Category Archives: Accounting

Linda is a CPA and former corporate controller.

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

Linda was scheduled to go into the bakery today but knew before we went to bed last night that the visit was postponed. That was just as well; we were very tired from our long day yesterday and slept in this morning.

Before I even had a chance to make coffee I spotted wild turkeys by the road in our easternmost driveway entrance. They walked past the east end of the house into our backyard. They hung around by the deer block for quite a while so we had a good long look at them and I took a few pictures. There was a big tom, a younger/smaller tom, and a half-dozen hens, one with a surprisingly small chick for this late in the season. The turkeys eventually moved on and we got back to our normal routine. While I made the coffee Linda made her own version of raisin, date, walnut oatmeal with some quick oats that she had in the pantry. It was very good.

We read for a bit but I needed to finish the blog posts for the last several days and Linda needed to return some items to the Howell Library and run a couple other errands. While working on the blog post for yesterday I realized that we had not loaded all of the pieces for the built-in sofa. I checked the pieces we had against the drawings, which we should have done yesterday, and confirmed that we were missing the two top pieces (E) for the support boxes (HVAC plenums) and the top piece (H) for the return air plenum. I texted Jarel and he replied quickly that he would try to take care of it in time for me to drive back down on Wednesday to pick up them up. It’s a 12-17 hour, 550 mile day, for me and costs about $60 in gasoline, so hopefully he will have the pantry done by then as well.

Linda got word from our son via TXT message that Shawna’s father, Mick, had passed away. He had an aggressive but non-cancerous brain tumor that did respond to two separate surgeries and was moved to hospice care about two weeks ago. Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline are cutting their vacation short by a day to head to the Grand Rapids area but are still leaving Tuesday to fly to Denver to visit Shawna’s mother, Carol, and her husband, Cliff. It appears that a memorial service may be in the works for the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd, in which case we will probably drive over.

My sister tried to call me today. Linda was on the house phone quite a bit today with bakery-related business so Patty tried my cell phone but did not leave a message. I was working in the bus at the time, did not have it with me, and Linda could not find it in time when it was ringing. Being deaf in one ear she cannot locate where sounds are coming from. She does a little better when she uses her BAHA, but rarely wears it around the house. I called my sister back and left a message and she eventually called me back and we got to talk.

Our father, who is 90, had been admitted to a hospital near where he lives. The staff said he appeared to have severe dementia, but he was fine (for his age) just a couple of weeks ago, so I suspected a stroke or some other sudden change. Patty sent me a text latter that the CAT scan of his brain revealed two recent lesions (last few weeks), the telltale sign of two strokes. She also said he was being transferred to Missouri Baptist Hospital, which is much closer to where she lives, for further care.

Those two pieces of news certainly put a damper on the day, and may cause an adjustment in my plans if I have to travel to St. Louis. In the meantime there is stuff that has to get done, so even though it was warm today and I wasn’t really in the humor, I kept working in the bus, off and on. I vacuumed up loose material, including inside the bases of cabinets, and then cleaned the wiring in the refrigerator alcove with Lysol. I decided to make a template for the refrigerator alcove plywood base filler panels so I could cut them the right size/shape on the first try. I then used one of the new ceramic sanding belts on the residual thin-set and mastic, and it worked! My sense of hope was renewed that I will be able to install the new floor correctly.

By 7 PM I was feeling drained so I wrapped up my work and took a shower. For dinner Linda made pan-grilled BBQ tofu with caramelized onions and served it open faced on a hamburger bun with a side of fresh steamed asparagus. It was delicious.

After dinner I went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot in search of several items but only ended up buying another 36 grit sanding belt. I needed floor leveling compound but was not prepared to choose between their limited options. I also needed a self-centering drill bit but neither store had them. Lowe’s and THD really are focused on the tools and materials one needs to work on a house and its surrounding property. Things like self-centering drill bits, though useful for things like drilling holes for door hinges, are really cabinet-making tools. As big as these stores are they can’t, and don’t, sell everything.

I talked to Butch on the drive home. The self-centering drill bit that Jarel recommended for installing the pull-out pantry slides is a Vix and Butch suggested four places where I could buy it: Rockler, Custom Service Hardware, McFeeley’s, and Grizzly’s. Before ordering one I need to e-mail or text Jarel and ask him what size screw I need to mount the pull-out pantry extension slides.

Back home I thought of four other things I could have bought while I was out so I added them to my list. I then went to my office and worked on blog posts, updated the BCM Group page on RVillage, e-mailed Gary Hatt at BCM, responded to an e-mail from Howard (PlayaDog) re: screens for sliding bus windows, and started downloading Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 updates. Jack Conrad had responded to my earlier e-mail asking if he knew what was going on with the Arcadia rally and I sent him a reply. By the time I dealt with all that I was ready to recline and rest.

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

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We have a doe and her spotted faun that have been coming in the early morning to the deer block we set in our back yard the other day. They were there again this morning and the block is close enough to the house that we got a good look at them through the bedroom doorwall. They must be comfortable with the setting as the faun wandered off towards the western part of our property and the doe let it go while she continued to lick the block. Eventually, however, the faun was out of sight and the doe headed off in that direction to find it.

We had cinnamon raisin toast and soy yogurt for breakfast, with orange-grapefruit juice to wash down the vitamins. I used up the last of the Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff coffee beans for our pot of morning coffee. Keith usually mows our grass on Mondays and he came to the front door around 9:30 AM to ask if we wanted it cut this week. That’s the first time he has done that this summer but it was an appropriate and timely question. We have had very little rain the last couple of weeks so the grass had not gown much since last Monday and was a little brown in places. We agreed to skip this week, which I think was what Keith was hoping I would say. There was a high probability of rain starting around noon and I suspect he had another yard he wanted to cut before it started.

We have been very busy the last few days and I have not had time to do more than outline my blog posts. Linda needed to work on an analysis for the bakery so I spent much of the day filling in the details of my recent posts. Our days are very full and if I wait too long I cannot capture them accurately.

Linda looked up the information on the DTE Energy “Energy Efficiency” appliance recycling program. I called the 866 number and was assisted by Reginald. The earliest available pickup date was Friday, August 28 so I took that. It took quite a while to arrange the pickup but Reginald appeared to get all the pertinent information and give me a confirmation code and a phone number to reach the truck on pickup day.

Once the refrigerator pickup was arranged I texted Chuck to let him know the details. That prompted a return phone call and a conversation about refrigerators. Having seen how our swap went on Saturday he and Barb are also thinking very seriously about replacing the refrigerator in their bus. The rationale is the same as ours; the fridge is old, so it is noisier and less efficient than newer ones, and having it break on the road would be more than inconvenient.

Replacing a refrigerator in an RV, especially a residential unit in a bus conversion, is not like replacing one in a home. Access is a major problem and there is not a lot of space to maneuver it or get more than two pairs of hands on it. If they replace theirs here (in Michigan) their bus will be inside their garage/shop, the forklift will be available to do the heavy lifting, and trusted friends and family will be available to help. And, most importantly, they won’t be living in it and dependent on the fridge for preserving their food.

Before the day got away from me I pulled up the PDF of the manual for the wireless keypad for the large garage door. When I installed the new opener for the small garage door and reprogrammed the wireless remotes for our cars I inadvertently rendered the keypad inoperable. Reprogramming it was simple enough once I had the procedure. It’s the small, simple tasks like this one that become big burdens if not taken care of in a timely manner.

The predicted rain started around noon and was steady until 3 PM. It was just the kind of rain we needed; gentle enough to give it a chance to soak in but hard enough to provide a useful quantity of moisture to the ground. Six to 10 hours of this would have been even better but we were glad for what we got.

I had thought that we might mask off the inside of the coach today with painter’s plastic but with the rain and humidity, and plenty of other things to do, I decided to defer that until tomorrow. During the afternoon Jarel texted me a couple of pictures and a brief status update on our custom woodworking projects. Not surprisingly he is already well along on the construction of the pull-out pantry and has spray lacquered the pieces for the built-in sofa.

One of the photos showed one of the 1/8″ thick aluminum plates that will form the side rails for each shelf in the pantry. He applied a brushed finish to the plate and countersunk the screw holes so the heads would not protrude beyond the surface. Jarel did metal work at one time before he became a cabinet maker so he knows how to do this kind of stuff. He is also meticulous and takes great pride in his work. Given a choice I would always prefer to hire a craftsman who cares as much, or more, about the quality of their work as I do.

When I know I am going to have a long full day, such as this coming Wednesday, I will try to “write ahead” on my blog, basically outlining the plan for the day but obviously not filling in the details of things that have not yet happened. Along the same lines, I often use future blog posts as a planning tool. As things occur to me that I need to do I will note them in the draft of a future post. If the thing actually gets done on that date I flesh out the details, and if not, I move it to a new date.

I think I did several loads of laundry today and spent some time editing and uploading blog posts during the evening, but as I am finishing this post later in the week I have lost the details and will just end here.

2015/08/05 (W) No Mask Wednesday

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Linda was up at 6 AM and left for the bakery around 6:20 AM, I think. I was more asleep than awake and did not get up until later. I wanted to do a load of laundry but needed powdered detergent which I did not have. I also needed to make a run to Lowe’s so I left to take care of my errands without making coffee or having breakfast.

I picked up a couple of 2x4s at Lowe’s that I will use to cut a pair of support arms for propping open the fixed window in the bus while we exchange the refrigerators. I was going to buy a 4’x4′ (half sheet) of plywood to cut for the base of the refrigerator alcove but did not care for the selection. I also did want to wrestle with the size and weight by myself. I will have to go back to The Home Depot with Linda to get what I need. I got my laundry supplies across the street at Meijer’s and headed home.

After unloading the 2x4s I thought I would program the remote control in my car for the new garage door opener. The procedure is very simple but much to my dismay the remote would not connect with the opener. The remote is a 3-button model made by Chamberlin, and both garage door openers are identical Chamberlin models. We have four of these 3-button remotes, one for me, one for Linda, and one for each of our children. We got the 3-button model because we have two overhead doors on our garage and plan (hope) to have a barn someday with an overhead door. All four of the 3-button remotes programmed to the large garage door without a problem and the new door opener came with a single button remote that works just fine, as did the large garage door opener. I won’t know if the problem is the opener or my remote until I can try programming Linda’s remote. If her remote will program then I know it’s my remote, but if it won’t program I still won’t know where the problem lies.

I had originally planned to mask off the interior of the bus today so I could start sanding the floor tomorrow but decided to put it off. Not only would the painter’s plastic be difficult to manage by myself, I realized that it did not make a lot of sense to tape it up in advance of doing the refrigerator swap. I was on the phone with Chuck arranging to bring our bus to his shop this weekend to take care of the refrigerators when our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door bearing gifts. Well, OK, they were packages, but I did not expect them until tomorrow so that made them more like gifts in my mind. One was from Amateur Electronics Supply (AES) and the other was from Morgan Manufacturing, so it was all ham radio stuff.

I went to my ham shack/office and mounted the control head for the Yaesu FTM-400 on the stand that just arrived from AES. I e-mailed Steve (N8AR) to arrange a time to test the lightning arrestor before installing it in our cable entry box. I then e-mailed Jarel to start trying to arrange a day next week to drive to his shop in Logansport, Indiana to pick up the custom walnut desk. Finally, I e-mailed Josh at Coach Supply Direct to make sure he was going to be around. I was checking out the TVFool.com website, which Steve recommended, when the art frame shop in Howell called to let us know that three of our four paintings were ready to pick up. They would have all been done but he ordered the forth frame the wrong size and had to reorder it. Linda then called to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery. So much communication, so little time.

When Linda got home we discussed going out to dinner and researched a new place that had opened in Howell. As usually happens, however, there is almost no place that serves anything we choose to eat and we ended up staying home. Linda had a couple of Boca burgers in the freezer and we had those with corn-on-the-cob and fresh fruit (peaches, nectarines, and strawberries). We eat better food, and in smaller quantities, when we dine at home.

After dinner I caught Steve (N8AR) on the radio and we agreed that I would bring the lightning arrestor over to his QTH at 8 PM. I had an e-mail related to the draft of the July issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and checked to make sure a correction had been made correctly.

At Steve’s house my lightning arrestor tested better than the previous one, and should work OK in my system, but it was very clear that there is something wrong with the design and/or manufacturing of these VHF/UHF I.C.E. units. We also came to the conclusion that the quality control testing the manufacturer was doing (if any) was inadequate to reveal the problem. I expect, however, that this one will work when I install it so if it is typical of their units most hams would not have a reason to suspect that it was flawed. Someone would have a problem with it, however, as it is clearly not usable for all frequencies from 40 MHz to 1 GHz as stated on the label. My unit has a 0.31 dB loss at 445 MHz (it should be 0.01) but has an 11.59 dB loss around 635 MHz, which is a huge factor of 16 times loos of signal, and the loss from 500 MHz to 1 GHz is unacceptably large making it useless in that range of frequencies.

Steve captured all of the data and e-mailed it to me. He then tested one of his Polyphaser lightning arrestors and sent me that data file. He also sent me the link to the VNWA software from SDR-Kits.com that I needed to work with the data file. We spent a few minutes talking about the problem we are having at home with our ham radio transmissions interfering with our OTA TV signals. He sent me a link to the free student version of the ELSIE (“L”,”C”) filter design software.

I left about 9:45 PM and called my friend, John Rauch, to see if Saturday noon would work for him in terms of our refrigerator swap. He said it would and that he would check with his son (also John) to see if he could/would also help. I will let Chuck know tomorrow that it looks like Saturday is a “go.”

Linda was asleep by the time I got home so I worked in my office until after midnight. I captured the data attached to the e-mails from Steve and then downloaded and installed both the VNWA and the ELSIE software. I then uploaded my personal blog posts for June 28, 29, and 30. I logged in to the FMCA Freethinkers website, the FMCA GLCC website, and the SLAARC website and installed updates for the themes and numerous plug-ins. With that I came back upstairs and worked on this post in the living room so as not to disturb Linda and finally went to bed around 1 AM.

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

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Linda was up at 5:55 AM this morning and left for the bakery at 6:15. Experience has shown that this is usually early enough to get ahead of the morning rush hour traffic inbound to the Detroit metro area from the northwest.

I got up about an hour later, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed my morning coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then made a run to Lowe’s to purchase a couple of copper ground lugs and 5 feet of #10 green ground wire. Back home I tried to use one of the ground lugs to terminate the ground wire from the cable entry box (CEB) to the 36″ ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks but it’s shape prevented the wing nut from going onto the stud.

I planned to use the other lug to attach one end of the #10 wire to the ground bar and put a male spade lug on the other end to mate with the connector on the Go Box ground pigtail, but that clearly was not going to work. I dressed the ground wire and (temporary) coax in the ham shack and put the ceiling tile back in place. I then started cleaning up the living room and small bedroom per Linda’s request before she left this morning. Some of our (my) projects have a way of expanding throughout the whole house. I had hoped to also pick up the coax cables spread out in the recreation room, and at least start to straighten up the ham shack/office, putting materials away and moving tools to the garage.

At 10 AM I made a few phone calls. The first was to Rick Short at ISRI USA regarding the 6860 bus driver’s seat and a possible visit tomorrow morning. I got his voice mail (again) and never got a return call (again) so I gave up on getting any assistance from him or from ISRI USA. I called Linda to make sure she did not have any commitments on Wednesday and then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to set up a visit to his shop for Wednesday late morning. Linda and I plan to finalize our Flexsteel furniture order and give Josh the deposit during that visit. Next I called Scott Adams, AC8IL, at Adams Electronics and ordered a 20 foot length of LMR-400 with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end. Scotty and I also chatted briefly about tower bases.

I e-mailed Scott Neader at QST.com regarding the transfer of the SLAARC domain name and website from GoDaddy to QST.com and got a reply back right away with an outline of the steps I needed to follow. First on the list was creating an account for our ham radio club through his billing system. I took care of that and e-mailed him back.

Keith Kish, from Kish Lawn, care showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass. When he was done I headed back to Lowe’s to look for an alternate ground clamp and pulley support for the tower but did not find anything suitable. So as not to have it be a wasted trip I bought three more bags of broken brick pieces to use around the tower base and cable entry box.

I spent some time looking at the Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE on several different ham radio equipment vendor websites. Yaesu is offering a $100 rebate on this 2m/440 mobile radio through tomorrow. All of the distributors are selling it for the same price, $599.95 and the rebate brings it down to $499.95, so if I buy one it will come down to who has them in stock and is offering free shipping.

Linda got home from the bakery around 3 PM, earlier than I expected and nice for her. She went for a walk while I continued to fuss with ham radio and website stuff.

For dinner Linda made a white beans and mustard greens dish. We eat a lot of lettuce, kale, and spinach, both raw and cooked into dishes, but only occasionally have collard greens or mustard greens. Mustard greens have a very strong, bitter flavor and I liked them more than Linda did. I think they are an acquired taste and may be more suitable as an accent ingredient rather than a main one.

After dinner I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Scott at QTH.com. The QTH SLAARC account invoice was ready so I paid it using a personal credit card. I then moved the coax from our Icom IC-7000 to Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and turned it on. Mike was on the South Lyon repeater discussing the Field Day event with Steve (N8AR) and Bruce (W8RA). Paul (N8BHT) was able to join the conversation but I was not successful breaking in so I just listened. It was an indication that my power into the repeater was probably still marginal but a good reminder that ham radio conversations are very public.

When they were done I called for Mike and he came back. We had a good QSO (chat) about the Yaesu FTM-400. Jim (N8KUE) joined in for a while. After Jim dropped off we tested my ability to transmit to, and receive from, both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 70cm repeaters. The added power of the IC-2820H over my IC-7000 (50W vs 35W in the 70cm band) combined with the lower signal loss of the better coax made just enough difference that I could hold the Novi repeater when transmitting although my signal was still on top of a lot of noise coming back out of the repeater.

Linda wanted to watch an episode of Scorpion, followed by NCIS Los Angeles, after which I caught an episode of Two and a Half Men and then turned off the TV. I will have to make a decision about the Yaesu FTM-400 in the morning.

2015/06/17 (W) Bakery Scraper

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15 AM to beat the morning rush hour traffic headed into the northwest corner of the Detroit metroplex. I got up about an hour later, tended to my morning cat chores, made coffee, had some granola for breakfast, gathered up the trash, and took the big trash can to the street.

The Apex roofing crew started showing up just before 8 AM. After everything was squared away with Apex I went to The Home Depot in Howell to rent the small power floor scraper. The scraper took some of the thinset off but was not as effective as I had hoped it would be. The tool is designed for stripping linoleum floors, so I had no reason to complain that it did not do what I needed it to do. I returned it within four hours and paid the 4-hour rental fee rather than the day (24-hour) fee. The guy in the tool rental department suggested I try a different machine which they had not mentioned to me previously. It was a Makita 11 pound power chisel. I rented it with three chisels.

The roofers were at the point where they needed to install the two Velux Sun Tunnel skylights in the roof of the living room. I showed them where I wanted them installed, if possible, and they tarped off the furniture and floor in the living room. Apex is very good about protecting the yard from damage and capturing the mess that is associated with a roof project. That same care and attention carried over to the inside work, which I appreciated.

Our bus looking forward from the the hallway by the refrigerator and pantry.

After a break for lunch I spent most of the afternoon using the power chisel to strip the area of the floor in the bus where the ceramic tile was installed. I was not able to strip it down to the plywood subfloor, but I was able to knock down most of the ridges of thinset and adhesive that remained after I chiseled out the tiles.

I had a brief chat with Chuck around lunchtime regarding the refrigerator. Butch called mid-afternoon to fill me in on why he was not able to answer the phone last night. Linda called around 2:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery. She pulled in the driveway an hour later and came in the bus to see what I was up to and let me know it was starting to rain. I had made good progress but was not done and decided I would keep the power chisel until tomorrow and pay the 1-day (24-hour) rate.

The roofers were aware of the rain, which was very light though increasing steadily, but were in the middle of replacing plywood and installing the skylights. Some of them finished that up as quickly as they could, cleaned up the roof, and spread out the tarps while the others picked up the debris from the yard and got it in the trash trailer. The trailer was full so they took it with them when the left at 4:40 PM.

We had a snack of pretzels, green grapes and a small glass of Moscato wine. My thumbs were both bothering me (arthritis) so I took some Ibuprofen and then went back to work in the bus. I had to close the roof vents because of the rain so it was warmer inside and a bit stuffy as the humidity had come way up. I worked as long as I could and quit for the day at 6 PM.

For dinner Linda made a simple green salad and then cooked some whole wheat capellini and tossed it with the homemade tomato-based Marinara sauce she made the other day. After dinner I worked in my office for a while. I thought I would upload some blog posts but I had an e-mail from Bus Conversion Magazine with the draft of the May 2015 issue. I proofread part 2 of my 4-part article on the Exterior Makeover of our bus by Phoenix Paint. I found one thing that needed to be corrected and e-mailed it to the editor.

Linda got a DVD of Wild from the Howell Library the other day but we were too tired to watch it and just went to bed. I turned my light out at 9:58 PM, the first time since I can’t remember when that I have done that before 10 o’clock in the evening.

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

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Linda got up around 6 AM and got ready to go to the bakery. I was aware she was up but I slept in. Once up I showered and dressed for the day. I did not plan to work in the bus today so I did not put on my work clothes. Instead I needed to catch up on blog entries and take the cats to a 2 PM appointment at Plaza Veterinary Hospital in Farmington, Michigan.

I was putting a few things back in the master bedroom closet and noticed that the air-conditioning return air grill was stuffed full of insulation. We had found this in the other return air grills and removed it but we overlooked this one. I removed the grill and then removed the insulation and threw it away. There was a 1/2″ thick filter material stuffed up in the register behind the insulation. I trimmed the filter to just fit inside the grill and reattached it to the ceiling. Putting the rest of the house back together will take both of us so we will do that this evening. Besides, we like to give the carpets as much time as possible to dry out.

I went out around 9:30 AM to fuel my car and get a cup of coffee at the co-located Dunkin’ Donuts. Back home I put my floor mat back in front of my main computer station and settled in to check e-mail and work on my blog. There was a new driver available for the NVIDIA GeForce GPU in my ASUS laptop, so I initiated the download. AT&T was providing me with a 160 KB download speed and the 277 MB driver said it would take an hour to download. No point tying up the Internet connection until the download finished so I used my iPad while I waited.

The driver downloaded a little sooner than predicted and then installed quickly. When I finally opened my e-mail and had another 50 MB of stuff to download; a lot of it BCM related. They are trying to wrap up the April 2015 issue and sent me several drafts since I last checked my e-mail. I have not been 100% successful in getting folks attached to the magazine to transmit large files via Dropbox instead of attaching them to e-mails.

Tim Olsen from our GLCC chapter called yesterday to let me know he had registered for GLAMARAMA and wanted to park with the chapter. I updated my spreadsheet and need to e-mail a few folks to clarify their intentions before giving an updated coach count to the rally parking coordinator. As often happens, I did not have much time left to work on blog posts before I had to round up the cats and take them to the vet.

Both cats complained for most of the trip to Plaza Veterinary Hospital, but they are cats and that is what they do. I weighed them on the scale in the lobby and gave the receptionist the pertinent facts concerning their health. Once in the exam room I opened their carriers. Juniper immediately came out and explored the room. We were early and had to wait a while but Juniper stayed very busy. Perhaps she was looking go for a way out. Jasper did not leave his carrier. Perhaps he figured he was safer staying in there.

Dr. Carron examined Juniper first since she was already out of her carrier. The cats both got a clean bill of health other than some tartar on their teeth. Dr. Carron did not suggest, however, that they needed to be cleaned at this time. They each got vaccinated albeit for different things. Jasper also had blood drawn. He is just a month shy of being 11 years old and Dr. Carron likes to do annual blood work on cats 8 years of age and older. Juniper is due for a 3-year rabies booster in December of this year but Jasper is not due again until sometime in 2017. Besides rabies certificates we may need an International Health Certificate for each cat to get them into Mexico and/or back into the United States if we decide to make the trip to Puerto Penasco in February 2016.

I had just left Plaza Veterinary Hospital when Linda texted me that she was wrapping up at the bakery. It was already after 3 PM at that point and traffic was thick and slow in the usual places. I had a nice QSO with Mike (W8XH) on the South Lyon 2 meter ham radio repeater for the last six miles of my trip. He and several other club members bought Yaesu digital radios at the Dayton Hamvention to use with the new Yaesu Fusion 2m repeater that five of them bought from Yaesu for a special promotional price of only $500.

I got home around 4 PM and replied to Linda’s TXT message. I got the cat carriers inside and set them free. There was no hesitation about leaving the carriers this time. Linda got home around 5 PM, 90 minutes after she left the bakery, and I filled her in on the cats’ veterinary appointments. While we were chatting we got an e-mail from our son letting us know that Shawn’s tenure at the University of Michigan had been approved by the Board of Regents at their meeting today. We were understandably pleased (and relieved) to finally receive this news and texted back our congratulations. Shawna sent back a cell phone photo of themselves celebrating at a local Ann Arbor establishment. They looked very happy.

Most car dealerships in this market are open until 9 PM on Mondays and Thursdays, and neither of us was ready for dinner yet, so we paid a visit to Champion Chevrolet on Grand River Avenue between Brighton and Howell. We were greeted by Ken, but he only dealt in used cars and handed us off to Dan Danaher. He had a Chevy Colorado on the lot so we checked it out. It was not the 4-door crew cab Z71 off-road model, but it did have 4-wheel drive. We climbed in/out of the front and back seats and played with the tailgate. The front seats were fine but I could not sit in the back without the driver seat being all the way forward. The 4-door Crew Cab adds about 7″ of rear leg room but it would still be tight. That is one of the tradeoffs with mid-size trucks. The front seats fit us nicely but this is not a truck for tall and/or large people IMHO. The Z71 off-road version may sit slightly higher but we should still be able to get in/out without needing an accessory step or running board.

The MSRP for the truck we saw was just over $30,000 and overall felt very similar to the Nissan Frontier, nice but not luxurious. In other respects, however, the trucks were very different. The Colorado 4×4 models have a transfer case and can be towed four wheels down with an automatic transmission. We liked the Frontier but it can only be towed 4-down with the manual transmission and for that reason alone is not a viable alternative for us.

Dan gave us a brochure on the Colorado and made a few notes on what we are looking for. We would obviously like to see the 4-door crew cab and drive the Z71 4×4 off-road model before deciding to buy one. He said he would call if/when he had those available for us to see and test drive. If we ordered by the end of the month we would get a 2015 model but it would take 8 – 10 weeks to arrive. Starting June 1st orders will be for a 2016 model and still take 8 – 10 weeks for delivery. Recent history suggests a 0.5% to 1.0% price increase for the new model year. We do not plan to order a new car before the end of May and a 1% price increase would not motivate us to change our minds about that.

On our way back to our car we took a quick glance at the Camaro sitting outside the showroom door. If we were buying a nostalgia car thus would be it. Linda’s first car, purchased before we were married, was a used 1967 Chevy Camaro convertible. It was white with a red interior and had a 327 cubic inch V8 under the hood. No emissions controls in those days, just raw power and $0.35/gal gasoline.

We drove to Panera in Brighton and had black bean soup and Mediterranean veggie sandwiches for dinner. By the time we got home we were ready to relax. First we took the spacers out from under the living room furniture, so we had someplace to sit, and put a few items back where they normally go. I opened one of the bottles of Malvasia Bianca white wine from the Heart of the Dessert (Eagle Ranch) winery in Alamogordo, New Mexico and we celebrated our daughter-in-law’s attainment of tenure. It’s been a good year for our son and his family and it is nice to see things finally falling into place for them. The wine was very similar to the late harvest Rieslings we get from Michigan’s Leelanau peninsula; very sweet and thus a good cocktail or dessert wine. We watched the final episode from season 1 of A Touch of Frost before turning in for the evening.

2015/02/24-28 (T-S) Bus Projects

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2015/02/24 (T) Little Bus Projects

I went to bed early (for me) last night but slept in until almost 8 AM. It was cool in the coach and I had cats snuggled up with me enjoying the warmth of the electric heating pad. When I finally got up I tended to their needs—food, water, and litter—and then tended to mine; fruit juice, granola, coffee, and grapefruit. It is Tuesday, which is trash collection day, so I gathered up the trash from the kitchen and took it to the refuse container by the curb. We will only have one more trash collection while we are here and that will likely occur after we have pulled out on Tuesday March 3rd.

I finished up yesterday’s blog post, got dressed, and got to work on my bus projects. I started by wiping off the spotting on the windows and body from the recent rains. I thought the reason I spent 40 hours cleaning and waxing the body was so water would run off if it but apparently I was mistaken. I had also noticed that the wax on the passenger side of the bus had not been fully rubbed down. I started working on this but without using additional water it just made it look worse so I quit somewhat disgusted with the whole situation and got to work on other stuff.

First up was the dashboard instrument lighting. For the turbo boost gauge I made a 5 inch extension lead with red #14 wire and insulated female spade connectors on each end to connect to the +24VDC supply wire for the old gauge. I made a similar lead with black wire for the ground but only put a connector on one end to attach to the new gauge bulb holder. I used a crimp style speed connector to splice the free end into the existing ground wire which had a fork connector on the end that I did not want to cut off. I put one of the 24VDC wedge base bulbs in the holder and snapped it into the gauge.

I undid the retaining ring on the speedometer and pulled the instrument out the front of the dashboard. I thought I had wired the two light bulbs in series to use 12VDC bulbs on a 24VDC circuit but discovered that they were already wired in parallel. I pulled the two bulb holders out and the bulbs were discolored as if they had been too hot. I could not determine the voltage rating on the bulbs so I replaced them with 24V ones. I reinstalled the speedo into the dashboard and put the dashboard cover back on. I will test the lights the next time I connect the chassis batteries.

I next considered replacing the MAC valve that controls the air shutters for the two A-C compressor/condenser units in front. I looked at the existing valve and decided to hold off until I could talk to Butch. He and Fonda had taken off for the day, so that would have to wait. The valve has a diagram on it that indicates how it operates but I was not completely clear on how to read it. When I built the new air panel I used identical replacement valves and plumbed them the same as the old ones. I searched online for “pneumatic valve symbols” and got all kinds of sites. One of them had a 25 slide presentation on ANSI standard symbols and schematics so I downloaded and studied it. With my new knowledge I was able to verify that the valve was, in fact, installed correctly. I figured it was since it seemed to work correctly (until it failed) but it was nice to know for sure. I am not certain that the three control switches are wired correctly, however, but that is a different project for a different day.

I really did not want to change the entire valve. I bought the replacement valve from Hei/Tek in Phoenix so I called them for technical support. They confirmed what Butch suspected; the operator (solenoid) can be changed without replacing the entire valve. They had a defective valve and offered to take the solenoid off and mail it to me for no charge. Deal. I should have it tomorrow so I deferred any further work on this project until the part arrives.

By now it was time for lunch so I made a nice sandwich with toasted sourdough bread, vegan deli slices, Daiya havarti style vegan cheese with jalapeños, lettuce, onions, pickles, veganaise, and honey mustard.

Next up was mounting the turbo boost sensor. It was a beautiful, sunny day but rather cool so I put on one of my long-sleeve flannel work shirts. Hey, who said the desert in the winter was paradise? Oh yeah, I did. I knew this was going to be an annoying little project and it was.

The turbo boost (intake manifold pressure) sensor is a small rectangular part about 1″ wide by 2″ long by 1/2″ thick. It has a weatherproof 3-wire electrical connector and a 1/2″ long tube that the pressure hose from the intake manifold slips over. The sensor is mounted to a somewhat larger flat bracket with a slight bend in it. The bracket has an angled slot and is supposed to be secured to the back side (towards the front of the bus) of the engine computer mounting bracket by a single bolt that the slot slips over.

No doubt there is an easy (correct) way to mount the bracket, but it probably requires disassembling other stuff to create access. That was not going to happen, at least not today. One problem was that there was not a lot of space to get my hands in there to work. Another problem was that I was working “blind.” Even though I had a telescoping mirror I could not position it correctly in the available space and I needed both hands to install the bracket. But the real problem was that the retaining bolt had long ago disappeared and I had no idea what bolt was supposed to be used or if it threaded into a hole or required a nut.

I had looked this up in my engine manual some time ago so I knew where and how the bracket was supposed to mount, but the manual did not call out the diameter, thread pitch, or length of the mounting bolt. I tried several bolts that I had but none of them where right. I asked Barb to keep an eye on my tools and bus while I made a quick run to Herb’s Hardware where I bought an assortment of bolts. None of them fit.

One of my original bolts was “close” but a little loose. I decided to wrap it generously with Teflon tape to see if I could fatten it up enough to hold. I reattached the electrical harness, shortened the pressure hose, and reattached it as I would not be able to make these connections after the bracket was mounted. I finally managed to get the bracket installed and I think my taped bolt will hold it until we get home and I can figure out the correct bolt. Even if/when I do, there is no good way to get in there and tighten it. I ended up using a 7/16″ short socket with a swivel adapter and 6″ long drive extension that I turned by hand. At least it was mid-late afternoon on a beautiful day with abundant sunshine illuminating the west-facing engine bay.

I still have a half dozen projects to take care off over the next four days but it was good to have the dashboard and turbo boost sensor completed. During the course of the afternoon I discussed with Barb and Jim what I had found about the use of potassium bromide (KBr) to control seizures in dogs and cats. I really hope they will discuss this with their vet.

I made popcorn for a late afternoon snack and then checked my e-mail to see if Stacy had proofread my Quartzsite 2015 article and deal with any other correspondence from publisher Gary Hatt. She had called in sick again, so the proofreading was delayed yet another day. Linda had called while driving home but caught me in the middle of working on the turbo boost sensor mounting. I called her back around 6:30 PM my time (8:30 PM EST). She was really tired so we did not talk very long.

At 7:30 PM (MST) I called David Lambert. David currently lives in a group home in Olympia, Washington (PST). He has long been the adult best friend of J.C. Armbruster, my best friend from high school (besides Linda, of course). I met David on a visit to Washington State many, many years ago and we also became friends. I learned then that David had struggled with bi-polar affective disorder all of his life and it has not gotten better for him with time. He does not have much contact with people outside of the group home other than J.C., who has really come to his rescue over the last couple of years. David does not usually have much to say, but I try to let him know that I know he exists. Tonight, however, he was a bit more talkative and told me about recent visits with his sister Mary Kay from Everitt, Washington and his half-sister Soliel, who is moving to Sacramento, California. He also like to watch the TV program “Axe Men.” He is at least a 3rd generation native northwesterner and logging is part of his family heritage.

For dinner I heated up the “Soyrizo” we bought at Albertson’s supermarket. I diced garlic, shallot, sweet onion, carrot, green and jalapeño peppers and sautéed them is a little olive oil before adding the soy Chorizo and heating it thoroughly on high heat. It was a filling but tasty dish. After dinner I resumed working on the photos of Larry and Carol Hall’s GM bus conversion. By the time I got to bed and turned the lights out it was midnight.

2015/02/25 (W) Another “Little” Bus Project

I was up at 7:30 AM, which seems to be my norm when I’m in bed by midnight. The local Farmers Market operates on Wednesdays and this would be my last opportunity to buy a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread. I skipped coffee and breakfast, got dressed, and counted out enough dimes and nickels from the cup where we store our change to cover the $3 cost of a loaf.

Once I got back to the coach I made coffee and had breakfast and then settled in to finish yesterday’s blog post, which needed a lot of work, and start on today’s post. Jasper sat on my lap purring and enjoying my attention for quite a long time before moving to the dinette. Juniper ate breakfast and then stretched out on the passenger seat as she does most mornings. The cockpit is the part of the bus that gets coldest at night but since we are parked facing east it is the first place to warm up in the morning. The sun is not coming up due east yet, of course; that doesn’t happen until March 21st, but it is rising more directly in front than it did in late December and much of January.

I still had a list of bus projects to work on, but first I checked my e-mail. I did not have a communique from Stacy or Gary so I logged in to our WordPress website/blog and replied to a comment Kate had recently posted. While I was logged in I updated three plug-ins, deleted 80 spam comments, and initiated a Wordfence scan. I repeated the update process for the FMCA Freethinker and Great Lakes Converted Coaches websites and the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club website. “In for dime, in for a dollar,” and “no time like the present” are phrases that came to mind.

I don’t seem to get started on bus projects much before noon, but that’s OK; nowhere is it written that I have be working on the bus at sun up. The bus projects still to be done include:

Replacing the solenoid operator on the air-conditioning shutters.
Replacing the solenoid on the pilot valve that controls the level low front axle.
Securing the wheel well body panel just forward of the PS drive axle.
Starting the generator and making sure it works by turning on all three A-C units + Starting the bus and making sure everything works, including repositioning the bus and re-leveling it to make sure the Level Low system is working.

Butch and Fonda were gone all morning so I did not know if my operator solenoid had arrived yet via the USPS. I don’t have time at the moment to sit in a holding pattern so I decided to work on the body panel. It was being held on by only two screws and a bolt without a nut, so I was able to remove it without too much difficulty. (When someone says “without too much” it means “with some.”). Once the body panel was off I could see clearly that it was supposed to be attached at six points plus the bolt that connected it to the next piece of wheel well trim. Two more things also became obvious:

that the missing screw I had set out to replace could not be reached without removing the splash guard panel in front of drive tires, and
I was going to have to slide under the bus in order to reach some of the screws.

Given that reality, I slid one of my stands under the chassis just aft of the passenger side rag axle. The chassis was about 1″ above the stand but I was reasonably confident it would keep the bus from falling on me if the passenger side air springs failed suddenly. I also pulled out one of my large sheets of plastic that make it a lot easier and more comfortable to slide under the bus, especially on gravel.

I had removed and replaced the two splash guards at Butch and Fonda’s house this past fall when we replaced the ride height linkages. Fonda helped me with that project so we both knew how obnoxious a job it was even with the bus sitting on four chassis stands so I could get under it easily and work safely and comfortably. But there was no way around it, so the splash panel came off. We put the body panel back in place but had trouble lining it up with the holes in the chassis. Where the front top corner attached we could see that an old fastener had rusted into the hole and sheared off, probably when someone tried to remove it.

Someone showed up to talk the Butch and Fonda about their work-camping job for next winter so I continued working alone. I eventually got the panel secured at all six points plus the bolt and got a nut on the bolt. I also got the splash guard back in place with the three retaining screws installed. The fourth mounting point, however, used a bolt with a spacer tube and a locknut and was in a location that made it impossible to install by myself without getting completely under the bus and sitting up by the transmission or pulling both drive wheels off, neither of which was going to happen. That meant I needed Fonda’s assistance again.

I started putting my tools away and cleaning up my worksite while I waited for Butch and Fonda’s visitor to leave. He eventually did and Fonda came over to help me with the last attachment point on the slash guard. Once that was done, again with some difficulty, I put my tool boxes away and locked up the bays and the car. It took a whole afternoon for what started out as a job to replace one missing screw. That’s often how it goes with buses.

I washed up (buses can be dirty work) and then worked on this post for a while. I called Linda a little after 5:45 PM my time (MST) figuring she would be close to being done working for the day. I figured correctly and we talked for about 15 minutes. The issue with the generator required a new pressure regulator and some new hoses. Natural gas operates at 1/2 to 1/3 the pressure of propane and, even though the generator engine is supposed to work on either just by changing an electrical connection, Bratcher Electric said they have seen this delayed failure quite a few times when switching from propane to natural gas. It is still programmed to self-test on Thursdays at 11AM EST, so we will see if it auto-starts tomorrow like it should.

For dinner I made a mixed greens salad with onion, carrot, green pepper, dried cranberries, honey roasted peanuts, Daiya pepper jack vegan cheese, and Tofurkey brand deli slices cut into thin strips, dressed with Newman’s Own Creamy Balsamic dressing, and a couple of grinds of fresh black pepper.

I was starting to run low on the lightly flavored/carbonated water that I enjoy and we were almost out of raisins which I use on my salads. I was also out of hummus and Snyder’s Sourdough Pretzel Nibblers both of which are unacceptable things to be without. I had checked the Road Runner Market here in town a couple of days ago but they did not have any of these products. Our supply of small paper bowls and plates was also getting low. The forty mile round trip to Albertson’s in Blythe, California would take 75 to 90 minutes and two gallons of gasoline, costing $5 to $6, but I decided to make the trip after sunset rather than work at my computer. The left side of my neck and left upper back were bothering me more than usual as a result both of long hours at the computer and working under the bus on the body panel today.

As long as I was at the store I picked up a few things that were not on my list including: Ken’s Steak House salad dressings, several different fruit preserves, another bottle of honey mustard (with real honey), another pack of Tofurkey peppered mock deli slices, some black grapes, extra chips, and two bottles of Goslings Ginger Beer. It was an easy run over and back, a nice drive over the small mountain range that separates this part of Arizona from California. We have not driven around much at night since we have been in the southwest and I discovered that both Blythe and Quartzsite sparkle like gems at night. On the drive from Blythe back to Q I could easily see all the way to the other side of the valley once I was clear of the pass. Not only were the lights of the city spread out before me, I-10 was a ribbon of white and red light snaking up the KOFA Mountains until it disappeared over the next pass. It was quite a sight.

Back at the coach I got all of the groceries moved from the car to the kitchen and put away. The plastic bags often end up with holes in the bottom because they are so thin so I sorted them according to whether they had holes or not and ended up with five of each. How convenient. I put one holy bag inside each unholy bag creating five ready-to-use double bags. Sometimes I amaze myself. But I can only bask in the glory of my accomplishments for so long and then I have to get back to the processes of daily life. Tonight that meant cleaning up the dishes from dinner and checking e-mail. I lose track of time when I am working and it was well after midnight by the time I turned off the lights.

2015/02/26 (R) LiveStream

For some reason I was awake at 7 AM. I can function on only six hours sleep but I do better on seven. By eight hours I am uncomfortable and need to get up whether I am rested or not. Even before I got up I heard engine noses and voices outside and looked to see what was going on. It took me a moment to recognize Larry and Sandy’s motorhome and then remember that they were taking it to Yuma for a long weekend. Larry had told me yesterday they were going to do that so they would be in a good position to watch an air show at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.

It has been getting cool overnight, dropping into the upper 40’s, so I put on my sweat pants and shirt. We bought these not long after we got to Quartzsite so we would have something easy and comfortable to wear on mornings when it was cool in the coach.

I fed the cats, refreshed their water, cleaned their litter tray, bundled up the trash, ground up some Sweet Seattle Dreams coffee beans, and brewed a pot of coffee. I got out the two blue blankets and put one on the dinette seat and one on the passenger seat. Jasper immediately curled up on the dinette blanket and Juniper curled up on my lap while I sat on the coach working on my blog posts for yesterday and today and enjoyed my first cup of coffee.

I like the start of the day; it is one of my favorite times. I am usually rested and generally relaxed and have the comfort of my small morning routine. The whole day is in front of me and it is still possible to accomplish something, anything really, but not everything, and sometimes not much. The end of the day is always more variable.

I only have a few repair tasks left to do on the bus plus one or two on the car. Bus-wise, I need to:

Replace the solenoid operator on the air-conditioning shutters.
Replace the solenoid operator on the pilot valve that controls the level low front axle.
Replace one of the driver side headlights (it has a small hole in it).

Car-wise, I need to:

Replace the two auxiliary tail lights in the car.
Wash and wax the car.

Although I have most of the parts I need I was expecting another solenoid operator for the shutters to arrive in yesterday’s mail. It did not, so I hope it arrives today as I really do not want to replace the whole valve nor do I want to disassemble the new one, even though I’ve been told that it is OK to do so. I think the headlight can wait until I get home, but I need to see if I have one with me.

The other things I have to do are not maintenance/repairs, just routine checks to make sure that we, the car, and the bus are ready to roll on Tuesday. These include:

Starting the generator and making sure it works by turning on all three A-C units + some additional load(s). That will also verify that the air-conditioners work.
Starting the bus and making sure everything works, including repositioning the bus and re-leveling it to make sure the Level Low system is working.

The things that will wait until Monday include checking/setting all of the tire pressures, which I will do on Monday morning, and making sure the hitch and tie bar are ready to go.

While I was working on this post I got a call from Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has maintained our bus chassis, generator, and some aspects of our main engine for the last four years. He is still in Mississippi but starting to arrange his spring service calls enroute to his summer job in upstate New York. Unfortunately it looks like he will be in Michigan in early April and we will miss him this time around.

By the time I finished breakfast it had warmed up enough in the coach to take a shower. I then started a load of laundry and settled in to upload some blog posts from early January. I decided to keep doing consolidated posts and started pulling together the ones for January 1st through 7th. I selected nine photos from these dates and processed them. My work was frequently interrupted by the three loads of laundry I was doing and some necessary housekeeping.

The water level in our fresh water tank was indicating below 1/3rd so I checked it visually. It was at 1/4 so I filled it, which took about 90 gallons. I tested the water coming out of the softener for total hardness (TH) using a test strip from each bottle as I wanted to make sure the strips gave me the same reading. They did, and it was somewhere above 0.0 and below 1.5.

As the tank was nearly full I noticed water on the floor of the bay and determined that it was coming from the fresh water tank drain valve. I soaked up the water that was there and tried moving the valve quickly open and then closed to see if that might clear a small piece of debris or somehow “seat” the valve. The leak was not coming out the drain pipe onto the ground. It was seeping around the top of the valve housing but I could not determine if it was coming from a seam or around the metal rod that comes out the top and attaches to the knife blade inside. This is a 1-1/2″ diameter valve of the type used on smaller RV waste tanks, especially grey water tanks. I will check in the morning to see if it leaked overnight and probably make a trip to several of the RV stores here in town to see if I can locate a spare valve. I won’t be able to attempt a repair, however, until the tank is almost empty so I only have to dump (waste) a small amount of softened fresh water.

Interspersed with my blog work I had some pretzel nibblers and sun-dried tomato hummus and eventually ate a grapefruit. I did not feel like fixing anything fancier so that constituted lunch. Butch and Fonda left at 1:45 PM to check the P. O. Box and then go to a meeting of the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral Club. They stopped at the post office on the way hone but there was no package for me.

Linda called at 2:45 PM my time. She had wrapped up her year-end work at the bakery and was back at the house making a cup of tea before settling in for one more evening of tax return work. She was fairly confident that she would have everything wrapped up tonight or tomorrow morning. There was a tentative plan in place for her to babysit Madeline Friday evening so Brendan and Shawna could go out. Plans were also in the works to attend a women’s gymnastics competition at the University of Michigan on Saturday and then go to dinner. She did not mention whether Meghan would be joining them.

Sometime during the afternoon I got the last load of laundry out of the dryer and put away. I took a break from working at my computer around 6 PM to sit and chat with Butch and watch yet another gorgeous Quartzsite sunset. In spite of a cooler air mass the sun was very hot today, but once it started to set the air temperatures asserted their presence and we eventually retreated to our coaches for the evening.

I continued working on my blog post, checking e-mails as they popped up. I had one from Gary with my Quartzsite 2015 article attached. Although Stacy had not made it into work she was feeling well enough to edit it at home. I had planned to view a live Technomadia chat on “Making Connections on the Road” at 7 PM but forgot to tune in. I realized my oversight around 7:30 PM and joined the event in progress, but first I had to create an account with the LiveStream service which involved the usual e-mail verification process. But it was quick and I got to see/hear the last 20 minutes of the event which was mostly Q&A. The whole thing was archived, however, so after it ended I nuked a vegan hot dog for dinner and then replayed the part I had missed.

I had not yet made the bed so I took care of that and then resumed working on my blog post. I finally uploaded the post sometime around 10:30 PM and by the time I uploaded and captioned the photos, created all of the tags, and clicked the “publish” button it was after midnight. Rather than wait until tomorrow, I went through Stacy’s edits of my article, accepted most of them, and rewrote a couple of awkward sentences. I uploaded it to the BCM folder in my Dropbox and then e-mailed Mike (editor) and Gary (publisher) that it was there along with all of the photos. I also e-mailed it back to Stacy and Gary so she could compare it to the one she sent me. I got to bed at 1:30 AM, later than I like but with some things accomplished.

2015/02/27 (F) Granola Express

In spite of going to bed so late last night (early this morning, actually) I was up at 7:45 AM. That was mostly because the cats do not care what time I went to bed. They have their routines and by 8 PM they figure breakfast and fresh water are way overdue.

Linda called around 9:15 AM my time to ask me about a bucket full of water in the furnace room. The double wall stainless steel flue pipe for the furnace runs horizontally under the floor joists through the furnace room and then through my office above a suspended ceiling and finally out the east side of the house. Moisture tends to condense inside the pipe and drip out of it at the joints between sections if they are not sealed. The bucket is there to catch the drips and it was full. It used to drip on the furnace but Tom from TOMTEK HVAC sealed that gap so now it drips somewhere else.

Linda checked the status of the UPS delivery of the “care” package Linda shipped to me. It was in Blythe, California at 5:15 AM this morning and scheduled for delivery by the end of the day. It will be nice to finally have my pillow and once again be able to enjoy Linda’s homemade granola.

After breakfast I checked my e-mail, updated my water usage spreadsheet, and finalized my FMCA Freethinkers 2014 financial statements. The statements are now ready for Linda to audit, which will take her all of 10 minutes (at most). I then took stock of my BCM articles that are “in-process” and decided to finish the one on the Turbo Boost Repair and move it to the proofreading stage. With that done, I started pulling together the next consolidated blog post for January 8 – 14, 2015.

For lunch I made a sandwich with sourdough bread, salad greens, vegan deli slices, vegan cheese, pickles, veganaise, and honey mustard.

The solenoid operator from Hei/Tek in Phoenix was not in today’s mail so something obviously went wrong. I called Hei/Tek and talked to Brie. She checked with her shipping department and called me back to let me know it got sent UPS ground to our P. O. Box. UPS does not deliver to P. O. Boxes so it was sitting in Blythe, California in an undeliverable status. I gave them our P. O. Box number because she told me on Tuesday they were going to mail it (USPS). Brie gave me the number for UPS, but it was a national 800 number. I looked up the local Blythe UPS center but it had the same national number listed. It also indicated their Will Call hours were M – F, 9 – 10 AM. I called the 800 number and Jose fielded my call. He changed the status to “hold for pickup” and we will have to drive to Blythe on Monday to get it.

Somewhat ironically I had a UPS delivery scheduled for today and it arrived around 4 PM. My part could have been on the truck had I done something about this on Wednesday or Thursday. The box contained an envelope for Butch and Fonda and a small envelope for me. My envelope contained license plate tabs and registration cards for both vehicles, and dues check for our FMCA Freethinkers Chapter. The box also contained my pillow, which I have missed, and four bags of Linda’s homemade granola, which I have really missed.

Since I could not get my part until Monday I decided to take the operator solenoid off of the new valve and put it on the old valve. This was certainly a faster, easier job than replacing the entire old value/operator with the new valve/operator. I put air to the shutters and used the low voltage control circuits to test the new operator solenoid and it worked as designed and built.

I settled in at my computer to work on the next consolidated blog post, stringing seven separate posts together and selecting/processing photographs. I worked on a detailed e-mail reply to Gary at BCM and then worked for a while on another article that has been “in-process” since January.

I was finally hungry around 9:30 PM and heated up an Amy’s frozen Sweet and Sour gluten free noodle dish. Much to my surprise it was not very good, which is unusual for Amy’s products. I needed to get up and adjust tire pressures first thing in the morning so I made sure I was in bed with the lights off by midnight.

2015/02/28 (S) Out With A Roar

I got up at 7 AM and debated whether to go ahead and adjust the tire pressures or make coffee and eat breakfast first. I was a short debate and I won. It was 8 AM by the time I finished my granola and my first cup of coffee. The sun was well above the horizon but partially obscured by clouds and the temperature was 57 degrees F. I put on my zip front work hoodie (sweatshirt jacket) and went out to take care of business.

I turned on the TireTraker Monitor and stuck it in my pocket. As I removed each sensor it triggered a brief alarm on the monitor. Most of the bus and car tires were close to correct according to my air pressure gauge, with some slightly over-inflated and some slightly under inflated, except the driver side steer tire on the bus which was four pounds low. When I put a sensor back on the valve stem it reestablished communication with the monitor. This is supposed to trigger a new/current reading on the monitor but it appeared to me that all of the displayed pressure values were off, reading high in most cases by 3 – 4 pounds. I am not convinced yet that this system works the way I was told it does.

With the tires taken care of I disconnected the air hose from the air-compressor and stored it in the tray over the driver side drive wheels along with the air pressure gauge and air chuck. I disconnected the power cord and rolled it back up on its reel and then put the air-compressor back in its travel compartment in the car. I then went back inside to have my second cup of coffee.

A wind advisory was in effect for today and through the overnight hours. Winds were forecast at 25-30 MPH with gusts over 40 MPH and that is what we got. The temperature barely reached 70 degrees F while the sun played peek-boo with partly cloudy skies all day. The combination made for a brisk day. The forecast for Sunday morning through Tuesday noon is for rain, with possibly an inch along and north of I-10, and a flash flood watch from 5 PM Sunday until 5 PM Monday. February was definitely going out with a roar.

I spent the central part of the day cleaning out the front bay of the bus and re-packing it. We acquired a few things while we here, most notably supplies for cleaning and waxing the bus, and they had to be stored someplace for travel. We had kept several cardboard boxes from UPS shipments and I used those to organize the new cleaning supplies and stow them in the back seat of the car.

Butch and Fonda put their mats away yesterday and I should have done the same but was busy with other things. Jim L. stopped by to use Joe and Connie’s WiFi DSL gateway. I gave him about 30 pounds of solar salt for his water softener and he helped me fold up our large patio mat. As I have written here, the solar salt is simply not effective in recharging our portable water softener. We could use it at home in our residential water softener but it is a heavy, bulky, and inexpensive commodity so it made more sense to leave it here with someone who could use it than to transport it over 2,200 miles.

Jim L. suggested that I pull out by pulling forward, cutting my front tires hard to the right, and angle out between a concrete pad and the Palo Verde tree (bush) by the light pole. The Palo Verde was hanging out far enough that I decided to trim a few branches so as to avoid any possibility of scratching the passenger side of the coach.

My one little repair project today was to try building a “retaining pond” on the floor of the water bay underneath the leaking fresh water tank drain. I used self-stick weather seal formed to circles, one inside the other. I had noticed that there is a small gap where the discharge pipe turns and goes through the floor. My solution was to contain the water that is seeping from the drain valve in the little retaining pond and give it a chance to flow down through the gap. We are going to pick up some inexpensive bath towels on Monday to soak up the water. We can ring them out, line dry them in the dry Arizona air and brilliant sun, and re-use them.

The only outside chores I have left to do to get us ready to leave are to:

dump the waste tanks.
clean and stow the dump hoses and fittings.
top up the fresh water tank.
recharge the water softener (maybe).
check the engine oil and top it up if needed.
check the hitch, tow bar, and cables.

Mid-afternoon I called J. C. and left a message. He called me back a short time later and we talked for almost two hours. J. C. was my best friend in high school (Linda had her own special status) and is one of the only people from that period in my life with whom I am still in contact. J. C. works at Boeing Aircraft as an inspector in the 737 production facility. He is only a few months younger than me but is looking at age 66 as his earliest possible retirement point.

I also had a call from Pat Lintner. Pat is the National Director for our FMCA GLCC chapter and is also the Senior VP of the FMCA GLAMA. He wanted to give me a heads up that Jane Roush, the GLAMA President, would be sending an e-mail later today to all of the GLAMA chapter presidents and national directors regarding a recommendation that the Midwest and Great Lakes areas be merged. The Great Lakes Area consists of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario and has 21 chapters, the smallest number of any FMCAA area. The Midwest Area is made up of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan and has 24 chapters. All of the other nine areas have more chapters. I did, in fact, receive Jane’s e-mail a few hours later and forwarded it to all of the GLCC members for whom I have valid e-mail addresses along with a few additional comments.

The rest of the day was spent doing this and that. Linda called and brought me up to date on her day. She went with Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline to Crisler Arena at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor to watch part of a women’s gymnastics competition. Meghan and Chris met them back at the Fay-Lee house for dinner. I cleaned up the dishes, mostly silverware that had accumulated over the last few days. I checked and replied to e-mails, mostly from Gary at BCM. I worked on my consolidated blog post for the second week of January and had it ready to upload by 11 PM but was too tired to start the process at that hour.

2015/02/14-18 (S-W) Busy Times in Q

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20150214 (S) The Lights of the City

Note: There are no photos for this post.

We stuck around Q today. While driving through Borrego Springs yesterday afternoon we came upon the Sea View roadside fruit stand. It was on the northeast corner of an intersection north of town surrounded by citrus and palm orchards. The stand had 5 pound bags of tangelo oranges and 10 pound bags of jumbo grapefruit for $3 per bag; self-serve. We stuffed $6 in the collection box and took one of each. We had grapefruit for breakfast this morning and several oranges throughout the day. After breakfast Linda went for a morning walk and I settled in to work at my computer on Bus Conversion Magazine articles.

We had planned to drive to Sara Park in Lake Havasu City mid-afternoon for the Western Pyrotechnic Association fireworks show but decided we would go tomorrow instead. We were tired after our whirlwind 2-day visit to California and did not feel like making the 150 mile round trip. Larry and Sandy drove up to see the show on Friday evening and said it was spectacular.

For dinner Linda made pan-roasted Brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar and honey, quinoa, and mashed Romanesco brocciflower with salt and pepper. A small glass of white wine completed the meal, which we ate outside, and it was all delicious.

We had just finished eating when Butch and Fonda brought their chairs and their dogs over. They have gotten deeply involved in the Quartzsite Road Runners Gem and Mineral Club and we have been busy with travels so we have not had as much opportunity to chat as when we first got here. We sat and talked until long after the sun set. It still cools off here when the sun goes down but not as quickly or as much as it did in December and January. With proper clothing or a light blanket we can now sit outside well into the evening. Even with the lights of the city the stars are bright and numerous. Once we came inside we did our usual evening things for a while and then went to bed.

2015/02/15 (N) Winterfest 2015

We had a quiet morning at home that included the last of our Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee beans and some of the grapefruit we bought on Friday. One of the couples we were visiting with on Friday, Steve and Liz Willey, started, owned, and operated Backwoods Solar in Idaho for many years. They sold the business a few years ago but they still carry copies of the Backwoods Solar Planning Guide and Catalog when they travel. Much of the information in the planning guide section was written by Steve and he gave me a copy of the 2014 edition. We had exchanged several e-mails about a solar system for our bus so he knew I was interested in the subject.

I spent the entire morning reading through the Backwoods Solar book while Linda checked up on the state of the world, the weather back home, and, finding no good news, went for a walk. I checked my e-mail at 1 PM and then started getting ready to leave for Lake Havasu City at 1:30 PM. Today was the final day of the Western Pyrotechnics Association 26th annual conference which was also billed as Winterfest 2015. The gates opened at 3 PM and we wanted to be there by then so we could get a good spot for our chairs.

The ground displays were set up in the infield of the small Havasu 95 Speedway. Like most race tracks it had a high, curved fence surrounding the track. We entered from the east and by bleachers that were there facing west towards the mountains and, way off in the distance, the Colorado River. To either side of the bleachers were large areas where spectators could set their own chairs. We put ours to the left up against a border fence designed to keep spectators about eight feet back from the track fence. The aerial displays were launched from beyond the other side of the track. That area sloped downhill away from track so that the firing stations were not visible.

The sky was clear, the air temperature was warm but not uncomfortable, and the sun was hot. We brought a lightweight blanket to protect us from the chilly night air that would inevitably occur after sunset but we hung it on the fence as a sunscreen which kept the sun off of our legs. Although our Tilley hats could shade our heads and faces, we also had two small umbrellas that we brought just for this purpose. With all of our sun paraphernalia in place we relaxed, snoozed, and waited which was actually a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

We eventually got hungry. Given that the venue had food vendors and bathrooms we did not have a reason not to eat. Our choices were popcorn, soft pretzels, and veggie burgers with lemonade to drink. Unlike a lot of closed venues, the food was not overpriced and all of the workers looked to be high school age.

Just after 6 PM the sun slipped behind the small mountain range nearest to the track and we put our umbrellas away and took down our blanket. Although it was still daylight the crews started shooting off small aerials sporadically. By 7 PM the sun had set and there was a beautiful glow along the distant mountains. By 7:30 PM it was dark and the fireworks got started in earnest around 7:40 PM.

A local radio personality served as MC. Being a Western Pyrotechnics Association event it was different from other fireworks displays we have seen over the years. Before the main (commercial) display began they shot off shells and ground displays that had been made by WPA members in workshops during the four days of the Association convention. They were shot off (or lit) one at a time and the MC announced the name of the builder and type of firework. Most of us just watch a fireworks display and say “ooh” and “ahh” at the appropriate times, and maybe clap for a particularly impressive burst. Not surprisingly, however, the things we are watching all have names. Indeed, pyrotechnics has its own specialized vocabulary but most of us are never exposed to it. It made for an interesting as well as entertaining evening.

As the evening went on the air temperature cooled off and the fireworks heated up. We put on our shirt jackets and threw our blanket over our legs. The two professional displays were done by the Not Yet Ready For Prime Time Players and AM Pyrotechnics. The NYRFPTP show was all done from the infield and was very interesting. The AMP show was all large aerials that were shot one at a time. The main reason for this was so the buyers in attendance could see each shell by itself, but it had the same benefit for the other spectators and had the added benefit of extending the show without overloading the senses.

When the main show was finished around 8:30 PM most of the audience left, but WPA members were instructed to come to the launch areas and finish shooting off their products. Some people sitting next to us had advised us to stick around, so we did. By 8:45 PM more fireworks were being launched and lit and that was still going on when we finally packed up at 9:30 PM and headed back to the car, which was parked right by the entrance to the track.

There was a soundtrack but the fireworks were not synchronized to it. Perhaps the best part of the evening was that we were much closer to the ground displays and launch sites than is usually the case at a major Fourth of July celebration. One of the “effects” was a “wall of flame” that was set off on the far side of the track. I do not know what they used for fuel but we felt the heat where we were sitting! An interesting side note was that the larger aerial “bombs” (technically “salutes”) kept triggering car alarms.

We drove home in the dark but it was not our first time driving this route and traffic was light at that hour. We got back at 11:15 PM, checked e-mail, and headed off to bed. If we are back in this area again at this time of year we would likely position our coach closer to Lake Havasu City and attend the fireworks display all four nights. As with many other things this winter it was a new and unique experience.

2015/02/16 (M) Travel Preparations

With the Western Pyrotechnics Association fireworks display last night at Sara Park in Lake Havasu City our sightseeing and tourist activities in and around Quartzsite came to an end. Linda is flying home tomorrow for two weeks to deal with corporate accounting and both corporate and family tax returns. That meant today was spent getting her ready to leave and me ready to have her gone.

After our usual coffee, juice, and granola breakfast we drove to the Albertson’s supermarket in Blythe, California to stock up on grocery items for me. We bought lettuce so I can make salads, but we bought a lot of prepared/packaged vegan foods that do not require much cooking time or technique and have minimal cleanup. While Linda has a lot to do back home I also gave an ambitious list of things I want to accomplish while she is away. I also want eat well while she is away, but I do not want to spend a lot time cooking and cleaning up.

At the top of the list are six or seven small, but critical, bus projects. Right behind those is to finish cleaning and waxing the passenger side of the bus. We have acquired a certain amount of “stuff” since we got to Q and it needs to be organized and stowed for travel, after which the inside needs some deeper cleaning. After that it’s continuing to catch up on blog posts and working on drafts of articles for Bus Conversion Magazine.

When we got back and had the groceries stored Linda started a load of laundry and began gathering up her stuff for the flight home tomorrow while I worked on programming our new TireTraker TT-400C monitor and re-installing all of the sensors on the tires. Our original monitor had a charging problem and Daryl Lawrence mailed a replacement to us along with a charging cable. It arrived on Friday and Butch picked it up at the Post Office and gave it to me on Saturday morning. I tried all of the possible combinations and verified that the original charging cable was fine but the original monitor was not. We will return the old monitor and cable to Daryl and Cheri at Escapade in a few weeks. The driver side front tire was giving a low pressure alarm so I checked the pressure with my digital gauge. It was 97 PSI (it is supposed to be 115 PSI).

The Dewalt air-compressor was already out of the car and secured to the fence along the north property line so I plugged it in, got the air hose out, and filled the tire back up to 115 PSI. I was going to check/fill all of the driver side tires, since they were in the shade, but I really needed to do that in the morning when the temperature was near its overnight low and before the sun stared to warm up the passenger side of the bus. I may do this Wednesday, just to get them close to right, and will do it again on Monday, March 2nd so we are ready to leave on the 3rd without too much to do other than pull out and hook up.

When I was done with the TPMS we trimmed our two cats’ claws, which were overdue. This has been a “mañana” task for a while but finally became a “hoy” task when we ran out of days.

I called Buck Bolding to see if I could stop by his place tomorrow on the way back from dropping Linda at the Phoenix airport. Buck and his wife, Pat, were at the Eagles International Rally last month in Quartzsite with their gorgeous Eagle Bus Conversion and we discussed having me photograph it for a Bus Conversion Magazine featured bus article. Buck remembered the conversation but unfortunately this was not a good week for him for this project. He and Pat hope to make it back to Quartzsite yet this month. If so, they will probably stay at the Quail Run RV Park just north of us on Central Avenue (AZ-95) which would be very convenient for me.

Linda and I sat on the north-facing porch of Joe and Connie’s park model trailer to escape the sun and enjoy the light breeze that was blowing. Barb stopped by for a while and then retired to her motorhome. Fonda came over to show us the small opal she spent part of the day grinding and polishing. She went back to her bus and Butch cane over followed by Larry and Sandy. We discussed and compared the WPA fireworks display they saw on Friday to the one we saw last night. They returned to their motorhome and Linda went over to talk to Fonda leaving Butch and me to sit on the porch and solve all of the world’s problems. While we were doing that Linda and Fonda decided we should all go out to dinner at Crazy Jerry’s.

We had our usual 12″ pizza–thin crust, no cheese, with mushrooms and onions–and a side order of French fries. Our waitress was Michele and we had a nice chat with her about the restaurant and the town of Quartzsite. She and her husband own both the Main Street Eatery and Crazy Jerry’s.

When we got back to our coach Linda finished gathering up her stuff. All she has to pack in the morning are her computer, power supply/charger, and iPad. We were in bed by 10 PM and set the wake-up alarms for 6 AM.

2015/02/17 (T) Fly Away

We were awake before 6 AM but stayed in bed waiting for the wake-up alarms to go off. Linda set one on her iPad or phone, I’m not sure which one, but it did not go off. I set the alarm on the panel mounted click by my side of the bed and it did go off. Linda prepared herself for traveling and packed up her iPad, computer, charging cables, and other electronic paraphernalia without which modern life would be unbearable at best and impossible at worst. I did not make coffee and we did not have breakfast as the Phoenix Airport was a two hour drive with limited rest stops.

We had targeted a 7 AM departure but by 6:40 AM we were ready to go. Linda’s “suitcase” was a zip top nylon bag that I got at a conference some years ago. Everything she had with her, except her down coat, fit in that bag or in her computer bag. We pulled out at 6:45 AM, made our way through town to Exit 17, and got on I-10 going east.

We made good time as the speed limit on I-10 away from major cities is 75 MPH, allowing me to travel comfortably at 68 MPH. We got to watch night give way to dawn give way to the sunrise and then daylight. Once the sun was up driving was more difficult until it rose high enough in the sky that our sun visors could do their job. Traffic was light heading eastbound but there was a steady stream of trucks headed west. We made good time, even as we entered the Phoenix metropolitan area, until we were about 12 miles from the airport where traffic came to a standstill across all six lanes. The GPS indicated heavy traffic ahead and one hour to reach our destination.

We had planned to drop Linda at the terminal at 9 AM, two hours before her scheduled departure, so a one hour delay would be cutting it too close. Linda grabbed the atlas (so glad we brought it along) while I moved to the right hand lane. There were major surface streets paralleling I-10 to the south so I exited the Interstate, drove down to the first one, and turned left to continue our eastward travel. It moved a long reasonably well and eventually put us on I-17 southbound, which almost immediately curved eastbound. About five miles later we intersected I-10, headed north, and took the airport exit 1/2 mile later. From that point we just followed the signs for Terminal 3 which is the one that Delta Airlines uses.

As we were driving through the airport I got a phone call. I dug my phone out of its case and handed it to Linda. She said it was identified as possible spam and declined the call. She set my phone in the console between the front seats and we pulled up to the departure curb at Terminal 3. She took off the light jacket she wore in the car, grabbed her two bags and her down coat, gave me a quick kiss, and trotted off into the terminal. I pulled away and before I got to the turn-around to get back to I-10 reached for my phone only to discover it was not there.

A missing phone is a sickening feeling, on a par with a missing wallet. I searched around as best I could while driving and could not locate it. I thought that Linda might have inadvertently taken it with her. If so, my hope was that she would discover the mistake when she went through security and head back to the curb to look for me, realizing that I would be looking for her. I circled through the terminal road system for 20 minutes but she never appeared. As inconvenient as it would have been for her to take it with her, she could have shipped it back to me overnight. My worst fear was that it fell out on the ground at the airport, in which case the best (?) I could hope for was that someone ran over it and rendered it unusable. I should have found one of the cell phone lots and done a more thorough search of the car, but if it wasn’t in the car there wasn’t anything I could do about short of finding a pay phone, and when/where was the last time/place you saw one of those?

I circled the terminal one last time and then followed the signs for I-10 west and headed for Quartzsite. Phoenix has an extensive highway system, which always has its own complexity, but the traffic was ridiculous. We avoided Phoenix on our way to Q, using I-8 and AZ-85 to bypass the “big city.” We will be avoiding it again in a few weeks when we relocate to the Casa Grande area and then to Tucson.

I remembered seeing a QT (Quik Trip) filling station and convenience mart on the west edge of town when driving in this morning. Their listed price for Regular gasoline was $2.099, cash or credit. I could have made it back to Q on the fuel in tank but why risk running out, especially given the price? I exited the Interstate, used the facilities, and bought a cup of coffee. This QT had the fanciest coffee and tea self-serve area I have ever seen. I topped off the tank with some inexpensive gasoline, cleaned the windshield, and continued on my way. I also found my phone, which had not been placed in the center console like I thought, but just in front of it, allowing it to slip down in front of my seat where I could not see it while driving. Whew. I suddenly felt a lot better.

With the delay getting to the airport, the added time driving around the airport, and the stop for fuel I got back to our motorcoach around noon instead of 11 AM. Butch and Fonda were outside contemplating what appeared to be all of their worldly possessions which were arrayed on and around their patio. Butch was studying his new VDO electronic speedometer, a 437-152 just like mine. All of the printed directions referred to using a 12VDC power source but the instrument case said “12/24V”. Chuck Spera and I have both installed this exact same model gauge in our Prevost H3-40s and my recollection was that we had them wired to 24VDC ignition switched sources.

Butch put in a call to VDO technical support (Continental) and I called Chuck. He did not recall even checking the voltage and just used whatever was there. I was almost certain that I had checked the voltage and it was 24VDC, which is why I wired the two 12V light bulbs in series. Butch got a call back from VDO verifying that the gauge would work on either voltage while I had a long chat with Chuck in which he brought me up-to-date on their winter at Pelican Lake Luxury Motorcoach Resort in Naples, Florida.

Chuck mentioned that Prevost Community is having a “non-rally” rally April 17-20 at the Bella Terra Luxury Motorcoach Resort near Gulf Shores, Alabama. There is no rally fee and they negotiated a special group rate of $35/night. That may be a bit late in April for us to be that far south, but maybe not. We would like to be home by May 1st and we would like to visit family in St. Louis on the way. I-55 starts at I-10 just northwest of New Orleans and Bella Terra is an easy day’s drive from there. Chuck said there is an Indian Casino on Lake Charles that has an excellent RV park for $13 per night that might be a good stopping spot for just before/after the rally. He also mentioned that there is a thread on the POG forum about bus barns.

I made a nice, large salad for dinner, had a small glass of wine, and turned in early. I plan to start on cleaning and waxing the passenger side of the coach in the morning.

2015/02/18 (W) Wax On, Wax Off (Continued)

Today was my first full day without Linda here. This how it went.

I set my alarm and got up at 6 AM. I made coffee and had the raspberry pastry bites for breakfast. Yeah, they’re vegan, but definitely not WFPB. I got the trash and plastic bottles ready to take out and then worked on yesterday’s blog post. It was still dark out so I spent a little time straightening up the inside of the coach.

Once it was daylight I started cleaning and waxing the passenger side of the coach. I wiped the windshields off (again) and then did the side from the front corner back to the patio awning front support arm. I worked from 8:30 to 10:30 AM which was a bit too long as the sun was very bright and the body panels were getting quite warm causing the wax to dry too quickly.

I put away my supplies and gathered up my microfiber towels. I had enough clothing and towels to do a load of laundry and added the microfibers to the batch. This was the first time I have used the laundry room since we arrived so Barb showed me how to set washer controls.

Whenever I was not doing something else I worked at my computer. Other than a few e-mails my focus was BCM articles. In particular I am trying to finish an article on “Quartzsite 2015.” The article was basically written a couple of weeks ago, but we have done other things since then so I want to expand it a bit. What I mostly spent the day and evening working on were the photos.

I got the trash and plastic bottles ready and took them to their respective containers. I let Barb know that I needed to use the car port sometime in the next 10 days. I want to wash and wax the car and will need to get it in the shade. When I was done with the laundry I finally ate the grapefruit I got out for breakfast. I was still hungry so I also had a sandwich for lunch.

I checked the total hardness of the water coming out of the water softener and it was still somewhere between 3 and 7 grains per gallon, indicating that more regeneration was still needed. First I switched the hoses around and gently back-flushed the unit using filtered water. I switched it back to the regular configuration and added a 26 ounce container of non-iodized table salt. I ran the water through the unit until it was noticeably salty and then shut it off and let it sit for 20 minutes. I repeated this, letting about 10 gallons of water go through the softener each time. Late afternoon I removed the housing, rinsed out the little bit of remaining salt, reinstalled the housing, and gently ran about 15 gallons of filtered water through the unit to get the residual salinity out if it. It was dark by then so testing the TH will be a task for tomorrow.

I had several text messages and calls from Linda throughout the day. One was a photo indicating evidence of mice in the pantry. Oh joy. We were gone all last winter, which was bitter cold and snowy, and did not have a problem so we do not know what is different this year. Linda though that perhaps all of the construction work (landscaping and natural gas) had disturbed the local mice. Whatever the cause there wasn’t anything I could do about it from 2,200 miles away so I made a nice green salad for dinner and then continued working on photos for my article.

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

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2015/01/27 (T) Ahhh, Mexico

We packed quite a bit into today. After having toast and coffee for breakfast we drove to Yuma through heavy cloud cover and fog. It made for an interesting and beautiful drive, but we did not pull off the road to take pictures. There is often a tension between the need to get somewhere and the desire to stop and take photographs. Today the destination took precedence.

When we got to Yuma we drove around looking for the Main Street that led to the heart of downtown and Yuma Territorial Prison. This was only the second time we had been in Yuma and the first time I had driven here and I did not quite remember how the streets ran, which is unusual for me. Yuma is not that big of a town and I was able to get oriented fairly easily with the help of the GPS map. I missed a turn, however, and we ended up driving over the single lane bridge on the Ocean to Ocean Highway. We stopped at a Casino just short of the California border, turned around, and went back over the bridge. Being single lane the traffic is controlled by stop lights on each end.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison. Yuma, AZ.

I made the correct turns this time and got us to the parking lot for the 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison State Park. Very little of the original prison remains, but there is enough of it to give a feeling for what it was like. The small museum does a good job of telling the story, but a tour guide (from Canada) helped fill in details and answer questions. Although part of the Arizona State Parks system, it is operated by a local organization staffed by volunteers.

The prison and the Quartermaster State Park are the two main tourist attractions in Yuma. Beyond those two things it is the closest city to Quartzsite with a good selection of major retailers. Yuma is also home to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the U. S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds are just 20 miles north of town. But the thing that interested us is that Yuma is the wintertime lettuce bowl of North America. The flat topography and rich soil, watered by an extensive irrigation system fed by the Colorado River and worked by Mexican laborers, spreads as far as the eye can see and supports a vast crop of a large variety of leafy green vegetables.

From the prison I drove west on I-8, almost immediately crossing the Colorado River into the extreme southeast corner of California. Eight miles later we exited onto CA-186 and headed south through the Quechan Indian Reservation to the U.S./Mexican border crossing at Los Algodones. We parked in the Indian owned/operated lot and walked across the border into Mexico; our first ever visit to our southern neighbor. We found it interesting that no one checked us on entry.

Los Algodones is an interesting and unusual little town. It exists because of tourists from north of the border and has been developed to serve some specific needs of those visitors. It has the highest concentration (and number) of dentists and optical shops of any place on earth and quite a few pharmacies too. Many American and Canadian RVers come to this area during the winter months not only for the warm, dry climate, but for annual dental work, eye exams, glasses, and both prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The vast majority of them park on the U. S. side and walk across the border.

We walked the streets of Los Algodones for an hour or more and finally settled at the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch. Linda and Marilyn had bean burritos and bottled mineral water. I made the riskier choice and had a green salad and deep fried peppers. The peppers were thinly sliced jalapeños mixed with sliced onions. Linda and Marilyn had some too, but between the three of us we did not finish them; too hot. At least they were authentic! Puerto Viejo was the #2 rated restaurant on Trip Advisor and everything we read said the town was safe, including the food. (The #1 rated restaurant was a sushi bar.)

The restaurant was just across the street from the port of entry so we walked over there and got in line behind a couple of hundred other people. It took 30 – 40 minutes to reach the customs agent, but the sidewalk was shaded by an overhanging sunscreen and lined with benches so it was comfortable enough. When it was finally our turn we each cleared customs in less than a minute and were finally back the U.S.A. We got to use our credit card size passport cards for the first time.

We drove back to Yuma and found the major outdoor shopping mall where I stopped at Best Buy to look for a lens hood and cap for my Sony alpha kit/zoom lens (DT 3.5-5.6/18-70mm) but they did not have any compatible products.

The drive home up US-95 was very different than the drive down. The clouds and fog were gone and we had a clear view of the mountains to either side of the valley. Once we were north of the U. S. Army Proving Grounds the land to the east of the highway was part of the KOFA a National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest in the country at over 650,000 acres. (KOFA stands for “King OF Arizona, a large mine that once operated in this area.) Between the Proving Grounds and the BLM land south of Quartzsite there are four roads that lead east into the refuge. Overnight camping is permitted within 100 feet of the roads unless otherwise posted, but we saw very little evidence of anyone out there. It is, however, a large, remote, area without any services so it only appeals to a certain kind of boondocker, such as those seeking solitude and a semi-wilderness experience. I say “semi-” because if you can drive there in a 40′ motor home, or a pickup truck pulling a 35′ 5th wheel trailer, it is not wilderness by definition.

About 20 miles south of Q we turned off onto the KOFA NWR road leading to the Palm Canyon trailhead. The canyon is a huge crevice in the 5,000 foot tall mountain and is home to the only indigenous Palm trees in Arizona. The trailhead was another seven (7) miles in from the highway and the trail into the canyon was a half mile hike from there, so we will come back another time earlier in the day and do that. The sun was getting lower in the western sky and the top of the very large mountain to our east was obscured by clouds so the situation was setting up for the possibility of good photographs. We drove in about 3 miles (at 10 – 15 MPH) and then pulled off the road at a good vantage point to take photos. We were rewarded for our decision as the sun bathed the mountains in glorious, warm light.

Although the road was generally good gravel and clearly defined we wanted to leave the refuge and get back to the coach while it was still daylight. As often happens the sunset lingered and the colors deepened as we drove. One of the challenges with shooting sunsets is that if you hang in there until it is over, you have to pack up your gear and extract yourself from the location in the dark. Unless, of course, you are backpacking and have already pitched your tent right there. The same goes for sunrise photography, only in reverse.

Back at the coach we had various snacks for dinner. Butch brought the mail over and we chatted for a few minutes. I worked on several e-mails from Gary at BCM, and Bob from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter. I transferred photos from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS. I then used MS-ICE to create a couple of panoramas from today’s trip and used FIV to post-process them along with a photo of the mountain at sunset. By the time I was done it had been a very long, but interesting, productive, and satisfying day.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

2014/01/28 (W) Boomerville

After a light breakfast Linda and Marilyn drove to the local Farmers Market and also spent a little time looking around Desert Gardens. Linda bought some asparagus and a Romanesco brocciflower, which is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. It grows in a fractal manor based on a Fibonacci number sequence which makes it visually very interesting.

While they were gone I worked on survey items for the FMCA NEC member education survey and suggested a minor change to the seminar categorization spreadsheet that Jim A. had prepared. I had planned to work on my blog posts for the third week of October (2014) but did not get to those before lunch.

After lunch Linda and I drove out to the BLM Scaddam 14-day area east of town and found the site where Boomerville was set up all last week. Most of the rigs had pulled out. Many of them were also geocachers and moved to the Roadrunner area south of town. We were looking for Bill Stewart and Lynn Pearlmutter from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and finally spotted their Tiffin Phaeton. We sat and chatted for over an hour and then headed back to camp where Marilyn had been re-treating in our absence. I think it has been a good visit for her.

I worked on consolidating seven blog posts from the third week of October while Linda started preparing dinner. For Marilyn’s final dinner meal (dare I say ‘last supper’) Linda made her mock stroganoff. No, she did make Marilyn mock her stroganoff, she made a vegan version of stroganoff and served it over white rice, the way I like it. She also steamed the Romanesco brocciflower. The taste and texture was mostly cauliflower-like so I seasoned my pieces with a little white vinegar, which is the way I like my cauliflower.

While the ladies played Scrabble online I worked on the blog post and got the pictures selected and edited. I was up very late again but I got it posted before I went to bed. I was also having trouble logging in to RVillage using the Google Chrome browser. I tried Firefox and got in without difficulty and was able to navigate the site. Remembering that Butch had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago with a different website, I cleared the browsing history (cache) for the last week and tried again. That resolved the problem, at least for now. RVillage support had indicated that they were having login issues with the site, so my browser may have cached a bad page. I primarily use Chrome to browse, so the bad page had probably not been cached in Firefox.

I spent some time on e-mails dealing with an issue we have in our FMCA Freethinkers chapter. I updated Piriform CCleaner on my computer and ran it. I then opened Piriform Defraggler, checked for updates, and started it. It said the remaining time was “> 1 day” so I let it run and went to bed.

Although it was late I worked on the draft of my blog post for yesterday as I had only had time to outline it on my iPad. I then worked on this post. Even though I am still way behind in uploading posts to our WordPress website I have to write them each day or I lose the details. It also takes a fair amount of time, and if I get behind I risk not being able to catch up. I don’t have to do this at all, of course, but it’s something I want to do and enjoy doing. I just don’t like being so far behind.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

2015/01/29 (R) The Flying Nun

We have had an excellent visit with Marilyn since she arrived on the 22nd with a nice mix of local activities, distant sight-seeing, and quiet time at home to visit and allow her to read, rest, and contemplate. She flew back to St. Louis, Missouri this afternoon but before she left Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes for brunch.

Marilyn’s flight home was at 4 PM MST from the Phoenix airport, which is over 130 miles east of Quartzsite, so they left at noon to get her there in plenty of time. I stayed home to work and decided to reconcile the financial statements for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter with the copies of the bank statements I received yesterday from the Treasurer, who lives in Chico, California. While I was at it I updated my financial statements and dues analysis worksheets and the master roster. Linda called at 2:30 PM to say she was starting back to Q but that traffic was very heavy and she might not be back until after 5 PM. That proved to be a very accurate estimate.

We had an early dinner that that consisted of a large salad and an equally large glass of Sangria. I continued to work after dinner dealing with e-mails and then editing together the blog posts for October 23 through 29 into a single post. I got the post compiled but it was too late (I was too tired) to select and process photos, much less upload the whole thing to WordPress, so I went to bed.

2015/01/30 (F) Regen Aggravation

Rain was forecast for last night and into today and that forecast turned out to be accurate. It started raining around 11 PM and rained through the night and into mid-late morning. The precipitation rate was never very high but the rain was persistent. Even after it quit raining heavy clouds filled the valley and obscured the mountain tops in all directions. There was a lower chance of showers for this evening after which the system is then supposed to start clearing out.

Marilyn does care for breakfast cereals or things that look, taste, or feel like milk, so we tended to have toast for breakfast while she was here (except when we had vegan cinnamon rolls and vegan blueberry pancakes). This morning we returned to our normal breakfast of granola, fruit juice, and coffee. After breakfast we both had work to do and set both of our laptops up on the dinette table.

Linda got a package yesterday from the bakery via UPS with work papers related to the 12th accounting period of the 2014 fiscal year. This was also the first accounting period in which the bakery was running only on the new software. Linda did the software configuration and conversion in September, October, and November of 2014 and the 12th accounting period corresponds approximately to the month of November.

My “work” was completing my blog post for October 23 – 29, 2014. I selected 10 photographs for the post that were representative of the work described in the narrative, visually interesting, and technically OK. I uploaded the text to WordPress and then uploaded, captioned, and inserted each image. I got finished about the same time Linda got tired of staring at numbers and made pocket pita sandwiches for lunch. She went for a long walk afterwards and I turned my attention to our fresh water system.

I knew we were below 1/3rd of a tank of fresh water based on the monitor in the house systems panel. I checked after lunch and we were at ~1/6th of a tank (~20 gallons). The last time I filled the tank I checked the hardness afterwards and it was higher (3.0 grains per gallon, or gpg) than it had been. After the last regeneration (recharge) it measured 1.5 gpg and continued to give that reading after each of the next few fill ups. (It should have measured 0 gpg but I was not able to get it recharged to that extent.) We have been keeping a log of the dates, gallons, and hardness but I had not yet analyzed the data so I added 100 gallons to the tank. Afterwards I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener and it measured 25 gpg, which is the low end of the very hard water range. Oops.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

I did not want to leave that water in the tank and run it through our plumbing and fixtures, but I had to regenerate the water softener before I could do anything else. I removed the filter from the housing on the input of the water softener. It was brown all the way through from the outer surface to the inside, so it needed to be replaced even though I had just installed it when I did the last regeneration. Quartzsite city water is safe to drink but in addition to being very hard it has a lot of sediment in it. Butch also thinks it is over-chlorinated and Jim L., who qualifies as a local, just doesn’t think it tastes good. The water we drink and cook with in the coach goes through three filters and a softener before it reaches our lips so we do not have any issues with it.

I put the special recharge tube into the filter housing and filled the bottom half of the housing around the outside of the tube with solar salt. I then poured half of a container of Morton table salt (non-iodized) on top of the solar salt. I aligned the center tube with the center of the head and threaded the housing onto the head. I ran water through the filter housing and then through the softener until I got a strong salty taste out of the softener. The instructions that came with the unit say to run water through the filter housing and out the softener until the saltiness is gone, but it gives no indication of how strong or weak the flow should be or how long it should take.

[When salt (NaCl) dissolves in water (H2O) sodium ions become available. The special media in a water softener has an affinity for dissolved ions. Recharging the softener dislodges the calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) ions from the media and replaces them with sodium (Na) ions as a result of the supersaturated saltwater brine. During normal operation the sodium (Na) ions in the softener are exchanged for the calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) ions in the water. “Soft” water is not demineralized water, but the sodium (Na) ions do not cause the scale and build up in plumbing systems that the harder calcium and magnesium ions do.]

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

When the water coming out of the softener was very salty I reduced the flow to a small amount and let run. I lost track of exact time, but I eventually shut the flow off, shut off the incoming water, and unscrewed the housing. It still had salt in it; not as much as when I started, but too much to be done.

[It takes a certain quantity of salt to produce enough sodium ions (Na) to completely recharge a softener of some given capacity. Softeners do not treat a certain number of gallons of water before needing to be regenerated; they remove a certain number of grains of hardness based on the design. The harder the water coming in the fewer gallons that can be processed. Softer water in, more gallons processed. When you understand the science involved, it is really quite simple.]

I stirred the salt in an attempt to dissolve it and put the housing and tube back on the head and ran more water through it. One of the problems with this arrangement is that I am starting with very hard water while trying to regenerate a water softener, but there is no easy way around that. The other problems is that I do not have a sediment filter ahead of the softener. If particulates are allowed to enter the softener and accumulate they will reduce and eventually destroy the effectiveness of the ion exchange media. This is a design flaw that is easily remedied by adding another filter housing between the sediment filter and the inlet of the softener. I will probably rig up something like this when I redo the water bay and use a clear housing so I can see when the salt is gone. Assuming, of course, that I do not replace the entire system with one like Butch’s.

After fooling around with this for a while I tested the water coming out of the softener and it was still up around 15 gpg. It appeared that nothing I had done for the last two hours had made any difference. I removed the housing yet again and added an entire 26 oz. container of Morton non-iodized table salt. I ran the water until it came out of the softener very salty and then shut it off.

I set the timer on my phone for one hour and drove down to the Tyson Wells market area on Kuehn Street to buy a T40 GAC (granulated activated carbon) filter from the Water Filter guy. While I was down there I stopped and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread. When I got back to the coach I ran the water for 30 seconds, shut it off, and set my timer for 20 minutes. I repeated this cycle for another hour and then set an outlet valve on the softener to emit a slow stream and let it continue to run. I periodically tasted the water coming out and eventually it did not have any saltiness. I checked it with a test strip, my third of the day, and it finally tested at 1.5 gpg. Evening was approaching and I once again found myself in the position of having to finish this process in the dark, so I abandoned any hope of getting it fully recharged to zero (0) gpg, if the unit is even capable of that.

I opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank part way and let the entire 120 gallons drain out. I did not like wasting that water, but I did not want it in our system. I also do not like the amount of time and water it seems to take to regenerate our softener, but it’s what we have for now. At least we are parked on gravel so all of the salty water can just soak in without harming anything. In an RV resort with landscaping we would have to be careful not to discharge the brine onto the grass or plants. The salt water is also not great for septic systems, but in sticks-n-bricks homes it usually ends up in one of those two places.

I installed a new 5 micron melt-blown polypropylene sediment filter in the pre-softener housing and screwed it back on to the head. I let filtered water run through the softener and onto the ground to flush any remaining brine out of the tank. While that process was taking place I turned my attention to the post-softener filter.

We have a filter housing built into the water bay of the coach. Water enters the coach through a garden hose connection then (presumably) passes through a check valve before going through the filter. From there it runs throughout the coach to all of the fixtures and the Aqua-Hot. One of the fixtures is the fill valve for the fresh water tank. When the onboard 12VDC water pump is used it simply takes water out of the fresh water tank and pressurizes the entire system the same way the shore line does. The pump has a check valve to prevent the pressure from an external connection from forcing water backwards through the pump.

The filter housing is hidden behind a beauty panel that makes it awkward to access and service but I managed to get the housing loose and to remove it without spilling too much water. The installed filter was just a pleated sediment cartridge but it was basically clean so either sediment was not getting this far or was small enough to pass through. I installed the T40 GAC cartridge and put the housing back on the head. I then turned off the water coming into the softener and connected the output to the hose from the fresh water inlet on the coach. The directions said to flush out the T40 with at least five gallons of tap water before using the water so I filled the kitchen sink half full while running off of the shore line.

I started this process at 1 PM. It was now 6PM and I was finally ready to fill the fresh water tank. The T40 filter cartridge does not have a micron rating but it was a rather snug fit in the housing and the design looks like it could constrain flow rates. I opened the fill valve for the fresh water tank and set my phone timer to 40 minutes.

While the tank was filling I started putting the dump and fill data we have been logging into a spreadsheet. Our softener tank is the same size as Butch and Fonda’s, which is labeled as having a 10,000 grain capacity. Our data indicated that the last 100 gallons we added took our total from 515 to 615 gallons. We knew we had obviously run too much water through the softener based on the first hardness test today, but this data was confirming that we had, at most, a 10,000 grain capacity tank. Given the 25 gpg city water coming out of the tap we will need to regenerate the softener somewhere between 400 and 500 gallons. Given the aggravation involved in trying to recharge our unit I doubt that it will be a long-term solution for us. It simply should not take that much time to do something so simple, especially when it has to be done so often.

At the end of 40 minutes the fresh water tank was 3/4s full so I set the timer for another 10 minutes. With the current filter setup the flow rate into the tank appears to be about 2.5 gallons per minute. The Shur-Flo 4048 pump has a 4 GPM maximum flow rate, so that is another reason we run off the tank rather than the shore line.

By the time the tank was full it was too late to actually cook dinner so Linda heated up an Amy’s Barley Vegetable soup and put out some crackers and peanut butter; easy but delicious.

I worked on this blog post after dinner, spent a little more time with my water usage spreadsheet, dealt with some critical e-mail, and went to bed way too late. But then, I did not have to be up by any certain time and I can take a nap tomorrow if needed.

Palm Canyon at sunset. KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/31 (S) January LTT

The last day of January dawned under cloudy skies. We are well past the midpoint of our first winter in Quartzsite and continuing to enjoy our time here. The “Big Tent” RV Show has been over for a week and the BLM STVAs (free, 14-day limit) have thinned out as the visitors who were here for two weeks surrounding the ‘show’ have moved on. There are still lots of RVs in the BLM LTVAs (fee-based, up to 180 days) but those are longer-term visitors who, like us, are here for ‘the season.’ The commercial RV Parks in town still have healthy occupancy, but the ‘vacancy’ signs are out once again. There are still plenty of vendors set up in the various markets along Kuehn Street and the flea markets along west Main Street are still operating. There is still traffic but not the parade of RVs and gridlock of the previous couple of weeks. There is still lots of activity but the frenzy appears to be over. Experienced visitors have told us that we will notice a gradual slow down as we move through February into March. We will also notice a general warming of temperatures.

A small bird of prey has been active around our campsite for the last few weeks, probably longer, and was finally successful in catching something to eat this morning; at least this was the first time that were aware of it. It took a small bird down by the seed block that attracts various birds and rabbits to our ‘front yard’ and sat where we could see it while it ate. WE identified it as an American Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) and the small bird it caught was indeed a sparrow. The American Kestrel ranges from 4 to 10 ounces in weight and has a wingspan up to 24 inches with the larger birds being the mature females. It is the only Kestrel native to North America and is the first one we have had a good look at in the wild. It normally eats large insects, small mammals, and lizards, but will take smaller birds if it can, thus the name. They also have the unusual ability to hover given a very slight amount of wind.

We planned to stick around camp this weekend and work on various tasks so after breakfast Linda started a load of laundry. I like laundry day because I get to stay in my sweat clothes while my regular ones get laundered. Between loads Linda continued working on accounting for Butch and Fonda and for the bakery. I prepared a 4-day and a 7-day consolidated blog post and then worked on reformatting and expanding some more survey items for the FMCA national education committee. I received a draft report/recommendation from Jim A. for the seminar classification work we have been doing so I went through it, made minor corrections, and added several comments for his consideration.

Linda can only sit for so long so around 2 PM she made mock deli meat sandwiches for lunch with vegan cheese slices, lettuce, vegan mayo, and honey mustard on Barry’s Basic Bread. She then went for a long walk while I continued to work at computer-based tasks. She made it to the market area at Kuehn Street and Central Avenue and bought another loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread as we worked our way through the one we bought yesterday fairly quickly.

Butch installed his new TireTraker TPMS sensors yesterday. (I still need to install ours.) In the process he discovered that his Chevy Suburban spare tire only had 14 PSI of air pressure in it. Worse yet the valve stem on his bus spare was too damaged to get the sensor on. But the real problem was that one of the two attachments for the front bus bumper broke off. Four bolts had rusted through and snapped. This morning he looked at what would be involved it drilling out the pieces that were stuck in the threaded holes and decided that was not a job he could do on the road. He bought some metal strap and fashioned two loops around the front of the bumper and behind the mounting plate and bolted the ends of each to draw them in tight. When he was done the bumper closed and opened just fine and aligned well with the body when closed. I joked that this might be another “Long-Term Temporary” repair, or “LTT” for short, and suggested that we should coin the phrase.

Linda made a new dish for dinner, Savory Orange Roasted Tofu and Asparagus. As the name indicates, it consisted of tofu cubes roasted in a mixture of miso, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil to which asparagus was added while roasting continued. A sauce is made from miso, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, and orange zest and mixed in to the roasted ingredients just before serving. She also made Farro with a little oil, salt, and pepper and served it as a side. It may be the first time we have had Farro all by itself rather than as an ingredient in a dish. It really is a wonderful grain. Clementine orange sections and Franzia Fruity Red Sangria completed the meal.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

Towards the end of dinner I had a call from Neal Sunderland wanting to know if we knew of anyplace in Q where he and Nora could get prime rib (of beef) for dinner. An odd request to make of a vegan, perhaps, but we only just met during the Eagles International bus rally and he did not remember how we eat. Linda got on an iPad and did her best to find out what was in town. The problem with Q is that a lot of the restaurants close at 8 PM, or sooner if they run out of food. They were already driving when Neal called and he spotted a sign at the Stagecoach Restaurant on Main Street (B-10) for a prime rib special so they pulled in to the parking lot. I heard the hostess in the background tell Neal that they were out of the special. They had 37 of them available for dinner and they were all sold. Yeah, Q is like that.

I have been reading up on the WordPress.com Jetpack: Site Administration feature. It sounds very cool as it would allow me to manage multiple WordPress websites via my WordPress.com account. This includes self-hosted sites, which all four of mine are, plus WordPress.com hosted sites. I have the Jetpack installed on all four Websites but I have never activated the Site Management feature, which must be done from within the admin panel. I decided to activate it tonight on the FMCA Freethinkers website, hosted by iPower.com. The activation failed and took down the /WP-admin/control panel. The site is still there (structure/functionality/content) but I cannot get to the dashboard to do anything. I sent a support request to iPower and cc:d Bob Pelc, the President of the FMCA Freethinkers, who is the owner of the clubs iPower account. I also sent a support request to Jetpack and an e-mail to Larry (K8UT) seeking his thoughts on the situation. This was not how I wanted to end my day but there was little more I could do late on a Saturday evening, so I went to bed.

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

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Note: There are no photographs for this consolidated post. Sorry. 🙁

2014/11/03 (M) Getting Ready

Linda was up early and off to the bakery. I got up an hour later and had some raisin toast for breakfast. Whenever I have had time since I got home on Friday I have been working on the project list for our bus. I worked on it some more this morning but eventually had to set it aside while I made some phone calls, tried to deal with an issue with Linda’s Samsung laptop computer, and got documents ready to upload to my Dropbox for a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

I called Bill Jensen, the national service advisor for conversion shells at Prevost Car Inc., but his voice message said he was unavailable indefinitely and gave alternate contact info. The main contact was Kevin Laughlin so I called him. I described the shorter ride height linkage and the downward pointing position of the ride height valve lever arm in its neutral position. He agreed that neither of these seemed right.

I called Prevost and ordered a new ride height valve and two CX-96 (Gates) drive belts for the OTR air-conditioning compressor. I then called Martin Diesel in Defiance, Ohio and made an appointment to have the diesel generator in our coach serviced on the 20th and 21st if needed. I also needed to call Webasto technical support but did not get that call made today; maybe on Wednesday (or Thursday).

Linda’s Samsung laptop suddenly decided to turn the screen brightness down and she has not been able to turn it back up. It’s bright enough to see in somewhat dim conditions, but still uncomfortably dim for general office use. I did a Google search and found that lots of other folks had encountered the same problem and had advice on how to fix it. I shared several links with Linda but she could not get it to work.

I put the finishing touches on the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter’s financial statements, roster, and minutes of last year’s’ meeting. I uploaded them to Dropbox and e-mailed the chapter members that the materials where there.

Linda got home later than usual from the bakery so we decided to go to La Marsa in Brighton for dinner. It’s our favorite local restaurant but was more crowded than on a regular Monday due to the buffet they have the first Monday of each month and we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. We ordered the almond garlic Ghallaba from the menu, one of our two favorite vegan dishes, but it was not as good as usual. Not bad just somewhat flat, as if they had left out the garlic. It was 8:30 PM by the time we got home and we turned in for the night fairly quickly.

2014/11/04 (T) Election Day

Linda did not go into the bakery today. We spent much of the day together and this is what we did:

Had raisin toast for breakfast with Orange juice and banana…
..
Got passport photos at Rite-Aid in Brighton…
Went to Panera for coffee…
Drove to Dearborn for dental hygienist appointments…
Drove back to Farmington Hills where we went to McDonald’s and had French fries for lunch…
Drove a mile to the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi for flu shots…
Drove back home where we had a few chips and hummus for an afternoon snack…

I drove to Brighton Honda for a 3:30 PM appointment to have the Element’s recalled air bag serviced. The appointment took 45 minutes by which time the traffic was really bad. Because of the combination of rush hour traffic and the ongoing re-paving of Grand River Avenue just west of the dealership a left turn was going to be near impossible. I needed to get to Latson Road and Grand River Avenue so I made the easy right (and correct) turn out of the dealership and quickly got on I-96 westbound. I took the relatively new Latson Road exit and stopped at Walmart to stock up on ICE brand water. I went to Meijer’s for a Mega-Millions lottery ticket and then to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for two more 12VDC duplex power outlets. It was still raining lightly, as it had been for most of the day, so I returned home by way of Grand River Avenue and Hacker Road which kept me on pavement for most of the trip.

Linda heated up the leftover chili for dinner. She continued to try different things to get her Samsung laptop to allow her to adjust the screen brightness and return it to normal but nothing worked. I took a little time to update WordPress websites and tweak the Wordfence login security. We then filled out and printed our passport renewal applications and got them ready to mail. We also figured out how to create, share, and synchronize multiple calendars on multiple devices so that we can now see the same information on our laptops, tablets, and smartphones. It’s all about Google.

Linda was tired and needed to get up early but something had broken on our bed foundation and needed to be fixed, if only temporarily. We are still using the plastic foundation that came with our select comfort air mattress years ago and one of the cross members that carry the load to the side rails had come loose from the interlocking top platform and dropped down. We had to get the mattress off the bed to work on the platform. We got it put back together for now, but we need to get a box spring or other foundation to replace it. That probably won’t happen until spring.

2014/11/05 (W) The Day After

Yesterday’s election results were generally as predicted, so nothing to cheer about from our point of view, but the world did not come to an end either. Elections change very little in the short-term and the daily tasks of living continue regardless of who does or does not get elected. We were happy, of course, that Gary Peters won the U. S. Senate seat and that Debbie Dingle was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives. We were especially pleased that our friend, Brian Robb, won re-election to the Ypsilanti City Council and that Richard Bernstein was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court, but saddened to learn that Casandra Ulbrich failed in her attempt to get re-elected to the State Board of Education. And so it goes with American politics.

Linda was back at the bakery today reviewing the period accounting and continuing to answer questions and monitor the use of the new software. I took care of some e-mails and then headed to the Brighton post office to mail our passport renewals. I refueled my car at Meijer’s for $2.899/gal and then stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to exchange two Sodastream CO2 cartridges. BB&B is in the same strip mall as the Panera, so I stopped in for some coffee.

When I got home UPS had already delivered my package from Prevost. I took the trash can to the street first and then I opened the box and verified the contents. I installed one of the Sodastream cartridges but the display would not reset. The unit has an LCD display so I figured it had a battery hidden somewhere. I released a clip at the top of the display and the whole display module came out with the nickel-sized battery was installed on the back side. I started to remove it and the display changed, so I figured it needed a new battery. I did not think we had any of this type of battery in the house but Linda told me later that we did.

I had not backed up all of my photo files from last week so I spent some time in the early afternoon copying files from my camera to my laptop and then from my laptop to both of our NAS units. I printed off all of the documents I needed for the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter annual meeting and was responding to an e-mail when Tony and Mark from GSI showed up to install the new natural gas fireplace logs and hookup the new natural gas outdoor grill.

Tony and his wife own GSI but he had Mark install the fireplace while he worked on the grill. He installed the new disconnect but when leak testing discovered that there was a small leak on the output side of the shutoff valve. I had to shut off the gas supply to that branch circuit, which also supplies gas to the kitchen range and the fireplace, so he could work on it. Tony removed the new disconnect, installed a new valve, and reinstalled the disconnect. I turned the gas supply on and he retested for leaks but did not find any. He suggested that we run it for a while to burn off manufacturing oils and other things that initially produce odors and can affect the taste of foods cooked in the unit. I got the stainless steel heat diffuser and two cast iron grills and set them in place. The left burner lit easily using the battery powered piezoelectric igniter and the right grill lit easily from the left one.

Linda got home at 3:30 PM while Tony and Mark were still working and took over interacting with them while I got ready for our 4 PM telephone meeting. She got instructions on how to light/operate both appliances, paid them, and then joined me for the meeting. By 4:05 PM we had 14 “F” numbers represented, safely exceeding our quorum requirement of 10, and Bob Pelc called the meeting to order. The meeting was friendly but efficient. We conducted all of the necessary annual chapter business and adjourned at 4:42 PM. I was re-elected to another 2-year term as chapter secretary but did not run for chapter vice-president, the position I have held since the chapter was formed in June 2010.

After the meeting Linda shut off the outdoor grill and we sat in the living room monitoring our fireplace logs and discussing dinner options. As a result Linda decided to make waffles. She tried a different recipe and substituted pastry flour instead for regular flour. Neither of us understand the difference, at a food chemistry level, but she apparently invented/discovered something that will stick to Teflon-coated cookware; really, really tightly. The waffles were crispy and tasted fine, once we got them out of the waffle iron, but they would not have won any prizes for presentation.

We spent a couple more hours after dinner sitting in the living room letting the firelogs operate with the flue opened a bit. Tony and Mark said it can take up to 20 hours of use for the unit to stop producing odors and suggested that we operate it with the flue slightly open while breaking it in. The logs are a non-vented design, just like a kitchen range, which means they are designed to operate without being vented to the outside yet not produce harmful combustion by-products such as carbon monoxide. At 8:50 PM I turned the logs down to their lowest setting. Linda shut the unit off at 9:15 PM (it has an On/Off/Remote switch but we do not have a remote). The pilot light does not consume enough air or produce enough heat and combustion by-products to be a safety or economic concern, so I left it on, closed the flue, and went to bed.

2014/11/06 (R) Inductive Thinking

Linda left the house before I awoke and spent a long day at the bakery. I spent most of the day at the dining room table working at my computer. I typed up the draft minutes from yesterday’s FMCA Freethinkers annual meeting, generated PDFs of the chapter’s financial reports, uploaded files to the Dropbox folder, and reorganized it.

I took a break at noon and drove into Novi to have a look at Chuck’s latest bus projects and then go to lunch at the local Leo’s Coney Island. The new wedge cabinet and Corian top look and fit great between the end of the new couch and the kitchen base cabinet. He did a nice job replacing the outside Jenn Air electric cooktop/grill, which was mounted in a pull-out tray in one of the bays, with two Indufix 2-hob induction cooktops. The tray has an open bottom and is supported by four heavy duty extension slides, two on each side. The induction units are from Germany and came with European “208VAC” plugs. They are strictly 208/240 VAC devices and do not have a neutral connection. The wire colors are also different with brown and blue for the L1 and L2 (hot, load) and yellow/green for the ground. Chuck had an addendum sheet explaining the color codes and how to match them up to the U. S. standard.

For lunch I had a small Greek salad without feta cheese and an order of French fries. Chuck had a more substantial meal with a salad, chicken on skewers, and rice. I was back home by 3:00 PM and settled back into my computer-based work.

Linda got home around 6:15 PM and made barbecued tofu sandwiches with grilled onions and corn on the cob. We washed it down with Leelanau Cellars sweet Red Table Wine. It was labeled semi-sweet but it reminded me of the King of the North wine from Red Trail Vineyards in North Dakota which had a distinctly grape juice taste. I liked it and Linda said she did too, which surprised me a little, as she tends to like dryer red wines.

After dinner Linda read and played online word games on her iPad to the warm glow of our new natural gas fireplace logs. These logs are a high-efficiency, unvented design and actually through heat into the living room rather than up the chimney. I continued reformatting the Freethinkers chapter roster, uploaded it to my Dropbox, and e-mailed the members to let them know it was available and ask them to review their listing and get back to me with corrections. RVillage had notified me that someone wanted to join both the CCO and GLCC groups so I logged in and approved those.

I discovered the other day that Wordfence will allow me to block individual IP addresses so I would like to find the time to go back through the “User Locked Out” notification e-mails and enter some of the most egregious repeat offenders. But not tonight. It’s late, Linda is already asleep, and I’m tired.

2014/11/07 (F) 50% plus

My objectives for today were the following:

Finish up yesterday’s blog post and start working on today’s…
Read a few of the blogs I follow in Feedly (I am way behind)…
Move the spare Aqua-Hot from the garage to the library…
Move any other freeze sensitive items from the garage to the library…
Finish the drywall compound work in the library…
Call Webasto technical support…
Measure the inside of the Honda Element…
Buy plywood to build the storage divider for the Element…
Start building the storage divider for the Honda Element…
Use the blower to clear the leaves from the deck and planting beds….
Prepare the FMCA Freethinker annual chapter certification paperwork…
Select a few photos to go with blog posts going back to early October…
Start uploading blog posts to our website…

That was obviously more than I could possibly accomplish in one day, but it helps to write it down. Here is how I did…

Finish up yesterday’s blog post and start working on today’s…check.
Read a few of the blogs I follow in Feedly (I am way behind)…check.
Move the spare Aqua-Hot from the garage to the library…check.
Move any other freeze sensitive items from the garage to the library…some.
Finish the drywall compound work in the library…check.
Make an unplanned trip to Lowe’s and Sherwin Williams for paint supplies…Yes.
Prime the areas in the library where the drywall work was done…Yes!
Call Webasto technical support…check.
Measure the inside of the Honda Element…check.
Buy plywood to build the storage divider for the Element…no.
Start building the storage divider for the Honda Element…no.
Use the blower to clear the leaves from the deck and planting beds….no.
Prepare the FMCA Freethinker annual chapter certification paperwork…no.
Select a few photos to go with blog posts going back to early October…no.
Start uploading blog posts to our website…no.

That’s 6-1/2 + 2 out of 13 + 2 or 8-1/2 out of 15 which is over 50%; not bad. I might have gotten one or two other things done, or at least started, but we ended up meeting Chuck at BD’s Mongolian Bar-B-Que in Novi for dinner at 7:00 PM. Barbara was still attending to out-of-town family business and Chuck appreciated not dining alone. We were at the restaurant for over two hours and had a nice meal and great conversation in spite the very loud, upbeat youthful vibe of the place. Next time we will try Sizzling Sticks in Northville; same kind of food but a much more subdued atmosphere according to Chuck. Overall it was another good day.

2014/11/08 (S) Steve and Karen

We had a good sized crowd at the ham radio breakfast this morning. We did not have to be anywhere at any particular time, and we were enjoying the conversation, so we stayed a little longer than usual. Once we got back to the house I changed into work clothes for drywall and painting while Linda gathered up the recyclables and finished her grocery list. She left to run the errands and I got the painting tools/supplies out.

Linda dropped off the recyclables, stopped at the bank, stopped at Lowe’s to return something that it turned out we had not purchased there, and then did the grocery shopping at Meijer’s. While she was gone I put a first coat of paint on the areas of the west wall of the library where I had repaired the drywall. The item she planned to return was a can of Great Stuff Fire Block that broke yesterday when I tried to use it. It turned out that I had not purchased it at Lowe’s as they do not sell it. They sell a 3M product for the same application, which I had sitting in the garage but had overlooked. I used it to try to fill gaps around the gas supply pipe and the condensate drain, which were open clear through to the outside, and the double-walled flue pipe and gas pipe that pass through the furnace closet wall. I applied the foam from inside the furnace closet and will need another can to finish the job from the outside of the closet.

Linda started putting together supper while I gathered up laundry and started a load. I spent some quiet time with Jasper, our very sweet 10-year old cat, and then settled in to write and read for a while.

Steve and Karen arrived at 5 PM and we visited while Linda put the finishing touches on dinner. She made the warm Farro dish with kale, dried cranberries, almonds, garlic, and onions and roasted asparagus as a side. She has the Farro dish tagged “good for company.” We still have a few bottles of the 2009 Egri Merlot and the slightly sweet full body of this wine went very nicely with the earthy Farro. She made a chocolate cake for dessert with raspberry sauce made from fresh raspberries. I think the cake was her best yet; very moist with just the right texture. Vegan baking is tricky and Linda is still figuring it out. Sometimes the cakes are a bit dry and other times they lean towards being brownies but tonight she got it just right.

Steve brought his Raspberry Pi single board computer (SBC) and an SD card with photos of their recent (September) trip out west. He connected the Pi to our TV/monitor in the basement so we could all comfortably see the photos. They had excellent weather and some fall colors the days they were in Yellowstone National Park and got some nice images. But we spent most the evening sitting in the living room enjoying the new natural gas firelogs and catching up on what we had been doing since we last saw each other. They left around 10:30 PM and we had everything picked up by 11 PM and headed off to bed.

2014/11/09 (N) Wrapping Up

Today was mostly about wrapping up the library drywall/painting project and other minor chores, doing laundry, and getting me packed for a two week return visit to Twelve Mile, Indiana to work on our bus and help Butch and Fonda work on theirs.

Linda made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which is always a treat. I made a trip to Lowe’s for a nine inch disposable paint roller cover and another can of 3M Fireblock spray foam. I used the can of spray foam to finish sealing the gaps in the utility closet wall openings where the black iron gas pipe and the double-wall flu pass into the garage. I only needed a little more foam to finish the utility closet openings so I used the rest of the can to fill gaps around the rear entrance door in the garage.

I used some scrap packing paper from recent Prevost shipments and some frog tape to mask the opening for the library furnace return air grille. I then used flat black spray paint to make everything that is visible through the slots in the cover disappear. Finally, it was time to paint walls.

I used a small brush to cut in the adjacent wall and ceiling with the Sherwin-Williams Extra White satin finish paint. I removed the cover plates from two outlets and a switch and then rolled on a new/final coat of paint. I cleaned up my paint supplies and then we brought the outdoor grill (and cover) into the garage to store for the winter. We also brought the patio table umbrella and base into the library and set the umbrella in the base for the winter rather than let in lie on the floor.

Linda made another batch of granola while I checked stuff on my computer and took care of laundry and packing. We had leftovers for dinner at 5:15 PM and then headed to South Lyon for the monthly SLAARC (ham radio) meeting where I was re-elected as VP for a second year and Linda was elected Treasurer for the coming year. The program was a presentation on Software Defined Radios (SDR) by Mike Alexander (N8MSA). When we got home we finished the chocolate cake and raspberry sauce with a glass of Leelanau Cellars Autumn Red wine and then turned in for the night.

2014/09/30 (T) To Indiana

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Linda was up early again and off to the bakery. I got up just before 8 AM, showered and shaved and had a grapefruit for breakfast. I did not have any coffee. I do not eat or drink on lot on days when I have to drive the bus. I checked and adjusted the tire pressures on the bus while it was still cool and cloudy. I then hooked up the car and checked the rear lights. I spent the rest of the morning gathering up last minute things and loading them on the bus. My plan was to leave at noon. There were a lot of last minute things but I was packed and ready to go by 11:45 AM.

I called Linda to let her know I was getting ready to leave, secured the house, and took care of the final departure items. I started the car, put it in D (drive) for 20 seconds, slipped it into neutral, made sure the parking brake was off, the steering wheel was free to turn, and the Pressure Pro repeater was plugged in. The key has to be in the ignition switch and turned to the “on” position while the car is being towed so I travel with two car keys so I can lock the car. I turned off the shore power to the bus, disconnected the power cord, and stowed it. I closed up the utility (shore connections) bay, checked that the air accessories circuits were open in the DS front bay, checked that the inverter was working, and made a final check that all of the bays were closed and locked.

I secured the entrance door (from the inside), checked that everything was ready for travel on the interior, buckled myself in, and started the engine. I gave it a minute to get oil flowing through the engine and start to build air pressure and then switched it to high idle to finish airing up the suspension and brake systems. I switched the suspension system from Level Low mode to driving mode, pulled the tag axles up, let the suspension come back up to ride height, and slowly pulled out. (Lifting the tag tires off the ground helps the bus make slow tight turns like the 180 degree turn to pull out of our pull-through driveway and into the street pointed in the right direction to get out to the main road.) I stopped in the street to lower the tag axles, let the suspension readjust to ride height, and was finally on my way. (The bus is not supposed to be moving when the tag axles are raised or lowered.) The dashboard clock turned 12:00 when I was half way down our street. That’s the departure drill. The morning turned out to be busier than I would have liked, but that was pretty good time management, I would say.

It had rained hard around midnight and there was a heavy cloud layer all morning with occasional mist, so it was a cool, damp morning. I took my usual route north on Hacker Road to M-59 west to I-96 west to the southwest corner of Lansing where I picked up I-69 south. I stayed on I-69 into Indiana where I picked up US-20 west. I always enjoy the drive across this stretch of US-20; it’s a 2-lane highway posted at 55 MPH (except through towns) and is hilly from I-69 west to the Elkhart area. It is not unusual to see Amish buggies along this route but they were out in force today from Lagrange to Middlebury. There was also road construction along the way so it was a slightly trickier and slower drive than normal.

I exited US-20 onto US-31 southbound and was immediately routed onto a new section of highway. I have seen stretches of this highway under construction on trips to Twelve Mile Indiana over the last couple of years but this was the first time I had driven on it. The road I used to take is now “Old US-31.” The new highway rejoined the old highway near Plymouth, Indiana. From this point south to Kokomo US-31 has long been a four lane divided highway, but not limited access. At the point of rejoining one side was closed with traffic routed on the other side, making a 2-lane construction zone. In spite of that I was able to keep rolling and made good time. I was out of the construction quickly enough.

Once the highway made the turn back to the south near Rochester I was in the home stretch. Another 10 miles and I saw the familiar communications towers that tell me to look for the barn on the east side of the highway at SR-16. I made the turn onto SR-16 westbound and another 7 miles brought me to the heart of downtown Twelve Mile, Indiana where Butch and Fonda’s home and business are located. (Twelve Mile, Indiana is 12 miles from Rochester, 12 Miles from Logansport, and 12 miles from Peru, thus the name.) I pulled into the driveway for the grain elevator across the street from their parking area, let the engine idle for a few minutes to cool down and stabilize, and shut it down while I unhooked and parked the car.

Butch and Fonda had gotten home from a day of errands and family visits just before I arrived. They unloaded groceries while I attended to my car. Butch then served as spotter while I backed across SR-16 into their lot and got me parked next to their bus. As parked, the coach was level side-to-side but low in the front. I switched the suspension to Level Low, raised the front end, and shut off the engine.

I use their spare bedroom when I am here, so I unloaded clothing and technology items and took them inside. I left all of my food onboard the bus, however, as I prepare my own (vegan) meals and usually eat breakfast and lunch in the coach by myself (if I even have lunch). I try to prepare dinner and bring it in the house to eat with them if the timing works out, but tonight it did not. They had a large, late lunch and I had a small, light breakfast and a handful of pretzel nibblers and peanuts (literally) for lunch. Linda sent a lot of food with me for such a short trip, so I had a green salad and a hummus sandwich for dinner after which I settled in to visit for the evening. My iPad remembered how to connect to their Wi-Fi and I got my ASUS laptop connected as well. This is the first time the laptop has been to there place and only the second time it’s been out of the house since I bought it.

It was a bit strange seeing the place somewhat emptied out although there is still a lot of stuff there. I was surprised at what the company in Nevada did not take, but Butch and Fonda both explained that the buyer had taken the stuff they were most likely to sell, had space to store, and could afford to ship 2,000 miles to Nevada. Some remaining items with unique value may be sold but much of the remaining inventory will be sold as scrap. Things are a bit chaotic at the moment as they had to move a lot of stuff to get to other stuff and are now going through their stuff trying to figure out what stuff to get rid of and how to get rid of it. They are working towards being full-timers, so they have a big task ahead of them.

2014/09/29 (M) Full Converted (Not)

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Linda was up at 5:45 AM. Hey, it’s just a number. I mean, who needs daylight? She quietly got dressed and slipped out of the house to drive to the bakery. This is how it’s going to be on days when she has to be physically present at the facility. Unless I am away working on the bus. In that case she probably does not worry about being quiet.

I got up around 7 AM and had a nice breakfast of homemade granola, orange/grapefruit juice, and coffee and then spent some time catching up on blogs that I follow. Keith showed up around 9:30 AM to cut the grass. Butch had called last night to ask Linda a question and asked that I call him when I had a chance. Our company did not leave until after 9 PM last night, which was great, but too late to call Butch back so I called him this morning around 10:30 AM.

Butch had used a stop leak additive product to try to plug a leak in his Aqua-Hot main coolant loop but it did not work. The Aqua-Hot is a Webasto-based diesel-fired hydronic heating system. Rather than repair the Aqua-Hot, or replace it with another one, he decided to order an Oasis Combi unit from International Thermal Research. The Combi has a lower BTU rating than the Aqua-Hot but is smaller, simpler, and uses stainless steel for some of the components. It should be more than adequate for their bus, which is very well insulated, and give them years of trouble free service.

Butch and Fonda’s Aqua-Hot is a very similar model to ours and I will probably buy it from them as a source of spare parts. His burner is fully functional, which ours is not at the moment, and the short term fix for our unit may be to just swap the burners. I can then repair the defective burner at my leisure and have it available to swap back should the replacement ever develop a problem.

As a result of our conversation I decided that I will take our bus to their place tomorrow, leaving around noon and arriving between 4:30 and 5:00 PM. In preparation for that trip I needed to gather up and organize parts, materials, and documentation for my initial set of projects. I also needed to do laundry and select clothes for the trip. I may also need to do some grocery shopping this evening unless Linda already has food in the house that I can take. Tuesday morning I will have to load clothes and toiletries, hook up the car, check and adjust tire pressures, load computers and other last minute items, and get the bus ready for travel.

My main focus for Wed, Thu, and Fri will be the Aqua-Hot (no burn and leaky exhaust). If we have time I would also like to finish installing the Zena 24 VDC power generating system and get it operational. I will return on Friday afternoon/evening in the car as Butch and Fonda have plans for the weekend and I still have lots of things to take care of back at the house.

Keith finished up with the lawn a little before noon. He will be back at least two more times, once in mid-October and again towards the end of the month. Whether he cuts the grass in November or calls it quits for the season will depend on the weather between now and then. His basic grass mowing season is April 1 through October 31 and he has his business insured for that range of dates, but he said he would come back in November if needed. The grass should be dormant by then, but there may be a few leaves that still need to be mulched. There could also be a foot of snow on the ground, so it will all depend on the conditions prevailing at the time. During the mowing season he spends the work week living at their trailer/cabin at Haas Lake RV Park, which maybe 20 miles from our house, but by November 1 he is looking to move himself and his equipment back home to Milan for the winter. Milan is at least 60 miles from our house, maybe a bit farther.

I spent a little time at my desk and decided to re-install WordPress 4.0 on the SLAARC, FMCA Freethinker, and FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches websites. I re-installed it a couple of days ago on this (our personal) website, but I have not tried creating or editing image galleries since then so I do not know if the broken drag-n-drop feature has magically been repaired or not. I suspect not, but Linda says I’m a pessimist.

I had a quick bite of lunch and then read a few more blog entries while I waited upstairs for Brandon from Bratcher Electric to show up and convert the whole house generator from propane to natural gas and do the annual maintenance and multi-point inspection. He arrived at 2:15 PM and was here for about an hour. I had him show me how to disable the generator as it has to be turned off anytime I want to shut off the power coming into the main distribution panel in the basement. He did not have the correct length of flexible gas line and will come back on Friday to do the LP to NG conversion. Besides disconnecting the propane and connecting the natural gas the conversion involves attaching two wires to a pair of corresponding terminals on the gas valve inside the unit and changing a setting in the controller.

While Brandon was working on the generator I started gathering things from the garage that I needed for tomorrow and loading them in the car and the bus. We already have quite a few things staged to take to the Surplus and Salvage Rally next week, but I will take those things with me when I return to Butch and Fonda’s early next week.

Linda called at 4:35 PM to let me know she was on the way home. I drained the water out of the fresh water tank on the bus as it had been sitting in there since June. (Yuck.) The fresh water hoses needed to be cleaned before I used them so I filled their storage tub half full of softened water and added some bleach. I coiled them up, hooked the ends together, let them soak for a while, and then wiped them off with clean paper shop towels. Much better looking, and probably and lot more sanitary.

Linda got home at 5:30 PM, a very quick trip for that time of day. Butch had called just as she was getting home to let me know that he had spoken to someone who has two RV spots in Quartzite we can rent for a very reasonable price this winter. Linda and I need to discuss it, and would like a few more details, but that probably makes more sense than trying to boondock our first time out there, especially as we do not yet have solar panel on the roof of our coach.

Linda made a nice green salad and heated up some of the lasagna from yesterday. Italian bread with garlic “butter” and a glass of the 2009 Egri Merlot completed the meal. We talked about our respective days, reminiscent of when we both worked outside the home.

After dinner I finished cleaning the fresh water hoses, filled the fresh water tank, and then drained and stored the hoses. While I did that Linda gathered food items, bedding, and towels and put them aboard the bus. It will still take me a few hours to get ready to leave tomorrow, but I should not be rushed getting everything done.

Linda heated up some of the apple/pear crisp for dessert after which we sat on the sofa and looked at highway maps on her iPad. The map app on the iPad said the trip from our house to Quartzite, Arizona was about 2,100 miles and would take “1 day, 9 hours.” That’s non-stop, of course; i.e., 24 + 9 = 33 driving hours. That time works out to just under 64 MPH. I typically drive the bus at 60 to 63 MPH on Interstate highways, but we do all of our trip planning based on 50 MPH. That usually works out well at taking into account for fuel stops, rest stops, and non-Interstate roads. This means our travel time will be more like 42 hours. Our preference is to only travel 200 to 300 miles per day, or 4 to 6 hours a day, so the actual number of travel days will be between 10 and 7. We like to spend more than one night at each stop, depending on what there is to see and do in the area, so the number of days it will take us to get to Quartzite will 2 to 3 times the number of driving days. A lot of the details of our trip will be last minute decisions based on weather, but our “plan” is to leave December 1st and arrive in Quartzite by December 21^st, more or less.

2014/09/23 (T) Cooking With Gas

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The autumnal equinox was last night at 10:29 PM EDT. It’s a magical moment marking one of the two times during the year that there are equal hours of day and night at every place on the planet. Today is the first full day of celestial fall. From now until the winter solstice the hours of daylight will steadily decrease and be less than the hours of darkness as winter eventually settles over the northern hemisphere. Meteorologist and climatologists consider September 1 as the first day of fall, but either way colder weather is coming north of the equator. Of course, winter in the northern hemisphere varies widely from mind-numbingly cold in the far north to very pleasant the closer one gets to the equator. The southern U.S., in particular Florida, the Gulf Coast, southern Texas, and the desert southwest, have a winter climate that is particularly attractive to RVers from more northern states and the Canadian provinces. Along with all of the migratory birds the “snowbirds” will be very much on the move by mid-October and generally have relocated to the Sunbelt by mid-December. We will be among the last to go, but go we will.

Linda was up early again and off to the bakery ahead of the morning rush hour traffic. I had finished breakfast and was finishing up yesterday’s blog post when Curt called from D. R. Electric Appliance to let me know that our new range was being delivered to them this morning. He said they could bring it out and install it right after lunch so I gave him our address.

I called Bratcher Electric and talked to Karen. I asked if it might be easier on them in terms of scheduling to have someone come out and convert the generator and do the annual maintenance and take care of the electrical project on a separate visit. She agreed and said she we would call me back tomorrow morning to schedule it as she was not in the shop and did not have the schedule for this week in front of her.

I had gotten dressed this morning with the intent of doing some drywall work in the library, some electrical work in the garage, and possibly pulling the cover off the Aqua-Hot in the bus. I turned up the thermostats in the garage and the library and set the temperature up so they would come on. It was 64 in the library and 59 in the garage. I set both of them to 65 and let them run. The library got up to 69 and the garage got up to 70, so it looks like I may have to adjust the anticipators in those thermostats. That wide of a temperature swing means the furnace(s) will not run as often but will run longer when they do. More to the point, however, is that they should regulate the temperature (at the thermostat) to less than +/- 1 degree F. If the thermostat is set to 70 the thermometer should read 69 or 71, it should show 70. The Honeywell thermostats in the house work that way.

I decided to defer most of my tasks until after the new natural gas range was delivered and installed. I did go online and find a manual for the White-Rodgers 1F78 (70 Series) non-programmable thermostat (we have 1F78-144s installed for the library and garage). The manual I found online contained more information than the installation sheet that came with them, including diagnostic tables. It turned out that this thermostat does not have an adjustable anticipator function other than a wire that can be clipped to produce a longer heating cycle when controlling a hydronic heating system. If the cycle is too long (not shutting off when the set point temperature is reached) the really isn’t anything you can do. The displayed temperature is adjustable, however, within a +or- 3 degree range, but the thermometers were supposedly set (calibrated) at the factory, so I’m not sure I want to fix the problem by changing them. I put one of our refrigerator thermometers on top of the library thermostat to check whether it agreed with the built-in thermometer. I then placed a call to Darryll ask about this and let him know that we had received his invoice yesterday.

I pulled the old range out of its space between the kitchen cabinets/counters and moved it to one side to so I had access to the alcove where it normally sits. I unplugged the unit and closed the gas shutoff valve but I did not disconnect the flexible gas line. I swept up the small amount of debris that had accumulated there, trimmed some wood shims that had been used to level the cabinets and were left sticking out into the range space, and then cleaned the floor.

Although we would have liked to have the range installed last Friday or Saturday, today was good enough if just-in-time. Linda’s sister is arriving sometime tomorrow and we will probably have grand-daughter Madeline here starting tomorrow night or Thursday morning. Marilyn leaves Friday evening and Madeline returns home either Friday evening or Saturday. The arrangements are not yet finalized. Her Jewish-run day care center is closed Thursday and Friday for Rosh Hashanah and we agreed to babysit her at our house, including overnight stays. How fun is that? Lots! We are also trying to arrange to have RV friends from Canada come visit and dine with us at the house on Sunday. The point is, we are getting our new range just-in-time for Linda to be able to cook properly for all of these people (and us; I consumed the last of her amazing home-made granola for breakfast this morning).

D. R. Electric Appliance arrived at 3:15 PM. They determined the easiest way into and out of the kitchen was through the front doorwall of the library and then through the kitchen door. I had measured the old kitchen range and the inside of our Honda Element and knew that the old range would not fit in the car (the width and depth are fine but the height is a problem) so I had the installers move it to the garage. We will call the Salvation Army number and arrange for one of their trucks to pick it up.

Our new GE natural gas kitchen range.

It took the 2-man installation crew about 45 minutes, start-to-finish, to remove the old range, move it to the garage, unpack the new range, move it to the kitchen, remove all the packing tape, plug it in, hook up the gas, assemble the burners and slide it into its space between the base cabinets/counters. They said we did not need a new flexible gas line and reused the old one. I had opened the branch shutoff valve in the basement while they were working and they opened the shutoff valve at the unit as soon as they had the gas connected. None of us smelled any gas so they started it up and made sure the five burners on top were working. They handed me the invoice and I asked if they accepted credit cards. They said I would have to call or go into the office for that, gathered up their tools and packing materials, and took off.

I tested the two ovens after they left as they indicated that if they didn’t work there wasn’t anything they could do about it anyway as they were not service technicians. The oven controls are more complicated than the range burners, but I figured out how to set a temperature and turn them on. I did not test the convection feature of the lower oven, the broiler in the upper oven, the timers (start and cook), or other features but I did set the clock. Linda and I will have to spend a little time with the manual to fully understand how to use the ovens.

Another view of the new range.

The only installation issue we have is the iron gas pipe that comes up from the basement behind the unit with the gas shutoff valve is installed on top of it. The pipe is too long and prevents the unit from being pushed back as close to the wall as we would like. It can’t go flush to the wall in any event as there are vents on the back for the convection oven (I think), but it has open space at the bottom that would allow it to go back farther than it is now if the shutoff valve were closer to the floor. The iron pipe is undoubtedly screwed into a 90 degree elbow just below the floor in the ceiling of the basement. Fixing this will simply involve disconnecting the flex gas line, unscrewing the shutoff valve, removing the vertical pipe by unscrewing it, replacing it with a shorter one, reattaching the shutoff valve (or a new one), and reattaching the flex line (or a new one). That’s all stuff I can do, but yeah, it will take me half a day (at least) once I have all the parts.

I drove to downtown Howell and found a parking spot right in front of D. R. Electric Appliance. There wasn’t anyone in the store but I found Curt out back unpacking a refrigerator. I paid him with a credit card and it was a good thing I drove to the store. He said that if they take a credit card over the phone there is an additional 3% charge. He wasn’t clear about who ends up paying the extra charge, but an educated guess says it’s the customer.

Linda sent me a text message at 4:37 PM that she was leaving the bakery. She got home at 6 PM (traffic was very heavy) and was very excited to see her new kitchen range in place and ready to use. As I expected, she would like to have it pushed in farther, so I guess I have another project. She used the range to pan grill a couple of tofu hotdogs and microwaved some leftovers for dinner. She read through the manual for the range and then worked on a grocery list for the next four days while I checked in on websites and e-mail. I am still getting too many failed login attempts on the FMCA GLCC website, so I lengthened to lockout time from 1 hour to six hours.

Marilyn called to let us know that she had arrived at her destination in Lake Orion and her meeting was set for 8:30 AM tomorrow. Linda will pick her up at 9:45 AM and bring her to our house. Linda had developed a headache during the day and it was still bothering her during the evening so she took some medication and we turned in without watching any TV programs.

2014/09/22 (M) Hot Water

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Linda was up early to beat the morning traffic heading into Detroit from our part of S. E. Michigan. On days when she has to go to the bakery she likes to get up and go and does not have breakfast at home. Not that she doesn’t get something to eat; she’s spending the day working at a bakery after all.

I tend to stay up later at night than she does, so I also tend not to spring out of bed at oh-dark-thirty unless I have someplace I have to be at daybreak. My job is to hear the alarms (we set several) and make sure Linda wakes up. I am then free to pursue the rest of my day on my own timeline. Today, however, I wanted to make sure I was up and dressed not later than 8 AM as there was a possibility that TOMTEK would be here to convert the hot-water base-board heating system boiler from propane to natural gas and/or that D. R. Electric Appliance would deliver and install our new natural gas kitchen range. I did not, however, know if/when either of those things would happen so I was “stuck” at the house all day either waiting for phone calls.

I was dealing with e-mail when Tom called at 9:15 AM to let me know they had the part for our boiler and that he could be at our house around 10 AM if that was OK. “Absolutely!” I decided to bleed out whatever propane might be left in the 1/2″ line that feeds the kitchen and outdoor grill connector. The pipe into the house was open to the outside for a while so I did not know how much propane, if any, even remained in the line. I opened the shutoff valve in the laundry room for that line and then opened the outside valve for the gas grill. Nothing.

It turns out that the quick-disconnect is a self-sealing device. When the mating part is not plugged in, no gas can get out. I should have known that, and it’s obvious that it should work that way, but I hadn’t really thought about it until that moment. I closed the outside valve and then closed the shutoff valve in the basement and figured I (or the installer) would deal with that branch of the piping when the new range shows up. I did not concern myself with the pipe to the furnace, which has its own shutoff valve, as I figured Tom would bleed the line before he started the unit.

Tom arrived about 10:20 AM. He had the right part and he knew how to replace it. The part (an orifice plate) was just a thin piece of metal, probably aluminum, with a hole about the size of a quarter in the center of it (the orifice) and several other holes for screws to pass through or other purposes. I’m always trying to understand our technology and he let me observe and ask questions while he worked. Tom disconnected a small vacuum hose, removed three or four screws, lowered the blower housing, slid the old propane orifice plate out, slid the new natural gas orifice plate in, reattached the blower housing, and our boiler was converted to natural gas. Just like that.

Once he had the new natural gas orifice plate installed and everything reassembled he put gas to the furnace and turned on the electrical power. It took a few seconds to purge the air and residual propane from the gas pipe but the burner lit and stayed lit on the first try. He checked for gas leaks as it warmed up. (He used an electronic sniffer rather than soapy water.) He did not find any gas leaks but I noticed some condensation dripping from the flue pipe onto the top of the unit. He shut the furnace off and let it cool down enough to handle the flue pipe and found that a joint between two sections was leaking. He pulled it apart, applied a sealant, and put it back together nice and tight. He turned the furnace on again and the leak did not reappear. We did notice, however, that there was a similar leak at the next joint downstream. I moved a spare macerator pump from under that joint and put a bucket there to catch any drips, although stains on the underside of the flue pipe indicated that this leak had existed for a while and that condensation leaking at that point had run back downhill towards the boiler along the underside of the pipe. We may need to eventually have all of the joints resealed all the way to the outside.

I turned all of the thermostats on and set the temperatures a few degrees above ambient so they would call for heat and Tom monitored the temperature and pressure of the coolant as the unit heated up. At 140 degrees F the pressure was between 35 and 40 PSI. Tom said it should be closer to 20 PSI at that temperature, so he drained some of the coolant out of the system into a bucket. As water trickled into the bucket the pressure dropped accordingly. The system eventually heated up to just under 180 degrees F, which is where it normally operates, and the pressure stayed below 25 PSI. He put the covers back on the unit and gathered up his tools while I wrote a check and paid him for the service call. After he left I took a nice hot shower, the first one since last Wednesday morning. ;-0

While I was doing chores around the house I got a call from Marilyn in the AT&T billing department. She called to let me know that they were crediting our bill to compensate for the lack of usable service in August. I got a call later from Shelley from the Office of the President (of AT&T) following up on our MPSC complaint. I told her that the POTS and DSL had been working just fine since Bill was here to repair our service. She had requested the billing credit and said she would report back to the commission that everything was repaired to our satisfaction. I told her I would confirm that if contacted by the MPSC.

Today was shaping up to be a very good day. It was sunny outside with light winds, puffy clouds, and afternoon high temperatures in the low 60’s; a little brisk, perhaps, but cheerful and very refreshing. Earlier in the day I noticed the road grader going up and down our street smoothing out the bumps and filling in the holes. With a forecast of no rain and high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70’s for the next week the road should be decent to drive on for a while.

Some of the difficulty we have had this summer getting contractors to show up reminded me of a joke that Steven Wright told years ago on an HBO comedy show. It went something like this: “I walked up to the deli entrance and the sign said ‘Open 24 Hours’ so I tried the door but it was locked. While I was standing there the owner walked up and unlocked the door. I said to him ‘Your sign says ‘Open 24 Hours’.’ He just looked at me and said ‘We are, but not in a row’.”

I’m starting to wonder if the kitchen range is going to turn out to be another example of “tell the customer whatever you think they need to hear to get them to make the purchase.” The difference in this case is that we have not given D. R. Electric Appliance a deposit or a credit card number, so if delivery is delayed much longer we can walk away from the deal with nothing to lose except time. We probably won’t, as that would just further delay getting a new NG range, but it’s nice to know that we at least have that option if this drags on any longer. We were told “three days” and based our decision to order from them in part on that information.

With respect to the conversion or our generator from propane to natural gas, our new NG fireplace logs, and our new NG outdoor grill, our hands are basically tied. We either have parts on order, for which we have already paid, don’t have a choice of contractor, or have made the choice not to look for another contractor as that would simply involve more delay and the uncertainty of working with someone we have not worked with before. Still, it’s a little frustrating that we can’t get this stuff taken care of. The real issue for me is that I need to take our bus to Butch and Fonda’s place to work on it, and I cannot do that until all of the natural gas related work is done. The other issue is that we do not want to contact Consumer’s Energy (natural gas) and AmeriGas (propane) until all of our gas appliances are switched over. Consumer’s Energy “requires” us to accomplish this within 30 days of hanging the meter, which occurred one week ago today, so we do not have an unlimited amount of time to get this stuff taken care of.

Interestingly, I learned at breakfast on Saturday that two of our ham radio club members had contacted Bratcher Electric based on my recommendation. Mike had already been to one of their houses, quoted them a whole house generator installation, gotten a signed contract and a deposit, and given them an installation date. The other guy had a scheduled appointment for Mike to come out and give him a quote. Mike looked at our job five weeks ago and I don’t have a price or a service date scheduled yet. What’s up with that?! I did not want to spoil today’s winning streak, however, so I chose not to make follow up phone calls today. Tomorrow morning, however…

We were both tired and turned in early to watch episode 2 of Ken Burns “The Roosevelts: An Intimate Portrait.” I was putting the finishing touches on this post afterwards and noted the occurrence of the autumnal equinox at 10:39 PM EDT.

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

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After I installed iOS8 on my iPad2 yesterday morning my Logitech Bluetooth keyboard seemed to change its behavior, giving me double letters in some cases and feeling a little sluggish in its response. The keyboard itself has not changed, so I presume this has something to do with iOS8. I also presume the keyboard batteries have not run down already, but I suppose that is a possibility. If so, I will be replacing them once a week. While creating an image gallery for the SLAARC WordPress website last night I noticed that the drag and drop feature of the gallery editor did not work. I upgraded to WP Version 4.0 about a week ago but this was the first time I had tried to use the gallery feature. If there is a problem with this feature there is no way that I am the first person to discover it and I presume WordPress is aware of it. I find it strange, however, that they have not released a maintenance update fixing it since an improved and more visual editor was a major feature of the 4.0 release.

A few weeks back I re-established contact through Linked-In with a colleague from 10 years ago. Jim was Director of General Education Services at Livingston Educational Service Agency at the time and we went through NCA Ambassador training together. It turns out that he lives and works in the Brighton area, so we are now neighbors of sorts. He suggested we meet up for coffee and I finally called him this morning to arrange that. We both had time at 1:30 PM today and agreed to meet at the Panera on Grand River Avenue by I-96 at that time.

Linda got the new Global Bake bakery software installed on her laptop yesterday so this morning she was able to start working on the software conversion process in earnest. Her work requires a lot of concentration, and she gets very focused when doing it, so I went to my office to continue working on editing blog posts and photos.

In checking my e-mail I noticed that I was still getting failed login attempts from foreign countries on this site and on the FMCA GLCC website, which is sub-domain of this site, in spite having installed the premium (paid) version of the Wordfence Security plug-in. I looked at the installed plug-ins for the GLCC website and discovered that I had one named “Limit Login Attempts” that I did not have installed on our personal website or the other two sites I manage. I surmised that this plug-in might be doing just what the name implied and in the process preempting Wordfence from ever doing its job. I deactivated it and saw a reduction in failed attempts, with none from outside North America, suggesting that the country blocking feature of Wordfence was now working properly. I saw a similar drop in failed login attempts on our personal website when I activated the country blocking feature for all countries except the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Only time will tell, however, if Wordfence is indeed blocking login attempts from outside North America.

We had hummus and apples for lunch after which I hung up one load of laundry and put another load in the washer. I left at 1 PM to have time to stop at Best Buy to get something to clean our various touch screens and monitors. Traffic was very heavy in the I-96 and Grand River Avenue shopping area, but Best Buy is in the same shopping complex as the Panera, so I made it there on time. Jim and I talked for almost two hours and which covered the highlights of the last eight years.

Back home I kept my focus on getting the blog caught up. Linda wrapped up her work for the day and we finished the bottle of Alpha Rose from Red Trail Vineyards while she fixed a simple but tasty dinner of vegan burgers and corn. I got a call from Butch letting me know that the company in Nevada had arranged for a semi and taken all of the parts they plan to take. Everything that is left is Butch and Fonda’s to do with as they please. The important thing for us is that I can now take our bus down there at my convenience. I would like to get all of the natural gas related work taken care of and put the finishing touches on the garage project before I move the bus, but I may go ahead and move it next week if the scheduling of contractors works out.

During the evening I had an exchange of TXT messages with Chuck. He had ordered some miniature 24VDC light bulbs (1829s) that are used in our bus dashboards and the order had arrived. Rather than go to his shop after breakfast tomorrow we arranged to meet him for dinner tomorrow night. I also got a call from Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint. She had a new customer who just bought a mid-1990’s Prevost XL converted coach and she gave him my name and phone numbers in case he had any questions about the rig. We agreed that we would try to find time during the GLCC Surplus and Salvage a Rally to work on the article I started last year about the process she used to repair the body and roof of our coach, seal and coat the roof, and paint the body. We capped off the evening with the second to last episode of Season 5 of Doc Martin. We need to return the DVDs to the Howell Library on Sunday, so we want to make sure we get through all of the episodes for Season 5.

2014/09/16 (T) Boiled Over

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Our son (Brendan) texted Linda early this morning to see if we would like to have grand-daughter Madeline spend the night while Marilyn is here next week. It turns out that next week Thursday and Friday are Jewish holidays, and Madeline attends a Jewish run day care facility. Of course we said “yes.”

Linda worked at her desk on our personal finances in the morning, worked on her counted cross-stitch project for a while in the afternoon, went on a couple of long walks, and managed to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table. But as days go, it was fairly low key even for her.

I called Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting in Howell and asked for Bob as I had been instructed to do. It was Bob’s day off but I got to talk to Mark. Mark told me that they can get a 12′ hose with a 3/8″ flare fitting on one end and quick disconnect on the other end. The QD includes the male fitting attached to the hose and the female fitting that gets threaded onto the supply pipe. We already have a female QD fitting (Marshall Brass BC0102-0600) but it may not be compatible. I had measured before I called and knew that we needed at least an 8′ hose, so 12′ will work just fine, especially since two feet of it has to go up through the base from the back and then out the top of the base and attach to the grill. Mark asked me to call back tomorrow and talk to Bob to order it, so that is what I will do.

I double checked online that the range we had ordered was indeed a natural gas model. It was, so there was no need to call the appliance store to confirm that. I had a call back from Darryll at DCM Heating & Cooling. He thought he would be able to come back on Friday or Saturday to hook up the gas from the meter to the house and the new black iron pipe and start up the two new furnaces. All of the other gas conversion work we need done is dependent on Darryll getting his piece done first and I asked him if it would be possible to come on Wednesday. He said he would check his schedule and see what he could do. Darryll has been great to work with, and I try not to be demanding, but I cannot schedule other contractors until there is gas to the house.

I checked the label on our Weil-McLain “boiler” that provides heat for our hot-water baseboard heating system and domestic hot water. It’s a GV-5, Series 1. That allowed me to hone in on the right manuals on the W-M website from which I was able to identify the part number for the LP –> NG conversion kit. It’s a 510-811-630 and consists of an orifice plate and an adhesive label that has to go on the unit. The unit is a discontinued model, but service parts appear to still be available. I found the conversion kit at the first online supplier I checked for under $31 (plus S&H) but delivery looked to be 2 – 3 weeks. Ugh. I placed a call to TOMTEK HVAC in Howell to see if Tom had checked on this yet. He hadn’t so I gave him the model and serial number of our unit and mentioned that I had found the orifice plate online.

I worked at my desk for a while uploading blog posts from the last third of August, but it was such a beautiful day that I decided to work upstairs on my iPad2. I called Bratcher Electric around 4 PM just to give them a “heads up” that we had a meter with natural gas. Karen gave me Mike’s cell phone number and a time window during which I would likely be able to reach him. He has been very busy doing estimates for storm damage repairs and has not been in the shop much the last month. I got hold of him to let him know that we might be ready for them as early as next Monday, but anytime in the next couple of weeks after that would be OK. Again, I try not to be unreasonably demanding, and I try to be truthful with folks. Sometimes, however, that just results in us being put at the back of a long line of people who are unreasonably demanding.

Linda made maple baked lentils with sweet potato and apple for dinner. It really hit the spot on a cool evening. After dinner I continued working on selecting and editing photos for a gallery post on the natural gas pipeline work. My cell phone cannot receive calls in the basement but it can receive txt messages and notifications. Tom had called back from TOMTEK regarding the boiler conversion. He can get the parts locally in about four days and wants $250 to do the conversion plus $59 for the service call. A total bill of $310 to install a $30 part (retail) sounded excessive to me, so I may make a few inquiries first thing in the morning before I call him back.

We watched Season 5 Episode 5 of Doc Martin. It was nice to see it on the TV rather than the iPad with a large screen, better sound, a DVD quality image, and no buffering.

2014/09/15 (M) Congratulations, You Have Gas

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As I reported in the blog post for this past Saturday a natural gas hookup crew was at our house in the early morning but it was the wrong crew (trench/plow) installing the wrong size gas line (1/2″ id). The correct crew (directional boring) showed up today around 9 AM and started boring the line for our neighbor’s yard across the street. I chatted with the crew briefly and they said we were next. They had placed a large role of the proper size gas line (1″ id) in our yard, so I knew they knew what they were doing.

Ed, who had stopped by on Friday and runs the hookup crew, was not sure whether they would hang the meter and connect the line at both ends today, but if not, tomorrow for sure. Their presence on site, however, meant that I would need to be in contact with three contractors fairly soon to follow up on arrangements to get them out here ASAP, and in the following order:

DCM Heating and Cooling, to disconnect the propane from the house and tie the new 2″ black iron pipe together with the pipe into the house and connect them to the consumer side of the gas meter. Also, to start up the new library and garage furnaces.
TOMTEK HVAC to convert the hot water base-board heating system to natural gas. Tom was going to check today with Weil-McLain on the parts needed for the conversion and let me know. Our own research suggested that a natural gas orifice plate was the only part needed, but a number of steps were involved in the installation and I doubt that W-M would sell me the part directly. (I did find it later online for $31 plus S&H, so I could buy it if I wanted to.)
Bratcher Electric; to convert the whole house generator, do the annual maintenance, and run the new service entrance cable for the garage panel.

Mike Bratcher was here a month ago to look at the job but had not gotten a price to us yet for the work. They have been slammed with repair jobs as a result of late summer storms. The generator is the least critical component at the moment as it is on its own propane tank, but we want to get it switched in a timely fashion so we can call AmeriGas and have both tanks removed at the same time.

(Ed told me later in the day that Consumer’s Energy requires us to be switched over to natural gas within 30 days of having gas to our meter. He also said that a recent Michigan law (last year) made it illegal to have multiple fuel sources to a house. Since the generator is on its own propane tank and that tank is not connected to, or provide propane to, the house or anything in the house, technically we would not have two different fuels going to the house even if we left it hooked up. Still, we are not looking to create a “situation” with Consumer’s Energy. Presumably the multi-fuel prohibition does not include electricity and wood.)

Keith showed up around 9 AM to cut the grass. I chatted with him briefly about cutting the new grass, which had gotten long enough in many spots that I thought it was probably time for the first cutting. I picked up some small tree branches that were scattered about the yard from recent storms, and warned him about the trench at the southeast corner of the house. I chatted with him some more as he was finishing up with the string trimmer. He said the grass was “April grass, not September grass.” The grass itself (internally) was very moist, not just the soil.

This is how Keith cuts over 4 acres of grass in a few hours.

Linda had reserved Doc Martin, Season 5, at the Howell Library and had an e-mail that it was available and needed to be picked up by the end of today or we would go to the end of the waiting list. She needed to be at the bakery by 11 AM so she left around 9:45 AM to be at the library when it opened at 10 AM. I would have gone to get it but I was “stuck” at the house as long as contractors were, or might be, working here. I also needed to be here to pay Keith when he finished cutting the grass.

Linda met with the folks at the bakery (where she was the Controller and Treasurer for the 10 years before she retired) on Friday regarding a major software conversion project that she is going to do for them and was finally feeling like we could afford a new range. She is a very good accountant/CPA and has always worked hard for what she earned, but has always been reluctant to spend money. We grew up in very different circumstances and that reluctance on her part has provided a good balance over the years as I tend to be less concerned about what things cost and more focused on making sure we have what we need and are getting good functionality and quality for what we spend. One component of my formal education and work experience was engineering, and that developed a certain way of thinking about things that has stayed with me ever since. Need is, of course, relative.

We had been deferring a decision about the new kitchen range but decided on Friday evening that, with the natural gas hookup imminent, we would get a new one rather than convert our old one. We decided on the model we wanted, a G.E. JGB870DEFWW, and knew the price, delivery time, and installation charge from Lowe’s. I also talked to Curt at D. R. Appliance, a local family owned appliance store, on Saturday and expected to hear back from him today with pricing and availability. That call came late morning and their price, while a little higher than Lowe’s, was close enough to be worth the possible end-of-week delivery and installation so I told them to go ahead and order it.

By 3:30 PM the gas line to our house was in the ground and the meter was mounted on the side of the house but a crew was still digging out by the street trying to clear access to the main line so the fuser could tie our line and our neighbor’s line into the 2” main line. My camera battery went dead while they were installing the meter so I grabbed a few shots on my cell phone while the camera battery recharged. Linda got home around this time and got to see some of the final steps in the process.

I followed the process closely all day and tried to get photos of most of the details, especially as they hung the meter, tied the line in, and pressure tested it. All was good, so they tapped the main line and we finally had gas in our branch line. They purged the line, reconnected it to the meter inlet, tested the meter and connections for leaks, and then verified gas availability to the outlet connection. At 5:30 PM they plugged the outlet, put the hang tags on, and handed me the door knocker tag that said “Congratulations, you have gas.”

We always seem to have interesting things in our yard.

Linda took a call from Bob at Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting regarding our quick disconnect for the Broil King outdoor grill. She indicated that I was busy with the gas crew and would call them back tomorrow.

Late last week we received an invitation to a political fund-raiser for Brian Robb, an incumbent councilman in Ypsilanti, Michigan. We do not live or vote there, but Brian is Kate de Fuccio’s significant other, and Kate is a former co-worker of mine and continues to be a very good friend of ours. I called DCM Heating & Cooling and left a message for Darryll that we had gas to the meter. We left around 6 PM and arrived at the Tower Inn Cafe around 7 PM. We made a donation to Brian’s campaign and Kate ordered a small vegan pizza for us. We visited for about an hour and then took our leave.

When we got home we relaxed in the living room thinking about how nice it will be to have our natural gas fire logs while we had some fresh strawberries and nectarines for dessert. I also had a mug of hot apple cider which put me in the mood to go to bed.

2014/09/12 (F) Posted

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Linda was up very early to try and beat the morning rush inbound to Detroit from the northwest. I took an Ibuprofen and went back to bed, finally getting up at 7 AM. 1-800-PACK-RAT was scheduled to pick up the 16 foot long storage container we have had in our driveway for the last two months and I wanted to be up and dressed when they arrived. I did not have any problems with my teeth overnight. They felt OK this morning but the upper right was still a bit sensitive to biting pressure. I had a nice soft banana for breakfast and decided to keep taking the Ibuprofen and Tylenol.

I put a load of laundry in the washer and then ran out to take care of errands. I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee, Lowe’s for solar salt for the water softener, and then Teeko’s for coffee beans. Jeff still did not have the Sweet Dreams decaf blend even though he orders it every week. I got a pound of the Seattle Blend 50/50 regular/decaffeinated, and a pound of regular Brazilian Serra Negra to blend with the decaffeinated beans we already had at home.

Heather, from Root Canal Specialty Associates, called around 9 AM to check on me. I mentioned the sensitivity and she said that was normal and to keep taking the Ibuprofen/Tylenol through the weekend to counteract any inflammation and/or discomfort. She wanted to know if I thought the temporary filing was high and making contact before the other teeth. I wasn’t sure, but she said if it was to call them Monday morning and they would get me in to adjust my bite.

Since I was on the phone anyway I called Bratcher Electric to see about the quote/estimate for the generator service / fuel changeover and the service entrance feed from the transfer switch to the sub-panel to change it into a main panel. They have been very busy with repairing damage caused by the storms of the last few weeks. We did not suffer any damage beyond some dead branches breaking off from trees, but south of us folks were hit much harder. That kind of work always takes priority.

The day was overcast and dreary with morning temps in the mid-40’s and a high of 54, but that was OK; it was a perfect day for sitting at a desk and working on a computer, undistracted by either bad or gorgeous weather. I did, however, bring my computer upstairs and work at Linda’s desk. My office is very nice but it is in the basement and it is a bit of a cave. Sometimes I like that, and sometimes I don’t. I worked on our blog until early-midafternoon and finally uploaded posts from Aug 2 through Aug 20.

My only interruption was a visit from one of Roese Construction’s field supervisors who was checking on where the runs will go to connect the houses in our neighborhood to the natural gas main. After looking at our situation he agreed with me and Mel who had looked at this a few weeks ago, that staying to the east of the east entrance to our pull-through driveway made the most sense even through it required them to bore at an angle relative to the main line. That conversation confirmed that they will be horizontal boring the branch line rather than trenching it in. He did not give me a firm date, but it sounded like it could be as early as tomorrow (Saturday) and likely by Tuesday next week.

My computer battery was down to under 1 hour of charge remaining, so I took it downstairs and plugged it back in to its power supply. While I was down there I put another load of laundry in the washing machine. Back upstairs I made a PB&J sandwich for lunch, along with some green tea. I got back on the RVillage Mobile development site, played with a few more features, and provided some additional feedback to the development team. I then worked on this post using my new Logitech Bluetooth keyboard. The Wacom Bamboo stylus is nice, but the keyboard is the way to go when creating extended text.

Juniper, our female cat, was getting into something in the library so I went to investigate. She had cornered a yellow jacket and was trying to figure out what to do with it. I solved the problem for her by capturing it and putting it outside. I don’t think she was pleased with my solution, but not 20 minutes later she was at it again, and it was another yellow jacket. We have a nest in the soffit near the library that we need to get rid of, but we have not had a problem with them getting into the house until very recently. Hopefully that has not changed but I will have to investigate the situation. It may be that with the onset of cooler temperatures they are finding their way into the library through the recessed ceiling downlight cans. If so, there’s really no good way to seal those. Fortunately we can close of the house from the library with a kitchen door and a living room doorwall that includes a screen door.

It started raining very lightly around 4 PM, but never developed into anything. Linda got home from the bakery at 5:30 PM. The storage container had not been picked up yet so we called the 1-800 number and left a message with our callback number. I got a call around 6 PM from the local (Plymouth, MI) office verifying the pickup and address. The driver arrived around 7:20 PM and had the unit loaded by 7:30 PM. After he left we headed to dinner at LaMarsa where we had crushed lentil soup and split an order of Koshary and salad. Even splitting the dish we both ate too much, aided by the fresh-baked pocket bread and garlic spread. The food and service were both excellent, as always, and the garlic spread was “…the gift that keeps on giving.”

We got back from dinner a little before 9 PM, too late to start any in-depth computer work, but early enough for me to finish this post and for Linda to do some recipe research for Sunday’s brunch. It seems like only yesterday it was still light at 10 PM at night, but we are approaching the autumnal equinox, and there are noticeably fewer hours of daylight now.

2014/09/02 (T) No More Painting

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After breakfast Linda worked on the financial and membership records for our GLCC RV chapter and I took care of a couple of e-mails. Keith showed up to cut the grass, which he managed to do in spite of the wet conditions from yesterday’s heavy rains. After chatting with Keith for a few minutes I started to resume work on “the project” but decided to look for the tub of grass seed and fertilizer we brought from the old house. I found it rather quickly and we still had a partial bag of grass seed, so I spread it around the front yard by hand filling in the bare and thin spots, of which there were plenty. Our flock of wild turkeys was back today. I think they like the grass seed I put out for them.

Wild turkeys gather in and around the fire pit. No...we do plan to cook them.

Wild turkeys gather in and around the fire pit. No…we do not plan to cook them.

I sanded the drywall compound in the library and applied another thin layer. I’ve been applying non-overlapping horizontal strips of mud, letting them dry, sanding them smooth while feathering the edges, then repeating the process for the areas in-between, or outside, the previous strips. I will eventually turn this 90 degrees and apply the strips vertically. The last set of steps will be to fill around the outside of the opening, feathering everything back to the existing wall surface and sanding it smooth with the central part of the patch. We don’t want it to be obvious that there was ever a hole in the wall. Once the drywall patching is done I have to prime the new compound and then paint the entire wall.

The paint on the east wall of the garage and the outside of the utility closet looked good and the paint on the inside of the utility closet looked good enough; it is, after all, the inside of a furnace closet. I was done painting, at least for now, which should have felt like a big deal, but it just meant I could wrap up a couple of things and move on to the next thing.

The first thing was to mount the electrical box on the wall to the left of the library HVAC unit, make all the wiring connections, screw the switch into the box, and put on the cover plate. I routed the thermostat wire alongside, and zip-tied it to, the armored AC power cable. The second thing was preparing the mounting holes for the garage furnace thermostat on the outside of the utility closet wall. I then cut the thermostat cable to the correct length beyond the wall, removed the outer sheath, stripped the ends of the wires, and secured the cable with a zip tie to prevent it from slipping back into the wall. I did not actually mount the thermostat, however, since I was going to wait for Darryll to connect the wires.

Three adults and three young. They are large and impressive birds.

By then it was time for lunch, after which Linda left for her dentist appointment in Dearborn. I wanted something easy to do, so I assembled the three plastic shelving units I bought at Lowe’s yesterday. They went together easily, but one was missing the feet, top caps, and wall brackets and another one had a defective top cap. I put them against the east wall of the garage and the floor was flat enough that they lined up well, so I don’t necessarily need the feet. But the top caps are important, and it bugs me that I did not get everything I paid for.

The next thing I decided to tackle was the wood box in the utility closet that will enclose the electrical sub-panel and make it appear to be recessed and hide all of the electrical cables. I cleared off the table we have been using to work on sheets of drywall and stood the scrap pieces of drywall against the back wall. I got the two 8-foot 1×10’s I bought yesterday, put them on the table, made careful measurements and then marked them. The two side pieces needed to be 52″ long x 7-1/4″ wide, with notches to create clearance for the top plate, horizontal blocking, and electrical cables passing through holes in studs. I cut them to length with the Rockwell circular saw, and then ripped them to width using the Craftsman band saw. The band saw had not been used in years but it had no problem ripping each board. The notches were made with our Porter-Cable saber saw. This kind of work is a pleasure when you have the right tools.

I screwed the two side pieces into place and then measured and cut a bottom cross member, and a trim strip to go below it, and installed those with screws. I then cut a top cross member and a backing strip to go behind it between the two side pieces. When I was done I had a box that would support a 48″ high by 33″ wide 1/4″ thick plywood panel with the outside face flush with the front edge of the sub-panel once I cut a rectangular opening in the plywood to allow it to fit around the box. The plywood panel will be secured around the edges with a few screws and the sub-panel cover plate will overlap and cover any gap between the panel box and the opening in the plywood. I will finish the plywood panel tomorrow or Thursday depending on when Darryll returns and how much I have to work with him to get the power connected to the new A-C compressor.

Jasper the cat in the kitty tent on the deck. He spends a lot time looking around and sniffing the air when he is out here.

That was the end of my project work for the day so I took a shower and put on some clean clothes. Linda poured a couple glasses of wine and we sat on the deck and enjoyed an absolutely beautiful late summer Michigan evening. We brought the kitty tent out so Jasper could sit outside with us. Linda threw a green salad together, followed by the leftovers of the penne pasta dish and Italian bread she made for dinner on Saturday. As twilight set in we moved inside and I decided to go to Lowe’s for some grass seed. I figured if the soil was still moist first thing tomorrow morning I would spread it around the bare and thin areas in the back and on the west side of the garage, of which there are plenty. Otherwise I will wait until just after the next rain.

I started reading Big Lake Scandal last night and continued with it this evening. It’s the 5th and latest book in the Big Lake murder mystery series by full-time RVer Nick Russell. Nick is a good writer, but he and his wife, Terry, are personal acquaintances, which makes reading his books that much more fun.

2014/07/24 (R) Back To Work

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We were up earlier than normal. Linda went into the bakery today and likes to be on the road ahead of the worst of the morning traffic rush. Since she was working I figured it was a good day for me to also do some paid work (plus a couple of loads of laundry). Earlier in the summer I agreed to write assessment items for some of the modules in the Michigan Assessment Consortium professional development series on Common Assessment Development. The items are needed for use with the Lectora platform, which Bill Heldmyer at Wayne RESA is using to re-package the modules. These are modules that other team members developed, so I have to spend some time with the content before I can write the items.

I did some work on this in June and then got busy with contractors and out-of-town trips. I am still tied up with construction, contractors, and other projects but a timely completion for this work would be early August so I spent much of today working on it. I already had one module done and hoped to finish the other six but only managed to complete three of them. I am anxious to get back to work on the HVAC prep in the garage but I plan to continue working on the assessment items tomorrow as I would like to e-mail them to the team for feedback before the end of the day.

I have a lot going on at the moment. I like being busy, but this is starting to feel like “work.” I have a growing list of “must do” bus projects that I have yet to start: 1) fogged window replacement; 2) auxiliary air filter / water separator replacement; 3) Aqua-Hot expansion reservoir replacement; 4) Aqua-Hot exhaust leak repair; 5) motorized windshield shade repair; 6) finishing the installation of the ZENA power generator (for charging the house battery bank while driving), and; 7) redoing the water bay (that’s a big one). I have an optional project to replace the rear view camera system.

Butch is building new ride height linkages for his bus and wants to build some for me as well, so that makes nine “bus projects” I would like to accomplish before the weather turns too cold to work outside. Some of these are projects I can do with the bus in front of the house once I can move it back into its normal parking spot. The rest are things I will work on once I get it down to Butch and Fonda’s place in Twelve Mile, Indiana, probably this September.

The FMCA education committee work is ramping up and I have three websites I am trying to launch, one of which has an August 11 target date, plus our own website/blog to maintain (as of this writing I am over two weeks behind on blog posts). I am also supposed to be writing a “featured bus” article for Bus Conversion Magazine on Marty and Pat Caverly’s MCI MC-5B conversion “Scooby Doo & Bookworm.” It’s a great conversion that has taken 20 + years to build and will be the cover/centerfold story when it is published. I have 1,500 photos from Marty and the only way I will make sense of the project is to sit down with Marty, select images, and make notes. Once I have a sense of the chronology of the work, and the images to illustrate it, I can weave the words together to tell the story.

Kyle and Spencer were here working on the landscaping for most of the day. Steve stopped by in the morning to go over the work from yesterday and outline the work for today. It’s coming along, albeit much more slowly than I think it should. For a job that requires a lot of manual labor we normally only have two guys on site, sometimes three and sometimes only one. And, sad to say, they simply do not work as hard and as persistently when Steve is not here.

Linda got home ahead of the afternoon traffic. We had leftover potato and lentil curry and naan for dinner and both the dish and the bread were still excellent. A few black grapes and dark, sweet cherries for desert and we were off to bed early.

2014/07/23 (R) My Platform

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The primary elections are just around the corner but my platform has nothing to do with politics. My platform is a 46″ x 40″ surface 12″ above the floor in the northeast corner of the garage, or will be once I build it. This platform will be the base for the new HVAC unit for the library and I need to have it built before the equipment gets here and Darryll shows up to install it. Once the unit is installed I need to enclose it to isolate it from the garage to prevent explosive vapors or noxious fumes from entering the combustion chamber or fresh air circulation. That will require the construction of two walls one of which will have an exterior grade door.

John’s chop saw, which I borrowed the other night, allows me to make more accurate cuts (clean and square) than I can with my circular saw. In the meantime I have some work to do removing/installing a few studs in the north wall of the garage and running some new electrical wire. I need to run 120V 15A circuits for the furnace portion of the library unit and for the ceiling mounted garage furnace and a 240V 20A circuit for the library air-conditioner. Eventually I will have a 240V 30A outlet for our radial arm saw, which would be great for the woodworking aspects of this project, but that’s a project for another day.

Three landscapers showed up a little before 8 AM (Tommy, Matt, and Spencer). Tommy was on the phone with Steve getting their instructions for the day and then they got to work building an additional section of the west retaining wall with medium size boulders and preparing the area under the east end of the deck for a layer of egg rock. They took off around 9:45 AM for some unknown reason, but the sound of their truck reminded us to put the trash out at the street for pickup. They were back in a little while, worked until noon, and took their lunch break. By 3:30 PM they had the boulder wall built, the egg rock placed, a strip of edging set into a small trench, and small boulders placed on the eastern slope below the large boulders. That certainly looked like progress.

Linda worked at her desk until mid-afternoon and then started working on dinner. Although simple in presentation at the table, she put a lot of time into our meal. She made a potato and lentil curry that was very good with deep, complex flavors, and garlic naan bread. Both were as good as anything I have ever had at an Indian restaurant and the naan was vegan, made with unsweetened soy milk in place of dairy milk and olive oil in place of dairy butter.

I spent most of the day taking the measurements I needed to turn my mental concept for the utility closet into a set of design drawings from which I could produce a material list. By supper time I had a good set of drawings to guide the carpentry work but was still puzzling over some electrical issues. By the time Linda had dinner ready I was ready to set thus project aside for the night.

It was after 7 PM by the time we finished eating and cleaned up, but that left us plenty of time to sit on the deck and enjoy a cool northwest breeze and the muted light of scattered clouds. It eventually got too cool to stay outside so I worked at my computer until bedtime.

2014/07/14 (M) Education

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Linda was up at 6 AM and was out the door and on her way to Twelve Mile, Indiana at 6:30 AM. She decided last night not to have breakfast at home in favor of getting on the road. I slept in and got up at 7:30 AM. Lind’s homemade granola made for an easy, tasty breakfast.

Two landscapers showed up a little before 9:00 AM as I was getting ready to leave to run some errands and said Steve was on his way, so I stuck around until he got there. We looked at a few things together and then I left.

On the way home from running my errands I got a call from TOMTEK reminding me that we have an annual service contract with them for the main house furnace (hot-water base-board heat) and air-conditioner. I agreed to have them come on Thursday to service the A-C. Perhaps while they are here they can figure out why it makes a noise that sounds like the thump, thump, thump of a helicopter blade.

About a mile from the house I spotted a small Painted Turtle trying to cross Hacker Rd. A truck going the other way spotted it at the same time. We both turned around and came back. I got there first and put it on the front passenger floor mat after assuring the other driver that I was going to take it to our property and release it near the (neighbor’s) pond. Turtles have very little chance of successfully crossing a road most places, including around here.

The two landscapers worked into the afternoon. They could only go so far before needing Steve to inspect and approve their work. He did not make it back today and I think they quit working around 3 PM.

Education is what I did professionally for the last 21 years before I retired, and I am still doing it to some small extent. Back in the late winter I agreed to serve on a newly reconstituted FMCA national education committee. There are 6 – 10 people on the committee, depending on how you count, and except for a couple of staff at FMCA headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio we are spread out all over the U. S. Our meetings are, therefore, conducted by telephone conference with ideas and information shared via e-mail in-between. I also set up a folder in our personal Dropbox as a place to put documents so the committee can retrieve them.

We had our third meeting today from 4:00 to 5:30 PM EDT. I spent the rest of the evening creating an outline of a possible RV curriculum and dealing with e-mail related to our meeting. Linda got home at 8:00 PM and we had leftovers for dinner, after which I returned to my work and she headed to bed.

I have one, maybe two, days to concentrate on desk tasks. Once the Pack-Rat storage container arrives on Wednesday I will be tied up with house-related chores through the 19th and then company through the 23rd. I expect delivery of some HVAC equipment and materials during that window. With any luck Darryll will be here starting on the 24th and I will be tied up working with him through the end of the month. I’m hopeful, if not optimistic, that the landscapers will also be done with their two projects by the end of the month.

20140713 (N) Pack-Rat

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Guilty as charged. I am one of those guys who likes my stuff; it’s one of the main reasons we are not full-time RVers. In order to get the garage and library ready for Darryll, and not trash the house in the process, we checked online for portable storage units. We decided to order one from 1-800-Pack-Rat. They were slightly less expensive than PODS, but the main factor was their ability to deliver a 16-foot long unit on Wednesday this coming week. That will give us Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to clear enough stuff out of the garage to store the materials for Darryll and give him the space he needs to work.

Linda got a call from Butch at Service Motors to let her know they were back home from the Crosley Automobile Club national meet in Wauseon, Ohio and to see if she was available to come down tomorrow to finish up some critical accounting tasks related to the sale of most of their businesses assets. The purchasers were in Wauseon for the rally and arrived at the business as I was chatting with Butch. They plan to load all of the stuff they have bought into the five vehicles they brought with them and leave sometime on Tuesday, so Linda will be there mid-morning tomorrow and probably be home by 9:00 PM. It will be a 15 hour day for her; 8 hours of driving and 7 hours of accounting, but she can/will do it. I would normally go along, if for no other reason than to keep her company and share the driving, but I expect to have landscapers here tomorrow (and the rest of the week) and need to be here to interact with them. Besides, there isn’t anything useful I can do at Service Motors at the moment so I would just be in the way and twiddling my thumbs.

We were both tired this morning and slept in a little later than normal. That meant a later breakfast, which meant we skipped lunch and had an early dinner. That, in turn allowed me to have dinner before going to our monthly Ham radio club meeting in South Lyon.

The morning overcast gave way to scattered clouds and blue skies on pleasant northwest winds, bringing cooler temperatures and lower humidity. It was a perfect day for sitting on the (north facing) deck and doing sit down things, and that is exactly what we did. Linda spent some time reading Veganomicon while I finished up a couple of blog post drafts and reviewed the SLAARC/WP website in advance of having to demonstrate it this evening for the ham radio club. The site still needs work. Some pages still need content, I found a few spelling errors, and I still need to resize photos so they take up less disk space and load faster. The login feature is still working and the roster/database still displays correctly, if somewhat inelegantly. But it’s functional enough to give the club members a preview and I will only demonstrate one photo gallery with a limited number of images so it shouldn’t be too sluggish.

By mid-afternoon it was warm enough that I decided to work in my office and get a few more blog posts uploaded to our WordPress site. Linda made a “pasta e fagioli” recipe from Veganomicon and added some chopped dark leafy greens she had on hand. She needed a dry white wine for the recipe and opened our bottle of Semi-Dry Riesling from Chateau Chantal, a gift from our daughter’s recent trip to the Traverse City area. It was a little dry for my taste as a before dinner wine but paired very nicely with the meal.

I got to South Lyon just ahead of the 6:30 PM start of our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) monthly meeting. The business meeting was short. We then had a lengthy presentation/discussion of our ARRL Field Day participation followed by a short preview of the new WordPress website. It was generally well received and I got a few good suggestions during the discussion.

When I got home around 9 PM we had chocolate cake (vegan, of course) with raspberry sauce and relaxed for a while before turning in for the night.

2014/06/14 (S) Day 4 Rally Conclusion

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Each rally has a slightly different approach to food. On the last full day of the GLAMARAMA they switch the breakfast carbohydrate delivery mechanism from donuts to pancakes and serve them with sausage links. The coffee and tea are still there, of course, so we had coffee. Other rallies, like the Escapades, have a “hitch up” breakfast on the day of departure, with coffee and donuts. When Nick and Terry Russell were running their Gypsy Journal Gathering rallies they also had coffee and donuts on departure day as I recall.

In order to serve a lot of pancakes to a lot of people in a relatively short period of time GLAMARAMA hires a specialized food service. The one they hired this year had long griddles with an overhead depositor that moved the length of the griddle like a gantry crane. It would precisely deposit the batter to make a row of 5″ pancakes. The operator would then move it by hand and deposit the next row, repeating this as they moved along the griddle. Another worker followed behind the depositor with a pancake turner (flapjack flipper) and turned the pancakes when they were done on the first side. Although hand labor was still involved it was an efficient, high volume, production process that did not require an army of volunteers.

When we were done drinking coffee and chatting Linda headed back to our motorcoach to prepare food for our family gathering on Sunday afternoon. I headed over to the seminar building for a presentation by Jason and Nikki Wynn of Gone with the Wynn’s. They were joined by Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia and did a panel discussion on earning income on the road. They also covered work-camping and volunteering in exchange for a camp site. They did an excellent job, relaxed and low key, and streamed the event live to the web. The logins indicated that 68 people viewed the presentation online, which was probably more people than were in the room.

Geeks on Tour got their flash drives in (Nick and Terry Russell brought them down from Elkhart). I wanted to restart our subscription, but wanted the flash drive instead of the CD as Linda needed it to store some files. I ended up with both. Their Tutorial Video series ( http://geeksontour.tv ) is an amazing resource for learning how to use a wide range of technologies for Planning, Preserving, and Sharing you RV adventures.

At 10:45 AM I met with Jerry Yates, Executive Director of FMCA, in my role as a member of the national education committee, to talk about RVillage. It also gave me a chance to further explore making online education available to FMCA members, such as that provided by the Geeks On Tour, either directly from the FMCA website or through discounted subscriptions to provider websites.

Linda helped Alma Baker get situated for the Fleetwood hot dog lunch and had a tomato and onion sandwich while she was there. I had a couple of tofu hot dogs in our coach and eventually headed over to a 1:30 PM seminar on 120 VAC by Gary Bunzer. It was very good, as usual, but by Saturday afternoon seminar attendance had thinned. This was a repeat of a session he had done on Wednesday, so many attendees who wanted to see probably already had.

Linda hung around the coach waiting for Butch and Fonda, who drove over from Twelve Mile, Indiana to work with her on some aspects of their pending business sale. I came back to the rig to say hello and around 4:45 PM we gathered up some hummus, chips, and beverages and headed over to the 5:00 PM RVillage get-together. The volunteer dinner started at 4:30 PM, but we decided not to go as we knew there would be little-to-nothing we would be able to eat.

Nikki Wynn had scheduled the RVillage get-together in the Dog and Cat Pavilion and we ended up with a nice turnout of 17 people. It was not a pot luck, but enough folks brought munchies and extra beverages that everyone had something. We milled around conversing in shifting groups and eventually formed chairs into a (sort of) circle. Chris Guld suggested we go around and introduce ourselves and say where we were when we were 15 years old and whether we had any notion that we would find ourselves where we are now. It turned out to be a fun, low key, way to get to know each other by filing in a few personal details.

We disbanded by 6:30 PM, went back to our coach for a few minutes, and then headed over to the final evening’s entertainment. The Walker Family hails from Nashville and we saw them a few years ago at the G.L.A.S.S. rally in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Dad, mom, and seven kids; four girls and three boys. The “girls” are now young women; two are married and one just had her first child. They perform as “The Redhead Express.” The boys are now 15, 13, and 11. The older two play drums for their sisters and perform as a trio with guitar backup from one of their sisters. Mom and dad joined the sisters for a couple of numbers, but the entire family never performed together. My recollection was that they had the last time we saw them, but that’s been at least four years, maybe five, and Linda disagrees with my memory. Regardless, they are very talented and put on a spirited show of country songs with a bit of gospel and patriotic stuff mixed in; just what you would expect from a Nashville-based group. They did not, however, use any pre-recorded sound tracks.

Following the concert there were drawings for prizes and the 50/50 raffle. The Grand Prize was a gift certificate for an 11-day Adventure Tours Mega-Rally worth $3,000 (one motorhome with two people). One of our GLCC members won $200 in the raffle. Those of us “camped” in the GLCC area gathered by our rigs after the drawings and stood around talking until it cooled of to the point that everyone was ready to retreat into their rigs for the evening.

2014/06/06 (F) Chapter Business

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I spent a good portion of the day working on the membership and financial records for the FMCA Freethinkers Associate Chapter. My work as VP/Secretary of the chapter is sporadic. Weeks-to-months go by where there is very little that needs to be done, but when something pops up I have to take care of it in a timely manner and it often takes half a day to do it. This usually involves updating the roster and notifying the members and FMCA HQ when a new member joins. It also involves updating the financial reports as people pay their dues.

We have a chapter treasurer who handles the money and maintains the checking account but I maintain the membership records, which include keeping track of how much members have paid in dues and what calendar year those dues are for, and prepare the financial statements. The busy times of the year for me, however, are September and October, when we prepare for and hold our annual meeting, and December through March, when I have to certify our roster to FMCA HQ and most members pay their dues.

Linda had more work to do for the bakery today but was able to do it at home. She heated up an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza for lunch. This is now my favorite pizza and cheese, vegan or dairy, would not improve it.

When I bought the Apple TV unit last night I also bought a Logitech wireless (Bluetooth) t630 optical Touch Mouse that I have been considering since I got my ASUS laptop. I let it charge overnight (USB port) and today paired it with the computer, which was very easy. There are some things about Windows 8/8.1 that I like and this is one of them. I downloaded Logitech’s software package and installed it, which was also very easy. Besides the usual cursor movement and left/right click functionality this mouse supports “touch” movements for vertical/horizontal scrolling and single/double finger soft taps for switching between the Start and Desktop screens and for switching between apps. It’s very thin, but large enough to fit my hand comfortably, and feels solid and substantial. So far I really like it.

Linda made a one pot dish for dinner with potatoes, black beans, kale, onions, and spices, including cumin, and probably some other ingredients. It was delicious and healthy with lots of dietary fiber. Earlier in the day we watched the latest NutritionFacts.org segment on the typical protein-rich, fiber-deficient American diet. Most Americans, including vegans, consume way more than the recommended daily average of 42 grams of protein, but very few come anywhere near the recommended daily intake of fiber. Vegetarians and vegans are the exception as dietary fiber comes only from plants, and the more whole-food the plant-based diet, the better.

We watched Season 2, Episode 1 of Doc Martin before turning in for the evening. As with any TV series it has a formula, but it’s a formula I like. I’m waiting for the episode where Doc Martin finally accepts and embraces the dog. The dog is very loyal and will obviously win the day in the end.

2015/05/19 (M) Software Frustrations

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Linda had to go into the bakery today and left early this morning before I even woke up. I wasn’t all that hungry when I got up, which us unusual for me, so I started a load of laundry and got to work at my desk. I have had my new ASUS laptop for a couple of weeks now, but I do not yet have it set up for use. I’ve lost track of the exact count of updates, but it was somewhere between 70 and 80 when we left for the Escapade and 25 more got installed yesterday. The only software I have added so far is Microsoft Office 2013, but the computer came with quite a few “apps” already installed. The salesman at Best Buy had alerted me to expect quite a few updates initially so this has not come as a big surprise.

At one of the Geeks On Tour seminars we attended at Escapade they suggested that laptop computers may eventually disappear. I doubt that desktop or laptop computers will ever completely disappear from the market, but we know from recent experience that the selection is narrowing and there are fewer companies making them. Perhaps someday I will be creating documents (text and spreadsheet) and editing photos on a tablet, but if so, it will be with a large external monitor, full-size keyboard, and a mouse. It’s not that I am “old fashioned” or resistant to change, it’s that some tasks are more easily accomplished in certain ways.

On the other hand, I write most of these blog posts on my iPad2. It’s small and light and I can work on the couch, the deck, outside our motorhome, at Panera, in bed, or pretty much anywhere, and I have worked in all those places and more. Before they go into WordPress, however, I e-mail them to myself, copy and paste them into Word, edit them, and insert captions as markers for the photographs. I select and process all of the photographs on my computer. The post is copied from Word and pasted into the WordPress editor where I make some final changes and then upload and insert the images. I often review the post on my iPad to make sure it formats OK and if I find a typo I will log into our site from my iPad2 and make the correction.

This morning I purchased, downloaded, and installed the password program we use on our other devices. The process was easy and it sync’d up with our Cloud account as soon as I activated it. This is one of those cases where the Cloud really makes a lot of sense to me as the amount of data that gets moved around is small. We now have this same app on three laptops and two iPads. The original password program was on my Palm Tungsten T-3 and was sync’d only to my old laptop via a USB cable. We were able to install the new version of the program on that laptop, capture all of the existing password information, and store it in the Cloud account that was included in the price of the app/program. From there it was a simple matter to put the app on other Windows laptops and install the iOS version on our iPads. We can add/change the information on any device and it updates the Cloud database (if we are connected to the Internet) and then updates all of the other devices the next time they are online.

I still have a lot of contact information and my main calendar on my Palm, and it is still sync’d with my old WinXP laptop via a USB cable. I plan to “move” that information to Outlook on my new computer, but in this case “move” may mean “manually enter.” If so, I am not looking forward to that process.

Prevost’s U. S. parts center in Elgin, Illinois operates from 7 AM to 7 PM Central Time, Monday through Friday. I called them a little after 8 AM EDT and talked to Aeleen. They had the mirror assembly in stock in New Jersey so I ordered it. It should be here on Wednesday or Thursday; 2-day shipping is almost always included in the price. She is also going to have the home office in Quebec mail me an updated CD with the CatBase Viewer program/database to install on my new laptop. This program/database has diagrams and parts lists for almost everything in the bus for all models back to the early 70’s. It filters the diagrams and parts lists to our VIN numbers and I have found it enormously helpful in figuring out what part I need before calling the Elgin parts center to place an order. Prevost also has an online ordering system and using it would save us 3%, but I often find that I am not quite clear on the part I need, or the part has been superseded by a new one that is not shown in (my version of) the CatBase Viewer. The telephone order desk folks are usually very helpful.

I had sent a text message to Chuck earlier and got a return phone call. We talked at length about bus projects, pole barns, and recent travels. Having gotten the bus mirror ordered and my password app installed/operating I was feeling like it was going to be a fairly productive day. As an “expert” on data I was aware that two data points do not establish a trend, and so it was that my winning streak came to a halt when I tried to install our HP LaserJet 3600n network printer and the Adobe CC Desktop App.

I had my laptop search for network printers and it found the 3600n. I downloaded and installed the Win 7/8/8.1 printer installation wizard and ran it. When I tried to install it I was taken to the list of manufacturers and models to select the appropriate driver. Alas, the LaserJet 3600n was not on the list and the wizard told me that our printer was not currently supported by the wizard. It seems that the printer wizard has something in common with the Wizard of Oz.

I tried Windows Update, but no luck there either. I went to the Win 8.1 “metro” screen and searched for “install printer” and “install network printer” which led me to various web pages on Microsoft’s and Hewlett-Packard’s websites. I eventually found a driver for Windows 8.1 USB, but I am not trying to connect to the printer through a USB cable, I am trying to use it through our Ethernet LAN. The odd thing is that Linda’s Windows 8.1 Samsung laptop prints to the LaserJet 3600n over our LAN just fine. Unfortunately I have no recollection of how we got her machine to do that at year ago. This took up at least an hour of my morning, without success, for what should have been a 3-minute task. Being retired does not make this waste of time any less frustrating.

In late December (2013) I subscribed to Adobe’s Creative Cloud (CC) Photography Program. For $10/month we get to download and use Lightroom (Lr) and Photoshop (Ps) on two computers, with updates whenever they are available, and access to training materials and forums. We can also add other Adobe products (apps/programs) to our subscription for an additional monthly cost. We installed Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop, Lightroom, and Photoshop on Linda’s Samsung laptop right away to make sure the subscription was set up correctly, but could not install these programs on my old 32-bit Win XP Pro machine (even though I specifically asked the pre-sale consultant if it would run on Windows XP and was told “yes”.) One of my main reasons for getting a new laptop (besides the end of support for Windows XP), and for selecting the one I did, was to be able to run these two programs. Alas, I was able to download the Adobe CC Desktop installer, but the installer was unable to install the Adobe CC Desktop App. The Desktop App is used to install and update the other programs, so my Adobe installation efforts ended for the day shortly after they started. Or should have; I plugged away at this several times before giving up. I did notice in a news feed that Adobe had a 24-hour outage recently, and on one attempt to download I got a screen saying the site was down for maintenance, so I am hopeful (but not optimistic) that the next time I try this it will work correctly. If not, I will find out how helpful Adobe Customer Service really is.

Linda got home around 5 PM, having spent almost 1.5 hours in rush hour traffic. She was tired from a long day and the effects of a cold and/or allergy, so dinner was a simple salad and vegan brats on a hotdog bun with the rest of the fresh fruit from last night. She headed off to bed and I returned to my ham shack/office where I responded to e-mails and updated three of my four WordPress sites. I then configured my e-mail accounts in Outlook on my new computer. I sent test messages for each account and got them all working after correcting a couple of typos.

To set up the e-mail accounts I copied all of the “.pst” files from my WinXP machine to a folder on our NAS. I copied the folder from the NAS to the ASUS in a place where I could find it easily. I then configured and tested each e-mail account using the corresponding pst file. Everything appeared to work except I did not have my address book. One of the pst files was named Outlook.pst, and that file was associated with the Personal Folders entry on my WinXP machine. That folder was moved to Outlook from Outlook Express where I only had one e-mail account, and that account went away last May after we moved. Since I was not setting up an e-mail account to go with this pst file, I decided to import it into Outlook. It showed up in my list of e-mail accounts and I appeared to have all of my contacts when I clicked on People at the bottom of the screen but I was not able to select them as recipients for a new e-mail. Ugh. So close and yet not right. I e-mailed Mike (W8XH) to see if he could assist me with this as he has in the past, and then went to bed.

The Phase Place

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Category Archives: Accounting

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

2015/08/05 (W) No Mask Wednesday

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

2015/06/17 (W) Bakery Scraper

2015/05/21 (R) Cats, Cars, and Tenure

2015/02/24-28 (T-S) Bus Projects

2015/02/14-18 (S-W) Busy Times in Q

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

2014/09/30 (T) To Indiana

2014/09/29 (M) Full Converted (Not)

2014/09/22 (M) Hot Water

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

2014/09/16 (T) Boiled Over

2014/09/15 (M) Congratulations, You Have Gas

2014/09/12 (F) Posted

2014/09/02 (T) No More Painting

2014/07/24 (R) Back To Work

2014/07/23 (R) My Platform

2014/07/14 (M) Education

20140713 (N) Pack-Rat

2014/06/14 (S) Day 4 Rally Conclusion

2014/06/06 (F) Chapter Business

2015/05/19 (M) Software Frustrations