I was up at 7 AM, fed the cats, and made coffee, which has become Linda’s wake up alarm.  Phil Jarrell showed up at 8 AM.  He set up his laser level and checked elevations for a gravel driveway that would connect our concrete driveway around to our third culvert.  Some of this driveway may eventually provide access to a barn, but it will also provide a second pad that is level and big enough to support a 45 foot bus conversion.

Phil moved the laser level to a different spot and checked the elevations of various points at the west end of the property relative to the culvert that runs under the road to the little triangle of our yard in the southwest corner.  Although it did not appear so to me, all of the property to the west and north is higher than the bottom of the culvert.  That means Phil should be able to construct a French drain that will help dry this area out and hopefully save the trees that are there.  He will also use the top soil he pulls out of the driveway to fill in the various low spots.

Phil was done and on his way by 9:30 AM.  I forgot to mention the hole for the ham radio tower base so I e-mailed him about that additional work.  While it will almost certainly be less expensive to have him dig the hole while he is already here working on other things it is a project that requires my involvement, parts that I do not yet have, and coordination with a concrete company who can pump or cart the concrete from the truck to the hole.

The old driver’s chair in our bus is a Villa captain’s chair.

We had breakfast after which I sorted the laundry.  The warm white load was small so I stripped the bed in the bus and added those sheets to the load.  We cleaned off the twin mattress in the small bedroom with most of the stuff going down to my office.  The stuff on the double bed in the middle bedroom then went to the small bedroom, allowing us to strip the double bed so I could launder the sheets and pillow cases.

Based on the e-mail I got yesterday from Cory at Rupes/Cyclo I figured out that I wanted the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher with the ProGuard backing plates.  I also determined which foam pads and chemicals I wanted and placed the order directly with Rupes/Cyclo online.  I also updated our PayPal account and used it for this transaction.

I went to my office and spent several hours doing a second floor plan drawing for the bus, this one showing the tiles installed as diamonds rather than squares.  Over the course of the afternoon Linda heated up some Amy’s chili for lunch and I got two more loads of laundry done.

Late afternoon brought a call on our landline that turned out to be a recorded message claiming to be from the IRS and stating that this was their final attempt to reach us before filing a lawsuit.  Yeah, right.  The IRS does not make such calls, of course, nor do they send such e-mails.  They like paper trails and contact people by registered mail or show up unannounced at the door.  And they don’t sue people, they just seize assets.  A Google search quickly revealed that this was an IRS Impersonation Scam that has been around for a while but gets resurrected from time to time.

The swivel/slide 6-way power base under the driver’s chair in our bus. We will reuse this if we get a Flexsteel replacement chair but not if we get an ISRI.

We were annoyed enough by this particular scam that I filed a complaint with the U. S. Treasury Department and the Federal Trade Commission.  While I was on the FTC website I opted us out of receiving “Firm Offers” for insurance and pre-approved credit cards.  I also verified that our landline and cell phones (2) are on the Federal Do Not Call list, although it has not eliminated telemarketing calls. The fact that we are on the DNC list, however, allows us to file complaints with the FTC when we get such calls.

For dinner Linda made a nice salad with poppy seed dressing and heated up a couple of teriyaki noodle bowls.  It was yummy and a small glass of Moscato was very agreeable as well.  After dinner I was revisiting the EZ Connector website when a TXT message came through with a picture of his Chuck’s new VDO 0–15 PSI turbo boost gauge.  I was thinking about calling Chuck anyway so I rang him up and we had a long chat.