Today So. Cal Edison tried again to change the power pole in our backyard, this time quite successfully. I asked several of the workers just how long the boom is on that crane. None knew, but one did say that the horizontal distance from crane to pole was 211 ft. If the boom was at 45 Deg., that would make its length very near 300 ft,  And they ( Read more... )

 Here are the photos I meant to put in last night.  Thanks to Ben, helping w/ remote computer control (and phone).


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After about two years of having a junk airplane as part of our backyard décor, we finally had it hauled off yesterday. It arrived there in the first place as part of son Ben's project of building his second airplane. I believe he started this one in 2001 by buying the kit from a guy in San Antonio, TX. He has unbelievably diligently stuck to ( Read more... )

There was some interesting activity around here today. For the past month, at least, various men from Edison Co. have called on us and sized up the project of changing the tall power pole in our back yard. A couple weeks ago, a crew came and trimmed the pommegranate tree which nestles up to the pole. Then yesterday, two guys were here to dig the ( Read more... )

Nora & I spent last weekend in Kansas City, MO at the reunion of my USAF pilot traing classmates. There were about 18 of them there, most with a spouse. The class is identified as 52 A, since we were the first class to finish in1952. There were 262 men who graduated on 8 Feb 1952. They came from 4 different training bases:  Reese AFB, Lubbock, TX ( ( Read more... )

  Almost everything went quite smoothly in departing Rome and getting back to Camarillo. The exception was that our flight from Rome was delayed getting off such that we were changed to a later flight out of Chicago to give us time to make the transfer. I napped enuff on that 10 hour flight that it didn't seem nearly the ordeal that I'd anticipated ( Read more... )

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Today we were strictly tourists. (Of course, that’s what we’ve been for over a month ( Read more... )

We are now in the Locarno hotel in Rome  - till Mon. Morn.  We were among the first to get off the ship and immediately connected with the driver sent to haul us to Rome. The port is 63 Km from the city. Initially we drove thru beautiful green rolling hills. Coming into the city it began to look a lot like Los Angeles. Narrow roads, creeping ( Read more... )

Today is our last full day on the cruise and we used it to visit Pompei. We are at anchor off the town of Sorrento. We used the ship’s launch to get to shore, went by shuttle bus up in to town, boarded a bigger bus which traveled along a very narrow, twisty road hanging on the cliff side in to the city of Naples. Within Naples are the remains of ( Read more... )