9-30-17 Sat.

The last day of September, this year has just gone by so quickly. Our good friend Brother Al Clarkson died on Monday morning as most of you know. He went peacefully with his children and grandchildren around his bed. What a great guy! They will have a viewing and then a procession to the military burial this coming Tuesday morning. If you need more information let me know. The memorial service will not be held until November 4 and it will be at Sonrise.

When I decided to give up my upholstering business at the end of last year, I brought my computer home that I used at work. I was going through some of the folders trying to move some files around and I came up with some new pictures that I don't think you've seen.

Here are a couple of pictures here that were taken in Hawaii. The first one is of Pastor Mike and Harriet. It was taken on the North Shore at Turtle Bay. Turtle Bay is the nicest hotel/resort on the North Shore of Oahu. We didn't stay there we just drove up there for the beautiful view and they make great hamburgers at this particular restaurant.

 On another trip, Pastor Mike came over while we were there and there was a really nice size swell that came through. Mike and I found a canoe captain that was willing to take us out in the Larger than normal surf. This is the south side of Oahu. The first person in the canoe is wearing a white T-shirt, then it's Pastor Mike and myself.

I believe the above picture was taken in 2008, but I'm not sure. Maybe Pastor Mike remembers more accurately.

I found this picture of Harriet when little Samuel was born eleven years ago. I think my wife got more beautiful as the years went by.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Maranatha
Frank

9-23-17 Sat.

Our daughter Sarah, went back home to Ohio on Tuesday.We had a really nice time. Visiting some of our mutual friends and eating our way across to San Diego. Sarah said that you can't get decent Mexican food in Ohio. So is my task to make sure she was well fed on a study diet a Mexican food.

Here is a picture of Sarah and my friend Bob in our pool when we lived in El Cajon practicing tandem paddling. Bob and Sarah would tandem surfing I wish I had some of the pictures I took twenty years ago. But I guess they were lost. This is before digital pictures

I'm kept busy working on projects at my dads house and of course trying to keep up here at home. It's funny how for 44 years Harriet did all the housework and she did it extremely well. Now here I'm in my 70s trying to do half as good a job she did. She is the best!

On this trip when Sarah came over to our home and walked in the door, she started to cry because she misses her mom. Sarah's a tender girl when it comes to your mom. It was very touching.

Tomorrow is church and pastor Jason will be preaching. After church my friends Mike and Kathy are forcing me to go out to have ice cream with them. They really had to twist my arm. Were going to Baskin-Robbins. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? I like the pralines and cream and in a Hot Fudge Sunday, it is excellent!

I hope you have a great weekend and Maranatha!
Frank

9-16-17 Sat.

Very frustrating this morning. The Internet went out and it's the third time in four days. So I called up Cox and got the usual, "There's an outage in your area". So I turned on the "Hotspot" on my cell phone so that I would have Internet access. This will probably be a shorter Blog post. I don't know if you get frustrated when you're Internet goes out when you're working on the computer? Especially three days out of four.

I've been having a really nice time with our daughter Sarah. Doing a lot of fun things. I took her out to the beach early one morning and we videoed  my friends surfing. I turned the controls over to her and let her practice, she did pretty good. You can see in the first picture my drone is about 6 feet off the landing pad and then the next picture it's getting ready to land. I thought she did really good.

Thursday we had a barbecue over it Bob's house. Bob is a long time friend. Bob, Larry and us, all surf together. Larry would bring his boys out each Saturday morning. Sarah used to be Bob's tandem surfing partner. I took some pictures of them tandem surfing but it was a long time ago,  before digital cameras. I'm going to try and get a copy of the picture from Bob he's got a big blown of mural.

This morning Sarah is coming over for breakfast. Then were going to pick up the grandkids and take them out for a Saturday morning outing. I always look forward to this and Sarah is too.

This is Sarah when she was a little girl.

I hope you have a great weekend.
Maranatha,
Frank

9-9-17 Sat.

We had a transformer blowout last Sunday morning. I got home from church and the power was out. You really come to realize how much you depend upon electricity when you don't have it.

In 2003 when we had that big fire that came through from Julian all the way through too the Scripps Ranch area, I purchased some LED flashlights/lanterns. That was fourteen years ago. These lights take D size batteries and of course I was out of them. Fortunately my son Joe and his wife Hilda bought these bricks (don't know what else to call them) that store electricity and you can use them even to start your car. They bought me two of these and I was able to use one to keep my cell phone working, and the hotspot (hotspot gives you Wi-Fi through your cell phone). The other one I used to charge my tablets.

You can imagine by evening time it's getting dark and it's kind of a bummer not to have lights in your house. The electricity didn't come on until about 3 AM.

The next morning I looked up to see what is available for lighting on Amazon. Do you use Amazon prime? If you don't know, Amazon prime is their delivery service. If you do a lot of shopping with them it's really worth it. You pay a flat fee once a year and all items marked "Prime" are shipped free and most of them you receive within two days of your order.

I looked on Amazon to see what new lighting items are available. I found these neat little lights that work on three AA batteries and give you up to twelve hours of flight. You can see how big the unit is next to the roll of paper towels. It has 30 LED lights.

This is what it looks like when you lift up at the top, it turns on the light and if you want to hang it up somewhere you can use the handles.

There's enough light that you would be able to cook in the kitchen with one of these for visibility of course you'd have to have a gas stove if your electricity is out. I tried the light on the stand next to me and you can read a book with the light, I'm very impressed for a number of reasons. Small size, lots of light and small cost. You get two of these lanterns which includes the batteries for $9.00. I ordered three sets, that's six of these little lanterns because I'm not going to get caught with my, well you know the saying. These lights are really great and if you don't have anything in case of the electrical outage, you might consider getting a few of these. You'll be thankful you had them. Here is the link for the lanterns if you want to check them out. It'll save you the time from having to look for them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0722GFG36/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


The big news is that our daughter Sarah is flying in tomorrow morning. Daniel will pick her up at the airport and I will meet them for lunch. Looking forward to seeing our girl, it's been two years. I'm sure that next week I'll have lots of pictures. Really looking forward to seeing her.

That's it for today I hope you have a great weekend and Maranatha!

Frank

9-2-17 Sat.

In just a couple of days it would've been our forty-sixth wedding anniversary on September 4. I still miss my girl.

It's been two weeks since Larry and I have been to the beach to video our friends surfing. The waves have been small to nonexistent and throw in some foggy conditions, not good for surfing or videoing.

I went out yesterday morning to the Sandpit in Santee where my friend Larry, Jim and I fly. I got there early before the sunrise and I took a couple of pictures from about 300 feet up. The first one is taken facing east looking at the predawn sunrise.

This next picture is facing West picking right after the first picture.

I have a question for you. What is your favorite appliance? It's really a funny thing because of course I never thought about it before I was the one using laundry and kitchen equipment. I guess my washer, dryer and dishwasher all come in tie for first place. I just think it's fantastic that you can put things in to these different appliances and then come back later and they're all clean.

I remember when my mom did the laundry she did not have a dryer. She would actually have to carry the cloths out and hang them up on the clothesline. I wish my mom would've had a dryer so she wouldn't of had to work so hard.

 Last Saturday I went over to my friend Brad, Karen and Kylie's house, they live in the Eucalyptus Hills area. They wanted to check out the area from the air because they just moved in a few months ago (its Hilly terrain in Eucalyptus Hills)  and I took my drone up to 400 feet which is the maximum allowed by the FAA and got a nice video of the entire area along with this picture of us. Great friends!

Today I get to take my grandsons out for an outing. It's always fun to be with them.

I hope you have a really nice Labor Day weekend.

Maranatha,
Frank

 This picture was taken outside the Dole Plantation on the North Shore of Oahu.