

As I stated in the beginning of this post, it’s the end of the season for a lot of the park visitors. Our friends, Dick and Roxy, from Spokane, Washington will be leaving soon. We invited them to join us for happy hour and dinner tomorrow. Yesterday Donna stopped at Fry’s grocery and saw some Heritage duroc pork babyback ribs, but she passed on them because they were $8.99/pound.

This morning I went to Fry’s and bought a rack – playing the Fry’s VIP card game I got the ribs for $6.99/lb. I’m surprised to find duroc pork at a grocery chain like Fry’s. I would expect to find them at a specialty meat market. Duroc pigs are what’s called a Heritage breed – this is like heirloom vegetables – it’s an old breed that’s come back into favor. Duroc and Berkshire are the most popular of the Heritage pig breeds and are known for their high-quality meat. Duroc is known for juicy meats due to intramuscular fat and mild flavor. They are the second most popular Heritage breed behind Berkshire – also known for its tender, mild-flavored meat.

I’ll prep the ribs later today and smoke them for tomorrow’s dinner. Speaking of dinner, we went out to eat on Wednesday evening. We thought about Fat Willy’s but they had a 30-minute wait for a table on the patio. We went to an old favorite Thai restaurant instead – 5R Cha. We used to go there years ago when we lived here.

I went for the old standard – chicken pad thai. Donna was more adventuresome and ordered a green curry with fish. When she asked the server what kind of fish they used, she just said it was a white fish. Hmm, sounded a little shaky to me. Donna went for it anyway. She’s sorry she did. She had an upset stomach Thursday morning and it persisted all day. I suspect the “white fish” was probably swai. Swai is a fish that’s farmed in Vietnam and it’s not the healthiest fish option. It’s sold under many different names – it used to be called Asian catfish, but that name is no longer allowed in the US as it’s misleading. Anyway, I’ve heard and read many reports of people having digestive disorders after eating swai. We won’t be going back to 5R Cha.

We haven’t had any complaints about Donna’s cooking. Last Sunday, Donna prepared chile-glazed pork tenderloin with a sweet potato-spinach hash.

Pork tenderloin with sweet potato-spinach hash

Monday I made my almost famous – well it’s famous among immediate family members – Japanese fried rice. Donna grilled shrimp to serve with it. Japanese fried rice is always labor intensive for me. I cut the ingredients carefully, trying to keep things uniform. Donna laughs at me for using four different knives during prep. I use the Japanese method of selecting the proper knife for each task – traditional Japanese kitchen cutlery is very specialized.

Ingredients in the wok before rice is added – and yes, that’s fried spam in the other pan to be added to the fried rice

Monday’s dinner plate – Japanese fried rice and grilled shrimp

As I mentioned earlier, Tuesday was a rainy day. Donna kept it simple and made a beef ragu served over angel hair (capellini) pasta for me and spaghetti squash for her.

Last night, we ended the month of March with blackened tilapia. We are always careful when buying tilapia – some parts of the world are known for shady fish farming practices while others have better regulation and use acceptable modern methods. This tilapia was purchased at Costco and came from Costa Rica.

Blackened tilapia with green rice and baby squash

Last Sunday was warm and the high reached 93 degrees. The stormy Tuesday was only 66 degrees. We reached 81 yesterday and will probably hit 83 degrees today. The forecast looks good for the week ahead – maybe on the warm side by the end of next week. Long range, April looks to be comfortable temperature wise.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Party Time

I’ve been adding to our music collection by purchasing a variety of recordings on compact disc (CD). I like the CD format – they’re fairly rugged, easy to store and with a good, modern digital to analog converter (DAC), they sound great.

I’m really enjoying the sound of the Elekit TU-8200R single-ended vacuum tube stereo integrated amp I built from a kit. In fact, I like my entire set-up right now. When I posted about the Klipsch speakers I’m using, my friend Peter Swingle commented that he couldn’t get used to the sound of the Klipsch speakers – he much preferred soft-dome tweeters in his speakers.

I thought about this a bit and wondered if he ever listened to Klipsch speakers driven by a vacuum tube amplifier or was his experience with solid state? About 20 years ago, I put together an expensive sound system based on Pioneer Elite series components (solid state) and used expensive Infinity floor standing speakers with soft dome tweeters. I remember being somewhat annoyed by the amount of sibilance that was apparent in some recordings with that set-up.

I recalled how the sibilance was pronounced when I played back Talk of the Town by the Pretenders. As Chrissy Hynde sang, when the lyrics had certain words like “such” and “shots” the “ess” sound came out almost like a hiss. I broke out my Pretenders CD and gave it a listen on my current system. No sibilance, just nicely balanced sound. I know, it’s not a scientific comparison, just my memory of the sound of two different systems in completely different surroundings.

Since I started this music buying spree, every time I open YouTube, I see performances by different artists. This has influenced my choices in new music. One of the YT suggestions was for an American jazz singer named Melody Gardot. She has an excellent voice that’s very pleasant to listen to. When I read her back story, I had to order her CD.

In 2003, when Melody was 19 years old, she was hit by a SUV while bicycling in Philadelphia. She sustained head, spinal and pelvic injuries that were serious enough for her to be hospitalized for a year. One of her physicians thought music would help her recover from the brain injury. After a period of time, she could hum along with different songs. Slowly she began singing along. Finally she could really sing and started writing songs. It’s quite a story and she advocates for music therapy.

Our calendars had some social events this past week. On Sunday, we had the annual Viewpoint Pickleball Club general membership meeting and dinner. It’s always fun to get together with the people we usually see only at the pickleball courts. It’s kind of funny – a few times I’ve run into fellow pickleballers at the grocery store or somewhere offsite and hardly recognize them in street clothes.

On Monday, we had a block party for Viewpoint residents of the 2500 row. It was a potluck and BYOB at the southpoint recreation area. Viewpoint has three recreation areas – the main pool area which has two swimming pools, hot tubs and shuffleboard. The northpoint recreation area has a swimming pool, hot tub, gym and a clubhouse with an upper patio deck. It’s adjacent to the softball field which has bleachers and a kitchen area. The southpoint recreation area has a swimming pool, hot tub, gym and a large patio area with gas barbeque grills. It’s directly across from Fat Willy’s bar and restaurant and the golf pro shop. It was a fun little party and a chance to meet some of our neighbors.

On Wednesday Donna went to northpoint for an end-of-season party for her tennis team. Donna was one of the organizers – she’s really involved with the tennis club. She’s also a Residents of Viewpoint Association (ROVA) street captain. ROVA advocates for the residents here and raises issues with the Viewpoint management and parent corporation – they generally keep the management on their toes and make sure any maintenance or safety concerns are voiced and documented.

We recieved another party invitation on Wednesday. Our neighbor and fellow pickleball enthusiasts from Washington, Kay and Jay, are having an early happy hour with appetizers and BYOB at their place on Tuesday. However, today we found a notice left at our door saying they had to cancel the party as they both tested positive for Covid-19. I hope they’re okay and recover quickly.

With all of the parties and eating out, I only have a couple of dinner plates for this post. Both plates happen to be chicken dishes. On Saturday, Donna made turmeric chicken and she reserved some of the turmeric sauce to put over some leftover champ potatoes.

Yesterday I broke down a whole chicken and Donna used the breasts to make chicken Lombardy. This is a favorite dish for sure.

Yesterday I trimmed and cut a London broil for jerky. I marinated it overnight in a soy-based pepper marinade. It’s on the Traeger now – it usually takes about four to five hours of smoker time. I started with two pounds of beef cut into strips. After smoking and dehydrating, I should end up with more than a pound of jerky. The London broil was on sale and I got it for $7. The soy sauce, worcestershire, brown sugar and spices don’t amount to much cost. All in all, it’s way better than paying eight to 10 dollars for a 1/4 pound of jerky at the market.

The weather held pretty much to the forecast with the exceptions of a few raindrops Sunday afternoon. We’ve been seeing low to mid 80s since then and will be over 90 degrees today and tomorrow. The forecast for the week ahead shows mostly the same with one anomaly on Tuesday – they say it’ll only get up to 64 degrees on Tuesday and we’ll have rain.

Two Concerts and a Parade

Another busy and fun-filled week has flown by. Saturday morning Donna had her final rehearsal with the Viewpoint Concert Band. When she came home, Mike and Jodi Hall picked us up and we headed out to Apache Junction for the Superstition Blues and Brews festival. The festival was in a park at the junction where Apache Trail heads northeast toward Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flat.

We found parking in a dirt lot across from the park and checked in at will-call – we’d purchased our tickets in advance. They had a large crowd – more than expected. It was a beautiful day -clear blue skies and the temperature reached the upper 70s. We unexpectedly ran into our friends, Kelly and Frank Burk there. We sat on the grass in camp chairs we brought and enjoyed an afternoon of music and craft beers in the sun.

Superstition Mountains viewed from our spot in the park

It was a good time. After the concerts – there were a number of good bands performing, we went to Frank and Kelly’s place. They ordered take-out Chinese from J&M and we had an impromptu dinner.

Last Sunday, we drove out to Buckeye to visit my daughter, Jamie, and brought her a couple of goodies. She’s in a back brace and her mobility is somewhat limited. One of the items we brought her was a “reacher” – a mechanical picker-type device so she could pick things up from the floor without bending over or reach things above her on a shelf or cabinet. We picked up take-out from Jersey Mike’s and had lunch together with her and Francisco and I was glad to find her in good spirits.

Sunday was Donna’s concert day – it was actually in the evening. The concert band performed from 7pm to a little past 8pm and put on a good show. The seating arrangement of the band changed and now Donna was in the front row alongside the other two clarinets and I could hear her better. I was put in charge of a crew that collected donations for the band near the end of the show. The donations go into the music fund for the band – with a large concert band, sheet music for all of the instruments adds up. They typically pay over $800 for their music folio.

The rest of the week was mostly typical – pickleball, tennis and great weather. Of course, yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone pretends to be Irish. I played pickleball in the morning. When I left the courts, vehicles – mostly decorated golf carts – we’re queuing up for the park’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were a couple of old green hot rod cars in the parade. I thought, “Midget-San is green, why not?”

I came home and wiped the dust off of the car and fired it up to join the parade.

There were about 100 vehicles in the parade. The route took us around the park and people were lined up everywhere to watch and collect candy thrown from some of the carts.

It was fun and something different to do. Donna was out getting groceries, but said she wants to be in the parade next year to throw out candy.

Last week, Donna picked up a cat perch from a woman in the park. She’d bought it for her cat, but her cat never used it. Donna set it up in the Arizona room and Ozark has put it to good use. She likes to get on the top platform and nap or go inside a little cubby a couple of feet off of the floor.

After months of living in our home, I wonder how Ozark will react to life in the motorhome this summer.

As usual, we had some interesting dinner plates last week. On Thursday, Donna grilled a pork tenderloin with bourbon brown sugar sauce. She served it with brown rice and broccoli.

On Sunday, she cooked chicken thighs in the slow cooker with bacon, fennel and onions in white wine and chicken broth with a little tomato paste. She shredded the meat and served it over mashed potatoes with fennel fronds.

Of course, yesterday was the traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal. She had corned beef with carrots and onions in the slow cooker all day and added cabbage in the afternoon. She made sides of champ – mashed potato with sliced green onions steeped in hot butter and heavy cream – and freshly baked Irish soda bread. We had our St. Patrick’s Day meal out on the back deck before sunset.

The weather has been fantastic – most days have been in the low 80s except for Tuesday when we hit 87 degrees. We should be in the low 80s today and tomorrow before the temperature dips to the low 70s on Sunday and Monday – then we’ll be back in the 80s. I need to sign off now and go buy an oil filter for the Nissan truck – it’s oil change time.

Good Times, Bad Times

Most of the citrus trees here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort have been picked clean. There are a few grapefruit trees that still have fruit, but that’s about it. The orange trees are beginning to blossom. That means my pollen alergies are kicking in. It’s become a real nuisance as my eyes are constantly watering – it was bad enough by the beginning of this week for me to start a regiment of benadryl tablets.

The weather was a little on the wild side by Friday of last week. We had some rain and gusty winds. Speaking of wind, we had an interesting thing happen the week before when we had stormy weather. A few days after the stormy weather passed, Donna noticed one of our back patio umbrella shades was missing. We looked around and it was nowhere to be found.

Donna inquired at the pro-shop to see if it might have blown onto the golf course. They didn’t know anything about it. She also posted on the Viewpoint Facebook page to see if anyone might have found it and picked it up. I was convinced that someone took it – we have three umbrella shades out back, maybe they thought we had one too many.

Donna was talking to our next door neighbor, Lois, one afternoon and mentioned the missing umbrella. Lois asked if she meant the one that was on our roof! From her back patio, she could see it on our roof. Apparently a wind gust pick it up and deposited it on top of our house. Mystery solved.

Last week, when I met up with Leendert at Red, White and Brew, he lent me a book called The Psychology of Money. It’s a collection of short stories broken down into 20 chapters that outline the author’s philosophy of financial management. It’s a worthwhile read.

I want to mention a few other books. In these trying times with rampant inflation, divisive politics and Russia invading Ukraine, it’s easy to believe we live in the worst of times. These books might bring you to understand how far we’ve really come.

Abundance – The Future is Better Than You Think

Enlightenment Now

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

I don’t want minimize the extent of destrution and human suffering taking place in Ukraine – in fact, I’ve read first-hand accounts of horror faced by the guy and his family that I bought vacuum tubes from in Melitopol, Ukraine. On the other hand, it’s nice to see the good that’s taken place in the world as well.

Closer to home, I had some bad news on Tuesday. My middle daughter, Jamie, was in a car accident near her home in Buckeye, west of Phoenix. She has a couple of spinal compression fractures and an ankle sprain along with general soreness from taking a beating in the accident. Hopefully she’ll be discharged from the hospital today, but she faces a recovery in a back brace for the next 12 weeks or so.

Last Friday as the stormy weather approached, we had some clouds and it made for a spectacular sunrise over the Superstition Mountains.

Donna came up with some nice recipes for dinners. First up. we have shrimp in purgatory – a tomato/garlic marinara with capers over spaghetti.

That was Saturday’s dinner plate. On Sunday, we had another garlicky dinner – she pan seared, then baked chicken thighs with a garlic butter sauce. I had it with rice and asparagus.

On Monday, Donna bought a hunk of fresh ahi tuna. She made a topping with sliced jalapeno peppers, cilantro, lime juice and soy sauce. She grilled bok choy while I seared the ahi.

Seared ahi tuna seasoned with salt and pepper

Seared ahi plate with bok choy and brown rice

Wednesday she tried a new recipe for a whole chicken roasted in the oven with a curry sauce. She served it with rainbow cauliflower – this is naturally colored cauliflower – and asparagus.

Roasted chicken with rainbow cauliflower

As always, I’m eating well even though Donna’s following her Bright Line Eating plan.

We have a busy weekend coming up. Saturday morning Donna has her final rehearsal for the Viewpoint Concert Band March performance on Sunday. Saturday afternoon we’ll join Mike and Jodi Hall for the Superstition Blues & Brews Festival. Live music and local crafted beers – it should be a fun time.

We should have a nice, sunny afternoon on Saturday with temperatures reaching the upper 70s. Long range it looks like we’ll have upper 70s to low 80s for the remainder of March.

Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

RC Airplane Flashback

A couple of weeks ago, Donna introduced me to her friend, Deborah and her husband Scott. Turns out Scott and I had something in common. Scott flies Radio Controlled (RC) airplanes and competes in AMA Pattern. I flew RC giant scale airplanes and competed in IMAC aerobatic competition. AMA and IMAC have similarities, but compete under a different set of rules and utilize different types of airplanes.

AMA refers to the Academy of Model Aeronautics while IMAC is the International Miniature Aerobatic Club. AMA pattern planes are purpose-built designs that have to meet size and weight limitations to compete in pattern events, which require pilots to perform a schedule of aerobatic maneuvers and are judged on the geometric perfection of the maneuvers.

IMAC planes have fewer limitations, but are generally scale representations (or close to scale) of full-size aerobatic planes that compete in the International Aerobatic Club. Where AMA pattern planes can weight no more than 11 pounds, my last IMAC plane was a 40% scale Edge 540 with a 10-foot wingspan that weighed 32 pounds.

Last Saturday, Scott was competing at an event held at the Arizona Modelers RC Flying Field in east Mesa only a few miles from our place at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I participated in an event at this field over 20 years ago! After lunch, Donna and I drove over to the airfield and watched the competition for a couple of hours.

The chairs give a sense of scale – these airplanes are large yet lightweight

Donna’s friend and tennis buddy Deborah came out to the field shortly after we arrived to watch her husband compete. Scott told me Chip Hyde was competing – I knew Chip from the RC Tournament of Champions (TOC) days. The TOC was an international competition started by Bill Bennett in 1974 while Bennett was running the Circus Circus Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. Later, Bennett bought the Sahara Hotel and Casino and continued to sponsor the invitation-only TOC until his death in 2002. He put up over $150,000 in prize money for the TOC event each year.

In the late ’90s, I participated in the TOC as a caller for Jason Shulman. The caller stands behind the RC pilot and calls out each maneuver for the pilot to keep him in sync with the schedule of maneuvers. The last time I called for Jason, we came in third behind Christophe Paysant–LeRoux from France and Chip Hyde from Las Vegas.

Enough background – I saw Chip and we chatted for a bit. He remembered me from 20 years ago – I was surprised by this. Chip was at the top of the game for a lot of years – and still represents the USA in international competition. He was the AMA USA National Champion pattern pilot 10 times. He was the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Champion four times! It was fun to reminisce, but I quit flying RC airplanes after I won the IMAC National Championship twice and haven’t flown in years.

After my last post, I received a message from my friend, Leendert Hartoog. Lendert wanted to meet up and hear more about the Elekit stereo amplifier I built. We got together on Tuesday at Red, White and Brew and I filled him in with all of the particulars. After a couple of cold ones, I told him I would send him a couple of links for more information and ordering. When I got home and looked up the website for the US retailer, I found that Tube Depot had the kit on sale until midnight. I sent the link to Leendert and told him of the sale status – he ordered a kit. I told Leendert I would build it for him if he wanted me to, but I think he’ll want to experience building it himself.

I keep the stereo mounted on top of my guitar amplifiers – the vacuum tubes get hot and I wouldn’t anyone to accidently burn themselves. The 6L6GC output tubes run at about 330 degrees +/- 10 degrees or so. The 12AU7 preamp tubes are only about 180 degrees, but that’s still hot enough to burn fingers.

Amp corner – Elekit integrated stereo amp on top

Last Thursday, Donna made a bean soup with andouille sausage and spinach for dinner. It was a great meal on cold day – the temperature only reached 56 degrees that afternoon.

She’s still following the Bright Line eating plan – it’s taken a few pounds off of me although I cheat and still drink beer. Saturday’s dinner was pan-seared chicken thighs with herb-roasted tomatoes and a side of asparagus.

Pan-seared chicken with herb-roasted tomatoes

On Sunday, she grilled shrimp with Mexican spices along with peppers and onions and served it with Mexican street corn and avocado. Delicious.

Grilled shrimp with peppers and onions and Mexican street corn

Saturday was 10 degrees warmer than Thursday’s 56 degrees. The pictures from the flying field show blues skies, but it was still on the cool side. Sunday was a little warmer and on Monday we hit the low 70s.

Yesterday we were back in the low 80s. Donna had me slice a flank steak and she made a stir fry for dinner. I had it over white rice while she had her serving over riced cauliflower to adhere to her eating plan.

On Monday, I went to the Verizon store and traded in my Samsung Galaxy 5 which I’ve had for seven years or so for a new Samsung Galaxy S22. The guy there couldn’t believe I’d had the same phone for that long. Donna upgraded to an S10 a couple of years ago. My Galaxy S5 was first released in 2014. Since then they released the S6, S7, S8, S9, S10 usually in March of each year. In 2020 they changed their nomenclature to coincide with the year, so after the S10 came the S20 then S21 and now the S22. The S22 was released in the USA last Friday, so I’m truly up to date now.

Getting the files from my old S5 to the S22 was problematic. I have over 4,000 photos stored on the SD card in the S5 and it was running so slowly that the S22 indicated it would take four hours to load the data! I was trading in the S5 to get the discounted price of the S22 but the guy let me take both phones home and complete the data transfer instead of hanging around the Veizon store all afternoon. I really appreciated that. I got it done and returned the S5 to the store first thing on Tuesday morning. Now I have to learn the new phone – finding my way around it can be a little frustrating at times!

We should reach the mid-80s today and stay warm until the weekend when we have a couple of days back in the 60s forecasted. We’ll see how that works out.

Michiganders, Music and Snow

In addition to all of her usual activities, Donna had a busy week as we had visitors. On Monday, Martha and John Bergquist came by at noon. I had just returned from a couple of hours of pickleball when they arrived. Donna knew Martha from our time in Michigan and they were visiting Arizona, staying down in Tucson. Their home is in Wisconsin now.

Martha and Donna in front of our orange tree

Martha really wanted to see wild horses, so Donna invited them to come up and hike at Coon Bluff to see if they could locate some horses. They lucked out and found a herd of about 30 horses along the Salt River. I was beat from pickleball and wasn’t up for the hike. They went for a late lunch at Saguaro Lake. It was after 5pm before Donna made it back home.

Yesterday we met up with more friends from Michigan. Gary and Cheryl Bida were out here visiting their son in Scottsdale. It was a rainy day yesterday when we met up with them for lunch at Fat Willy’s. Lunch on the patio was out of the question with the cold, windy and rainy weather, so we dined indoors. We had a good time talking and visiting for a couple of hours. It’s been at least 10 years since we last saw them. I neglected to take any photos.

My last post rambled on about my stereo system. I have to say, we’re really enjoying it and have music on for hours every day now. It has rekindled my interest and love of music. I’ve always had an eclectic mix of recordings – everything from Mozart to Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix. Lately, I’ve been expanding my CD collection with new material that I’ve largely ignored over the years.

I’ve added three discs by Diana Krall. Diana is a Canadian jazz singer and pianist and I love her voice, even when she’s singing some sappy song. Her piano playing is exquisite – she started studying piano at the age of four! He parents were musically inclined too. Her husband is none other than British recording artist Elvis Costello.

I recently “discovered” Tom Waits. I don’t know how he flew under my radar all of these years. Tom is from southern California and was a regular in the San Diego folk music scene in the 1960s. I wasn’t into folk music at all back then, so maybe that’s how I missed him. He moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and was already established as a singer/songwriter by then. I didn’t know it until recently, but he penned the Eagles hit Ol’ 55. You might remember their version of this song:

Well, my time went so quickly
I went lickety-splitly
Out to my ol’ 55
As I pulled away slowly
Feeling so holy
God knows I was feeling alive

Now, the sun’s coming up
I’m riding with Lady Luck
Freeway, cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade
And I lead the parade
Just a-wishin’ I’d stayed a little longer
Oh Lord, let me tell ya that the feeling getting stronger…

Tom Waits is quite a character. He spent a lot of time in San DIego and LA hanging out in diners and dive bars with his notebook, picking up snippets of conversations around him to inspire his song writing. His early recordings in the late 60s and early 70s reveal a soft voice. By 1980, years of cigarettes and whiskey changed his voice to a gravelly rasp.

I’ve also added a couple of discs recorded by John Mayer. I knew of John, but didn’t have any of his recordings until now. He attended the Berklee College of Music and is probably the most famous student of guitar great Tomo Fujita. I like his songwriting and singing as well as his excellent guitar playing.

I also found a CD called On Every Street. Recorded in 1999, it’s the last album Mark Knopfler recorded as Dire Straits – by then, only he and the bass player remained from the original band. All of his work since then is under his name as a solo artist – he is an absolute guitar god.

I mentioned in my last post that Donna is back to following the Bright Line Eating plan. This doesn’t mean we have to curtail fine dining. She just has to be selective in the mix of protein, carbs and fats she eats and she weighs everything she cooks.

Last week, she made a lentil soup with duck sausage and it was delicious.

Saturday she grilled a wild caught Alaskan salmon and served it with a citrus-chile topping. Another hit.

Grilled salmon with citrus-chile sauce and grilled bok choy

The citrus-chile sauce was so tasty, she used again on Monday over grilled chicken thighs and wings. It works as well on chicken as it does on salmon.

Chicken with citrus-chile sauce served with asparagus and cauliflower rice medley

We’ve had a strange weather pattern over the last couple of weeks. Last week, it was cold and wet on Wednesday but warmed back up to the upper 70s by the weekend. This week, the temperature only reached 66 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday was rainy and only 52 degrees! Average highs at this time of year are 72 degrees. The overnight low last night was down to 33 degrees and we had overnight showers. This left snow on the Superstition Mountains east of us here at Viewpoint – we can see them out our front window.

We can expect another cold night with the low in the mid-30s, but we should warm up to the 70s for highs this weekend. The forecast calls for highs in the 80s by next Tuesday.

Analog Man

FedEx was on schedule and delivered the Elekit TU-8200R stereo integrated amplifier kit I ordered from Tube Depot. Elekit is a Japanese company that’s been in business for about 40 years. They are well-known in Japan for the science project kits they sell to high schools. High schoolers in Japan build projects like robotics and other electronic devices with the Elekit supplied parts and manuals. They are also well-regarded for their audio gear.

Mr. Yoshitsugu Fujita is the Chief Engineer and designer for Elekit. His audio circuits are brilliant. Unlike most boutique stereo amplifiers, which rely on circuit designs originally developed in the 1950s and 1960s, Fujita-san designs outside of the box everyone else is stuck in. His audio gear is vacuum tube driven, but he has no qualms about using solid state devices in the power supply stage. If a DB107 solid state bridge rectifier creates a cleaner power supply, that’s what he uses. He also incorporates transistors in circuit protection schemes, but the signal path is all analog tube driven.

I got to work right away after the delivery came at 1pm. Everything was well packaged and sorted into plastic bags.

One of the key elements of this kit is the R-core power transformer on the left in the photo above. The two output transformers – also very key components – are in the left center of the photo. Once I inventoried all of the parts to ensure nothing was missing, it was time to populate the main board. Over the next five hours or so, I soldered over 200 points on the main circuit board. There are seven boards total to make up the amplifier. These are high-quality printed circuit boards (PCB) with thick fiberglass plates and copper traces on both sides that are well proportioned and 70um thick. The through holes are copper plated.

Bottom of the main board with components in place

I finished the main board around 7pm and knocked off for the day – I was getting tired and I didn’t want to make an error in the build. Building a stereo amplfier is like building two amps at once. Each channel (left and right) has it’s own, separate signal path. Only the main power supply is shared in this amp.

Main PCB finished – all capacitors and resistors are high-quality parts sourced from Japan

Saturday morning after breakfast and coffee, I got back to work around 9am. Assembling the rest of the boards was straight forward. I had to knock off at 1pm to have lunch before going to Donna’s concert. The Viewpoint Concert Band had their first performance of the season. They have fewer musicians than in years past due to covid and other reasons – they’re down by about 30 performers. They sounded great though and put on a good show.

PCB 2 with volume control, switches and headphone jack

Before I started building this amp, I went Michael’s craft store and bought a pack of craft sticks. These look like a popsicle stick but they’re larger – about 3/4″ wide. I glued two of them stacked together to make it 1/8″ thick, then I cut down the width on one end to make it 3/8″ wide. This was my jig for bending the leads on resistors and setting them precisely 1/8″ clear of the board. I did this because resistors get hot and keeping them up from the board would allow air to circulate around them. I wanted a uniform height for aesthetic reasons. This would be an issue later.

There were a couple of places where PCBs are joined perpendicular to each other and tricky soldering was required. The PCBs had copper pads on each board that aligned with each other but didn’t make contact. I had to solder a triangular fillit that joined the copper pads. This was tricky because both pads needed be simultaneously heated to allow the solder to flow and adhere properly.

Twelve triangular solder fillits joining the copper pads of these PCBs

After the concert, I got started on the hardware mounting and had everything put together a couple of hours later. Total time spent on the project was around 12 hours at this point – eight hours or so with a solder iron in my hand.

I put tubes in the sockets and it was time to fire it up. I plugged in through my my bulb limiter connected to the APC Line R voltage regulator. It was a disaster. I had a loud hum. I switched it off and looked everything over. I tried switching tubes but the loud hum persisted. I tried a few tests and found the noise was unrelated to the volume control – no matter where the volume control was set, the hum level was the same. I also found that touching the volume control or the input jacks changed the hum – it was lower volume when I touched them.

This made me believe the hum was from a ground loop. I put a jumper from one input jack to a ground point on the chassis and it killed the hum. I hooked up the CD player for a test – no sound output. Bummer. Up to this point, I thought this was the easiest amp I’d ever built. The kit was high-quality and everything fit well. The instructions were good. Somewhere along the line, I must have been a little over-confident and made a mistake.

I pulled the boards out and reflowed the component solder points. I couldn’t see anything wrong. I put it back together and had the same result. I was getting frustrated and tired. It was past 7pm by then and Donna had dinner waiting. I decided to give it a break and think about it for a while.

I thought about it while sipping a Scotch on the rocks and finally gave up for the night. I woke up at 4:30am Sunday morning and thought about it some more. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up as quietly as I could and went back to the amp at 5am. I reconfirmed all of the component locations and values. I can’t tell you how many times I took things apart and checked them – I wasn’t getting anywhere.

I had to take a break at 9am to meet Mike Hall at our coach – he was going to look at the damaged body panel that I temporarily repaired while we were traveling through Utah last summer. He came up with a plan for a permanent fix.

Then Donna and I drove to Scottsdale to meet Alana and Kevin at Merci French Cafe and Patisserie for brunch. Kevin and Alana had left the Painted Mountain Golf Resort in Mesa on Saturday and went to Alana’s mother’s place in Wickenburg – over an hour away. They made the trip back to Scottsdale to spend a little more time with us before flying back to Washington on Tuesday. We had an excellent brunch on the patio at Merci – eating out again for the fifth time in eight days. I was a little distracted, thinking about the amp problem.

When we got back home, I finally wised up and quit looking for a visual clue. Instead I measured voltages throughout the circuit. The schematic identifies 29 points to take voltage readings. All looked perfect until got to number 29. The reading was impossible. I should have had around 6 volts for the heater filaments, but I found -30 volts. What? How could I have negative voltage there?

Looking at the schematic led me to the solid state bridge rectifier. It was installed properly, so I scratched my head again. I was using a headset that resembles the one used by dentists to magnify things in front of their eyes. The one I bought had five different lenses with magnifying powers of 1x – for eye protection only, 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x and 3x. I used the 2x lens because it allows greater depth of field than the stronger magnification – above 2x, you have view from a precise distance or things get out of focus. It also has an LED lamp to make me look like a cyclops while lighting up the working area.

With this headset on, I was searching the board around the DB107 rectifier chip when I saw something reflect a tiny bit of light. There was a fine line of solder – no thicker than a strand of spider web – across two terminals of the rectifier chip. Bingo – this was enough to short the rectifier. I used a braided copper solder wick to clean it up the solder joint. That should take care of the lack of sound and the voltage issue, but it didn’t explain the hum or ground issue.

I traced the ground circuits and resoldered the triangular fillits where the grounds went from one PCB to another. Then I put it all togther without the top plate on the chassis. I plugged everything in and it was silent – no hum. I turned the CD player on and I had sound. Hooray, I fixed it. All along, Donna kept reassuring me by saying, “You’ll find the problem, I have no doubt.”

I took the amp back to the bench and put the top and front cover plates on. I plugged everything back in and put on some music. Oh, no! Now I had nothing coming from the left channel. I took it apart again and traced back from the left channel input jack. Fujita-san cleverly marked all of the left channel components with odd numbers and all of the right channel components with even numbers. So I went to the resistor R1 to start checking and I found it bent with the lead touching the lead of R3 mounted perpendicular to it. This shorted the signal path to ground. Remember how I set the resistors all 1/8″ high? When I put the chassis back together after I fixed the original problems I must have accidently pushed R1 over onto R3. Problem solved.

This stereo sounds fantastic. It’s unbelievably good. Donna doesn’t exactly share my passion for chasing tone and good sound. When I say something like, “Listen to that bass and how clear the highs sound,” she usually says she just wants to enjoy the music, not dissect the sound. But when she heard this amp for the first time, right away she said, “That really sounds good!” The amp looks good to me in a simple, somewhat industrial way.

Elekit TU-8200R vacuum tube stereo integrated amplifier

Tube amps do sound good. I know, I’m a retrograde analog man in a digital world. But vacuum tubes naturally create an emphasis of second order harmonics – that is, they accentuate the octave above the fundamental frequency. Acoustic instruments naturally do the same thing. It’s a euphonic response and people find the tone pleasing. Solid state amplification creates higher odd order harmonics – the 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc, of the fundamental which most humans perceive as harsh or even unpleasant. Solid state designs require complex circuitry to try to work around this.

In my last post, I mentioned my concerns about the future availability of CD players. I decided to buy the Cambridge Audio AXC35 player after thinking about it for a day. I went online to Crutchfield and found out they had sold out since I last saw it the day before! Luckily, I found it on Amazon for the same price and placed the order. I went with the Cambridge Audio unit which is made by a company based in London, England because of the Wolfson Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) in it. The Wolfson DAC is made by a company in Ireland and is a very good DAC. The DAC is a key component of a CD player.

Information stored on a compact disc can’t be amplified directly into music. The information is a series of microscopic pits in the disc separated by lands. These become a series of zeros and ones. The DAC takes this information and converts it to a waveform that represents the frequencies of sound. This waveform can now be amplified and sent to a speaker. Magic!

The Cambridge Audio CD player arrived on Monday. Now my stereo system is complete – new CD player, new amplifier and new speakers. It sounds so good, I can’t put it into words.

Enough stereo talk – let’s get to the food. Thursday night, Donna made garlic butter chicken with riced cauliflower, mushrooms and asparagus. She seared the chicken thighs on the stove top, then baked them in the oven

Donna is back on the Bright Line Eating plan, which means I’m sort of on the plan. But I get to cheat some. Monday she grilled wild caught Alaskan salmon and served it with Brussels sprouts in bacon horseradish sauce.

Last night ,she made lemony shrimp and bean stew – this was a new dish for us and really tasty.

Alana and Kevin picked a great week for their visit. The temperature was around 80 degrees everyday. Early this morning, that changed as rain moved in and we’ll be lucky to see 60 degrees today. The forecast looks good though, as we should be in the 70s by Friday.

Compact Discs, Family and Food

We’re ten days into February already. My perception of time gets more and more skewed as I age. We’ve been set into daily routines for most of the past week with a couple of exceptions. I haven’t been on the pickleball courts as much as I would like for a couple of reasons. First is the club’s scheduling – I can’t make much sense of how they are scheduling the courts for different levels of play. Most of the 3.5 play is 8am to 10am – I don’t play my best first thing in the morning. The other issue is wind – we’ve had a stiff breeze most mornings and I find outdoor pickleball in gusty wind to be an exercise in frustration. It becomes a game of chance, not so much skill.

A few weeks ago, we had visitors for happy hour. I had music in playing on the stereo at low volume for background sound. My friend commented that it sounded so clear and detailed. This was before I started upgrading my system and I wondered what he meant – it seemed pretty average to me. I thought about it later and came to the conclusion – it’s the general dumbing-down of sound quality.

My friend is used to streaming online music sources or MP3 files on an iPhone. These sources are so compressed that the music lacks the original detail and dynamics. He probably hadn’t listened to a compact disc in years. I read recently that last year (2021) was the first year to post a year-over-year gain in CD sales in the last 15 years! In fact, during that period, sales of vinyl records exceeded CD sales. Maybe people started to wake up and forgo the convenience of music files versus high-quality recordings. Nah, I doubt it – in the end, convenience wins.

My new Klipsch Reference R-51M bookshelf speakers arrived last Saturday. After about 12 hours of break-in and careful positioning, they sound great! The bass response is a big improvement over the Celestion DL4 speakers I had. To be fair, the Celestions are about 30 years old and the crossover network could probably benefit from fresh capacitors. But there’s no denying the bass reflex design with a rear firing port on the Klipsch speakers allows a much deeper and more powerful bass response. In fact, my Nobsound vacuum tube stereo amplifier sounds better than I ever expected it would. There’s no turning back now.

Klipsch R-51M with Tractix horn tweeter and spun copper woofer

Like the Celestion speaker, the Klipsch R-51M is a two-way design, meaning it has a tweeter for higher frequencies and a woofer for bass and mid-range controlled with a crossover network. Their designs differ though – Klipsch is famous for horn designs and this bookshelf speaker uses a 90-degree tractix horn tweeter and an injection-molded graphite spun copper woofer. I’m really happy I went for them.

Hopefully I’ll receive a package from TubeDepot tomorrow. I’m going to build another amplifier. I ordered the Japanese Elekit TU8200R kit. I think this will become my main stereo and I’ll set up my old speakers and the Nobsound amp in my ham shack.

I’ve read some alarming reports predicting the demise of CD music players. Here’s the situation and possible outcome. First of all, CD sales have been slow although they picked up a little steam last year. Right now, there’s a worldwide shortage of integrated circuit chipsets. This has impacted most consumer goods – everything from cars to cell phones. With CD players now a small player in consumer electronics, manufacturers aren’t prioritizing CD players for their precious chipsets – they have other goods to manufacture that are in higher demand. This in turn means that manufacturers aren’t buying the disc transport mechanisms that load CDs into the player – which means the companies that usually supply these components are moving on to other goods.

I looked at Amazon and Crutchfield and my findings seem to support this theory. Crutchfield lists 12 different CD players in their catalog, but 10 out of 12 are out of stock with no date for resupply. I have a lot of music on CDs and would hate to lose the ability to play them. Our Pioneer CD player is about 30 years old and sometimes can’t decode a disc that has dropouts. I think I’ll buy a new unit and relegate the Pioneer to the ham shack.

Donna’s golf game is improving quickly. Last week, she played her fifth game ever on the nine-hole course here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Park. She hit a bogie on one hole, made par on another and birdied a hole!

Last Sunday, we had a delightful brunch at OHSO Brewery in Gilbert with our friends Sara and Howard Graff. After brunch, we strolled the streets of old downtown Gilbert. It’s a fun place – I can remember when it was a one-horse town that was little more than a water tower and crossroads. I neglected to take photos.

On Tuesday, my daughter, Alana and her husband Kevin (collectively known as Kevlana) flew down from Washington. We had a cold one on our deck along with my middle daughter, Jamie. Then we piled into Jamie’s Passat and went to dinner at Alessia’s, an Italian restaurant a few miles from here.

Poorly focused photo – Alana and Kevin on the left, Donna and Jamie on the right

The food was excellent and we thoroughly enjoyed the time together. Yesterday, Kevin and Alana came over to golf the nine-hole course with Donna. Kevin and Alana are avid golfers and Kevin is quite good at it. Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at Fat Willy’s, the restaurant here at Viewpoint.

Last night, we went out to eat with Kevin and Alana again at the Zushi Japanese Bistro and had Japanese beer – Kirin for me, Kevin and Alana, Asahi for Donna – and enjoyed miso soup and a platter of sushi.

Speaking of food, Donna came up with a couple of new dishes for us last week. She’s been meaning to try her hand at pizza for a while and finally got to it using the method her parents use as well as one of their old pizza pans that she brought back from her last visit.

The pizza was good, but she thinks she can improve the crust. We both thought she could use a little less sauce, but that’s just our thoughts – there wasn’t anything wrong with it.

She also made a chalupa dish by slowly cooking a boneless pork shoulder with dry pinto beans, green chiles and spices for about five hours on the stove. It was very tasty but made enough food to feed a football team. She served it over corn tortillas fried in olive oil and with a topping of tomato chunks, red onion, cotija cheese, cilantro and lettuce.

We vacuum packed the leftover and put two packages in the freezer – enough for two more dinners and two more lunches – a total of eight more servings.

Kevin and Alana picked the right time for an Arizona visit. It was cold last week by local standards with highs of only around 60 degrees. But that changed by Tuesday when we had upper 70s and hit 81 degrees yesterday – making an enjoyable, sunny morning on the golf course. The forecast calls for daily highs around 80 degrees for next week.

Chasing Sound

I’ve been known to chase a certain sound or tone with my guitar set-up, but I wouldn’t say I’m an audiophile by any stretch of imagination. There was a time, around 20 years ago when I got into home theater that I started down the audio rabbit hole.

I was living in Arlington, Washington at the time. I spent some time at a local hifi shop nearby in Marysville and ended up buying a 5.1 Surround System featuring Onkyo components. It wasn’t long before I wanted to upgrade. I started hanging around a higher-end shop in Seattle near the University District and started spending some money on a higher-end system – things like Rotel separates and better floor standing speakers. I had some reliability issues with this temperamental set up.

After a while, I settled on Pioneer Elite series components that served as a hifi stereo rig as well as a 5.1 Surround Sound system. I bought higher end Infinity speakers. This equipment served me well for about 10 years before it started to need repairs. I finally sold everything when we hit the road in 2013 and lowered my expectations to lo-fi iPod MP3 music storage and barely adequate speakers.

Last year, when we bought the park model home at Viewpoint, Donna found a vintage stereo system for sale here in the park. It featured a Pioneer CD player, Kenwood receiver and Celestion DL4 bookshelf speakers. The stuff was all at least 30 years old and dated, but it was better than what we had in the coach and only cost about $200 for the whole set up. We’ve had it in our Arizona Room since we moved in and enjoy listening to our CD collection again.

A few weeks ago, I got the idea that I wanted to check out vacuum tube stereo amplification. Analog circuits utilizing vacuum tubes appeal to me. They have a natural warmth to the sound due to the second order harmonics they produce as opposed to higher odd-order harmonics in solid state amplification. There are pros and cons to either approach, but old school tube amps appeal to me.

I dipped a toe in the water so to speak by buying a cheap, Chinese integrated tube amp. In my last post, it might sound like I was really beating the Chinese produced stuff down – and in a sense I guess I was. But that doesn’t mean everything from China is junk. Having said that, I take a close look at any Chinese products – it’s buyer beware.

The Chinese amplifier I bought was branded Nobsound, it comes from Douk Audio. I knew these things had some issues, but they are easily dealt with and not expensive. I did the minimum needed to improve the reliability and used the amp for a while. Then I went back in and replaced all of the capacitors. What I found was that many of the capacitors were Sam Young brand – a Korean Company that also produces electronic parts in China. They are not considered good quality and have a reputation for poor reliability. They were made to look like Japanese Nichicon products. Four of the capacitors I removed had Vishay BC branding, but I’m pretty sure these are counterfeits – not genuine parts from Austria. I bought genuine Nichicon (Japan) capacitors from Digi-Key and installed them in place of the cheap Chinese stuff.

The clarity of the music through this amp improved. I think I’ve taken it as far as I can go with it though. It sounds good, but I wish it had better frequency response on the bass – it rolls off somewhere around 70-100 Hz. I have about $500 in this amp at this point and I’m done trying to make it better – it would require better output transformers for any real improvement at this point and that’s too expensive for what I have here. I should mention that some Chinese audio products are quite good, like some of the Shuaguang vacuum tubes and the tubes from the unpronounceable Chinese brand Psvane.

I’m finding myself venturing down the audio rabbit hole again. In an effort to improve the bass response of my system, I ordered a pair of Klipsch Reference R -51M speakers. These are a bass reflex design speaker with a rear-firing port and horn tweeter versus the Celestion sealed cabinet speakers I now use. We have background music playing most of the day now, playing a wide variety of music from classical to jazz and rock.

I have a feeling that even with an improvement with the new speakers – I expect them to arrive on Friday – I won’t be completely satisfied. I’m contemplating building an Elekit TU8200R integrated amplifier. These come from Japan and the kits are designed by Mr. Fujita of Elekit, Japan and contain high-quality components. They are well-regarded by hifi audio enthusiasts and reviewers all agree they perform well above their price point. I can get the kit for under $1,000 and I have the skillset to build it. I’ve seen used examples selling for $1,800 on Ebay. I’ll think about it for a week or so before making the plunge.

Other than that diversion, we’ve been enjoying our usual routines here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. Donna is like an Energizer bunny, always in motion for one activity or another. I’m a little more laid back but I still get my exercise on the pickleball courts and offer a 90-minute clinic every Tuesday – that’s been stretching to two hours lately as the participants don’t want to stop after an hour and a half.

Last Thursday, I went back to Dr. Kessler to address the spot of basal cell carcinoma on my back. The worst part was the injection of local anesthetic. The actual cutting and scaping with a dermatologist’s curette wasn’t felt at all. I was in and out of the office in less than half an hour. Now I just have to keep a dressing on it for about a week and it should heal.

As usual, Donna has been feeding me well – I always have to include a few dinner examples in my posts. She had a new take on chicken thighs called sheet pan roasted chicken and pears. It had a hint of spiciness from fresh ginger and a few red pepper flakes among other spices.

A couple of days later, she made a dish that was a more elegant take on the pizza chicken she makes. This had thin chicken breast filets with roasted tomatoes and mozzarella, red onion and sliced pepperoncini. She served it with spinach gnocci sauteed with fresh spinach.

Sunday’s dinner was an old favorite – maple chipotle pork tenderloin with garlic smashed new potatoes and fresh asparagus. And it was perfectly timed and ready to eat during halftime of the NFL playoff game.

We started off February with Donna manning the grill for fennel-crusted rack of lamb. She grilled it perfectly along with grilled zucchini, peppers and onions topped with feta cheese.

The weather has been fabulous with daily highs in the low to mid 70s. Yesterday it clouded up in the morning and early afternoon – it almost looked like it was going to rain – but we still had a high of 68 degrees. Today and tomorrow are forecasted to be what Arizonans call “wintry weather.” The forecast high today is 60 degrees and only 58 tomorrow. We should be near 70 on Friday and back in the 70s for the weekend and week ahead. Just right for a visit from my daughter Alana and her husband, Kevin next week.

Saguaro Lake Ranch

In my previous post, I said I would add some photos from Donna and Sini’s horseback trip and the Pass Mountain hike. A couple of the photos were transferred from Sini”s phone and the files were compressed and the images downsized. I couldn’t restore these very well, but I included them anyway.

They rode horses from Saguaro Lake Ranch Stables, located on the Salt River a short distance downstream from the Saguaro Lake dam. Sini is an experienced rider, but Donna hadn’t been on a horse in 30 years.

After their ride, they had a picnic lunch on the river.

They also made a side trip to Coon Bluff and saw wild horses.

The next day, last Tuesday, they hiked the Pass Mountain Loop Trail at Usery Regional Park. A light rain shower passed through the area in the afternoon – it was light enough not to be bothersome on their hike and it presented a nice rainbow!

They had a good time and it was a nice visit with Sini.

It’s been a fairly quiet week since then, I don’t have much to report. We had another repair/maintenance item here on our park model home. It seems like I’m spending more on repairs and maintenance here than I do on the motorhome!

When we had the new heat pump and ducting installed, they told me there was a water leak under the house. I took a look. It was a pipe leaking under the refrigerator about three or four feet from the crawl space entry. Monday morning, I called Jimmy Joe’s Plumbing and they said they could have a guy out that afternoon. Later, they called me and said he could be there by noon and he showed up a few minutes after 12:00.

I showed him where the leak was and he crawled under the house. He came out a minute later and said it was an elbow fitting that cracked. The pipe was capped off – it wasn’t attached to anything. He said he could cut the fitting off and re-cap the pipe. Sounded pretty straight forward and simple. Then he floored me when he said it would cost $265!

I asked him why so much? What’s the hourly rate? He said it wasn’t an hourly thing, the price was set because he had to crawl in the dirt under the house and work on his back. He said it’s something you don’t want to do, so you’ll have to pay me to do it. I wasn’t too happy, but he was right about me not wanting to crawl under the house. I couldn’t let the leak continue, so I told him to do it.

About 20 minutes later, I heard him closing off the crawl space entry. I went outside and found him standing out of sight behind his van, talking on his cell phone. He ended his call and said he would give me a break and “only” charge $205 for the work. Some break! He wasn’t even here for half an hour. I left a review for Jimmy Joe’s on Google and Yelp – maybe it’ll save someone else some coin.

On a happier note, I ordered a Yamaha soundbar for the TV in our Arizona room from Crutchfield on Sunday. It was listed at $199 with free 2-day shipping. It shipped Monday. Last night I noticed they had a price drop on this item – $20 off. I called their customer service this morning and asked about the discounted price. Kyle was the rep I spoke to and he said, “No problem, we have a 60-day price match guarantee – I’ll process a $20 refund.” Now that’s good customer service! Kudos to Crutchfield.

Donna bought a new slow cooker – it has all of the bells and whistles. She can program heat settings and timers. She used it on Thursday to make a new-to-us chicken dish – slow cooker brown sugar garlic chicken. She served it with crispy salt and pepper potatoes and fresh green beans. It was delicious!

Chicken with baby potatoes and green beans

Friday night she changed things up with a baked shrimp with fennel and feta dish. Another tasty treat.

It was the NFL Divisional playoff weekend, so we kept dinner simple so I could watch the games. It was still good food with carnitas (pulled pork) tacos Sunday night.

Carnitas tacos with baked jalapeno poppers

I bought a USDA Prime 2.3-pound tri tip roast – or is it a steak? – at Costco. I took a picture of it before I seasoned it as it’s important to know the grain orientation when you slice it. The tri tip cut has a change in grain direction from one end to the other and you always want to cut across the grain.

I seasoned it Sunday afternoon and put it on the Traeger Monday afternoon. I made a change in the way I smoked it. I dropped the temperature of the Traeger to 180 degrees instead of 225 and smoked it for 90 minutes. Then I increased the temperature to 225 degrees for another 30 minutes. At that point, I took it out of the Traeger and put it on a hot gas grill – 450 degrees. I seared each side for three minutes.

Donna served it with Brussel sprouts in a horseradish bacon cream sauce and baked potato with butter and chives. I love the tri tip flavor when it’s simply seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic.

The weather has been near perfect with daily highs around 70 degrees, clear skies and overnight lows in the 40s. The forecast calls for more of the same in the week ahead.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Arizona

Time for Summer Plans

Party Time

Two Concerts and a Parade

Good Times, Bad Times

RC Airplane Flashback

Michiganders, Music and Snow

Analog Man

Compact Discs, Family and Food

Chasing Sound

Saguaro Lake Ranch

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