Tag Archives: Farro pilaf with cranberries (WFPB)

2016/02/01 (M) – 2016/02/04 (R) Southwest Florida

2016/02/01 (M) Tabbed

We had coffee and then granola with blueberries and bananas for breakfast. After breakfast we gave Jasper his nose drops. Linda then went for a walk that took her to Walmart where she picked up a few grocery items. I continued working on photos for Dave Aungier’s BCM article.

When Linda got back I decided to put the new tabs on the license plates (car and bus). We were able to renew the registration/tabs online and have them mailed directly to the RV resort. Putting the new tabs on was a bit more work than just peel and stick as I keep protective plastic covers over the license plates and secure them with “tamper proof” bolts and Nylok nuts. That required special tools which I had to get out.

Once I got the plates off the vehicles and separated from the covers I washed them and stood them up to dry. While they were drying I washed off the areas of the vehicles where the plates mount. I peeled four layers of old tabs off of each plate so I could put the new tabs directly on the plates. I reassembled the protective covers on the plates, mounted them back on the vehicles, and put the tools away. The final step was to remove the expired registrations from our wallets and replace them with the new ones. The whole process took about an hour but it felt good to have it done.

While I was outside I drained the auxiliary air system water separator (which I do every few days). I also opened the drain on the auxiliary air tank but it was dry. That was good, and meant the water separator is doing its job.

Linda made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. She read for a half hour and I continued working on photos while we digested our lunch before changing into our swim suits and walking over to the pool. There were quite a few people in the pool so we stayed in the shallow end, walking and swimming from side to side. When we were done exercising we spent a few minutes in the spa (hot tub / whirlpool) and then showered and changed into dry clothes that we brought with us.

We stopped at the mail room and found our electric bill for January in our mailbox. Linda walked back later and paid the bill and also our rental fee for February but realized later that they did not charge us enough. She thought they might have charged us for someone else’s campsite. When I checked my e-mail I had one from Gary at BCM. He forwarded one from Jorge with a Dropbox link to a draft of the March 2016 issue and a request to proofread both of my articles and provide any needed corrections ASAP. I finished the task before dinner, uploaded the PDF file, and e-mailed them back.

For dinner Linda made Farro with dried cranberries, onions, garlic, greens, and hot pepper flakes. We finally finished the Franzia Crisp White boxed wine, which went well enough with the dish. After dinner I washed some of the grapes that Linda bought today and we settled in to watch the PBS Newshour, the X-Files, Lucifer, and NCIS Los Angeles. We went to bed and tuned in PBS for coverage of the Iowa Caucuses before going to sleep. I don’t recommend political coverage as a way to fall asleep peacefully.

A small piece of the enormous Tibbels miniatures circus model at the Ringling Museum complex, Sarasota, FL.

2016/02/02 (T) Mara Arrives

The humidity rose sharply as the temperature dropped last night. That made for cool, but sticky, conditions at bedtime; the one combination that we do not have a way to counteract. We woke around 7:30 AM to dense fog and were less than fully rested, but a nice pot of coffee at least cleared away the cobwebs. The fog disappeared soon enough to reveal partly cloudy skies. The sun was bright and hot but there was a mild breeze, making the morning feel somewhat tropical. We had toast and jam for breakfast with our usual orange-grapefruit juice.

Linda went for a walk after breakfast and stopped at the office to correct our rental payment for February. While she was walking I resumed my work on Dave Aungier’s article for Bus Conversion Magazine. I finished selecting, processing, and inserting photos for the print version of the article and then set it aside. It had been nine days since I dumped the waste tanks and filled the fresh water tank and we were down to 1/6th of a tank of fresh water. That’s about 20 gallons so we could have gone one more day, but we are not boondocking and do not have any reason to run the tank all the way to empty. Besides, the water pump works a lot better when the tank is full.

Linda stopped at Walmart on her walk and returned carrying four small bags of groceries while I was servicing the tanks. She also got a text from Mara indicating that she was about to pull out and head our way. Once the fresh water tank was full I left the water hose turned on and added the tank treatment to the toilet and sinks while Linda did the dishes. Once we were done I shut off the shore water and we returned to operating off of the fresh water tank using the onboard pump.

As long as I was doing chores I cut the power to the coach, waited 30 seconds, and turned it back on to reset the Progressive Industries EMS Previous Error (PE) Code 2 (open ground). This error occurred during the last storm while we’re away from the coach.

With our chores done Linda thought we should go for a swim so we changed into our suits and walked over to the pool. Some of the Quebec residents were playing Petanque (pronounced “p’tunk”) and there was a shuffleboard tournament about to commence. I gathered from the instructions being given to the teams that Big Tree Carefree RV Resort was hosting teams from another RV park. There was no one else at the pool when we arrived and we had it to ourselves for about 10 minutes. A woman showed up and asked if it was OK with us if she put on her water aerobics music and did her exercises. Sure! Why not. Linda joined in and eventually a third woman joined them. I went to the deeper end of the pool and swam back and forth from side to side.

I got out of the pool while the ladies were still exercising, took a quick dip in the hot tub, and then showered. I changed into my other pair of swim trunks (XXL) and cinched them tight. They make a very comfortable pair of shorts for warm days and it doesn’t matter if they get wet

Massive Banyan Trees at Ca’ D’Zan, John and Mabel Ringling’s former winter estate on Sarasota Bay, now part of the Ringling Museums complex, Sarasota, FL.

We were back at our coach by 2:30 PM and Barb, across the street, invited us to hang our suits and towels on their clothesline, which we did. Linda made roll up sandwiches with garlic hummus, onion, and lots of dark, leafy greens for a later-than-usual lunch. After lunch she sat outside and read while I updated my water usage spreadsheet. Linda got another text from Mara that she had arrived so we moseyed over to her site behind the swimming pool. Mara passed us in her motorhome going the other way as she was being led away from the office to her site. We stopped at the office on the way to make sure they had cleared up our February billing correctly and to check our mailbox. They had; no mail. The Québécois were done playing Petanque for the day but the shuffleboard tournament was in full swing. The parking volunteer was just getting Mara backed in as we arrived at her site. We left her alone while she blocked and leveled her motorhome, extended the slides, shut down the engine, plugged in the shorepower cord, and deployed the awnings and windshield sunshades. Good RV etiquette is to not bother people while they make/break camp.

We visited briefly but did not stay. Mara had stopped at the Walmart for groceries before entering the resort and needed to put them away and then have something to eat. Linda invited her to come down for dinner and she accepted.

When we got back to our coach the inside thermometer read 89 degrees F. That was just a bit too hot for my comfort, and for the cats too. I turned off the electric heating element for the domestic hot water. We closed up the coach and turned on the front and center air-conditioners, but not the one in the bedroom. The front and center units are on separate legs of the 240/120 VAC system. Even before I turned the units on the voltage was 115 VAC on L1 and 112 VAC on L2 with very little current draw. With A-C units on these voltages dropped to 112 and 109 respectively. That is very marginal for our PI EMS, especially the L2 voltage. This was the first situation we have been in where I wished I had a Hughes Autoformer boosting transformer.

I opened the bottle of Beringer Red Moscato that we have had in the refrigerator for a while and Linda and I had a glass while we waited for Mara. Linda called Mara at 7 PM and she was not sure how to find our coach in the dark so I walked over to the activity building at 7 PM to meet her and we walked back together. We gave Mara the grand tour of our remodeling efforts and then poured some more wine. Both cats allowed Mara to interact with them, which was unusual and perhaps a sign that Jasper’s health was finally improving.

For dinner Linda made a salad, seitan stroganoff, and fresh strawberries for dessert. We chatted before, during, and after dinner about where we had each been and what we had been doing since we last crossed paths in July and what our plans were for 2016 and beyond. By 8:45 PM we had covered a lot of ground but had not been for our after dinner walk.

It had been a long day for Mara and she was ready to get back to her cats so we walked back to her rig with her and extended our walk through the Resort before returning to our coach. We watched a fascinating program on the assassination of President James Garfield and then turned off the air-conditioners, opened a couple of bedroom windows, opened the roof vent-fan in the bathroom, and turned the fan on in exhaust mode. We went to bed and watched Charlie Rose before finally turning out the lights and going to sleep.

2016/02/03 (W) Laundry Swimming

Jasper woke me up early with his sniffles and sneezing and I had trouble falling back asleep. Our little guy is obviously uncomfortable with whatever it is that he has and I stroked his back and scratched his chin for quite a while. I finally got up a little after 7 AM and walked over to the Wednesday morning coffee, as much out of curiosity and to have something to do as anything else. I noticed as I was leaving that the gasket in the rear vertical edge of the entry door window was coming out at the top again and made a mental note to fix it later today.

The living room at Ca’ D’Zan, Ringling Museums complex, Sarasota, FL.

While I was gone Linda got up, got dressed, stripped the bed, and decided to go for an early morning walk. I know, because I met her about half way back to our coach. I ground the coffee beans and prepped the coffee pot. When I saw her walking down Front Street towards our site I started brewing the coffee so it would be ready shortly after she arrived. We had granola with blueberries for breakfast but did not have fruit juice or take our pills. Later.

It was already 72 degrees F outside and anywhere from 75 to 79 degrees F inside, depending on which thermometer or thermostat I looked at. I don’t believe any of them anymore but I figured collectively it was somewhere between 74 and 80 degrees F in the coach. The forecasted high for today was 86 degrees F and based on the low level clouds streaming in from the south looked to be a humid day as well. It’s always better to keep a space cool and dry than it is to try to cool it off and dehumidify it after the fact. I turned off the bathroom ceiling exhaust fan and closed the roof vent and closed the two open windows in the bedroom. I noticed that the bottom horizontal gaskets on these windows are not staying in their mounting grooves. Ugh. I love our old bus, but there are some aspects of it that I seem to have to keep fixing, which is not my most favorite thing to do. Oh well, at this point we are definitely “in for a dime, in for a dollar.”

We doodled on our iPads until it was time for Linda to walk to the swimming pool for the 10 AM water aerobics class. While she was exercising I selected and processed a couple of photos for her to use with her weekly postcard to Madeline. She normally takes care of this on Tuesday.

We will be away from the coach and Resort the next two days so I needed to do laundry today. While I was gathering up the soiled clothes and linens I got a call from Dave Aungier. He was following up to see that I got the draft of his article from Bonnie. I brought him up to date on the status of the work, which I hope to have finished before I go to bed this evening.

I also had an e-mail from Jorge with the correct Dropbox link for the final version of the March 2016 issue of BCM. I needed to do a final proofread on my two articles and get back to him by the end of the day.

Linda got back from exercising and swimming just as I was getting ready to leave for the laundry room. The washers and dryers were all in use and I had to wait a while for washing machines to open up. Linda texted to see if I needed help and walked over to assist. I brought my computer and continued working on Dave Aungier’s BCM article while our clothes were being washed and dried. I got all of the digital edition bonus photos selected and processed, so I should be able to wrap the article up tonight and make it available for Dave to proofread. I also got two small Windows 8.1 updates downloaded and installed, but the Internet connection was not fast so that’s all I was able to do.

Exterior detail of Ca’ D’Zan, Ringling Museums complex, Sarasota, FL.

We folded and hung all the dry clothes and loaded them in the car, which I drove back while Linda walked (no room to ride). We were back at our coach by 2:45 PM, three hours and 15 minutes after I left to take care of this chore. After putting the clean clothes away Linda walked back to the pool to look for her Tilley hat. While she was gone I checked the level of the kitchen counter. It was level, so starting the engine and re-leveling the coach was not something I had to do today. Linda returned, hat on head, so we avoided the inevitable sadness of a lost Tilley hat.

The two front air conditioners were not able to keep up with the heat, in large part because the middle unit is not working very well. Presumably it needs to be charged, but Butch has done that before so the root cause has to be something that needs to be repaired, such as a refrigerant leak and/or a bad seal that is reducing the pumping effectiveness of the compressor. A secondary problem is that we cannot run the bedroom A-C unit at the same time as the front one since they are on the same leg (L1) and the voltage at our coach is already too low with just the one unit running.

At 4 PM we walked to the pool for an afternoon swim. When we returned to our coach I retrieved the latest, and hopefully final, draft of the March 2016 issue of BCM and proofread my two articles. I had one minor correction for each article and e-mailed them back to the publisher and layout person. While I was working on this I got an e-mail from Kristine Gullen with a question for Linda which resulted in a group text message conversation. We received a “hold the date” notice at our house, which our daughter let us know about, for the October 22 wedding of Kristine’s son Nickolas. We will make a point of being back by October 15 from our trip to the Canadian Maritimes and New England.

For dinner we had a salad and the left over Farro with cranberries and seitan stroganoff. After dinner we retracted the large patio awning as a precaution in advance of rain and possible thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow in association with a cold front approaching from the northwest. We then emptied out the back of the car and removed the passenger side rear seat and the wooden storage structure to allow the driver side rear seat to be lowered into position and secured. We rearranged the things stored in the front bay of the bus to make room for the car seat, and several other things that were stored in the car, moving a few things to the passenger side engine bay. We should have done this earlier in the day when it was light but doing it in the morning would have been a disaster. We should have done this as soon as we got settled at Big Tree RV Resort but it wasn’t pressing then and we got busy with other things.

We went for a stroll around the resort and dropped off the trash along the way. Back at our coach we had a glass of Beringer Red Moscato wine and watched Nova on PBS. Mara sent Linda a text indicating that Sabra (one of her cats) was still having issues and she had decided not to go with us tomorrow to the Ringling Brothers museum in Sarasota.

After Nova we put the linens back on the bed. I then converted Dave Aungier’s article from Word to PDF, uploaded it to a folder in our Dropbox, and sent him an e-mail with the link. I caught some news, weather, and Charlie Rose and then went to sleep.

2016/02/04 (R) A Ringling Birthday

We were up by 7:15 AM this morning but I did not make coffee and we did not have breakfast. We got dressed for a day away from our coach and I repacked the camera bag. We left at 8:30 AM and stopped at the local Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a bite to eat. We were on our way to Sarasota a little before 9 AM. We took FL-70 west to I-75 and headed south to the University Blvd. exit. We headed west to the end of the road at Bayshore Drive, and arrived at the John and Mabel Ringling Estate at 10 AM. Steve and Karen arrived just ahead of us and we parked right next to them.NOko

Linda and Karen rest on the patio of Ca’ D’Zan and study the map of the Ringling Museums complex, Sarasota, FL.

The 66 acre estate was the location of John and Mabel Ringlings’ winter home, Ca’ D’Zan, starting in 1926 when it was finished. Mabel died three years later and John continued to use the house until 1936 when he passed away. John was one of the seven Ringling brothers of circus fame. In addition to their 36,000 square foot home the estate includes an amazing art museum to house their extensive collection. There is also a circus museum and a building that houses the Tibbels scale model circus that Howard Tibbels spent 60 years creating. John and Mabel did not have any children and the entire estate was left to the people (State) of Florida when John died. The entire estate is now part of The Florida State University and the Ringling Art Museum is the official art museum of the State of Florida.

Ca’ D’Zan sits on Sarasota Bay and is a wonderful home in the Venetian Gothic style. We went on one of the longer, guided tours, so we got to see more of the house than we would have on a self-guided tour but not as much as the even longer (and more expensive) “behind-the-scenes” tour.

The Tibbels circus model is 1/16^th scale, i.e., 3/4″ to the foot. The model covers a large area and illustrates every facet of an early 20th century major circus of the type that traveled from town to town by rail. Not only is the model an amazing thing to see, and an amazing thing for one man to have created, but it gave us an understanding of how a major circus of this period functioned. The logistics involved were impressive to say the least.

We finished our day at the Ringling Museums complex around 4:30 PM with a visit to the gift shop where Linda bought a book for Madeline for Valentine’s Day. Back at our cars we drove north on US-41 (Tamiami Trail) about three miles to Vertoris’ Pizzeria for my birthday dinner. Vertoris’ turned out to be a small, unassuming place with seating for maybe 24 people. They offered quite a variety of pizzas, including vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free, but had lots of other Italian dishes. I had vegan butternut squash ravioli, Linda had a vegan pizza, Karen had baked ziti, and Steve had the largest piece of lasagna I have ever seen. Karen and I had a glass of Chianti, and Linda had a different Italian red (but did not recall the name when we got home). The restaurant had vegan cupcakes so Linda, Karen, and I each had one while Steve had a cannoli.

Detail view of one exterior wall of the modern addition to the Ringling Art Museum, Sarasota, FL.

Our son called last night to wish me happy birthday and our daughter texted me at 3:40 PM today to do the same. I saw the text at 5 PM after we were at the restaurant and texted her back. My phone battery was depleted, which is unusual for my phone, so I turned it off.

We were done with our meal by 6:30 PM, made arrangements for our next get-together, and went our separate ways. Steve and Karen headed south on Tamiami Trail 28 miles back to Nokomis and we headed north three miles to FL-70. Three tenths of a mile shy of FL-70 we encountered a serious traffic backup and I could see a large assemblage of emergency vehicles up ahead. We were already in the right hand lane and eventually got to FL-70 (53rd St.) and made the turn. US-41 beyond the intersection was blocked by the police. We did not slow down to gawk, which I find really annoying, and all we saw were emergency vehicles; lots of emergency vehicles.

It was raining when we left Vertoris’ and it got a lot heavier as we traveled east on FL-70. Somewhere east of Myakka City we drove out of the rain and did not encounter any more the rest of the way home. We arrived around 7:45 PM to find the grass at our RV site was wet, so we knew it had rained at some point. After bringing our stuff in from the car we started our Verizon Mi-Fi, started up our various technology devices, and I plugged in my phone to charge. Linda texted Mara to see if she wanted to go with us to Ed and Betty’s tomorrow morning. Mara replied that she did so Linda communicated the plans and timing for the morning.

Linda checked the weather and the rain was moving our way from whence we had just come. It was forecast to arrive around 9 PM, which it did, and be done by 11, which it was. In between in oscillated between heavy and light.

2015/10/24 (S) Meghan and Chris

Leave a reply

We drove separately to our SLAARC breakfast in South Lyon as Linda had plans to walk with Diane at Kensington Metropark after breakfast. We drove through some heavy rain after which I chatted a bit with Tom (W8TAF) and Mike (W8XH). As always, we enjoyed the breakfast conversation with our fellow amateur radio operators. Linda left at 9:15 and I lingered until 9:30 enjoying my last cup of coffee. I paid our check and had just headed for home when Mike (W8XH) called me on the radio. We had a good chat about my Hi-Q 6-80 mobile HF antenna and will try to find a time to test it using his newer VNWA. Mike has learned a lot about how to use it in the last couple of years and is always willing to put that knowledge to use to help his fellow ham. I would love to figure out a way to mount this antenna so we can take it with us this winter and use it, but I doubt that will happen. We just have too much else that has to get done in the next month that is more important than this.

At home I pulled up the DX Engineering website on my iPad. I found their Mix 31 snap-on ferrite chokes and put them in my cart. If I can find a few other small things to buy the order will qualify for free shipping. I suspect that will not be a problem.

Next I pulled up the Sony alpha app and researched the acronyms they use for various features of their cameras and lenses. The model numbers for their A-mount lenses all begin with SAL (Sony “A” Lens) and their E-mount lenses all begin with SEL (Sony “E” Lens) so that helps sort those out right up front. However, they make both 35mm full frame (36mm x 24mm) and APS-C (24mm x 16mm) lenses in both mounting systems. The FF lenses can be used on APS-C bodies, such as our Sony a100, but the APS-C lenses, which always include the letters “DT” in the product name, cannot generally be used on FF bodies. Our new Sony SLT-a99v DSLT camera body, however, can detect a DT lens and automatically limits the active portion of the sensor to an APS-C size area.

SAM stands for “Smooth Action Motor” and SSM stands for “SuperSonic wave Motor” both of which are used with certain lenses, especially large telephoto ones, that have their own internal focusing motor. OSS stands for “Optical Steady Shot.” Even though the alpha series cameras have image stabilization built into the body some Sony lenses also have image stabilization built into them.

One of the things I was trying to find out is which lenses have distance encoders so they will work with the ADI (Advanced Distance Integration) feature of the a99 body and compatible Sony flash units. The lens specification table in the alpha app was not really clear on this point. Some lenses were marked with a small circle for this feature and others with a dash. If their nomenclature is consistent with other entries the dash means “no”. Logically then the circle means “yes” but I did not pursue this further. I will have to experiment with the 18-70mm APS-C format lens that came with the a100 and see if it supports ADI.

I opened the B&H Photo Video app and revisited the reviews on the Sony HVL-60m flash. Although more expensive than the HVL-43m I added it to my cart. Besides being more powerful it has an available external battery pack which I found and also put in the cart. Finally, I added the Cotton Carrier dual camera harness to the cart. I found my Minolta electric shutter releases and checked to see if they worked with the alpha 99. They did!, so I did not need to order new ones. B&H was closed for online order processing until 7:30 PM this evening so I did not submit the order right away. The Cotton Carrier is on sale until the 26th so I will submit the order tomorrow while the sale price is still valid.

Linda got home at 12:30 PM and we had the last two vegan hotdogs for lunch. She then started preparing dinner and I went to my office. I did a load of laundry, dealt with e-mail, checked in with RVillage, and copied photos from both the Sony a100 and the Sony a99 to my computer. I updated my BCM article spreadsheet and then moved article folders to the proper directories and deleted them from my BCM Dropbox folder. I added 80 pounds of solar salt to the water softener and then brought the laundry upstairs and hung it up. By 4:30 PM I was feeling very tired and took a short nap until Meghan and Chris showed up at 5 PM.

We showed them the driveway and bus projects and then went inside the house just as it started to sprinkle. Everyone selected a beer and we were standing around the kitchen when a brief, but very intense, line of storms moved through our area with heavy rain and strong winds.

For dinner Linda made a salad of dark leafy greens with tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and raisins dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette. The main course was a Farro pilaf with dried cranberries, onions, garlic, broccoli leaves, and slivered almonds. Yes, broccoli leaves. The whole broccoli plant is edible but until recently only the flowerets were available in stores. The side dish was Brussels sprouts cut in half and oven-roasted with salt, pepper, and a little olive oil. Dessert was pears in wine. She used the Witch’s Brew, a spiced red wine that was perfect for this dish and this time of year. After poaching the pears she reduced the wine to a sauce and chilled everything in the refrigerator for hours. (The pears were made ahead of time as was the Farro, with the main dish being finished just before serving.)

We sat in the living room with the fireplace on and chatted about houses, pets, travel, sports, and the upcoming holidays. Meghan and Chris stayed until 8:30 PM and then headed home. It was a nice visit during which both cats actually came out of hiding and allowed themselves to be petted, a rare treat in Jasper’s case.

We were both tired, partly the residual effect of our altered schedule on Wednesday and Thursday, so we finished clearing the table and went to bed. The Detroit PBS Create channel was featuring vegetarian (including vegan) episodes of various cooking shows so we watched a few of those before turning off the TV and going to sleep.

2015/08/02 (N) No Swap Sunday

Leave a reply

The forecast for today was for warm, humid weather so we closed up the house and turned on the air-conditioners as soon as we got up. We left around 9 AM for the Howell Farmers Market so I did not make coffee and we did not have breakfast. At the market Linda bought a nice assortment of fresh vegetables. I bought a bag of Kenya AA coffee beans from Teeko’s and some apricot and raspberry Rohlicky from the Czech Bakery. It turns out they are not vegan so I won’t buy them again.

We decided to see if John and Diane were available for dinner. We had no sooner made these arrangements when I got a text message from Chuck indicating that the coast was clear at his shop in Novi and we were good to go on the refrigerator swap. I talked to him shortly thereafter and indicated that we had assumed it would not be today so I had not yet cut the support 2x4s or found the additional help that we would need and, in light of that, had made other plans. That was fine with him and we agreed to aim for next weekend.

Linda surveyed her inventory of ingredients and decided that the warm Farro with dried cranberries and nuts would be a good dish to have Diane help make. Diane retired at the end of the school year in June and had asked Linda if she would show her some of the ingredients and prep/cooking methods she uses. Linda likes working with friends in the kitchen, sharing what she has learned and learning new things herself in the process. Diane is her longest term, non-family friend. As an English teacher she had lessons to prepare and papers to grade almost every evening. As a result John, who has worked most of his adult life as a framing carpenter, took care of preparing their evening meals. Now that Diane is free of her teaching obligations she would like to learn more about cooking.

Linda wanted some non-dairy ice cream for dessert so I was sent to get it. I went to the Home Depot in Brighton first where I bought some thin (1/8th inch thick) rubber sheet material, a small tool pouch, and 2-person forearm lift strap. The rubber material will be for the edges of the plywood in the new built-in sofa, cushioning the seat when it is closed. The tool pouch is for working on the tower (my carpenter’s tool belt is too big) and the lift strap is to help with the refrigerators and anything else heavy we might need to move.

The only place within a seven mile radius of our house that consistently has the non-diary “ice cream” we like is the Kroger on M-59 at Old US-23, so that’s where I headed next. In addition to the Coconut Bliss they had a cashew milk based product so I bought some of each. I bought vanilla and salted caramel in the CB brand and snickerdoodle in the cashew product. By the time I got home I only had a couple of hours left before John and Diane were due to arrive so I worked in my office and uploaded blog posts for June 16 – 20.

John and Diane arrived right on time at 4 PM. I opened our bottle of Viva La Roja from Heart of the Desert Winery in Alamogordo, New Mexico and we settled in to easy conversation. I found this red table wine particularly to my liking; very smooth with a hint of sweetness and no tannin.

Linda and Diane eventually started preparing dinner. John and took that as an opportunity to go look at the bus project. The ladies made a mixed greens salad with dried cranberries and other add-ins and put out a choice of dressings and sliced a loaf of Italian bread that they brought, along with a bottle of Pinot Grigio that we opened to have with the meal. The main dish was Farro with dried cranberries, almonds, onions, garlic, and kale. It was all very tasty and well received.

By the end of the meal it had cooled off enough to sit on the deck comfortably. Linda served the cashew milk snickerdoodle non-dairy ice cream with fresh sliced strawberries and it was very good. I showed them what we had done with antennas on the tower and the cable entrance box and then we went back inside. John still works full-time so they left around 9 PM as it takes at least 30 minutes to get back to their house in Farmington Hills which is about a mile from our old house.

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

Leave a reply

2015/04/26 (N) Bentley

Turning the lights out at 11 PM last night meant I would be awake around 6 AM this morning and ready to get up, and that was the case. Linda was awake by 6:30 AM and we were up shortly thereafter. I was able to light the natural gas fireplace without difficulty. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps I did not have the Off/Pilot/On gas valve in the right position last night.

With the gas valve in the Off position gas cannot flow beyond the valve. In the Pilot position gas can only flow to the pilot flame assembly, and only while the knob is pushed in, until the flame has been lit long enough to cause the heat sensitive pilot valve to remain open at which point the knob can be released. I do not think gas can flow to the main burner tubes, however, until the knob is turned to the On position. There is also a Remote/Off/On switch that has to be in the Off position when lighting the pilot flame (with the built in spark igniter) and moved to the On position to allow the main burner tubes to receive gas. All I can figure is that I did not have the Off/Pilot/On valve turned to the On position. The Remote position is intended to be used with a wall mounted thermostat which we do not have. For us the firelogs are primarily decorative but are useful for taking the chill off of the early morning or late evening. We never have them on, however, unless we are in the living room or dining room where we can see them.

Linda fed the cats while I made coffee which we enjoyed in the living room by the firelogs. It was 33 degrees F outside this morning but in another week the morning temperatures should be such that we can sit on the rear deck and enjoy our morning brew out there. We finally both got dressed and Linda heated an Amy’s Breakfast Scramble and split it between us. We lingered a while longer in the living room and finally got to work on our various chores.

Linda’s focus was to continue cleaning the kitchen, off-loading food and kitchen supplies from the bus, and getting her domestic and professional domains back in order. She made a grocery list as the day went along. We would normally go to the Howell Farmers Market on Sunday morning, but the outdoor market does not start until next week.

I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, which seems to be my job at home but Linda’s job on the bus, and then got to work on revising the draft survey for the FMCA national education committee. While I was doing that I also started up a couple of our workstation computers, installed updates, and kept an eye on my e-mail and RVillage messages. I worked on the survey until dinner time, with a break for lunch, and had Linda proofread it before I uploaded it to my Dropbox and e-mailed the link to the committee. We have a telephone meeting at 3:30 PM EDT tomorrow and I wanted everyone to have a chance to look it over in advance of the meeting.

Linda made Farro with garlic, dried cranberries, almonds, and kale and cooked some fresh asparagus. A green salad and a glass of wine completed a very nice meal. Linda had a text message from her sister letting us know that her housemate, Linda, decided to have Bentley put down. He was the oldest of her three dogs, deaf and arthritic, and on medications that he would not take, and he had lost interest in food. We had both received a text message from Linda regarding our recent visit so I responded to that. We were sad that Bentley was gone, but glad that we got to see him one last time.

I turned my attention to editing photos for my April 10 blog post about out visit to Bandolier National Monument and Santa Fe, New Mexico but the batteries in my wireless mouse needed to be recharged so I plugged it in and called it quits for the night. Linda was watching the first episode of Wolf Hall (PBS) on her iPad so I finished reading the May-June 2015 issue of the Gypsy Journal and played a few rounds of my favorite games. Linda prepared some fresh berries for dessert and we enjoyed them to the glow of the firelogs before going to bed.

2015/04/27 (M) Caller #9

After coffee and cereal this morning I continued selecting and processing photos from our April 10 visit to Bandolier National Monument and Old Town Santa Fe. I ended up with 16 photos so I uploaded the post and put them in an image gallery at the end. After lunch I got all of my documents in order for my 3:30 PM (EDT) telephone meeting of the FMCA Education Committee. I chatted briefly with the committee chair to see if there were any surprises in store. I then worked on consolidating my draft blog posts for April 11 through 15 which included the time we spent in Norman, Oklahoma visiting with my uncle Bob and Aunt Helen, and four additional generations of relatives.

I exchanged e-mails with BCM Publisher Gary Hatt and Editor Dave Rush regarding my article on the redoing of the exterior of our coach. The article is 5,800 words with 71 photos and they would like to split it up and run it in installments over three or four issues. That will require me to go back through the article and identify the places where it can be split, making sure the photos track with the text, and write some additional bridge paragraphs to wrap up each installment and introduce the next one.

I dialed in to my FMCA meeting just before 3:30 PM. I was caller number nine (9) but I did not win anything. The meeting lasted almost 90 minutes. We discussed the survey we have been developing and approved a motion to pass it along to the Executive Board with the recommendation that it be sent to a random sample of the members both electronically and via USPS. I expect to receive minor corrections in the next 36 hours and get a final draft to the FMCA Executive Director on Wednesday so he can have it reviewed by an outside expert (Barry) at Membership Corporation of America (MCA). The FMCA executive board meets in a week so we will see what happens.

After the meeting I finished working on the April 11-16 consolidated post and uploaded it to our personal blog just in time for dinner which featured taco bowl salads. She started with refrigerated tortillas, draped them over ramekins, and baked them to create the shell. She reconstituted an ancho, red Hatch, and pequin chile and used them to season the pinto beans, mixed greens, tomatoes, onions, and olives that made up the filling. Franzia Fruity Red Sangria went nicely with the tacos. Later we had a fresh mixed fruit salad of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. We relaxed for a while, reading and playing games, but were surprisingly tired and went to bed before 10 PM. Change happens, transition takes time.

2015/04/28 (T) And now … the rest of the summer

As sometimes happens when we go to bed early, we slept in this morning and did not get out of bed until after 8 AM. It is nice to be able to do that if we want to. Coffee and toast got the day started followed by reading, writing, and cat admiring. It was a beautiful, sunny morning albeit still on the chilly side. In other words, another day in the idyllic paradise we call retirement in the country.

We have both been busy since we got home last Friday, unloading the bus and putting things in their place in the house, visiting family, cleaning and stocking the kitchen, going through mail, and working on bills and accounting, both personal and organizational. And that was mostly Linda! I helped with some of that but was mostly focused on finishing a draft survey for the FMCA education committee, sending it out, and participating in a committee meeting by teleconference yesterday afternoon. I will have some minor additional work to do on the survey by the end of the day tomorrow, but with the meeting behind me I can now concentrate on all of the other things that need to be done. To paraphrase Paul Harvey “And now … the rest of the summer.”

One of the chores that is always there is laundry. Linda seems to take over this task when we are living in the bus, but it is definitely my job when we are at home. Ditto for cleaning the cat litter tray. To be fair, both the laundry room and liter tray are in the basement where my office and the ham radio shack are located, so I am down there a lot more than her. When we first return home after being away for an extended time there is a lot of laundry to do. Not that we don’t do it while we are away, we do, but I like to clean everything that we had with us. This is not a one day task, in part because we like to limit the number of loads of laundry we do on any given day so as not to overload the septic tanks, and in part because I just do not want to spend an entire day doing laundry.

My main focus this morning, however, was to revisit my article for Bus Conversion Magazine on the renovation of the exterior of our bus back in 2011/2012. It needs to be split into 3 or 4 installments and I would rather do that myself, making sure the photos track with the text. I started a load of laundry and then got to work, keeping an eye on e-mail and RVillage. I finished restructuring the article just before lunch, uploaded it to my BCM Dropbox folder, and e-mailed the editor and publisher. Linda reheated the Farro-cranberries-almonds dish for lunch and served it with black grapes.

I moved the first load of laundry to the dryer, put a second load of laundry in the washing machine, and started compiling my posts for April 16 through 20. I got an e-mail from Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF website. Lou started, and leads, the BOF and administers the website while I take care of the RVillage group and someone else takes care of the member database/roster. He found and installed a free system for displaying photo albums. He was setting it up so each BOF member had their own login and could upload their own photos and wanted me (and Linda) to try it out. I did, and found a number of issues which I documented for him. I like the idea, so I hope he can resolve the issues.

I folded and hung up the dried laundry and returned to my blog post which I uploaded, tagged, and published before going upstairs. It was a beautiful day and while Linda was outside on the rear deck reading four deer walked up the eastern boundary of our property. We were chatting back there when the doorbell rang, which is unusual for us. It was Aaron, one of the kids (teenager?) from the house to our immediate east. UPS had delivered our Amazon order to their house instead of ours even though it had my name and our address on the label.

Linda sautéed onions until they were partly caramelized, pan-fried tofu slices, and then added bar-b-que sauce. She served these in tortillas rather than on buns. She also sautéed fresh green beans. I opened a bottle of Barefoot Moscato and we each had a small glass with dinner.

After dinner I called Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has done the majority of the service work on our bus since we got it back to Michigan in 2010. As planned, he is now in upstate New York where he will be working well into the fall. He plans to be back this way the first week in November and we made plans to have him do the routine chassis maintenance at that time. I also discussed our interior renovation plans for the bus and got some tips from him about how to approach that work, especially the floor, as he has done several.

I noticed that I had a voice message from Gary at BCM. He had called earlier in the day after I had uploaded the new 4-part version of the Exterior Makeover article so I called him back and left him a message. Tag; you’re it.

2015/04/29 (W) Bus Lunch

We had a typical start to our day; coffee, breakfast, and iPads (news, weather, games, reading, and writing). Actually, that’s how most of our days in the bus also start, so the only real difference is where we are sitting and what we can see from that vantage point. I needed to order a refill on a prescription medication so I tried doing that on my iPad. No problem iPad-wise, but the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) had switched the mail order prescription drug service from Medco/Express-Scripts to Catamaran Home Delivery effective January 1, 2015. Catamaran was already the third part administrator (TPA) but was now operating their own pharmacy. Even though I already had a Catamaran account I had to register for Home Delivery service. Once I did that I was supposed to be able to see any prescriptions that had transferred over. There weren’t any 🙁 That meant I needed a new prescription. I had a mid-morning appointment and did not want to spend time “holding for the next available representative” so I decided to take care of this task tomorrow.

Linda called last Friday and arranged to have our curbside trash pickup resume this week. Wednesday is trash pickup day, so the trashcan had to go out by the street this morning. (We don’t have curbs here, so I can’t say we took the can to the curb.) The last two years Alchin’s has come past our house around noon. While we figured that would probably be the case again this year we did not want to risk missing the truck, so Linda took it out early.

Linda is the treasurer of SLAARC, our local ham radio club based in South Lyon, Michigan. The club’s bank (First Merit) is there and she needed to make a deposit. I was headed that general direction so I took it with me. The deposit made, I headed on to Chuck Spera’s bus garage in Novi, MI. Chuck and Barbara have the same model Prevost bus that we do only one year newer and converted by Liberty, so fancier than ours. Like us, they spend a lot of time in it, and, like us, there are always projects to be done. Some of those, in turn, require some discussion.

I met Chuck at his shop at 10:15 AM and had a look at his turbo boost sensor intake manifold pressure hose. It appeared to be intact but old a frayed like mine was. The one on our bus failed on the drive out to Quartzsite, AZ in December 2014. Changing his hose would be more difficult than our as is chassis batteries are in the passenger-side engine bay and make access to that side of the engine much more difficult than in our bus. We have been using the same mobile mechanic for the last few years but he has found longer term employment and cut back on the mobile servicing of Prevost chassis. I indicated to Chuck that we really needed to find someone locally who is in business at an accessible location and plans to continue as such into the foreseeable future. He suggested that we take a drive to Johnie’s in Walled Lake, so that is what we did.

Denny was not there (Johnie was his dad) but I got to see the place and now know where it is. We drove back to the Panera in Novi for lunch and then back to Chuck’s shop which is nearby. By 2 PM we had not only solved all of the world’s problems we had made good progress on unraveling the mysteries of the universe. Wanting to leave something for the next conversation I headed for home leaving Chuck to ponder the mysteries of the bus, which are far more baffling than the mysteries of the universe.

I drove home on Grand River Avenue (GRA) to avoid WB I-96 and the I-96/US-23 interchange construction. I bought gas at the Wixom Meijer’s and found out 20 minutes later that I had paid way too much for it ($2.59/gal). The BP station in Brighton had regular for $2.29 and the Shell station closest to our house had it for $2.44. Bummer. I passed a First Merit Bank on the south side of GRA just west of Old US-23 in Brighton. Not right around the corner from our house, but a lot closer than South Lyon. There is also a Jeep dealership there. We are interested in getting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, we just don’t like the prices we are seeing.

Our Amazon shipment arrived with the two filter cartridges for the under sink housing in the bus and other things. Hopefully the delivery to the wrong address on Monday was a one-time thing. I had been trading phone messages with Gary at BCM and finally got through to him this time. I then curled up with the new B&H catalog which made it feel like Christmas in April.

Linda made a potato lentil ginger curry for dinner and it was very good. I had planned on revising the FMCA Education Survey and sending it out this evening but I was simply not in the humor to go back downstairs. I think my retirement motto is going to be “there is always tomorrow, and if not, it didn’t matter anyway.” Linda had to get up early tomorrow morning to beat the traffic headed into Detroit so we went to bed earlier than usual.

2015/04/30 (R) Steel

Linda set her alarm for 5:45 AM. The purpose of her alarm is to wake me up so I can wake her up. It worked as planned and she got up and got ready to go to the bakery while I went back to sleep.

I finally got up at 8:30 AM. I’ve been busy since we got home but also a bit tired and feeling the need to just unwind from our exciting winter out west. After breakfast I called the Internal Medicine clinic at the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi to see if I could get my doctor’s nurse to get my doctor to write me a new prescription for my nasal spray. Naturally I never got to talk to the doctor or a nurse, but the youngish sounding lady who handled the phone call was very helpful, up to a point. She really wanted to schedule me for an appointment and was not quite piecing together that my prescription, which is for a maintenance drug, is only good for one year but my doctor only needs/wants to see me every other year. I don’t expect the new script to be a problem, but that fact that my MPSERS health care plan changed mail-order prescription providers as of January 1st may add a wrinkle. I’m not due for a physical until the fall but I will go sooner if needed to get my script. Which reminds me, I need to schedule my annual appointment with the dermatology PA.

I focused on making some last minute corrections to the FMCA education survey and shipped it off. I got an e-mail back from Diane Wolfe with some questions. She is not a member of the FMCA education committee but she and husband Brett did review and comment on it. The questions were interesting and answering them gave me a chance to explain some technicalities and cc: the FMCA Executive Director as they were as much for his benefit as hers.

I had several e-mails back and forth with Kate regarding productions at Meadowbrook Theater and an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), all of which sounded interesting. Our social life is less active at home than on the road so we welcome such opportunities.

I had a phone call from Mike at Rocket Steel Buildings following up on an inquiry I made. He sent me a brochure and a price. It was something but not exactly the quote I was looking for. I still need to follow up with SteelMaster Building Systems and get to work on drawings for the wood-framed basilica design.

I compiled my blog posts for April 21-25, 2015 after finding the one for the 24th. I had e-mailed it from my iPad but it never arrived. I e-mailed it again and it bounced back. The spam blocker even said it was from a white listed sender (me!) but rejected it anyway. Huh ??? I sent it a third time to two addresses, one of which was not attached to our domain, and it came through to both accounts, naturally. I guess this was one of the mysteries of the universe that Chuck and I left unsolved yesterday. Anyway, I finally got it, finished compiling my posts, and uploaded, tagged, and published it.

I also had several e-mails back and forth with Lou Petkus regarding the SKP Photographers BOF and website. Gary sent me a link to a document in his Dropbox with photos and audio files from an interview he did for a featured bus article that never got written. I agreed to take a look at it and see what I can do.

I managed to get more things off of the bus, including bedding, and did two more loads of laundry. I do not like to do more than two loads a day as it over taxes the septic system. Someone rang the front doorbell, the second time this week. This time it was Kaylie, Aaron’s sister, from next door. For the second time this week UPS delivered a package, correctly addressed to me, to the wrong address. I was concerned this would happen and Linda said I was a pessimist. Apparently we were both right.

I called the local UPS store but the only thing they could do was give me the national 800 customer service number. I am a pessimist (just ask Linda), so I was not looking forward to that experience, but I called and fought my through their voice menu system. It did not include an option for my situation (of course) and I finally just kept saying “agent” until the system gave up and connected me to a real person.

“Chelsea” was apologetic, even though she had not personally done anything wrong, because that’s what customer service people are trained to do. I think someone, somewhere, once upon a time figured out that apologizing diffuses customers who are upset. Well, it doesn’t. And assuring me that it “won’t happen again” is equally meaningless when it comes from a person who is not in a position within the organization to make such a statement. But Chelsea verified my name and address and the incorrect delivery address and said she took careful notes and would make sure they got to the right person. I hope so.

What is perhaps most frustrating is that UPS has a local distribution center in Howell, and I have the address, but it is not open to the public except for limited package pickup hours. In other words, the mistake is being made by a driver who is most likely operating out of that location, or by someone scheduling the routing, but there is no customer support person or facility manager that I can talk to, face-to-face, and resolve this at the point of origin of the problem. We buy a lot stuff now through Amazon Prime, and it all gets shipped via UPS, so having it delivered anywhere other than to our house is a problem.

Linda called at 4:30 PM to let me know she was leaving the bakery at 5 PM and heading to Kathi’s. They were going to have dinner at La Marsa in Farmington Hills and give the I-96 traffic a chance to subside before she finished the drive home. I had some of the leftover potato barley ginger curry for dinner and then called Phil Jarrel to remind him that we are still trying to figure out how to put up a bus barn and still want him to do the site prep and driveway. I then called Butch to see if he was able to locate the front brake drums for their MCI MC-9 NJT bus. He was, and already had the driver side front reassembled. I responded to a couple of e-mails and filled out an online RFQ for SteelMaster Building Systems and went to bed.

2015/01/22-26 (R-M) Q 2015 W4

Leave a reply

2015/01/22 (R) Sister Marilyn

Marilyn & Linda in front of Beer Belly’s “adult day care” outdoor bar.

The temperature dropped into the low 40’s last night in the wake of the cold front that brought strong winds to Quartzsite yesterday. We were up at 6:30 AM to give us time to eat breakfast and enjoy our coffee before Linda left at 8 AM for the Phoenix airport to pick up her sister. Marilyn was scheduled to arrive at 11 AM MST and the airport is a 2 to 2-1/2 hour drive from Quartzsite but Linda wanted to take her time getting there and be in the cell phone lot before the flight got in. The plan was to go to lunch and then drive back to Q so she was going to be gone most of the day.

I had turned off the diesel burner on the Aqua-Hot last night so this morning I turned on the three electric toe-kick heaters and the Broan cube heater to take the chill off of the interior. With the coffee pot also turned on we were drawing 26 A at 115 VAC on leg 1 and 15 A at 118 VAC on leg 2. That was more current than we were able to draw before Jim L. changed the shorepower connection from 30 A (120VAC) to 50 A (240VAC) and the first time we have had reasonable voltage levels since we arrived here.

I rode over to the RV show with Butch at 9 AM to look at tire pressure monitoring systems and we both ended up buying TireTraker TPM Systems from Darryl Lawrence. We have both done business with Darryl in the past and trust him as a vendor. I also bought three products from the Carnu-B booth.

Back at the coach I checked the coolant level in the Aqua-Hot expansion reservoir. It was right at the maximum cold level so there was nothing else to do for the moment. I needed to redo the overflow hose, but not today. I then used two of the Carnu-B products on the driver-side side window and surrounding painted body surfaces. It removed the hard water stains and polished everything up very nicely. I then did a test patch on the front of Butch and Fonda’s bus and it appeared to clean the stainless steel nicely. They later cleaned an adjacent patch with straight food-grade vinegar and it seemed to work just as well although it did not provide a wax finish.

While I was fiddling with the Aqua-Hot and the cleaning/waxing process Butch started reading the manual for the TT-TPMS and found information that indicated the system did not work the way we thought it did and needed it to. The manual more than implied that the sensors were activated by motion and stated that readings would appear “… within 20 minutes of starting to drive.” Say what?! We both want to use the system to check our tire pressures BEFORE we start to drive, as would most RVers.

Although there are things we do not like about our current Pressure Pro TPM systems they certainly give us the current pressure in the tires without having to drive the vehicle. They also allow us to monitor just the bus, just the car, or both. Most systems do this, including the TireTraker, but the Truck Systems Technology (TST) does not. That was Butch’s first choice system until he found that out.

At 12:45 PM I rode over to the Quartzsite Senior Center with Butch and Fonda for a 1 PM meet and greet with Chuck Woodbury of RV Travel and the Geeks On Tour. It ran until 4 PM but we were anxious to get back to the RV Show tent and talk to Darryl. We took our TT-TPMS units with us with the intent of returning them but Darryl assured us that they do work the way we need them to so we decided to keep them for another day or so to test them.

Fonda had not been to the RV Show yet so we walked the entire tent. I spent a little time talking to the guy at John Carrillo Hydronic Heating. He had a brand new, never been fired, Webasto DBW2010 burner (with the controller) for $1,800 (cash). I have seen them online for $3,300, so I knew that was a good price. I wish I needed one, but we already have a spare. He also had a new combustion chamber for $200 and I may go back and get one of those. They wanted $450 for an ignition coil, which I also need, but I can get one from Sure Marine Service for $303. We spent a long time looking at flag poles at the Flag Pole Buddy booth and Butch bought a 22′ model with an extra set of mounts.

Linda was texting me her status on a regular basis and by the time we got back to camp she and Marilyn were already there and relaxing on the porch of Joe and Connie’s park model trailer. We sat outside until the sun kissed the tops of the southwestern mountains and then moved inside to escape the chill. While we were sitting in the coach visiting and cooking Butch installed one of the TT-TPMS sensors on the driver-side front tire of their Suburban, programmed it into the monitor, noted the readings, and went for a test drive. He noted the readings when they got back and plans to check it again in the morning before moving the car. That will be the real test.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad and a lovely mushroom kale risotto with Arborio rice. We then went to the apartment so I could light the pilot flame on the wall-mounted propane heater. I visited for a bit and then went back to the coach and Linda followed a bit later. We were both tired and turned in early.

240 degree panorama from atop 'Q' Mountain, Quartzsite, AZ.

200 degree panorama from atop ‘Q’ Mountain, Quartzsite, AZ. Left edge is N, right edge is SSW.

2015/01/23 (F) Q Mountain

We were up by 7:30 AM and Marilyn eventually arose and joined us for coffee and toast. The only bread we had was a package of whole wheat pitas, but they toasted just fine and were very good with orange marmalade. I am not, however, thrilled with the Soy Delicious Almond milk coffee creamer. It is not as ‘creamy’ as Silk soy creamer and it tends to separate into tiny bubbles in the coffee. I do, however, like the Almond milk that we sometimes buy, especially on granola type cereals.

Butch called just after breakfast to let me know that the TireTraker TPMS works the way Darryl said it does. That was welcome news as we both like the system, including the small sensors and the rechargeable monitor, and we both like Darryl. He and Fonda had things to do today so I borrowed his hose crimper pliers before they left.

Linda and Marilyn left shortly after Butch and Fonda and drove to Blythe, California to do some grocery shopping and sight-seeing. That left me with some alone time to concentrate on getting some things done that I have needed to work on for a week, such as categorizing FMCA seminars, and have just not found (made) the time. I value and enjoy my work with the FMCA National Education Committee but we have a significant personal investment in our presence here in Quartzsite, and although we will likely return here again in the years to come that is not guaranteed, and this could turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The FMCA work took about an hour to complete and e-mail too Jim A., with who has been the lead person on this.

I also needed to make a minor change to the Aqua-Hot expansion tank plumbing and turn the burner back on. I removed the overflow hose, shortened it, re-routed it, and re-connected it to the drain tube on the tank. I also tried to tighten the clamp on the middle zone pump hose. I noted that the coolant level was at the ‘minimum cold’ mark on the expansion tank. I will check everything again tomorrow.

With the Aqua-Hot project done I decided to replace the old Sentry turbo boost gauge with the new VDO gauge. I removed the dashboard cover, disconnected the lightbulb connectors, removed the retaining bracket, and pulled the gauge out the front of the dashboard. I removed the lightbulb socket to give me better access to the main air fitting and undid that, completely freeing the unit from the dashboard. I pulled the light socket out of the new gauge to give me more room to put the air fitting on and to check the bulb type. It was a miniature glass wedge base 12VDC 3W and will need to be replaced with a 24V, 3W bulb. I then slipped the gauge into the dashboard from the front and secured it with the supplied bracket on the back side. Linda and Marilyn returned at this point so I quit working on the gauge, put the cover back on the dashboard, and helped bring in the groceries. I will have to get the 24V bulb and also rewire the leads to match the harness connectors.

We had a light lunch and then drove down to the market area and wandered through the big tent RV show. We got new Ballisti-Tech screen protectors for our Samsung Galaxy S III smartphones. We also strolled through a small part of the Tyson Wells and Prospectors Panorama areas. When we left the RV show we headed south on US-95 to the BLM Roadrunner STVA so Marilyn could see the Quartzfest RVs in the desert. We found Lou and Val Petkus at their 5th wheel and visited briefly before heading back to town. The light was good and the sun was still high enough that I made an impromptu decision to climb Q Mountain and try to get pictures of the RVs spread across the desert around Quartzsite.

I got my pictures, and got off the mountain before it got dark, but missed the best color, which we saw while driving back to camp to close up the rig before going to dinner. The Geeks were out viewing and photographing the sunset before walking to the Grubstake restaurant for dinner so and we chatted with them briefly and then drove to Crazy Jerry’s for our evening meal. The very thin crust mushroom, onion, and tomato no-cheese pizza was excellent and the French fries were also good. When we got back to our coach Linda prepared some fresh strawberries for desert.

After visiting with Jim and Chris on Wednesday we decided that we would join the Quartzsite Yacht Club, which claims to have the largest membership of any yacht club in the country (world?, universe?) at over 7,500., although we later heard that it was more than 9,000. Membership is $30 which gets you a hat, T-shirt, membership card and certificate. Apparently the membership is good at other (real) yacht clubs that honor reciprocal arrangements. We had planned to join today but did not fit it in. It may be Sunday or even a day next week at this point.

I spent some time transferring photos from my camera to my laptop computer and our NAS unit. I processed three panoramas and three individual images taken on Q Mountain, checked my e-mail, and went to bed.

Sunset glow looking NE from ‘Q’ Mountain.

2015/01/24 (S) Lake Havasu City

We were up at 7:15 AM and I brewed a pot of coffee while Linda showered. I took my turn and also trimmed up my beard a bit. Marilyn came over around 8:25 AM and we all had coffee followed by breakfast. Linda and I had granola while Marilyn had toast and jam. She is not that found of breakfast and does not care for milk or milk substitutes.

I removed some of the parts boxes from the back of the Element to eliminate the rattling just in case we decided to drive in to the Desert Bar on the way back from Lake Havasu City (LHC). We left around 9:15 AM and headed up AZ-95 towards Parker. It was a cool morning with clear skies and the sun lit up the mountains to the west and north. When we got to Parker we decided to cross the Colorado River into California and take the Parker Dam Road 17 miles up to Parker Dam, drive across back into Arizona, re-connect with AZ-95, and continue north to LHC.

We knew that the stretch of the River from the dam downstream to Parker had quite a few RV Parks, campgrounds, and mobile home communities because we caught glimpses of some of them from AZ-95, or saw signs for them, the last time we were in LHC. The drive from Parker to LHC is very scenic but you do not have a view of the river most of the time. Much of the drive from Parker to the dam on the California side, however, was close to water level so we were able to see the resorts on both sides of the river. We had also heard that there were wild burros along the California route and indeed there were. We saw five total, two of them just before the dam. They appear to be docile animals, but they are wild, and you are not allowed to feed or harass them.

Once we got to LHC we followed the signs for the London Bridge and found the parking lot and visitor center. We watched a video on the history of the London Bridge, which was actually the second most recent in a long succession of bridges across the River Thames dating back before Roman Times. The Bridge was purchased, disassembled, moved, and reconstructed in LHC. It was placed at the entrance to a peninsula and then a channel was dug out under it and connected to the Colorado River on either end, turning the peninsula into an island. There is an “English Village” at the base of the bridge on the mainland side, which was not very special, but a wonderful pedestrian path winds along the channel all the way down to Rotary Park. The air was cool and the wind was very strong, but the sun was very warm and we had a lovely stroll.

After walking the path we drove over the bridge and around the island, stopping at one of the reproduction 1/8 scale lighthouses. The LHC Lighthouse Association has erected some two dozen scale replicas of U. S. Lighthouses. The ones on the island are all replicas of lighthouses from the Great Lakes while the ones on the Arizona shore are east coast replicas and the ones on the California shore are west coast replicas. While we were driving Linda researched places we might be able to eat lunch and settled on The Black Bear Diner. She and Marilyn had garden burgers with French fries and I had the Sweet Garden Harvest Salad. All of the food was very good, and I was particularly pleased with the salad, which had raisins, dried cranberries, nuts, fresh strawberries, and shredded coconut with a honey Dijon dressing.

The restaurant was in a corner of the parking lot for the Albertson’s grocery store so we went in looking for regular Silk soy creamer. They did not have any so we started back to Quartzsite and stopped at the Basha’s market on the south end of town. They had the Silk Vanilla Soy Creamer, not the regular, but I got some anyway. They also had a nice selection of Daiya cheeses and vegan sausages. We picked up some sourdough bread and preserves on our way to the checkout. Of all the food stores we have been in Basha’s was the nicest so far.

By the time we got to Parker I was getting tired so I pulled into the casino parking lot. I switched places with Linda and she drove the rest of the way to Q. Back at camp she and Marilyn went to the apartment and started assembling a 500 piece puzzle on the dining table. As I do on any day that I have taken a lot of pictures I transferred them from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS unit. I used the Microsoft Image Composite Editor to create two panoramic images of the California mountains just south of LHC.

None of us were hungry enough to warrant fixing dinner so we snacked on hummus and chips (vegan junk food). Marilyn went back to the apartment at 9 PM and we went to bed shortly thereafter. A long day of fresh air and sunshine had once again worn us out.

2025/01/25 (N) Visitors

Linda& Marilyn at the London Bridge English village. It’s a real London phone booth, but no phone.

Today was basically a stay at home day. Marilyn is officially “on retreat” and spent part of the day by herself reading and contemplating. I made coffee for breakfast, as usual, and Linda made her amazing vegan cinnamon rolls for brunch. They were brunch because they take hours to make and she did not feel like getting up early enough to have them ready by breakfast and we did not expect her to.

Butch dropped Fonda at church and then came back to get me on his way to the Big Tent RV Show. Today was the last day of the show so I bought a 2″ wide roll of rescue tape and got three smaller rolls in the deal. I bought more of the Carnu-B wax but the vendor was out of the Metal Shine cleaner. That’s the risk one takes waiting until the end of a rally or show. I also bought two small LEDs that looked like the might work in our spotter/downlights. We then stopped by Mac McCoy’s booth to chat. He was busy with customers but Charles Martin was there so we chatted with him instead.

We got back to camp just after 11 AM as Linda was putting the finishing touches on the cinnamon rolls and Marilyn joined us for brunch. I tried one of the new LED bulbs but it would not fit in our fixtures. I dealt with some e-mail and thought about spending the rest of the day writing but decided to work outside instead. My outside task today was cleaning some of the bus windows using the Carnu-B Metal Shine to remove hard water stains.

Chris and Jim of Geeks On Tour did their weekly live broadcast from their rig and then started making preparations to leave. We had two cinnamon rolls left so Linda took them over as a going away gift. Charles and Connie Martin dropped in and a short time later Mara and her friend Michael arrived. Marilyn came over followed by Butch and Fonda so we circled the chairs and had quite a gabfest.

Eventually everyone left and I returned to my window cleaning while Linda and her sister started preparing dinner. Linda made her wonderful warm Farro dish with kale and dried cranberries while Marilyn made a shredded Brussels sprout dish with pistachios and dried cranberries. Both dishes were excellent and the use of dried cranberries in each one tied them together nicely.

Linda and Marilyn went to the apartment to watch Downton Abbey but the satellite receiver was not activated so they worked on the jigsaw puzzle instead. I stayed in the coach and took a call from Lou Petkus who had questions about RVillage. I then consolidated my blog posts from the first seven days of October (2014) into a single post, selected five photos to go with it, and uploaded it to our WordPress site, the first post I have done since September 30, 2014. If I do one consolidated post each evening I should be caught up to our arrival in Quartzite on December 12, 2014 in about two weeks. After that I may go back to daily posts or continue to consolidate three or four days at a time. I would like to be caught up and making current/daily posts by the time we pull out of here on March 1st.

London Bridge in Lake Havasu City (LHC), AZ.

2015/01/26 (M) A Plethora of Jims

We had toast and jam (strawberry preserves and orange marmalade) for breakfast along with our usual coffee and juice. Jim A. called just after breakfast to update me on work we are doing for FMCA HQ. Jim G. (& Chris) pulled out yesterday. Jim B. (& Barb) are here for the winter. Jim L. (The brother of owner Joe L.) manages this place and stops by almost every day. I think we have met several other Jims along the way. When we meet someone new I just assume their name is Jim until I learn otherwise. This winter has truly seen a plethora of Jims.

Jim and Barb let me know they were headed to Blythe, California to go grocery shopping and offered to pick up anything we might need. Butch and Fonda also left but Larry and Sandy did not, which was unusual for them. Linda and Marilyn wanted to walk around Tyson Wells so I drove them down to Kuehn Street and Central Avenue, stopping at the Post Office on the way. I stopped on the way back at Herb’s Hardware store to get some 000 steel wool and then topped off my fuel tank at the Union 76 station.

Connie Martin visiting us at the Camp Liebherrvile / Brocker.

Back at our coach I started assembling my blog posts from October 8 through 15 into a single post and selecting photos to go with it. I do not like to sit and do this kind of work for long stretches of time so I got out my cleaning supplies and worked on the outside of some of the bus windows. I tried using straight vinegar to clean them followed by rubbing with the steel wool, and tried it in the opposite order. I decided to stick with steel wool first figuring the vinegar would help clean it off. I did not apply wax to the outsides of the windows as I want them as clean as possible before I wax them. Rain was forecast for today and it eventually started so I moved indoors and cleaned the insides of several windows on the passenger side of the coach. These were clean enough that I used the Carnu-B spay wax that I bought yesterday on them. The rain let up so I moved back outside and worked on the upper windshields. I got both of them steel wooled and wiped down with vinegar and got a coat of wax on the driver side glass before it started drizzling again. I put my supplies away again and headed back inside. Linda called and asked to be retrieved so I drove back down to Kuehn and Central to pick them up.

Linda put out some hummus, chips, and grapes for lunch and we heated up the leftover Farro dish and divided it up between us. Marilyn went back to the apartment to take a nap and Linda laid down to read and snooze while I continued working on e-mails and blog posts. Gary Hatt, publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine, sent me several photos of himself standing in front of his Eagle. I selected the one I thought would work best to go with his “Publisher’s Letter” in the January 2015 issue, post-processed it several different ways, and sent it back with an explanation of what did and why. I also got the blog post for the second seven days of October completed and uploaded before dinner.

Mara Culp and Charles Martin visiting us at Camp Liebherrville / Brockner.

As the afternoon progressed the rain settled in. Although not heavy, like a thunderstorm, it was steady well into the evening. Jim and Barb returned and Marilyn eventually came back over to the coach. That got Linda out of bed and working on dinner. She made a dish that has become a standard; pasta with onions, garlic, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes lightly sautéed in olive oil. Instead of wheat noodles, however, she used “zoodles.” Zoodles are long slender pieces of zucchini made with a hand operated SpiraLife spiral slicer. They get added to the sauté just before serving and are simply heated rather than cooked. We had a green salad with Ken’s Steak House Asian Sesame dressing, dried cranberries and pistachios. We had slices of a sourdough baguette with pepper spiced olive oil for dipping and Linda and I had a glass of Franzia sangria. Fresh strawberries for desert completed a nice meal.

Marilyn helped with the dishes after which she and Linda checked on the developing storm out east and then played Scrabble and other games while I stayed out of their way and worked on this post. Hey, it’s a small kitchen.

The rain stopped at 7:38 PM but started again in earnest around 8:30 PM. It was still raining at 9:15 PM when Marilyn went back to the apartment and the forecast said we could have rain overnight until 5 AM tomorrow. We have had very little rain here this winter so I am sure this is welcomed. It will be interesting to see if the precipitation triggers any sort of desert bloom tomorrow on our drive to Yuma or perhaps the following day.

Linda’s iPad battery was down to about 10% at 9:45 PM so she retired to the bedroom, where the charger is located, and continued to read for a bit longer. I am usually very sleepy an hour after dinner but get my second wind a couple of hours after that. I had an e-mail from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine regarding the use of soft water in the Webasto-based Aqua-Hot in his Eagle and sent him a reply. I then went through the article on Butch’s main engine air-compressor failure, finalized all of the changes, and uploaded it to our Dropbox along with the photo files. I updated my BCM Article Status Sheet and uploaded it to the BCM folder in our Dropbox. I then e-mailed Gary and editor Mike Sullivan to let them know that the new material was ready and available. By the time I finished it was going on midnight.

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

Leave a reply

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.

2014/09/26 (F) Hope Is Not A Strategy

Leave a reply

Linda was up at 7:00 AM, I was up at 7:15 AM, and Madeline was up at 7:45 AM. Marilyn got up later. Given a choice she’s not a morning/breakfast person. Linda got up first to prepare the batter for her fabulous vegan blueberry pancakes which she planned to serve with fresh fruit and real maple syrup.

I powered up my iPad2 and discovered that Apple had released iOS 8.0.2. Apparently I was not the only person having some issues with the release, like sluggish response and a Bluetooth keyboard that quit working properly and then quit working altogether. I tested the keyboard with my laptop computer last night and it worked fine, so I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I downloaded the iOS update and everything was back to normal (once I figured out how to re-pair the keyboard). With any luck perhaps WordPress will also issue a maintenance release today and fix the completely broken drag-n-drop feature of the media gallery. As Deb Wahlstrom said once in a workshop, “hope is not a strategy,” but when things are completely beyond your control hope is sometimes all you have.

Linda tried to use the griddle that fits over the oblong center burner of the new G. E. kitchen range to cook the pancakes but forgot to turn it down from the preheat setting, which produces a LOT of heat. It burned the first pancakes firmly to the griddle. Madeline was already in her high chair waiting for her breakfast, so Linda grabbed a non-stick frying pan and cooked the pancakes in that. The fact that the griddle and the preheat feature are both new and that there was a certain pressure to get Madeline her breakfast was not an ideal combination for a first attempt at using the griddle. I doubt that she will make that mistake again, and the frying-pan-cakes were still very good. The fresh fruit turned out to be bananas, but that was OK; we all like bananas.

After breakfast I played with Madeline while Linda cleaned up from breakfast. Karen called from Bratcher Electric to let us know that Brandon had called in sick and she needed to reschedule our generator conversion and service for Monday between 1 and 3 PM if that would work for us. It was not ideal from my perspective as I was thinking about taking the bus to Butch and Fonda’s on Monday, but that could obviously wait until Tuesday or later. If necessary I could delay taking it until after the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally.

I waited until Marilyn got up at 9:15 AM to make the coffee; we all like our morning coffee. Linda was busy with Madeline by that point so Marilyn cooked her own breakfast. There was enough batter left for two pancakes. She’s always very helpful that way when she comes to visit. We often have to insist that she just sit, relax, be our guest, and let us take care of things. It’s really not a bother; we like having company and we do not expect them to work while they are here. Of course, if they insist on helping with the dishes, who are we to deny them the joy of being of service?

Marilyn started packing at 10:45 AM while Linda gathered up Madeline’s things. When it was time to load the car for the trip to Ann Arbor my job was to hold Madeline’s hand (actually, she held my finger) and get her out the front door, down the new steps/sidewalk, and over to the car. (Hey, grandpa-ing is serious work.) Although she understood that she was returning to her house where daddy and mommy would feed and play with her, she wasn’t quite ready to leave. She and I “marched” up and down the driveway several times before she was ready/willing to let Grandma Linda put her in her car seat. She is now big enough that the seat gets installed facing forward, which is a very big deal as she can now see where she’s going in life instead of where she has been. Marilyn rode in the back to keep her entertained on the drive down.

The weather this week has been spectacular; a classic late September in Michigan with lows around 50, highs around 75, clear blue skies and light breezes. I shut off the various thermostats and opened up the house. I spent the early afternoon editing blog posts from the last couple of weeks and then off-loaded photos from our Sony alpha 100 SLR, organized them, and backed them up. I stopped for a bite of lunch and then decided to have another go at the lawnmower. If I cannot get it started I will have to take it somewhere and have it repaired. 🙁

I had already installed the new spark plug last night and that did not fix the problem. I dumped the gas tank out into an open tub and put some of the fresh gas I bought last night into the tank. I took the tub to some of our woods a good distance from our drinking water well and spread it around on some leaves. Most of it will evaporate rather than soak in. Not the most environmentally sound thing to do, but a lot safer than an open tub of gasoline.

Before I tried to start the engine I checked the back discharge chute, out of habit, to make sure the mulching insert was in place. It was but there was a lot of dried grass as well and it had obviously not been cleaned out the last time it was used. There was also a lot of fuzzy material mixed in with the grass, a sure sign that a mouse had taken up residence there at one time. I removed the insert and shook it off into the tub and discovered that it still had a mouse in it. The mouse was quite dead and very stiff but did not have any obvious injuries and did not emit any odor. It was in surprisingly good conditions, so perhaps being encased in the dried grass and fuzz helped preserve it. It was not trapped so it is a mystery why it stayed in there and died. The mower was in our garage all winter, and although it got very cold (-20 F) the mouse would not have been trapped in the garage either; there are gaps around the doors that would easily allow a field mouse to come and go. (Now that we have the garage furnace, sealing the doors is on my project list.)

With the discharge chute cleaned up the mower started on the first pull !!! (This is something Honda has bragged about in the advertising in the past.) I let it run for a while on high throttle to warm it up and make sure it had fresh gas all the way through the fuel system. I then brought the throttle back to idle to let it cool off and stabilize and then shut it off. I did not think it was going to start so I was not wearing my safety goggles or gloves. I usually wear hearing protectors as well, but I could not find them. (I realized later they were probably in the construction equipment tub we took with us last summer. I will look there tomorrow.) I topped off the tank with fresh fuel and it started on the first pull again. The new spark plug is a more aggressive design that is supposed to spark more easily and that may have helped. Whatever the reason, I like how easily it now starts.

I spent an hour cutting the grass in the immediate vicinity of the house. I focused in particular on the areas that Keith does not get with his riding mower and areas that were disturbed (destroyed) and re-seeded as part of the landscaping work and re-seeded again by me (twice). The new grass is coming in fairly well at this point although there are still a few thin spots. And even though Keith mowed most of this new grass on his last visit it was getting tall again. I was surprised how moist much of the grass was, especially in areas that are now mostly shaded throughout the day, as we have not had any rain in the last week. Keith had mentioned the last time he was here that the grass was very moist; “…more like April/spring grass than September/fall grass.” I did not get everything mowed. I still have to do the two slopes by the retaining walls in the back, which are steep and physically demanding even with a self-propelled mower, and most of the west end of the house. It will take me at least another hour to finish but I had done enough for today and wanted to relax for a little while before Linda got home. Besides, it will be there tomorrow, and it should be a nice day to work outside.

Linda called around 4:35 PM and left messages letting me know that she had dropped Marilyn at the airport and was starting for home. That drive would take close to an hour in light traffic, so I figured I would not see her before 6 PM. She pulled in the driveway at 6:10 PM.

We had three left over salads for dinner: chickpea; Farro with cranberries, and; wild rice with apples and raisins. Easy and delightful. Marilyn texted Linda several times to let us know her travel status. Her flight was delayed almost an hour but eventually took off and got her safely back to St. Louis, Missouri. We were both tired and turned in early, but I got my second wind after I located a service manual online for a model of Aqua-Hot that is very similar to the one in our bus and started reading about how to diagnose what might be wrong with our unit. Based on the symptoms my current best guess is a stuck fuel valve or defective fuel valve solenoid.

2014/09/24 (W) Marilyn Redux

Leave a reply

We were up a little before 8 AM and had a light breakfast of fruit and toast with our usual orange/grapefruit juice and coffee. Linda left at 8:30 AM to fetch Marilyn and I stayed home to work on some minor house projects.

Before I got started I got a call back from Darryll at DCM Heating and Cooling. He agreed that the thermostats should not allow the temperature to rise 5 degrees above the set point and offered to bring out new ones. I suggested that I keep an eye on them for a few days and let him know if they continue to work as described in yesterday’s blog post. He said he would check with his supplier to see if they have had any other reports of faulty units. I mentioned that the gas pipe coming through the floor for the kitchen range was too long and he offered to take care of that if/when he was out here to deal with the thermostats. I turned both the garage and library thermostats on and set the temperature up to take the chill off of those rooms since that was where I would be working this morning after checking in with the blogs I follow. I checked a little later and the units had shut off with the thermometers reading only 1 – 2 degrees above the set point; still not right but a lot better than 5 degrees or more.

Karen called from Bratcher Electric at 9:30 and said that they could come on Friday between 9 and 11 AM to convert the whole house generator and do the annual maintenance. That was good news as it will take care of our last propane to natural gas conversion. The new outdoor gas grill and the new gas fireplace logs are just that, new appliances that do not need to be converted. The fireplace logs have to be installed, of course, but we will have someone do that. I will have to attach the extension hose to the outdoor grill and perhaps replace the existing quick-disconnect with the one that comes with the extension hose if they turn out not to be compatible. With any luck both of those will arrive on Friday. If not, it will be another two weeks. We are also waiting on a cover for the outdoor grill.

When I finally got to work on my projects I started by installing the door latch/knob set for the utility closet. I then replaced a duplex outlet in the NNW wall of the garage with a GFCI outlet that would also protect all of the downstream outlets on that circuit. After completing the GFCI installation I discovered that I had installed it at the wrong point in the circuit. I turned off power to the circuit, removed the cover plates from all the outlets on the circuit, and disconnected all the wires to isolate each outlet. I turned the power back on and used my non-contact voltage sensor to find the supply wire. It was in a shallow single-gang box with three 12-2+g NM cables, so there was no way the GFCI was going to fit in there along with all the wires. I wired it up anyway and will get a box extender to create the needed space. The better solution would be to just install a GFCI circuit breaker for that circuit, and I may do that at some point, but I am trying to use up parts I have accumulated over many years of house projects rather than buy new ones.

Sister Marilyn and her sister Linda relaxing on the back deck and pretending to ignore the camera (and the photographer)..

Linda and Marilyn stopped at Meijer’s on the way back to the house and got home around 12:30 PM. We had lunch and then they worked in the kitchen using the new range to make a batch of granola and some apple crisp while I used that time to finish reassembling and testing the outlets in the garage. When I tested them the duplex outlet between the garage doors it did not have power. I thought it did when I checked earlier so perhaps the feed came loose from the upstream outlet. I think I know which outlet that is and recall having to attach one of the hot wires to the side terminal because the push-in connection wasn’t holding. Perhaps the other push-in slipped out. I will check that tomorrow.

When I was done with the outlets I took the cover off the sub-panel, removed the 240V/30A breaker I had previously installed for the radial arm saw, and replaced it with a 240V/15A breaker which is the correct size for that tool. I have the parts I need to install the outlet but I still need to pull the wire which was not on my project list for today. I put the birch plywood cover panel around the box and put the cover back on the box to hold it in place. My last electrical task for the day was to change the two fuses in the disconnect box for the new a-c compressor.

My next project was sanding drywall compound in several places and applying another coat, after which I cleaned up my tools and took a break. I started up my computer and had 1173 e-mails. 1100 of them were from 550 e-mail notifications to two different e-mail accounts resulting from failed login attempts against two of our websites. The brute force login attack has not succeeded, but this is starting to get annoying. I also had an e-mail from Bill confirming that he and Karen and two others would be coming to our house on Sunday for a visit and dinner. I suspected that the other two would be Mike and Kathy (Bill’s sister), which he confirmed later in the day.

Since I was in my work clothes I thought I would cut the grass but couldn’t get the lawnmower started. It’s been a year-and-a-half since we last used it so I was not surprised. I always use Sta-bil in my gasoline, but 18+ months is a long time. I added fuel to the tank but that didn’t help. It’s possible that the fuel I added had oil mixed in with it for small 2-cycle gas engine powered yard tools. If so, that only made matters worse. I put the mower away and will deal with it tomorrow, if I feel like it.

I turned my attention to the bus and removed the cover from the end of the Aqua-Hot to see if I could determine why the burner won’t ignite. I ran it through three start cycles but it would not fire. There appeared to be fuel flowing through the final filter but I had no way to know if it was an adequate flow and I could not see any other obvious reason why it would not start. I jiggled the spark ignition wires and made sure they were fully attached to the ignition coil, but that didn’t help. I also confirmed that there was no white smoke or diesel smell at the exhaust pipe, which really suggests that fuel is not getting sprayed through the nozzle. Stupid machine.

After the apple crisp was done baking Linda started working on dinner. She made a warm Farro pilaf with dried cranberries and roasted some Brussels sprouts. While the main meal cooked we had a kale-chard-spinach salad with sesame seeds, cranberries, and tomatoes and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. I really like the way we eat, and Marilyn also enjoyed the meal. She has been trying to make healthier food choices after seeing the results we have gotten.

After dinner I made a run to Lowe’s for a spark plug (for the lawnmower), electrical extender box, and a single gang Decora-style outlet cover plate. I stopped at the Shell station for some fresh gasoline and then at Meijer’s for a small towel rack. I had a quick chat with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m ham radio repeater while driving home. Linda and Marilyn were just finishing a game of Quadominoes when I arrived, after which we had the apple crisp they made earlier. Linda had warmed it up using the “warm” feature of the new oven. New tools are fun.

The sisters were both tired enough to turn in by 8:30 PM but decided to stay up a while longer. To stay awake they played Scrabble online with their brother in Pennsylvania. They called Ron to make sure he was online and then ganged up on him. Never underestimate the power of a nun and her sister.

The Phase Place

Welcome to the next phase (hosted by QTH.com)

Tag Archives: Farro pilaf with cranberries (WFPB)

2016/02/01 (M) – 2016/02/04 (R) Southwest Florida

2015/10/24 (S) Meghan and Chris

2015/08/02 (N) No Swap Sunday

2015/04/26-30 (N-R) Routine Returns

2015/01/22-26 (R-M) Q 2015 W4

2014/11/03-09 A Week at Home

2014/09/26 (F) Hope Is Not A Strategy