Tag Archives: LaMarsa (Brighton MI)

2014/09/27 (S) Eat Cut Eat

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Today was VE testing day for our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club so some of the members, who conduct the volunteer examinations, got to breakfast even earlier than usual.  We had a good crowd and many simultaneous conversations.  After breakfast we drove to Ann Arbor to return the charger for the baby monitor.  It got left at our house yesterday when Linda took Madeline home.  Madeline was dressed in her Michigan colors with a blue T-shirt and maize skirt.  She gave me a tour of her backyard and toys and then we all went inside to visit for a while.  Linda and I each got to read a book to her which is always a treat for us.  We all had things to do, and we wanted to get out of town before the football game traffic clogged the streets, so we headed home before lunchtime.

Back at the house Linda straightened up and vacuumed, put together a grocery list, and then went to Meijer’s (grocery store) while I finished cutting the grass around the house.  It took me a couple of more hours, but between yesterday and today I managed to cut all of the newly planted grass and some of the more mature grass close to the house.

It was another pleasantly warm late September day and I used that as an opportunity to start the main engine on the bus.  I let it run for a while with the over-the-road air-conditioning turned on to put a load on it and bring it up to operating temperature, which helps drive off moisture.  Linda got home with groceries while the bus was running and I helped her get those into the house.

I let the bus run on high idle for about 30 minutes with the over-the-road air-conditioning on, which brought the coolant temperature up to its normal operating level.  The oil also warmed up, but not fully.  Before shutting the engine off I backed the bus up about 5 feet to rotate the tires to a different spot.  I turned the a-c off, dropped the idle to low, and let it run another 5 minutes, during which time I drained the auxiliary air tank.  I then switched the suspension system from ride mode to Level Low mode and turned off the engine.  As usual, I turned off the chassis batteries, shut off the auxiliary air to the air-powered engine accessories, and closed the shutoff valves for all of the air accessory circuits in the bay under the driver’s seat, except the circuit for the toilet.  (Yes, the bus has an air-powered toilet.)

I put a load of laundry in the washer and then spent some time at my desk checking e-mail and websites.  I had an e-mail from Gary regarding an article in the upcoming September 2014 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine.  They decided to run my article on the Parker FPM-50 Fuel Polishing Module project and wanted me to proofread it and respond to a few suggested markups.  I worked long enough for the washer to finish, moved the laundry to the dryer, and then shaved and took a shower.  By the time Linda finished her shower my hair was dry enough to cut, which it really needed.  We then got dressed to go out to dinner.  I checked the dryer but it was taking longer than I expected and clearly would not be done before we had to leave for the restaurant.

We had arranged at breakfast to meet Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (NF8C) Whitney for dinner at LaMarsa in Brighton at 6:30 PM.  Bruce and I both had mango smoothies (dairy free) and we got a veggie tray with hummus to share as an appetizer.  Although two dishes would have been plenty of food for the four of us, Linda (NF8C) wanted to sample their offerings.  There are basically four dishes on the menu we can eat so we ordered one of each.  Each came with soup so we all had the crushed lentil soup.  We had Koshary, Majadra, Ghallaba (garlic almond) and Mousaka (baked eggplant).  (We did not get the spicy version of any of these.)  It took the waitress a while to catch on to the fact that we were not going to order the whole meal at one time, but by ordering our courses one at a time we managed to spend a long time at dinner and had a great chat.

Back home I the set dryer on “Touch Up” and restarted it.  I proof read my BCM article and e-mailed clarifications to the editor and publisher.  I spent enough time on e-mail and websites for the dryer to finish, hung up the clothes, and played with my iPad for a little while.  I was tired enough that I just turned in for the night and did not even work of the blog or play games.  That’s pretty tired.

 

2014/09/13 (S) Overnight Guest

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Linda’s sister, Sister Marilyn, called a couple of days ago to let us know she would be in the Detroit area on business this weekend.  She wanted to know if we could fetch her this afternoon and if she could spend the night at our house?  The answer was “of course,” of course.  Her flight out wasn’t until Sunday evening, so Linda put the gears in motion and arranged a brunch with the local family for 10 AM tomorrow.

Being Saturday, we went to our ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon.  Before leaving our neighborhood we drove to the other end of the street (dead end with turn-around) to see where the gas hookup crew left off yesterday.  We knew they were working down there today because we saw the trucks leave sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 PM last night.  There’s a chance they will be back today and we wanted to see how close they were to connecting our house to the main line.  It looked like they had quite a few houses to do ahead of ours, so we went to breakfast.

We got home around 10:30 AM to find a crew working in our yard trenching in the branch line to our house.  I was told yesterday they were going to bore it in, so something obviously did not get communicated.  Not only that, they were running a 5/8″ line, which was way too small for the 425 meter we are supposed to get.  I stopped the crew and the guy in charge pulled out his paperwork.  It had “425” written on it big letters, but the drawing showed a 5/8″ line.  He agreed that the 5/8″ line was way too small for that meter and that we should have 1.25″ line.  They pulled the little bit of line they had already run out of the ground, raked out some of the dirt they had already trenched, and moved their machine across the street to trench our neighbors yard.

We were lucky we got home when we did.  They had already cut through some tree roots that did not need to be disturbed and would have torn up a lot more of our yard unnecessarily if I had not interrupted their work.  They were nice about it, but I still found it troublesome that I had spoken to two different supervisors face-to-face about this, one as recently as yesterday, but this crew showed up and did something different than what I had been told, and agreed, would be done.

I was finally going to try to remove the fogged window from the bus today, but we had a lot of rain overnight and woke to overcast skies, temperatures in the upper 40’s, and a forecast high of 57 degrees F with a strong chance of rain through mid-afternoon.  That was not the sort of weather for removing a window from a vehicle parked outside.  Besides, with Marilyn arriving mid-late afternoon I did not want to work on anything messy and then have to get cleaned up.

Linda looked up the kitchen ranges we had been considering.  The GE 30″ 5-burner double-oven convention model (JGB870DEFWW) was on sale again at Lowe’s for $180 off MSRP and we would get another 5% off the sale price by using our Lowe’s credit card.  If we ordered it today delivery would be September 27, longer than I would like, but it is what it is.  We have to order this range because Linda wants a white one to match all of the other appliances in the kitchen and the appliance stores do not tend to stock white ranges with the features we want.  I called our local Lowe’s store and confirmed the free delivery and take away of our current range.  Installation is $20 plus a new flex gas line for $30.

I called TOMTEK HVAC and got hold of Tom.  He seemed put off by the fact that I have someone else doing HVAC work at the house and will have the natural gas already tied in when he comes to convert the main house furnace from propane to natural gas, but he said he would check with Weil-McLain on Monday about what parts he needs to do the conversion.  While on the phone with Tom he suggested that we try D. R. Electric Appliance Sales and Service in Howell for our new gas range.  We looked them up on the web and got their (incorrect) phone number and hours.  I got the correct number from 411 before I realized that it was also on their website.  They closed at 2 PM on Saturdays, so we didn’t make it there today, but I called and got an answering machine, left my name, number, and the reason for the call.  Curt called me back a short time later.  I gave him the model number and he said he would call G.E. on Monday.  He said he had been holding off ordering G.E. appliances waiting for Columbus Day sale pricing.  He figured he would have the range three days from ordering and could probably install it at the end of the week or early next.  They charge $25 for installation and haul away, and $25 for the new flex gas line if we need one, so it’s the same $50 as Lowe’s.  (Lowe’s assured me that they were REQUIRED to install a new flexible gas line.)  That all sounded good depending on the price of the range.  Getting it sooner has some dollar value to us, we’re just not sure how much.

I stayed home while Linda went to Meijer’s for groceries.  Finding the crew in our yard this morning doing work they were no supposed to be doing spooked me enough to not want to leave the house unattended the rest of the day.  As long as I was stuck at home, I called Bratcher Electric to give them a heads up that the gas connection to the house was imminent.  Being Saturday I got their answering machine and left a message.  I also called Darryll at DCM Heating & Cooling and left a message regarding the gas connection.  Once the meter is hung and connected everything else depends on Darryll getting his piece done first.

We checked the website for Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting in Howell and saw a 10% off coupon, so I printed that.  I wanted to go there today and buy a set of high-efficiency vent-free natural gas fire logs but it will probably be tomorrow afternoon instead.  These logs are more efficient than a typical kitchen range and are designed to be used with the fireplace flue closed, throwing most of the heat they produce into the room instead of up the chimney.  Darryll said he would hook it up for us and add a shutoff valve when he came back to tie in to the gas meter, so we need to have it here before he comes back next week.

Marilyn called and said their flights were running a little behind schedule and that Linda should pick her up around 3 PM rather than 2:30 PM as originally planned.  She called back again and said 3:15 PM would be better.  Linda got back from the grocery store and we had a quick lunch of leftover Sloppy Joe’s.

With overnight lows in the 40’s, highs only in the mid-50’s, and the connection of our natural gas somewhat imminent, we decided we could afford to use propane to heat the house.  We have been conscious of our propane use because we did not want to get in a position where we needed to have either of the tanks filled.  I turned the furnace on and set all the thermostats a few degrees above ambient to take the chill off.

While Linda drove over to Lake Orion, Michigan to fetch Marilyn I decided to work at my desk selecting photos for gallery posts on the garage/HVAC project and natural gas work, and worked a little bit on the websites for the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches and Freethinkers chapters.  I really need to have the GLCC site usable in the next three weeks and the FTH site within a month of that. That sounds ambitious even as I write it down and I suspect it won’t happen.

Linda and Marilyn got to the house around 4:30 PM and after we got Marilyn settled in her bedroom we just sat and relaxed and talked for a while.  We thought she might appreciate a good home-cooked meal but we ended up taking her to LaMarsa for dinner.  She had the Koshary, which we had last night, and we split an order of garlic almond vegetable Ghallaba with green salad and crushed lentil soup.  We all ate way too much pita bread with garlic spread and were uncomfortably full by the time we finished our meal, but it was delicious and we did not have to prepare it or clean up afterwards.

These days twilight now comes around 7 PM and it was dark by the time we got home at 8 PM.  I made a pot of decaf coffee and we settled in the living room for a long chat.  I set the thermostats back before we turned in for the evening as all three of us prefer to sleep in a cool room.

 

2014/09/12 (F) Posted

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Linda was up very early to try and beat the morning rush inbound to Detroit from the northwest.  I took an Ibuprofen and went back to bed, finally getting up at 7 AM.  1-800-PACK-RAT was scheduled to pick up the 16 foot long storage container we have had in our driveway for the last two months and I wanted to be up and dressed when they arrived.  I did not have any problems with my teeth overnight.  They felt OK this morning but the upper right was still a bit sensitive to biting pressure.  I had a nice soft banana for breakfast and decided to keep taking the Ibuprofen and Tylenol.

I put a load of laundry in the washer and then ran out to take care of errands.  I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee, Lowe’s for solar salt for the water softener, and then Teeko’s for coffee beans.  Jeff still did not have the Sweet Dreams decaf blend even though he orders it every week.  I got a pound of the Seattle Blend 50/50 regular/decaffeinated, and a pound of regular Brazilian Serra Negra to blend with the decaffeinated beans we already had at home.

Heather, from Root Canal Specialty Associates, called around 9 AM to check on me.  I mentioned the sensitivity and she said that was normal and to keep taking the Ibuprofen/Tylenol through the weekend to counteract any inflammation and/or discomfort.  She wanted to know if I thought the temporary filing was high and making contact before the other teeth.  I wasn’t sure, but she said if it was to call them Monday morning and they would get me in to adjust my bite.

Since I was on the phone anyway I called Bratcher Electric to see about the quote/estimate for the generator service / fuel changeover and the service entrance feed from the transfer switch to the sub-panel to change it into a main panel.  They have been very busy with repairing damage caused by the storms of the last few weeks.  We did not suffer any damage beyond some dead branches breaking off from trees, but south of us folks were hit much harder.  That kind of work always takes priority.

The day was overcast and dreary with morning temps in the mid-40’s and a high of 54, but that was OK; it was a perfect day for sitting at a desk and working on a computer, undistracted by either bad or gorgeous weather.  I did, however, bring my computer upstairs and work at Linda’s desk.  My office is very nice but it is in the basement and it is a bit of a cave.  Sometimes I like that, and sometimes I don’t.  I worked on our blog until early-midafternoon and finally uploaded posts from Aug 2 through Aug 20.

My only interruption was a visit from one of Roese Construction’s field supervisors who was checking on where the runs will go to connect the houses in our neighborhood to the natural gas main.  After looking at our situation he agreed with me and Mel who had looked at this a few weeks ago, that staying to the east of the east entrance to our pull-through driveway made the most sense even through it required them to bore at an angle relative to the main line.  That conversation confirmed that they will be horizontal boring the branch line rather than trenching it in.  He did not give me a firm date, but it sounded like it could be as early as tomorrow (Saturday) and likely by Tuesday next week.

My computer battery was down to under 1 hour of charge remaining, so I took it downstairs and plugged it back in to its power supply.  While I was down there I put another load of laundry in the washing machine.  Back upstairs I made a PB&J sandwich for lunch, along with some green tea.  I got back on the RVillage Mobile development site, played with a few more features, and provided some additional feedback to the development team.  I then worked on this post using my new Logitech Bluetooth keyboard.  The Wacom Bamboo stylus is nice, but the keyboard is the way to go when creating extended text.

Juniper, our female cat, was getting into something in the library so I went to investigate.  She had cornered a yellow jacket and was trying to figure out what to do with it.  I solved the problem for her by capturing it and putting it outside.  I don’t think she was pleased with my solution, but not 20 minutes later she was at it again, and it was another yellow jacket.  We have a nest in the soffit near the library that we need to get rid of, but we have not had a problem with them getting into the house until very recently.  Hopefully that has not changed but I will have to investigate the situation.  It may be that with the onset of cooler temperatures they are finding their way into the library through the recessed ceiling downlight cans.  If so, there’s really no good way to seal those.  Fortunately we can close of the house from the library with a kitchen door and a living room doorwall that includes a screen door.

It started raining very lightly around 4 PM, but never developed into anything.  Linda got home from the bakery at 5:30 PM.  The storage container had not been picked up yet so we called the 1-800 number and left a message with our callback number.  I got a call around 6 PM from the local (Plymouth, MI) office verifying the pickup and address.  The driver arrived around 7:20 PM and had the unit loaded by 7:30 PM.  After he left we headed to dinner at LaMarsa where we had crushed lentil soup and split an order of Koshary and salad.  Even splitting the dish we both ate too much, aided by the fresh-baked pocket bread and garlic spread.   The food and service were both excellent, as always, and the garlic spread was “…the gift that keeps on giving.”

We got back from dinner a little before 9 PM, too late to start any in-depth computer work, but early enough for me to finish this post and for Linda to do some recipe research for Sunday’s brunch.  It seems like only yesterday it was still light at 10 PM at night, but we are approaching the autumnal equinox, and there are noticeably fewer hours of daylight now.