We came across these pics of Janice with her dad Vernon (Julie’s granddaddy who went by Duff) and her mother Faye(Julie’s grandma). Also pictured is Janice’s brother Larry who died around the age of nine from brain tumors.
2026-07-12
Julie’s dad had a great view of Dayton growing up.
They used to ride their soap box style go-karts down the big hill!
Visiting Steve’s childhood home
Going through Julie’s parent’s memories made us want to go see the house that her dad helped his dad build in East Dayton. She found a slide (lower left inset) that showed the house and the intersection off Fourth Street. We headed over and enjoyed seeing what it looked like these days. She pointed out all the features, where all the rooms were and her rough memory of the layout. It’s nice to see it well cared for. It’s solid as a rock too. Her grandpa built things SOILD. Why use two screws when nine will do…?! That was always her dad’s philosophy, now I realize where he got it!
Interestingly, Zac and Chloe are renting a house only a couple blocks away from this same intersection since they recently moved back to town. Small world!
Jeep tinkering…
I was hearing a noise in the passenger rear wheel and getting a wheel sensor error code after my last GOAT trip with John. When I took the wheel, caliper, and rotor off, I these parts rolling around in there. At some point the parking brake adjuster spring had come loose. It was replaced, but apparently the original one was still bouncing around inside the rotor. It eventually took out the new adjuster spring, one of the parking brake springs, and the wheel speed sensor as well. Good news, it was a cheap, east fix, and I already had all the parts.
I was also getting a cruise control error that suggested my clock spring might be bad… The error codes and suspicions we confirmed when I removed the steering wheel (lower left pic) and the clock spring fell apart in a mess of plastic parts and cables (center pic), lol!
To get it apart, I had to grind down one of the spare extensions for my impact driver to get it deep enough into the holes in the steering wheel trim (top right pic).
You better believe I was treating the airbag removal like a ticking bomb… I had just finished removing it in the lower right pic.
It’s always something, but the good news is I got it all back in working order and got my cruise control back just in time for my Windrock trip a few days later just before July 4th week.
Can you run your chronograph watch as a GMT…?
First, the pic on the left shows the nice detail in my retirement watch. I really like the colors, detail, hand design, and the clean look! I thought you’d want to take a moment to appreciate it haha.
Second, I figured out a way to make it work kind of like a GMT watch that’s designed to show two time zones. If you start the chronograph (stop watch) at such a time that it is noon or midnight in the second time zone you want to track, then you get the advantage of having the hour counter hand (right pic) showing you the time in another zone. In this example the watch is showing it’s quarter to ten in my home zone, and that it’s almost 2p in the second time zone (lower left circle, singe hand just above the 6 o’clock position). That happens to be universal coordinated time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is four hours ahead of us currently. So I started the chronograph at 8:00:00. You get the added benefit of the chronograph second’s hand acting like a sweep second hand for either time zone too instead of it being stopped at 12 o’clock when you’re not running the chronograph (like it’s shown on the left pic).
Just a fun little hack I figured out.
2026-07-11
I kept this perfect little tea cup
We had so many Sunday lunches at China Cottage with Steve and Janice so I kept this little cup to use and remind me of those fun memories. The lid keeps your tea warm while it’s steeping and doubles as a coaster or place to rest your used tea bag while you’re drinking.
Ran across Steve’s plumbing permit drawing
Andy found it interesting since he has to do these for living now.
There’s no such thing as a five second rule…
…when you have a three second dog and a two second (visiting) cat! Zoe missed out on licking the leftovers in the bowl since Shadow beat her to it! Zoe looked at me like, “Wait, what just happened?!” Hahahahaha!
2026-07-10
The tools of the estate trade…! Hahaha
I’ve lost count, but I think the current number is 10 houses/estates/relatives I have helped through the process of culling their personal affects. It’s fun to relive memories, discover new facts, preserve the antiques, and re-home some of the stuff. I’m practiced at it enough that I enjoy it these days. ❤️ But you do need lots of totes for the process.
We found this locket
It was from her mom’s side of the family. Might be Julie’s great great great grandmother
It’s engrave with MLP. Mary L Peay perhaps?
It’s a glass-type picture and lock of her hair. From the 1850s. Pretty cool!
210 year old bible!
We found this among Julie’s Nanny’s belongings. Pretty cool and in readable shape in spite of the years and binding issues. It even has some books like Judith for instance… 🤪
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)