Tag Archives: pull-out pantry (H3-40)

2015/12/03 (R) 2015 Year in Review

It cooled off overnight and was 60 degrees F outside when I got up at 8 AM. We left the windows open a bit when we went to bed last night but it only dropped to 71 in the coach. The forecast high for today was only 73 with partly to mostly cloudy skies, so the coach was going to be comfortable all day with just fresh air and perhaps the bathroom exhaust fan running. I made a pot of coffee and then Linda got up and made oatmeal for our breakfast.

Linda’s goal for the next couple of weeks is to finish the counted cross-stitch needlepoint Christmas stocking she is making for grand-daughter Madeline. She has to keep very careful count of her stitches, so I am not allowed to talk to her, or myself, while she is working. It should be a very quiet two weeks.

The new pull-out pantry shown in nice light.

My first goal today was to finish the BCM article on servicing the Webasto WDB2010 burner in our Aqua-Hot diesel-fired hydronic heating system. This was work I did back in January while we were in Quartzsite, AZ. I post-processed the last 10 photos, inserted them into the Word docx, added captions, and then rearranged them according to print edition and digital edition bonus content section.

I had an e-mail back from Chuck about the Prevost Community AITA NAPA discount card. I followed his directions and completed the online application. He called mid-morning and we talked about the chassis batteries.

I finished the Webasto article but did not upload it right away. I had an e-mail from Gaye Young, FMCA National Secretary and chair of the Education Committee, with the preliminary results of the survey that went out this fall. After looking through the data I wrote an e-mail to the committee with some observations.

Today was pretty much a stay-at-home day except for an early afternoon walk. We had black bean soup and vegan grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and then walked up to the office to make copies of the chapter certification paperwork for our FMCA Freethinkers group. I will mail the forms to FMCA HA in Cincinnati, Ohio tomorrow.

We talked briefly with Janet Rawley in the office and checked out the activities center across the street. They have moved the library and game tables from the office to the AC and are going to redo at least part of the space as offices. Given the number of additional park models and RV sites they should expand the mailboxes as well. There was a basket of tomatoes at the AC, free for the taking, so Linda selected a few. On our way back to our rig we stopped to chat with Jim Rawley (Sonny Fox on XM) at their 5th wheel. Jim and Janet were part of our circle of friends two years ago and their rig is just a few sites down from John and Ali’s. We dropped off the tomatoes and paperwork and continued on our walk around the newer section of the park.

A panoramic view looking north into part of Williston Crossings RV Resort from the passenger side living room window of our motorcoach.

Back at our coach I started working on our 2015 Year-in-Review Holiday Letter. I was working on my ASUS laptop when the file manager suddenly would not respond to mouse clicks or let me close it. I tried clicking a few other things and windows popped open that I could not then close. This was strange behavior indeed, and something I had not seen before. I was able to click the shutdown icon in the tray and forced the machine to close programs and turn off. I restarted my computer and ran a complete scan with the ESET Smart Security program. Complete scans take quite a while so I used my iPad to play a few games and work on this post. When the scan was finally done I reviewed the findings and got back to work.

I uploaded the Webasto service article to Gary at BCM and then got back to work on our 2015 Year-in-Review Holiday Letter. Linda can only count so many cross stitches per day before she gets cross-eyed. She also needs very strong light, so when the sun gets low in the afternoon sky she quits for the day.

Dinner was salad and reheated red beans and rice, a dish that holds up well over multiple servings. After dinner I got back to work on our holiday letter and worked on it until bedtime. I selected about 50 photos and will try to do captioned pictures instead of extensive narrative. The local CBS affiliate had the Lions–Packers game on instead of our usual Thursday evening programs so Linda flipped between the game and whatever was on PBS. My computer worked fine for the rest of the evening.

2015/11/16 (M) Tiling the Cockpit, #3

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Linda planned to go to the bakery today but decided yesterday to stay home and help me instead. Based on the 10-day forecast this looks like our last decent weather day to work on the bus and we wanted/needed to make the most of it.

We had breakfast at 8 AM (granola with blueberries and a banana) and had a cup of Stash China Black tea. I had a text message from Kristine Gullen regarding getting together with her and Jim on Saturday and replied in the affirmative. We finished our tea by 8:30 and got to work.

I really wanted to finish tiling the cockpit of the bus, or at least as much of it as we could. That meant cutting and fitting tiles for the stair treads and risers and the two side walls of the entry steps, gluing them in place, and then grouting all of them. We needed to mount the table if possible and I also needed to build a new step for the platform. That was a lot to get done in one day and even before we started I doubted that we would get it all done.

When we opened the bus we were surprised to find that the tiles on the walls of the platform had slipped all the way down to the floor tiles. Obviously I should not have removed the spacers right after installing the tiles and should have to left them in place for any horizontal grout spaces on vertical surfaces. Oh well, not much to do about it now.

Keith called to see if he should come and mulch the leaves one last time. The weather the last few days had been very nice, unseasonably warm and dry. Today was also a beautiful day but the forecast going forward was for much cooler and wetter conditions, so this was an ideal day for our last lawn mowing of the 2015 season.

We measured and cut the tiles for the face of the platform and out to the door. At that point I evaluated what I needed to do to complete the job. Basically, I needed to cut all of the tiles for the entry steps and walls and then install them from the bottom up. Every piece of tile was going to be smaller than a full 16″x 16″ tile and custom cut so even though the square footage was not that much there would be more pieces than usual and it was obviously going to take quite a bit of time to get all of the pieces ready to install. I thought we could be ready for adhesive in two hours but Linda figured it would be at least three. It also meant working with the door open which would make it difficult to keep the interior as warm as we needed.

Phil showed up with his excavator and a dozen bales of straw. I knew the excavator was for a different job as he did not have anything left to do at our place that required it. He was here to finish covering the topsoil and grass seed with the straw. We took a break to go talk to him and confirmed that he was done with the driveway and French drain projects except for the straw. He staged the bales where he needed them but said he had to leave to dig a perk test hole at 1:30 PM and would be back mid-afternoon to finish spreading the straw around.

Linda suggested that we go ahead a grout all of the tile we had already installed. I was more emotionally invested in completing the tile work than Linda but had to agree that this was the prudent thing to do. Until the tile was grouted we could not reinstall the accelerator, the steering column shroud, the seat bases, and the seats, so grouting the tile was clearly a critical path item and that is what we did. It was after noon by the time we finished so we took a break for lunch. Phil had taken off by this time to go dig the test pit.

Lunch was grilled vegan Italian sausage on a bun with mustard and relish and black grapes on the side. Keith finished up mowing the yard while we were enjoying a cup of Rooibos tea. We paid him and chatted about next year. I gave him our approximate timeframe for returning home from Florida and asked him to go ahead and start mowing next spring whether or not we were here. We have had Keith take care of our lawn since we bought our house in the country and he has been very good about doing that when we are away and allowing us to catch up with him when we get back.

By the time we got back to work on the bus it was after 1 PM and I had to concede that we were done working on the tile until next spring except for cleaning them, which had to wait until tomorrow as the grout has to cure for 24 hours before final cleaning. With that decision made we considered what else needed to be done and in what order.

The first order of business was painting the two front seat bases black. We spread out painter’s plastic on the driveway and taped it down. We set the bases there and then masked off the top portion with the swivel bearings and mounting bolt. We wire brushed the bases to remove rust and then went over them with a sanding sponge. I used a cleaner/degreaser and water to clean them and then gave them a coat of black rubberized undercoating paint.

The next order of business was getting all of the tools and materials that we no longer needed out of the bus to give us room to work on other things. On Saturday I re-installed the bump out on the walnut cover for the passenger side HVAC duct. The duct needed to have two 4″ holes drilled in it to match the holes in the metal duct, so that was the next task. I measured very carefully and transferred the measurements to the face of the cover with equal care. Even so, I was off slightly and had to use the sheet metal nibbler to enlarge the bottom of each hole. At least I had a relatively straightforward way to fix this problem; I am not always so lucky.

With the holes enlarged we put the cover in place. The 4″ round plastic registers fit through the wood into the duct but not all the way due to two tabs. I trimmed the tabs off using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw and trimmed a little bit off of one of the outer mounting flanges to make it fit flush. I drilled holes through the two mounting holes on each register using the #5-6 self-centering drill bit and secured them with #6-5/8″ SR screws. We then removed the two temporary black plastic registers from the front of the built in sofa. I trimmed the tabs off of two new brown ones and installed them using the same procedure as the first two.

In the grand scheme of things getting the cover in place and the four registers installed was a small task but it needed to be done and stood in the way of other things. The cover has been stored on top of the two front seats, which have been lying on their backs on the kitchen floor of the bus for weeks. We plan to re-install the seats late tomorrow afternoon.

Two more small, but critical, tasks were securing the pull-out pantry and the refrigerator. I have assumed for quite a while that we would secure the pantry for travel with some form of sliding latch but had not thought about it in any detail. We also needed to secure the refrigerator but I had not thought about this in any detail either. As we pondered the pantry latch it slowly became obvious that we did not have enough wood for a strike plate to receive a pin and we did not have two unobstructed surfaces that were in the same plane, which would be required for the kind of latch I had been thinking about.

As for the refrigerator, one of our bus nut friends secured their unit by running mounting bolts (machine screws) through the floor of the cabinet above the fridge and threading them into the unused tapped holes provided for the upper door hinge (if it was reversed) . After looking at it for a while we realized that we could attach a section of small angle to the inside of the right alcove wall with the other side just against the face of the fridge case but not over so far as to interfere with the door gasket. My measurements indicated that a 1/2″x3/4″ angle would be just right. It looked to me like two 12″ pieces, one by the freezer door and one by the bottom of the fresh food compartment door, would be more than adequate to keep the refrigerator from rolling out as it cannot shift sideways or twist due to the aluminum angle on the left/hinge side at the floor.

About this time Phil returned in a red pickup truck. He finished distributing the straw and loaded three unused bales into the back of his truck. He pulled up in the main drive and we invited him into the bus to see what we had been working on all summer. It is always a pleasure working with Phil. If/when we build a barn we will have him do all of the site prep and finish grading. He will figure out the final cost for the driveway extension and French drain and send us an invoice.

Linda prepared an easy but tasty dinner consisting of a nice green salad, mixed frozen vegetables (corn, peas, and carrots) suitably reheated, and mac-n-cheese that was both dairy-free and gluten-free. After dinner we went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot. At Lowe’s we bought a 1/16″ thick 1/2″x 3/4″ aluminum angle and three 8 foot lengths of brass colored nose edging but did not find a latch that we liked. At The Home Depot we bought some screws for securing the handle on the front of the pull-out pantry and a solid brass door stop to keep the pantry in place. The door stop folds up when not in use and should work to keep the pantry closed while traveling.

Although the new Panera on the southwest corner of Grand River Avenue and Latson Road was finally open for business we stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea on the northeast corner of that intersection. Jeff was there and took our order for eight pounds of coffee beans. We got two pounds each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, regular and decaffeinated, the Seattle Blend (regular), and the Sweet Dreams blend (decaffeinated). They will roast the beans and then let them outgas for a few days before vacuum sealing them in half-pound portions. This allows us to take them with us in the bus and keep them very fresh until we are ready to use them and to change what we are drinking more often.

We got home just after 8 PM and took our iPads downstairs to use while we watched our Monday evening CBS TV programs. We caught the weather forecast and then headed to bed. It looks like we will have two more days with unseasonably high temperatures near 60 degrees F but with intermittent rain and then a serious cooling trend with highs this weekend barely above freezing. Our time for working on the bus and being in Michigan is definitely running out.

2015/10/20 (T) Pop-X Pickle

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It’s a good thing there are still five weeks until we depart for Florida; there are a lot of unfinished items that need to be taken care of on the bus and around the house/property before we go.

When Phil is here my attention tends to be on what he is doing. He really knows his stuff, and is an excellent contractor to work with, but since he is not working from drawn plans there are inevitably questions and discussions about just exactly what it is I want and whether that is the best idea or even doable.

Phil had ordered a load of sandy soil for delivery first thing this morning and the “train” (double trailer) showed up not long after he did. The sandy soil he wanted was not available so he got clean sand instead. The train driver of the backed it over our third culvert and into the part of our yard were Phil wanted the material dumped. That took a lot of skill and was impressive to watch. I took a few photographs but video was really required to capture what was happening. The Sony SLT-a99v does video in several different modes but I am just beginning to learn how to use it as a still camera and did not want to mess around with shooting video. Besides, I am not a videographer; it’s a completely different way of thinking than being a still photographer.

Phil digs the trench for the electrical conduit from the SW corner of the garage to the far side of the driveway extension where he also dug a hole for the post that will support the RV outlet box.

With the material on site Phil was at the point where he needed to dig the trench for the RV electrical feed. That meant I had to quickly make some final decisions. I had an 8 foot 4″x4″ treated post and the PVC conduit pieces I needed to go from the post under the driveway to the other side but not enough to go all the way to the garage. If I only put conduit under the driveway I could cap it, let Phil bury it, and then dig it up later and finish trenching from there to the garage. I would not do that by hand, however, so it would mean having Phil come back next year just to dig this little trench. Although I could have him dig the foundation hole for the ham radio tower at the same time that still did not make any sense to me. Among other considerations I would have to fill the trench in by hand after I ran the cable.

Another option was to still use conduit just under the driveway but go ahead and run direct burial cable like we did two years ago for the pull-through driveway in front of the house. I would need three (120VAC) or four (240/120VAC) large wires (or equivalent service entrance cable, each at least 80 feet long to get from the outlet box location in the post to the riser pipe on the garage and through the wall into a circuit breaker box. Not only would I have to get the wire, which would be expensive, I did not have the outdoor outlet box or other parts I needed, so it would take me quite a while to go buy everything. I also did not know exactly where/how I would feed the circuit. (I had some ideas about that but they depended on just what the electricians do tomorrow.)

The most expeditious, and least expensive, option was to get more conduit and additional fittings and run the conduit all the way from the post to the southwest corner of the garage. I left at 9:30 AM for Lowe’s as Phil started digging the trench and the hole for the post.

At Lowe’s I picked up five more 10′ pieces of 2″ PVC conduit, a 45 degree elbow, another 90 degree elbow, a right angle entry box, and a bag of 2″ conduit clamps. By the time I got back to the house Phil had the post set in place and most of the trench dug. I got all of the conduit pieces laid out on the ground and got the PVC cement, a hack saw, and the rope and weight.

Since Phil could not do anything else on the driveway until the conduit was installed he helped me install it (or vice-versa). We joined 10′ sections to both ends of one of the 90 degree elbows and then dropped the weighted rope through it. We then set the elbow and one of the straight sections in the trench with the elbow at the base of the post and the other straight section going straight up the post where I secured it with two clamps. We proceeded to drop the weighted rope through additional straight sections of conduit, applied PVC cement to the ends, and put them together. The conduit had to be inserted about 3″ into the mating piece and twisted as it went in. I was glad Phil was there to help with this as I did not have the grip strength to do it by myself. (I don’t have a lot of physical limitations but the arthritis in the base of my thumbs makes itself known in specific situations.)

When we got near the southwest corner of the garage we measured and cut a section of straight pipe to get us to a turn in the trench. Because of a decorative grass plant the trench could not go directly to the desired location on the west side of the garage and had to go between the grass plant and a nearby small evergreen bush and then turned towards the garage. We installed a 45 degree elbow to get around the corner and it ended up in the center of the trench. When I said Phil knew what he was doing I meant it. We again measured carefully and cut a short section of straight pipe to get us to a 90 degree elbow that would turn up and bring the conduit out of the trench and up the side of the garage. I measured and cut the vertical riser section and we cemented it into the elbow. We now had a complete run with conduit coming out of the trench vertically on both ends.

Phil back fills the trench for the electrical conduit from the corner of the garage to the RV electrical post.

While Phil used his excavator to scoop and push dirt back into the trench and tamp it down I closed off both ends of the conduit. At the garage end I removed the gasketed cover from the entry box, cut a short piece of 2″ conduit, and put it in the fitting hole on the back side. Next I brought the weighted rope up through the bottom fitting hole of the box and used Gorilla tape to secure it inside the short back pipe. I put a cap on the other end of the short back pipe and then put the entry box on top of the riser sideway. I coiled up the extra rope, taped it inside the box, and put the gasketed cover back on. I did not cement any of these connections. When permanently installed the gasketed cover will point away from the wall and the hole in the back will have a longer piece of paper 2″ conduit cemented in and going through a hole into the wall of the garage.

At the post I used a Rigid brand pipe cutter, designed specifically for cutting large plastic pipe and conduit, to cut off the vertical riser at a convenient height above the top of the post. I threaded the rope through a 3/8″ hole in the center of a 4″ disc of 3/4″ plywood and tied a big knot in it. I modified the 2″ cap by drilling three adjacent holes lengthwise from the bottom up and cutting out material with a hacksaw to make a slot. With the rope hanging over the edge of the conduit I lined up the slot in the cap with the rope and put the cap over the end of the conduit.

Since I decided to not have Phil build the area leading up to the planned barn location I wanted to pull all of the unneeded yellow plastic stakes out of the yard and put them away. Re-staking the layout, however, is a time-consuming task so I put 10″ metal (iron) spikes at the locations of the front corners of the barn and the center point for the curved transition into the driveway. I drove them flush with the soil so Keith would not hit them with his mower but we can find them later with a metal detector.

With the conduit installed and the trench filled and tamped, Phil filled started building the “curbs” for the driveway. He had excavated parts of the driveway path and filled in other areas to create a base for the construction fabric and road gravel that was eight inches below the finish grade. The construction fabric is 12’6″ wide and Phil likes to wrap it up on the sides about 8″ so when he staked out the driveway to be 11′ 2″ wide. Phil used the sand to build up the areas along both sides of the driveway so that it looked like he had cut the driveway out, but that is not, in fact, what he had done.

My main bus project today was cleaning up the kitchen and living room, which mostly involved moving tools back to the garage. It is a confined workspace and tends to get cluttered over time as we fetch tools for this and that. I also wanted to be able to see the desk and its Corian countertop.

Two of the three sets of cushions in place on the new built-in custom walnut sofa/storage base.

I called Butch in Quartzsite, AZ regarding the distributor tester. He suggested that I send him an e-mail requesting Bill’s e-mail address and he would send it in his reply. We then discussed the refrigerator and he suggested that I set the freezer to a colder setting, leave the fresh compartment setting as is, and monitor it for a while to see if it changes. I did that and reset the min/max memory for both compartments.

Phil is not done with the French drain yet and spent part of the afternoon working on that instead of the driveway. He made lots of trips back and forth with the front loader to take the topsoil he had removed to create the driveway, spread it out along on top of the pea gravel that fills the drain trench, and grade it off to blend with the undisturbed yard along either side of the drain. Before he is all done with these two separate, but inter-related projects, he will have to bring in several truckloads of topsoil. It will be used to fill low spots, especially at the west end of the property, and to cover everything that has been disturbed. All of the topsoil will be finish graded to blend into the existing contours of the property and then seeded with grass seed.

The view from the living room looking towards the hallway. The new built-in custom walnut desk has its Corian countertop in place and the new refrigerator is in place next to the built-in custom pull-out pantry.

I did not want to get involved in any complex or time-consuming projects so I hung out on the west half of our yard where Phil was working and took lots of pictures with the new camera. Actually, I had been doing that all day trying to document the work as it progressed. When I wasn’t taking photos I gathered up broken branches and larger deadfall and carried or dragged it to the brush pile on the west side of the line of large fir trees that separate the east and west halves of our five acres.

Linda called around 3:30 and asked me to see if her wallet was on her desk. She thought she had it with her but could not find it. She finally located it in her car where it had been since falling out of her case this morning. She was on her way home by 3:50 PM.

I had a final chat with Phil, who won’t be back until Saturday, and then closed up the bus and the garage. We were headed to Ann Arbor this evening and I needed to get cleaned up and put on nicer, more appropriate clothes for our evening out. I used to wear Oxford shirts and nicer pants every day for work, and sometimes a sport coat and tie or even a suit. These days it’s mostly polo shirts and blue jeans or sometimes REI ripstop nylon convertible cargo pants. And this summer it has mostly been my work jeans and work shirts.

We left around 5:15 PM and were parked in Ann Arbor before 6 PM. We agreed to meet Kate at the Lab Cafe which was just around the corner from the Thompson Street parking garage. (This garage is behind the former Border’s book store #1 which also housed the company’s corporate headquarters. Our daughter started with Border’s as a cashier at this store and within four years was a regional manager for their PaperChase product line before the company imploded and went bankrupt.)

Kate was sending Linda text message updates on her travel status and ETA so we ordered a couple of decaf coffees to go. At $3.75 each they were pricier than we are used to paying for coffee but they were “hand-crafted” and the coffee was very good. It took the barista at least 10 minutes to make our cups, grinding the beans just before brewing and then slowly pouring hot water through individual filter holders after pre-wetting the filters. In the time it took to make our coffee I would have been on my second cup at Panera.

Linda (front) and Kate (behind) take in the interior of one of the Pop-X art exhibit sheds.

The music was too loud and really awful, a bad combination in our opinion, so we sat outside in spite of the occasional attempt to rain. When Kate showed up we walked the short distance to Liberty Park to see the Pop-X Art Exhibit. Organized by the Ann Arbor Art Center, all of the art was displayed in “sheds” designed by an architect, one artist per shed. The sheds were approximately 10 feet square with steep pitched roofs. The roofs, and the two sides they pitched down to, were covered in clear wavy plastic panels to let in a lot of natural light. The back end was solid and the front had a pair of sliding “barn style” doors hung from tracks. There was a solid floor that was elevated relative to ground level and provision for electrical power. They were designed to be sold as potting sheds after the exhibit was removed at the end of the week. Although the light was fading I was still able to get some decent shots with the new Sony a99v DSLT camera. It has much greater light sensitivity than the Sony alpha 100 it is replacing as my primary camera and this was my first opportunity to take advantage of that since getting it.

Our main reason for coming to Ann Arbor was to have dinner with Kate but Pop-X was a nice bonus. Ann Arbor has a LOT of dining options; hundreds I would guess just in the very walkable downtown area. We decided to try the Grizzly Peak Brewing Company after Linda confirmed that they had some things on the menu we could eat. It was a bit of a walk but the rain held off and it was an otherwise pleasant evening.

Linda had a dark Porter with definite chocolate tones and I had a hard cider with distinct cinnamon/vanilla tones. It was also supposed to have roasted pecan notes but I did not detect that. Kate had a red beer that was not hoppy and thought I might have liked it. I had a sip of Linda’s Porter and it was very agreeable. We both had small couscous and greens dinner salads, which were very nice, and both had wild mushroom burgers, which were excellent. Linda said her chips were also very good and my French fries were tasty and generously portioned. Kate had a burger and all of our meals came with pickles. Kate does not care for pickles, which I knew, and does not care for vinegar in general, which I did not know, so Linda and I split her pickle rather than have it go to waste. The waiter was very attentive and a good sport when I asked for a gallon of ketchup for my fries. He brought two very full bottles for the table and a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce. We tipped him accordingly.

At 9:30 PM we started a slow stroll back to the parking garage and chatted a while longer by our cars, which coincidentally were parked very close together. It was 10:40 PM by the time we got home. I fed the cats and we went straight to bed. I was up later than I wanted to be trying to outline this post but I had not had much opportunity to work on it throughout the day.

2015/08/26 (W) Delux Delay

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We were a bit sore last night, and needed a good night’s sleep, so we both took some Advil PM right before going to bed. As a result we did not wake up until almost 8 AM this morning. The Advil, combined with the very cool temperatures, made for good sleeping.

Our son had called yesterday to see if Linda could watch Madeline today while he did some work on the rental property that he and Shawna own. It was Shawna’s house before they got married, and is a nice little place, but with Madeline on the way they wanted a slightly larger place. They also wanted to be on the other side of Stadium Boulevard in the attendance area for Burns Park Elementary School and walking distance to both the school and adjacent Burns Park without having to cross any major streets.

Ann Arbor is a major rental housing market because of the University of Michigan and the local government is very involved in this market. Rental properties must be inspected at least every 30 months and meet code requirements. The rental house was scheduled for inspection on Friday and needed some minor repairs, so Brendan set aside today to take care of things. What I find interesting about this inspection requirement is that most of the rental houses our son and daughter lived in while at U of M looked to me like they had not been inspected in over a decade.

Linda was due at Brendan and Shawna’s house around 10:30 AM so she left our house at 9:15. She took the three books of wallpaper samples with her and went directly to Delux Drapery and Shades in Ann Arbor to return them and placed the order for four bolts (double roll packs) of Sellers and Josephson Just Textures Lamar paper. Not long after she left Delux I got a call at home from the store. They were looking for Linda to let her know the wallpaper was back ordered until September 11. (I’m not the least bit superstitious but September 11. Really.) To cancel the order we would have to let them know today but I told them to let it ride. I then texted Linda to let her know and she agreed with my decision.

I had a feeling this might happen and it’s what we get for waiting so long to look for, select, and finally order a wall covering. But it is what it is and we were not going to settle for something that wasn’t “right” for our interior just because it was available more quickly. If the paper actually comes in on the 11th we will have the 12th and 13th to at least install it in a few critical areas before the new seating goes in. If it doesn’t arrive by then we will deal with it when it does. Either way the only big issue is that we wanted to paper the wall behind where the desk will go before the desk is installed. As things stand we will either uninstall/reinstall the desk or paper around it.

The pantry supported by plywood and 2x4s.

There were several small tasks that I could have worked today but the thing that needed to be done was the installation of the pull-out pantry, so that is what I did. The pantry was already in the coach, which was a good start. I got two of the small leftover pieces of 3/4″ oak veneered plywood and set them in front of the alcove base. I then set a 5′ length of 2×4 on the flat in the space where the pantry goes and extending out beyond the alcove by more than the depth of the pantry. I then set the pantry on the 2×4, pushed it snug to the side of the alcove, and slid it towards the back of the alcove until the front was approximately one inch behind the vertical front edge of the left side panel.

There were two main reasons for using the 2×4. First, the lowest slide attached to the pantry box extends below the box so the bottom of the box needed to sit on something that was thicker than the amount by which the slide hung down. Second, a 2×4 on the flat is 1.5″ thick and that turned out to be a good thickness for positioning the pantry vertically in the alcove.

The reveal between the front of the pantry and the front edge of the alcove side panel was wider at the top than the bottom so I placed two wood shims side-by-side under the back end of the 2×4 to raise it slightly and tilt the top of the front out. I fussed with this for quite a while and each time I adjusted the shims I had to pick the pantry up, set it aside, and put it back. I eventually got the reveal to be the same along the entire length (height) of the front.

Once I knew where I wanted the pantry to be when it was closed I had to figure out how to mount the slides to the side panel of the alcove. I pondered this for quite a while. If nothing else, I have learned that when it is not clear how to proceed the best course of action is to do nothing. I have also learned that if I ponder long enough I will eventually see a way forward. Sometimes that takes days or weeks of conscious and subconscious thinking, but luckily the solution came to me relatively quickly.

The pantry box is 27″ deep. The full extension slides are 26″ deep and they are mounted so they are flush with the front of the pantry box when they are fully closed. I wanted a 1″ reveal along the front, so I needed to place the back edge of the slides 27″ back from the front edge of the alcove side panel. With the pantry box out of the alcove I used a metal ruler to measure back at three points and make very fine scratch marks. I then used the metal ruler to draw a fine pencil line through the three scratch marks.

I returned the pantry to the alcove, pushed it tight to the alcove side panel, and then pulled it out about three inches. Measuring on the back side outside the alcove I made final adjustments to the shims to get a consistent reveal. I then pulled each of the nine slides back, carefully aligned the back edge of the slide to the reference line, drilled a hole with a self-centering VIX bit, and secured it with a #6-3/4″ SR (square recessed) screw. (I was not able to initially secure the bottom slide as the 2×4 was in the way.) I pulled the pantry out a little farther until the next mounting hole in the top slide was visible and then drilled that hole on all eight slides and secured it with a screw. I proceeded in this way until all but the bottom slide were attached to the alcove side panel through every available mounting hole; 88 screws in all (11 screws for each slide x 8 slides).

The pantry with the installation boards removed from underneath it.

To secure the bottom slide I needed to get the 2×4 out from under the pantry. I slid the pantry all the way in, slid the two pieces of 3/4″ plywood out from under the 2×4, and tried to slide the 2×4 out. Unfortunately I used a 2×4 that was too long to just slide out as part of the original pantry cabinet is directly across from the pull-out pantry. So I got my circular saw and cut about 4″ off the end of the 2×4. Close, but not quite, so I cut off another 2″ and was finally able to slide it out.

With the pantry all the way out I was able to drill and secure the mounting holes for the back half of the bottom slide. The holes for the front half were a bit tedious as I had to move the box to reveal each one. To avoid going back and forth between the drill and the screw driver bit I drilled all of the holes first and then put in the screws. I should also mention that I used the Shop Vac to vacuum up any debris that got in the slides as a result of the drilling. I also wiped the slides out (carefully, they have sharp edges) with a paper towel.

The pantry slides all the way in and out but is a little tight the closer it gets to being fully closed. I know that Jarel was very meticulous in attaching the slides to the pantry box so they were all parallel. My working hypothesis is that either I did not get them attached to the alcove exactly parallel (entirely likely) and/or there is more drag on them because of the one-sided installation (probably, but no way for me to quantify) than there would be if they were installed on both sides of a drawer.

All of the slides are on the same side, which is not how they are normally used. A pair of these slides is rated to support 100 pounds when used on both sides of a drawer, so four and a half pairs would, conservatively, support 400 to 450 pounds in a normal application. Even if they will only support 1/3 that much weight in a single-sided application that is still 133 to 150 pounds for our nine slides. I think the box weighs about 30 pounds so that leaves at least 100 pounds for stored items and I doubt that we could get 100 pounds of stuff in the pantry even if we loaded it with canned goods. Because the pantry is narrow and tall with lots of slides I suspect most of the load on the slides is vertical, which is what they are designed for, rather than sideways, which would tend to pull them apart, so I suspect that it can safely carry considerably more than 100 pounds of staples.

The piece of aluminum angle that will prevent the refrigerator from sliding sideways into the pantry. It is not installed yet as the plywood refrigerator base is not stained yet.

I had just finished installing the pantry and was cleaning up my tools and materials when Linda got home around 3 PM. I had skipped lunch and she had a PB&J sandwich while she was out so we agreed to have dinner at 5:30 PM. Linda picked up where she left off yesterday cleaning and waxing the drawer fronts and the woodwork in the bedroom. I decided that the oak veneered plywood base in the alcove needed to be painted or stained and then sealed so I went to Lowe’s and got a small can of Rustoleum American Walnut stain, a small can of Rustoleum satin finish polyurethane, and two foam brushes.

I brushed the stain on liberally, working in sections, let it sit for two minutes per the instructions, and then wiped it off with a lint-free cloth. The stain required mineral spirits for cleanup so I threw the brush and cloth away. The instructions said to wait one hour before applying a finish. It was 5 O’clock by then so I went to my office to check e-mail while Linda prepared dinner.

She made a nice salad and grilled a couple of vegan burgers and added some vegan cheese. Mustard, ketchup, pickles, onions, and lettuce on a nice bun made for a tasty sandwich. Two deer, a doe and her young fawn, came to our deer block while we were eating and a ruby-throated hummingbird stopped at our plants and feeders. For dessert we had half of a small, very sweet watermelon.

By the time we were done with dinner it was 6:30 PM so I went back out to the bus and applied the polyurethane. The directions said to apply it sparingly so that is what I tried to do. They also said that it could take 48 hours to be usably dry and seven days for a full cure. Drying time was dependent, however, on temperature and humidity, with higher temps and lower relative humidity promoting quicker drying.

I had run the Aqua-Hot earlier in the day and determined that there was still a little too much coolant in the system as the expansion reservoir overflowed into my catch bottle. I closed the three windows that were open, leaving them just slightly ajar, turned on the Aqua-Hot, turned on all three thermostats, and set them for about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. I will not be applying a second coat of polyurethane and cannot spare 48 hours for this one to dry.

I had thought that we might get the first sheet of underlayment installed this evening but decided we had done enough for one day. It will be the only full 4’x8′ sheet we install but it needs a notch cut out of it before it goes in. I thought it would require several cuts but then realized I had some floor leveling compound that I had not removed. I got my chisel and mini-sledgehammer and knocked off the big chunks. I then used the oscillating sander with 50 grit sandpaper to smooth everything out. It was 7:45 PM and I was done working on the bus for today.

I went to my office and spent a couple of hours dealing with e-mails. Linda was still up when I turned in at 10 PM but drifted off to sleep as I finished up this post. She has to go to the bakery tomorrow which means she will be up very early.

2015/08/25 (T) Turning The Corner

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It got pleasantly cool overnight and with the bedroom doorwall open it made for nice sleeping conditions. Between being up a bit late last night and not wanting to get out from under the warm covers we slept in a few minutes longer than usual. I put on my sweats, which I find very comfortable on a cool (or cold) morning, and made a pot of Costa Rican decaf coffee. We had our usual granola for breakfast, took a few minutes to enjoy our coffee in the living room without our cats, who were off somewhere and probably up to no good, and then got to work.

In order to install the new seats in September we need to have the desk installed and in order to install the desk we need to have the floor installed and in order to install the floor we need to have the underlayment installed and in order to install the underlayment we need to have several things done. First and foremost was finishing the patching and leveling of the subfloor, so that was my first task today. While I pursued that Linda continued working on cleaning and waxing the walnut drawer fronts. Given the limited work surface in the garage Linda can only work on three to six drawer fronts at a time depending on their size. When she reached a stopping point with those and started working on the woodwork in the bedroom.

I have spent the last week patching, skimcoating, and sanding the entire area where the old tile was installed which I estimate to be about 80 square feet. I went over it one more time this morning with 80 grit sandpaper on the orbital sander. The sander has an integral dust collection bag so it did not get the coach too dusty. I was satisfied with most of the job but still had some unevenness along the edges by the walls and especially in the toe kick spaces extending out about three inches from the cabinet bases. That is because I did not get the last skimcoat as smooth as I needed to in those areas and the orbital sander cannot reach them.

I figured I would need to do one more application of floor leveling compound but did not want to open the second bag of mix for such a small job. I decided to go the Lowe’s and buy a small pail of pre-mixed floor patching compound and the 3/4″ #8-32 machine screws we needed to install the new handles. While I was there I noticed that they had 50 grit hook and loop sandpaper triangles designed to fit our Porter-Cable oscillating saw. I was aware that we had a sanding pad attachment for the tool but had not considered using it until I saw the 50 grit paper. I bought a pack and picked up some 120 grit as well. I would also have bought 80 grit but they were out. I had to go to The Home Depot for the machine screws as I wanted the same brass ones we had already purchased.

Back at the bus I decided to try sanding out the imperfections rather than filling them in with another round of patching and sanding. I was, admittedly, tired of this phase of the work and anxious to be done with it so I could move on to next step. August is slipping away and I am very aware of the date. I was also not keen on creating more sanding dust inside the coach.

I don’t know why I did not try this tool sooner. The design of the tool and shape of the sanding pad allowed me to work in the all of the areas the orbital sander could not reach and it worked very well with the 50 grit sandpaper. The circular air sander can also reach these areas, and was the right tool for grinding down the old thinset and mastic, but the oscillating tool was the right one for this final smoothing.

When I thought I was done I vacuumed the floor and used the Revel Damp Mop to pick up any residual dust. We then went inside to have lunch while the floor dried. Linda heated up a can of Amy’s vegetable soup, made roll-up sandwiches, and served fresh black grapes and plums. It beats fast food hands down.

After lunch I inspected the floor carefully and decided that the patching and leveling was done. Although it was one task out of many, and there was no fanfare attached to the moment, I was very much aware that we had finally turned the corner. We still have some minor disassembly to do, but from this point forward most of our tasks will involve putting the interior back together and installing new things. All things being equal (which they never are) the building work should be more fun than the deconstruction work.

The major exception is the wallpaper. We still need to remove the old paper, much of which is stained from old water leaks, and install the new paper, which Linda will be ordering tomorrow from Delux Drapery and Shades in Ann Arbor. The critical pieces are the ones that go behind the desk and the built-in sofa. Most of the rest of it can be finished later but we would prefer to have it all done by September 12th if possible. The more stuff that gets installed the more awkward it will be to work on the walls.

With the floor leveling done the next impediment to installing the underlayment was getting the refrigerator out of the living room and into its alcove. That, however, required three other things to be done. First I needed to replace the electrical outlet with a recessed one. Second, we needed to build up the base of the alcove and finally, we needed to install the pantry as we cannot get to the slides to mount them to the side of the alcove with the refrigerator in place.

The electrical outlet only took a few minutes to change. With Linda’s help I used the template I made last Thursday to cut the base pieces from the 4′ x 8′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood we bought on Tuesday. The bottom piece was the full width of the refrigerator alcove (34″ wide at the front and 33.75″ wide at the back) and 25.75″ deep. We set it in place, checked the front setback, and screwed it to the subfloor. The next piece was the same width as the first but 1/2″ deeper (26.25″). We set it in place on top of the first piece and made sure the front edges were flush with the back edge extending 1/2″ farther back. I used longer screws to go all the way through both pieces into the subfloor.

I was not happy with the way my circular saw blade was cutting and a few raindrops gave us an excuse to take a break. We were working just outside the small garage bay and moved everything into the garage to keep it from getting wet. I went to Lowe’s and bought a new 7.25″ blade with 60 teeth, which should give a very clean cut through plywood but still work on 2x4s and trim boards. While I was there I checked their selection of driver bits again. I was looking for a 3″ long No. 1 SR (square recessed) bit but they did not have any that long. I found a 2″ bit for $2.48 but then I spotted a pack of seven 2″ long bits for under $4. It had two #1, three #2 (the most common size), and two #3 bits from the same manufacturer as the single bit. Can someone explain that pricing structure to me? Apparently most of the cost is retail packaging.

Linda prepared large, wonderful salads for dinner. She made her own dressing using balsamic vinegar, walnuts, raisins, garlic, and seasonings, and it was very good. We finished the Pinot Grigio with the meal and then resumed our work.

I changed the blade on my saw and then we moved the wood and 2×4 supports back out into the driveway. The new blade made very clean cuts confirming that changing it was long overdue. The third piece of the alcove base was not as wide as the first two, measuring 28.25″ across the front and 28″ across the back. (The alcove tapers in 1/4″ from front to rear along the right side.) The depth was 26.75″ to match the refrigerator base depth, and a half inch deeper than the second piece. I set it in place, snug to the right side of the alcove and flush with the front edge of the other two pieces, and checked for an even reveal along the left side of 5.75″. Everything looked good so I screwed it down.

There are several reasons for this design/construction. First, there is a large bundle of wires and two air lines that run across the floor of the alcove at the rear wall. Using three layers of plywood allowed the top layer to be high enough for the base of the refrigerator to extend over the wire bundle and have its back about 1″ from the back wall (thus the reason for the recessed electrical outlet). It will also leave about 1″ of clearance above the fridge, which is enough. The second reason is that the 5.75″ width at the left, with only two pieces of plywood under it, is where the pull-out pantry will go. But third, I will install a 24″ long 2″ x 2″ angle (steel or aluminum) on the middle sheet against the left edge of the top sheet to prevent the refrigerator from shifting to the left. The front edges of the plywood base pieces will be covered (eventually) by a something, probably a piece of 3/4″ thick walnut hardwood, that will stick up above the top surface of the top piece just enough to keep the fridge from rolling out. That piece, however, will have to be removable so I am still thinking about just how I want to secure the refrigerator case in the alcove.

Linda does her Vanna White impersonation, highlighting how the new pull-out pantry will look when it is installed. The pantry is in its extended position revealing the slides sections that will mount on the cabinet wall. The refrigerator is out so we can work in the alcove.

We still had some light but with the heavy cloud cover it was darker than usual in the coach for this time of day (6:30 PM). We rigged up a piece of twine to hang the work light and turned on as many interior lights as we could. We then carried the pull-out pantry from the library (in the house) to the bus. We brought all of the slides in as well, along with two pieces of 3/4″ plywood and a 4′ length of 2×4.

We set the two pieces of 3/4″ plywood in front of the left edge of the alcove flush with the two bottom base pieces. We then set the 2×4 on flat (3.5″ side down) spanning the plywood inside and outside the alcove. We installed the cabinet halves of the nine slides onto the pieces attached to the pantry and then set the unit in place with the bottom resting on the 2×4. We moved the pantry in and out checking its position and considering where the slides needed to be attached to the alcove wall and exactly how we would do that so the front has an even reveal relative to the vertical front trim of the left alcove wall.

By this point it was after 8 PM, it was getting dark, and we were too tired to start something as critical as attaching the slides to the alcove wall. We are behind schedule, but had enough sense to not push beyond our limits. We closed up the bus, relaxed on the couch for a bit with our kitty cats, took some Advil PM, and went to bed at 9 PM.

2015/08/20 (R) On The Level

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We awoke around 7 AM and noticed that it had rained overnight. We had Linda’s homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast, followed by a pot of coffee brewed from the Cafe Europe / Columbian Decaf blend I got from Teeko’s on Tuesday. As we do most mornings we enjoyed our coffee while using our iPads to check in on the world (Linda) and write about our day yesterday (me).

While Linda went for a walk I checked e-mail and responded to several from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine. I then unloaded all of the boards, slides, battery terminal covers, and the pneumatic disc sander and discs from the car. I set up our 15 gallon portable air compressor by the entrance door of the bus, got the long air hose out of its storage bay, and connected the air sander.

When Linda got back from her walk we unloaded the pull-out pantry from the car and stored it on top of some of the bookcases in the library. We had a light lunch after which Linda settled in to work at her desk and I busied myself with sanding the floor in the bus with the air sander.

Floor prep tools: 4” belt sander, hammer and chisel, 4” rotary pneumatic body sander.

I was eager (anxious) to get the initial sanding done so I could apply the floor leveling compound. Like drywall compound it will be a multi-day process. I needed to fill any deep gouges and voids, let the compound dry, and then lightly sand it with an orbital pad sander and finer grit sandpaper to make sure it is smooth. I then needed to fill the shallow grooves that exist between the ridges of thinset and mastic that I could not sand off completely. Once that dried I would again sand it off lightly and then apply a final, very thin, skim coat to the entire area, feathering it into the areas where tile was never installed. Finally I would go over the entire area gently with the pad sander one last time to make sure the surface is as smooth and flat as possible before installing the 1/4″ underlayment. The tile will be installed directly on the underlayment.

I considered using self-leveling instead of troweled-on floor leveling compounded but decided against it. Self-leveling is thin, like water, and flows. As such it seeks its on level and forms a smooth flat surface that is “level” as determined by gravity. Although it offers the possibility of a single step process with no sanding, it also offers the potential to go wrong and not be repairable. The bus subfloor would have to be dead level side-to-side and front-to-rear. There would also have to be a border to contain the liquid and there could not be any holes or cracks that it could leak through. In particular it seemed I’ll-suited for feathering into the adjacent areas of the subfloor that were never tiled. And so I decided to fill in and “level” the floor the slower and more labor intensive, but more controlled, way.

For dinner we had the other half of the gluten free pizza Linda made on Tuesday. We had peaches, strawberries, bananas, and an orange melon that were all ripe so she made a fruit salad. We finished the bottle of Cupcake Black Forest Decadent Red Wine.

We decided to turn in early and watch a little TV. Part 2 of The Mystery of Matter: The Search for the Elements was on PBS at 8 PM. We saw Part 3 last night and did not realize until 7:45 PM that Part 1 was on this evening at 7 PM, so we still have not seen it.

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

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We have a doe and her spotted faun that have been coming in the early morning to the deer block we set in our back yard the other day. They were there again this morning and the block is close enough to the house that we got a good look at them through the bedroom doorwall. They must be comfortable with the setting as the faun wandered off towards the western part of our property and the doe let it go while she continued to lick the block. Eventually, however, the faun was out of sight and the doe headed off in that direction to find it.

We had cinnamon raisin toast and soy yogurt for breakfast, with orange-grapefruit juice to wash down the vitamins. I used up the last of the Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff coffee beans for our pot of morning coffee. Keith usually mows our grass on Mondays and he came to the front door around 9:30 AM to ask if we wanted it cut this week. That’s the first time he has done that this summer but it was an appropriate and timely question. We have had very little rain the last couple of weeks so the grass had not gown much since last Monday and was a little brown in places. We agreed to skip this week, which I think was what Keith was hoping I would say. There was a high probability of rain starting around noon and I suspect he had another yard he wanted to cut before it started.

We have been very busy the last few days and I have not had time to do more than outline my blog posts. Linda needed to work on an analysis for the bakery so I spent much of the day filling in the details of my recent posts. Our days are very full and if I wait too long I cannot capture them accurately.

Linda looked up the information on the DTE Energy “Energy Efficiency” appliance recycling program. I called the 866 number and was assisted by Reginald. The earliest available pickup date was Friday, August 28 so I took that. It took quite a while to arrange the pickup but Reginald appeared to get all the pertinent information and give me a confirmation code and a phone number to reach the truck on pickup day.

Once the refrigerator pickup was arranged I texted Chuck to let him know the details. That prompted a return phone call and a conversation about refrigerators. Having seen how our swap went on Saturday he and Barb are also thinking very seriously about replacing the refrigerator in their bus. The rationale is the same as ours; the fridge is old, so it is noisier and less efficient than newer ones, and having it break on the road would be more than inconvenient.

Replacing a refrigerator in an RV, especially a residential unit in a bus conversion, is not like replacing one in a home. Access is a major problem and there is not a lot of space to maneuver it or get more than two pairs of hands on it. If they replace theirs here (in Michigan) their bus will be inside their garage/shop, the forklift will be available to do the heavy lifting, and trusted friends and family will be available to help. And, most importantly, they won’t be living in it and dependent on the fridge for preserving their food.

Before the day got away from me I pulled up the PDF of the manual for the wireless keypad for the large garage door. When I installed the new opener for the small garage door and reprogrammed the wireless remotes for our cars I inadvertently rendered the keypad inoperable. Reprogramming it was simple enough once I had the procedure. It’s the small, simple tasks like this one that become big burdens if not taken care of in a timely manner.

The predicted rain started around noon and was steady until 3 PM. It was just the kind of rain we needed; gentle enough to give it a chance to soak in but hard enough to provide a useful quantity of moisture to the ground. Six to 10 hours of this would have been even better but we were glad for what we got.

I had thought that we might mask off the inside of the coach today with painter’s plastic but with the rain and humidity, and plenty of other things to do, I decided to defer that until tomorrow. During the afternoon Jarel texted me a couple of pictures and a brief status update on our custom woodworking projects. Not surprisingly he is already well along on the construction of the pull-out pantry and has spray lacquered the pieces for the built-in sofa.

One of the photos showed one of the 1/8″ thick aluminum plates that will form the side rails for each shelf in the pantry. He applied a brushed finish to the plate and countersunk the screw holes so the heads would not protrude beyond the surface. Jarel did metal work at one time before he became a cabinet maker so he knows how to do this kind of stuff. He is also meticulous and takes great pride in his work. Given a choice I would always prefer to hire a craftsman who cares as much, or more, about the quality of their work as I do.

When I know I am going to have a long full day, such as this coming Wednesday, I will try to “write ahead” on my blog, basically outlining the plan for the day but obviously not filling in the details of things that have not yet happened. Along the same lines, I often use future blog posts as a planning tool. As things occur to me that I need to do I will note them in the draft of a future post. If the thing actually gets done on that date I flesh out the details, and if not, I move it to a new date.

I think I did several loads of laundry today and spent some time editing and uploading blog posts during the evening, but as I am finishing this post later in the week I have lost the details and will just end here.

2015/07/27 (M) Finish Drawings

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I got up at 7:25 AM and fed the cats. There was a very large tom turkey feeding in the back yard by the basement walkout and just far enough out from the house that I could see him from the dining room doorwall where we keep the cats’ food dishes. He walked up the west slope and then cautiously headed for our lower deck. I kept an unseen eye on him from the kitchen corner window as he headed east towards the main deck. I thought he might have spotted Linda’s tomato and herb planters but he kept on going. Perhaps he caught sight of Jasper, or me, or his own reflection but something spooked him and he trotted to the east end of the deck. He had Jasper’s full, undivided attention by this point and just walked around until he decided to walk down the stairs into the east yard and around the east end of the house. I lost sight of him after that but we have seen turkeys feeding on that end of the house before and they have ready access to dense, protective cover from there. I suspect this is the same lone tom that we have seen feeding in Cory’s yard across the street.

I sat and played games for a while and then started working on this post at 8:15 AM. At 8:30 I caught a glimpse of a deer crossing the road into our yard by the main driveway but could not get up to get a better view as Juniper had settled in in my lap. Linda got up around that same time having finally gotten a good night’s sleep. I got dressed and made coffee. We finally had breakfast at 10 AM.

My initial focus for today was to finish the drawings for the pull-out pantry, design/draw the cover for the front half of the passenger side HVAC duct and wiring chase, and design/draw the small cover that will connect the chase cover to the left side of the left desk pedestal base and hide the heater hoses. I took occasional breaks to chat with friends on the South Lyon 2m repeater and finished my drawings at 4:30 PM.

Linda located a FedEx Office location in Brighton so I drove there instead of to the one in Novi to make copies and buy a mailing tube. The copies did not come out as well as at the other office so I rolled up the originals and put them in the tube. I checked to see what it would cost to have FedEx deliver the tube. Their cheapest method was going to cost $28 and take three days to get there so I went across the street to the post office and mailed them to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana it for $2.94. It will be there by Thursday and may get there by Wednesday.

When I got home I e-mailed Jarel to let him know the drawings were on the way. Linda then reheated various leftovers for dinner. I had started the day with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish but by the time we were done with dinner I decided I had accomplished enough for the day and took an uncharacteristic nap. I had just woken up when Butch called and we chatted about buses for a bit. We turned in earlier than usual and watched Antiques Roadshow and the concluding episode of Ken Burn’s “The Dust Bowl” on the Detroit PBS station.

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

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I was up at 8 AM but did not make coffee as Linda was still asleep and the grinder is fairly noisy. I put the last load of laundry in the washing machine, cleaned the litter tray (which we keep in the downstairs shower), and then worked in my office. Jasper (the cat) came down to assist me but mostly ended up supervising.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system. The Dell is in the middle. There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

I mounted the fourth (last) arm on the wall-mounted rail in our ham shack. I swung it back against the wall to get it out of the way as I do not have a monitor that I want to install at that position at the moment. I cleaned up the tools and staged them by the stairs and then moved the coiled coax out of the way and cleared a few things off of the desks so I could move the desks back into position. I left them farther out from the wall than before so they were appropriately placed relative to the three wall-mounted monitors. I then put various pieces of ham radio equipment back on the desks.

Monitors obviously need computers. I removed the Dell Precision laptop from my computer desks, removed the computer from the combination docking station and monitor stand, cleaned all of the pieces, and reassembled it. I set it at the left edge of the ham desks, slid it under the left monitor, and placed our old Icom IC-706 HF transceiver on the monitor platform, just for appearance sake. We are not using thus radio at the moment but it fit nicely in that spot.

I placed the GoBox with the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver and 12VDC power supply at the right edge of the desks, put the MFJ-998 Intelli-Tuner to its left (under the right monitor), and put the larger variable voltage DC power supply on top of it. The time we spent yesterday determining where to mount the rail on the wall was time well spent. The monitors are at a comfortable height for viewing when seated at the desk, tilted down slightly to avoid glare from the overhead down lights, and the bottom edges are high enough above the desk to permit sizeable equipment to slide under them. The desks are also far enough out from the wall to make it easy to attach and manage cables.

I rearranged my primary ASUS laptop on my computer desks and checked my e-mail accounts. I have had a discussion going on this past week with Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine about hats with the BCM logo and responded to a couple more of those communiques. Around 10:15 AM I heard footsteps and knew that Linda was finally up so I wrapped up the work in my office, transferred the laundry to the dryer, and went upstairs.

Linda was working at her desk and was not hungry but wanted coffee. She did not sleep well last night so I made a pot of Sumatra Manhelding which is NOT one of our half decaffeinated blends. I got myself a bowl of granola and had a large glass of orange juice. We spent the rest of the morning in the living room reading, writing, and menu planning.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor. They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

I like to hear the grandfather clock strike 12. Besides the charming Westminster chimes, it serves to announce that the part of the day has arrived where I am supposed to get some of the physical work on my to-do list accomplished. Today, however, my #1 priority was to redesign the pull-out pantry so I limited my physical work to gathering up my tools from the basement and moving them to the garage, moving the bus back to its normal parking spot, and taking photos of cabinet details in the bus for Jarel. I mixed in a little e-mail, a few computer updates, some ham radio, and time for meals, but basically I worked at my drafting board most of the day and evening.

For dinner Linda made a very tasty dish that we had not had before. The base ingredient was rice and she used basmati even though the recipe called for brown. I prefer basmati rice to brown rice so it was a good substitution as far as I was concerned. The other ingredients were garlic, power greens, mushrooms, and blanched fresh green beans. She sliced and caramelized a large onion and used it as a topping. This was essentially a “1-pot” dish in that all of the ingredients ended up combined prior to serving. Linda makes a lot of dishes like this and we both like them. This particular dish had the crunch of the green beans, the chewiness of the rice, and the soft earthy character of the mushrooms held together by the garlic and olive oil and topped with sweet earthiness of the caramelized onions.

At 8 PM local (EDT) I participated in the weekly SLAARC Info Net for the first time in a couple of years and did so from the comfort of our ham shack. It was a pleasure using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band transceiver with our Diamond X-50N 2m/70cm antenna at a height of 40 feet and connected by good coaxial cables all the way through. Club president Harvey (AC8NO) served as net control operator and did a nice job.

After the net wrapped up at 8:45 PM Steve (N8AR), Andy (N8DEV), and I chatted for another 20 minutes trying to find some rhyme or reason why our Yaesu FTM-400’s are experiencing random audio dropouts. We did not get it figured out and wrapped up our QSO so Steve and I could check into the LARK (Livingston Amateur Radio Klub) net that started at 9 PM (EDT). This was the first time I had checked in to this particular net even though LARK is based in Howell and the repeater is closer to us than the ones in South Lyon or Novi.

The LARK Net was much briefer than the SLAARC net and concluded at 9:16 EDT. Steve and I went back to the South Lyon repeater where Paul (N8BHT) heard us and joined the conversation. When we finally wrapped up our testing QSO I went back to work on my pull-out pantry drawings. I was about to shut everything down at 10:45 PM EDT when Mike (W8XH) announced his presence on the South Lyon repeater. He was mobile but full-quieting and I did not experience any dropouts during our 25 minute QSO. I took a few minutes to e-mail Jarel and then called it a night. I had a few almonds as a snack, got ready for bed, and worked on this bog post for a while.

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

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Our morning got busy right away. We had breakfast and I made coffee while Linda entertained Madeline. Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, dropped off the dumpster trailer at 9 AM. Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up at 9:30 to cut the grass. Linda took Madeline to the Mill Pond to use the playscape and Mara started scrapping old caulk and putty from around the base of her refrigerator roof vent. I tried using another set of tools for removing the stripped screw in the stop block on the bus to no avail. I even managed to break off two drill bits in the hole I was drilling in the screw. The more I work on this the worse it gets.

When Linda and Madeline got back Madeline had lunch and then laid down for her nap. The three adults then had vegan hotdogs for lunch after which I put the finishing touches on my design drawings for the pull-out pantry. Mara and I then went on an errand run.

Our first stop was the FedEx store in Novi where I made copies of all of the drawings for the desk and the pullout pantry. We then stopped at General RV to return the refrigerator vent cover as it did not fit the base section on Mara’s roof. They had a Camco cover that claimed it would work, and looked like it might fit, so she exchanged them and got a small credit. When we got back at 3:15 PM Brendan and Shawna were already there. They got Madeline up at 3:20 PM and stayed until about 4 PM. After they left I got up on Mara’s roof to help with tasks there.

First we checked the refrigerator vent cover. The mounting holes lined up but the flanges (shields) on the long sides were not wide enough to fit outside the base flanges. The proper fit requires the upper flanges to be outside the lower flanges by at least 1/4″ so heat can escape and extend below the lower flanges to keep rain from getting into the refrigerator cavity. I was going to install the 24″ x 24″ piece of thin sheet steel for the magnetic cell phone booster antenna when I discovered that the antenna would stick to the old satellite dish. We experimented some more with the location of the inside antenna but could not improve on yesterday’s placement. The performance was as good as with the metal sheet so I decided not to install the metal sheet. Mara then caulked around the refrigerator vent base and touched up a few other spots around tank vent caps.

Linda grilled a variety of veggies for dinner. I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir wine and we ate outside. It was cloudy and 76 degrees F with light winds; very pleasant and bug free. We had fresh strawberries with the meal and dark chocolate for dessert. We eventually moved inside to chat but did not stay up late as I needed to be up early in the morning and on my way to Indiana.

2015/07/17 (F) A High Pressure Situation

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We closed up the house yesterday and turned on the air-conditioning as the forecast for today was upper 80’s with humidity to match and the forecast for tomorrow is a high of 90 with very high humidity. Linda did not sleep well again last night but that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning. The sites where the dermatologist had removed things itched, which did not help. Nonetheless, we were both up by 8 AM and, as usual, I made coffee and we had granola. I prepared a travel mug of coffee and left at 9 AM for Chuck’s bus garage in Novi. Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline were due to arrive at 10 AM and I wanted to be back as close to that time as possible.

As I was working on the design for the pull-out pantry yesterday it became very clear that I needed more accurate measurements of various details of the new refrigerator in order to make sure the doors could open and the pantry could slide in and out. It was a good thing that I checked as the measurements were not exactly as published and the specifications did not show exactly where the doors were hinged or how much clearance they needed to swing on the hinges. Now I know, and it is a bit more than I originally allowed for, so it was a good thing that I checked.

I got home at 10:15 AM and the trio was already there. Mara emerged from her rig a few minutes later and joined us. Brendan and Shawna stuck around for a while but not long enough to get Madeline down for her 1 PM nap. They had been talking to her all week about staying with Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce and she was prepared. She was busy playing with Linda and did not seem concerned when her parents left for a music festival in Chicago. They will retrieve her on Monday.

Our older grand-daughter (and Madeline’s cousin), Katie, arrived around noon so Madeline had one of her buddies here. Madeline enjoyed her lunch and voluntarily laid down for her nap. Katie signed up to sell Cutco cutlery and accessory products and asked if she could come practice her sales pitch on us. We had agreed to let her do this, of course, and Mara joined us by her own choice. The selling involved a lot of demonstration and use of a few of the knives in side-by-comparison with our existing knives, some of which were already Cutco brand. Linda ordered a pair of kitchen shears and a santoku trimmer knife. Mara also ordered a pair of shears and Katie was able to throw in a birdsbeak paring knife which Mara will get as Linda has one. They agreed to just split the cost of the total order in half.

Mara was anxious to work on the roof of her Bounder and it needed to be cleaned before it was caulked. It was a hot, humid afternoon and pressure washing the roof seemed like the perfect use of such an otherwise miserable day. I got out the pressure washer and hose and got it hooked up. Mara put on her bathing suit and we both climbed up on the roof of her motorhome. I adjusted the spray nozzle to a fan pattern that would clean from 12″ away without damaging anything, showed her how I would approach the job, and left her to do the work. Actually I sat in the shade on the porch, offered helpful advice, and occasionally moved the pressure washer.

Madeline finished her nap while we were working and came outside several times with Linda to see what we were doing. She and Linda walked around the back yard and saw geese and a snake. They also saw a young deer from our bedroom doorwall. Our home in the country is a different and exciting place for her as it is for us.

When Mara was done spraying off the roof I sprayed off the sides of the rig to rinse off the dirty water that had run down the sides. Mara then put out the patio awning and I sprayed off both sides of it as well. When we were done we got the hose off of the grass and put the pressure washer back in the garage. Mara was very pleased with what she accomplished. Not only did she get something done that needed to be done but it was another thing she took care of herself instead of paying someone else to do it. I get that.

I worked some more in my office and then came upstairs for dinner. Mike (W8XH) had called and confirmed that Steve (N8AR) was expecting us at 8 PM. I left at 7:30 PM and drove to Steve’s place southwest of Howell. Mike and I arrived within a couple minutes of one another and were there for a little over an hour.

Steve is a PhD electrical engineer who worked for Bendix and was involved in communications projects for space programs. He has a lot of test equipment that you will not find in most ham shacks and he knows how to use it. In this particular case he used his Hewlett-Packard Network Analyzer to do two-port radio frequency through-measurements of my two Morgan Manufacturing lightning arrestors.

The first thing Steve noticed was that the center contact on one of the N-female connectors was spread open a bit. Unfortunately any spread is “a bit” too much. At radio frequencies these contacts need to be tight. We crimped the contacts back together as best we could so we could proceed with the testing, but Steve strongly suggested that I replace them with high quality parts. As expected, based on my operating experience, the M-302N V/U arrestor did not look good when tested. Steve captured the resulting return loss graph and put it on a thumb drive for me. I will e-mail it to Morgan with a cc: to KF7P Metalwerks and request a new one. If the new one isn’t any better I will request a refund. I should not have to rebuild stuff like this and the poor performance may be a design flaw rather than a manufacturing defect.

When I got home around 9:30 PM Linda and Mara were still up and chatting away in the living room. I joined the conversation until they both decided to retire for the evening. I spent a few minutes in my office after that taking care of e-mails and then went to bed. I wrote for a while but was too tired to concentrate and went to sleep.

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Tag Archives: pull-out pantry (H3-40)

2015/12/03 (R) 2015 Year in Review

2015/11/16 (M) Tiling the Cockpit, #3

2015/10/20 (T) Pop-X Pickle

2015/08/26 (W) Delux Delay

2015/08/25 (T) Turning The Corner

2015/08/20 (R) On The Level

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

2015/07/27 (M) Finish Drawings

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

2015/07/20 (M) Chuck It

2015/07/17 (F) A High Pressure Situation