Tag Archives: Farro grain

20130819-26 E-mail Problems

It seems there is less to blog about when we are at the house, or perhaps there’s just less time to do it. It’s not that we are less busy; it’s just that what we are doing seems potentially less interesting. Besides the usual chores that go with owning a house, I spent the last week dealing with our pull-through driveway, ham radio stuff, and a serious e-mail problem.

By Wednesday the 20^th it had become clear to me that we were not getting replies to e-mails we had sent out; not a couple of e-mails to a couple of people, but lots of e-mails to lots of people. Most of these were e-mails to people who normally reply in a timely manner, and they were e-mails seeking information or continuing a conversation, and thus replies were expected. I started making phone calls and sure enough our e-mails had been received and replied to. We never got the replies, and the senders never got bounce-backs; the e-mails just vanished into cyberspace. In one case I sent a single e-mail to two recipients, both of whom had gmail accounts. They both replied. I got one reply and not the other. We also had a couple of folks send us e-mails while we were on the phone with them, but those e-mails never arrived. Not good.

I opened a support ticket with our hosting service and spent the last week trying to communicate with their off-shore technical support people. I don’t have prejudice towards off-shore support, but in this case they turned out to be neither sufficiently technical nor supportive. Every time I updated the support ticket I got a reply from a different person. I explained repeatedly and in considerable detail the difficulties we were having and they repeatedly sent replies apologizing for the inconvenience, asking me to send them information I did not have, performing simple but irrelevant tests of our e-mail accounts, and then informing me that everything appeared to be working fine. Arrrgh. As of this post the problem persists and I have lost any hope of it being resolved. I hope to accomplish this with minimal downtime or disruption of service. Our apologies to anyone who was affected by this; we have not been ignoring you and we now know that you have not been ignoring us. We will be moving our domain to a new registrar/hosting service at the end of this month.

We have a tower that sits at the east end of the house. It was already installed when we bought the house, and I estimate its height at about 38 feet; not that tall by ham radio standards, but tall enough to treat with respect if you are going to climb it. It’s an older design and has obviously been there for a while. It has an over-the-air (OTA) TV antenna on a rotor at the top. The rotor is not connected to a controller and the coax is not connected to anything inside the house. There is also a Direct TV satellite dish (single LNB). The cables from that are also not connected to anything in the house. The previous owners left the SAT-TV receiver behind, but it is obsolete. The base of the tower is set in concrete but the tower was not secured anywhere else. On Friday we rigged up a couple of support arms and attached them to the side of the house in anticipation of climbing the tower on Saturday to remove the old antennas and install our 2m/70cm ham radio vertical antenna.

On Saturday we went to our ham radio club (SLAARC) breakfast in South Lyon. It’s always good to visit with this group. Many hams are tech savvy about a lot of things besides amateur radio so I got to bounce our e-mail problem off one of them. Thanks Larry (K8UT). After breakfast Linda and I went to Mike’s (W8XH) QTH (location) to look at his ham radio tower as we are trying to figure out what to do for base station antennas. He has a Heights Tower with a motorized fold-over base. It is a very nice all-aluminum tower and a very nice installation. Nice antennas, too, but that’s another story.

Mike then came to our house and brought his professional grade climbing harness. We got it adjusted to fit me and I climbed up as far as the roof, probably 10 feet off the ground. (Our tower is only an inch from the gutter.) As I started up the tower from the roof, the tower had more movement than I was comfortable with, so we abandoned the climb. I removed the old Direct TV antenna, which was at my shoulder level when standing on the roof, and installed our dual band VHF/UHF (2m/70cm) vertical ham radio antenna at the same height. The dual-band is lower than I wanted and very close to one of the tower verticals, but it was the best we good do at the moment. We routed the coax to the back deck, connected it to our Icom 7000 go box, and started looking for 2m and 70cm repeaters. We were able to activate the K8VJ 2m repeater in South Lyon without difficulty, as well as the Livingston County LARK 2m primary repeater. We were also able to talk to two guys on the Clarkston 2m repeater, which, according to the ARRL repeater directory that Mike installed on his smartphone, was over 22 miles away to the northeast. Not bad for 2m on 50 watts with a less than ideal antenna location. We tried a number of other repeaters but were not able to raise them.

While we were out taking care of ham radio business during the morning, Phil (our pull-through driveway contractor) brought a large load of sand (silt, technically) to the house, pulled the top 6 inches of 21AA road gravel out of the new pull-through drive, and mixed in the sand as he put it back. As I noted in a previous blog, our bus got stuck in the driveway a couple of weeks ago and had to be winched out. The problem turned out to be an inadequate amount of “crusher dust” in the 21AA road gravel. Without a sufficient amount of fine particles, the larger stones don’t bind together and pack to make a hard surface that resists blowout and further compaction.

Mike spent the rest of the day at our house helping us with some computer issues. He is a retired HP tech and now has an active business of his own working on personal and business computer systems and networks. By the time we were done it was dinner time, so we treated him to dinner at Olga’s in Brighton. Thanks Mike.

Sunday is our day to go to the Howell Farmers Market. The fruits and vegetables are now plentiful and we picked up an assortment of yummy things. We also got some pointers from Marjorie about apples and pears as we had discovered just a couple days earlier that we have an apple tree and a pear tree, both of which are laden with fruit.

On Sunday afternoon I used our Honda Element to “roll” the pull-though driveway. The car only has about 1,000 pounds on each tire, so it is in no way equivalent to driving the bus, which has 7,000 lbs on each of the front/steer tires, 5,000 lbs on each of the four drive tires, and 3,750 lbs on each of the two tag axle tires. Still, the car did a nice job of compacting the surface. Phil had suggested that I carefully pull one of the front tires of the bus onto the pull-through driveway, but even after rolling it with the car I was nervous that it wasn’t locked together quite as much as it needed to be. I had also heard from Ed & Betty Burns that they would be arriving on Wednesday in their Tiffin Phaeton, so I was anxious to make sure the driveway would support their motorhome. I discussed it with Phil Sunday evening and he said he had a plan and would check in the morning to make sure it was going to work. He was confident, however, that Ed & Betty would not encounter any driveway difficulties.

Monday saw us in west Dearborn for our summer dental checkups. One of my old fillings was starting to separate from what remained of the tooth, and I was informed that it was time to get a crown. They had a 9 AM appointment slot available the next day, so I signed up. Dental work doesn’t bother me the way it does some people. The sooner it’s fixed the better.

Jim and Kristine Gullen came over for dinner on Monday, the first time they have been to the new house. Linda made a mushroom risotto using Farro, a wonderful, ancient, high-protein Italian grain that is earthy, slightly nutty, and has great “chew”. She used mushroom “broth” instead of stock, of course, but that just added to the earthiness of the dish. She served the risotto with a side of mixed green and “long” beans lightly sautéed in olive oil. We got the long beans from an Asian vendor at the Howell Farmers Market who told us they are usually stir-fried. How long are they?; about 2 feet, on average. They taste like green beans although subtly different. Linda also made vegan chocolate cake that was excellent and served it with fresh strawberries. Jim and Kristine brought a couple bottles of wine and we had a wonderful visit over a lovely meal.

Phil came back late Monday afternoon and added some more sand to the edges of the pull-through driveway and also to where it ties in to the concrete driveway. He had borrowed a compactor device that mounts on the arm of his backhoe and used that to compact the driveway. I don’t know about Linda, Jim, or Kristine, but the sound of Phi’s equipment working was music to my ears. The song was “Our bus ain’t gonna sink no more.”

2013_08_02 (Fri) To Hibbing And Back

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The west is high, dramatic, stunning, stark, “gorgeous”, awe-inspiring, etc. It is also dry, hot, and barren in many places. Northern Minnesota and the Great Lakes Region in general, are beautiful, wooded, lush, green, cooler, and wetter. Not as good for the sinuses, but every place has its tradeoffs.

We fired up the generator at 0630 CDT to recharge the house batteries after using them all night to run the refrigerator, auxiliary air-compressor, and any small miscellaneous loads that were still on. I always like to bring them back up to full charge, and I have been determining that by waiting until the remote control/display shows that the charger has gone into “float” mode. Yesterday I figured out how to find the State Of Charge (SOC) meter, so I can now monitor directly the SOC of the battery bank.

One of the outside buses…This must be the place!

Since Paul and Sharon offered to let us remain boondocked at the winery beyond the normal 1-day Harvest Host period we decided to drive the car to Hibbing, Minnesota to visit the Greyhound Bus Museum. I have wanted to visit this museum for a while but Hibbing, quite frankly, is not really on the way to anywhere. Besides the museum Hibbing is home base to the Hull Rust Mohoning iron ore mine, largest open-pit mine in the world. Up the road at Tower is an underground state park that houses an advanced physics laboratory where scientists are catching quarks.

The Greyhound Bus Museum, Hibbing, MN.

The drive to Hibbing took 2 ½ hours. We spent two hours at the museum. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but we felt like we more than got our monies worth for the $5 adult admission. The museum is housed in a nice building with seven buses inside, a nice display of Greyhound artifacts, and lots of information about the origin and development of Greyhound, specifically, and bus transportation in the U.S. more generally. They have another six buses or so in a fenced lot behind the building. Most of the buses are open so you can go inside them. Here are some photos:

They started with a Hupmobile.

The museum has lots of model buses.

An early route map. It didn’t take long for the business to expand beyond Hibbing.

Uniforms for drivers came early and changed over the years.

A 1956 PD4501 Scenic Cruiser. This is the iconic Greyhound Bus.

A DD 8V71 with numbered parts and a key.

The Detroit Diesel 8V71 series engines are pre-computer control machines and are still in operation today.

(See http://www.technomadia.com ; they have just had theirs rebuilt and have reported on the experience.)

All of the inside buses lined up in a row, oldest to newest, far to near.

The lobby features an old time ticket office diorama.

An MCI MC-12 that operated in Canada. I have never seen an MC-12 converted into an RV.

An MCI MC-5 specially made for use in Saudi Arabia. Note the double roof. Its purpose was to “shade” the main roof and dissipate heat to help keep the interior cooler.

A pair of 1947 ACF Brill buses in a terminal mockup.

Greyhound used Yellow Coach buses in the 30’s and some ACF buses, but eventually used GMC buses (many different models) until GM stopped making them in the 1970’s. Somewhere along the line Greyhound started using MCI buses (MC-5, 7, 9, 12, and later 96- and 102- series) and over the years bought and used a lot of them. The MC-5 and MC-9 were particularly popular with bus converters. Commercial converters, like Custom Coach in Ohio, also did MC-9, as well 102- series, conversions.

An Eagle Chassis and Complete Bus.

Greyhound also ran Eagle coaches. These became popular with some do-it-yourself motorhome converters because, unlike the GMC buses, the skin was non-structural and could more easily be removed and replaced. The chassis (skeleton in picture) was made of mild steel, so it was easy to cut and weld to replace rusted pieces or make modifications. The problem with mild steel, of course, is that is very prone to rust.

A Caterpillar 170 ton mine hauler with 10.5 ft diameter tires. They also make a 240 ton with 13 ft diameter tires. I don’t feel as bad now about replacing the 315/80R22.5 Michelins on our rig.

The Hull Rust Mohoning Mine Visitor Center is just a mile up the same little road that leads to the bus museum so we drove up there. To get to the visitor center we drove through a city park that had nice shaded RV electrical hookups. It was empty except for one tent. We saw the same thing Wednesday evening in Buffalo, North Dakota; a nice little city park with nine RV sites with electrical power, and it was empty. These parks seem to run $15/night, cheaper by the week or month. Not that we would want to stay that long, but the price is right for what you get, especially if there are things you want to do in the area. The challenge is finding these facilities.

The 2,200 HP 16 cylinder Cat engine that moves the mine hauler.

The wheels on the mine haulers are driven by electric motors. The Caterpillar power module consists of a 2,200 HP 16 cylinder turbo-charged diesel engine that drives an electric alternator (the large cylinder lower left in photo) and a radiator and cooling tank. The power module with radiator, as shown, weights 28,000 pounds. In operation it burns 28 gallons of diesel fuel per hour. The hauler can reach a top speed of 30 MPH while carrying 170 or 240 tons of mined material. I think the 6 MPG we get from out bus is pretty good!

A small portion of a big hole in the ground, currently about 600 feet deep.

We spent about 45 minutes at the mine looking at the equipment displays and the big hole in the ground. Our GPS says it’s a huge lake, and at one time it had water to a depth of 325 feet, but it is still an active mine and they pumped most of the water out so they could work. Part of the original town of Hibbing had to be moved because of this mine, and it was the split into two pieces that led to the formation of the business(es) that became Greyhound Bus Lines and successor companies.

Hibbing is also the home town of Bob Dylan so Linda pulled up some information about his childhood home on her smartphone. It was supposed to be at 7^th Avenue E (Bob Dylan Avenue) and 21^st St., but we could not locate the house. On the drive up and back we passed through Grand Rapids (Minnesota, of course) and discovered that it was the birthplace of Judy Garland. Everybody is from somewhere.

An interesting note about Hibbing and the mine; if you look at the Minnesota state highway map and peruse the area around Hibbing, you will see brown lines that demarcate the boundaries of the three watersheds that are found in Minnesota, namely: the Mississippi River, the Atlantic (via Great Lakes / St. Lawrence Seaway), and the Hudson (Bay). About two miles NNW of the mine visitor center and viewing area is the point, unique in North America, where these three watershed boundaries meet. Depending on exactly where a raindrop falls, it will end up in one of three very different places (assuming it doesn’t evaporate and soak into the ground).

[18 L We were parked next to this aspen grove while at Forestedge Winery, a most appropriate name for the place.]

We were parked next to this aspen grove while at Forestedge Winery, a most appropriate name for the place.

We got back to Forestedge Winery before they closed and sampled some of their Plum wine, which we had somehow missed yesterday. Sharon had left for Iowa for her mother’s 93^rd birthday so we invited Paul to dine with us and he accepted. Linda made a nice salad and a Farro dish with sun-dried tomatoes, kale, onion, garlic, and Italian seasonings. Paul brought a bottle of Headwaters Red wine, his rhubarb and chokecherry blend. The meal was yummy, the wine was just right, and the conversation went on for quite a while. This is one of the reasons we retired and decided to hit the road. It isn’t just about spectacular scenery and historically interesting places; it’s about encounters with spectacular and interesting people. Thank you, Paul and Sharon, for your hospitality.

2013_06_27 (Thu) Cowgirl Barrel Racing

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Today was the first early entry date for the Escapade, and RVs started rolling into Boxelder RV Park at 8 AM. The parking crews were ready and waiting and directed the rigs to their assigned areas and got them parked with great efficiency. Lynn & Linda Laymon were working the area near where we are parked, and I recognized their names from the roster for the Habitat For Humanity build we will be doing in Sheridan in July. We had a nice get-acquainted chat that Linda joined when she returned from her morning walk. (We have been walking together after dinner each evening, but Linda likes to do a 4 – 5 mile power walk in the morning, and I figure that’s an opportunity for each of us to have a little “me” time. We are, after all, living in a 300 sq. ft. condo on wheels with a really big “yard”.) In the course of the conversation we realized that the shift from FMCA to SKP had occurred and we got out our SKP name tags and pinned them on.

We enjoy being members of both FMCA and The Escapees RV Club, but they are different. FMCA is larger and has an extensive volunteer governance and management structure, as well as a paid staff. Membership is restricted to motorhomes, but it has a fair number of members and chapters focused on bus conversions, so it’s a good fit for us. The Escapee RV Club is smaller, and is actually a privately owned family business. There are no restrictions on what kind of RV you own, and there is a much stronger focus on full-time RVing. The club was founded by Kay and Joe Peterson as a support group for full-time RVers. They were living in a trailer and raising a family at a time when that was not “fashionable” as Joe was an itinerant electrician. I have heard it said more than once that “You belong to FMCA, but you are an Escapee.” Based on our limited experience, that rings true.

I was reminded this morning that “someone” has a birthday on the 30th of this month and that they would like to be taken out to dinner, “or something.” I accepted the “heads up” as a friendly but necessary reminder as I do get preoccupied at times and forget things, even important things like “someone’s” birthday. Plus, the 30th is the opening day of the Escapade, so the activity level will ratchet up quite a bit and I could certainly be distracted by that. An online search of local restaurant menus, however, failed to reveal anything other than a deli with a couple of vegetarian sandwiches that could be made vegan by leaving off cheese, mayo, and any other animal products that might normally be included. Not exactly a gourmet birthday meal, but at least “someone” wouldn’t have to prepare it.

We were on tap for another warm day, but decided to leave the windows open and the vent fans on as long as possible. Although we have a good 50 A electrical connection here at the CAM-PLEX, we like fresh air, and the house air-conditioners are rather noisy so we prefer not to use them if possible.

We spent the late morning and most of the afternoon working at our computers. I worked on my draft blog posts while Linda worked on our personal accounting. We had the vent fans going and some small fans to move air around, and I was surprisingly comfortable in spite of the interior temperature climbing past 88 degrees F. Linda usually tolerates (likes) heat much better than I do, but wasn’t feeling 100%, so mid-afternoon we finally turned the air-conditioners on and brought the temperature back into the mid-70s. (BTW: Because of the surface area to volume ratio of the bus and the amount/quality of insulation in the ceiling and walls, we can only maintain a 15 – 20 degree differential between inside and outside. However, even a 10 degree differential makes a big difference.)

Linda made a wonderful dish for dinner with farro (an ancient Italian grain), garlic, onions, mushrooms, and asparagus. The dish was fragrant, earthy, nutty, slightly creamy, and with just enough chew to have a great mouth feel. She paired it with a simple green salad and we opened the bottle of Lawrence Elk black currant wine we bought at the Prairie Berry Winery in Hill, South Dakota. Being from Michigan, we have ready access to wines based on fruits other than grapes, especially cherry and pear. The black currant wine was unique and very much to our liking, and I wish we had bought more than one bottle. (I guess we will have to go back.)

We were wrapping up dinner and preparing for our evening walk when Cheryl stopped by to let us know that there was a cowgirl barrel racing event going on over by the Morningside Park grandstand. We walked over to the small horse arena and joined them to watch cowgirl barrel racing, junior calf lassoing, and age 7-10 girls and boys goat tying. Finally, the real west. I snapped a few pictures and sent one to our two children.

When we felt we had been sufficiently westernized (and seen enough baby goats tossed to the ground and tied up to last us a lifetime) we continued our walk and found Charles and Connie Martin’s MCI bus conversion, which they had moved from Windmill RV Park to one of the generator only (24 hr.) lots. We stopped to chat for a while and got lots of good tips regarding travel directories and resources. It turned into a longer visit than we intended, but it was nice to spend time with fellow FMCA GLCC members. By the time we left their bus the sun had set and the temperature had dropped, so we had a chilly walk back to our coach. The coach was still closed up with the ACs on, but the compressors had disengaged and it was a pleasant 78 degrees F inside. We opened the rig up for the evening and had some fresh sweet cherries (Rainer’s) for a dessert snack. It was then off to bed as we are scheduled for a tour of the local coal mine tomorrow at 9 AM.

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Tag Archives: Farro grain

20130819-26 E-mail Problems

2013_08_02 (Fri) To Hibbing And Back

2013_06_27 (Thu) Cowgirl Barrel Racing