Tag Archives: fresh pineapple (WFPB)

2015/11/08 (N) SLAARC Elections

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Madeline was in bed last night at 8 PM and fell asleep quickly.  We were in bed before 10 PM.  Linda fell asleep right away and I put my iPad away and turned off the light at 10:30 PM.  Good thing, too, as Madeline started coughing at 5:30 AM.  Linda got up at 6 AM and brought her into our bed.  I don’t know if she ever fell back asleep but we all stayed there quietly enjoying the warmth of the covers until 7:30 AM, by which time the house was warming up.  Hurrah for programmable thermostats!

Being Sunday morning, and having Madeline here, we were in no hurry to get up, get dressed, or get busy.  Not that we had nothing to do, we just were not in a hurry to do anything.  Linda prepared baked French toast last night, with a little help from Madeline, and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.  She got up at 6:45 to pre-heat the oven and again at 7 to put the dish in to bake.

I got up at 7:30 and made coffee.  The downlight over the end of the counter where I make the coffee burned out last night so I replaced the bulb.  Linda set the table and took the French toast out of the oven at 8.  When she cut into it and served out pieces for each of us it was obvious that something was very wrong.  Instead of baked French toast we had inedible goo.  Linda has had very few recipe failures since we switched to a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) vegan diet but this one took first place.  She mentioned that it was a different recipe than she has used in the past and that she used an egg replacer she has not used before which did not seem to dissolve correctly last night.

Linda was willing to make vegan pancakes but I did not see any reason for her to go to that trouble.  We still had plenty of granola, part of a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, and fresh berries, all of which made for an easy but tasty breakfast.]

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

Madeline plays (at) the organ. It is one of her favorite “toys” at our house.

After breakfast I cleared the table and then read a book to Madeline while Linda cleaned off the dishes.  I turned on the fireplace and we drank our coffee in the living room while Madeline found various things to play with, ultimately ending up at the organ.

By 9:30 AM we were feeling like getting dressed.  I put in my work clothes and finally got to work in the bus at 10 after turning up the thermostats in the library, garage, and bus.  The first thing I needed to do was screw down the last/top layer of SurePly underlayment in the landing and driver area.  I used #6 SR (square recessed) self-drilling wood screws in three different lengths based on what was underneath the underlayment.  I chose to use screws rather than staples for several reasons.  The main one was that I needed the ability of the screws to pull things together.  The other reason was that I did not want to get the air compressor and stapler out for this relatively small number of fasteners.  (The SurePly underlayment for the main floor of the bus was stapled with approximately 350 staples per full 4’x8’ sheet.)

I pulled up the larger piece of SurePly one last time, measured the location of the boundary between the original bus floor and the new patch, marked the boundary on the top of the large piece, and put it back in place.  I carefully aligned the smaller piece to the stair edge and along the front and made sure the larger piece also fit correctly.  The smaller piece sits entirely on the new landing, which is 3/4″ plywood, so I secured it with 1″ screws, spacing them 2-to-3 inches apart along every edge and about 4 inches apart in the field.

The 1/2″ piece of plywood just forward of the driver’s seat was partially unscrewed and needed to be screwed back down.  Since it was installed over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I replaced the existing screws with 1-1/4″ screws and added more, especially along the edges.

To secure the larger piece I used 1-1/2″ screws over the patch, which was already about 1-1/4″ thick.  Over the original 1″ thick plywood bus floor I used the 1-1/4″ screws and over the 3/4″ thick landing I used 1″ screws.  I ran out of the 1″ length before I got the larger piece secured.  As much as I did not want to spend time driving around today I could not finish this task without the proper screws so around 11:15 AM I headed off to Lowe’s.  As long as I had to make the trip I looked for washers to space up the mounting bolts for the passenger seat pedestal base and nylon washers to go under the nut on the main mounting stud for the two swivel bases.  I found something that might work for the former but not the latter.

Linda and Madeline were getting ready to leave as I returned home just before noon.  Madeline was upset because Linda made her wear a sweater under her coat and she did not want to.  She is generally a cheerful and pleasant little girl but we never know when or why she is going to draw a line in the sand.  She doesn’t always or even usually get her way but she is persistent.  The tears, of course, are not the result of genuine injury and are usually quickly enough wiped away by focusing her attention on something else.  They finally pulled out of the driveway at 12:15 PM for an outing at Kensington Metropark.

I finished securing the larger piece of SurePly over the landing and then started on the next task.  I had decided to patch in an area at the end of the passenger platform where it drops down into the back of the driver area.  The area to be patched was only 12-3/4″ long and less than 4″ wide but the underlying metal was rounded over in this area and there wasn’t much I could use to attach new wood.  The area was also deep and not level.  I ended up making a sandwich with two layers of SurePly, two wood shins on top of those, and a piece of 3/4″ plywood on top.  I got all of the pieces cut and fitted and then marked them with pencil lines down the exposed edges to act as alignment marks.

I carefully assembled the sandwich upside down in the shop and screwed it together from the bottom.  I then put it in place in the bus and measured for a vertical piece with an angled rear edge to catch the outside edge of the patch and hold it up.  I secured the patch with one 1-1/2″ screw near the front and secured the vertical piece with one screw into the same piece of wood.

Building and installing this patch took a while and I was just finishing it when Linda and Madeline got home around 3:30 PM from their trip to Kensington Metropark.  By this time it was too late to start working on the underlayment for the passenger seat platform as I needed to stop working at 4 PM and get cleaned up for our amateur radio club meeting this evening.  With the little time remaining I unscrewed the top of the step and removed the two screws that held it to the rear and side walls of the co-pilot/navigator platform.  I then removed a half dozen flat head wood screws that held a piece of metal trim to the front edge of the platform.

The screws were rusted but came out.  The issue for my work was that the heads were not countersunk and stuck above the metal in a way that would interfere with installing the sheet of underlayment.  I used a 7/16″ drill bit to create tapered holes and may go back tomorrow and use my countersink bit.  I looked, but did have any appropriate screws to replace the ones I took out.  That meant another trip to Lowe’s which I could do after dinner on my way to the ham radio club meeting.

I put the two swivel pedestal/bases back in the landing and locked the bus.  I made sure everything was in the garage that needed to be and closed the overhead door.  I showered and shaved and put on clean clothes.  I then sat on the living room sofa with Madeline while Linda fixed dinner.  I worked on this post while Ms. M played games on Linda’s iPad.  It’s amazing to watch a 3-year old manipulate an iPad.  Their use of the touch screen is intuitive, which is cool, and it holds their attention in a way that other activities do not, almost to the point of obsession or addiction, which can border on troubling.  In spite of how much Madeline likes to eat, Grandma Linda had to gently take the iPad away and get her to come to the table for dinner.

As part of her food planning for this weekend Linda had picked up some mock turkey patties with gravy.  She also picked up some vegan heat-n-serve mac-n-cheese.  Those were the main course this evening along with a nice green salad and the rest of the fresh pineapple.  Dessert was going to be cake but I had to leave before it was served.

I left at 5:30 PM and drove to Lowe’s in New Hudson.  I monitored a QSO between Mike (W8XH) and Steve (N8AR) until Steve reached the meeting location in South Lyon.  I then called for Mike and we chatted until I reached Lowe’s.  I bought a box of 1-1/4′ long # 12 flathead wood screws and picked up three 40 W appliance light bulbs for the microwave in the house as the installed ones had burned out.

I got to the Witch’s Hat Depot at 6:35 PM so I had a chance to visit with my fellow hams before the meeting started at 7 PM.  Steve (N8AR) had a display set up with several different DC power meters he ordered off of EBay.  The business meeting was longer than usual because we had to elect officers for 2016.  The process was very smooth, surprisingly so actually, but still took 10 minutes.  The meeting was done by 7:20 after which the club president, Harvey (AC8NO), did a presentation on his Icom IC-7200 portable base station transceiver.

I was back home by 8:40 PM.  Madeline had already gone to bed so Linda and I had some quiet adult time to enjoy a cup of hibiscus tea.  We were both tired after long days of work and play but we did a lot today and felt good about the things we accomplished.

 

2015/11/07 (S) Measure One, Cut Twice 

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We were all up at 7 AM.  I got dressed and left at 7:25 AM for the SLAARC breakfast in South Lyon.  Linda and Madeline had toaster waffles and fresh berries for breakfast at home.  The main reason I went to breakfast was to talk with Larry (K8UT) about a plug-in for WordPress that he recently found and though I might want to use for the SLAARC website.  He purchased a five site license for the full version of a survey plug-in and was willing to donate one use to the ham radio club.

When I got home at 9:30 AM the girls were getting ready to leave.  Linda’s plan for the morning was to take Madeline to the Howell Public Library.  The library has a very nice play area for younger children and a good selection of children’s books.  Apparently they planned to be gone for a while because they had a bag packed with snacks and other things for an extended outing.  I changed into my work close and when they left I resumed working on the bus.

My first objective was to cut the final piece of SurePly underlayment for the entry landing and area under the driver’s seat.  It was a large and complex piece that took me a long time to lay out even using the piece that goes under the driver’s seat as a template.  When I finally had it cut and drilled with the holes for the seat mounting bolts I took it to the bus to see how it fit.  Unfortunately I could not get it in.  It had to go under something on the front and back and also had to fit around curves and angles, and it just was not physically possible to get it in place in one piece.  It was immediately obvious that I would have to cut the piece into two parts but not so obvious how best to do that.

Linda and Madeline returned about this time (12:30 PM) and I was ready for a break.  They brought in their “haul” from the library—eight books and five videos—and laid it out on the living room coffee table.  The play market that Madeline likes so much had been replaced by a play kitchen.  The librarian told Linda they rotate the playsets every three months to keep it interesting for the children.

After going to the library Linda drove to the Brighton Mill Pond so Madeline could play at the Playscape.  Linda reported that Madeline has figured out how to pump a swing and is able to keep it going once someone helps her get started.  As a special treat they went to the ice cream shop nearby and Ms. M got a scoop of ice cream.  She did not tell me what flavor, but she said it had sprinkles on it.

It was going on 1 PM and seemed like a good time to have lunch, so Linda made hummus sandwiches with sliced onion for us and hummus on bread for Madeline.  She washed off a big bunch of grapes and we all enjoyed some of those too.  After lunch I read one of the library books to Madeline and then Linda read her a different one.  At that point I excused myself and went back to work on the bus.

I pondered the situation with the piece of underlayment and finally saw what appeared to be a natural cut line.  After considering where the tile would go, however, I decided against it.  Unlike the tile on the main floor of the bus, which is installed on the bias, the grouted joint lines in the cockpit/entry are going to run straight fore-and-aft and side-to-side.  I was not sure, however, exactly where they would fall.  I needed to avoid having a grout line fall on a joint between two pieces of underlayment so I ended up cutting the piece that covers the landing at an angle.  This gave me a smaller piece that tucked under the center console on the dashboard and a larger piece that tucked under some metal trim behind the driver’s seat.  I was now able to get both pieces in but they did not fit properly.

I had used my last large piece of SurePly to make the original single piece, and it had taken me hours to do, so I did not want to remake it.  I made any trips between the bus and the garage/shop, trimming a little bit at a time and rechecking the fit, until I finally got the piece to fit correctly.  In the process the piece had changed enough that the smaller piece was now too small and could not be trimmed to fit.  I searched through my scrap pieces of SurePly and found one that was almost big enough to remake the smaller piece, but not quite.

It was now 3:30 PM, and I still had some good daylight to work by, so I secured the floor patch under the driver’s seat.  The patch consisted of a 1/4″ thick layer of SurePly with a 3/4″ thick layer of oak veneered plywood on top of it to make a 1″ thick piece.  The SurePly was screwed to the 3/4″ plywood from underneath.  With the patch in place I installed another piece of 1/4″ SurePly that covered the patch and extended out over the old surrounding wood, which was still sound, and filled in the area once occupied by a 1/2″ thick piece of plywood.  I used 1″ self-drilling screws to secure the top layer of SurePly to the underlying wood, slightly countersinking the heads and pulling the underlying patch up tight while pulling the SurePly down tight to the old wood.  I walked on it and it felt secure.  There will be one more layer of SurePly and a layer of tile before the seat base gets re-installed.  Bolting down the base will obviously pull everything down tight to the structure of the bus if it isn’t already.

Linda and Madeline spent part of the afternoon baking vegan cupcakes.  Linda usually makes chocolate ones but I requested white/vanilla ones this time.  She found a recipe that looked promising and used it.  They needed frosting to finish the cupcakes so they bundled up and went to Meijer’s.  They got back a little before 4 PM, frosting and sprinkles in hand.

I needed more SurePly to continue working, not that I was eager to; I had spent most of the day trying to make one stupid piece of wood and still wasn’t finished.  The temperature had been dropping all afternoon and it was down to 55 in the garage, which was open so I could go back-and-forth to the bus.  I still had the antique SUN distributor tester in my car and determined that I could not get 4’x8′ sheets of material in the car with the machine in there.  Linda and Madeline put on their shoes and coats and came outside so Linda could help me get the tester out of the car.  I then went to Lowe’s.

I had a nice QSO with David (W8DRD) from our ham radio club on the way to Lowe’s.  At the store I was struggling to get the SurePly off of the top of the stack, which was above my head at the limit of my reach.  A customer stopped and helped me which I appreciated.  I needed one sheet to finish the driver/landing area and get the piece I need for the passenger seat platform floor, but I bought two sheets just in case the various scraps I have are not large enough to do the walls of the passenger seat platform.

I was back home by 5 PM and unloaded the two sheets of SurePly.  I put one on the 2x4s across the sawhorses and the other one in the small bay with the other sheet materials.  Linda and Madeline put their shoes and coats on once again and came outside so Linda could help me load the distributor tester back into my car.  Linda said we would eat dinner around 6 PM so I started working on remaking the small piece for the front portion of the landing.

I used the original piece as a pattern for the edges that fit properly but cut it larger than needed for the edge that needed to match the other piece where I cut it into two parts.  After getting it trimmed to fit correctly on three sides I put the larger piece in place overlapping the smaller one and traced the edge on the smaller piece.  I took it back to the garage and used the clamp-on saw guide to get a clean, straight cut.  When I took it back to the bus and set it in place it fit.  Success at last.

By now it was dark and getting close to dinner time.  I decided to leave the securement of this last layer of SurePly until tomorrow when I was refreshed and had better light.  I had hoped to get this landing/driver floor finished today, as well as the floor for the passenger seat platform, but given the difficulties and frustrations of today I felt like I had ended at a good place.  I locked up the bus and closed the garage door on my way in.  I expect tomorrow to be another good day, but then if I didn’t, why would I bother?

I changed out of my work clothes and put on my sweats.  Dinner was vegan cheeseburgers with a vegetable medley on the side and fresh pineapple.  Dessert was vanilla frosted white cupcakes with sprinkles.  After clearing the table I interacted with Madeline while Linda cleaned up a few dishes.  She and Madeline then prepared the baked French toast, which has to sit overnight.  As promised, once all of the stuff was done we went to the basement and watched one of the Daniel Stripped Tiger videos.  When we had seen enough episodes we turned off the TV set and went upstairs.  Madeline got into her pajamas and went to bed.  I put a load of laundry into the washing machine and then settled in to my usual evening routine.  I pulled the laundry out of the dryer at 9:45 PM and we turned in for the night at 10 PM.