Generally, my life is great and I really don’t have much to complain about. However, my contentment seems overly fragile at times. Today, I’m between big events and commitments. It’s a great time to binge watch TV and expand the available recording space on the DVR. I’m sipping on beers left over from previous parties. Then Nancy tells me that the refrigerator has stopped making ice. “OK, I’ll look at it,” I tell her. Then I’m just about to order replacement parts when she says, “The refrigerator is warm too.” More trouble shooting and I determine that the freezer is working fine but the refrigerator is warmer than it should be. Also, there is probably nothing wrong with the ice maker. We bought the refrigerator last year with great fanfare. It was a huge fancy beast—the best that Sears had to offer—a Kenmore Elite. It cost 3 thousand dollars and it was replacing our previous Maytag that we had for 16 years. Surely, this would be the last refrigerator that we’ll need to buy in our lifetimes. It’s only a year and a half old and now the refrigerator is not cooling as it should. Now my life is not quite as good as it was. Now, I have to think about something that I thought I wouldn’t have to think about ever again. I did what I could and reached out for help. There is a local appliance repairman that we’ve used in the past. He asked about the model number and told me that he couldn’t help with this fancy machine. He wasn’t equipped to fix it. He did recommend someone else who also thought it was not something that he could handle. So I had to call Sears Appliance Repair…
Angelica at Sears Appliance Repair didn’t speak very good English and the phone connection was bad. It turns out that she works at a national call center. I wonder if the call center is anywhere near the Continental United States. She seemed more interested in selling me house improvements than helping me with my broken appliance. Finally, we go down to business and asked if I wanted an appointment in two days or three. I say, “The soonest, of course.”
Today, the repairman shows up and tells me that the compressor is bad. He can come back in five days, if he can find the part. The part is covered under warranty but the labor ($500) is not.
Don’t buy LG refrigerators, folks. I didn’t know I was buying an LG refrigerator when I bought the Kenmore Elite and now I know that they are junk. The failure rate is astronomical and the repair shop can’t keep the parts in stock.
For the next five days, we’ll be living our life without a refrigerator and eating what we can before it spoils. Thanks to Sears and LG.
The 26th Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems 
. Three teams had system failures that didn’t allow them to compete at all. Several began preparations but were unable to turn their vehicles over to computer control. At the end of the day there were four teams that flew autonomously: 
I was surprised by a Road Runner this afternoon when I started my four mile walk. The plucky little bird captured a small lizard and wandered off down the road. It was cool. The Road Runner is an interesting creature. They look like they’re going really fast when they’re standing still. In Tucson, it is not unusual to see one of these from time to time. When I first moved here in January 2000, I saw one of these 
to muster the resources for 24 campers to build Beetle Bots.
In 
I’ve had some experience with PVC tubing and fittings and decided to sketch out something that might work. I started by measuring the size of the boxes. 
Then I bought the necessary tubing and fittings.
To make them look a little better, I cleaned the pipes with acetone and started fitting the parts together.
I made the shelf materials out of 
Oh…I don’t know…semi reclined in front of the TV? I cleaned up a few minor “alternate facts” on my FaceBook profile and when I logged in I got the question “What’s your position at Retired?” The last time I answered the question “CEO” and I became the CEO of retired. I must have thought it was funny because it stayed that way for years. It’s not true that I spend my days semi-reclined in front of the TV. I’m busier than I’ve ever been. The biggest difference is that I’m mostly busy doing only the things that I enjoy and I don’t get paid.
eat pizza. Soon I’ll be spending a week on the University of Arizona campus helping the Secular Student Alliance when the travelling evangelist, Brother Jed Smock, comes to visit. March is Nancy’s birthday and another Karaoke party. I won’t tell you which one but she reminds me every year that she’s X years younger than me. Of course I point out that percentage wise we’re getting closer. I’ll celebrate the fact that Arizona doesn’t have daylight savings time by NOT changing any of the 47 clocks that we have around the house. Normally the American Atheist convention is on Easter weekend but not this year. This year the convention will be in North Carolina during the total Solar Eclipse in August. We might travel to the California Bay Area for the annual Maker Faire in May. I’m already excited about attending for my fourth time as a camp counselor for Camp Quest Arizona in June. We’ll be building Beetle Bots. 
Nancy and I plan on participating in the Annual International Aerial Robotics Competition during August in Georgia along with the AA Eclipse Convention. Hopefully, we should no longer be landlords in September when we transfer our last rental property to new owners. Then comes my favorite month—October! I’ll spend the entire month in my workshop preparing for Halloween and the party the night before. Not much happens during November but we always end the year with our Winter Solstice celebration.
“May you live in interesting times.” Apparently we’re living under “the Chinese curse” and will continue to do so for quite a while. It is often difficult to stay apolitical. I usually only allow partisan discussions in my group when politics interfere with the secular character of this country. Now there is little that I can do to prevent political discussions from dominating many of our local activities. Whether or not the Chinese curse story is true, we ARE stuck with a political situation that will dominate our lives, at least for a while.
One very cold day near Christmastime, Christine opened the front door to our house and let in a funny looking black dog. She named it Fred but we mostly called him Freddy. He was incredibly short for his size. He was as long as a typical German Shephard but as tall as a Bassett Hound. His ears were pointed and stood up on his head and you might imagine that he had a bit of Corgi in him. He was skinny back then and amazingly well behaved but he was great at begging for food so he didn’t stay skinny long. Before long the family grew attached to him. However, we were on a remote assignment and this situation was not destined to end well. There would come a time when my dad’s tour was over when we would have to leave Canada and say goodbye to Freddy. In order to stave off the inevitable heart break, my father decided to do the responsible thing and find Freddy a new home. He packed up the toys from the chair that Freddy had adopted and took him to a neighbor not far away. Not far enough anyway, Freddy was back sitting on our snow covered porch waiting to be let in the next day. Once again, Dad packed up Freddy in the ’58 Chevy Station Wagon and delivered him to his new owners. Freddy came back and that was that, we definitely had a dog. Why he chose us to stay with us will always be a mystery but it was clear as to why my dad grew attached.
Tucson Atheists now have a roadside sign. In fact, we have a couple. We earned them from the city of Tucson for cleaning up a couple of miles of roadway in Tucson once a month for over six months. We discovered that the signs were up before we started our 7th cleanup. It’s a point of pride that we had from 12 to twenty volunteers during every cleanup. The road is a mile south of my house and they were scheduled for early Sunday morning. (What else is an Atheist doing on Sunday morning?) We worked for two hours then gathered at my house for sandwiches and cold drinks/ There were no complaints. It’s cooler in the morning and that was very important during a Tucson summer. We’ll continue to do the road cleanup but my guess is that we can start a bit later during the winter months.
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