NOTE ADDED IN DEC 2022

On 31 Dec 2021, Steve Petrick suffered a serious stroke, crashing his car. (Alcohol was not involved; none of us here drink that stuff.) Steve Petrick spent months in the hospital and rehab learned to walk again (with a walker, slowly, with frequent falls).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, June 16, 2022 - 05:25 pm: Edit

JUNE 12 Sunday: stayed home and rested

JUNE 13 Monday: Dental surgery, didn't do any work. Steve Petrick had Jean take him to the office so he could make progress on R1.

JUNE 14 Tuesday: Steve Petrick worked on R1. I got SO to Jean for proofreading. We released the newsletter to Simone.

JUNE 15 Wednesday: Steve Petrick worked on R1. I send Jean the text files for AO so Grammerfish can mess it up. I sent 675 to Ryan so he can use the format for 617. Simone released the newsletter. Gary found a mistake in the SFB version.

JUNE 16 Thursday: big meeting to start moving Steve Petrick from the nursing home to the independent senior living center. I fixed the SFB version of the SLAX CA and sent it to Simone. I sent Mike West and Alan Trevor the FC Card for the Selt CAW. Steve Petrick finished the R1rev base SSDs.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, June 17, 2022 - 11:19 pm: Edit

JUNE 17 FRIDAY: I was barely in the office for five minutes and Steve P not at all. He and I spent the entire day getting his eye exam and new glasses.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 - 12:40 am: Edit

LESSONS LEARNED

When I had my knee surgery I decided that to celebrate my recovery I would travel to the Capulin Volcano (about 3.5 hours from home) and walk the famous trail around the rim, which is 1.1 miles. After all, Leanna walked it 50 years ago and Steve Petrick walked it 10 years ago, so it was more a matter of doing it than any real difficulty. My doctor cleared me to walk the trail on 30 Dec 2021. I scheduled the trip for the first week of January 2022 but Steve Petrick's stroke on 31 Dec 2021 caused a delay. A series of delays and more delays kept pushing the "victory lap" into the future. I finally declared that it would happen on Tuesday (today) "no matter what". Things could have gone better. To cut to the chase, I got halfway around and had to turn around and go back when I reached a point I could not get past. Here are the lessons learned.

1. WHEN YOU CHANGE THE PLAN, CHANGE THE PLAN
This wisdom comes from Clausewitz, the greatest military mind who ever lived. I should have listened. The original plan involved six of us going, but one dropped out being sick, another to take care of the first one, and a third because the first one wasn't going. The fourth (a young lady of outstanding virtue and piety) backed out when she realized why we wanted to take her to visit a volcano. Even with the trip reduced to just two of us, Leanna (who planned to wait in the car and to send the Rangers to find me if I took over an hour) and I had breakfast at the place where the six of us had planned to go. This was far to the west of Amarillo, so we took the "northwest then west" route (so that the second one of the dropouts could see the prettier scenery) instead of the vastly superior highway that goes north then northwest. This would have saved a little time that I got stuck behind Farmer Ben and his 20mph truckload of turnips.

2. CHECK THE WEATHER REPORT
Nobody told me it was going to rain all over New Mexico today. Walking the trail with its slick asphalt surface during a rain storm with 45mph winds (there are no hand rails and to fall down means rolling 1,000 feet to the base of the mountain which consists of razor sharp rocks; no one has ever survived that fall) was not a good career move. It turned out to be so extremely dangerous that the Rangers got upset that I even tried. They did not close the trail because (in their words) only an idiot would try to walk it in that horrible weather. I also left my waterproof windbreaker at home because it had never rained at Capulin before and I left my gloves in the car because who needs them in 46F rain with 45mph wind? I wore the "level concrete" walking shoes I wear to work, rather than more practical Army boots.

3. ALTITUDE IS A KILLER
I have learned by experience that going to the wolf sanctuary at 7200 feet (I live at 3200 feet) is very rough on my body. The volcano rim trail starts at 7900 feet and goes up to 8300 feet. I didn't even think about that.

4. IT'S ALL UPHILL
As I said, Leanna and Steve Petrick had walked it and I could have asked them what to expect. I assumed the trail was more or less level. There may be three or four feet of level in that trail but I never found it. The trail was steep (in places, steeper than a flight of stairs), seriously uphill, has no hand rails, no steps (all ramps), the rocks along part of the edges of the trail are at best a foot high, and both sides of the trail are inches from steep drop offs (500 feet into the crater, 1000 feet down the outside). I possibly would not have fallen all the way to the bottom as there is a spiral road around the mountain, so I might well have landed on a nice level surface in front of a speeding minivan full of nuns.

5. KNOW WHEN TO QUIT
I hit a spot just over halfway around which was about 20 yards of steep downhill slope, with nothing to hold onto and no convenient grass/rocks on the sides to form an alternate path. It was easily the steepest part of the trail (that I saw) and I came to the conclusion that to try to descend it would be impossible without a major fall and injury. The only option would require sliding down on my behind which would have ruined my pants and left me at a point with steep trails both directions. I decided that if I went down that slope in that rain I would be there until Leanna chartered a helicopter to recover my body. I turned around and went back, only to discover that the uphill trail I had walked for 2800 feet was vastly more dangerous going down. I made it, but only after some scary situations and nearly falling (over the edge) several times.

6. IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED
I am going back to try again. I'm not sure when, but I will take a windbreaker, Army boots, a serious mountain climbing stick with a serious steel spike, a climbing buddy in better shape than me, a rope, and a weather report that predicts calm air and dry ground.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 05:02 pm: Edit

THINGS GOING ON

I have, for the last seven months, been in the unusual situation of running the errands for three people (me, Leanna, Steve Petrick), and at our age, that's a lot more errands than you think. Steve Petrick cannot drive and being on a walker going in and out of stores is not easy. I found out today that my brilliant plan to let the retirement home transport unit take him to the dentist at 4pm Wednesday fell apart because they don't take people to medical appointments after 3:30 because they want everyone at dinner at 5. Leanna's back trouble (surgery to fix that soon, I hope) means I run all of the family errands and do all of the chores (other than laundry and some of her doctor appointments I don't have to go with her for). Given my age and slower pace, that often means entire days when I get no "company" work done, and the "company-admin" work comes ahead of the "company-design" work. Yesterday I got nothing done (except spending hours and three trips getting Steve P's prescriptions moved to a cheaper pharmacy) and today I may get an hour of company work done (I had some emergency cat control barrier work to do before it got hot this morning, had to go buy a new hose for the pneumatic nail gun, and had to do Steve P's weekly grocery run). Jean and Al being out means everything I got Al to take off of my plate is back on it and I had to stop and help Mike do some Jean(Leanna/accounting) stuff. I wish it was just a matter of setting priorities but priorities seem to set me.

Anyway, I think I have everything to finish SO and then AO and I think we have a story that will work for CL55, so there is work for me to do and I will see what I can do about doing it. I would work to midnight if I could but that doesn't let me get the household work done, and it has to get done. And I still haven't had time to replace the hearing aid that the cats destroyed and everyone around me is getting tired of being asked to "say that again, and louder".

At least with my new phone talking to my old car one bit of @#$% is gone from my life. But the lights haven't worked in the shower in seven months and I haven't had time to get the toilet in my bathroom replaced with one that works 100% of the time instead of 50% of the time.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, August 04, 2022 - 02:11 pm: Edit

STRATOPS: Unless the staff comes up with something else, this one is all but done. I have asked Simone to come do the covers for SO and AO (which I could have had her do any time since last September but never thought of until Jean told me today). I won't bother doing the PDF until the covers are done because that takes an hour and I'd have to do it all over if the staff wanted to fix something else.

ADVOPS: I will work on this next. I'll have Simone do the covers so that doesn't hold us up. Should take a day or two of work time but real time might take a week.

CL55: I am not going to think about this before AO and SO are done, but the story is good and I can get going when we reach that point.

FC: I need to pick one of these (Fighters, Gunboats, X-ships) and just do it.