Pop top flu strikes again

Pop top is NOT a malted beverage!  No!  It's a pop top camper--the kind that fit in a pickup truck bed--not the kind families tow behind minivans. We've had 3 pop top campers and late yesterday we had ourselves convinced to buy a fourth one down near Ogden, Utah, today.  This time around, we decided to subject the idea to a "sleep test" BEFORE we told the seller that we'd buy it.  Well, I think is was a short flu and has safely passed.  Whew.  We both have a huge soft spot for pop top pickup campers.  One of these days, that bug will bite again but I think we dodged a serious case of pop top flu this time around.

Yesterday was a more than medium busy day.  We got the oil drained and refilled in four of what they call "cases" in the Zuki.  That's gearhead talk for the front and rear differentials, the transfer case and the transmission.  The four of them hold a total of 1.5 gallons of gear oil.  Most lube shops wold charge about $150 for this type of a job.  Our buddy at Clutch World did it for $38!  Then we took the Zuki out to Sears and bicycled home.  A few hours later, we biked back and drove off with four new shocks.  After the rebate, the pricetag on that job came to $106.  Heck, I couldn't possibly do that type of job myself at that price, especially with top flight Monroe gas-a-matic shocks.  You can click here to read a LOT more about it on the Zuki blog.  Monroe, by the way, is promoting teh sale of shocks with a "Saving Squirrels" campaign.  No kidding.  Click here to see it.

About lunchtime, Houn Dawg brought over photos of his weekend fishing trip at Jackson Lake.  One thing led to another and later in the afternoon, we got him set up with his very own domain name utilizing his first and last names.  It's been years since I've known anyone who's been able to snag their full name as a dot com. All those domains were spoken for during the dawn of domains in the 1990's.

DR & LBR Wayne R. posted up to his blog on Monday about his recent 10-day Grand Canyon river trip.  As I keep telling Wayne, his blog posts are getting much better as time passes.  This particular blog post is notable for the number of "face photos" he includes.  A lot of Wayne's blog material rightfully focuses on geology and rocks and so forth.  That's fitting for a geologist.  This time, Wayne took a lot of photos of the trip participants and used them in his blog post.  You will definitely enjoy this post.  Click here to read it.

The Goatherder's blog isn't even a week old but it's already "coming into its own," as they say.  GH put up 9 photos of what it looked like in the wine tasting tent at the Sedona Winefest this past weekend.  His comments are, as always, sharp and succinct. You can see the photos and read the comments here.

Meanwhile, Spudboater finally woke up and made a comment on this blog and then posted to her own blog, too.  I don't think she would mind me passing along her blog address since the world-at-large can't find this blog any more and its viewership is limited entirely to LBR's and their friends and associates.  You can click here to see SpudB's blog. (Note to MLB--I'll take this paragraph down if you don't want it here.)

Speaking of comments, Sarah Butterfly left one overnight about Stasea's photos.  So far, the unmoderated comments are working well.  We haven't been spammed and there are no errant messages in Google's Spam jail cell.  I am becoming slightly more optimistic that I can continue to let new comments post up immediately.  I think it really helped a lot to delist this blog from the world-at-large and also to hide it from Search Engines.

Our meeting with the Parks guy went so-so.  About the only interesting thing that happened during the one hour meeting was that the Parks guy wants Terry and me to so "something" about geo-caching.  I'm not really sure what that "something" is.  Neither is Terry.  But we both figure we might as well attempt to actually learn something useful about geo-caching and see what comes from it.  To say we are both geo-caching newbies is a massive understatement.  Terry & I will probably go play golf this morning and talk more about it.

The cook shack roof project is coming along well.  Houn Dawg donated some roofing felt.  By the end of today, the roof should be finished except for adding the metal roofing that will be fabricated in the next few days.  The metal will go on next week sometime.

Now, our attention shifts to the porch project for our west entry.  That's going to be considerably more involved.  I'd suspect that project will take at least 2 and maybe 3 weeks.

Now it's time to go read Arizona news.  Cheers!  jp

PS--So, after writing the above closing line, I merrily went on my way to the Verde Independent newspaper in Cottonwood, AZ.  The first story I chose to read was one about a new place called Harry's Hideaway in Cornville.  It got me really excited.  You can click over here to the Snowbird blog to read what I had to say about it. Really cool news item!