March 2026

 We spent the first half of the month doing the routine stuff here at the Co-op.  On the 2nd I went to the dentist and got my dentures repaired and relined.  On Saturday, the 14th, I was working in the shed, getting stuff together for our cruise at the end of the month.  I was opening a folding ladder to get something off a high shelf and clumsily had my left pinkie finger too close to a "pinch point", and it ripped a pretty good chunk of skin off the side near the end of the finger.  Bled pretty good but didn't hurt too much.  I just wrapped it up in gauze and tape and it was OK.  On Sunday I looked at it again and decided that I needed to go to the urgent care to get it looked at because it was a pretty large area torn open and I didn't want to get an infection.  Urgent care wasn't busy and I was in and out in a half hour with a cleaned wound and new bandages.  The only problem was I can't bend the finger, so I can't play guitar.  I had to cancel my participation in the jam session at the park and my normal Wednesday jam session.

I went to the eye doctor and got new glasses just in time for the cruise.  On Friday, the 20th, we were picked up by our ride share at 8:00 to take us to the airport for a flight to Houston, Texas.  We are ultimately headed to Galveston, Texas, which is where the cruise ship is going to be.  The flight went well and we arrived in Galveston in the late afternoon.  We got an Uber ride from the Houston airport to Galveston and the Residency Inn.  I had booked this place through Expedia because it looked nice on Expedia, it was not outrageously priced, and it was close to the cruise port.  It was horrible.  The hotel was junky, beat up and dirty.  It is clear the owners are not doing any maintenance.  Outlets and lights in the room didn't work, everything looked old and beat up.  I did check the bed with our black light, and the linens were clean and no sign of bedbugs, so we stayed for the two nights.  That's the problem with booking through a site like Expedia, you pay in advance, so it is tough to just say no and go somewhere else without losing money.  We did find a really nice place to go for dinner just a short cab ride away.  On Saturday we took a cab to the movie theater in the afternoon and watched Hail Mary, which was a good movie even if a little confusing.  

The next day, Sunday the 29th, we took a shuttle to the port and boarded the Regal Princess cruise ship.  We have never been on this ship which is a little larger than the other two Princess ships we have sailed on.  We had a really good time on the cruise, drank and ate a lot and spent a lot of time with activities.  We had two sea days to start, then stopped in Cozumel, Mexico for the day.  We went ashore to do some shopping but didn't go too far.  We had rented a little scooter for Jackie to use on the ship, and she took it off the ship for our shopping in the port area.  We then had a couple more sea days before we docked in Aruba.  I had been to Aruba back in the early 80's and had fond memories, but we took a bus tour around the island and found it to be a little run down and junky in most areas.  The next day we stopped in Curacao, where we took another tour.  This one included a semisubmersible boat where we could view the reef.  It was a lot of fun.  After another sea day we were in Antigua, where we took a four-hour catamaran trip around the island.  It was great and I got to do a little swimming in the beautiful water.  The next day was the last stop, St. Maarten.  We took a bus tour on this one.  This island is actually split and has a Dutch side, St. Maarten, and a French side, St. Martin.  Two separate governments, but one island and the only way you know which side you are on is by the signs where you cross the dividing line. We had a great time on this tour as well.  We visited this island on the 31st of March.  We had two more sea days to return to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday, April 4th.

That was pretty much the highlights of the month, here are some pictures.

Bye

February 2026

 Although Jackie is still not 100 percent, she did go to the doctor on the 2nd of February and get officially released from the oxygen requirement, which means we can return the rental oxygen generator and oxygen tanks.  Other than that, it was mostly a routine month with our normal activities.  The 5th was my 79th birthday, yikes.  The park had a nice Valentines dinner and party and I provided the music.  We had a good time.  On Saturday, the 28th, we drove down to North Las Vegas to see my brother Russ on his birthday.  He is Number 3 in the line and just turned 65.  His wife Zen is visiting family in the Philippines, so we took him out to lunch to celebrate his birthday.   

One exciting thing for the month, one of my friends here at the park, Max, came to the trailer and asked me if I wanted a guitar.  It seems that another one of our park members had asked Max to clean out their storage shed.  Her husband had died and she was moving from the Co-op to go live with family.  Max found two guitars in the shed and she told him, just give them to someone who can use them.  Max said I was the only person in the park he knew who played guitar and would be willing to give the guitars to.  I said sure, let's go look.  I went with him to the shed and there was a small, kids size classical guitar with nylon strings, which was the one the husband was trying to learn to play.  There was also a very old looking hard case which contained a very old looking regular guitar.  However, the guitar looked to be in really good condition, so I told Max I would take both.  I gave the smaller guitar to our maintenance manager's son, who is 8.  His brother has a guitar and now he has one too.  I took the other one home.  Long story short, after I did some research, I found out that it was a 1935 Kalamazoo which was an entry brand for Gibson Guitars back before WWII.  It could be worth anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000, but I am going to keep it.  I cleaned it up, restrung it, and it sounds good.  

 Here's a few pictures from the month.

Bye

January 2026

 Happy New Year, welcome to 2026.  The first seven days of this month were spent on the Emerald Princess cruise ship cruising down Mexico way.  We started the cruise on December 30th and celebrated New Years Eve on the ship.  We were having a good time until the last couple of days Jackie started feeling puny.  We got off of the ship on the 9th and drove from Long Beach down to San Clemente, California to see Jackie's brother, Dennis.  By this time Jackie was feeling really bad, cough and runny nose and feeling sick.  We managed to go out to dinner with Dennis, but when we got back to the hotel, she said that she was feeling really sick and wanted to go home.  We had intended to go to the Coachella Valey to see some old friends from when we lived there.  We were going to stay three nights, but instead we drove back to Pahrump.  This was Friday, on Saturday Jackie went to urgent care, and they just treated her for a cold or flu.  Sunday she was still sick and Monday, the 5th she said she wanted to go to the actual emergency room at the hospital.  After examining her and doing tests and scans they determined that she had pneumonia, and they admitted her to the hospital.  She was in the hospital, on oxygen and getting all kinds of intravenous steroids and antibiotics.  She was really sick.  On Monday, the 19th, she was finally released and sent home with 24-hour oxygen required.  She was still not feeling good and a couple of days after being released she passed out in the shower and went back to the ER in an ambulance.  They released here saying she was dehydrated.  She really didn't feel good for the rest of the month.  Needless to say, except for some Co-op and Board related stuff that I was doing, we stayed home for the whole month.  

Bye