Tag Archives: Alpha Rose wine (RTV)

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.

 

2014/09/18 (R) Crown Prep Anniversary

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I woke up early and got up at 6 AM.  A two hour nap yesterday afternoon meant I was not going to sleep as many hours last night.  I had also set alarms to make sure I got up, which tends to make me wake up earlier than I might otherwise, almost always before the alarms ever activate.  I awoke to find that iOS8 was now available for my iPad2, so I installed six other updates first, some of which emphatically wanted to be installed before the iOS8 update.  I had some raspberry green tea while they uploaded and installed, e-mailed yesterday’s blog post to myself, updated the beginning of this blog post, and then initiated the operating system update.

I suppose “Crown Prep” might be shorthand for “The Royale Preparatory Academy” or some such place and Crown Prep Anniversary might have something to do with an important event at said place but, alas, in my case it meant, more or less, just what it says.  We bought our converted bus five years ago today, a 1991 Prevost H3-40 VIP shell converted by Royale Coach (Monaco) and finished in the fall of 1992.  I also had a dentist appointment today to prepare my recently root-canaled tooth for a permanent crown.  The appointment was at 8:30 AM some 50 miles away in Dearborn, Michigan, which meant I had to be out the door around 7 AM to allow for the heavy traffic inbound to the metro Detroit area from the northwest.  The traffic was even worse than I expected and I pulled into the dental clinic parking lot at 8:29 AM.  I really hate rush hour traffic and avoided it even when I was working full time.  It is such a colossal waste of time.

The U. S. Census Bureau considers Livingston County to be part of the Detroit Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).  Locally, many people think of Metro Detroit as Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties while the MSA includes Lapeer, Livingston, and St. Clair Counties as well.  Washtenaw County to the south of us, where our children live, is not part of the Detroit MSA but is part of the larger Detroit “Combined Statistical Area” (CSA) along with Genesee and Monroe Counties.  Having been “west siders” since we moved to the area from Missouri in 1976, Lapeer and St. Clair Counties have always seemed far away while the communities in Livingston and Washtenaw Counties were much more accessible to us.  When I was working as an engineer I was employed by a company in Livingston County and by three different companies in Washtenaw County, specifically Ann Arbor.

I am not clear on the point at which communities, and individuals in those communities, do or do not think of themselves as living in the “Detroit Metro Area” (DMA) which is quite a different thing from the official U. S. Census Bureau boundaries.  My guess is that Howell very clearly sees itself as distinct from the DMA.  My suspicion is that folks in Brighton are split on this, although the community would no doubt like to be viewed as outside the DMA.  The western half of Livingston County is certainly much closer to Lansing, the state capital in the heart of Ingham County, both geographically and culturally.  Western Livingston County and most of Ingham County are rural/agricultural, except for the greater Lansing and East Lansing area (home of Michigan State University).  The eastern half of Livingston County has long been a place from which people commute to work in metro Detroit.

The fact is that being associated with Detroit has not been viewed as favorable by many people and communities in southeast Michigan since the riots of the late 1960’s.  Those events left deep scars on the people who were here at the time, and for many those scars remain to this day.  Not for us, of course; we were not even here then.  And we are the wrong people to ask about affiliations anyway.  We lived in an apartment in Westland for our first two years here and then bought the house in Farmington Hills where we lived for the next 35 years before moving to the “Browelland” (Brighton, Howell, Hartland) area.  Westland and Farmington Hills are clearly Detroit suburbs, like it or not.

I took a survey and Linda said she thought we still lived in the Detroit Metro Area.  I suppose I think so too, but you won’t find many five acre parcels zoned RA (agricultural residential) in the true suburbs of the big city, nor the dark skies and bright stars we have out here on a clear night.  No, we are clearly not in a suburb of Detroit, but that was not my question.  We are kind of in the country but only minutes from all three of the aforementioned municipalities.  For that matter we are not actually in the cities of Brighton, Howell, or Hartland.  Even though we have a Howell mailing address we are actually closer to both Brighton and Hartland and if we had school age children they would attend the Hartland schools.  And when we lived in the suburbs I did not have to drive 50 miles to get to the dentist, 30 miles to get to our vet or eye doctor, or 20 miles to get to our family doctor.  Of course the drive is about the same to get to our ham radio breakfasts and meetings in South Lyon as it was before and we do not have to drive 40 miles to get to our bus, which is now parked in front of the house.  We are also trying to “shop local” as much as possible, which means we are shopping at a wide variety of places we never patronized when we lived in the suburbs of Detroit.  But I digress.

After I was done at the dentist’s office I drove to our veterinarian’s office, just a couple of miles from our old house, to pick up flea and heart worm medication for our cats.  I took a quick drive through the old neighborhood.  It was a nice place to live and has not changed, at least in appearance.  I had a good experience with the local endodontist last week, however, and today’s drive reminded me that we should probably switch to service providers much closer to home for most of our medical and veterinary needs.  But that is not a decision to be made simply on convenience.  We have used our current providers for over 35 years and given how infrequently we use them we have not been motivated to change.  We have been to the dentist a lot this summer, however, so that at least has us thinking about it more seriously.

I stopped for fuel and then at Lowe’s for a keyless door latch/knob set for the utility closet.  They did not have distilled water and I tried two other places before ending up finding some at Meijer’s.  Linda was preparing lunch when I finally got home and had sorted through and organized a large stack of installation and user manuals I had pulled out of kitchen drawer this morning.  Some were left for us by the previous owners, some were for things we have bought since we moved here, and some were for things we no longer have, or have but no longer use.  We went through a small stack of items she wasn’t sure about and then stored everything we needed to keep in a drawer in the small bedroom closet organizer.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening, except for dinner, editing photographs for our personal website/blog and the SLAARC website.  I also took a few minutes to enjoy the last of the apple crisp and a glass of Alpha Rose wine with Linda.  It’s been bugging me since yesterday that I could not positively identify the very distinct nose and taste of this wine, so Linda did a little online research on the King of the North grape.  Both the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota described it as a vine that grows very well in cold northern climates but is very acidic and has a very “grapey” taste that is not really suitable for making wine.  That information helped me figure out the smell/taste.  It was grape soda; really really good grape soda.  Those descriptions did not alter my opinion of the wine.  I like fruit and I like sweet, and I love the nose and the taste as well as the acidic finish is indeed very clean and refreshing.

Linda was watching episode 1 of Ken Burns’ documentary on the Roosevelts when I came up from the basement, so we watched that instead of an episode of Doc Martin.

 

2014/09/17 (W) Hooked Up

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I figured Darryll would be here on Friday but he called a little after 8 AM this morning to see if he could come today and finish up.  I was going to check around to see what sort of price and delivery I could get on the boiler conversion, but with Darryll coming this morning I decided it was not worth trying to save a hundred bucks and risk an even longer delay in getting the furnace converted.  I called TOMTEK back and left a message with the secretary, Virginia, to let Tom know that we were getting the gas hooked up to the house today and that we needed him to come convert the boiler at his earliest convenience.  I also assured her that we would be fine without the boiler for a few days as we are not yet into freezing temperatures at night.  The biggest inconvenience will be the lack of hot water for bathing and washing dishes.  Linda can use our microwave oven, induction cooker from the bus, and our electric toaster oven to fix a wide range of meals.  We also have a microwave oven on the bus as well as a Gaggenau 2-burner electric cooktop and we have a Jenn-Air electric range/oven/grill/fryer/etc. in the recreation room in the basement.  We checked out the Jenn-Air when we moved in but have never cooked on it.  Once I get the extension hose with quick disconnect for the new gas grill we will also be able to cook on that if we want or need to.  We do most of our laundry with cold water, so that is not an issue.

Darryll must have called us from the road.  We had just finished breakfast (re-heated homemade cinnamon rolls and fresh grapefruit) and I was headed outside to move the cars so he could back his truck up to the garage when he pulled into the other end of the pull-through driveway.  Most of his work today involved completing the connections from the natural gas meter to the new 2″ black iron pipe and the old 1″ pipe that currently feeds propane to the house.  All of that work was on the east end of the house so he parked his van there to be as close that location as possible.  His dad came with him this time to help out.

We let our dishwasher finish its cycle and then turned off the boiler, closed the gas shut off valve, closed the shut off valve for the line feeding gas to the range, grill, and old breezeway heater (since removed).  Darryll they shut off the propane to the house at the tank and disconnected the supply line and pressure regulator from the house. He disconnected the supply line on the other end from the pressure regulator at the tank and installed a plug in the outlet.  I used short lengths of 10AWG electrical wire to secure the covers on both propane tanks.  The wires are just twisted, and while easily undone, the covers cannot just be pulled up without untwisting them first.

The old pipe that carried propane into the house is below the gas meter to the left and the new 2″ pipe is at the level of the meter and to the right.  The consumer connection outlet from the meter is a 1.25″ threaded nipple coming out of a shutoff valve below the right lower corner of the meter.  Darryll came out of that nipple and installed an elbow going back towards the house, a short piece of pipe and then a T with the opposing ends horizontal.  From there he was able to adapt down to 1″ i.d. pipe going to the left behind the meter and gas line and use various fittings to bring it around and connect it to the old pipe sticking out of the wall.  He put a union in there to make it possible to assemble all of this.  He went to the right out of the T and used an adapter to go up in size to 2″ i.d. and then elbowed up and over to line up with the 2″ pipe running along the side of the house.  He extended the 2″ pipe and somewhere in there installed a 2″ union, again, to make it possible to assemble all of these pieces.  The number of fittings and the geometry of their assembly was fairly impressive but it was a very neat installation when he was done.

This was a big project, and although Darryll is done with his part of the work the project is not finished.  Rather than post photos as the work has gone along I will be creating a page on our website just for this project and posting several photo galleries illustrating the major steps.

We had a small bird of prey in the back yard this morning being badgered by four very large Blue jays.  When sitting on the ground with its wings folded in it was about the same size as the Blue jays, definitely too small to be a Red Tailed Hawk, but I could not get a good enough look at its wings, tail, or underside markings to identify it.  The Blue jays kept swooping down at it and then it would suddenly take flight and go after one of them.  It appeared to be fast and very maneuverable, so I think the Blue jays were playing a dangerous game.

I called Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting and talked to Bob.  We agreed on the 12 foot extension hose kit and Bob said he would get in on order today.  Country Squire only gets deliveries from their American Hearth distributor every other Friday and the 26th is their next scheduled delivery date.  If our order does not arrive then it will be another two weeks before it gets here.  Obviously we won’t be heating the living room before the furnace gets converted or cooking on the grill before we get the new range unless something goes very, very wrong with those items.

I got a call back from Valerie at TOMTEK to let us know they would hold a service appointment for us on Monday, assuming the part comes in by then.  By definition, that has to be acceptable as there isn’t anything I can do to change it.  I have been a bit annoyed with myself, however, for not checking on all of this sooner and contacting TOMTEK sooner so they had the part in hand when it was time.

While Darryll was working on the meter tie-in I unscrewed the brass flare fitting that connected the old propane fire logs to the 1/2″ i.d. black iron supply pipe.  I then removed the fire log unit from the fireplace and moved it to the garage.  There was already a plug sitting in the fireplace box for the end of the iron pipe, but I left that for Darryll to connect after he had spliced a shutoff valve into the pipe outside the house just before it enters the side of the brick chimney and goes into the firebox.

I noted that the dials on the gas meter had not moved since it was installed and pressurized on Monday.  Darryll finished the iron pipe connections, opened the outlet valve, and put natural gas to the house and the new 2″ iron pipe.  After the pipe filled with gas we noted the readings on the meter dials.  He checked for leaks with his soapy water solution and did not find any.  Darryll made a light pencil mark on the 1/2 cu. ft. per revolution (rotation) dial.  He then opened the gas valve to the library furnace and checked for leaks downstream of the valve.  He did not find any so he turned it on and set the thermostat up.  It took a couple of tries to purge the remaining air out of the line and get the burner to light, but once it started it ran really nice.  He then opened the gas valve to the garage furnace and checked for leaks downstream of the valve.  Again, he did not find any so he turned the power on at the ceiling switch, turned the thermostat on, and turned the temperature up to start the unit.  There was only a small amount of air left in the 1/2″ i.d. line and the unit lit right up and purred like a kitten.  (OK, roared like a small lion.)

These are not dramatic moments but they are significant ones.  After numerous visits spanning more than six weeks, and a myriad of steps integrating various technologies, you flip a switch and voila, you have a functioning furnace; or two, in our case.  Darryll let both furnaces run long enough to burn off some manufacturing oils which sometimes produce smoke from the supply registers and cause homeowners to freak out.  He shut the units off at the thermostats and waited to make sure they would actually cycle off.  They did, so there wasn’t anything left to do except pack up and head for home, stopping to get some lunch for his dad on the way.  He will mail us the final invoice once he has it figured out.  It’s nice to do business we people that trust us.

I called D. R. Appliance to let them know we had natural gas to the house and to find out what they do with the old units they haul away.  Curt said they would be able to bring the new unit and install it very quickly after they receive it.  There’s a chance that will be on Friday or Saturday, which would be really nice.  As I suspected (feared) they take the old unit to a dump.  I asked if they would drop it at Salvation Army but they were reluctant to do that, even though I did not see where it would be inconvenient for them.

According to Curt the Salvation Army is very picky about what they will take.  I figured they would go right past the donation center on their way back to the appliance store but Curt pointed out that their next delivery and installation might well be in the opposite direction and he clearly did not want his delivery/installer to go even a little bit out of their way to do this.  Fair enough.  What did not occur to me until later is that a company that sells new appliances might want to get old ones out of circulation.  If so, I think that is shortsighted; folks looking for a used (inexpensive) appliance at a Salvation Army Thrift Store were not going to be customers for a new one.

I called the Salvation Army Thrift Store and Donation Center in Brighton, Michigan, which is actually on Grand River Avenue as you go towards Howell from our house.  They said they would accept the old range as long as it was working.  I told them it was in reasonably good shape, looked OK, and worked fine except for the spark igniters for the stove top burners.  That was fine with them.  They just asked that we mention the spark igniters when we drop it off.  They also had a truck that could come get it if we were unable to get it into our personal vehicle and gave me the phone number to schedule a pickup.  Cool.  That means we don’t have to try and convince D. R. Appliance to deal with it and it does not end up in a scrap yard.

Although I did not do anything particularly physical today I was very tired by 4 PM and took a 2-hour nap.  Linda woke me up at 6 PM to have a dinner of green salad, leftover lentil stew with sweet potatoes and apples, and homemade biscuits with honey.

After dinner we opened a bottle of Alpha Rose wine that we bought in August 2013 at Red Trail Vineyard in Buffalo, North Dakota.  They are part of the Harvest Host network and it was the first place we used our membership to spend the night at a winery for free.  I posted about the place at the time.  The Alpha Rose was absolutely delightful with a very floral nose that carried over into the mouth.  Made from King of the North grapes, it was light but crisp and very pleasant in the finish.  I wish we had bought a case.  The King of the North vines were the first ones planted at Red Trail Vineyard back in 2003 and have done well in the North Dakota climate.  The Alpha Rose is only available at the winery and two other locations in the Fargo, North Dakota area, so I guess we will have to plan our travels to take us back that way.

Tonight was Season 5, Episode 6 of Doc Martin; at least it was for us.  I think Season 5 originally aired in 2010.  I really liked watching it on the TV monitor from a DVD compared to watching it on an iPad.