Summer update

Our well has been working great since my brother Jon put the new pressure tank in. That is one less thing to worry about. We have a man coming over to do some small repairs to the house. I have gotten out of doing any kind of major repair. We have even hired someone to take care of the back yard, although I still do the smaller front yard.

We didn’t do anything special for the 4th, just cooked burgers on the grill. My son Jason and I went to the Military Aviation Museum in Creeds. I have been before and I thought he would enjoy going. We took lots of pictures and had pizza later at a diner in Pungo.

I arranged for a pet sitter for Max while we are on vacation. It will cost 34 dollars a day for  2 visits but Max is worth it. I won’t feel so guiltiy while we are on vacation in Hawaii. Still cant’t wait to go to Hawaii. It should be a memorable vacation.

Last  but not least I took a hike on the Dismal Swamp Canal trail in Chesapeake. I walked a mere 4 miles but it was very enjoyable and I say some wildlife. I miss the days when my ex-wife and I used to hike  all the time but those days are long gone. Teresa is not into outdoors things much,  other  than swimming in the pool. That is it for now.

 

Pool Time

We got the cover off the pool and were shocked to see that half the water in the pool was gone. At first we thought there must be a leak in the pool but it seems that the heavy rains pushed the pool cover down which forced water out of the pool. Next fall we will get a ball to go under the cover so that water cannot pool on it.

After filling the pool and adding chemicals we have beautiful clear, sparkling water. It has been much less trouble this year than previous years in getting the water clear. I have been swimming every day now and enjoying it. So far I have not even had to vacuum the pool except for the initial time.

I took my m4 carbine with the new 3x magnifier to C2 range and it worked great. I shot pretty tight patterns from 100 yards and am very happy with the  performance of both rifle and sight.

Dana and her dog have been staying here for a while now while she waits for the tenants to move out of our rental property. I will be glad when she finally gets to move into the house as I really don’t like her much and her dog is not house broken.

I spent a morning recently canvasing a neighborhood in Chesapeake for the Bob McDonnell for Governor campaign. Armed with pamphlets and our charm we visited 125 houses, talking about Bob McDonnell and the issues that everyone is facing with the economy and Obama’s controversial programs. Most everyone we met was friendly and willing to talk with us. I hope our efforts will help to get Bob McDonnell elected in 2010. The current Democratic Governor has been a disaster for Virginia.

The bladder in our storage tank for our well pump has been going bad,  causing the pump to run constantly. My brother Jon, who repairs and installs wells and pump systems, came to our rescue. He had me buy a new storage tank at wholesale price from a company they deal with and he came over in the evening and installed the new storage tank for us. Being the great guy that he is he didn’t charge us for the labor or the additional parts that he used. I have a great family and I owe my brother Jon a big favor which I hope he will collect some day.

Today I will try to get a professional dog sitter to take care of Max while we are on vacation in Hawaii this August. Failing that I will try to get one of the neighborhood teen boys to sit Max. I  hate to put Max in a boarding house as I am sure it is very stressful for him and I would not be comfortable with leaving him in one for so long.

We are really looking forward to our vacation if I can only  survive getting up at 3am for the long flight. It will be a long tiring day but it will be well worth it. On to Hawaii.

 

Summertime, and the living’s easy.

Went back to the optometrist and had my prescription changed and now my contacts are much better. I can read small print now without reading glasses as well as see at a distance. Overall I am very happy with them. Now if I can just get better and putting them in and taking them out.

I went to the C2 outdoor range in Pungo to shoot my M4 carbine. I have got the red dot sight zeroed in now. I finally found a way to mount my 3x multiplier so that it works with my red dot. Next time I go to the range I will have to zero it again. Then I should be able to use the sight well beyond 50 yards.

I have been using a battery operated pump to drain the water from the pool cover. There was a lot more water to drain than I thought and it has been a slow process. I hope to be able to remove the cover tomorrow if it doesn’t rain again. We are really looking forward to being able to use the pool again this summer.

Finally,the pulpit committee (of which I am a member) presented our candidate for minister for our church to the board last night. Things went pretty well but the board requested a meet-and-greet for Wednesday for our candidate. I am sure they will feel the same way we do about about our candidate.

That’s it for now. More going on but I’m tired of writing.

 

Heading to Hawaii

We have not been on a long vacation since our last trip to Key West Florida several years ago. I have always wanted to go to Alaska but Teresa is not taken with Alaska like I am. So we decided to compromise and take our next vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Actually, I am almost as excited about going to Hawaii as I would have been about going to Alaska. I was able to find plane tickets at a really good price so I  jumped on them. We will be staying on the west side of the Big Island for 4 days and then we will spend 3 night on the east side of the island.

One of the places we will be staying at is a converted Shell service station that is now a Zen Buddhist Bed &  Breakfast. It is run by a Japanese lady named Akiko. We will be staying in the Mango Tree cottage which is is the middle of a rain forest. The other place we will be staying sounds as exciting as Akiko’s. I want to see Volcano National Park as well as the botanical gardens. There are many other places that will be on our list and we expect this to be the best vacation of our lives.

In other news, I have  just returned from the optometrist where I have been fitted with a pair of multi-focus contact lens. I hope to be able to do away with my reading glasses for good but it may take another visit or so to get the prescription right.

Summer is here and I will be getting the pool ready to use. We have already had a couple of 90 degree plus days so it will be nice to have a pool to jump into. I have given up trying to mow the back yard and have contracted to have the back yard mowed and trimmed for 35 dollars. As we anticipate moving soon it did not make financial sense to buy a riding mower and the people that do the yard do a great job.

There is a lot more I could say but I will save it for another day.

 

Death of my Mother

I have not written anything lately because my mother (Jane Tefft) died unexpectedly on May 2nd. I had just taken her shopping a couple of  days earlier and she had a wonderful time. Then she fell and fractured her back May 1st. At first the doctors thought she would be OK but she developed a clot and her body shut down and she died the next day. The funeral was this Saturday at Rosewood Cemetery. Her ashes were placed beside my Dad, who died in 1986. My brother’s and  grandchildren spoke eloquently at the service. We then had our annual Tefft picnic at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens to remember and celebrate her life.

She was 90 years old and had a full life full of  the love that touched so many. She made us who we were and there will always be a vacuum in my life that her love used to fill. She will be greatly missed by many but never forgotten.

Other news of my life will follow as soon as I  can summon the strength to write again.

 

Tea Party

Yesterday I went to a Tea Party in Virginia Beach. This was just one of many Tea Parties being held across the nation on tax day. The Tea Parties are a grassroots response to the recent bailouts, stimulus packages and ruinous government spending that is saddling the next generations with an enormous debt. They are also a response to ever increasing taxes and politicians who no longer listen to the wishes of the citizens who voted for them.

The turnout was much larger than anticipated and much larger than was reported by the mainstream media, who did their best to ignore the parties. In fact the party was held directly across from  TV station WTKR who did not bother to cover the story of 2000 people gathering to protest against big government. Everyone had a lot of fun and there were many funny signs and costumes in evidence. I took several photos and videos which I have already published to Flickr and YouTube.

In other news, I am writing this post on my new Dell Mini 9 netbook computer. The Dell allows me to surf the web from anywhere in the house, which is really great. I am writing this right now from the living room. I also went shooting with my brother Jon down in NC again. This time I took my Glock, my Mossberg shotgun and my new DPMS M4 carbine with me. Didn’t shoot as much as I wanted to because ammunition is becoming both expensive and scarce thanks to Obama and an administration that has no respect for the Constitution.

That’s it for now.

 

More stuff to report

I have been very busy since my last entry here. I took my new AR-15 to the outdoor range in Pungo yesterday and zeroed the sights. I fired a total of 60 rounds from the AR-15 and it is a sweet rifle. I also fired a couple of magazines from my Glock. I am getting much better with my Glock and I have the riddled targets to prove it. I was a little intimidated about disassembling and cleaning my rifle but it proved much easier that I thought. I actually managed to get it back together in working order. This weekend I hope to go shoot with my brother Jon at a friends house in North Carolina. His house backs up to the Dismal Swamp and you can shoot at targets setup on a berm he has out back.

I also attended a mass meeting of Chesapeake Republicans and was elected to be a delegate at the upcoming Virginia Republican Convention in Richmond this May. We will be electing candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General. I will also be manning a both at the gun show in Scope this weekend. The booth is for the Virginia Civilian Defense League, a 10,000 strong state organization to support gun rights and the Second Amendment. While there I may try to pickup a scope for my new rifle.

I am also very busy in church. As an elder I will be performing Communion this Sunday in addition to preparing the Communion table. We rehearsed last night for our annual Last Supper performance. I have participated in that for the last several years. I am also on the Search Committee to find a new Minister for our Church. It is going to be an uphill battle to find a Minister and may take a year or more. We cannot afford to pay what most ministers are asking for today.

I almost forgot that I now have a new Dell Mini 9 netbook computer which I bought last month. I am in love with it and can now surf the net from anywhere in the house. Did I mention that I am now almost broke from all this buying. Obama, where is my stimulus, I need it. That’s it for now.

 

I almost forgot, we got snow!

I have always loved snow and really hate that we so seldom get any significant snow here in SE Virginia. So I was thrilled when we finally got some real snow this year. As usual the snow came in March. It was not a lot of snow, maybe an inch or two, but it did cover everything and stayed around for a couple of days. I think it may have been the first snow our dog Max has ever seen, and he really loved it. I took a few pictures of the snow so that I could look back fondly on that day, escpecially during the years when we don’t get any. It seems if we want to see any real snow on a regular basis we are going to have to leave this area. In fact, that is what we plan to do by the end of this year. Looking at New Mexico right now, hopefully the northern part of the state.

 

Once was lost, but now am found.

This will be the first post I have written in 2009. Not sure why I have not posted anything since December. There sure has been a lot going on in my life. I will chalk it down to being sick for almost a month and just not getting back to blogging here. I have been busy on TheMindOfTefft as that one is my real passion, but I do miss writing here. Since buying my Glock I have obtained a concealed carry permit and I do carry my pistol with me a lot more than I thought I would. I have taken a course on defensive firearms and have been practicing a lot. Of course I doubt if I will ever need to defend myself with the Glock but it can be a dangerous world and you cannot depend on anyone except yourself to defend against violence and crime.

In anticipation of President Obama enacting legislation that will permanently make assault rifles illegal, I purchased a DPMS Panther AR-15 rifle. It reminds me a lot of the M-16 which I fired in the Army and with which I qualified as an expert marksman. I hope to go fire the AR-15 this weekend with my brother Jon at a friends house in North Carolina. Ammunition for the AR-15 is scarce right now but my brother previously bought 500 rounds so we should have some ammo to expend.

Teresa is back working at Jeb’s Market two or three days a week. Dana has broken up with her boyfried and has moved back home until June. In June Dana will be living in the rental house that Teresa owns in Portsmouth. The family currently living there has been given notice. I have my doubts about whether Dana is responsible enough to live there but we will see. There is much more that I could write about but I think I will quit for now. Hopefully I will be able to post more often than I have the last three months.

 

One Day Left in 2008

Tomorrow will be New Years Eve. 2008 has been a very good year in many ways and I hope that 2009 will continue in that trend. 2009 should be a very interesting year with a new President in Barack Obama. On the home front our Christmas was very good. Lots of presents for everyone. Dana got a new 32 inch HDTV which she immediately traded in for a larger plasma TV. Teresa got a day bed set and a new rotisserie. I got a new Panasonic Lumix camera and some new hiking boots. We had our traditional Christmas day brunch at my brother Chris and his wife Regina’s house. Lots of great food and it is always great to see my son Jason and the rest of the family.   Before Christmas I broke down and bought a new Glock 23 pistol.

I had planned to wait until January to buy it but I couldn’t wait. I have already fired it at the range and it is a great pistol.

I have a gun class at Bob’s Gun Shop January 3rd after which I will apply for a concealed carry permit for my new Glock. I doubt if I will carry my pistol concealed much but there are times when I would feel safer with it. With the economy the way it is and the never-ending war on terror it is always wise to be prepared for anything. Everything else is much the same with us. Teresa has been having some fainting spells and is having tests done to find the cause. Church has kept me busy as usual and we finally have agreed to let another church share our facilities. This should be a good thing for both the churches as we need the extra income it will bring and the other church has been holding service at a bowling alley.

So I am looking forward to the new year as it will be the first full year that I have been retired. We still plan to move someday and we also plan on at least one trip this year. Now to go take Kirk to the doctor and Max for a walk.