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 Being Retired now, I thought that it was time for a new name to this Blog |
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Talk about perks, my career had one of the best I can think of! I traveled in the course of business, delivering classes for my employer. I was a Senior Training Specialist for Motorola Solutions, and taught classes on a wide variety of subjects centered around 2-way radio communications. I knew that when the time arrived that I would retire, and I have. I've always said that if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out! I can't handle the heat anymore. I was qualified to deliver approximately 32 different classes, but about half of those were 'Legacy' classes, and were not in demand anymore. My students were technicians, those who maintained, programmed, calibrated, and repaired large 2-way radio systems. Some of these systems are statewide, and use TCP-IP networking to allow sites to communicate with others. Some are small, traditional type radio sites. The size doesn't matter, in each case the systems must be kept operational at all times, since many of them are Public Safety Systems. So I traveled, sometimes frequently, 3-4 weeks in a row.... where have I been? Some of the places I've been (I can't list them all here, the list would be too long) are pretty interesting. 1. Hawaii - Four times, Oahu, Maui (twice), and the Big Island 2. BangkokThailand, twice 3. Frankfurt Germany, twice 4. Algiers, Algeria 5. Melbourne Australia 6. Bismarck North Dakota, Summer & Winter 7. Los Angeles, Too many times to count 8. Washington DC, Too many times to count 9. Seattle three or four times 10. Texas, all over the state 11. Florida, all over the state 12. New Mexico, HOME! Several times  Best Cultural And Regional Honorable Mention |
Tomorrow 8/7/25 Tomorrow I will help a former co-worker one last time. Why last time? Because I'm not being paid by Motorola for this help. I'm helping him because he's a friend. There was a class I delivered called 'Fleetmapping'. I was asked to deliver it during the Pandemic. In doing so, I edited the course materials extensively. Who delivered it before me? A Contractor. But, he didn't want to teach it on line for a variety of reasons I won't go into here. I was the only instructor of it for a long time, until a fellow instructor started delivering it. Now don't get me wrong here, this guy has more knowledge of all things RF in his pinky finger than I have in my whole body! But.... He doesn't like to follow the Instructor Guide, does not use the Powerpoint slides at all. He prefers to use manuals to teach any course. Why? His background is Engineering. And he's right, our Powerpoint modules are too lengthy, and frankly, not very good. I'm not a fan of not using Powerpoint, but there comes a time where you have to. The thing is, this course needs to be taught using Powerpoint because it's a 'soft-skill' course. There are no hands-on activities that require special tools and such. The hands-on activities are completed using Microsoft Excel. One of my good friends still at Motorola will be delivering this class for the first time in a couple of weeks. He just wants to review things for an hour or so. I'll help him to hopefully make him more comfortable. What's this course about? I'm glad you asked. I mean, with a name like Fleetmapping, it could be anything. So here's what is done in all radio systems, no matter who the manufacturer is. The radios you see a Public Safety Officer carrying is called a Portable radio. A Subscriber radio. Those radios are programmed using a suite of Software. However, programming it 100% correctly does not mean it will operate on the system. In fact, you won't be able to Transmit (Tx) or Receive (Rx) on a Trunked System. Why? Because the system is not configured/programmed to allow that radio to do that. What that means is, programming the radio gives it the 'ability' to Tx & Rx on a Trunked System. Configuring the system gives the radio the right to do that. So Fleetmapping is the process of programming the system and the radio to allow communication to occur. It's a class I loved delivering. In delivering it, you're more of a Facilitator than you are Instructor. The course is approached, and delivered in a different way. Powerpoint slides are still used, but the key to understanding it is configuring the system. You don't have to be an expert in radio programming, nor an expert on Configuring the system. But you MUST understand how this is done on both ends. And, I still want nothing to do with delivering classes again.  |
Weekend Getaway Okay, don't get excited, it was only an overnighter. And we didn't go to see Motorhomes! We went to the Annual Pere Marquette Lodge Peach Festival! It was a very fun time really, but we stayed at a Hampton Inn almost 30 miles away in Alton, Illinois. We did have a nice room though. It was large enough for the two dogs to rest and roam in. I've had this type of room many times in my past travels, I was pleased. I knew I'd hit the jackpot room-wise when she said she loved the room! The festival is only a one-day affair, but it was excellent if you ask me. There were craft vendors in the Lodge itself, and a couple of them outside. But the stalls with the Peaches and other fresh fruit and vegetables were outside. Since the temperature was only 70 or so, it was a very nice morning. Plus we got there early and managed to find a decent parking spot with shade. I knew we wouldn't stay long, so I wasn't too worried about our dogs being in the van. The windows were down about 3 inches, maybe 4. I also hung a battery powered fan from a window to circulate air while we were gone. It was hot for them when I returned an hour later, but they were fine. No where close to being overheated. With all the dog training/showing experience Kathy has, we're very careful about leaving them in a vehicle. I wore my Submarine Veteran Ball Cap this morning, and met at least 5-6 other Veterans there. It was nice, we exchanged pleasantries, asked about our service, and swapped a little bit of a story while at it. I met two, maybe three Vietnam Veterans, I told each that my hat was off to them. A true statement too. After being there about an hour, we took the dogs to a nearby grassy area and had them out for at least twenty minutes to do their thing. The drive home was great for the most part. We were on back-country roads for at least half the drive, then Interstate the second half. We love (and prefer) to hit non-Interstate roads when we can. In the past though, that was tough, because we usually had to be at the destination in time for you-know-who to teach a class. So it was nice to be on state highways as long as we were. I hope y'all had a great weekend too! Jim |
There Is A Secret To Us Going Places! You men know and appreciate this thought far more than I do. The secret to us going places, is for it to be her idea! She can broach the subject about getting out for some activity, but the idea of us going has to start with her. Even if it's my desire to get out initially, she has to be the one who suggests it. The secret, and hard thing to do, is get her to suggest it. Yeah, easier said than done. Yesterday she mentioned a Peach Festival down in Alton, Illinois. I said something about loving the idea of going to it. So guess where we're going this weekend? Yep, the Peach Festival in Alton Illinois! Yay! It's not really in Alton, that's just the closest town. It will be held at the Pere Marquette Lodge. We'll probably not do a whole lot there, maybe just shop some. Heck, we might even buy something. But we'll be getting out, away from Bloomington. Some of you probably think I'm going stir-crazy here since I'm now retired. That's not the case at all. I would just like to get out a little bit, get out of town, just because we can. Just because we now have all the time we need or want. That's also a secondary reason for wanting a Motorhome. It wouldn't be for us to go camping somewhere. Neither of us are big campers/glampers. We do like going places. My van is fine for the most part. A motorhome would allow us more flexibility as far as stops go, napping when needed, whatever our hearts desire. As we adjust to all this free time, we should eventually up the ante, so-to-speak. We'll see what the (our) future holds. |
Our Dog's Diet In thinking about our dog's diet, some of you will probably say, "Your dog is on a diet?" Or maybe you'll ask, "Your dog has a diet?" So let me explain what they eat, and why. When I first met my wife, she was feeding her dogs whole Turkey wings, bone and all. Like most of you, I said, "You can't feed a dog bones! They'll choke on them!" (I didn't realize she had raised dogs since she was a child, had shown dogs around the country, etc). She looked at me and said something like, "C'mon Jim. Do you really think that wild dogs (Dingos, Jackyls, Hyenas and the like) don't eat bones? Do you think they eat only the meat and leave the bones for something else? I thought about that, and realized how stupid my statement was. Our dogs are on a 'natural diet'. The eat Kibble only when we travel, and only after our frozen meat is gone. Kibble = Dry Dog Food, such as Purina Dog Chow. Except Kathy wouldn't be caught dead feeding her dogs Purina. We feed them Orijen Dry Dog Food, the contents of it are too numerous to list here. Here is a partial list: Chicken, turkey, salmon, whole herring, chicken liver, dehydrated chicken, dehydrated turkey, dehydrated chicken liver, dehydrated egg, dehydrated sardine, chicken fat. They eat healthier than we do! Being curious, I once asked her how she started her dogs on this 'Bones And Raw Food' (BARF) diet. Before I met her, one of her Akita's didn't have a very good coat and was constantly scratching herself. After many visits to the local Vet, she chanced upon a Holistic one. Eventually, it was discovered that her dog was allergic to Corn! She looked that the ingredients on the bag of dog food and saw something like this (I looked at the ingredients of a bag of Purina One): Chicken, Rice Flour, Corn Protein Meal, Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal , Whole Grain Wheat, Soybean Meal, Beef Fat Preserved With Mixed-Tocopherols. Only the chicken is something a dog should eat. After all, they're carnivores. Compare Purina One contents to the Orijen contents! A 40 lb bag of Purina One is $39. A 5 lb bag of Orijen is $35! Yeah, those contents in Orijen are not cheap. Neither is feeding them that natural diet we have them on. I wanted to tell you a bit about their morning meal. BTW, we do not leave food out for them to munch on, They are fed morning, and night. Their morning meal (at least this morning), is Chicken Neck, Pheasant Neck, Liver & or Kidney Chunks, Heart Chunks, Lamb Tongue, Duck Wings, and Baby Scad Chunks. (Scad is a species of marine fish belonging to the family Carangidae, which also includes jacks, amberjacks, and pompanos). What amazes me still, is watching Buddy, our Akita, bite through a Duck Wing or other bones. We don't feed them weight bearing bones, those are too dense. We do use them in making Bone Broth. He seems to bite through that bone relatively easily, though I'm sure it's not that easy. It amazes me at the strength of his bite. Then I consider the bite of a Crocodile or Alligator to put things in perspective. I often think that humans once had a much stronger bite than we do now. Maybe not. Feeding your dog a diet like this is not cheap, I can testify to that. I won't say how much we spend, she buys the dog food, I buy our groceries. I think I have the better end of the (unspoken) deal! I only wish we ate half as healthy as our dogs do. Wow, we'd be in so much better shape! |
| Y'know, a big complaint I heard a bit when I was still working, is that I was gone all the time. I was never home for certain activities. Now I am, and we're still not doing them, nor going anywhere. Here's what I'd love to do, IF we can just plan on doing it. She's fine if we have a plan. No plan? Then it's okay to sleep in, something I've never done much of. I do sleep until 6 now. So, things I'd like to do, or places to go. 1. Crater Of Diamonds State Park, Arkansas. https://www.arkansasstateparks.com/parks/crater-diamonds-state-park I think this would be a fun outing for us. I'd plan on at least 3, if not 4 days for it. Why so many days? It's almost a 10 hour drive to get there from my house. So a day to get there, a day to go home. We might stay in Little Rock (a 2 hour drive from there, so that would cut down our drive time to/from home. We'll see. 2. Go tubing on the Current River in Missouri. There are a lot of things I'd love to get out and do, but I want her with me! Right now, it looks like I'll be going to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta alone.  There are valid reasons why, it doesn't stop me from wanting Kathy to experience it with me. There is one nice thing about this though. I will most likely take Amtrak there. It will be nice to see home again. Yeah, home. I'/ve lived in Illinois 30 years now, but New Mexico is still home, and always will be.I'm not complaining, we have the rest of our lives to do things huh. We're hampered by physical limitations on both of us, and for me, a lack of energy. I guess we need to up our game, huh. |
I'm A Great-Grandfather? Yep, I'm A Great-Grandfather? Three times over now. I have two Great-Grand Daughters, ages 1 & 2, and a newborn Great-Grandson, born July 7th, 2025. I haven't said much about them though, since only one of my Grand-daughters is now married. The other two are not married, and a bit young for my taste. Not to worry though, they are not underage! The plan for today is to go shopping for newborn clothes. My Great-Grandson was born weighing only 5 lbs, 14.5 oz. Our children were a lot heavier, weighing from 8 lbs 15 oz to 9 lb 7 oz! I've been told by Grandma that if we buy diapers, get newborn size, and if we buy clothes, to get Preemie size. I'm just not used to babies this small! So today is a shopping day. Maybe I can talk my wife into lunch somewhere too. It would be nice, we haven't gone out much at all with this high heat we're having. I have to laugh at the term high heat though. It's only 83 out right now, the high is supposed to be in the low 90's. That's not overly hot to me; Hell, the Engineroom on a Submarine (where I stood watch and worked) were typically in the upper 90's, during drills it wasn't uncommon to exceed 100! But... Humidity was low then, I was a young man; plus I weighed a lot less. Yes it's true. Fat men sweat a lot easier than a thin one. Other than shopping, it's going to be a lazy day. We're still looking at Motorhomes. I want us to get to Indianapolis tomorrow. There are a couple of very nice Navion's in various lots. We'll see what happens with that, huh. |
Storm Damage, Workers Clearing Tree 7/17/25 After yesterday's storm, today was a cleaning up day. Not for us necessarily, but for our neighbor. The sad thing is, our neighbor is moving to the St. Louis area soon, he was down there when the storm hit yesterday. Today Four Seasons Tree and Landscaping Service showed up (after lunch), and proceeded to remove the tree! There were a couple of things that I was impressed by right away. First, I was impressed by their approach to safety. Seriously, everything they did was safe, at least in my somewhat inexperienced eye. One of the men was a little crazy too, he had no fear of heights it seemed. He was in a lift bucket, and up about 25-30 feet above the ground. I will say that he didn't have a lanyard on that would save him should he fall, however there was no place for him to tie off either. He also left the lift bucket to get on the roof at times, and never had a safety harness on. Again, no place to tie off. Still, their work was quick and safe (it still took over 3 hours to get that branch cleared off the roof). Secondly, their teamwork was something else. These men knew what their job was, as a team they were efficient. Being as old as I am, I was impressed by their strength and workmanship. I got tired watching them too!   Four Seasons Lawn & Tree Service didn't have a crane to use in the tree removal, so one was leased for the afternoon from Litwiler Tree Service. Of course Litwiler provided their own crane crew, no surprise there. As I was typing this, they started working on the part of the tree that was still upright. We watched for a couple of minutes, then an accident occurred. At least no one injured, but we lost about 10 feet of our fence. The crane lost its grip on the tree trunk it was lifting and it crashed to the ground, taking out part of our fence, and part of the neighbors fence. There's a large area (about 8 feet long) where the wooden fence was just removed by the falling tree. We'll see where we go from here! I will be uploading my photos to Google Drive should anyone want to view them.  Jim Dorrell |
| What A Day It's Been! How is your day/evening going? I hope this fine you well, with everything alright in your neighborhood. Not necessarily here. Let me explain. Let's start with thi morning. This morning I found a van, not a Class B Motorhome, but what's termed a Class B+ Van. I looked it over and fell in love, even though they're asking a little more than we want to pay. There was a link on the page that said, "View On Dealer's Website." So I did, and my day fell apart as far as this van goes. Why? Because on that page it said, "Sale Pending". All the air went out of me, I was completely devastated. Of course I got over it. Eventually. We had already planned to drive down to Springfield (Illinois) to Camping World, and did. We had been warned by Kathy's sister about Camping World. We weren't going there to buy one, we were going to 'Window Shop'. On the way, the sky looked very threatening, but she said, "No, it's not supposed to rain until this evening." Yeah, famous last words. It poured. I mean POURED. All thoughts of getting out of our van and seeing the rigs was gone. We weren't getting out, no way. Then we saw one we knew we couldn't afford it, probably. It was an older Class A. That didn't stop us from loving it. On the sides were decals of Zombies! On the back, at the top, a decal read Response Team 1. On the front, in the middle, below the Windshield was a decal of two mean looking eyes. On top, a decal read, "The Beast". We never asked anyone about its price, we just assumed we can't afford it, nor do we really want it. We just love it. And I can't find it on Camping Worlds website either., Oh well. After that, dinner, and a drive home, only to find that our neighbor (who's moving down St. Louis way), had a tree fall on his house during that storm.... And he's going to selling it soon. Any buyers? That was my day, I hope yours was infinitely better! |
Dang, You Mean I Actually Have WORK To Do? Well, I do have some work to get done tonight, work here at home, not 'Work work'. Yeah, my wife (Not me Thank God!) has somehow gotten a virus on her computer. It seems to cause a lot, I do mean A LOT, or pop ups on the right side of the screen. She got it last night after I was in bed. The bad thing is, even though I ran a full McAfee Scan, nothing was found. I might be changing AV software as a result. She was on FB reading a story, and like usual, the story has a link to click to finish reading it. She clicked the link, McAfee alerted her about the site, but it was too late. Oh well. I've managed to stop the Pop-Ups by activating her VPN. That still left a lot of windows on right side open, at least they can be closed. She's on it now, so once she gets off, I'll restore her PC. I've already backed up all her personal files. It's just a PC Restore now. That might take a while. Plus, reinstalling McAfee (Until I figure out which AV Software we'll use next), and Microsoft Office, and... and... you know. Now to see where this little adventure takes us. |
Things I've Done That Most Will Never Do I've done a lot in my life, we all have. But I think there are several things I've done that most people will never have the chance to do. 1. I caught a plate as it flew past my head in a restaurant. I was working in a restaurant, heading to the dish area to drop off a tray of dishes. The person in front of my stopped unexpectedly, forcing me to stop also. And of course the guy behind me, and so on.... But, when the guy behind me stopped, a plate came flying off his tray past my head. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and calmly reached up and grabbed it out of the air. That guy behind me could not believe what he saw, and exclaimed loudly about it. I didn't even realize what I had done until he said something. I couldn't do that again if I tried. 2. I was on the Pre-Commissioning Crew of the USS Alabama SSBN 731, and did a couple of things that most will never do. I stood 10-15 feet from the Reactor Core as it was lowered into the boat. The Core is not that radioactive if it has not been taken critical yet. Obviously this one had never been taken critical, so it was 'safe' to be there. 3. The second thing that I did on the Alabama, was easy. I was the first crewmember to spend the night on the boat. Now you have to understand the state of the Submarine at this time. There were still holes in the hull to for people to walk through. Since the boat's hull is about 43 feet in diameter, if those holes weren't there, everyone would have to climb ladders to reach the top. Those holes just made it easier to get in and out. I spent that first night on board since I was the Engineering Duty Petty Officer (EDPO). There was also an officer in the duty section, the Engineering Duty Officer (EDO). But he got to sleep in a trailer on the pier. I slept in the only bunkroom that had temporary walls assembled. It was noisy too! Why? Because drilling, sanding, cutting going on. As the EDPO, I did a tour of the Engineroom every 4 hours, as did the EDO. We alternated times so one of us toured every 2 hours. One of the crewmen would wake me, I'd shake the grinding dust and dirt from my hair before starting my tour. I'd also be woke by shipyard personnel because welding had been done, necessitating a radiograph of the new weld (All welds of piping and the hull were radiographed). Yeah, it was a fun time standing EDPO. NOT! 4. In my senior year in High School, I was the Lead Drum Major in the band. The band voted on who would be next year's Drum Major based on their tryout. To be frank, I won in a landslide. It's not that much of a big deal, but how many of us have been a Drum Major? So, what have you done in your lifetime that few others have done? I'm interested in knowing things like this. J D |
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