Category Archives: Family-Friends-Home

Post related to our family and close friends and projects around the house.

2013/12/27 (F) Arcadia FL

Sandhill cranes at the Turner Agri Civic Center.

We slept in this morning and did not get up until sunrise; very late for us. I made a big pot of coffee and then went for a stroll to take some photographs in the early morning light. I took photos in the afternoon light too, and I have assembled a gallery of images as a second post for today. When I got back Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes with real Maple syrup and vegan breakfast sausage patties. She does not use these fake meat products much anyone, but occasionally we like to have a more “traditional” breakfast. Starting Sunday the rally provides coffee, juice, bagels, toast, and other breakfast items every morning.

After breakfast we drove into town to find a 10-32 Nylok (stop) nut and other items that had been accumulating on our list. Our Garmin 465T GPS found the Walmart just 2 miles SE of the rally venue. We spotted a Tractor Supply Company and a Do It Best Hardware store on the way to Walmart and made note of other local businesses as we passed by. We found everything on our list at Walmart except for two items, one of which was the stop nut, so we stopped at the hardware store on the way back to the Turner Agri Civic Center. Stop nut and drain stopper in hand, we started back to base camp and remember another item that we had not written down. A quick U-turn back to the Sweetbay Market by the hardware store and we found a small (pocketsize) spiral bound notebook. I needed something I could carry around easily to record various details of the rally for my BCM article.

Back at the coach I replaced the two regular nuts I had used to fix the main patio awning yesterday with a Nylok stop nut. We let the awning sit for a while longer to make sure it was dry and then rolled it back up. We are parked with the passenger side of the bus facing north so the awning wasn’t providing any shade but merely blocked our view of most of the rally.

We then decided to give the coach a quick wash. The temperature was around 70 degrees F and there was a high overcast; plenty of light but not a blazing direct sunlight. We closed up the roof vents and windows, got out the hoses, sprayer, collapsible bucket, brush, dish soap, and microfiber cloths and went to work. The coach had picked up a film of road grime over the last 8 days and 1,300 miles and unlike most campgrounds, there was no problem with washing it at our site. We had planned on doing this at the designated RV/Car Wash station at Williston Crossings when we got back, but now we won’t have to. It still needs more hand detailing, but that can be done at our long-term site.

The washing done we opened the coach back up as it was getting warm inside. We had lunch around 1:30 PM; tofu hot dogs with mustard, onions, and relish along with fresh grapes. Apparently this was a comfort food day, but it was also an easy preparation meal. While we were eating I got a call from Chuck Spera. He was on his way from Naples to Ft Meyers and wanted to come to the rally site to visit and check it out. His ETA was still two hours out, so we went for a walk. I then took the camera and went out again as quite a few rigs had arrived during the day.

Barbara was back in Detroit for the holidays, so once we knew Chuck was coming we knew we would be going out for dinner and did some online research. There are plenty of places to eat in Arcadia, but it is not a dining destination. The Magnolia Seafood Grill appeared to be our best option; rated number one on Trip Advisor. Chuck arrived at 4:25 PM as estimated. Linda opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot and we settled in for a chat. He had a mobile mechanic (Mustafa, seriously) in Naples replace the water pump, connecting hoses, and thermostat on his Detroit Diesel 8V92TA engine (the same one we have) that morning and had to go to Ft. Meyers to return the old water pump to avoid the $165 core charge.

As the sun set and it started to get dark it also got very cool as there had been a strong breeze from the northeast all day. We headed for the heart of Arcadia’s historic district and found the restaurant. Linda and I split a very nice salad and a very mediocre pasta marinara. Chuck had a blackened Corvina (Cilus gilberti, similar to sea bass) with a baked potato and broccoli all of which he said was excellent. Our waitress, Jackie, was delightful and attentive. She even had the cook prepare our garlic bread with olive oil instead of butter. Chuck had a 90 mile drive back to Pelican Lake in Naples, so concluded our visit around 7:30 PM, made plans to meet again, and went our separate ways. We rounded out our meal back at the rig with some vegan chocolate cake and settled in to read, process photographs, work a few puzzles, and watch a little TV before going to bed.

2013_12_25 (W) Season’s Greetings From Florida

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Publix grocery store in SW Gainesville, FL.

What do extended-time RVers do on Christmas day? Pretty much what they would do at home, except for visiting/hosting family. It got down to 33 degrees F overnight, so we had the spirit of winter if not the actual thing. That was still above freezing and much better than the 9 degrees F in Howell, Michigan. Linda put her knit cap on and went for a walk before breakfast. With the way people are bundled up here she didn’t want to show off by walking without her hat. We may not be overly concerned with fitting in, but there’s no reason to make people feel bad on Christmas day. We both went for a couple of walks later in the day. There are pictures of the RV resort throughout this post that do not necessarily relate the text.

Looking north from site #439. This will be our front window view.

This was our 7^th day on the road and as we are leaving Williston Crossings RV Resort tomorrow for a week we needed to do a load of laundry. One of the Laundromat buildings is fairly close to our current site and even closer to our long-term site when we get back. Like everything else here it was clean and well lit with commercial washers and dryers in good condition and all functioning properly. I took care of the laundry after breakfast, as I would have done at home, while Linda started working on our holiday meal, as she would have done at home. At some level life on the road is just life, and there’s a certain comfort in that, but with more variety of new experiences which is why people do it. We have been determined from the beginning that our extended-time RVing would not be an extended vacation. Although we plan to do plenty of sight-seeing while we are in Florida, so far we have been quite comfortable with just sitting in one place and relaxing.

Looking south at site #439 in the south section. The trees will provide shade.

Linda’s first culinary task was to make her vegan chocolate cake. She had not packed vegetable oil, so she used avocado oil instead. The batter (I got to clean the bowl) did not have any unusual taste, so we expected the cake to be very good when we finally had some for dessert.

The fire pit in the south section, not far from site #439.

We turned on the dash radio and were able to tune in the Gainesville NPR station with a good strong signal even though the antenna is 20 miles away. Not bad considering that our radio does not have an antenna at the moment! It was removed as part of redoing the roof in 2011/12 and has not yet been replaced. So at this point we have fast Wi-Fi, a good selection of over-the-air TV stations (including the PBS trio), and good radio signals (including NPR). This place just gets better and better.

Walkway from the fire pit to the south section laundry room.

With our outstanding Wi-Fi we decided to try contacting our children using Facetime on our iPads. We connected with our son and daughter-in-law first. Our grand-daughter was having a late morning snack of teething pretzels and “freezy peasies” (frozen peas). She seemed to recognize us and smiled and waved in-between gumming pretzels and peas. She got very excited when our male cat, Jasper, wandered into the frame, so it was pretty clear that she recognized the images she was seeing. Facetime is going to allow us to stay in touch with her development while we are here, which is very nice. We then connected with our daughter and had a nice chat with her. She was baking rolls for later today when she and her husband were getting together with her brother, his family, and a friend.

[R 693 The south section bath and laundry room.]

We bought a Tofurkey yesterday to have for our main dish today. Linda had not tried to cook one in a convection/microwave oven before, and the cooking directions advised against microwaving it, so this was a bit of an experiment. She made cranberry-orange relish yesterday from our remaining fresh cranberries. Today she made a green salad which we ate an hour before our main mean. She convection roasted the Tofurkey and it came out great. While it was relaxing she microwaved a couple of yams and sautéed some asparagus spears to complete the side dishes. We had a bottle of Early Season White Cranberry Wine from Forestedge Winery in Laporte, Minnesota to round out the meal. Of the many non-grape wines available from Forestedge Winery, this is one of our favorites.

Yes, there is a shuffle board court. Isn’t it lovely?

It may be Christmas day, but chores have to be done when they have to be done. Even though we have a full-hookup site at the rally in Arcadia we wanted to leave Williston tomorrow with empty holding tanks and a full fresh water tank. You never know if the facilities you’ve been promised will actually be functional when you arrive. I attended to these tasks after dinner.

Clubhouse on the left, pool house on the right, golf carts in the middle.

After an early evening stroll through the RV resort we had vegan chocolate cake with fresh strawberries for dessert. As expected, the cake was excellent.

2013/12/19 (R) Snowbirds Take Flight

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Why do people snowbird? I don’t know about anyone else, but as we have gotten older we have become less tolerant of the cold and the work involved in clearing snow from our driveway. We are also not winter sports people, so the main charm of winter for us is looking at the snow. True, now that we are both retired we no longer have to drive to/from work every day, regardless of how ridiculously dangerous the weather and road conditions are, but that does not equate to a particularly active lifestyle. And with the change in the way we eat—to a whole-foods plant-based approach —we are both healthier than we been in decades; so part of the decision to become snowbirds was the desire to be in a place where we could be much more physically active during the winter months.

As I have described in some previous post(s), we decided to try Florida for our first snowbird experience primarily because of the Arcadia (Bus’in) Rally held in Arcadia, Florida between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Although we would have liked to be headed south around November 1^st, family, business, and personal commitments did not make that possible. Early entry for the Arcadia Rally, however, was December 26^th. We often try to take advantage of early entry dates when they are offered and we wanted to arrive on the 26^th and get set up.

Our original plan was to leave on the 20^th, drive to Berea, Kentucky and stay two nights. We would then drive to Cartersville, Georgia on the 22^nd and again stay two nights. The 24^th would find us driving to somewhere in Florida and again staying for two nights. The morning of the 26^th we would then drive to Arcadia, Florida. That was the plan, before the weather forecast strongly suggested a different itinerary.

Based on the national weather forecasts it appeared that if we left Michigan on the morning of the 20^th there was a high likelihood we could have mixed precipitation on the first part of our drive. Me, the bus, and ice don’t mix. Further, there was a strong cold front pushing south which had the potential for us to drive through heavy rain and experience below freezing overnight lows for much of our trip south. Leaving on Thursday the 19^th offered the opportunity to get somewhat ahead of the rain and avoid below-freezing overnight lows for the entire trip. Either way it looked like we were going to drive in rain.

As I mentioned in the previous post we had determined that the Lakewood Village RV Resort in Wapakoneta, Ohio was far enough south to assure overnight low temperatures above freezing. We decided to aim for a Thursday noon departure which, barring any traffic situations, would put us at the RV resort before 4 PM with plenty of daylight left for getting parked and hooked up. From there we would continue on to Berea, Kentucky and Cartersville, Georgia as planned, but only stay one night in each place, ending up at Williston Crossings RV Resort in Williston, Florida where we would stay for four nights before driving to the Arcadia Rally.

We were up early Thursday morning, had our usual breakfast, and then got right to work loading the bus. We packed more “stuff” than we did for our summer trip out west. Our western trip was only two months with mostly summer climate so we only needed summer clothes. This trip will be closer to four months by the time we get back with temperatures ranging for below-freezing lows to highs in the 80’s, requiring a more extensive selection of clothes.

Although we had 8+ inches of snow on the ground and temperatures in the 20’s when we got up, there was some sunshine and temperatures rose through the morning to just above freezing. The driveway was already cleared as we hired a snow-removal service for the winter and I had spent several hours the previous day removing a couple of additional inches that fell after the snow removal service was there. As we did not expect to have overnight lows below freezing we decided to load fresh water on board which would allow us to use the bathroom and then fully de-winterize the rig once we got parked without having to hook up to an external water supply.

By noon the bus and car were ready. We rounded up the cats, put them on board, and then finished prepping the house. We checked the light timers, stopped the grandfather clock, set the thermostats at 55 deg F (we can monitor and control the main one via the Internet), winterized the toilets and sink traps so they would not evaporate (and just in case), opened cabinets with water lines to aid in keeping them at room temperature, turned off the well pump, closed the water valves, and shutdown the water conditioning equipment. We locked the doors and pulled out of the driveway at 12:30 PM.

Our site at C2C Lakewood Village RV Resort in Wapakoneta, OH.

We drove about four miles to get to Grand River Avenue, picked up I-96 eastbound for about four miles and then headed south on US-23. It took about 90 minutes to reach the Ohio state line and another 30 minutes to swing around the west and south sides of Toledo, Ohio to reach I-75 in Perrysburg, Ohio. We had an easy run south from there to exit 111 at Wapakoneta, and just another half-mile to get to Lakewood Village RV Resort. We arrived at 4 PM, having traveled 166 miles in 3.5 hours. But it was almost due south of our starting point and got us out of freezing temperatures.

Why aren’t there more RV’s here?

The resort was open for business but mostly snow-covered with very few guests. The resort roads and parking lots, however, were clear of snow. We were allowed to pick our spot and found a nice pull-though that just accommodated our motorcoach/car combination and would provide for an easy exit the following morning. We had an early dinner and turned in for the night at 8 PM.

2013/12/17-18 (T-W) Cleared For Departure

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We were planning to leave for Florida (in the bus) on Friday, December 20^th, so by Tuesday the 17^th our attention was starting to focus sharply on what we had to do to get out of town. But first we had to get Marilyn to the airport for a mid-afternoon flight back to St. Louis, Missouri. Linda did the shuttle run while I stayed home and started pulling together stuff to load on the bus or into the car. I also started copying the files from the old Buffalo Technologies LinkStation Pro Duo NAS to the new Buffalo Technologies LS421e NAS. This turned out to take quite a bit of time as I had to do the copying in pieces; there were too many files and too many gigabytes of data to copy and paste them in one move.

We also started watching the weather forecast, both at home at along our route. By Wednesday the 18^th it was becoming clear that we would be much better off leaving on Thursday the 19^th instead of our planned date of the 20^th. We had planned to have company over for dinner on Wednesday, however, so we did not see how we could possibly be ready to leave the next day. Although we were disappointed by a last minute cancelation due to the illness of one of our guests, it changed the situation in favor of a Thursday departure. (We hope you are much better very soon Kristine.)

To paraphrase John Muir, “The driveway is calling and I must go.”

We originally intended to leave early enough on Friday the 20^th to get past Ann Arbor, Michigan before the morning rush hour and make it a campground in Berea, Kentucky before dark. It was clear that we could not be ready to leave that early on Thursday morning, and did not want to arrive anywhere in the dark, so we adjusted our plans. (A true traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu). We knew there was a Coast To Coast (C2C) RV resort near Wapakoneta, Ohio. A quick check online indicated that they should still be open this time of year and that we still had enough C2C points in our account to cover the $10 per night cost. A phone call verified that they were open and had plenty of available sites. Although Wapakoneta was only 166 miles from our house it was far enough south to have overnight low temperatures above freezing. It was also close enough that we could leave at noon and be there by 4 PM. That would give us the morning to finish loading the bus and closing up the house.

2013/12/13-16 (F-M) Family Time

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In part because Linda and I had decided to leave for Florida before December 25^th, our son and daughter-in-law decided to have Madeline’s 1^st birthday celebration on Saturday, December 14 instead of her actual birth date on Wednesday the 18^th. This put in motion a planning process in which Shawna’s mother (Carol) flew in from Denver, Colorado on Friday the 13^th and flew back on Sunday the 15^th. Linda’s sister (Sister Marilyn) also flew in from St. Louis, Missouri on Friday and flew back on Tuesday the 17^th.

A big present for a little girl.

Marilyn arrived at 9 PM local time. We now have a one hour drive from our new house to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, so we left early enough to stop at Neehee’s in Canton, Michigan for dinner. Neehee’s is a chain (I think) that serves Indian vegetarian street food. It is fast, reasonably priced, and fantastically good eats. It is not convenient to where we now live, however, so whenever we have to drive anywhere near there (which isn’t very often) we try to plan time to stop and have lunch or dinner.

This is why Michiganders become snowbirds.

On Saturday, in spite of very marginal winter weather, Shawna’s sister (Tracey) and her family (Kyle, Mari, and Andrew) drove over from the Grand Rapids, Michigan area and her brother (Rob) and his family (Becky and Jack) drove up from Columbus, Ohio. We all gathered at Brendan and Shawna’s house in Ann Arbor late that morning for Madeline’s 1^st birthday party.

Part of our new backyard looking NE from the dining room.

Madeline had come down with croup a few days earlier and developed a bad cold to go with it—her first real illness since she was born—but she was a trooper and enjoyed opening her presents (with a little help from mom and dad). Meghan, Chris, and Katie were also there and our side of the family took our leave mid-late afternoon so Shawna’s family could have their holiday celebration.

More presents for Madeline at the our family gathering.

The wintry weather continued on Sunday and with temperatures below freezing the snow continued to accumulate. The bus was winterized so we did not have any concerns about water tanks or pipes freezing, but we kept the electrical heaters in the house and bays running just the same.

Iggy (the cat) getting into the holiday spirit.

Sunday was a quiet day for Linda, Marilyn, and me, but Monday found us headed back to Brendan and Shawna’s in Ann Arbor for the Fay Family holiday celebrations. Meghan and Chris were there again, but being a school day Katie was not able to join us. We had a great visit and a lovely dinner meal. Linda made vegan lasagna, Chris brought salad, bread sticks, meatballs, and dessert from the restaurant (he’s the general manager), and Brendan/Shawna provided the wine.

The holiday meal (Linda is taking the photo).

2013/12/07-12 (S-R) The Celebrations Begin

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On Saturday morning I went to our local ham radio club breakfast as I usually do. Linda stayed home, which is not usual, as I had a website meeting immediately following breakfast. Club president Mike (W8XH) and I previewed the new club website for a small group that included the other two officers. We provided them with logins so they could access the site, most of which is blocked from public view, and asked them to interact with it and provide feedback.

We had ordered garage door openers so each of our children could have one. They arrived a couple of days earlier and we finally got around to programming them on Saturday afternoon. They arrived just in time, too, as we were headed to Katie’s (grand-daughter #2) 17^th birthday dinner that evening. Our daughter (Meghan) and her husband (Chris, Katie’s dad) were there, as were our son (Brendan), his wife (Shawna), and their daughter (Madeline, grand-daughter #1).

Katie has developed quite a taste for sushi and selected Yotsuba in Ann Arbor, Michigan for her birthday meal. Japanese restaurants were once a rare treat for us. As with most restaurants that are not specifically vegan, or “vegan friendly” Japanese restaurants now pose a challenge for us. But they had things we could eat, and they were very good. Katie is very interested in science and decided she would like to start building a library with some quality leather-bound books in it. She specifically requested Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species… and Linda was able to find a used, mint condition copy at Franklin Books (in New Jersey).

Brendan and Shawna had a social engagement after dinner so they left to put Madeline to bed. Linda and I followed a short while later and did baby-sitting duty for a couple of hours until they returned. By the time we got home it had been a long but very good day.

Sunday evening was the annual South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club holiday dinner which is held in lieu of our regular second Sunday of the month business meeting and technical program. The club decided to try a new venue this year and selected the Zukey Lake Tavern near Pinckney, Michigan from among three candidates. Although not located in South Lyon, we had a portion of the restaurant to ourselves that was sufficient to accommodate the 40 people who showed up. We were also allowed to order from the menu and had sufficient wait-staff to efficiently take our orders and deliver our food. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and like the food; at least they ate a lot of it!

Linda pulled her usual babysitting shift on Monday and I headed for Edwardsburg, Michigan to retrieve the bus. I originally planned to winterize it and then drive to our friends’ place in Twelve Mile, Indiana to spend a couple of days tying up loose ends on the Zena auxiliary power generator project. I was then going to take the bus to Martin Diesel in Defiance, Ohio to have them check, service, and adjust it before returning home. As most of this work would be done outside, I decided to alter my plans when the weather forecast called for overnight low temperatures near zero (F) for most of the week. Pat and Vickie Lintner from our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter had once again offered the use of a spare bedroom at the house in Elkhart, Indiana so I took them up on that. That allowed me to spend the later afternoon and early evening working with Michele Henry at Phoenix Paint on an article I was writing about the exterior renovation of our coach that was done by her shop from October 2011 to August 2012. I grabbed a salad for dinner at the Martin’s grocery store on SR-19 on the north side of Elkhart, Indiana and then headed to the Lintners’ for the evening. (BTW: If you are in the Elkhart area and want a really nice salad, the Martin’s salad bar is fabulous. They also have a deli counter where you can get hot items, including potatoes. They have fountain and bottled soft drinks and a Starbucks Coffee, all conveniently located next to a two-level seating area where you can sit and eat, and they have free Wi-Fi if you want to sit and work.)

On Tuesday morning I finished prepping the bus for travel, hooked up the car, and left Phoenix Paint around mid-morning for the drive back to our house in Howell, Michigan. I like to change up my route, so this time I took US-12 to I-69 to I-96 to M-59 to our house, with a stop at the Mobile Truck Stop on I-96 at M-52 before exiting onto M-59. I arrived home mid-afternoon with a full tank of diesel fuel, parked and leveled the bus, and plugged it in. Linda was in holiday shopping mode, so she wasn’t there when I arrived.

I spent the next couple of days working at my desk trying to get a few last minute things taken care of on various websites and straightening up papers. When we are gone for a while we prefer not to come home to clutter and chaos. Linda went to the bakery for the day on Thursday and I headed over to Micro-Center in Madison Heights, Michigan to purchase a Buffalo Technologies LinkStation 421e dual drive Network Attached Storage (NAS) enclosure and two Toshiba 3.0 TB hard disk drives. This new NAS was an addition to our existing Buffalo Technologies LinkStation Pro Duo 1.0 TB RAID 1 NAS, which we planned to take with us in the bus.

The drives were very easy to install in the LS421e. On power up the LS421e initially configured itself as a RAID 0 NAS, which means it combined the HDDs to appear as a single 6.0 TB drive. The NAS Navigator 2 software that came with the unit made it fairly easy to manage the device and I reconfigured it as a 3.0 TB RAID 1 NAS, in which the two drives are mirror images of each other. If one drive fails it can be replaced with a drive of the same or larger capacity and the new drive will become an exact mirror of the other one. The process required some patience, however, as the RAID 1 configuration took approximately 10 hours per Terabyte, or 30 hours total, to configure itself. The NAS Navigator 2 software tells you this in advance, so it doesn’t come as a surprise, but it is a very long time. A bonus to the NAS Navigator 2 software is that it will manage all Buffalo Technologies LinkStation and TeraStations on the network, so I was able to use it to manage the existing LinkStation. That was an unexpected bonus as the existing LinkStation was originally installed and managed from a workstation computer that is no longer in service.

2013_11-16_12-06 Time Flies

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It’s been three weeks since my last post. We have been incredibly busy, but that doesn’t mean I have much to write about. Sometimes busy is just busy. For my part, I’ve been neglecting our website and this blog in favor of designing, testing, and vetting three other WordPress-based websites; two for RV clubs and one for our local ham radio club. That has taken a lot of my time, but I don’t mind. It’s very interesting work that I chose to take on, and I’m learning a lot, which I enjoy. But it isn’t necessarily all that interesting to write about.

I continue to discover useful WordPress plug-ins and learn how to use them. I am using Participants-Database to create online member directories, WP-Members to block them from public view and require a username and password to view them, and Exclude-Pages to create web-pages that do not appear anywhere in the WordPress menu structure. I am also using Meteor-Slides to create automated slide shows. After a long and frustrating search for a good photo album / image gallery plug-in, I finally figured out how to create galleries using the native WordPress gallery function. That was a major victory and I was so glad I persisted in my search instead of buying one. I have also installed WP-Backup-2-Dropbox, which is automatically doing a weekly backup of all four of the sites to my personal Dropbox account.

Steve was over several times to work on the Linux box and we finally got one of the WordPress websites ported over and working! We had to edit a few pointers in the wp-config.php file and set the permalinks back to default, but that did the trick! Porting over the other three sites will have to wait, but eventually I will be able to install and test new plug-ins on my own local web-server and even develop content which I can then upload to the live site. Working on the local web-server instead of the live web-host has a number of advantages. For one, the system will respond more quickly. But most importantly I won’t inadvertently take down one of my live sites.

Bus Conversions Magazine ran another one of my articles in the December 2013 issue. This one was on the construction and installation of the new auxiliary air panel. You can read more about it on our BCM page.

The new owner of BCM, Gary Hall, has faced and met a whole string of challenges since buying the magazine, but I remain confident that he is on the path to saving the magazine and not just making it viable, but making it better than it has ever been. BCM remains a unique resource for the non-commercial bus converter and I am doing what I can to help keep it in business by subscribing and submitting articles. It’s pretty simple really; the magazine needs subscribers, authors, and advertisers. The problem is that each one of those groups wants the other two groups to be in place before they make a commitment. No one wants to read a magazine with no content (articles and advertisements). Authors don’t want to write for a magazine that no one reads and advertisers don’t support. And advertisers don’t want to spend money placing ads in magazines with no content that no one reads. Fortunately BCM has advertisers, authors, and subscribers, but they could use more of each.

If you are reading this blog post and you own a converted bus, are converting a bus, are thinking about converting a bus, or have a business that sells things that might be useful to people with converted buses, please consider subscribing to or advertising in Bus Conversions Magazine. And if you are specifically converting a bus or working on one that is already converted, please consider writing one or more articles about the work you are doing, and take a lot of pictures to go with it. You do not have to be a great writer or photographer. If you provide them with a starting point the folks at BCM will work with you to turn it into a nice article. And I can tell you from personal experience this past year that it is fun to see your articles in print. In fact, your bus could be the “cover” and “centerfold.” Now really, haven’t you always dreamed of that? 🙂

Starting with the January 2014 issue of BCM there will be another staffing change. It appears that they are going to use my article on the FMCA GLAMARAMA 2013 rally that was held in Goshen, Indiana back in September 2013. While the article is specifically about that rally, it is more generally about the experience of attending an RV rally put on by one of the large RV organizations. Assuming the article runs, it will be my seventh article in 12 months and my third cover article. Not bad for a beginner. I have also agreed to “cover” the Arcadia 2014 Rally in Arcadia, Florida December 29-31. It’s called the 2014 rally because it runs through New Year’s Eve with everyone departing on New Year’s Day. This is one of the largest gatherings of converted buses currently taking place in the country, and it will be the first time Linda and I have attended.

Applying putty to base of Searchlight

The 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st of November saw me back at Phoenix Paint in Edwardsburg, Michigan working on the bus and consulting with Michele Henry on the repair of the body panels and rear bumper fascia. I was invited to spend the night at the house of fellow GLCC members Pat & Vickie’s nearby which saved me the cost of a motel and provide dinner and conversation. Thank you both.

WiFiRanger MT permanent mount

We We managed to fix the front roof-mounted remote-controlled searchlight and get it re-attached to the roof. We also undid the temporary mounting (zip ties) of the WiFiRanger-MT (mobile titanium) and mounted it behind the front TV antenna to the driver’s side using the permanent roof-mount bracketing. I removed the covers from the front and rear over-the-air TV antennas and was finally able to determine and map the direction they point to the numbers on the controller box. That will finally allow us to know where we are aiming the antennas.

Access hole in utility bay floor

My last little project was to install the Critter-Guard. There is a hole in the floor of the utility bay with a ring installed around it that is threaded to accept a screw-in cover. The Critter-Guard consists of a circular piece of high-density foam, a two-piece plastic cover, and small latches to hold the cover in place. I was not able to remove the old screws that secure the ring, so I drilled holes for new ones halfway in-between the old ones. The product came with two sets of slightly different latches to accommodate just this situation.

Critter-Guard parts and instructions

Critter-Guard installed

With the latches installed, the electrical shoreline and fresh water hose were routed into the bay through the hole in the floor. The foam is split along most of a diameter and has two holes in it (along the diameter line), one for the electrical shoreline, and the other for the fresh water hose. The foam fits snuggly around these lines and into the hole in the floor. The two-piece Critter-Guard cover plate is also split along a diameter and has two holes to match the holes in the foam. The plate has a tongue on one piece and a groove on the other. It is fitted around the shorelines on top of the foam and the latches are turned to hold it in place. The net result is that “critters” cannot get into the bay through the utility line access hole. I plan to submit this little project to Bus Conversions Magazine as a short article / product review.

As long as I’m talking about buses, I found a major air leak in Chuck’s Prevost H3-40 Liberty conversion. As with all older buses, he has been plagued with air leaks. Our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, has fixed a lot of them by replacing air valves and tightening air lines, but leaks remain, and Chuck’s auxiliary air compressor was still running more often than it should while parked. I was poking around in the bay under the driver’s seat—looking for the check valve that is usually installed in the air line from the auxiliary air compressor to the air system—when I heard a distinct hissing noise. I heard it clearly, but it was at a frequency that Chuck did not hear. He had a plastic tube stethoscope and I used it to clearly locate the leak as coming from the pressure control switch. This switch (also known as a well pump switch when used in a water system) monitors the pressure in the auxiliary air system and turns the auxiliary air compressor on and off as needed to maintain the pressure between two set point limits. Once I was able to place the stethoscope at the loudest point, Chuck was also able to hear it clearly. He removed the old pressure switch, got the specs off of it, and I found an exact replacement in stock at Northwest Plumping Supply in Howell, not far from my house. Chuck picked it up, installed it, and … no more air leak, at least not there. The auxiliary air pressure is holding much better than it was before so the auxiliary air compressor is running much less frequently and Chuck (and Barbara) are much happier. They things that make “bus people” happy are different from what makes most people happy. You would probably have to try living in an RV to fully understand.

When Linda went in for her annual physical exam in early November she was able to talk to the nurse and find an opening for me. I was able to get my lab work done a few days in advance, and the results were available in the Henry Ford Health System MyChart website that same afternoon. I like having the lab work done in advance so that I can discuss the results with our doctor. Everything was within the normal range, so I was pleased. I got a new prescription for my nasal allergy medication and had to mail it in to our mail order pharmacy provider as this was the first prescription either of us has had filled since we switched our health coverage to the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System on July 1^st.

The Thanksgiving Spread

We went to our daughter’s house for Thanksgiving with family. Linda and the two kids did all the cooking and we had a nice assortment of dishes, many vegan-friendly. We got a Tofurkey for the two of us and it was very good. (Everyone else had real turkey; boo.) We had fresh grapes, fresh cranberry-orange salad, roasted Brussels sprouts, candied sweet potatoes, regular mashed potatoes, home make Parker House rolls (thanks Meghan!), some yummy cookies, some nice wine, and other things I can’t remember. Both of our grand-daughters were there. It was nice.

My friend and former co-worker, Kate, got back from a week+ trip to Berlin, Germany just in time for us to take her out for a birthday dinner; not exactly on her birthday, but close. We went to Nirmal in Ypsilanti, an Indian restaurant with a health conscious attitude. They had a buffet style setup designed for carryout, but you could also have it dine-in, which is what we did. Linda and I got two vegan entrees (green beans and okra), yellow rice, garlic naan bread, and a small dessert for $5 each plus tea. Kate ordered Makhani with chicken off the menu. We adjourned to the closest Starbucks for coffee, photo viewing (on an iPad, of course), and conversation. Kate had selected 30 photographs to show us, and they were wonderful, as usual.

2013_11_08-15 (F-R) Another Busy Week

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The second week of November was another one of those weeks where we were busy every day from the time I got up until the time we went to bed, but I don’t have a clear recollection of what I was doing each day as I did not always mark it on my calendar. I think that is because I spent a lot of time at my computers working on WordPress websites and installing packages/updates. Some days are very clear, however.

2013-11-08 (F) The “Eyes” Have It

We had managed to snag a couple of appointment times this morning to have our eyes checked by our long-standing optometrist at the Farmington Vision Clinic. Linda’s eyes had not changed very much, but it had been a couple of years since she got new glasses, so she decided to get a pair. I had been experiencing intermittent “wavy” patterns and was a bit concerned about that. The exam did not indicate any issues with diabetes or glaucoma, so that was a relief. The tentative diagnosis was “pre-migraine ocular disturbance” which was interesting because I was not experiencing any headaches, and rarely do. The trigger may be something that I eat, perhaps caffeine or wine, so I may need to keep a food log. Ugh. I like writing about the dishes Linda prepares, but I don’t like “logging” my food intake.

Chuck is in the process of prepping their bus for southbound travel, so I met up with him for lunch. He had also gotten connected to a guy in California whose older brother was living in Michigan when he passed away back in June. The older brother was well known in the Prevost bus community, and had a converted coach stored in the N.E. suburbs of the Detroit Metro Area. The surviving brother needed to deal with as part of his brother’s affairs, and Chuck had offered our assistance on Sunday.

2013_11_09 (S) Schramm’s Mead

But first we had to deal with Saturday, which started with our usual ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon, Michigan. Attendance varies, but we had a big crowd of at least 20 people. After breakfast we decided to drive over to Ferndale and find Schramm’s Mead. I worked with Ken Schramm before I retired from Wayne RESA. He’s still the TV / Multi-media Production Manager there, but outside of normal business hours he is a well-known expert on the subject of mead, having written a well-respected book on the subject, and speaking at international conventions. He and his wife Jean and their daughter Alison have been working for over a year to get Schramm’s Mead open, and that finally happened about 6 weeks ago. They are at 327 W. 9 Mile Rd. in Ferndale, Michigan. The meadery is located in a very “happening” part of town just a short walk west of the intersection of 9 Mile Rd. and Woodward Avenue and should be a good location for them. Parking was plentiful, with both paid and free options. We sampled their complete line of currently available mead products and bought three bottles. I have added a section to the Health & Food tab of this website on Wine & Mead and refer you there for more information about mead and the offerings from Schramm’s Mead. Let me just say here “this is good stuff.”

2013_11_10 (N) Buses & Ham Radio

Sunday found me headed to Chuck’s house near South Lyon bright and early, or at least early. We needed to meet the guy from California at the RV storage lot in Shelby Township, so it took an hour to get there. He was waiting for us, let us in, and led us to the bus. It was a 1997 (~) Prevost XL (40’) Royale Coach conversion with a Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine and 6-speed automatic transmission. It appeared to be in good shape and Chuck and I set about figuring out its state. The chassis batteries had been left “on” and were drained. The house and generator batteries were also “on” but appeared to be in better shape. It did not appear to have much fuel in the tank, but with the chassis batteries drained we couldn’t get accurate readings from any of the gauges. We got the generator started, plugged in the 24V emergency chassis battery charger, turned the house batter chargers on, and set about finding the circuit breakers and switches seeing what worked.

After letting the generator/24V charger run for several hours the chassis batteries showed no sign of coming back to life. We still had enough hours of daylight to do something about it. We located a NAPA Auto Parts Store less than 2.5 miles from the storage yard and gave them a call. They had 8 of the type battery we needed (12V Group 31). We only needed four. We pulled the old ones out of the bus and headed over. By taking the old ones we did not have worry about disposal/recycling of them and avoided a “core charge.” We installed the new batteries and the DD-60S fired right up. That’s was a beautiful thing to hear. The chassis and brake systems aired-up correctly and the gauges all came to life. That’s was a beautiful thing to see.

The bus had about ¼ tank of fuel indicated, or about 40+ gallons, so we decided we did NOT need to drive it someplace to fuel it right that minute. The bus was headed to Staley Coach in Nashville, TN at the end of the week and could stop for fuel early in the trip.

I had a ham radio club meeting at 6:30 PM, and needed to get dinner, so Chuck and I made our exit and headed back to his house. I got home in time to change clothes but not sit down and eat. Linda made sandwiches for us to eat as we drove to the meeting.

Our November ham radio club meeting is a significant one as we elect officers for the coming year. Mike (W8XH) agreed to run for a 2^nd term as president, Paul (N8BHT) agreed to run again for Treasurer, and I (K8BRF) agreed to run again for Vice-President. Marty (KB8JIU) did not wish to run again as Secretary, and Harvey (AC8NO) agreed to run for that position, which he has held in the past. There being only one candidate for each officer, the slate was declared elected. The program for the evening was put on by Mike (W8XH) and Steve (N8AR). They demonstrated the use of Mike’s Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) to examine the characteristics of an antenna by calibrating out the effects of the transmission line.

Technical note: Transmission lines have losses, i.e., they inherently dissipate as heat some of the energy they are trying to transfer from a radio transmitter to an antenna. The losses depend on frequency, and if the transmission line is of low quality it will dissipate more energy per linear foot than a higher quality one at any particular frequency. How much energy it dissipates thus depends on the inherent loss, the length, and the frequency of the signal. When a transmitter sends energy through a transmission line it would ideally like all of the energy to reach the antenna, be transferred into the antenna, and cause it to resonate, producing electromagnetic radiation. It never works quite that well in practice. If there is a mismatch between the transmission line and the antenna, some of the energy will be “reflected” back down the transmission line towards the transmitter. However, if there are sufficient losses in the transmission line the reflected energy never makes it back to the radio, which makes the radio think everything is just fine when in fact very little of the energy the radio produces may get turned into useful RF EM radiation. Mike’s VNA allows the user to “calibrate out” the effect of the transmission line and “see” what is actually happening at the antenna. That’s cool, and that’s a good thing to be able to do.

2013_11_11 (M) Odds ‘n’ Ends

Monday was a catch-all day for me while Linda went to Ann Arbor for her regular Monday babysitting duty. I talked to Michele and she was encouraged that she would be able to fix the two expensive body panels that I crunched. I called Prevost and ordered the 3^rd panel that she would not be able to fix. It would ship via UPS and arrive on Wednesday. I updated my LinkedIn account and added all three of our phone numbers to the Federal DO NOT CALL LIST, a long overdue chore. I called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment to get new whole-house sediment filters and chlorine tablets for the carbon filter unit. We have a sediment filter housing that takes 10” long large-diameter filter elements. They are a spun polypropylene with a dual micron rating; 50 microns on the outside and 5 microns on the inside. It’s like having two filters in one! The 50 micron portion removes the larger sediment that can quickly plug and filter and render it useless, leaving the 5 micron filter to remove only smaller particles. The flow rate through this filter is excellent, and it’s easy to change thanks to the pre- & post-filter shutoff valves Adam’s installed, and the pressure relief button on top of the housing.

We had previously arranged to meet Kate for dinner. Having just seen her in Ypsilanti, we agree to meet at the Zukey Lake Tavern in Pinckney, Michigan. Linda and I wanted to check it out as our ham radio club had decided to go there for our December holiday meeting/dinner. They have a very average salad bar, but I was able to get plenty to eat at it. Linda had a veggie burger. Not a great choice for us as restaurants go, but it will work well for the club.

2013_11_12 (T) Madeline Comes To Visit

Linda had agreed to babysit our grand-daughter on Tuesday so our son could continue working on a presentation for his department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I don’t get to see Madeline as much as Linda does, so our son offered to bring her to our house and work there while Linda and I handled baby duties. Madeline is a busy little girl. She is an accomplished crawler and is working on standing up and walking. She loves her books and toys, and grandma bought some new ones to have at our house for her. She kept us both busy while her dad worked on his computer. He brought her Pack-n-Play and set it up in the bedroom that we have designated for her. She went down for nap right on schedule at 2 PM and slept for ~90 minutes. We got to play with her until sometime after 5 PM when it was time to leave.

2013_11_13 (W) & _14 (R)

Linda had called a couple of weeks ago and managed to get an appointment with our primary care physician for her annual physical due to a cancellation. Her total cholesterol had risen a little from the last visit, which annoyed her given the way we eat, but her HDL, LDL, and triglyceride numbers all looked really good. She was also able to talk to the nurse and find me an appointment time later in the month. I really did not want to wait until late April or May for my next physical.

Thursday morning I went to Chuck’s bus garage to chat with him and our mobile Mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, who had come in from Chicago to complete some work on Chuck’s coach. Joe had also been engaged by the guy from California to drive the bus to Staley Coach near Nashville, Tennessee on Friday morning and bring the guy back to the Detroit area. It turned out that Chuck needed new brake pads for his tag axle wheels. We were sitting around wringing our hands about how to get those in time for Joe to finish the brake job when I realized that Joe was going to Nashville where Prevost has one of their major factory parts and service centers! Phone calls were made, parts were ordered and put on account for will call, and it was agreed that Joe would pick them up on Friday and bring them back with him. Sometimes bus stories do have happy endings.

I spent Wednesday and part of Thursday working at my computers. Larry (K8UT) is a member of our ham radio club and a very accomplished web designer. He had given me the “key” to getting a local web-server running: LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin). I got MySQL and phpMyAdmin installed on the Linux box but was unable to create the databases I needed in spite of spending time with the documentation. By Thursday evening I still did not have WordPress running on our local web-server, but I was clearly making progress in that direction. Sometimes computer stories have happy endings too.

2013_11_01-07 (F-R)A Busy Week

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The first week of November was very busy, enough so that I was unable (unwilling) to do daily blog posts. Covering the whole week in one post makes for a longer post, but probably shorter than seven separate ones.

2013-11-01 (F)

We were supposed to get our bus back from the shop on Friday, November 1. We didn’t. That meant I could not take it to Phoenix Paint in Edwardsburg, Michigan on Monday the 4^th. I was reminded yet again that a true traveler has no fixed plan. With that off the table temporarily, we turned out attention to other things; Ham Radio Breakfast on Saturday, for instance. It was good conversation, as usual, and we finally arranged to have one couple over for dinner in a few weeks.

2013_11_02 (S)

Saturday afternoon Steve and Karen came over to visit and have dinner. They were not able to attend our open house/warming because they were in Arizona where Steve had made arrangements to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon from the south rim and back up to the north rim. Alas, the park was closed and they had to adjust their plans and find other things to do; which they did (true travelers have no fixed plan). We don’t see them very often, so when we do we have a great, long visit. We had a wonderful dinner of enchiladas and Mexican rice, finished off by chocolate cake with raspberry topping made from raspberries that Linda and I picked ourselves at the Middleton Berry Farm back in September. All vegan, of course.

After dinner we looked at some of their photographs (digital) and they looked at some of ours (also digital). Steve brought along a Raspberry Pi computer. It was slightly larger than a deck of cards and had a 16 GB SD Card that served as its solid state hard drive. It had a couple of USB ports, an HDMI port, and some other connections. Steve had a wireless network adapter in one of the USB ports and a wireless keyboard transceiver (Bluetooth, I presume) in the other. We already had an HDMI cable on the TV so he hooked up to that and voila, pictures. He was even able to control the Raspberry Pi using our TV remote! Now you have to admit, that’s pretty cool. We were also delighted to find out that they have spent part of the last few winters in the Venice, Florida area and are returning again this year. We shared our Florida plans and agreed that we would get together.

2013_11_03 (N)

Sunday we worked around the house and on our computers until late in the afternoon when Chuck and Barbara, our friends and fellow Prevost H3-40 converted coach owners, showed up to visit and have dinner. Although they did make it to our open house/warming we did not get to visit with them very much that day. We talked buses, of course, but we discussed a lot of other things too, including Florida, where they have spent the last six or seven winters, most recently in the Naples area. Again, plans were made to meet while there.

As long as I am on the subject of Florida, we started thinking about extending our stay for at least another month because of potential problems with “seasonal weight restrictions” on the roads around our house. I found out from Phil (of the pull-though driveway) that the restrictions usually go up March 1 and stay up until April 15. Most of the roads in our county, and all of the roads we would have to use to get to our house, are subject to these seasonal weight restrictions but the signs never say what that means. As it turns out, it means a weight limit of 8,400 pounds per axle. Our drive axle (four tires) weighs 20,000 pounds and we have over 7,000 pounds on each of the front/steer tires, so there’s actually no legal way for us to get the bus to our house during that 45-day window. What to do? Stay in Florida for another month! Problem solved. New problem: where to stay? New solution: the same place we are already staying, if they will let us extend our reservation.

2013_11_04 (M)

Monday came and went without the bus being ready. While this delayed my plans yet again, it also provided more time to work on WordPress projects. I checked on the WordPress Backup To Dropbox (wpb2d) plug-in and it appeared to be correctly backing up all four of the sites I am working on to our personal Dropbox account. That was good to see. I also started soliciting “beta testers” for each of the sites. I continued working with the WP-Members plug-in and it appeared to be functioning correctly to block access to selected pages/posts behind a user login. Given that, I started generating user lists for each of the sites to generate usernames and passwords and keep track of when I have created those in WP and provided them to each user.

2013_11_05 (T)

On Tuesday Linda was able to extend our stay at Williston Crossings RV Resort until April 1^st (no fooling). We will figure out later how to manage our trip back to Michigan so that we do not arrive before April 16. Sometime during the week I received an e-mail from the Prevost Owners Group, to which we belong, that the Prevost Motorcoach Show would take place in Tampa, Florida on January 13 and 14, with a reception hosted by Prevost Car Inc. the evening of the 13^th. That sounded like an opportunity to finally meet some folks from Prevost in person, and to admire brand new conversions (that we will never buy) from the likes of Marathon, Millennium, Liberty, Parliament, and Vantare. Sometime during the week it also came to our attention that the Prevost Community group we belong to is planning a rally for the first week of April 2014 at LazyDays RV Dealership in Seffner, Florida! Well Bob’s your uncle. It looks like delaying our return until at least April 16 won’t be that difficult at all.

I needed to make an appointment for my annual physical, so I got on the Henry Ford Health System website. They have a new “feature” called MyChart. When fully functional, which it is not yet, you are supposed to be able to directly book an appointment, and see all of your lab results. But first you have to set up your account. I called the number and got an activation code which I then used to create a Username and Password, and was finally able to log in. The direct scheduling feature wasn’t available for my primary care physician, but there was a “Request An Appointment” page. So I did. I asked for an Adult Physical on Mon., Tue., Wed., or Thu. afternoon between Monday November 25, 2013 and Friday December 6, 2013. Less than 24 hours later I received an e-mail informing me that I had been scheduled for a 1:00 PM appointment for an Office Visit on January 15, 2014. Huh???

I used to program computers for a living, and I used to do systems engineering, and I used to do sales and marketing of these things, and I ended my career as a consultant. This didn’t strike me as bad programming; it struck me as bad policy that got translated into a bad systems specification. So I wrote back to HFHS customer service and told them, as politely as I could, that their system was stupid, that is to say, the policies behind the implementation of their system were not “customer-centric.” If I had wanted an appointment in mid-January I would have requested one. So as of now, I do not have said appointment.

The bus was ready to pick up on Tuesday, so Chuck drove me down to W. W. Williams to get it. I took care of the paperwork and left with Chuck following me in his truck. I no sooner hit the highway than I got a Check Engine Light. It came on and stayed on, so I phoned Chuck and let him know that I needed to turn around and take it back if he was willing to follow me and take me back home. He was, so this we did; my plans further delayed. There are worse things that can happen on this bus; the Stop Engine Light, for instance. This light means exactly what it says, the engine is going to stop and you need to get to the side of the road, now, before it does. I’ve only seen that once, shortly after we bought it. We took care of some key maintenance issues and have never seen it again (and I hope that we never do). I figured I wouldn’t get the bus back from W. W. Williams until Wednesday afternoon at best, so any trip to Edwardsburg was now delayed until Thursday. I called Michele to let her know. She had Pato and Tommy lined up to look at it on Friday, so I was getting anxious to get it down there. But there’s nothing you can do until the mechanics (they are now called technicians) are ready to give it back to you. And frankly, you really don’t want it back until they are sure it is fixed.

While I was gone dealing with the bus, we got a call from Steve (mentioned earlier) wondering if he had left his Raspberry Pi computer here on Saturday. We checked. Yup, it was here. Rather than meet him somewhere, we agreed that he would come back to the house on Wednesday to get it and do some work on our computers while he was here.

2013_11_06 (W)

Steve arrived late Wednesday morning, Linux “tools” in hand. The principle target of the work was to install Linux on one of our machines and then install/configure the Apache web-server program. This would allow us to have a “virtual web-server” that I could use to build duplicate installations of my WordPress sites, allowing me to develop and test them before making the same changes to the live sites. That sounded cool. Steve has been trying to get me interested in Linux for 10 years but I never saw a real need for it until now. It turned in to an all-day project (of course, don’t they all?) due to the age of the machine we decided to use, but that was the machine I wasn’t using for much of anything else, so that’s where it needed to go. Steve got Linux installed and then installed Apache2. We ran out of time to configure the Apache2 program, but that was OK as it will give Steve a reason to come back.

While we were working on the computers we talked some more about Florida. It turns out that the Capitol Steps are scheduled to appear at the Venice Stage Theater in Venice, Florida at the end of January. Our annual get-together with Steve and Karen has often involved dinner and a performance by this group, which specializes in political satire, much of it musical. They said we could stay overnight at the place they rent for winter in Venice if we wanted to go to the performance, which is at 8:00 PM on a Monday evening. The nice thing about traveling with cats is that you can leave them for 24 hours and they are fine. They sleep for 20 of those anyway.

I checked Wednesday afternoon and the bus was reported as “ready to go.” I decided to pick it up early Thursday morning and head directly to Edwardsburg. That meant towing the car so I had a way home, but it also meant that Linda did not have to drive me to W. W. Williams. That worked out well as she had to head in to the bakery on Thursday anyway.

I sometimes get a bit anxious the night before I am going to drive the bus as I don’t drive it every day and we are still finding a fixing “issues.” I used to experience the same thing when we would book one of the Southgate Flying Club airplanes and go flying. Again, I didn’t fly every day. Does this ever happen to you? As I was drifting off to sleep I suddenly remembered that I had planned to fill the fuel tank at the Mobil Truck Stop on I-96 between Howell and Lansing. But that was based on leaving from home. Now wide awake, I got my iPad, pulled up the map application, and zoomed in on the I-94 Baker Road interchange west of Ann Arbor. There are three truck stops there, two Pilots and one Travel America. I was able to examine each one carefully, checking in/out access and pump locations. I decided the Pilot station on the north side of the highway was my best option. I knew I had enough fuel in the tank to get that far easily, so I was then able to go back to bed and finally fall asleep.

2013_11_07 (R)

I must have been sleeping lightly because around 4 AM I was awakened by the faint sound of running water. That’s another one of those sounds that will jolt you awake once you become aware of it. The new flapper in the master bedroom toilet wasn’t quite sealed and the water was running ever so slowly trying to keep the tank full. I was finally able to adjust the flapper a couple of days later and get it to seal, but between the truck stop research and the running water, it turned out to be a short, fitful night’s sleep. Not good preparation for a long day of driving.

I would like to say that the trip from W. W. Williams to Phoenix Paint was uneventful, but Check Engine Lights are definitely an event, and I saw ours come on four times. It eventually went off each time, finally staying off after the 4^th time; once it’s come on I tend to be a bit on edge wondering when I will see it again (or worse).

I stopped for fuel at the aforementioned Pilot truck stop on the north side of I-94 at Baker Road and pulled in behind a truck at the last pump, or so I thought. I sat there for a while until the driver came out and moved it, at which point I pulled up only to discover that there wasn’t a pump at that position. So I pulled out of the truck stop onto Baker Road, came back in the entrance, and got in line behind a truck that was putting fuel in its tanks. That truck finally moved and I was able to pull up to the pump.

Getting fuel at a truck stop isn’t like putting fuel in your car. The gallons and dollars involved are usually an order of magnitude larger and you usually cannot run a credit card at the pump. I went inside, waited in line, and was finally waited on by a nice woman. I told her I probably needed 150 gallons and I failed to recognize that she ran my credit card for $150. I was only half done washing the windshields (the bus has four) when the pump shut off. It had put in 37.9 gallons for exactly $150. So I went back inside, stood in line again, and had her run the card for another $350. Back outside, I restarted the pump, waited for it to finish, then went back inside, got back in line, and got not one, but two, receipts with the dollars and gallons on them. By the time I got back on the highway the fuel stop had taken about one hour. More delay.

No sooner was I on the road then I got a call from Chuck checking on how my trip was going. That was both thoughtful and reassuring; it’s comforting to know folks are aware of you and concerned for your well-being. In some ways, owning a converted coach makes you part of a “fraternity”, if you care to join. While we were on the phone the Check Engine Light came on for the 3^rd time since I had left W. W. Williams. It went off and came on again. I discussed it with Chuck and decided to pull off at MY FAVORITE REST AREA to check the coolant level in the overflow reservoir. (I talked about this rest area in my article in the February 2013 issue of Bus Conversions Magazine. This is the same rest area where I was stranded while Linda and I repaired the patio awning that came loose a few miles earlier on westbound I-94. Ironically, I was on my way to Phoenix Paint at that time as well. I’m not superstitious, but I don’t like unlikely coincidences.)

The rest stop in question is near Grass Lake, Michigan, about 12 miles east of Jackson, Michigan. It’s a very nice rest stop; I just seem to end up stopping here for less than nice reasons. I popped the rear engine hatch, improvised a dip stick, and checked the level in the overflow reservoir. It was up to the bottom edge of the filler tube, so no obvious problem there. I looked around the engine bay for any sign of a coolant leak, but everything looked dry. I took some comfort in the fact that Bob, the service manager at W. W. Williams (Dearborn) had told me that he and the technicians were very impressed with the condition of our engine; that it sounded good and ran well. They’re real experts, so that’s no small thing.

The rest of the trip really was uneventful. The Check Engine Light did not come on again, the transmission shifted well, the cruise control worked properly (as it always has), the engine coolant and oil temperatures ran normal, and the speedometer suddenly decided to work again! I took I-94 W to I-69 S to M-60 W to M-40 S to US-12 W to M-205 W and pulled into Phoenix Paint just a mile north of the Indiana border around 1:00 PM. I’ve done this trip many times, but it was a very pleasant drive with fall colors still in evidence, light traffic, and nice weather.

Michele got me into the building and parked and had me air up the suspension so they could have easier access to the inside of the wheel wells. She and Pato got right to work removing the damaged panels while I hooked up the electrical shoreline, got the house battery charger turned back on, and activated some circuits for the inside of the bus including the auxiliary air compressor. I stopped to look at things and answer questions as I unloaded some items from the car, and then moved stuff from the bus to car that had to return home with me. What started out as a trip to have paint scratches buffed out had become a trip to also find and seal roof leaks and repair/repaint damaged body panels, so Michele and I looked the coach over and discussed the work to be done. I was there about 90 minutes—a really short visit for me and Michele—and got back on the road for home around 2:30 PM.

I had originally planned to spend a few days at her shop working on some small projects of my own, but that was based on a Monday arrival. We had plans to meet up with our friend Kate in Ypsilanti on Thursday evening to see Roy Blount, Jr. at Eastern Michigan University’s Pease Auditorium. I made it home with just enough time to change clothes, but not to eat, and we headed off to Ypsi. We got there just as Kate and her friend Teresa were arriving and got four seats together. RBJr was very interesting to listen too when we could hear him and understand what he was saying. He speaks somewhat softly, and the PA system for the auditorium was not adjusted properly to compensate for that.

After the event we headed over to the Sweetwater Café, just a short walk from the auditorium, for coffee. They had some nice looking veggie rollup sandwiches, so Linda and I had a late/light dinner. We finally got home around 11 PM, a long day for me.

Although my health is better than it has been for the last couple of decades, I do not pretend that I am not in my 6^th decade. I can still do the all-day-drive thing, but I am much more tired at the end of it, and it takes me multiple days to recover from it.

2013_10_25-31 (M-R) FOOD At The Phase Place!

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Sometimes I get busy and don’t keep up with my posts. When I go back even as little as a week, as in this post, I find that many of the details are already lost in the continuous flow of daily living.

With the bus work in Williamston wrapped up, I turned my attention to figuring out what body panels and small parts I needed to order from Prevost to fix the damage I did to the passenger side of the bus leaving the campground in Townsend, TN. I spent a fair amount of time in the Prevost CatBase Viewer database. There were enough parts involved that I made an Excel spreadsheet. I called Prevost U.S. Parts and got Roger Anderson on the line. After discussing this for a while, we decided that it would be easiest for me to e-mail him the spreadsheet.

Next up was final preparations for the annual business meeting of our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter (FTH), of which I am the vice-president and secretary. There are a surprising number of documents that are involved in a simple meeting of a small group: an agenda (from the president), minutes from last year’s meeting, financial statements (which Linda and I prepare based on data from the treasurer), proposed amendments to the bylaws, and an updated roster. All of these get converted to PDF files and uploaded to a folder in our Dropbox account. I have provided a link to that folder to all of our members.

We made our usual trip to South Lyon on Saturday morning for breakfast with members of the South Lyon Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC). Linda worked on recipes. I installed the WP-Recipes plug-in and she has started using it to capture and publish recipes for some of our favorite whole-food plant-based (WFPB) dishes. She is evening taking a photograph of the finished dish and adding it to the recipe page. (Click on the Food & Health Tab and then on Recipes in the dropdown menu.)

While Linda worked on recipes I worked on WordPress websites. Besides our own, I am working on websites for our FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter (FTH), our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches Chapter (GLCC, of which Linda is the Treasurer), and our South Lyon Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC).

WordPress is constantly releasing updates and new versions. This generally a good thing, but they always strongly advise that you backup your site (folders/files/database) before installing an upgrade. I haven’t been doing that, so I decided on Saturday that I should. The GLCC website is an add-on domain for our primary/personal site, so I was able to back it up using the backup utilities in the QTH.com cPanel. The FTH website is hosted by iPower and the SLAARC website is hosted by GoDaddy, neither of which use cPanel nor appear to have built in backup utilities. There is some provision for backup built in to WordPress.

When I used the cPanel backup utility to backup our primary/personal site and the GLCC site it was about 1 GB. We only had 2.5 GB on our free Dropbox account, so I signed up for the 100 GB Dropbox plan. I then went on a search for a WordPress plug-in that would do the backups on a schedule. I selected WordPress Backup To Dropbox (WPB2D) and then installed and activated it on all four sites. I am going to test it for a couple of weeks and see how it works. I hope it works well as it is a very simple plug-in to use.

Our FTH meeting was scheduled as a conference call for 6:00 PM EDT on Sunday evening, October 27. We have 40 memberships in the chapter and needed 10 to make a quorum. 6:00 PM came and went and at 6:15 PM we only had 8 people on the line. The president polled the group and decided we would try again the next night; same time, same place.

Our SLAARC information net is held every Sunday evening at 8:00 PM. I was a regular participant up until we moved to the new house. Although I have our 2m/70cm base station antenna mounted on the old TV tower, I do not have the coax run to the ham shack in the basement. Hooking up the radio is inconvenient, especially in cold/dark/wet conditions, all of which we now have. I would like to have the ham shack set up and functioning, but it has not made it to the top of the list yet.

On Monday I drove the bus to W. W. Williams in Dearborn, Michigan to have them look at the auxiliary air system and the speedometer. They thought the constant cycling of the main engine air-compressor was either the governor or the air-dryer purge valve. Since the governor had just been replaced, I authorized replacing the purge valve. They thought the speedometer issue was the “tone wheel”, the sensor, or the gauge. The sensor was just replaced, so I authorized them to check that it was installed correctly and to pull the output shaft housing on the end of the transmission to check the tone wheel.

I called Roger back at Prevost U.S. Parts. He had filled in my spreadsheet and prepared a Prevost quote, so he e-mail those back to me. I decided to hold off ordering until Michele at Phoenix Paint has a chance to look at the damage and decide if she can fix it.

Linda and I had staked out the size/location of our planned bus barn and driveway. We adjusted the stakes slightly, moving the barn 5 feet farther from the road and squaring it up. It’s currently 32 ft. wide by 56 ft. long with a driveway that includes a spur for turning around. Phil from Precision Grading came by Monday evening, measured the area, and dug a couple of test holes to see what soil conditions we had. He said we had 13 inches of good top soil in that area. This will have to be removed and replaced with crushed concrete and 21AA road gravel, so we discussed possible locations on our property for the top soil. Some of it will go in a depressed area behind the proposed barn location. This area forms a lake whenever we get heavy/persistent rain. Some it will probably go on the west side of the main garage driveway, which currently drops off more than we would like, and somewhat unevenly. There are also low spots on the far west end of our property, and some of the topsoil will likely go there.

I spent the rest of this period working on the various websites. In particular, I finally figured out how to configure and use the WP-Members plug-in to restrict access to selected portions of a WordPress site based on a Username and Password. With that feature working, I focused on design (structure) and content for the FTH and GLCC sites. I got sidetracked on Halloween with the idea of installing a “slider” (automated slideshow) in place of the default graphic in the RESPONSIVE Theme I am using for the GLCC site. I selected and installed Meteor Slides based on its demonstration by the authors of RESPONSIVE. It had the appearance of being very simple to install and use, and it was/is once I figured it out. It took me 5 hours to do that, but I did. The site is not ready for viewing yet, but I will share the address when it is.

2013_10_20 (N) The Blue Ridge Parkway, VA

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The Beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway headed south.

After breakfast we arranged ourselves in Ron and Mary’s Honda mini-van and around 10 AM headed up I-81 towards Waynesboro, Virginia and the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had beautiful blue skies, with no threat of rain and highs forecast to be in the 60’s. We exited I-81 N at US-250 and headed east through Waynesboro to the northern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Our merry little band of intrepid hikers.

Our first destination was the Visitor Center at Humpback Rocks. We spent a few minutes there looking at the indoor exhibits and used the “facilities.” We set Marilyn up in a comfy chair with her book. Ron, Mary, Linda, and I then walked through the period farmstead on our way to the Humpback Rocks Trailhead.

Interior of an early 19th century mountain farmstead cabin.

The Humpback Rocks are a rock outcropping near the top of a mountain that requires a 0.8 mile hike with a 900 ft vertical elevation gain. Most of the trial was in excellent shape considering the number of hikers who were using it. It was entirely wooded, with natural rock “stairs” in some places and steps that clearly showed the hand of man, but were very well done. Parts of the trail near the top were wet and the rocks were slippery but passable.

Mary, Ron, and Linda on the Humpback Rocks.

The Humpback Rocks are devoid of trees and provided a panoramic view of the valley to the west and the mountains beyond spanning more than 180 degrees from south to east of north. Unfortunately, we were there around noon to 1 PM and the lighting was not ideal for photographing the valley and mountains. We spent an hour up there enjoying the view anyway before heading down.

Linda, Ron, and Mary on the Humpback Rocks.

The hike down was harder in some ways than the hike up. Uphill hikes are generally about leg muscles, but the pace is naturally slower and it’s not too hard to find good footing. Downhill hikes are about impact on joints, and footing is tricky, especially on the wet/slippery rocks we had to deal with in a few spots along the way. Ron and Mary use adjustable hiking poles, and had an extra one for Linda, which she needed. I should have used one, but didn’t. We have a pair of adjustable poles at home, left over from a previous era of winter camping and cross country ski backpacking, but we added a new pair for each of us to our “next time” list.

We made it back to the Visitor Center around 2 PM and had a picnic lunch that we had packed that morning, rested for a while in the warm sun, and eventually made ready to continue down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

A red berry bush along the Blue Ridge Parkway, VA.

The rest of the afternoon we drove south along the Parkway, stopping at some of the scenic overlooks to overlook the scenery and take photographs. The time of day and angle of the sun were not ideal for photography, but that did not take anything away from the views.

We exited the Parkway at US-60 and headed south through Buena Vista on US-501 to Natural Bridge, where we vectored off on VA-130 over to US-11 N and drove the few miles back to the entrance to the Natural Bridge / Lexington KOA.

Tonight was Linda’s turn to prepared dinner and she opted to make her Farro with mushrooms which is a favorite of mine. She added leafy greens to the leftover salad from the night before, and served the dish with whole grain bread. A little wine helped wash everything down. Ron, Mary, and Marilyn finished the pie from the previous evening and Mary sliced up some fresh strawberries for me and Linda. Ron and I did the dishes, after which we started a campfire and sat around until late in the evening talking and enjoying our last night in camp together.

2013_10_19 (S) Lexington VA

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As I mentioned yesterday, we are camping with family at the Natural Bridge / Lexington KOA. We let Marilyn sleep until 8 AM, and then got up, got dressed, and started moving around the coach. Ron and Mary came over around 8:30 – 8:45 AM, Panera Bagel Pack in tow, and we had breakfast in the coach. Based on the weather forecast, which was overcast for today and a bit sunnier for tomorrow, we decided to go to Lexington, Virginia about 10 miles north of our campground.

As is true of much of the United States, I did not know anything about Lexington. That turned out to be a bit surprising to me as there are three universities there, and it has a strong connection to the Civil War. It is full of old, but well preserved/restored architecture, and has become the center of an active artist community. All of these things combined to give it a very nice look and feel.

The backyard of Stonewall Jackson house, Lexington, VA.

Our first stop was at the visitor center where we picked up some maps and got some tips from the staff. From there we headed towards Main Street, stopping at the home of Stonewall Jackson. We didn’t tour the inside ($) but the yard was open for an apple cider event. A trio (banjo, fiddle, and guitar) was performing, and a hand-cranked apple press was in operation. We walked the rear garden and got to taste some freshly pressed, unpasteurized apple juice.

Above photo with “oil painting” effect.

While we were at the Stonewall Jackson house, we started hearing loud truck horns. At first I thought they were emergency vehicles on their way somewhere, but we quickly found out that there was a truck parade going down Main Street. We walked the short distance to the corner and stood there watching tractor after tractor go by. Most of the rigs were tricked out, polished up, and looking good. Owning/driving a highway bus doesn’t automatically make you a gear head, but it does tend to heighten you awareness and appreciation of large tractor-trailers.

Linda, Ron, and Marilyn in front of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Chapel, WLU, Lexington, VA.

We walked a little farther up the street to the campus of Washington and Lee University, where Robert E. Lee and many other members of his family are buried in the Robert E. Lee Memorial Chapel. The founding of the university pre-dates the American Revolution and most of the buildings feature simple, pre-revolutionary era, architecture; red brick with white trim. It was a very attractive campus, and the house that Robert E. Lee lived in when he was president of the university is still there.

The Jackson Cemetery, Lexington, VA.

From WLU we walked back to South Main Street to Nikko’s Restaurant, which Linda found on HappyCow.net as a “vegetarian friendly.” She had a vegan sandwich and I had a portabella mushroom sandwich. Both were very good.

Stonewall Jackson Chapel, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA.

After Nikko’s we walked a little farther south to the Jackson Cemetery, where Stonewall Jackson and a number of his family members are interred. We then walked back to the car and drove to the campus of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a public 4-year undergraduate college offering a military style education. Here we visited the Stonewall Jackson museum, which included an excellent collection of firearms ranging from pre-revolutionary era to the present day.

Stonewall Jackson Chapel, VMI, Lexington, VA.

We finished up our time in Lexington with a short drive through the ante-bellum house district and then found the local Kroger supermarket. Linda and Mary picked up a few things for upcoming dinners and some candy for the kids back at the KOA as they are doing “trick-or-treat” from 6:30 – 7:30 PM this evening.

Native American Flutes handcrafted by Ron Lott.

We gathered in our coach for a while and Ron surprised us with gifts he had made and brought along. He has become quite expert at making Native American flutes, and had made one for Marilyn, Linda, and me. He had also made a small harp for Marilyn. All of them use pentatonic scales, so almost anything you play sounds good, and harmonizes well with what others are playing.

Ron and Mary’s Aliner trailer, with lots of custom interior modifications.

Ron and Mary fixed dinner this evening. They pan-fried vegetables for veggie fajitas, and had black beans, rice, refried beans, salsa, and guacamole, along with chips and a nice green salad. They also had sour cream and chicken strips for the non-vegans. We gathered at their Aliner trailer and had dinner on the picnic table. The trick-or-treaters came around as we were eating and we enjoyed seeing their costumes and giving them the small candy items we had purchased earlier.

A flower.

After dinner, Mary and Marilyn did the dishes while Ron got a nice campfire going using scraps from his woodworking shop. Kiln dried hardwood makes a nice fire and we sat around it for a few hours talking about whatever and listen to the screams of joy from the “spooky trail” the campground had set up for the kids. Sometime around 8 PM music suddenly started up. It was far enough away to not be obnoxious, but loud enough we could hear it clearly. It took us a few minutes to figure out that it was a live band and not someone’s entertainment system. The band wrapped up around 11 PM and so did we.

2013_10_18 (F) Not Our Best Day Ever

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Today was a travel day for us. We were not in any particular hurry to leave this morning and yet seemed pressed to get on the road as we had about 300 miles to travel. We also figure an average travel speed of 50 MPH even when traveling routes that are mostly Interstate Highways. We don’t usually travel more than 62 MPH and often slower due to traffic. The 50 MPH average also seems to make an adequate allowance for surface roads, stop lights/signs, rest areas, and truck stops for re-fueling. We try to avoid major cities whenever possible, and to go through them at off-peak times when we cannot. We also like to be where we are going before it gets dark.

We had a wonderful time this week participating in the SKP Photographers BOF workshop/rally at the Tremont Outdoor Resort in Townsend, TN. The resort itself was OK, although marginal for our motorhome. I was able to get us in, parked, and leveled last Sunday but not without adding some scratches to the upper body paint. I got us out of our site this morning and onto the entrance road where we hooked up the toad. All was well until I made a right turn onto TN-73 and cut it a little too tight to avoid a car in the oncoming lane, and clipped the body on the passenger side.

We did not know the extent of the damage until we pulled into a rest stop on I-81 northbound (still in Tennessee) to switch drivers. I clipped the lower panel of the last bay on the passenger side just in front of the drive tires, damaging the panel, a smaller body panel just behind it, and part of the wheel well trim. Ugh. Getting paint scratches buffed out just became the least of our problems. The rest of the day went fine, but this sort of thing tends to put you on edge and take some of the joy out of the lifestyle, at least temporarily.

Linda took the driver’s position and continued on I-81 N towards our destination in Virginia. She test drove the bus when we first looked at it, and did just fine, but had not been behind the wheel in the four years since then. She drove for about 150 miles, getting us to a rest area at MM109 in Virginia, and she did great. We still had 70 miles to go to get to Natural Bridge, VA and needed to stop for fuel, so I moved back into the driver’s seat to finish the trip. We stopped at the Pilot Truck Stop at exit 150 on the northwest corner of Roanoke, VA. This particular location was smaller with more congested access than we usually encounter, but we got in and out just fine.

We pulled in to the Natural Bridge / Lexington KOA around 4 PM, so we averaged just about 50 MPH for the six hours between “wheels up” and “wheels down” (aviation lingo for takeoff and landing). We do not generally seek out KOA facilities for a variety of reasons, cost being number one, but this particular KOA had a nice look and feel to it. It is built on hilly, wooded terrain, but the roads were wide enough for us to get through and the trees were trimmed up high enough that we didn’t scrape. The sites are cut into the sides of hills, but are close enough to level that we had no problem leveling the coach. Part of the reason KOAs are pricier than other RV parks are the facilities, which are designed to make them attractive to families with children. That often means congestion and noise. The campground is near full, but so far has been very quiet. There are campfires burning, as there were at Tremont Outdoor Resort, which reminds of our tent camping days many, many years ago.

The reason we are here is that KOAs accommodate everything from large motorhomes to tent campers, and we are meeting up with family here for a weekend of camping. They are camping in an A-liner in a site close to ours.

For dinner Linda improvised a quinoa-based dish with potato, squash, bell pepper, tomato, mixed dark greens, and Cranberry Thokku, a spicy/hot Indian relish/sauce. Earlier in the week we installed the WP Ultimate Recipe plug-in on our website/blog and started playing with it. Linda plans to add the recipe for this dish as her first entry. She is preparing a Farro dish on Sunday and will add that as well.

Linda’s sister (Marilyn) and brother (Ron) and his wife (Mary) arrived at 7:30 PM, got their camper parked and set up, and then came over to visit for a couple of hours. We discussed options for tomorrow and decided to make those decisions after breakfast. Ron and Mary returned to their trailer for the evening and Marilyn stayed behind as she is sleeping in the coach on the pull-out couch.

2013_10_07-10 (M – R) Wrap-up and Re-load

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Linda did double duty this week (Monday and Wednesday) in the babysitting department as she will miss her regularly scheduled shift next week while we attend an RV rally / photography workshop. So our daughter got Wednesday “off” will fill in for her next Monday. I took the opportunity to work at my desk and finally prepared the various materials that I have to supply to the members of our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter for our upcoming annual business meeting. We also took care of errands and finished cleaning up from the open house.

One errand I had not ever been on was taking boxes of paper to a shredding facility (Royal Oak Recycling in White Lake Township). This place has you drive onto a scale with your car, drive to a dock and unload your stuff, and then drive back on the scale. I had 10 copier paper boxes of mixed paper and hadn’t really thought about the fact that “20 lb” paper means that a case of 10 reams weights 20 pounds. I didn’t think I had that much paper, but the difference in the before and after weight of the car was 220 lbs. ROR charges 15 cents per pound if you want to watch them shred your paper, or they pay you 2.5 cents per pound if you are willing to just drop it off. Since the papers to be shred were mostly old personal and business financial records, we wanted to verify that they had indeed been shredded, so I paid. They only take cash, so it was a good thing that I had enough to cover the $33+ amount.

At one time I sent updated rosters to the members of our Freethinkers chapter by attaching the PDF to an e-mail. More recently, I decided to put the roster and other documents in my personal Dropbox, generate a link, and just e-mail the link to everyone. That technology works very well, and is capable of even more sophisticated operating modes. But I have also been thinking about, and working on, a website for this group using WordPress. I decided that I would put some effort into giving it some structure and preliminary content, and use it to deliver documents and other materials to the members. The challenge is that some of the materials, like the roster, contain information that is for the members only and cannot be available for public view.

I was able to password protect individual pages, but the protection is less than ideal as web browsers apparently remember these passwords even when you ask them not to. It’s may be that this is being done using cookies, but however it is being done I could not figure out a way to defeat it. I also played around with WordPress user roles, but the only thing that WordPress seemed to have built into it was the ability to require users to log in to post a comment/reply. This is apparently one of the reasons for the “subscriber” user role. If have been looking at a WordPress plug-in called S2, or S2 Member, or S2 Framework, that appears to have the ability to place all or part of WordPress website behind a user login function, but I have not had a chance to install, configure, and play with it yet.

On Wednesday I drove Linda to her babysitting gig in Ann Arbor and then I drove back to Ann Arbor in the afternoon to visit with Madeline and her mom and dad. Shawna had an evening appointment so Linda and I had a quiet dinner with our son and then drove home together.

We spent Thursday re-loading the bus for our trip to Tennessee and Virginia. Phil from Precision Grading came by around 6:30 PM. We talked about the approximate location of the bus barn/garage and he set up his transit so we could measure the contours of the site, the driveway in from the road, and the surrounding yard. Based on his measurements, it looks like our planned site should work very well in terms of drainage, which is always a prime consideration.

Linda spent the rest of the evening working at her desk and following the Detroit Tigers in game 5 of the first round of the American League playoffs. I spent the rest of the evening updating the firmware in our Sony Alpha 100 digital SLR and updating the Sony Image Data Converter and Motion Picture Browser programs.

2013_10_06 (N) The House Is Open

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The weather was not what we had hoped for, but it was not as bad as forecast with the really heavy rain slipping just off to our east. We tried to finish our preparations the night before, but inevitably ended up working most of the morning to finish getting ready. But by noon we were relaxing, catching our breath, and waiting for visitors.

Our son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter were the first to arrive, so we got to spend a little quality time with “schmoo.” With the comfort of her parents nearby she decided I was not as scary as previously thought. She also discovered that she could crawl quite well on the carpet in the basement. Our daughter, her husband, and his daughter (our 16 year old step-grand-daughter) showed up next, so we had just the locally-based family for a while.

Other visitors eventually came and went throughout the afternoon, and we had a quite a crowd between 2 and 5 PM. A few people called to say they couldn’t make it due to illness, a few others who said they were coming didn’t show up, and a few who didn’t RSVP showed up anyway, so it all balanced out in the end. Everyone seemed to like the new house and many of them also enjoyed finally seeing the bus for the first time. One person noted that the bus was “a big commitment.” I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but it is an appropriate description on so many levels.

The conversation was brisk, and folks who had never met seemed to make quick friends. The one downside to the open house was that Linda and I did not get to visit very long with anyone as we were continuously busy greeting new arrivals, giving “tours” of the house and the bus, and saying “farewell” as folks left. Keeping up with the food and beverages would have been an added challenge, but our daughter was gracious enough to help with all of that.

The food seemed to be a big hit. Everyone who knows us knows by now that we are following a whole-food, plant-based (vegan) way of eating. I think some of them are unsure (concerned?) about what they will be fed if they come to our house. The fact is that if they didn’t know how we eat, and we hadn’t said anything about the food, no one would have known that it did not involve the use of any animal products. Linda has gotten that good at cooking this way.

The last guests were gone by 6 PM and we spent a couple of hours putting food away and cleaning up dishes. A lot of folks brought a card and/or housing warming gift, which was very thoughtful and quite unexpected, so we spent a quiet hour opening them and making careful note of who brought what. Most of the gifts were consumable, so we will enjoy them without having to find a permanent place for them. The few gifts that were objects were equally appreciated and will find their place somewhere in the house and/or bus.

We were glad to see those who could come, and sorry not to see those who couldn’t, and apologize to those we didn’t invite. There was certainly no slight intended. We will have folks back individually, but the open house allowed a lot of people to form a clear image of where we now live and that should make it easier for them to find their way back here at some point in the future. The open house also provided a hard deadline for us to get sufficiently moved in, without which we would very likely still have had boxes piled in rooms and artwork stacked in the library a year from now.

2013_10_05 (S) Power Wa(r)shing

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The thunderstorms developed overnight as forecast. I woke up around 3:30 AM to the strong smell of coffee, the sight of lightning, and the sound of thunder and rain. Although the two bags of coffee beans we had roasted yesterday were closed, they were not sealed air-tight and the lovely smell had spread through the house. We had the house closed up and the air-conditioning on because of the humidity, which probably helped circulate the smell.

It never sounded like it rained very hard, so we were surprised to find our road flooded in the usual places on our way out to our ham radio club (SLAARC) breakfast in South Lyon. I had my usual dry English muffin with strawberry jam and Linda had her usual dry rye toast with orange marmalade.; and coffee, of course. (We go for conversation, not the food.) The day remained overcast and humid, but there wasn’t any appreciable additional rain.

Since we have now been in S. E. Michigan for 37 years I may have picked up some sort of local speech inflection, but if so I am unaware of it. For most of my life people who did not know me we generally unable to guess where I was from. The reason is that I hail from the St. Louis, Missouri area. That may seem strange given that the Mason-Dixon Line goes right through the middle of Missouri, dividing it in half north and south, with the Ozarks in the southern portion. That’s “hillbilly” country, and southern speech inflections are common there. And while they are heard in the St. Louis area, more now than when I was child, St. Louis speech is distinguished primarily by being indistinguishable, that is to say, very neutral. Add to that the fact that I was raised by an English teacher whose father was an English teacher and whose mother taught Latin (for a while), and you get a very neutral speech. Except for one word…”wash”. For some reason I learned to pronounce it “warsh.” The “r” in that word was my only real speech tell-tale, and it was usually too subtle and too specific for folks to pick up. This brings me to my major task of the day.

While Linda was occupied with cleaning the inside of the bus and the house and making food for tomorrow, I got to use the power washer to clean the lower deck. The basement would not have a walkout feature had the builder piled dirt completely around the basement walls, but they left an area unburied and formed a kind of valley leading out into the back yard. There is a 12’ x 15’ deck set into the ground outside the doorwall, and based on the labeling of the electrical panel, it apparently once supported a hot tub. This lower deck is under part of the upper/main deck and had gotten very dirty over the years. In fact, it was coated with a green growth (mold/mildew I suspect) that was quite slippery, especially when wet, and a bit of hazard. Another piece of neglected maintenance, I either had to clean it or close it off with yellow caution tape.

We have an electric power washer and it was the right tool for the job; powerful enough without being too powerful, and without the hassle of a gasoline engine. I was also pleased to find that the well/pump did not have any trouble supplying the needed raw water. (The outside faucets are plumbed so that well water can be supplied directly to them without going through any of the filters or conditioning equipment.)

The hardest part of this work was being slightly bent over for three (3) hours. The trigger wand requires two hands to control, and is just short enough that I have to bend over slightly to get the adjustable nozzle the right distance from the wood to work effectively. Getting the green stuff off of the wood was really a stripping job not a cleaning job, and I needed the nozzle about 2” – 3” from the surface to get the job done. I found it easiest to clean about a 2’ section of each 6” wide board before moving on.

Linda worked off and on all day making the food for tomorrow since the open house starts at lunch time and runs through the dinner hour. We have an assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as chips and pretzels, but no tree nuts as one of our guests as a serious air-born tree-nut allergy. We have hummus and she made a vegan “ranch dressing” for dipping.

For “main course” selections she made a vegan chili that she will keep warm in the crock pot and serve on slider buns from the bakery “as needed.” She also made one of my favorite dishes, a chilled garbanzo bean (chickpea) salad that tastes just like egg salad (as best I recall). That will also be served on the slider buns as needed.

For dessert choices she baked eight dozen chocolate mini-cupcakes and frosted them with vanilla icing, all vegan of course. She also made two large dishes of apple crisp using apples from our own apple tree.

Beverage choices include water, sparkling water, sparkling fruit flavored water, a variety of beers, red and white wine, and coffee. If someone wants it, we can also make tea.

We finished up with our days work around 8 PM, a much more satisfying day than yesterday. We had a simple dinner of Linda’s homemade granola with fresh fruit. We went to bed excited about the open house and satisfied with the preparations.

2013_10_04 (F) Craftsmen & Gamesmen

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I read a book years ago titled “The Gamesman.” It was one of those pop social/psychology works that probably isn’t particularly scientific but none-the-less provides an interesting and even useful framework for looking at and possibly understanding the world, especially the world of work. My take away from that book, which still rings true 30+ years later, was that I am a craftsman at heart who kept finding myself drawn into the gamesmanship of the workplace for which, in spite of not liking it, I seemed to have some aptitude. Today was one of those days were a lot actually got done but I didn’t seem to be the one doing it, i.e., not a craftsman kind of day. At least I made a partial recovery when we got home from Lowe’s and I had things I could install: light bulbs, a curtain rod, and salt for the water softener. Such days leave me tired but not in a satisfied way. Some days are like that, but so far I haven’t had very many of them in retirement.

I fixed two of our toilets on Thursday, but one of them apparently isn’t completely fixed yet. I awoke this morning to sound of water running. The flap had not sealed, causing the tank to not fill and the water to continue to run. I have no idea how much water ran into the septic tank, but it was more than should have. To make matters worse, I wanted to start a load of laundry early this morning only to discover that we had zero (0) gallons of water softener capacity remaining. The softener indicated that it was going to recharge today, which meant around midnight based on how it is programmed, so I decided to start the regeneration cycle manually. That was at 7:45 AM. The cycle finished around 12:45 PM. Yup, 5 hours during which I could not do the laundry, or dishes, or much else other than flush the toilets. That’s why it’s set to run at night. More thumb twiddling.

I checked my e-mail to see what the latest chatter was regarding the RV rally / photo workshop we are scheduled to attend. With the federal government shut down we won’t have access to Smoky Mountain National Park (or any other federal facilities) and there was some thought of cancelling the workshop. The problem is that the RV park where all of us are staying doesn’t give refunds and our deposit is 50% of the total camping fee for the week. Since SMNP is closed the RV park was willing to let us re-book for any time during the next 12 months (that they had openings) for only an additional $25. I wish I had to way to make money for doing nothing.

Our specific interest in this workshop is to learn to more fully use our digital camera (Sony Alpha 100) and to learn something about digital image post-processing software. From that point of view, being in the Smoky Mountains in the fall was simply a bonus. While we like nature, and I have always liked doing nature photography, our objectives for the workshop don’t require any specific subject matter in front of the lens.

We also made plans (and reservations) to meet up with Linda’s sister, brother, and his wife after the rally/workshop for a few days of camping, so we were committed to going whether there was a workshop or not. It turned out that some of the other participants had done the same thing, and the final consensus was that the rally/workshop would go on as scheduled, national park or no national park. That was a relief, but everything was up in the air for about 48 hours while this got sorted out.

Keith came by today to cut/trim the lawn. He usually comes every other Tuesday, and normally would have come next week, but we asked him to pull ahead to the end of this week so the yard would look nice for the open house /warming. He saves Fridays for “make up” work in case he gets rained out during the week. That’s happened to him a lot this summer, but he was here as promised and in spite of the threat of rain. It spritzed a little right after he arrived around 11 AM and then stopped, allowing him to get the whole yard done. He always does a good job, and took the extra time today to get his blower out and blow off the driveways and the deck; a nice touch, and much appreciated. But this was work Keith did, not me, so it was his craftsmanship, not mine.

Keith was done about the same time the water softener finished regenerating, so I finally got my load of laundry in the machine and we headed for Lowe’s and Meijer’s for last minute household items and food. We are trying to prep this event so that the only thing we have to get on Sunday morning is ice for beverages. We stopped at Teeko’s coffee shop before heading home. (At Latson Road and Grand River Avenue, between Brighton and Howell, we have a Lowe’s, Walmart, Staples, Meijer’s, O’Reilly’s Auto, Teeko’s, and lots of other small stores.) Teeko’s has become one of our favorite places to get coffee. They stock “green” (dried but unroasted) beans and roast them at time of purchase. They have a very nifty air-roaster that can produce anything from a very light to a very dark roast, but never burns the beans. They have a nice variety of beans from Africa, Central/South America, and islands like Sumatra and Hawaii. They even keep some 100% Kona on hand (we have some at home). This time we picked up a pound each of a Costa Rica Decaf and Organic Guatemalan Nueva.

Linda made a really nice dish for dinner: Fresh beets roasted with balsamic vinegar, grape seed oil, and a touch of sugar and served over fresh kale, wilted and mixed with couscous. I’m sure there were some other seasonings in there, but those were the main ingredients. Roasted beets are a real treat.

Linda has been monitoring the weather forecast leading up to/through Sunday. The rain never materialized today, but it was very cloudy and humid and the high hit 81. Not Michigan’s October best, but nothing to be done about it other than turn on the air conditioning. Thunderstorms are forecast for overnight, and based on the radar it looks like we will finally get the promised rain. Tomorrow will be a big day, with final house cleaning and lots of food preparation. She has some tasty things planned for Sunday.

2013_10_03 (R) The Sound of Music

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Today was a bakery day for Linda, so I was left to my own devices. I let the Garmin Express update run all night last night. When I checked this morning it indicated there had been an error, so I downloaded the 2014.20 map update, again. It took another 3+ hours, again. It said it downloaded it so I installed it. It said it was “done”, but that the “update failed.” At this point I have no idea if my maps are up-to-date or not. We have had the Garmin nuvi 465T GPS unit for quite some time now, and I really like it. I also liked the desktop docking software that came with it, which always worked fine. The replacement desktop docking software, Garmin Express, is simpler to use but doesn’t seem to work very well. A quick Google Search yesterday indicated that lots of other folks have apparently had issues with it as well.

In terms of getting ready for the open house / warming on Sunday, I am down to what builders call a “punch list.” I don’t know the origin of that term, and yet it seems somehow appropriate. (I always supposed that it came from the idea that the workers were going to “punch these things out,” but that doesn’t make any more sense than the original phrase. The other day Linda made some final selections for artwork for the small bedroom, so today I hung those up. That was one of the items on my punch list.

One of the things that came with the new house was built in speakers, two in the main floor hallway ceiling and two in the Florida room (library) ceiling. The speaker wires for these all run to a basement wall opening where the previous owners had their audio entertainment equipment. We have enough else to do without completely re-wiring the house, so we put some of our audio equipment in the same spot. Linda had asked that I try to wire up the audio system so we could have music on Sunday; another item on my punch list. With the house mostly ready, I decided to see if I could get the built-in speakers wired up, along with a pair of our freestanding ones. I used my volt-ohm meter (VOM) to check for continuity and resistance to figure out which wires did what. As part of the harness wiring harness, there were also two pairs of wires with both ends free that I could use to wire up the local freestanding speakers.

Measuring DC resistance through a speaker does not tell you what its rated impedance is as impedance is a characteristic of a device when AC (alternating current, from an applied alternating voltage) flows back and forth through it. It does, however, give you some idea of what’s at the other end of the wire pair. The amplifier in our receiver is designed to drive two sets of speakers (A and B) and prefers not to see less than 8 ohms impedance at the connection terminals. There is a switch on the back, however, that allows you to select 4 ohm or 8 ohm speakers.

Connecting impedances in parallel results in lower total impedance and connecting them in series adds the impedances. The pair of speakers in the hall has a volume control, and the pair in the library also has one, and it appeared that turning them from one extreme position to the other increased the DC resistance slightly, but not that much. So, just to be safe, I decided to wire one speaker from the hall in series with and one from the library (think “left speakers”) and then repeated that for the other pair (think “right speakers”). I connected the CD changer to the receiver, started a CD, and voila, the sound of music…everywhere!

The main (basement) speakers were too loud relative to the ones upstairs, so I connected the built-ins in parallel, which resulted in more power going to them relative to the main speakers. It also allowed the volume control in the hall to control both of the hall speakers, and only those. Ditto for the volume control in the library. I also switched the amplifier to work with 4 ohm speakers instead of 8 ohm. The name of the game is impedance matching, and if you can’t match impedances choosing a higher impedance load rather than a lower impedance one is generally better for the amplifier (up to a point).

Tom and Tom from TOMTEK HVAC showed up as scheduled around 3 PM to finish the work on the hydronic heating system. This time they had all of the parts they needed: new burner cone, igniter, expansion tank, expansion / quick fill value, shutoff value, fittings, and copper pipe to re-plumb the pressure relief discharge pipe from the domestic hot water tank. I tried to check in on the progress of the work periodically without getting in their way and slowing them down. I always do this when anyone works on anything in our house as I want to know as much as possible about the system. They finished up around 6 PM. While we did not anticipate the furnace / hot water system needing this much work, or this soon, it was fortunate that we had TOMTEK come out for a “routine maintenance” visit and discover/fix all of the other problems as a result.

When Linda got home we were both too tired to even go out, so we had the left over “sloppy Joes” from yesterday’s dinner along with fresh fruit. This particular recipe used textured vegetable protein, known as TVP, instead of the soy crumbles she normally uses. The two products are very similar in taste (nothing strong or characteristic) and texture (kind of like ground beef) and work well in “mock” dishes like chili, sloppy Joes, or anything else that would normally call for ground beef as an ingredient. These products do not work well, however, to make mock “hamburger” patties; there are other products made to directly satisfy that market.

2013_10_02 (W) Decks, Maps, & TV

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Linda and I both worked around the house today and by dinner time we finally felt confident that the house would be presentable for the open house / house warming on Sunday. Another half day and my office will be ready for visitors. While Linda vacuumed, I installed new flappers in the two upstairs toilets and a new handle mechanism in one of them. They now flush and shut off correctly without having to do anything special with the handles or take the top off the tanks to seat the flappers by hand. Although we figured company would appreciate that, the real motivation was to make sure they did not draw water continuously through our water softening and purification system.

Jim Pipoly was back to finish the deck and had Adam to help him. A much younger guy by comparison to us, it was nice to watch the two of them work. Experience and attitude count for a lot, and quality paint work requires a careful yet efficient approach; you have to keep moving without ever rushing or letting your attention drift. They started around 9:30 AM in order to let the dew evaporate and worked until about 7 PM, but they got all of the painting done, and it looks very nice.

By late morning it was sunny but not hot. We opened all of the awnings on the motorcoach to let them dry. A couple of weeks ago at the RV rally in Goshen we had to roll them up wet and had not had a chance to unroll them since then. Not good, but not much we could do about it until today.

Linda needed some things from the grocery store, so I decided to try updating the maps in our Rand-McNally GPS again. The last time I tried this it said it was going to take 14+ hours to download the updates. It did, in fact, take that long and it hung up before it finished. Today, however, things went much better. The map and device update combined took about 2 hours and completed successfully. Yea! She brought home two Sam Adams seasonal variety 12-packs and I put them in the bus fridge to chill them down and add some mass to the refrigerator compartment. Refrigerators and freezers work much better when they are full, as long as they are overstuffed to the point where air cannot circulate.

While I was working with the GPS, Linda decided to play with the TV sets in our bus. We had never tried tuning in any local, over-the-air (OTA) stations. When Ed and Betty Burns were here in their RV in late August, they were only able to tune in one station, and that was FOX, so we figured we were out of luck. To our surprise, the front TV set found 27 digital channels, including sub-channels of the main channels. She even picked up PBS from two different sources! Yippee. And this was without aiming the antenna. Once we have a better idea of which direction to point it for each station, or cluster of stations, we may be able to pick up even more signals.

I decided to try the rear TV, which is the one with the defective rotor mechanism. It did not find as many channels on the first try, so I rotated it to the right (I think) about five positions (maybe) and tried again. This time we got 25 channels. Not bad. So much for needing satellite TV at our house! I am sufficiently impressed with the performance of these antennas that I may get two more for the house. Ideally I will mount them on the tower (existing or new). The problem will be running the co-ax and control cables (it always is).

So why the sudden interest in TV? Well…the open house is Sunday, and Sunday is professional sports day, and some of our guests are making a huge sacrifice coming to visit instead of watching their favorite sports, so….we thought making some sports broadcasts available would be a nice gesture. Of course, that means we will have to make popcorn too.

After dinner we loaded some leftover wood from the ham shack/office remodeling project into the back of the Element and got it off the lower walkout deck. We also moved the leftover suspended ceiling tiles and the shop vac back to the garage. The only projects I have left in the basement are hanging a wine glass rack over the bar and reassembling the corner of the room where I removed the knotty pine wall boards to facilitate the installation of the 240V, 100A cable to the subpanel that powers the RV outlet, ham shack, and office computer outlets. But those are tasks for another day.

Having had a reasonably productive day, I made the classic mistake of thinking I could get one more thing accomplished starting at 9 PM. I wanted to update our Garmin nuvi 465T GPS unit that we use in the Honda Element. The last time I tried to do this the Garmin Express client couldn’t connect to the Garmin servers. And so it was again tonight. Fiddle with USB cables and ports, but no success. I finally Googled Garmin Express server problems and got a lot of hits. After reading through a few knowledge base Q&As and trying to update some drivers (I had the Gamin website instead of the Garmin website and they wanted $$) I decided to just reinstall Garmin Express. I downloaded it, saved, ran the installation .exe file, and voila! it finally worked again. And my maps and other date were still there and it even recognized our specific device. It updated the device software successfully and 10:30 told me it was “Safe to Walk Away”. Really; that’s the message it gave me. Apparently the map update was going to take approximately 3 hours. The software must have known what time it was and figured I wanted to go to bed. And so I did; right after I uploaded and edited this post. Night, night.

2013_10_01 (T) Nets, Decks, & Weeds

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Today was deck day 1 of 2. Jim Pipoly has done a lot of painting for us over the last few years. He painted our old house, inside and out, including the garage and the addition over it. He painted the main floor of our new house a couple of weeks after we closed, and six weeks before we moved in. He repainted some walls in the old house after we moved out to make it look better when we listed it for sale. He was here on the 21^st and 22^nd of September cleaning and stripping the deck along the back side of our new house and now he’s back staining and painting it. Today he stained the deck boards using Benjamin Moore TWP116 transparent stain in a “rustic” color. It gave the boards a reddish-brown patina while allowing all of the grain to show through, preserving the look of the wood. Tomorrow he will do the railings using Benjamin Moore ArborCoat, a solid stain (more like a paint) in Marine White, which is very close to the color of the paint used on the Hardy Board house siding.

Meghan (our daughter) came over mid-morning to help Linda weed the planting beds around the house and spread around the remaining bags of red rubber mulch that the previous owners left us. The house didn’t look bad, but it looks better now.

In the ham shack/office I relocated a computer and printer. I also relocated the Netgear 8-port Network Switch (8pNS) and the Linksys Wireless Access Point (WAP). I then brought another printer and Network Attached Storage (NAS) device down from Linda’s desk. I how had everything in the office along one wall except the WAP, and I had the new 100’ Cat 6 network cable running to same wall. This allowed me to reconnect all of the hardwired equipment without any network cables running across the floor, eliminating a potential trip hazard or major equipment catastrophe. I put the WAP on top of a cabinet and used the old 50’ Cat 6 network cable to connect it back to the AT&T Gateway by Linda’s desk. Everything checked out, and the only things left on Linda’s desk are her laptop computer and adding machine (it’s an accounting thing). That will give her more room to work at her desk.

Linda made an ad hoc dish for dinner with beans, rice, and tomatoes and the usual assortment of seasonings. She used the Italian Seasoning she bought some time ago from Milford Spices at the Howell Farmers Market. This blend includes just the right amount of red pepper flakes to add slight bit of “heat” to a dish. She used this seasoning last week when she made the marinara sauce that I liked so much.

Jim finished up as it was getting dark. We took Linda’s laptop to the basement and connected it to the TV/monitor using an HDMI cable. We selected that port as the input and voila, her computer screen was now on the TV. She navigated to her photo directory, started a slide show, and we sat and watched pictures of our summer trip at the rate of 20 per minute (3 seconds each). It sounds fast, but it’s actually a pretty good speed. We are going to set this up for the open house. Linda may try to edit the pictures down to 200 – 300 as that would allow visitors to see all of them in 10 – 15 minutes.

2013_09_28-30 (S,N,M) Gone Fish’in

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No, I have not given up my WFPB way of eating, but one of the things I did on Sunday was to run a new network cable from our main Internet gateway (in the kitchen) to my office (in the basement). I had to pull the cable above a suspended ceiling and then “fish” it up through the floor boards into a wall cavity. There is a special tool called a “fish tape” that is made for this purpose. It’s a thin but stiff piece of metal that is coiled up inside a housing with a small hook on the free end. Because it is relatively stiff, you can push through holes and into wall cavities and other such places until it emerges somewhere, hopefully where you need it to emerge. I have a fish tape (of course) but I can’t find it (naturally) because the garage/workshop will be the last part of our move to get organized. So I improvised, and after several false starts ended using a scrap piece of 3-conductor sheathed electrical cable that was long enough, small enough, and stiff enough to get the job done. But I have gotten way ahead of myself.

As usual, Linda and I went to our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) breakfast on Saturday morning. Well, almost as usual; we took two cars this time as Linda was headed to Ann Arbor to babysit munchkin Madeline after breakfast, and I was headed in the opposite direction to do ham radio stuff.

Madeline’s domestic servants (our son and his wife) wanted to attend a wedding on Sunday in Madison, Wisconsin and thought the three days required to drive there, celebrate, and drive back might work out better for all involved if their daughter did not make the trip. They also figured that Madeline would do better in their absence if she was in her own home. Madeline approved of these plans and gave them the requested 3-day pass. Although Madeline’s aunt (our daughter) provides child care one day a week, a 3-day stint, over the weekend, in a house without television would mean no college or professional football, and would have been heroic beyond necessity. This was clearly a job for GRANDMA, who doesn’t have functioning television in her new house anyway, so she wouldn’t miss it. Besides, when sitting the baby, there’s no time to watch TV (or do much of anything else).

Mike (W8XH) and I had plans to work on the new SLAARC website, but first he had to help Bruce (W8RA) set up his new LP-PAN and integrate it into his ham radio station. Working on Bruce’s ham shack is no small undertaking. I’ve never been in the Space Shuttle simulator, but I’ve seen pictures, and sitting at Bruce’s ham station is a pretty good facsimile. It took Mike a couple of hours, but he got it all working. We then headed to his QTH to do the website stuff.

Mike and I are building the new SLAARC website using WordPress with the help of fellow SLAARC member Larry (K8UT), who is a bonafide expert in such matters. A couple of weeks ago we decided to create the new website as a subdomain of the existing website, which is hosted by GoDaddy, and that was an experience in itself. This would make it very easy, however, to later change some DNS entries and have the original domain name point to the new website. Larry did the WordPress installation manually rather than using the automatic WordPress installer that most web-hosting companies have available (including GoDaddy). As a result it has taken longer to get the new site functional, but Mike and I now have a much better understanding of subdomains and an appreciation for some of the complexity that is “under the hood” when using WordPress. One more call to Larry resulted in some magic on his end, and we were finally up and running. We then spent several hours installing, activating, and exploring themes. We haven’t made any final decisions, but we are starting to figure out what questions to ask. While Mike and I are anxious to move this along, we are not under any external pressure to have it ready by a certain date and want to take our time on the front end. While it is relatively easy to change WordPress themes even after a website is populated with content, there is a point beyond which that is still going to involve a lot of work. I like projects, but I don’t like doing projects over (and over, and over …).

I was still in WordPress mode when I got home, so I did some work on our personal website. I created a tab (main menu item) for “Ham Radio” and created a sub-menu item for “SLAARC”. These are just placeholders for now, but will eventually have content. I have also fleshed out the WFPB tab as I start to build out the main menu structure.

Mike lent me an AmpedWireless dual-band WiFi repeater that he wasn’t using and I spent some time Saturday evening and Sunday morning playing with it. It is a very cool device. In WiFi repeater mode it will pick up a 2.4GHz and/or a 5.0GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it. What’s really cool, however, is that it will pick up a 2.4GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it as 5.0GHz WiFi network. I have been looking for a device that will do this for quite some time. Our iPads and smartphones are all 5.0GHz capable, so using them with a 5.0GHz WiFi signal offloads that traffic from the 2.4GHz network, leaving it for 2.4GHz only devices. The 5.0GHz band also has a lot more bandwidth than the 2.4GHz band with very few devices using it, so there is less interference and more reliable network connections. Unfortunately, the device did not work well at our house as it appeared to be in conflict with our WiFi thermostat.

Wireless repeaters, access points, bridges, etc. are all designed so that they can be setup and configured wirelessly through a web-browser. In order to accomplish this they map a specific URL to a specific IP address in the 192.168.xxx.yyy range. In this case, 192.168.1.240. Unfortunately, I think the WiFi thermostat also uses that IP address. There may be a way to work around this, but I did not have time to pursue that today. The AmpedWireless device is actually configurable in five different modes. WiFi repeater is the default, but it can be a Wireless Access Point or a Wireless Bridge, or two other things.

As a result of playing with this device, I think I finally understand the difference between various networking technologies. A Network Switch (NS) is a device that allows multiple devices to be connected together using network cables, with one cable going back to the router (where the IP addresses are controlled through DHCP). A Wireless Repeater (WR) is just that; it picks up a WiFi signal and rebroadcasts it (repeats it), usually on the same frequency and channel, but with a different SSID; no cables required. (The Amped Wireless WiFi Repeater can rebroadcast it on a different frequency and/or channel, very nice.) A Wireless Access Point (WAP) generates a WiFi network and is connected to the main router through a network cable. We have a Linksys WAP running now. A Wireless Bridge (WB) is the mirror image of a WAP. It allows multiple devices to be connected to it using cables (sounds like it’s a NS) and then communicates using WiFi with a wireless router or WAP. This allows lots of equipment to be located remotely from the main Internet gateway/router without running a cable between the two locations.

While Linda continued her marathon munchkin duty on Sunday, I worked around the house trying to check things off my “to-do” list faster than they got added. I didn’t succeed, but I did get a lot done. My main focus was my office, which had become the place where stuff was getting piled so we could feel like we had put other parts of the house in reasonably good order. I either needed to get it organized or close it off for the open house. Some of our fellow hams are coming to the open house and will want to see the ham shack (which is also my office), so closing it off from public view wasn’t really an option.

Monday was odds-n-ends day. I continued to try to clean up and organize my office and the basement, installed two new door closers on the front screen/storm door, and installed new hardware (tracks) for the pair of bi-fold doors on the kitchen pantry. It doesn’t sound like much, but it takes all day. I snagged some replacement toilet flappers from Lowe’s, a nice shelving unit for the bedroom from Staples, and a large quantity of ICE Sparkling Water from Walmart. (It’s not my favorite place to shop, but Meijer’s doesn’t carry this product.)

Mid-afternoon there was a knock at the door. It was a representative from a company that is subcontracting with Consumer’s Energy to possibly run a natural gas main down our street. I walked our property with the guy and explained the rather complicated situation that has led to us having two propane tanks and what they implications of that were for us switching to natural gas. I went ahead and signed up after making sure we could back out if we decided this really wasn’t what we wanted to do. As of now, however, we are definitely interested in switching to natural gas. Consumer’s Energy estimates the equivalent cost for a gallon of propane, which is currently $2.00 + or – $0.40, at $0.77. At that ratio, our infrastructure payback would be about 3 years. There is also the added benefit of having a constant supply of fuel without a truck having to come and fill a tank. Value? Priceless.

In the late afternoon I had a nice chat with Joe from EZ*Connector. EZ*Connector is a small company in California that has designed, and manufactures, a keyed, magnetically retained, sealed electrical connector. It comes in 7 and 14 pin configurations for non-military use and is an ideal solution to the problem of connecting a tow vehicle (bus) to a towed vehicle (car). Our current setup requires two separate electrical cables with mechanical or friction latches. The EZ*Connector will provide a much easier and yet superior connection. They are just now bringing a new 14 conductor cable to market and suggested I wait until early November to order.

Linda called to say she would be home around 7 PM. I put water on to boil to make angel hair pasta with red sauce, and she picked up a salad on the way home. She made the sauce last week, and it was fabulous. (I am not normally a fan of marinara sauce, but this sauce has me rethinking that position.) A glass of 2009 Egri Merlot to wash it down, and fresh plums for dessert made a fine conclusion to a long day.

2013_09_23-27 (M-F) Getting Ready

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There is always lots to do around the house when we return from an RV rally, more so since we are still getting moved in to our new (to us) house and trying to get it ready for an open house / house warming. We decided about a month ago to have the house warming as a way to “force” us to accelerate the moving-in process and so far that seems to be working.

Arriving home yesterday we were able to pull in to our pull-through driveway with the car attached, which was very nice. With the added “fines” (sandy silt) material mixed in with the 21aa road gravel, the driveway is now packing together very tightly and easily supporting the weight of the bus. The planned driveway geometry has worked out well allowing us to pull in and out with the car attached. That means we cook hook/unhook the car in the driveway rather than in the street.

Linda babysat for Madeline on Monday while I worked around the house, unloaded the clothes and bedding from the bus, and started doing laundry; not very interesting, perhaps, but satisfying work in its own way. We both spent a fair amount of time on our computers this week, Linda with household accounting chores and RV park research and me with some CEPI work, our website/blog, and websites for several other organizations. Using WordPress to create/manage websites and blogs has really grabbed my interest. I’m not very proficient yet, but I’m leaning.

We hung the last few pieces of artwork for now and spent part of the week opening and moving boxes. Linda was looking for papers we could take to a shredding company and managed to accumulate quite a few boxes of them. At this point we’ve run out of time to open boxes and sort through the contents, so we turned our attention to finding places to “hide” them until after the open house. We’re not there yet, but we are comfortable that the house will be presentable enough by the time it needs to be.

We decided to harvest some of the apples from our apple tree and discovered that a large branch (3-4” diameter) had peeled loose in three places, probably due to the copious amount of fruit on it, the age of the tree, and the fact that it had not been pruned properly (or at all) for years. We don’t know much about fruit trees, but we know that this is not the time of year to prune them. With the tree obviously damaged, however, we decided to cut the branch off and let nature take its course. We took it off in three pieces to make sure we could handle them. The branches of an apple tree tend to get intertwined, especially if it isn’t pruned, so we really had to pull to get the pieces down. That brought lots of apples to the ground besides the ones on the damaged branch. We left the branches and their apples on the ground for the deer and other animals that frequent our backyard.

We collected a large bag of apples and Linda spent time during the rest of the week peeling them, dipping them in lemon, and freezing them. She also made apple sauce and apple bread (both of which were outstanding). She commented at one point that “I am starting to understand why farm wives never got out of the kitchen.” Cooking real food with real ingredients (whole-food, plant-based) is a lot of work. Linda finds the work satisfying, however, now that she has the time to do it, and I certainly find the results satisfying as well. Yummy.

Ed and Betty Burns arrived on Thursday afternoon in their Tiffin Phaeton motorhome and stayed until late Friday morning. This was their second visit in about a month and we really enjoyed having them here again. They have been working at the Middleton Berry Farm and finished their tour of duty on Thursday. I moved our motorhome out of the pull-through driveway so they could pull in and park in a level spot with power.

They got here in time for dinner and Linda put out a nice meal. She served a nice Waldorf style green salad using some of our fresh-picked apples with homemade apple bread. The main course was a lentil loaf with a baked potato and homemade applesauce on the side. I chose the Blueberry Wine from Forestedge Winery in LaPorte, Minnesota to go with the meal. (It only occurred to us later than we had an apple wine from the same winery, which would have really completed our apple-themed meal.) Forestedge Winery is owned by Paul and Sharon Shuster, who are members of our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter as are Ed and Betty.

Linda made apple crisp for dessert, but none of us had room, so we saved it for breakfast the next day. In addition to the apple crisp, breakfast included Linda’s homemade granola cereal with fresh blueberries, fresh banana slices, and raspberries that we had personally picked at the Middleton Berry Farm a few weeks ago and frozen. A little orange juice and a 50/50 blend of Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe and Kona coffee rounded out the meal.

We decided earlier in the week that we would try Florida for our first snowbird experience. (Snowbird is a term used to describe folks who live in northern climates where it snows and head south for the winter to get away from same. If there is a corresponding term for folks who live in the south and travel north in the summer to avoid heat and humidity, I don’t know what it is, other than perhaps Bridwons. Think about it.) Our decision was motivated by the desire to attend a large converted bus rally in Arcadia, Florida that is held each year from December 26 to January 1st. (The actual rally is Dec 29, 30, 31, but you can arrive as early as the 26^th and departure is the 1^st.) The rally was started by Jack and Paula Conrad, who ran it for the first ten years.

Ed and Betty used to live in Florida so we were eager to draw on their knowledge and experience before trying to book a place or places to stay. Earlier in the week we called the Low-Key Hideaway RV Park and Motel in Cedar Key, but they were not able to accommodate us. We knew about Low-Key Hideaway Cherie Ve Ard’s Technomadia blog postings, and it appears that the place has developed quite a clientele, perhaps in part as a result of Technomadia’s publicity.

At the last two GLCC rallies we had talked at length with Pat and Vicky, who winter in Florida. I also had an in-depth conversation this week with two other fellow RVers (Ed and Al) who winter in Florida and got their thoughts, suggestions, and recommendations. Our friends and fellow H3-40 owners, Chuck and Barbara, have spent the last seven winters in Florida and the last several at Pelican Lake Motorcoach Resort in Naples, Florida. We delayed our return home following the Holistic Holiday At Sea cruise in March so we could drive over from Ft. Lauderdale to see the resort and have dinner with them. It was very nice, as you would expect.

We learned a number of things as a result of this quick “research”. Some of it was stuff we knew, or assumed as a form of common sense, but some of it we did not:

The cost per day generally goes down the longer you stay in one place. The usual breakpoints are week, month, 2-month, 3-month, 4-month, 6-month, and year. (You can also purchase lots, but probably don’t want to calculate the per day cost for that.)
The farther south you go, the more expensive it gets.
The reason for the previous point is the average daily temperate range. In northern Florida it is not unusual for temperatures to drop into the upper 30’s at night, and record lows have been recorded in the teens. That doesn’t happen in Key West, and money tends to follow the pleasant climate.
The closer you are to one of the coasts, the more expensive it gets. You pay a price for beaches and sunrises/sunsets.
No-See-Ums, however, can be a real problem near the coasts, and some folks have very bad reactions to their bites.
If the RV park has “resort” in the name, it will be more expensive, with “motorcoach resort” costing even more, and “luxury motorcoach resort” costing even more than that.
Most of Florida is swampy; being inland or staying at a “luxury” resort does not guarantee that you are not camped in or next to a swamp. Think bugs, snakes, and alligators.
You can almost always rent a deeded site at a higher-end park directly from the owners much cheaper than you can rent it through the park management office. Check the classifieds in the back of FMC Magazine.
Moving every week is expensive and tiring, but gets you access to more of the state.
Staying more than one month at the same place can get a bit boring, but that’s a personal thing.
Some parks are in dense urban areas, others are near small towns, and some are in the middle of nowhere. It’s a shopping convenience versus solitude thing. You can end up having to drive 20 miles or more for groceries if you are not paying attention when you choose an RV park.
Not all parks are “big rig friendly” (even though they will claim they are).
Most parks have punitive refunds polices, so be sure before you know what they are before you book.
Make sure your park of choice is located near things you want to do (hike, bike, kayak, fish, watch sunrises and/or sunsets, or have access to highways so you can visit natural and historic sites in your car, etc.) Tallahassee is not a good base camp for visiting Key West.
Many RV parks are adjacent to a major freeway, railroad track, or airport; sometimes all three. If you don’t think the noise will bother you, you’re wrong.
Some RV parks are gated (if you care).
Whether the residents in a park or nice or not seems to have little to due with the physical appearance and amenities of the place.
There are a lot of older parks with mixed use, i.e., year-round “Park Models” in addition to sites for vacationers and snowbirds.
Check the type/quality of the interior roads and parking pads (concrete, gravel, grass, hard dirt, or sand), it might matter with a big, heavy coach.
The spacing of the sites varies greatly; some parks have sites that are small and close together (but they will tell you they are very spacious).
Find out whether there is any landscaping, especially shade trees around the sites.
Find out whether the roads and sites have trees trimmed up and back sufficiently to not scratch your RV.
Check to see if “lakes” on the property actually have water in them (seriously).
Check on the availability and cleanliness of onsite bath/shower facilities and Laundromats.
Check the availability of onsite activities (which could be a plus or a minus) and facilities such as swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. If you don’t want them, why pay for them?
Find out if the park has pet restrictions, and if so, what they are.
Some parks are 55+ operations, others allow/encourage/cater to families with children. Know which type you are signing up for and make sure it’s what you want.
The photos on the website always look beautiful, but somehow manage to avoid showing you views of the parking sites from a vantage point that allows you to assess all of the factors mentioned above.
Google Earth and other satellite image websites/apps are your best friend and ultimate research tool.

Our goal was to book a park or parks for January and February by the end of the day Friday, but we didn’t make it; too much to ponder and no time to make phone calls. We will get back to it early next week as Tuesday is October 1^st, and January 1^st will only be three months away.

Tom and Tom from TOMTEK HVAC were back on Friday afternoon to finish up repairs on our hydronic heating system. They did not have one of the parts they were going to replace but it didn’t matter as they discovered some additional issues that will require a return visit.

The first thing they discovered was that the propane shut off valve didn’t shut off the propane. We had to turn off the supply at the tank so they could replace the valve before doing anything else. When they removed the propane diffuser cone to clean it and replace the gasket they discovered that the end of the cone had large holes in it. These holes were preventing the propane from burning as efficiently as it should, and if they got bigger could prevent the furnace from working at all. Parts like this for a Weil-McLain GV Gold Series hydronic heating system are not common, i.e., they don’t carry them on their truck or even stock them at their office, so they had to special order it.

As long as they had the combustion chamber open, they went ahead and vacuumed it out. They had me look at it, and it had what appeared to be a couple of inches of rusty debris lying in the bottom, the result of a lack of proper (professional) service over a very long period of time (or perhaps any service at all). They put it all back together and will replace the diffuser cone, gasket, and igniter (along with the part they forgot to bring) when they return next week.

I don’t know if this qualifies as serendipity in the usual sense, but we are lucky that we decided to have the system “serviced” in advance of the start of the heating season. If not, we would not have discovered defects that could have led to a wintertime failure of the furnace with serious consequences for the house.

As I was working at my computer Friday evening an e-mail showed up with the PDF version of the October 2013 issue of Bus Conversions Magazine. The article I wrote on the mid-August Back-To-The-Bricks rally in Clio, Michigan was the cover/centerfold article, the fifth one I have had published in BCM. (See the BCM page of the website for the complete list and information about Bus Conversions Magazine.) That was a nice end to nice week.

2013_09_16 (Mon) Home Away From Home

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Buses at Service Motors in Twelve Mile, Indiana.

Service Motors in Twelve Mile, Indiana has become something of a home away from home for our motorcoach, having spent quite a bit of time there since we bought it. As I have mentioned previously, Butch is very handy and has lots of tools, including a machine shop where he can custom fabricate things if needed. He has been very generous with his time, talent, and facilities, giving me a good place to work on our bus and helping me with it when I need it (which is most of the time). We often stop there enroute to other places, especially rallies that Butch and Fonda are also attending. Once again, we spent the day camped there.

Service Motors is Butch and Fonda Williams’ Crosley automobile parts business. They are the only full-line parts supplier for these wonderful little cars, last made in the early 1950’s, and have an active customer base. They rarely close their business, but decided they would for the week while we attended the FMCA GLAMARAMA13 rally in Goshen, Indiana. (Butch and Fonda are basically the same ages as us and were married one day before we were. They have run Service Motors for 20 years and would like to retire and move in to their 1989 MCI MC-9 NJT bus conversion, which they have done themselves from scratch. The business and facility are for sale.)

Linda worked with Fonda on some accounting issues while Butch attended to various bus and business tasks. I spent the day repairing a leaky fitting on the fuel return line from the Aqua-Hot to the fuel tank. This fitting had been leaking since I installed it as part of the fuel polishing pump project. It looked like a simple enough project, which meant it would take me most of the day; and so it did.

The fitting in question was on the lower end of a check valve (back flow preventer) at the back of a small compartment, which made access difficult. (I mentioned this project in a blog post in early June 2013, and have an article about the Parker Fuel Polishing Module queued up to run in some future issue of Bus Conversions Magazine.) The compartment was covered by a beauty panel with a door, so the actual access opening was even smaller. “Luxury” motorcoaches often conceal functional systems behind “beauty” panels so that the bays look impressively sleek and shiny when the doors are opened. What I see, however, is something that blocks my access to systems that I need to work on so I decided to remove the panel, permanently. This is why simply projects take all day.

The panel was held in place by four “L” brackets concealed on the inside (of course). I borrowed an angle drive from Butch which allowed me to remove the screws fairly easily. However, when I installed the electrical feed and switch for the fuel polishing pump back in June, I drilled a hole through this panel, ran a wire through it to the pump, and mounted the switch on the outside of it. I dismounted the switch and removed the ring terminal from one of the wires as it would not fit through the hole otherwise. With the switch and wires out of the way I was able to remove the panel after cutting loose some old rubber caulk along the bottom edge. This is why simple projects take all day.

The “compartment” in question is just the extra bay space at the business end of the Aqua-Hot. In addition to the fuel polishing pump it houses the coolant expansion reservoir and fuel filter / water separator for the Aqua-Hot as well as the fresh water pump for the domestic water system. Fortunately the cover on that end of the Aqua-Hot slides off easily after removing only three easily accessible screws (it happens occasionally). This made access to the leaky fitting much better.

The fitting was NPT male on one end, for threading into the bottom of the check valve, and barbed on the other end for attaching the fuel return line from the Aqua-Hot. Barbed fittings are designed for a one time, press on installation of a rubber line, i.e., once the line is pushed on it does not leak and it does not pull off. To remove it I had to cut it just below the fitting. I was then able to unscrew the fitting from the check valve. I was fairly certain that this junction was the major source of the leak. The threads still showed remnants of Teflon thread tape, but not much.

The other potential leakage point was the seal between the two halves of the check valve itself. The check valve is a two-piece body with internal parts, and there is a gasket between the two pieces of the body. I had inadvertently loosened this joint when installing the fuel polishing pump and had not been able to re-tighten it in place because of the limited access. Although I had a spare check valve, I decided to try and tighten the one that was already installed as replacing it meant cutting additional tubing and un-threading/re-threading additional joints.

Butch’s brother John came over in the morning to help Butch (and me) with anything that needed to be done. Butch had him change out the element on his main engine fuel filter / water separator while he worked on other bus and business issues. Fonda split her time between business things and loading their stuff on their bus. Even when they are closed, there is business to attend to. By the time I finished my little project it was well into the afternoon. Butch and Fonda worked a while longer and then we headed off to Rochester for dinner at Alejandra’s Mexican-American restaurant. It was 9 PM by the time we got back to the coach and we headed off to bed.

2013_09_15 (Sun) A Re-tired Travel Day

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We were up early today anticipating our departure, but also still having some things to do before we pulled out. I switched the outside faucets to provide treated water (filtered and softened) and 125 gallons of fresh water on board. I also checked and adjusted all of the tire pressures on the bus and the car while Linda finished loading food, coats, and toiletries. In the past we have pulled the bus into the street and then hooked up the car for towing. With the new pull-through driveway finally working as intended, we decided to hook the car up before pulling out. This allowed us to do our light check before bringing the cats out and starting the engine. (The cats do not like it when the engine is running or the coach is moving, so we wait as long as possible to put them on board.)

Ready or not, you reach a point where it’s time to go. We’ve done this enough that we now accept that we will forget something and hope it is something small that we can do without or easily replace on the road. The cats do not fall into that category, of course, so we put them on board, started the engine, and pulled out around 10:40 AM. The driveway worked as planned and the bus made it out with the car attached with plenty of clearance.

We headed out our street to Hacker Road and headed south to pick up I-96 westbound from Grand River Avenue in Brighton. (We would normally take M-59 westbound to I-96 westbound, but M-59 is under construction and traffic flow is not good.) The trip to Twelve Mile, Indiana is about 250 miles and normally takes us about 5 hours including a stop for fuel somewhere along the way. We decided to stop at the Mobil truck stop at M-52 and I-96, only 22 miles up the road, to top off the tank. This ensured we would have more than enough fuel for the round trip and also operate our Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system and/or our genset if needed.

The weather was overcast with occasional light rain, but made for good traveling. We prefer driving on partly cloudy days as it is easier on the eyes. Being Sunday morning, traffic was light, which also made for good travel. Sunday morning is a preferred travel time when we can do it, especially if we have to go through a major metropolitan area. The drive was uneventful and we arrived in Twelve Mile around 3:45 PM. We got the car unhooked and backed into our space next to Butch and Fonda Williams’ MCI MC-9 NJT bus conversion. (NJT stands for New Jersey Transit. These buses have a special front cap with a destination sign above the windshields. They were specially built for the New Jersey Transit Authority and used as commuter coaches throughout the state.) Butch and Fonda have a large paved area where they keep their bus with room for two more if needed. A year or so ago I helped Butch wire up a pair of “50 Amp” RV electrical outlet boxes, so we have a nice electrical service when we are there.

Fonda returned home with Bell as we were arriving, and Butch returned from a gun show not long after while we were still setting up. Butch and Fonda understand RVing etiquette, and left us along until we had “made camp.” As soon as we were parked and the engine was off the cats reappeared from their travel spot under the passenger seat and were up looking out the windows. They don’t seem to mind living in the RV, they just don’t like it when we move it around.

Linda and I had not met Bell before and the three women sat and visited while Butch and I did the same. Bell went to fetch Bill and we met up with them for dinner at the Hibachi Grill Chinese buffet in Logansport. It sounds like it was an easy enough day, but by 9 PM we were tired. I was reminded that retired means re-tired, as in, “I was tired, and now I’m tired again.” But it’s a good kind of tired; different from that associated with working a full-time, stressful job.

2013_09_13 (Fri) Bakery Business, WordPress, And Gutters

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Linda left early to drive to the bakery where she put in a long day. I worked on the CEPI ATR project for a while in the morning. The mail came around noon and contained the written proposal package for the bus barn from Morton Buildings. We also received a box from Bus Conversions Magazine containing multiple copies of the issues in which I have had articles published this year (Feb, Mar, May, and July). We have been distributing sample copies to potential subscribers as we travel to try and help the magazine build its subscriber base.

At 1 PM I met with Mike (W8XH) from SLAARC to work on a new website prototype using WordPress. On Monday we had been unable to complete the installation of WordPress at Larry’s for lack of the necessary login information, but Mike had obtained that from another club member during the week. Finishing the installation was more complicated than we anticipated and we ended up on the phone with Larry (K8UT) most of the time. Our original goal was to investigate themes and plugins but we worked on installation and configuration instead, including figuring out how to set up subdomains through GoDaddy; first things first, after all.

By mid-late afternoon I was back home, the weather was pleasant, and I finally had time to investigate the gutters. It came as no surprise that the downspouts were all completely clogged. What did surprise me was the amount of fine gravel in the gutters. This was material that had washed loose from the surface of the shingles over time and accumulated along the bottom of the gutters to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 inch in places. I got out the 8 foot step ladder and the long hose and spray head, switched the outside faucets to direct well water (unfiltered and untreated) and spent a couple of hours on the roof hosing out the gutters and downspouts.

This was only the second time I had been on the roof, and the first time I had inspected the entire surface. The inspector had dubbed the roof “serviceable” during the purchase inspection, meaning that it probably did not need to be replaced immediately. My assessment was “marginally serviceable”, meaning that it will probably have to be re-shingled next summer. It is a relatively low pitch roof, roughly 4-in-12, so I may redo it myself. I’ve done this work before, and although I was much younger then, I am actually in better shape now. The key will be getting the shingles delivered to the roof rather that to the driveway. The bonus to being on the roof was that the views were nice and I had a much better Verizon 4G/LTE signal than I do in the house, so there is still the possibility that I can get a usable signal into the house using some sort of signal booster system.

By the time Linda fought her way home through Friday evening rush hour traffic she was tired and did not feel like cooking. It was also obvious that we would not be ready to leave for Twelve Mile, Indiana by noon the next day. We quickly decided to delay our departure until Sunday and, relieved of that pressure, headed off to LaMarsa in Brighton for dinner. The LaMarsa in Farmington Hills was a favorite of ours before we moved, and the one in Brighton is equally good. Our favorite dish is Koshary, an Egyptian street food made with rice, legumes, two different pastas, fried onions, pickled beets, and a spicy sauce. It comes with a salad with a lovely Middle Eastern vinaigrette dressing. Dinner always comes with fresh pocket pita breads and garlic spread and the whole meal is vegan, served in a nice setting by wonderful wait staff.

2013_09_12 (Thu) A Crowning Achievement

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Thursday we worked around the house and started getting the bus ready for our upcoming outing. One of the problems with not blogging every day is that the details of older events get overwritten by the details of more recent ones. The problem with blog posts that cover more than one day is that the either get very long or end up very sketchy. In reviewing my appointment calendar while writing this post, I was reminded that I had a new crown installed that morning. You would think that would be easy to remember, but it was a short and uneventful visit and the crown fits very nicely and works quite well, so I am already unaware of it being there. I also put some additional time into the CEPI ATR project.

2013_09_11 (Wed) Fresh Water Systems

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On Wednesday we had a new water treatment system installed by Brian and Matt from Adams Well Drilling & Water Treatment. When Brian was out the week before he determined that our old Water Boss water softener was not working very well. This came as no surprise to us based on the house purchase inspection, but we had hoped it might last a bit longer than it did. Alas, he also determined (confirmed) that we had sulphur-reducing bacteria and probably iron bacteria as well. The water has always had a slight rotten egg smell (hydrogen sulfide) but had gotten worse recently. The inside of the toilet tanks had also become a nursery of sorts (iron bacteria), so something clearly needed to be done. They removed the old Water Boss water softener along with the old sediment pre-filter and carbon post-filter. We also had them remove a Culligan Reverse Osmosis (RO) system. The only thing that remained from the old system, other than pipes and tubing, was the Well-X-Trol storage/surge tank (and the well pump, of course).

With the old stuff out of the way, they first installed a new large capacity, dual porosity sediment pre-filter. The replaceable filter element is 50 microns on the outer portion and 5 microns on the inner portion. Although 5 microns is relatively small, the element has enough surface area to pass many gallons of water per minute. They reconfigured some of the pipes and fittings and then installed a Water Right water softener with a large brine tank, and a Water Right carbon filtration unit with a chlorine pellet tank for the unit’s self cleansing feature. The softener will treat about 800 gallons of water before needing to regenerate the media and has a controller that tracks the usage. (By comparison our Water Boss regenerated every 300 gallons.) It will also learn over time what our water usage pattern is and adjust the regen cycle accordingly. For this reason it would be in our best interest to standardize when we do things like laundry and running the dishwasher. To date, however, our life in retirement has lacked that degree of routine.

Their last task was to install an RO system to replace the Culligan system they took out. The new system has a pressure boost pump on the input, a pre-filter, RO membrane, post-filter, large storage tank, delivery pump, and finally an Arsenic 3 filter. They replaced the Culligan faucet at the main kitchen sink. They also ran a line to the bar sink in the basement where they removed the old Insta-Hot and installed an RO faucet. Since Adams also drills and services wells (and probably installed the one in our house many years ago) we now have one local vendor responsible for our entire fresh water system, with the exception of the hot water heater, from well to faucet. The water heater is part of the hydronic heating system and is serviced by TOMTEK HVAC.

Wednesday was also our Door-To-Door Organics delivery. Linda has a standing order for the “bitty fruit” as it is an appropriate size for us and the fruit is usually quite good. She has found that she does better buying vegetables on a more frequent, as needed basis, and gets what she can from the Howell Farmers Market on Sunday mornings if we are around.

2013_09_10 (Tue) Wall Art and Bus Barns

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As part of getting the house ready for an October Open House / House Warming we continued hanging wall art today. Getting the artwork up on the walls has had the double effect of making the house look a lot more like a home (or art museum, depending who you ask) and de-cluttering the library where most of the artwork has been stored. This in turn has had the secondary effect of getting stuff off the floor and on to the previously blocked empty bottom bookcase shelves.

A couple of weeks ago we discovered water pooled around the base of the library bookcases closest to the rear doorwalls following a heavy (3”) rain, but were unable at that time to determine where the water came from. It continued to be a mystery until early this past week when we had another heavy downpour, only this time we were on the scene and discovered the entry point. Water was overflowing a gutter at an end that was tucked under a soffit against the rear wall of the library above the last doorwall panel. The water was flowing down the outside of the glass and found its way in at the bottom under the sill plate. Once inside it was running across the tile to the low spot. It was sheer coincidence that when this happened the first time there wasn’t anything sitting on the floor in the path of the water; if there had been, it would have been obvious where the water was coming from.

On Tuesday morning we met with Dave from Morton Buildings to discuss our bus barn/garage project. We walked the proposed site and then sat down to discuss our “requirements.” Dave took good notes and said her would try to have the written proposal package to us by the end of the week. Morton is a vertically integrated company that builds high quality timber-framed post-beam structures (pole barns) with metal siding and roofing. They usually handle the whole job from permits to final inspection, but will work with a home or business owner to get them what they want. Their buildings are expensive, but come with excellent warranties, so it is something we are going to have to think about seriously.

Tuesday afternoon I had a phone conversation with Paul from CEPI regarding the About This Report (ATR) online help system for which I am developing some of the content. Late afternoon we drove to a funeral home on the far east side of the Detroit area for a visitation. The owner of the bakery where Linda was the controller for the last 10 years lost his mother over the weekend at the age of 92. He lost his father over the summer while we were out west, so it was particularly important that we make it to the visitation.

2013_09_09 (M) More WordPress Please

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Today was babysitting Monday for Linda and WordPress day for me. Mike (W8XH), the current president of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), wants to create a new website for the club and I have offered to help. We settled fairly quickly on using WordPress to do the work, based in part on the recommendation of Larry (K8UT), and in part on the fact that I am already using it for our website and this blog. Larry offered to help us learn how to build and maintain the site, but did have the personal capacity to actually do the work as he is already the webmaster for a large number of websites.

Today was our first in-depth technical session. We worked for over two hours and left with our heads spinning a bit, but that was OK. Our main focus was a lot of the “back end” stuff. We walked through some basic domain and web-host management issues including the use of subdomains, downloading and installing WordPress, configuring the site for easy/safe backup and new version development/testing, selecting an appropriate theme and navigation structure, selecting/installing plug-ins to add functions such as subscription, member login, and a member directory, and issues related to managing images. We left with “homework” to complete before we meet with Larry again.

Not only do I want to help create a more responsive, attractive, and useful web presence for our ham radio club, I would like to improve our website/blog and have offered to do something similar for two other organizations related to our RVing interests. The functionality I need to incorporate into those two websites will be very similar to what we need to do with our SLAARC website, so this was a very relevant learning opportunity for me. I am also the current vice-president of the SLAARC, and as we all know, VPs don’t usually do much, so this was an opportunity for me to do more than just be prepared to fill in for Mike if needed.

2013_09_07 (Sat) Wi-Fi & Wall Art

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Our day started with the surprise discovery that we did not have our usual domestic hot water. The HVAC guys were here yesterday working on the hydronic heating system, which includes the water heater, and I had a moment of concern (and annoyance, I admit). I knew the “boiler” was working because they tested some of the heating loops yesterday before they left. I also knew it was a zoned system with five loops and more than a dozen valves, so it was possible a valve was left in the wrong position. Sure enough, the valves for the Florida room (library) loop and the domestic hot water loop were both closed. I opened them, but unfortunately the hot water tank did not return to its normal temperature in time for either of us to get the hot showers we had planned on taking when we got up. But we left for our usual Saturday morning ham radio breakfast in South Lyon knowing that we would have our usual hot water when we returned.

There was a good turnout for breakfast and we chatted for a couple of hours. (BTW: the extended group breakfast chat is one of the hallmarks of retirement, and often occurs on a workday. It just so happens that Saturdays work best for the members who like to attend the SLAARC breakfast.)

Following breakfast we headed to the recycling center in Howell. We do not have curbside recycling, so we have to take our recyclables to Recycle Livingston on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Recycle Livingston runs a very efficient operation and always seems to have lots of workers. We presume are (mostly) volunteers. Besides our normal recyclables, we have been accumulating corrugated cardboard as we continue to unpack moving boxes.

When we got back to the house we set up the Wi-Fi enabled main thermostat, a Honeywell Focus Pro TH6320WF that TOMTEK installed yesterday. This thermostat is located at the start of the main floor hallway and controls the heating loop for the living room / dining room / kitchen zone and the air-conditioning for the whole main floor. When properly configured it allows us to monitor and control these two parts of the HVAC system.

The TH6320WF was fairly easy to set up, in part because it is a very clever device, and in part because the directions are very clearly written. When power was first applied it came up in Wi-Fi Setup mode and behaved like a wireless host (router or access point), broadcasting its own name/ SSID . When I opened my iPad2 and scanned for available Wi-Fi networks it was on the list and I selected it. I then opened my browser (Safari) and pointed it to the thermostat’s home page. From there, I activated the thermostat’s wireless client mode and connected it to our primary home wireless network. At that point the thermostat had an IP address from the AT&T gateway and was able to communicate with a website whose purpose is remote monitoring and control of this type of equipment. Before that could happen, however, I had to create an account on the website. The account creation process sent us an e-mail. Following the instructions in the e-mail we completed the registration and activation process. We are now able to remotely monitor and control this thermostat using a smartphone, iPad, or computer.

The rest of the afternoon was spent selecting and hanging wall art. While the hanging part can be tedious, deciding what to hang and where to hang it takes time, judgment, and patience. It was heavily overcast and starting to rain by the time we got started. The living room tends to be a bit dark on this kind of day so we decided to hang photographs in the recreation room. We hung 40 objects in the last three days and have at least two dozen more to install. Getting the “objects d’art” on the “walls d’house” has dramatically transformed the look and feel of the interior and made a significant dent in the “clutter d’move”.

By 6:00 PM we were tired and a bit hungry. Since Linda had not had time to prepare our evening meal we decided to try the El Patron Mexican restaurant in Howell. The vegetarian fajitas worked well for us, they had Dos Equis amber on draft, the wait staff was pleasant and efficient, and our waiter had a subtle sense of humor. Nuf said.

2013_09_06 (Fri) House Systems

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I have often commented here about the “house” systems in our converted coach; the water (fresh and sewage) and electrical (lights, appliances) systems and their components that make a large motorized vehicle behave like a stationary house. Those components include things that are found in any stationary dwelling (water and sewage pipes, plumbing fixtures, electrical wires, circuit breakers, switches, light fixtures, appliances, etc.), things that are found in some stationary dwellings (sewage tanks, macerator pumps, well pumps, fresh water pressure tanks, reverse osmosis systems, power generators and transfer switches), and things that are not commonly found in stationary homes (yet) (various gauges, batteries, inverters & chargers, power protection devices, solar panels, and even wind turbines.) RVs do not have geothermal or low-head hydro systems.

Today, however, was about actual house systems, that is to say, systems for our actual (stationary) house. We have had a “rotten egg” smell in our domestic fresh water system since we bought the house and finally called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment, a local Howell-based company, to come out and take a look at our current equipment. Brian arrived as scheduled at 9 AM and we walked him through the complete fresh water system. He took some water samples directly from the well (before any filtering, softening, or other treatment). The good news was that our dissolved iron was at 1.2 ppm (mg/L), which is a treatable level, but above the 0.3 ppm at which iron starts to become a problem in the water. The less good news came from two directions: 1) that our Water Boss water softener wasn’t doing a very good job and 2) we appeared to have iron bacteria, which a regular water softener doesn’t treat very well (or at all) even with the special “iron out” salt.

We discussed a range of options but Brian’s recommendation, which we accepted, was a new water softener and a “carbon unit”. The carbon unit is self cleaning using special chlorine crystals, and is very effective in dealing with iron bacteria. We will also have new sediment and taste filter housing installed as part of the installation. There may be other issues with the water system in this house, which was built in 1977, but the water treatment equipment was probably due to be replaced regardless of what else we do. The following website from the Illinois Department of Public Health gives a nice synopsis of iron in drinking water: http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/ironFS.htm .

The other fresh water issue we have, based on the testing that was done as part of the purchase inspection, is Arsenic. The level that came back from the lab was 34 ppb (ug/L). The old “safe” level was 50 ppb, but the current “safe” level is 10 ppb. Zero ppb would be ideal, of course, but is not achievable at a reasonable cost. To further complicate matters, there are two kinds of Arsenic found in well water: Arsenic 5 and Arsenic 3. The prior water testing did not test for these separately, but the sample Brian took today is going to a private lab that can/will test for each separately. We were told previously that Arsenic 5 is the more typical and is mostly removed by Reverse Osmosis (RO) but that Arsenic 3 is not removed by RO. The house has a Culligan RO system installed that supplies water to the refrigerator and a special faucet in the kitchen sink. It was in the house when we bought it and we decided to continue renting it until we could determine our true needs and consider our options. Not knowing if we had Arsenic 3 in our water, we purchased a special Arsenic 3 filter from Culligan which installs in the manifold after the RO membrane. We made a call to Culligan to check on our contract and got a call back from our rep (Jeff) who has been a good guy to work with. Long term it makes no sense to rent the unit, so we are exploring purchasing it or removing it and having Adams install a similar system.

While Brian was doing his thing, Darryl showed up from DMC HVAC. Darryl did the HVAC installation for our office/library/garage addition/renovation at the old house and did a great job. When it comes to contractors I like to use local people when I can but I also like to stick with people we have worked with before. Darryl is not local to our new place, but he is a known quantity whose work we respect. Although we have a loop from the hydronic hot water heating system in the Florida room/library, it has some issues.

The major issue is that the supply and return lines run through the ceiling and into the wall which adjoins the garage. We think this house originally had a detached garage with a concrete patio between the garage and the end of the house. Sometime later a roof was added connecting the house and the garage and the two open sides were closed in with 16 feet of doorwall and fixed glass panels. The only practical way to extend the heating systems was to run the pipes overhead.

The other issue is that this space does not have air-conditioning. (There is a small window mount unit in the garage wall. Yup, it exhausts heat into the garage.) We have space in a corner of the garage by this room to install a small forced-air furnace/air-conditioner and get the air to/from the room easily along the garage ceiling. We would also like a ceiling mounted forced-air furnace in the garage so we can store paints and other things that we want to be able to keep above freezing, or bump the temperature up a bit and have a comfortable place to work. Darryl installed one of these at our old house, and it was a very nice feature.

In anticipation of this work, we had a second propane tank installed next to the garage when the whole house backup generator was installed back in May. I told AmeriGas at the time what we planned to do so they did a temporary installation of the tank and ran a line directly to the generator. One of the thinks Darryl will need to do is mount a permanent pressure regulator on the side of the garage and then run pipe to get the propane over to the two new furnaces.

As Darryl was finishing up, Tom and Tom showed up from TOMTEK HVAC. TOMTEK is a Howell-based company that we decided to have service our hydronic heating system. It’s an old Weil-McLain Gold unit with some corroded parts. It was also filled with water. When we looked at the house originally the heating loop to the Florida room was shut off. It turned out that something had failed while the owners were away during the winter and that loop had frozen and ruptured. They repaired it prior to closing, but I never did understand why the system didn’t have an appropriate anti-freeze in it instead of water. As of today, it does.

One of the nice things about hydronic heat is that it is easily zoned. Our system has four zones, each with its own thermostat. One of those thermostats also controls the air-conditioning for the main floor of the house. That may seem odd, but it is a consequence of the A/C unit probably being added sometime after the house was built. As a result, the air handler is in the attic and all of the air ducting is too. It’s a single system controlled from a single point, and is completely separate from the hydronic heating system except for this one shared thermostat. It was the failure of this particular thermostat that prompted us to go ahead and contact TOMTEK and have them out to service the system and install four new thermostats. The one that controls the living/dining rooms and kitchen, as well as the air-conditioning, is a Wi-Fi enabled device that will allow us to monitor the temperature in the hallway, which is the most central point in the house, and control the main heating loop and the air-conditioner remotely if we so desire. Pretty cool; literally. The “boiler” needed some additional service for which TOMTEK had to order parts, so they will be back another day to finish up the maintenance on the unit.

Overlapping contractors made for a somewhat intense day. Fortunately there were two of us available to interact with them, and they all got the attention they needed from us, when they needed it. As soon as Brian was done I called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment and scheduled him to come back on the 11^th to install the new water treatment equipment.