December 10-12, 2020 - New Palm Tree and Golf Cart Parade

Kelly ordered a new palm tree because our old one is now only lighting partially. I have no idea how old it is. It was pulled out of the dumpster about four years ago and given to us by a neighbor. Here is a picture of the new one, which is on the right. It is a totally different style than most on the street but is a nice touch with white lights in the greenery. I ordered a set of new green lights to fix the old one on the left just for the hell of it. It's worth spending $10.00 bucks on it.

At 6 pm Thursday night the park had a golf cart parade. Decorated golf carts and bikes wind through the park after dark lit up and Christmas music playing. We could just sit at our site with a cordial and watch it go by. People did a great job decorating their carts. The pictures in the dark as they drove by didn't come out but here are a couple as they lined up to begin.

Due to Covid and many residents not coming down to Florida it was a smaller parade than in years past.

Yesterday was an equipment upgrade day. We used Kelly's phone as a hotspot for the internet for a few days but it became pretty obvious that is is not adequate. Her hotspot is "unlimited" but due to the usage they notified her they were throttling her down. So much for "unlimited". We made a trip a half mile away to the Spectrum store and got a modem and router. I thought about bringing our router from home but didn't. I would have saved $5.00 per month. I'll bring it next year.  Here is a picture of the modem and router set up on the couch end table with the cable running through the seal in the slideout.  It is totally out of the way which is important in our small quarters.

The internet speed is great and there is good coverage outside the RV as well. 

We next turned to the update of our Dish receiver. The one we purchased down here about five years ago, with the addition of an external hard drive, would allow us to record shows but we couldn't record while watching. Kelly didn't like this shortcoming (She's used to the "Hopper" at home). Additionally the old receiver could not access the internet so we couldn't watch Netflix. Kelly found a half-price receiver deal so we ordered a new "Wally" receiver. It allows us to record and watch at the same time as well as get the internet. Here is a picture of it installed above the TV.

While we can now get the internet with the Wally, they didn't tell us that you have to buy a USB antenna for it to work with the router. No one mentioned that ever! Yesterday we ordered the antenna from Dish for $30.00 with shipping. Hopefully this will make everything work when it arrives. What a pain.

Our last technology project of the day was setting the Facebook Portal to the correct time zone and city for weather. When we got here it did not correct for the change in time zone and city. I got online and it said I had to do a factory reset. We did that but by doing so lost all of the contacts in "Messenger" so we have to put them all back in or call people on "WhatsApp". The kids are on "WhatsApp" but none of our friends.

We reset the time and city manually. The Portal is a nice piece of equipment for video calls. It has a camera that follows you around as you talk on a video call. It is much nicer than having to hold the phone for video calls. (Thanks to daughter Annie, who works at Facebook, for buying it for us). If you are on Facebook and do video calls with friends and kids and grandkids I strongly recommend you get one for about $120.00.

Kelly is making cookies today for the ladies "Red Hat" luncheon on Monday. Each lady is supposed to make cookies and put a few in a dozen sandwich bags to exchange with others. Their lunch will be a box lunch so no contact with anybody.  She enjoys the Red Hat Lady activities. Later on they are having a pulled pork dinner fundraiser and Kelly volunteered me to be a gopher picking up cooked pulled pork from various "cookers" around the park and bringing it to the clubhouse where they will make up box dinners for people to pick up outside. Everyone is being really cautious with Covid, which is good and necessary.

Up to 75 degrees and sunny today. Nice! We can't wait for the rest of our friends to arrive over the next few weeks.