Jimmy likes it hot

Even on these extremely hot humid days Jimmy has taken his bike out and gone riding.  Nothing seems to bother this man and the hotter it is, the better he likes it.  I wish I could tolerate the heat as well as he can.  It might be because he worked in a factory for over 35 years where it wasn't unusual for the temps in there to reach 120 degrees.  They had fires burning making all kinds of light bulbs from start to finish and in the factory only the office personnel got the air conditioning.  The factory workers could have fans blowing at their legs, but no wind around the fires, because it would change the temperature of the flames or just blow the fires out.

It was Jimmy's job to make sure that all the machines were in perfect running order and turning out perfect bulbs...he took care of the maintenance and his factory sent him to Germany twice for training on new machines that they had purchased.  As the plant was closing in 1994, and making it's move to Brazil, they asked Jimmy if he would go as a consultant to train the people there how to run and maintain the machines.  He gave it some thought and declined their offer.  I wanted to go, but Jimmy was upset that they were moving the plant out of the country and many of his friends were losing their jobs.  It didn't affect Jimmy because his union had a clause about the plant closing and moving out of the country.  It said that if you were close to their retirement age and were at least 57 yrs old that you could retire with full retirement benefits.  Jimmy was 57 and he didn't need any prodding to take an early retirement.

Toooo HOT

This is the thermometer in my kitchen window. It's stuck on the outside with little suction cups and on Monday this was what it read, and believe me it felt like it outside. I seriously think that my thermometer was mistaken and just over-taken by the heat and malfunctioned. It probably had a heat stroke.

I had come outside ready to go for a ride when I noticed that it was warmer than usual so I went back inside to look at the thermometer. I called to Jimmy to come look, and he said that it had to be wrong. It may have been wrong, but it was still very hot and much too hot to go for a ride.

My flowers and plants all look wilted except for the waterlilys, but they aren't as pretty this year either. I sometimes go back and look at pictures of last summer's flowers and I can't believe how pretty they were. It amazes me that I had such lovely flowers, because I'm not really much of a gardener. I credit the flowers themselves because I try to buy only native plants that are hardy. Nothing has died yet, but they're very thirsty for an all day or night soaking steady rain.

These are the same flowers only taken with my cell phone.

On Wednesday Jimmy's bike speakers arrived and he spent the day putting them on his bike and getting all the wires organized and put out of site. He attached his Sony Walkman to them and they sounded really good, but he wasn't quite satisfied with the results. At the time I didn't know it, but he had bigger things on his mind. Zac & Sharon both have ipods and Jimmy fell in love with Sharon's TINY little shuffle and had his eyes set on one for himself.

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Friday morning we took the old music sound system that Jimmy had on his bike back to his brother and as we were leaving Zac called, so off we went to visit Zac & Megan. Zac was stuck at home waiting for the UPS guy to deliver his new set of speakers. When they finally arrived it was late afternoon and just as we had suspected, the speakers looked exactly like Jimmy's. There were only a few differences with the other equipment, but the speakers looked just alike.

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After a quick installation we were off to supper and to listen to one of Zac's friends perform at a local night spot. A night out with the grandchildren...what more could you ask for? Now before all of you other grandchildren get your feathers in a ruffle, you can ask us out to dinner too whenever you like...we're free as birds.

Thalia, Zac, Megan & Jimmy

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Here we are at Hall's on the River. Hall's is located right on the Kentucky River at Boonesboro. One of Zac's friends was singing there and he sang & played his guitar while we ate supper. The singer, Perry Williams was also accompanied by another guitar player and they were very good. Perry is a singer, song writer.

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Needless to say we had a GREAT time out with the grandchildren although it was way too loud in there. As I sat there I was reminded of the days when Jimmy & I were courting and spent a lot of our time out dancing. We both loved to dance and listen to loud music. What happened to those days? We still like to listen to music, but we haven't danced in some time now....except for today in the kitchen when I had his earbuds in my ears, I grabbed him and began dancing to the music playing in my ears. He tried to follow along, but he couldn't hear the music, hehehe. I think he only played along so he could get his ipod back. More about that ipod later.

By early Saturday morning the boys were ready to check out their new speakers. You can see that each of their bikes have two little round crome speakers between the handle bars and windshields in the picture above. You might have to enlarge the picture to see them better. We rode for most of the day, stopped and had a very nice meal and Jimmy got his new ipod nano with Zac's help. Zac also picked out a little Bluetooth device for my computer...he's so helpful!

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Back at home, Zac installed itunes to my computer and loaded Jimmy's ipod with music. Jimmy is so happy and is finally marveling at technology and hanging around my computer asking if his ipod needs charging yet. I told him the battery is good for 24 hours of music listening...Again he marvels.

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Zac...you've opened up a brand new world of technology for Jimmy. I hope you can keep up with him because if he can afford it, he's buying whatever it takes to make his bike rumble with music. We'll all have to keep a good distance away from him or we won't be able to listen to our own music when we ride. Good thing he likes to bring up the rear.

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Today I spent trying to learn my way around itunes and created Jimmy a playlist of his favorite songs to put on his ipod. I'm almost finished with his playlist except for a few more songs which he has on a CD that he needs to bring me. Then the BIG TEST will come...to see if I can do it...put the songs on his ipod. I've never had one and don't know much about them. It's all a learning experience for me.

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Hooray...I hear thunder outside. Gotta go see if it's raining. False alarm.