Tag Archives: hummus

2015/05/27 (W) The Root of all Things

Leave a reply

Yesterday I used up the last of the coffee beans that Jeff at Teeko’s shipped to us in Quartzsite in late February so this morning I transferred the beans we had roasted last week into our airtight containers and started using them.  Grinding our own custom roasted coffee beans is how my mornings usually start and is just another small thing I like about being retired.

We rarely made coffee at home in the morning when we were employed outside the house.  It took too much time and made a mess that had to be cleaned up later, including the travel mug that we had to remember to rinse out at work and then bring home.  Besides, Linda got free unlimited coffee and tea at the office and I found it easier to stop at Panera and get a large coffee to go; half hazelnut and half decaf.  It was part of my morning routine that I found comforting and the cup was disposable when I was done.

I had a follow-up appointment and evaluation at the endodontist today, so I did not work in the bus this morning other than to take a few pictures of the old dinette corner, where I removed the mirrors yesterday, and the area under the bed, which I also worked on yesterday.

After morning coffee and breakfast I went to my office to work at my computer.  I off-loaded the pictures I just took, selected a few, processed them, and copied them to the folder for this blog.  I then downloaded and installed Adobe FlashPlayer in order to view the Gilbreath Upholstery Service website.  The download also installed a McAfee virus checker that I did not ask for or want and I don’t recall being given an option to opt-out.  I really dislike it when programs do things like that.  In fact, I think it should be illegal and companies who do it should be subject to heavy fines.  I tried to download the PDF catalog but Adobe Reader said it had an unrecoverable error.  Arrrgh!  I e-mailed them to request one that worked.  We will see if that results in anything.

I was responding to a few e-mails when Butch called.  He was trying to figure out the best way to connect up the eight L-16 6 VDC batteries he bought in Quartzsite to make a 24 VDC battery bank with a 12 VDC center tap.  Working only from verbal descriptions we finally ended up with the same diagram of a series-parallel interconnection scheme with equal electrical path lengths through all of the batteries.  The difference between series-parallel and parallel-series is not important when the batteries are operating correctly but each connection scheme is vulnerable to a different battery failure mode.  I happen to prefer the series-parallel scheme as I think it results in better battery charging, but that’s an often debated subject.  The equal path lengths through the batteries, however, is something that is worth accomplishing if at all possible.

By the time we were done talking I needed to leave for my endodontist appointment.  Dr. McWatters said the root canal they did on my upper right rear (tooth #4) last September looked good.  They tested the upper rear teeth on my left side but did not find any indication of a problem.  That would normally be good news, except that I had an intermittent problem in that area all winter so I know something is wrong and will eventually require attention, most likely when it is least convenient for me (middle of the night on a weekend).  But for now there is nothing more to do.

hen I got home I had a few pretzels and hummus and some red grapes and then got back to work at my desk.  I copied my blog post drafts for the 17th through the 26th from e-mails to Word and started editing them.  I took a break to have some tea and write while Linda cooked dinner.  She grilled two veggie burgers along with the rest of the asparagus we bought on Sunday and served the potato salad she made earlier in the day.  Most of the asparagus was mushy except for the tips which I attributed to the plants not the cook.  These were very large purple stalks, not the usual somewhat thinner green ones so maybe that had something to do with it.

After dinner I returned to my desk and finished editing all of my blog posts for May 10 through 26.  Somewhere in the middle of that work Phil Jarrell returned my phone call from yesterday.  We agreed that I will call him back after the GLAMARAMA Rally and he will bring his laser level and we will shoot some elevations.  With a little luck and a bit of perseverance we may get a gravel driveway connecting the 3rd (westernmost) culvert to our concrete driveway with a level spot for one or two guest RVs to boondock. We will also get a dozen tree stumps removed, get a French drain installed to remove water from the western end of the property, and get a hole dug for a ham radio tower foundation.  That last bit of digging will also require a rebar cage, hinged tower base, and coordination with a supplier that can pump concrete immediately after the hole is dug.

When I was done editing my blog posts I logged into our WordPress site, deleted 181 spam comments, and installed an update for our Fast Secure Contact Form plugin.  I started creating the post for May 10 but half way through the Chrome browser became non-responsive indicating that it might be out of memory.  That seemed unlikely, but I closed all of the program’s I had open, shut down my computer, and restarted it.  When I logged back in nothing was responding so I sat and waited until I was eventually able to do things.  The first thing I did was uninstall the McAfee Security Scan app that got installed along with the Adobe FlashPlayer earlier today.  I then proceeded to download three updates for Windows and MS Office, or tried to.

The three updates were only 27 MB total, but after 35 minutes they were only 53% done.  My guess was that the data rate on our AT&T “High Speed Internet” (DSL) connection had slowed to a barely usable trickle, perhaps because of all the rain we had the last few days, but whatever the cause it was almost midnight so I left it to finish at its own pace and went to bed.  I worked on this post and played a few games by which time it 12:45 AM so I got up, put on my robe, and went back to my office.  The download had finished and two of the three updates had installed.  The third one reported an error but Windows Update needed the computer to be restarted to finish the installation so that’s what I did.

Windows updates normally install during shutdown and finish installing on startup and that is precisely what happened this time as well.  I let the system startup completely (until the hard drive light was not on) and then downloaded, installed, and ran the latest version of CCleaner.  It downloaded much faster so maybe it was the Microsoft update server that was slow, or perhaps the McAfee app was causing the problem.

We had rain yesterday and more rain today, including some thunder.  The lights flickered a few times both days but the generator never came on.  If out Internet performance is still sluggish in the morning I will reset the AT&T gateway and see if that helps.  I also noticed that our home refrigerator was suddenly showing 45 degrees F instead of 40.  Linda had loaded it up with food yesterday, and added the potato salad today, but the temperature should not have changed by that much and should have returned to the 40 degree set point within a few hours.  Even adjusting the thermostat down did not rectify the problem over the course of the day so perhaps something else has changed, such as a blocked vent.  I will have to check for that tomorrow.  Hopefully the power blips did not blip some control circuit.  I think I will pull the fridge away from the wall and cycle the power.  We can vacuum off the back while it is out.  If it still won’t hold the temperature we want Linda might get a new refrigerator for the house sooner than expected, although a call to AAA Appliance Service Network in Howell might a more prudent first response.

2014/09/30 (T) To Indiana

Leave a reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2014/09/19 (F) Renewed Acquaintance

Leave a reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

2024/07/22 (T) A Quiet Day At Home

Leave a reply

We ran the air-conditioner all day yesterday and well into the evening.  It cooled off into the mid-upper 60’s overnight so we turned the A-C off when we got up this morning and opened up the house.

Ron and Mary were mostly packed before breakfast.  We all had some of Linda’s yummy homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast and everyone agreed it was superior to any store-bought granola they had ever had.  We visited until 9 AM and then helped them load their car for the trip back to Pennsylvania after an all-to-short visit.  Still, it was nice to see them for the time they were here and they got to see our grand-daughter for the first time and chat briefly with our children.  They had a nine hour drive ahead of them, plus or minus, depending on traffic, construction zones, and number/length of stops.  The day was forecast to be sunny and very warm, with a high temperature at our house of 90 degrees F, but with no precipitation along their route.

Only one landscaper (Spencer) showed up this morning around 10 AM.  Steve had some hand work for him to do.  I checked to see that he had water and he assured me that he brought plenty to drink.  With the outside air temperature rising, we closed the house up and turned the A-C on.

We were both surprisingly tired but wanted to get something useful accomplished today.  Linda worked at her desk while I cleaned the concrete driveway leading up to the garage from the street.  The landscapers have been using the driveway to stage some of their bulk materials such as crushed limestone and egg rock.  They got all of that material moved to other parts of the yard over the weekend but there was a layer of dust, small rocks, and other debris left behind.  I swept most of it off the driveway with a large push broom and then finished the job with a leaf blower.

There was a lot of crushed limestone left so over the weekend I had Steve push it into a 8′ wide by 15′ long parking pad 4″ – 6″ deep off the west side of the driveway and adjacent to the woods that run along the road.  The pad still had tracks in it from the excavator treads so I raked those out, filled in some dirt around the edges of the pad, and tamped the edges down.  The pull-through driveway from the front stairs to the concrete driveway was also rutted from the Bobcat front-loader being driven on it so I raked that out as best I could.  By the time I was done it was noon, it was hot, and I was sweaty and thirsty.  I decided I’d had enough for the day, closed up the storage container and garage, came in, and drank a bottle of ICE brand water.  This water is lightly carbonated and lightly fruit flavored, and I find it very refreshing.

I had a phone message yesterday from Darryll of DCM Heating and Cooling with some information I needed in order to prepare the corner of the garage for the library HVAC unit.  There were a few things I still needed to know, so I put in another call to him and left a message.  For lunch Linda served the left over salads from last night’s dinner along with hummus and chips.  We sat on the back deck for a while enjoying the slight cooling effect of a warm summer breeze, but eventually went back inside to escape the heat.

We did not do much the rest of the day.  I apparently broke our grandfather clock on Monday while winding it and spent a little time looking for information online.  I found a Sligh manual that included some troubleshooting tips but did not get as far as trying to diagnose and fix the problem.  We were both tired and took naps in the late afternoon.  That was unusual for us but could easily become part of our daily routine, especially on hot days like we had today.

I worked on bus barn drawings while Linda prepared dinner.  I then called John to see if I could borrow his chop saw and if he had time to look at the drawings.  Linda went along and visited with Diane.  We stayed until almost 10 PM.

 

2014/03/22 (S) WiFi Ants

Leave a reply

No, not WiFi Antennas; WiFi and ants, which I will get to later.

Saturday morning the refrigerator temperature was 40 degrees F.  I moved the remote wireless thermometer to the freezer compartment and left it until it settled in around 5 degrees F.  The refrigeration system, including the controls, appeared to be working.  Linda retrieved most of our frozen food and a few fresh things.  We partially restocked the fridge and I set the thermostat a bit lower.  Linda made a tofu scramble to use up some of the fresh ingredients, in case the problem returned.  Yum.

I checked my e-mail and found several dozen post replies and a few messages from RVillage.  We both played with RVillage for a while and I reported another bug.  I also had a message from the WiFi Ranger technical support team indicating that they had successfully uploaded a patch to our WFR MobileTi and switched it to a PRO feature set.  They wanted me to try logging in to the resort WiFi system and let them know if it worked.  I followed their instructions, and it did!  Finally, success!!!  I got back on their support forum to let them know and thanked them for their persistence in identifying and correcting the problem.

As best I understand it, the problem was not a bug in their firmware but rather a design assumption they made that an RV park WiFi system would never be a class 2 network.  Based on that assumption they were doing using IP addresses to connect to other WFR devices (WFR Go) in a way that conflicted with the class 2 network operating in our RV resort. WiFi Ranger thinks the chance of us running into this again is very small (unless we come back here, in which case it’s 100%).  This may, in fact, be the only RV park where we will ever encounter this.

I do not understand all of the details, but essentially a class 2 network has 2^16 (65,536) available IP addresses. That’s a LOT of IP addresses and made me wonder if the resort WiFi system is actually part of a much larger network, perhaps for the city of Williston or even for all of Levy County.  The “explanation” the network technician gave me some weeks ago was that our WiFi Ranger, being a repeater/router, was simply “not a supported device” as a matter of park policy and he was unable (unwilling) to give me any assistance with it even though he admitted knowing what it was and having  set them up before.  He could have just told me they were running a class 2 network and that it might have something to do with my problem, but he withheld that information.

The “logic” behind his explanation of the park policy was that we could “hide” data-intensive devices behind our system, such as streaming-video, gaming consoles, or even a web-server.  That was nonsense, of course.  If the concern was data-transfer, the network could simply monitor and control that at an IP address level.  When I indicated that one of the reasons for our router was to put our devices (and data transfers) behind an encrypted hardware firewall, he told me the WiFi system connection to the Internet was encrypted, as if that was somehow equivalent.  It’s not.  The connection between the resort WiFi system and the WiFi client devices is NOT encrypted, and thus open and viewable to someone intent on doing so.  Unless people are using secure applications, such as most banking software, their WiFi connection is vulnerable.  This is true of any system that does not require you to enter a WPA or other “key,” including the free WiFi at places like Panera Bread.

We have had good Verizon 4G/LTE service here, so getting online has not been a problem, but if that had not been the case we would have been in a really bad situation.  I was anxious to get this resolved while we were still here so they could test possible solutions on a network known to have this problem.

With computer tasks taken care of, we turned our attention to fixing the roof leak.  As we were setting up the Little Giant folding step/extension ladder we noticed ants traveling up and down the cable TV wire.  Yikes!  The cable runs into the bus through a small window by the driver’s seat.  We had used Frog Tape to seal up the opening against the weather, but it was not ant proof.  We checked inside but did not see any ants where the cable came in.  Closer inspection outside revealed them moving up and down along a body seam and horizontally along the floor line just above the bay doors on the driver side of the coach.  We quickly disconnected the TV cable (we don’t use it anyway because the analog signal in the park is not very good) and closed the little window.  Dealing with the ants, however, would have to wait.

Linda packed all of the tools and supplies I needed for the roof repair into a bag that I carried up with me.  The repair was simple enough; use the small caulk gun to apply Dicor self-leveling lap sealant around and up onto all four sides of the Fan-Tastic vent fan base.  This Dicor product is universally used in the RV industry for just this purpose.  It is not “runny” like water but it does flow, especially when warm, just enough to do what its name suggests, flowing into cracks, crevices, and small holes as it smooths out.  It eventually sets up and forms a skin, but remain pliable.  Rain is forecast starting late Sunday and running through the coming week, so we will find out then if I have fixed the problem.  The real problem, of course, is that the fan base is probably not installed properly.  The correct fix would be to remove it and reinstall it, but that was not going to happen sitting here in the RV resort.

Now for the Ants!  These were, thankfully, small black ants and not fire ants, which are a widespread and serious problem here in Florida.  We hooked up a spray nozzle and tried to flush as many of them away as we could.  It’s not that we wanted to harm even these tiny creatures, but we are not willing to share our home on wheels with them.  They are tenacious, and hung on tight or hunkered down in the nearest available crack.  Linda walked to the Grocery Depot and bought a can of ant spray that I applied to the concrete pad around the bus tires as best I could and on/around the electrical and water shorelines and the waste water drain hose.  Later I went to ACE Hardware, bought a couple of boxes of Borax, and used them to establish a defensive perimeter around the coach.  This is a treatment for ants that we have come across in numerous different forums.  The coming rains will wash it away so it will have to be reapplied.

We had a light/early dinner of hummus and pita chips, went for a walk, and then eventually headed to the fire pit with our customary glasses of wine.  John played the guitar and sang for hours, often joined by the group that had gathered.  We were they again until quiet time at 10 PM, at which time John stopped playing and we turned off the lights.  We still had a small fire and I continued to coax flames out of it for a while longer.  Kevin builds the initial fire and lights it, and John was the backup fire tender, but since he is usually playing his guitar I have assumed responsibility for tending the fire.