Tag Archives: Lowe’s (New Hudson MI)

2015/11/08 (N) SLAARC Elections

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.

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.

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

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We missed our ham radio club breakfast last week because we were at an RV rally and we plan to be at another rally three weekends from now so in spite of all the work we still have to do on the bus we went to breakfast in South Lyon. After breakfast we went to the Lowe’s in New Hudson, which is close to South Lyon, and bought a Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander. The sander is small enough to get into corners but has an integral dust collection bag. The bag can be removed for sanding in really tight spots, but it cuts down on airborne dust while sanding and reduces the amount of cleanup afterwards. We have several other Porter-Cable power tools and I am generally pleased with them.

Back at the house we took care of a few chores and then got to work on the bus. Linda continued working on stripping the old wallpaper behind the sofa while I pondered for a while about what to do before deciding to concentrate on rebuilding the landing at the top of the entry stairs. This landing is where the pneumatic entry stairwell slide cover was installed. Without all of that “stuff” in place the last step up to the landing was now too short and the step up to the copilot level was too tall. More importantly, the step heights were all different, and would be a built in trip hazard if not corrected.

I determined that the 2.5″ wide poplar boards installed on edge with a 3/4″ thick plywood floor and a top layer of 3/16″ SurePly underlayment would match the top surface of the plywood in the driver’s area. That would (should), in turn, allow me to install the new vinyl floor tiles so they bridge that seam. I will have to reuse the plywood in the driver’s area, but worst case that will require using adhesive remover followed by floor patching compound and sanding before installing the tiles.

The landing was not “square” (of course) so I made and rechecked measurements several times. I then built a four-sided frame that fit snugly and had the front board aligned with the face of the plastic riser. I am going to tile the steps and I am not going to use underlayment so I needed these surfaces as aligned and flat as possible. I will probably use floor patching compound, however, to fill the gaps before installing the tile. I used screws to secure the frame to the adjacent vertical wood that forms the riser to the copilot level and to the base of the landing with angle brackets.

I needed a piece of 3/4″ plywood approximately 31-1/8″ x 27-5/8″ for the new landing as the old piece I took out was not in good shape and I did not want to reuse it. I did not have any other 3/4″ plywood pieces that were large enough so I went to Lowe’s. They did not have 3/4″ half sheets (4′ x 4′) but I bought some more angle brackets while I was there. I then went to The Home Depot. They also did not have 3/4″ half sheets, but they had full sheets of 23/32″ sanded plywood that looked like it would work and a nice panel saw with an employee available to operate it. I waited while he built a complete set of closet shelving for a couple and engaged in some domestic counseling. He then cut the plywood sheet into two 4′ x 4′ pieces and helped me load them into a cart. I was able to get them into my Honda Element by myself and close the back hatches. I had a nice QSO with Steve (N8AR) on the drive home via the South Lyon 2m amateur radio repeater.

Linda had long since finished working on the wallpaper and busied herself in the kitchen preparing collard greens Cole slaw and vegan potato salad. It was somewhere between late afternoon and early evening but I still had enough light to work outside. Linda was still busy cooking so I decided to go ahead and try to cut the plywood for the new landing. Again, it was not a rectangle, i.e., an equiangular quadrilateral (four right angles and four sides with opposing sides parallel and equal in length) so getting the shape exactly right was tricky.

I determined that the right front corner, as viewed from the entry steps, was a right angle, or close enough to one to provide a known starting point. I put the plywood on 2″x4″s on the flat in the driveway to elevate them so I could clamp a saw guide in place and provide clearance for the saw blade. I measured the lengths of all four edges as best I could and placed the right front corner at a factory corner of one of the 4′ x 4′ pieces. I marked the length of the right side and the front on the two factory edges. The left side was longer than the right side and the rear side was longer than the front side so I marked arcs for the left and rear lengths and found their point of intersection. If the right front corner was, in fact, a right angle them this had to result in the correct shape. The key word in that last sentence is “if.”

I tried to confirm my layout by measuring the lengths of the diagonals on the plywood and on the bus but I could not get accurate measurements in the bus. I triple-checked my measurements and layout then marked the guide lines for the setback on my circular saw; 6-5/8″ to the inside edge of the teeth on the blade. Truth be told I initially marked the guide lines on the wrong side of the cut. I started to adjust my guide board to the outside of the blade and then thought better of the idea. The guide needed to be set up so that if the blade wandered off course it would cut into waste material rather than the finished piece. I re-measured and marked the guide lines in the proper place, checked their location with my small square, checked with the saw, made minor adjustments, and finally made the first of two cuts. I then repeated all of that and made the second cut. When I set the piece in place in the bus it was a perfect fit. I was so pleased that I had Linda come out to see it. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

I like to quit on a high note so that was the end of our bus work for today. We did not make dramatic progress but we kept moving and got things done that needed doing. My work today involved a certain amount of pondering and on-the-fly engineering combined with careful, repeated measuring and accurate cutting. This kind of work is never fast.

A beautiful sunset had developed, which meant it was getting dark, so I put a few things away and closed up the bus while Linda prepared our dinner. She made a nice salad and heated a couple of Amy’s vegan (non-dairy) lasagna entrées. A glass of Moscato was a welcome accompaniment and we enjoyed a second glass as we relaxed in the living room. We got a Rockler catalog in the mail today so I looked through that. If you are into woodworking it’s the adult equivalent of the Sear’s Christmas catalogs of yesteryear.

I called Butch at 10 PM. It was 7 PM in Bouse, Arizona and I figured they would be done working for the day and probably already had their dinner. The daytime highs there have been reaching 110 degrees F so Butch and the other RV Park employees have been starting work between 6 and 7 AM and trying to finish up by 1 PM. He did not elaborate but said the situation the first two weeks has not been exactly what they signed up for. He had already responded to an e-mail from Linda with more details so we let it go at that and talked about other things. We wrapped up our conversation at 10:30 and I went to bed. I was going to play a couple of games and then go to sleep but there was an update available for the iPad OS so I installed it. 9.0.1 was a big update and took quite a while to install. I was very sleepy by the time it finished and turned out the lights.

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

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Linda had to go to the bakery today so she was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15. I was vaguely aware of the activity but fell back asleep and finally woke up a little before 8 AM. I skipped breakfast save for a glass of juice to wash down my vitamin and allergy pill. I spent time finishing yesterday’s blog post and thinking about what I absolutely had to get done in next four days.

I was working at the dining room table instead of in the living room so I got to watch a Red squirrel dart back and forth across the deck all morning. It was gathering walnuts from the tree northeast of our house and taking them somewhere west of our upper deck. It would run (hop) across the deck with a giant walnut in its mouth and then return by way of the deck railing. While it was gathering another walnut I moved to our library where I had a good view of our lower deck. It came down the stairs from the upper deck and disappeared behind the grill. It may be storing them under the deck or under the cover on the grill, in which case we will have to move them.

The main pieces of the desk set in place but not yet assembled or secured, and without the temporary plywood top or permanent Corian countertop.

Once I was in the bus I continued pondering how to get the desk installed so that everything would line up. Built-in furniture is just that, and I had not spent a lot of time in advance figuring out how I was going to fasten pieces together and secure them to the coach. I retrieved the piece of 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood from the garage to use as a spacer at the right end and just slid it in place temporarily. I decided I would use mending plates attached to the back and underside of the left and right bases and pedestals to align the center cover. I also decided to use a length of angle against the wall to support and align the pedestals and cover. Along the same lines I decided to use smaller angle brackets to attach the vertical front panel of the built-in sofa to the two plenum/support boxes and the air return shelf, and to attach the plenum boxes and shelf to the HVAC/wiring chase.

One of the original living room AC light fixtures. These were no doubt high-end fixtures but no longer worked in our remodeled interior.

Feeling like I should get something tangible accomplished I decided to re-install the AC light fixture and the three DC reading lights under the overhead cabinets above the desk. Linda and I agreed last night that we needed to replace the three 120V AC light fixtures in the front of the coach so I turned my attention to that issue. I removed the fixture on the driver’s side by the kitchen end of the sofa alcove and removed the mounting ring. I also measured the size of the base and the overall size of the fixture and wrote them down. Ideally I will find a fixture that has a similar size base but with most of the light fixture above the center point. One of the problems with the current fixtures is that they hang down far enough that a person sitting on the sofa would bump them with their head and probably break them as they are made of glass rods.

I headed towards The Home Depot in Howell and stopped at McDonald’s first for French fries and a soda beverage. I looked at all of their wall sconce light fixtures. They had two different ones that I thought might work but deferred a purchase until I had checked at Lowe’s. THD had 72″ piano (continuous) hinges, however, so I bought one. I also looked at PEX plumbing parts as Butch mentioned last night that I could use them to plumb the fan-coil heat exchangers.

Lowe’s had a wall sconce that was a little more to my liking. I needed three but they only had one in stock, which I bought. The Associate checked inventory at other stores and indicated that there were two more in stock in New Hudson. He wrote down the Model number and the phone number for the store and said I could call and they would hold the items for me. I picked up a couple of 75W GE Reveal light bulbs, the mending plates, angle brackets, and two different pieces of aluminum angle while I was there. I looked for pieces of felt but all they had were very thick furniture pads which was not what I needed.

The new living room light fixture. The color, style, and fit are a better match to the remodeled interior.

I was going to stop at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to check on heater hose, fittings, and band clamps but decided to skip that stop in favor of getting home and installing the new wall sconce light fixture. It installed without too much difficulty and I liked the look. The fixture, however, was rated for a maximum 60W bulb.

I closed up the house and bus and drove to the Lowe’s in New Hudson. They did indeed have two more of the wall sconce light fixtures that I needed so I bought them. I also picked up three 60W (equivalent, 8.5W actual) 800 lumens dimmable LED warm white light bulbs. Linda texted me while I was at the store to let me know she was leaving the bakery and heading home.

I stopped at Michael’s Arts and Crafts in Brighton and bought a 36″ x 36″ piece of walnut brown felt. I plan to use the felt underneath all of the pieces of the desk and sofa that contact the floor, and possibly in some other areas as well, to keep the wood from marring the tile.

When I got home I called Elkhart Campground to make a reservation for the GLCC rally next week. I also called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana to check on our sofa cushions. Terry said they were almost done and we could pick them up on Monday. I then sent several text messages to Jarel with photos attached of the desk and sofa in place on the bus and indicated I had some questions and would call him later.

I was getting ready to install the other two light fixtures when Linda got home. The timing was good as she got to see the first one and approve it before I installed the other two. We discussed the covering up of the mirror strips in the corner and decided we would leave them for now. We can cover them up later if desired. Linda went in the house to fix dinner. I got the second sconce installed and went inside.

I had a few minutes until dinner was ready and used it to send an e-mail to Jarel. Dinner was couscous on power greens and small slices of bread from a baguette Linda bought the other day. I also had the leftover corn on the cob.

After dinner I called Jarel. We had a long chat and it was 8 PM by the time we finished. Linda headed to bed and I went back to the bus to install the third/final light fixture. I also installed four small frosted bulbs in the light fixture under the overhead cabinets above the desk, replacing the clear bulbs that were there. This light fixture is part of the same collection as the ones I removed from the living room walls but its design and location do interfere with anything. We might replace it someday, if we find something we like better for use over the desk that is the right size and shape, but for now it will remain in place. I locked up the bus, closed up the garage, and headed to my office.

I dealt with some BCM-related e-mail and then off-loaded today’s photos from the Sony a-100 DSLR. I went through all of the photos from September, selected about a dozen, and processed them into 300×200 pixel size images so I could share them with friends and family via e-mail. I have written extensive blog posts everyday but last posted to the website in mid-July. I don’t like being that far behind but getting the posts uploaded is just not as important as other things I have to do at this time.

I was heading to bed when I decided to replace the two light bulbs in our home kitchen that were burned out. I had the two 75W GE Reveal bulbs that I could not use in the bus, so I installed them in the kitchen downlights, and that really brightened things up.

I got to bed just before midnight. It had been a beautiful day, weather wise, and a cool night was in store portending good sleep. But first I had to capture the details of today’s work for this post.

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

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We both took Advil PM before bed last night as both of us were sore and tired from a long day of work and needed a good night’s sleep. We awoke at 8 AM to dense fog but it was not unexpected as I saw the advisory on the weather forecast before I went to sleep last night. I made a pot of the Costa Rican half-caff coffee while Linda washed blueberries and got our granola ready. We enjoyed our coffee in the living room with the cats on our laps and listened to Dr. Michael Greger’s daily research summary on NutrionFacts.org.

We were still a bit tired and sore but finally got back to work on the bus at 10:30 AM just as Keith showed up to mow the grass. After opening up the bus and the “workshop”(garage), and getting out the air-compressor and hooking it up, we got the piece of underlayment out of the bedroom that we cut last night but still needed to trim. I cut about 1/8″ off of the passenger side end and cut off the front corner on that end so it would clear the piece of vertical trim. With those adjustments it dropped into place and I stapled most of it to the subfloor. I would have stapled the whole piece but we ran out of staples.

We had already measured and drawn the second piece for the bedroom but without staples we were at a standstill. Linda needed to pick up a few things at the grocery store, so we closed up the house and bus and made an errand run. I dropped her at Meijer’s and drove across the street to Lowe’s. I bought another pack of 1,000 #18 staples, 3/4″ with 1/4” crown because that was the smallest quantity they sell. I also picked up a small bottle of pneumatic tool oil. I drove back to Meijer’s and waited in the parking lot for Linda to emerge. When she did she had eight grocery bags. I guess “a few things” is relative. She got a real hamburger patty and one slice of real cheese from the deli to serve to Kate tomorrow night.

Once we had the groceries unloaded and put away we got back to work on the underlayment. I laid out the next piece for the bedroom which had 11 angles. Even though I worked from a consistent reference point the numbers did not quite work out so I took additional measurements and made adjustments accordingly. When I was satisfied that the layout was close to correct we cut the piece out of the partial panel. I then cut it in half crossways to create two pieces each of which could be installed. We started with the half piece closest to the driver side.

Keith finished cutting the grass and came to get his check so we gave him the inside tour of the bus. He had seen the front part before but never been all the way to the back. He recognized that it was an ambitious project.

The other half of the back bedroom piece, towards the passenger side, took some tweaking but we finally got it in and stapled. The last piece for the bedroom should have been the easiest, a 42″ x 18″ rectangle for the aisle at the foot of the bed/storage box. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle, of course, so it also required adjustments. Things that should be at right angles rarely are and the flanges on the bottom of the HVAC chases do not have straight edges as I assumed they would. The adjustments are usually small but necessary to get the pieces to fit. So it was with the last piece for the main floor.

We thought we were done when Linda noticed a small “L” shaped area around the media cabinet behind the driver’s seat. We still had pieces of underlayment left over that were big enough to cut this piece. After measuring carefully and laying it out the numbers were once again not adding up. We still had the piece of art board that I used to create the templates for the base of the refrigerator alcove so I laid out the “L” shape on that but made it larger than needed. We positioned the template in the bus, trimmed the inside corner (not 90 degrees) and then marked where all the edges needed to be by tracing from underneath. I trimmed the template down and checked the fit. It looked good so I transferred it to the underlayment and we cut it.

We were finally done with the main floor underlayment so we cleaned up the bus by moving stuff to the garage/workshop. I disconnected the DeWalt 15 gallon air-compressor, moved it to the driveway by the garage, and opened the drain valve on the bottom, it had a LOT of water inside which reminded me that I really need to set up a water separator and inline oiler for use with this thing. Linda coiled up the power cord while I coiled up the air hose and stored it with the air-compressor in the front corner of the garage.

Somewhere in the middle of all this work we stopped and had lunch around 3 PM. It was now 6 PM, too early for dinner, so we decided to get cleaned up and go to Lowe’s to look for metal tile edging. As long as we were going to be out I thought we might drive over to Chuck’s shop in Novi to look at the air ride seat base. I called Chuck to see if that would work and he was headed that way anyway, so that is what we did. The Lowe’s in New Hudson did not have what we were looking for but the associate suggested that we try Blakely’s on West Road near Beck Road in Wixom. Chuck was still at his shop when we arrived so we had a nice chat, got the air ride base, and then went our separate ways.

It was 8:30 PM by the time we got home. I spent a few minutes checking e-mails and then we sat down to dinner at 9:15, a simple meal of mock fish fillets with vegan tartar sauce and fresh steamed Brussels sprouts.

I continued checking and responding to e-mails after dinner and then checked into RVillage. I posted a comment on a new topic in the Friends of Curtis YAY! group and a few minutes later got a call from Curtis. After catching up on each other’s activities and whereabouts he e-mailed me a couple of things to read and react to. When we concluded our chat I watched the 3rd installment of the video update series from Technomadia about the renovation of their vintage GM4106 bus conversion at MasterTech in Elkhart, Indiana. I sent them an e-mail regarding a pet friendly hotel that we used years ago when our Golden Retriever (Einstein) was still alive and went with us on a week-long visit to Elkhart to tour motorhome factories. (Einstein’s AKC name was Karie Jame Ricky Ricardo. We got him from the Karie Jame breeders and he was from the Latin Lovers litter.) It was then off to bed to write for a while before going to sleep.

2015/07/25 (S) Monitoring

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We started our day with our weekly ham radio breakfast in South Lyon. As we were leaving breakfast I called Chuck to see if he was at his shop. He wasn’t but said he could be there between 11 and 11:30 AM. We drove home, loaded up my car with the accumulated recyclables, headed over to Recycle Livingston, and then headed to Chuck’s shop in Novi. We arrived before he did and let ourselves in. I got his Dremel tool kit and pistol style soldering gun and we chatted for a while. He had a noon appointment with someone at a commercial building he owns in Livonia, and we had a long list of project tasks to take care of, so it was a shorter chat than usual. We stopped at the Lowe’s in New Hudson and bought a can of garage door spray lube and then headed home, stopping for fuel at the Brighton Shell station on Grand River Avenue at I-96.

At our ham radio breakfast Linda had rye toast and I had an English muffin for breakfast (our usual meals) so we were hungry by the time we got home. We had roll up sandwiches of hummus, Vidalia onions, and greens with a drizzle of olive in a whole wheat pita. Very tasty. We then got to work installing the wall-mounted track for the ZioTek monitor mounting system I bought from CyberGuys.

The north wall of the ham shack. Critical points for the mounting of the ZioTek track system are marked with green tape.

Conceptually the installation was simple but it took all afternoon. There is a kind of alcove at the north end of my office that serves as our amateur radio (ham) shack. The purpose of the ZioTek system is to support up to four monitors on the north wall above the two desks located there so that they are not attached to the desks or using up any of the desktop real estate. The walls in the office are 7/16ths inch thick T-111 exterior plywood with 1/2″ grooves on 4″ centers running the length of the plywood sheets. The sheets are installed vertically so the groves run vertically giving the appearance of vertically installed 4″ wide rough sawn boards. We finished the photo studio/office at the old house with this material so we knew we liked the way it looks. Being plywood it has once major advantage and one major disadvantage compared to drywall; you can screw relatively heavy things to it, but holes are essentially impossible to repair. What that meant for us was that we only had one chance to get the track in the correct location.

In this case “correct” meant: at the right height and horizontal location to be able to position the monitors exactly where we wanted them while making sure the track was level. To accomplish this I bought a 1″x6″-8′ poplar board to use as a mounting plate for the two track sections. (All of the trim in the ham shack/office is poplar.) We used pieces of tape to mark the locations of the corners of the three monitors on the wall and marked the centers of the VESA 100×100 mounting plates. When we knew where the horizontal centerline of the tracks needed to be we determined the horizontal location of the tracks relative to the right end of the poplar board, which would be installed flush to the vertical trim in the northeast corner of the alcove.

The ZioTek tracks will mount to the horizontal poplar board which will be mounted to the wall at the studs.

We set the poplar board in the utility hallway and positioned the two tracks on it. I butted the tracks together and slid one of the mounting plates so it saddled both tracks and kept them aligned. The tracks are 4.5″ wide and the board was 5.5″ wide so I very carefully positioned the tracks for a 1/2″ reveal along both edges. I then marked the eight mounting holes (four in each track) and removed the tracks. Using a brad point wood bit that was slightly smaller than the central shaft of a #14 wood screw I drilled holes that were as carefully centered as I could make them.

We held the board in position against the wall and used a 1.5″ #6 finishing nail through the right mounting hole to hold that end of the board. We then used a 4-foot level on the top edge of the board and secured the left end with a second nail through one of the mounting holes. We positioned the chair where it will be when in use and made sure we liked the height of the board. It looked and felt right so we proceeded to secure it to the wall.

The ZioTek tracks mounted to the poplar board mounted to the wall. Linda is vacuuming up sawdust from drilling.

Using a small carpenter’s square I marked locations for mounting screws one inch in from each edge of the board in vertical alignment with the small heads of the nails that secure the T-111 to the studs. The 8-foot long board spanned six studs so I had 12 holes to drill. I used a standard drill bit that was slightly smaller than the shaft of a #14 wood screw and drilled through the poplar board, through the T-111, and into the studs. I used a countersink bit to create recessed pockets for the flathead wood screws. We then secured the board using 3″ long #14 flathead wood screws. We applied a little soap to the screw threads to help them go in.

I pulled the two small nails out of the track mounting holes. Using the same drill bit I finished drilling out the mounting holes all the way through the T-111. We positioned and partially installed one track using 2″ long #14 flathead wood screws in the two end mounting holes. We then did the same thing with the other track. I slid one of the mounts so that half of it was in each track and partially installed the remaining four screws. I gently snugged up all eight screws, checking the track alignment as I went, and then torqued them down. The heads stick up above the inside surface of the track but the shuttle mounts are raised on the underside so they slide right over the screw heads without interference.

The first of three monitors to get mounted. This one is on the left end of the tracks.

With the track mounted to the wall we turned our attention to installing the monitor mounting arms and monitors. We used one of the long arms on the left, the short arm in the center, and the medium arm on the right. The other long arm will eventually end up on the far right or get swapped for the medium arm, but for now I only wanted to mount three monitors. We installed the nice Dell monitor that goes with my older Dell Precision laptop in the center and installed the two ASUS monitors to either side of it.

By the time we got the third monitor mounted the office was in more disarray than usual and we did not have time to clean up tools and put things back in order. Linda did manage, however, to run the vacuum cleaner and get most of the sawdust and wood chips sucked up. Our son had called during the afternoon with a last minute request for babysitting services from Linda and I decided to go too.

A view of the mounts for the left and center monitors. This is a substantial system.

We left at 6 PM for Ann Arbor and stopped at the Whole Foods Market to pick up a few things for dinner. We got two different vegan sushi rolls, a cold couscous salad, and some organic black grapes. When we arrived at Brendan and Shawna’s house a little before 7 PM Madeline was surprised and excited to see us. Brendan and Shawna left around 7:15 PM for an engagement party and Madeline was fine with the whole thing. She was still eating her blueberries and strawberries and then wanted Linda to read several books to her. We went upstairs to see how her crib had been converted to a toddler bed, allowing her to get up during the night to use the bathroom. Such a big girl. But not too big for pajamas that featured fairies.

After another couple of stories Madeline went to bed without a fuss. We then had dinner. The California rolls were OK but the couscous salad was outstanding and the grapes were very good. We sat on the couch using our iPads but I could not stay awake so I laid down and drifted off to sleep. I was awakened about 90 minutes later by the return of Madeline’s parents. Linda gathered up our leftover food and the roses the kids had gotten her as a “thank you” for babysitting on such short notice which gave me time to fully wake up. We were on our way by 10:30 PM and back home shortly after 11.

2015/06/27 (S) ARRL Field Day

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At 5 AM I was vaguely aware of the sound of rain. The cats were chasing each other through the house so I got up to make sure nothing was amiss, such as another mouse. They were just having a bout of morning friskiness. I added a little food up to their bowls, which drew their attention, and went back to bed.

My Amateur Radio vanity license plate. There were a LOT of these in the parking lot at the SLAARC Field Day site.

I finally woke up and got up about 8:15 AM and got dressed in a suitable manner for today’s American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Field Day event. The temperature was in the mid-50s, overcast and raining with blustery winds; not exactly the nice summer day we were all hoping for. Some of the members of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) were gathering for breakfast at the usual place (Senate Coney Island) at the usual time (8 AM) but we obviously did not join them today.

I went to my office to retrieve my Sony DSLR and decided to turn on our Icom IC-7000 ham radio. I had it tuned to the SLAARC (K8VJ) repeater in South Lyon when Keith, KD8YYJ, announced his presence. He was driving from the west side of Howell to Wixom and seeing what repeaters he could hit. We chatted for 10 to 15 minutes and I invited him to stop by the SLAARC Field Day site at the South Lyon Township James F. Atchison Memorial Park.

I worked all day yesterday as part of the SLAARC Field Day setup crew. There was more setup to do starting at 9 AM this morning but the setup mostly involved radios, computers, Wi-Fi networking, and power. I was not in any humor to rush off into the clammy weather conditions, and Linda was up by this point, so we had breakfast. She found some Silk brand ‘yogurt’ at Meijer’s last week so we had that. It was OK. It is a creamy style yogurt, which is not my preference, but it was tasty enough. Bananas, cinnamon raisin bread, and juice rounded out the meal. Linda even made the coffee. I turned on the natural gas fireplace to ward off the chill in the living room where we lingered and enjoyed our morning brew.

The SLAARC Field Day operating stations use wirelessly networked computers (left) running N1MM Logger+ to record the contacts that are made. HF transceiver to the right.

I finally left for the Field Day site around 11 AM. The operating event started at 2 PM but the first of four meals was lunch today at noon and I wanted to capture photos of the rest of the setup and the lunch event. It was raining lightly when I arrived and continued to rain until I left at 2:15 PM. In between arrival and departure I took some photos and helped out a little bit, but there were plenty of people there taking care of what needed to be done.

Mike (W8XH) brought his Icom IC-2820H dual band mobile radio and several lengths of 50 ohm coax and we transferred those to my car. He then walked me through the various menus and functions his new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE radio, a dual band (VHF/UHF) 50 Watt rig with digital voice capability and a color touch screen display. A group of SLAARC members recently purchased a Yaesu DR-1X repeater that works with the new Yaesu digital voice and data modes in addition to the traditional FM mode and are testing it as a replacement for the current, and very old, K8VJ repeater.

Mike’s IC-2820H is available for $350 but the FTM-400DR has a $100 rebate through the end of June, bringing the price down to $500. As much as I would like to have a VHF/UHF radio in my car I am looking at one of these radios to install in the cockpit of the bus so we can use it going down the road. The long-term plan is to put the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF radio in our towed vehicle and get the Hi-Q 80-6 antenna mounted and operational in addition to the Diamond SG-7900 VHF/UHF antenna that is already on the Honda Element.

For base station use I would like to get an Elecraft K3s or Flex SDR rig. The K3s has become the rig of choice among the members of the SLAARC who are serious about working HF and contesting. Either of those are radios that could be fairly easily moved from the house to the bus when we travel. Antenna options in the bus could include running coax to the Hi-Q on the toad and/or a “flagpole” HF vertical that is mounted using the towbar receiver or a base stand that goes under one of the tires. An antenna switch would allow the use of the VHF/UHF antenna that was already installed for the cockpit radio. All of these “base station” options would obviously be for stationary use only.

[Photo 3 – HC]

The ARRL FIeld Day event showcases the ability of amateur radio operators to set up equipment in the field on short notice and keep it on the air for 24 hours, no matter what. The weather turned bad for the event. The portable generator is under the tent in the right foreground.

I uncoiled the coax cables that Mike lent me to see how long they were. There was a 5 foot piece that was too short for what I needed, and a piece that was approximately 40 feet, which was longer than I needed. The third piece was at least as long as the 40 footer. I “tagged” his coax with small white cable ties so I could identify them later and return them to him.

I did not want to mess around switching coax cables in the rain so I unboxed Mike’s Icom 2820 and got it set up to use with my existing antenna and transmission lines. I spent a little time with the manual and then powered it up. It was already configured from when Mike used it in his ham shack so I did not need to do any setup to use it. I monitored both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 440 MHz repeaters and was able to “hear” both of them, although the South Lyon signal was much better (stronger, quieter, clearer) than the Novi. A couple of SLAARC members were on the South Lyon repeater taking care of Field Day business. I waited a suitable amount of time after they were done and called for Mike (W8XH) and he came back right away.

We repeated the testing we had done last night. The performance with the 2m South Lyon repeater seemed to be much better but the performance on the 70cm Novi repeater was the same or worse with a fading component to the noise. I think we were on the air 15 to 20 minutes. Based on the test results from last night and this afternoon I think I have two separate issues that are probably interacting; the IC-7000 needs to be grounded and the 25 feet of coax from the cable entry box (CEB) to the radio (Go Box) needs to be shorter and much higher quality. I need to install the ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks and then purchase a suitable length of ground wire and run it from the CEB to the copper ground bar. I will also need to get a 15 foot length of 50 ohm LMR-400 coax from Scott (AC8IL) with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end.

Linda prepared our dinner at 5 PM. She made corn-on-the-cob and “cowgirl steaks,” a new (to us) vegetable protein product she found at Meijer’s. After dinner we drove back to the SLAARC Field Day site to socialize with club members at dinnertime. The weather at our house was still rainy with light-to-moderate winds and occasional stronger gusts. We arrived at the Field Day site to find a flurry of activity and strong, steady winds out of the north with continued sporadic rain.

Jim (KC8WMW) stays dry as he works the GOTA (Get On The Air) station in one of the tents.

The small red tent that was originally supposed to be the VHF tent was nowhere to be seen and at least eight people were engaged in trying to control and fold up the large canopy that the club purchased yesterday at Costco to serve as the combined VHF and GOTA tent. We quickly learned that the small tent, which was not being used, had collapsed and the large tent, which was unoccupied but full of radios and computers, had come unstaked and blown over in the wind. Those who were not helping with the equipment canopy were gathered in the food canopy. I pitched in on the equipment canopy rescue and Linda took the camera and joined the folks in the food tent.

After gathering up all of the pieces of the canopy and getting them back in the trailer some of the team added extra ropes and stakes to the windward end of the food canopy and both the 20m and 40m tents. Another part of the team, including me, got Marty’s (KB8JIU) satellite tracking equipment out of the screen room, which had been draped with solid plastic tarps to keep the rain out, and then took the room down, disassembled the legs, folded it up, and stuffed it in the trailer. The red tent was stuffed under a picnic table that was in the screen room so I grabbed that and put it in the trailer. The support pole for one end of our off-center-fed dipoles was bending over to the south more than we liked. Steve, N8AR, tied a rope around the existing rope, which was inline with the antenna and being used to keep it taught. He slid the second rope up the first one as far as he could get it to go and then pulled it out to the northwest (the antenna was oriented east-west with the tension rope running east off of the east end). He pulled it out until the support pole was reasonably vertical and I staked it down.

The winds really howled out of the north driving the rain before them. This shelter (from Costco) did not survive along with another tent and a screen room.

So the bad news was that some of our Field Day setup had not survived the weather which had not even reached severe conditions. The good news was that our generator was still producing power, all of our towers and antennas were intact and functional, we had our two key stations on the air, and our food canopy was full of people and hot food. Not the Field Day everyone had hoped for, but a great opportunity for teamwork and camaraderie and a learning experience to be sure, even if it was not the kind of lesson we wanted to learn.

We left around 7:30 PM and went to the New Hudson Lowe’s, which was very close to our Field Day site, where I bought 18 feet of AWG 6 stranded copper wire with a green sheath. As soon as the weather improves I plan to run this from the CEB to the ham shack and use it to connect the ground bar in the shack to the copper backplane (ground plane) in the CEB. I will then connect the ground on our Go Box (Icom IC-7000) to the ground bar and see if it helps with my noise issue.

Back at the house Linda wanted to watch an episode of NCIS Los Angeles, which we can now do thanks to our new OTA TV antenna. We then watched an episode of Christina Cooks, Christina Perillo’s vegan cooking show from a decade ago. These are still relevant and useful episodes and we especially enjoy them having seen and met her and her husband Robert on our two Taste of Health Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruises. Linda read and I wrote for a while before lights out and off to sleep.

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

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Today was a hodgepodge of activity.

Chuck called mid-morning and we had a long chat about bus barns. I think our needs would be met nicely by a SteelMaster S-model steel arch building 32 feet wide by 56 feet long with a 19 foot inside center height. We have been quoted a price of $20,400 for two of these ($10,200 each) delivered to two separate but nearby addresses. The price does not include end walls, roof vent adapters, or skylight panels. The site prep is going to be about $10,000. A 16 ft. wide by 14 ft. high overhead door will be $5,000. If I can get the concrete work for $10,000 and frame in the end walls, pull the permits, and run the electrical service for another $5,000 we can get this building erected for $40,000 and not spend all summer building it. That’s a lot of ifs and it’s a lot of money, but we have looked at this a lot of different ways and that appears to be the bottom end in terms of cost.

Chuck likes the idea of 40 ft. wide by 60 ft. long building with that same 19 ft. interior ceiling height. His logic is that he could put two buses in there, or a bus and a really big trailer, and still have room for workbenches, cabinets, and tools along the outside walls. True enough, but we do not plan to own two buses simultaneously nor do we plan to rent space in our barn. Chuck and are also not discussing going in together on a building as we both want to store our buses at our homes where they are convenient to load, unload, and work on. Besides, I have been quoted $25,000 for that size building. Although I think it included steel end walls with framed openings for an overhead door and an entrance door on one end, this project is never going to happen at that price unless we win a lottery, and that is unlikely as we rarely buy tickets.

After lunch I finally emptied out the back of my car and re-installed one of the back seats that was out all winter. I was going to vacuum the interior but my Shop-Vac had very little suction. An inspection of the filter revealed that it was completely clogged with drywall dust. I closed up the car and put the Shop-Vac back in the garage where Linda wrote down the model number.

I got out the 8 foot stepladder and carried the three roofing samples up onto the roof. I laid them out side-by-side so we could compare them in the same light. Linda also viewed them from the west end of the house and from the rear of the house. We agreed that the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def ReSawn Shake was the one we liked. Linda made note of that in the quote packet while I loaded the sample boards into my car.

I drove to ABC Supply Co. in New Hudson and returned the roofing samples. I stopped at the nearby Lowe’s to buy a replacement filter for the Shop-Vac. I think the sales associate who helped had somewhere else to be and something else to do as it did not seem really interested in helping me find the right filter. I usually shop at the Lowe’s in Howell and the service there is generally very friendly. The model number of our Shop-Vac did not come up in either the Lowe’s system or the Shop-Vac website even though we bought it a Lowe’s just two years ago. Apparently it is no longer made or sold. After looking at the current Shop-Vacs and the replacement filters I selected an LG wet/dry filter as my best bet.

I-96 west bound was fine until Kensington Road at which point it was stop and go, but mostly stop , so I excited at there and headed north, eventually heading west on Hyne, across Old US-23 and over to Hacker Road. I don’t know if it was faster, but at least I was moving most of the time at a good speed. I really dislike sitting in traffic.

Mike Sharpe was scheduled to come over after breakfast tomorrow to see if we could identify the source/cause of the Trojan notifications I have been getting for a while now from my es|et Smart Security 8 program. It appears that the notifications are being triggered by the copying of a .tmp file associated with the automatic backup of files from one or more of the four WordPress websites I run. I was doing online research on the infection and was looking for information on the es|et website when I noticed that they had a live chat technical support feature. I decide to see if they could help me and ended up spending an hour with Eric. With his helped I think we found and eliminated the at least one instance of the offending file.

Linda made a nice salad for dinner. Having had something to eat I pursued the Trojan problem back to the next level; the website from which the infected file was being backed up. The Small Business WordPress theme (in the “smallbiz” folder) was the source of the problem. I did not recall installing this theme, however, so I am not sure how it got installed into the website. I checked the other three websites and discovered that this theme was also installed on our personal website/blog. That probably explains why I was getting two notifications for what appeared to be the same thing. It took me a while to find an explanation on WordPress.org of how to delete themes. It was very easy once I saw it, but like many others I could not find the button on my own. I eliminated the theme from both websites along with others from all four websites that I did not plan to use. Only time will tell if that has eliminated the problem.

I then dealt with e-mails that I had neglected for the last several days and took another look at the SLAARC GoDaddy account. It was almost midnight by the time I got to bed.

The Phase Place

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Tag Archives: Lowe’s (New Hudson MI)

2015/11/08 (N) SLAARC Elections

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

2015/08/31 (M) A Major Sub-Project Done

2015/07/25 (S) Monitoring

2015/06/27 (S) ARRL Field Day

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans