SWMBO and I went to the Bremerton Airport restaurant mid-day last Friday for lunch. We don’t get out and about on New Year’s Eve, if possible. Had a nice lunch with her and got to watch the planes taking off and landing. Some were doing "touch-and-go’s" and that was cool.

We did go to Home Depot and SWMBO bought me a 13" Planer. She really wants me to learn to make cabinet doors! I will; just in my own time.

Spent the 1st just lounging around the house. Well, I say lounging. If you don’t count housework! Come to think of it; Sunday was spent pretty much the same way.

WAY too cold out to get out much. Poop Dog and I have been going for our walks but I can hardly wait to get back inside. I Just Don’t Like The Cold! I’d much rather be too warm.

Been studying the ARRL manual for the General test coming up next Saturday. Phew! The formulas are killing me! And remembering things like capacitance and inductance and how many volts across the connecting points in a diode and stuff it way beyond me. But I still take the practice tests at qrz.com. Last night was the first time I passed one of the tests! Got a 89%. Cool! Total tally was 3 tests passed & 2 failed. But I’m failing with a higher score! I think I’m going to pass this one by memorizing all the answers.

This General study material is geared towards folks that will probably someday build their own radio. I’m never going to build my own radio. Nor any "mods" for a radio. Nor a switching power supply. I’m just not electrically minded. I’m the guy that will buy a radio that does what I want it to do. Now, the section on antenna’s will come in handy since I’m building all my own antenna’s; but I don’t feel I really need all the electrical stuff to operate a radio. But that’s the way it is….

That’s about it for now. 2-meter net went well last night. Made a contact in mid-Mexico last saturday. Still spending too much time listening to the radio and PSK31. Copying all the tv shows I’ve ripped to a back-up drive so I can set the NAS up for a RAID (3?) where it will automatically mirror each drive. That’s taken almost 40 hours so far with about 10 hours to go! Then I get to copy everything back!