Tag Archives: steamed broccoli (WFPB)

2015/12/25 (F) Christmas Day 2015

Leave a reply

We were tired of listening to the air-conditioning last night but it was warm in the bedroom so I turned on the third A-C to cool it down before we went to bed.  Before turning in for the night I turned the fan to a slower speed and tried adjusting the thermostat, as it had gotten rather chilly, but must have set it too high.  It was a little warmer than we wanted and the unit does not remove moisture unless the compressor is running.  When combined with the noise of the fan it just did not make for a good night’s sleep.

Jasper (our male cat) was aware that I was awake at 4:30 AM and came up between our pillows to look out the window and get stroked.  I tried to fall back asleep without success and finally got up at 5 AM.  I turned on some dim lights and sat in the living room working on yesterday’s blog post for an hour until Linda also got up.  She rearranged the kitchen so she could make vegan cinnamon rolls and I brewed a pot of coffee.

The cinnamon rolls took quite a while to make as the dough had to rise, get punched down and rolled out, “buttered” and spread with cinnamon and sugar, rolled up, cut, and allowed to rise a second time, topped with raisins and walnuts, and then baked.  After baking they had to cool and then got drizzled with a glaze made from confectioner’s sugar and unsweetened vanilla flavored almond milk.  A lot of work, but worth it.

We turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and used Linda’s iPad to initiate a FaceTime session with our family members who were gathered at Meghan and Chris’ house.  Katie was not there yet so this was just a “good morning” call.  I brewed a second pot of coffee and we finally had our cinnamon rolls around 10 AM.  Brendan initiated a Facetime session with us around 11 AM and we got to see Madeline open some of her presents.  She just turned three years old and it was all very exciting for her.  The armoire her aunt Meghan built was full of dress up clothes, some new (from us) and some hand-me-down from when Meghan was a little girl.  She wanted to try on every costume, of course, so we watched for a while and then wished everyone “Merry Christmas” and signed off.

We had not opened our gifts yet so we did that next.  Santa brought us chocolate covered pistachios (vegan, of course) and dark chocolate bars and left them in our stockings, which Linda had hung from the two light fixtures on each end of the sofa after we got to WCRVR.  We had a box from Meghan and Chris that contained a pair of nice hiking socks and an insect repellent neck warmer for each of us.  The REI box that was left on our entry step-stool Christmas Eve was from Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline.  We each got a pair of hiking socks and a Columbia zip front polar fleece vest.  Our children have done very well getting us gifts that we can wear, eat, or drink.

I had not planned on working today but the motorcoach had other ideas.  I needed to investigate the drip that had developed yesterday from the air intake of the middle air-conditioner.  Since I had to get tools out to do that I decided to also fix a couple of other things.

The gasket on the aft vertical edge of the awning style window in the entry door had come out again at the top and was preventing the window from closing properly.  It was a simple enough matter to work the channels on either edge back around the metal edges of the window frame with a small flat blade screwdriver but I had to get the three-step folding stool out of the front bay and use it to position myself where I could do the work.

One of the end pieces that retains the spring-loaded toilet paper holder has been loose for a while.  I thought I needed a small Allen wrench to tighten it but a small flat blade screwdriver turned out to be the correct tool.

With those two tasks taken care of I got my small drill and a #2 square bit and removed the air intake filter for the middle A-C from the underside of the upper cabinet.  I also removed the louvered air discharge cover from the front of the cabinet.  Not being sure what I was dealing with I emptied the right and middle cabinets so I could remove the floor from the middle section and slide the floor from the right section to the left and remove the right end wall, allowing me access to the evaporator from the side.

My working hypothesis was that the drain from the drip pan was plugged and the pan had overflowed.  To test my hypothesis I located the drain line at the front outside corner of the house electrical bay where it goes through the bay floor, and had Linda watch it while I poured water into the drip pan at the front edge by the cooling coils.  The water flowed right out of the drain onto the ground so either that was not the problem or pouring the water into the drip pan had cleared the obstruction.  I was not able to see into the drip pan so I could not confirm visually what was happening.

I put the louvered air discharge cover back on the cabinet, reassembled the inside of the cabinet, and put the food items back.  I left the air intake filter off, however, so that I might see where the drip was coming from if it reoccurred.  I arranged paper towels on the desk top under the unit and turned it on.  I put the tools away, except for the drill and square bit, and then settled in to work at my computer with all three A-Cs running while Linda went for a walk.

It did not get quite as hot today as originally forecast, reaching 83 degrees instead of 86.  The humidity was in the low 60% range, so the conditions were tolerable when the sun was obscured by clouds.  Direct sunlight heats the coach up beyond the outside ambient air temperature, however, especially if we get the afternoon sun on the front of the bus.  Linda was hot and sweaty by the time she finished her walk.

I worked all afternoon on blog posts.  I edited the ones for September 9 through 18 and uploaded the 9th through the 14th before dinner.

For our holiday dinner meal Linda prepared a baked Gardein stuffed mock turkey roll, vegan gravy, baked sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, Mama Stanberg’s Cranberry Relish, and bread with non-dairy “butter.”  We do not feel left out at the holidays, foodwise.  With the heat from the convection oven we decided to turn off the A-Cs, open the windows and roof vents, and turn all three exhaust fans on high.  We ate at 5 PM.  The Friday night campfire did not officially start until 7 PM so I had time to finish uploading the blog posts for September 15 to 18.

A little before 6:30 PM Linda filled our flip top insulated coffee cups with red and white wine and we took them in our carry bag, along with our plastic wine glasses, to the fire pit.  John was there and had a nice, small fire going.  Jim and Carol showed up and then Tom and Cindy.  Tom and Cindy did not stay long and after they left one of John’s neighbors came over.  He and his wife lived on a 44 foot fishing trawler that was converted into a full-time residence and plied the waters of the Atlantic, Bahamas, and Caribbean for 10 years.  Ali was not feeling well and stayed home.  Jim and Carol were from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where they still have a house, and were both retired educators.  Jim taught high school biology and Carol was an elementary teacher.

At 10 PM John took his golf cart to make his rounds and lock up.  We had a nice small fire going and stuck around to chat with Jim and Carol.  John eventually returned and rejoined the conversation.  It was almost 11 PM when I spread out the remnants of the fire and we walked back to our rig.  We had apple strudel with Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream for dessert, watched a couple of travel programs on the Create channel, and finally went to bed at midnight after a long but satisfying Christmas day.

 

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

Leave a reply

I got up at 8 AM, put on my robe, made coffee, fed the cats, and refreshed their water fountain while Linda got dressed and washed blueberries to put in our granola.  We took our coffee to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and we were joined by our feline friends.  I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s post and e-mailed it to myself while Linda pulled up the latest video post from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for their weekly walk.  As this will probably be their last walk together until spring they planned to go to lunch afterwards.  While there was some work I could do by myself on the (permanent) installation of the desk there were other aspects of the job that would definitely require two people.  I needed to finish updating the roster for the FMCA Freethinkers chapter so I spent about 30 minutes reading the manual for the new Sony SLT-a99v camera and then got dressed and worked in my office for the rest of morning.

After a short lunch break I resumed working on the roster until Linda got home.  She and Diane had lunch at Baker’s in Milford as it is close to the Metropark parking lot where they meet.  We removed most of the things from the bus we were not currently using, many of which were stored in the sofa storage box.  We got the sofa seat off of the desk pedestals and set it back in place on the sofa base.

I wanted to use pieces of a 24″ X 30″ furnace filter to cover the various air inlets in the desk bases and the air outlets in the OTR HVAC duct.  The best way to hold the filter material in place appeared to be with some very strong tape.  We did not have any such tape on hand so Linda went to Lowe’s and bought a roll of Gorilla Tape while I cut pieces of filter material to fit the various openings.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

We got all of the openings taped up but I still needed to fabricate two tongue and groove alignment devices between the pedestals and the center connector/cover.  I make these out of flat mending plates, one on the pedestal (tongue), and two on the connector/cover (groove).  The tongue is flat against the back side of the pedestal vertical board and protrudes about 1/2″ beyond the edge.  The groove is made from two plates, one stacked on top of the other, attached to the back side of the vertical connector/cover board.  The upper plate is just back from the edge of the board and the lower one (next to the wood) is offset from the edge a little more than 1/2”, just enough to create a space for the tongue.  The tongue and groove devices match two others lower down on the connector/cover.  All four of them are oriented vertically allowing the connector/cover to drop into place and force it to align with the matching pieces of the pedestals.  A pair of horizontal plates, one on each pedestal, provide a resting surface for the connector/cover that aligns it horizontally.

With the devices fabricated we were finally able to set the pedestals on the bases, drop the connector/cover in place, and align everything as if the entire desk was a single unit.  We then got the Corian desktop out of my car, brought it into the coach, and set it in place.  It will require some careful adjustments before we screw everything down but it basically fit properly and looked good.  Final positioning of the left pedestal and base, however, would require us to put the front HVAC duct cover in position.

We got the cover out of the library and into the bus for the first time since we brought it home from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana.  The length was perfect but the bump out where the heater hoses were originally going to loop through was too deep.    I suspect the mistake was in my design/drawings.  Jarel knew this piece was supposed to line up with the left pedestal and base but I no longer recall if he even had the desk pieces in his possession when he was building the cover.  At this point it didn’t matter anyway.  The misalignment is with the base and is not very visible.  Also, the bump out is screwed on to the main cover so it can eventually be removed and trimmed or replaced with one that has the correct dimensions.

Once we had the cover in place I realized that I also needed to fabricate and install alignment plates between the cover and the left pedestal.  I had not planned on this and did not have enough mending plates so we went to Lowe’s to buy more.  While we were there I bought another can of 40:1 premixed fuel and a bottle of bar and chain oil for the new Poulan Pro 18” chainsaw.  We stopped at Walmart to see if they stocked a particular folding chair made by Stakmore that we have seen online, but they did not.  We think it would work nicely as a desk chair, and go well with the interior materials and colors in our bus, but we would like to see one in the round before buying it.

Back home I worked on the alignment plates while Linda prepared dinner.  We had leftover lentil loaf, microwaved sweet potatoes, and a mix of steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts.  She added a little water to the lentil loaf before reheating it to moisten it a bit.  We both like ketchup on our lentil loaf and I added some Pick-a-Poo sauce to mine.  All three dishes were served hot, which was comforting on a cool evening, and everything was very tasty including the cup of hot tea.

I returned to the bus after dinner and finished installing the mending plates on the HVAC duct cover.  I was not able to put it in place by myself, and there was no reason to have Linda come out and help at this hour, so I set the thermostats back and locked up the bus.

I called Butch and this time the call went through.  I updated him on the installation and testing of the fan-coil heat exchangers and asked him about the operation of our new refrigerator.  He suggested that I isolate the remote temperature sensors by using pieces of the furnace filter material to keep them from touching an objects or surfaces directly.  He and Fonda are wrapping up at the RV Park in Bouse and moving to Quartzsite on Thursday.  After we were done talking I worked on this post while we watched a few TV programs and then went to bed.

 

2015/10/11 (N) Now Heat This

Leave a reply

I guess we were tired after having Madeline at our house for 23 hours.  We slept in until after 8 AM and it was going on 9 by the time the coffee was brewed and we sat down to breakfast.  I really needed to attend to some paperwork for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter but was also eager to get deeper into the manual for the new Sony a99v camera.  I installed the PDF manual onto my laptop yesterday from the CD-ROM that came with the camera and then e-mailed it go my iPad2 so I could read it conveniently.

HL – Jasper, our mackerel tabby male cat, allows himself to be photographed on the living room floor. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but he is actually a very sweet animal ad a real joy to have in our household.

Jasper, our mackerel tabby male cat, allows himself to be photographed on the living room floor. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but he is actually a very sweet animal ad a real joy to have in our household.

Other than the time, date, and date format I have not adjusted any of the default settings or experimented with the camera’s many functions.  I have taken a few photos just to make sure it works but I do not want to start generating a lot of image files until I have made decisions about basic things like folder naming conventions and “normal” shooting modes and settings.  I did, however, enable a “rule of thirds” grid on the viewfinder screen.

Linda worked on our personal accounting and then prepared the treasurer’s report for our amateur radio club meeting this evening.  I took a break from reading the camera manual to research the availability of some accessories on the B&H Photo website.

The electric cable release for my old Minolta 9000 SLR film cameras works with the a100 so it may work with the a99v too.  If not, newer remotes are available, including wireless ones that are not too expensive.  I found the angle finder but it is discontinued.  With the adjustable LCD screen in the back of the camera the angle finder isn’t really necessary but would have been a nice accessory just the same.  I am also looking for a case and/or a photographer’s vest and/or a chest harness/holder.  The a99v with the vertical grip and a telephoto lens is a substantial piece of equipment, both in size and weight, and the chest harness/holder would support that weight more comfortably and securely than a neck strap.  I found several interesting things but not exactly what I had in mind.

By the time Linda finished her accounting tasks I was dressed to work.  First up was the hydronic heating system in our bus.  I got four pieces of 2×4, each about four feet long, and two pieces of 2×12 about 16″ long.  I put a pair of 2x4s under each desk base and inserted one of the 2x12s between the 2x4s and the base.  That raised each base three inches which was enough to ensure that the heater hoses attached to the lower fitting on each heat exchanger sloped slightly downward back towards the main unit.

The hose that connects the two heat exchangers together in series is attached to the top fitting on each one.  Half way between the exchangers is a T with the bull branch pointing up.  A ball valve with a waste port is attached to the branch.  While Linda held the valve higher than anything else in the system I opened the valve and used a small funnel to slowly pour in antifreeze.  When the lines and exchangers appeared to be full I closed the valve, turned on the thermostat for that loop, and turned it up to cause the circulating pump to come on.  I let the pump run for a few minutes and then turned it off.  Again with Linda elevating the valve I opened it and added a little more antifreeze.  I ran the pump again for a few minutes and shut it off.  This time the coolant was still right at the valve so I shut it and Linda set it down.

It was now time for “the big test.”  In order to be able to see if there were any leaks, and catch any coolant if there were, we put heavy duty paper shop towels under all six of the clamped connections where the heater hose went over 3/4″ copper as well as under the soldered joints of the T and valve.  I opened the water bay on the passenger side, where the Aqua-Hot is installed, checked the coolant level in the expansion tank, and made sure the paper cup was positioned under the overflow tube.  The level of coolant in the expansion tank was just above Minimum Cold.  With everything in order I turned on the Aqua-Hot burner and then turned the front zone thermostat back on.  I also turned on the thermostats for the bathroom and bedroom zones to cause coolant to circulate through those loops.

There are quite a few gallons of antifreeze in the hydronic heating system and even on a mild day such as today (temperature just above 70 degrees F) it takes a while to heat it up to the 170 degrees required to shut off the diesel burner.  I kept checking the hoses by the fill valve and the expansion tank.  When the hoses were warm and the level of the coolant had risen 1/2″ in the expansion tank I cracked open the waste port on the fill valve.  I got a tiny, short hiss and then coolant came out so I quickly closed it.  It appeared that our method for filling the system and bleeding the air out had worked as intended, and there was no evidence of any leaks.

I left the Aqua-Hot on until it shut off on its own.  The expansion tank was near full at this point and I topped it up.  As the system cools down the coolant will contract in volume and some of the coolant in the expansion tank will be drawn back into the main chamber.  It’s important that there is more coolant in the expansion tank than the amount that will be drawn in or air will get drawn in instead.  I buttoned up the coach and turned to my next task.

I removed the chain from the new Poulan Pro 18” chain saw since I completely dulled it trying to cut through a tree root.  As long as the cover, chain, and bar were off I cleaned up the motor unit as best I could.  Oil impregnated sawdust is tenacious stuff.  I put the new chain on the bar and attached them to the motor, making sure the chain was oriented correctly.  I topped up the bar and chain oil reservoir and topped off the fuel tank.

It took several trips to get the 7′ step ladder, pole saw, compound lopping shears, hand tree saw, and chain saw back to the apple tree.  I noticed yesterday that one of the main branches coming off the trunk about 3′ above the ground was dead.  The bark was missing and the smaller limbs were brittle.  The bark looked like it might have been chewed away by deer but I wasn’t sure.  All I knew is that it was dead.

I started with the pole saw and worked from the ladder to cut off the limbs that extended far up into the tree.  Once I had those detached and pulled out of the tree I started the chainsaw and used it to cut off the larger branches as I worked my way down towards the main trunk.  I gathered all of the smaller material into a pile and then gathered the larger pieces together.  I used the largest piece as a sawbuck to support the other pieces as I de-limbed them and cut them into four foot lengths.  I then cut up a large pine tree limb that has been sitting on the ground under the apple tree for quite a while.  I used the pole saw and loppers to trim off a few other small branches and the carried all of the tools back to the garage.  It was 3 PM by the time I got everything put away.  I was done with physical work for the day so I got a much needed shower and got dressed appropriately for our meeting later.

The apple tree is still in need of serious pruning if it us to survive and bear useful fruit.  It particular it needs to be “topped.”  It is too tall overall, especially in the center, and much of the fruit is growing up there where the sunlight is good but it cannot be reached either by us or by the deer.  We have been putting deadwood in the firepit all summer and, more recently, on the disposal pile, where it goes mostly depending on what part of the yard the tree was in when it fell or got cut down.  In the case of the apple tree it occurred to me that Applewood is prized for the smoke it produces when grilling so I may stack it up, let it continue to dry, and perhaps rent a chipper next year to turn it into something useful.

We had breakfast later than usual, and skipped lunch, so we ate dinner at 4:30 PM, which was earlier than usual.  Dinner was lentil loaf, baked potato, and steamed broccoli, a simple but healthy and tasty meal.

On Friday I exchanged a few text messages with Josh at Coach Supply Direct regarding our desktop and table.  The net result was that his schedule had changed and he was not going to be able to get our desktop and table from Countertops Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana and deliver them to us for over a week, at the earliest.  He had also planned to bring some extra clips for our MCD shades and look at the wiring on the front passenger seat 6-way power base.  Those last two items were not critical but we are ready to install the desk once we have the desktop and cannot afford to wait another week and a half to get it.  I called and left a message for Ferman Miller to let him know I would be driving down tomorrow morning to pick them up.  I then worked on this post until 5:30 PM when I stopped to reinstall the antenna, radio, and GPS in my car.

We left at 5:45 PM for our monthly SLAARC meeting and shortly thereafter heard Mike (W8XH) on the South Lyon 2m repeater.  I replied to his call and we had a QSO that lasted almost all the way to our meeting site, where we arrived within a minute of one another.

We socialized with fellow club members from 6:30 PM until Harvey (AC8NO) called the business meeting to order just after 7 PM.  The club secretary was absent so I took the minutes.  The business meeting lasted less than 10 minutes and was followed by a presentation on APRS by Eric (K8ERS).  I gave Mike (W8XH) a check for the Icom IC-2820H dual band radio that has been in my car since early summer.

As I said at the beginning, I really needed to update the FMCA Freethinkers roster and financial reports and make them available this evening.  Well, sometimes things don’t happen just because they need too.  Today was just too perfect a day to waste it sitting inside at a computer and by the time we got home from our meeting I did not feel like starting this task.  I will try to make this a priority tomorrow evening, but each day is an adventure and I have to be agile in dealing with the myriad tasks that lay before me, including ones that appear unexpectedly.

 

2015/09/03 (R) Floored

Leave a reply

I turned the lights out at 11:30 PM last night so I was starting to wake up at 6:30 AM this morning and finally got up at 7 AM.  We have had light to moderate fog the last few mornings which always coincides with very still air.  It is a calm, quiet time to gaze out over our own personal “misty moors” and appreciate where we are and the lifetime of work that got us here.

Linda was still sound asleep so I closed the bedroom door to shield her from the noise of the coffee grinder.  That was probably unnecessary as she was sleeping with her good ear down, but I did want to wake her prematurely.  I ground up 8 scoops of the Cafe Europe (reg) / Columbian (decaf) blend which yielded nine scoops of grounds.  I have figured out over time that to make 9 cups of coffee takes about 10 cups of water as that quantity of grounds absorbs and holds almost a cup.  (These are 6 ounce coffee “cups,” of course, not real 8 ounce cups.)  More importantly the strength of the coffee seems to come out right.

Once the coffee was brewing I washed out the grinder reservoir and wiped out the grinder.  It seems to hold coffee grounds as if they were magnetic and being relatively fine particles they get into all of the small nooks and crannies.  Why a coffee grinder has small nooks and crannies is one of those product design questions that suggest the designer(s) never actually used their product for its intended purpose.

My main reason for getting up early was that it was no longer comfortable to stay in bed.  My lower right back has been sore for over a week now and is worse when lying down than when working, much of which has been on my hands and knees.  My secondary reason for arising early was that I wanted to get an earlier start working on the bus today.  We need to finish the dry layout of the vinyl tile floor today so I can apply the adhesive tomorrow, with Linda’s help, before we have Madeline for the weekend starting Saturday sometime.

I assumed my usual position on one of the living room sofas with our male cat, Jasper, at my right side, and quietly enjoyed my coffee while doing some online research and starting this blog post.  Speaking of which, I am now (once again) over six weeks behind in uploading posts to our blog.  By the time we are done working in the evening and have had dinner I need what little time and energy I have left to write the draft post for that day.  Uploading them is a whole different process that also takes time and thought.  I am determined, however, to be caught up before we leave for the winter and to post daily while we are away.  Being behind is not fun for me, and posts that are 4 – 8 weeks old are probably not interesting to anyone who might read the blog.

I need a very specific trowel, an Armstrong S-891, to apply the Armstrong S-288 vinyl tile adhesive.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, The Home Depot and Lowe’s do not sell this trowel or one even remotely similar.  Lowe’s did, however, have a plastic spreader that has the correct notch size and spacing.  Someone in the floor department at one of the stores suggested we try Blakely’s Supply in Wixom so I plan to call them this morning.  Don at Lynch Carpet in Howell, where we got the tile and adhesive, mentioned another place so I may have to call them back and get the name of the business.

We’ve had the tile since early July so we could have taken care of this a long time ago but didn’t.  As much as I tried to “work ahead” with respect to the design of the project, procurement of materials, and contracting with the cabinet maker we did not attend to everything in a timely manner.  Exhibit #1 is the wallpaper, which had a 2-week lead time, and exhibit #2 is this trowel.  Overall we have done well keeping things moving along and in retrospect this will look like a well-planned and smoothly executed project, but right now I need something that I don’t have.  🙁

I called Blakely’s at 8:30 AM.  They do not carry Armstrong products but they did have a trowel that matched the specifications of the S-891.  They had one in stock so I asked them to hold for me.  With the Labor Day weekend almost upon us we decided to drive to Wixom and buy the trowel before busying ourselves in the bus.

The round trip would have taken an hour but we went to The Home Depot in Howell before returning to the house and bus.  This particular Home Depot has a tool rental operation and we wanted to see if they had a 100 pound floor roller.  They did.  In fact, they had two of them; $22/day (24 hours).  If I call before they close tonight they will hold one for me to pick up in the morning between 6 – 8 AM.

By the time we got home we were finally a little bit hungry and had our usual breakfast of homemade granola with fresh blueberries and banana.  Thunderstorms were forecast for today so we brought the saber saw into the bus so we would not have to walk outside to the garage to use it.

We resumed working in the bathroom and got all of the tiles for that space measured, cut, and fitted into place.  We then continued from the hallway into the bedroom and up the front side of the bed towards the driver’s side of the coach.  It seems that our pace has slowed yesterday and today but that’s not really the case.  What has happened is that all of the pieces have to be cut, some of them along four or five lines that cannot all be scored and snapped, and we are working in a much more confined space that makes it difficult to make accurate measurements.

By 3:30 PM we were part way down the foot of the bed and decided to take a lunch break.  Linda made sandwiches on toasted rye bread with vegan deli slices, onion, tomato, and lots of power greens.  She chatted briefly with our son about arrangements for this weekend and then we got back to work at 4:30 PM.

The rain that had been forecasted for most of the day finally arrived but did not affect our work as we had everything inside that we needed.  We worked until 7 PM and finished the floor tiles in the bedroom.  That left five or six pieces to be cut at the front where the main floor and cockpit meet.  My sister called and I said I would call her back when we were done.  We figured it would take at least an hour to finish these pieces.  We were tired and hungry and decided to defer this work until first thing tomorrow morning.  We shut off the air-conditioners, turned off the lights, and locked the bus.

While Linda prepared dinner I cleaned the cat’s litter tray, checked my e-mail, and replied to one from BCM.  Dinner was fresh steamed broccoli, whole grain bread, and mock chicken with orange sauce.  Another Gardein product, the “chicken” was very tasty.

I called my sister back after dinner and we had a long chat which wrapped up just before 10 PM.  Linda and I went to bed and settled in.  I was finishing up this post around 11 PM when it started raining.  From the sound it was quite a downpour but it did not last even 15 minutes.

 

2014/09/07 (N) Findlay Hamfest

Leave a reply

I set alarms on my phone and iPad last night to make sure I got up at 5:00 AM.  My natural tendency is to stay up a little later each night, something I am now able to do as I do not usually have to get up by any certain time in the morning.  Usually.  Today, however, was the annual Hamfest put on by the Findlay, Ohio Amateur Radio Club and I needed to be at Mike’s (W8XH) QTH in time for a 6 AM departure.  We picked up Steve (N8AR) at the Park-n-Ride lot at Lee Road and US-23 around 6:15 AM and drove non-stop to Findlay, Ohio, arriving at the county fairground at 8:15 AM.  We had a good chat on the way down, which is as much of a reason for going as the bargain hunting once we got there.  I have included a couple of photos in this post.  For more photos, visit:

http://wp36test1.slaarc.com/gallery-2/hamfests/2014-09-findlay/

We each paid our $7 admission fee and got our ticket with a tear-off stub for the hourly and grand prize drawings.  We got parked and set our Kenwood TH-F6 handheld radios to 146.475 MHz (simplex).  We filled out our raffle ticket stubs, dropped them off, and started working our way up and down the rows of outside tables.  The outside sales area was essentially a flea market, sometimes referred to as “trunk sales” because people back their cars up to the road and sell stuff from their trunks.  The spots are cheaper to rent for the day, but you take a chance that the weather will be nice.

Outside vendors (trunk sales) at the Findaly ARC Hamfest in Findlay, OH.

Outside vendors (trunk sales) at the Findaly ARC Hamfest in Findlay, OH.

We worked the flea market first while the temperatures were cool and the sun wasn’t overhead but also because almost everything offered for sale was used equipment at negotiable prices.  These are often one-of-kind items and the bargains tend to disappear quickly.  By mid-morning I had purchased a good sized NEMA enclosure (steel box with weather tight gasketed door) and a Harris 22.2 telephone butt handset (tester).  I plan to use the NEMA box to create a cable entrance box with lightning protection for RF transmission lines, AC power lines, and control lines.  I got the telephone test set because it will allow me to hook up to the phone line the same way the AT&T technicians do, and because it is not the sort of thing most folks have in their home.

Bruce (W8RA) gave a short shopping list to Steve (N8AR) yesterday at breakfast.  Mike (W8XH) spotted a matched three-piece set of vintage Heathkit gear, one piece of which was on Bruce’s list.  Steve looked at it and they got Bruce on the phone.  Apparently it was close enough to what Bruce wanted that Steve bought the whole set for him as the seller was not willing to sell them separately.

We then moved to the inside vendors, most of whom were selling new merchandise at fixed prices.  There was some used equipment, however, and I bought an Icom CI-V interface set.  This device will allow me to interface our Icom IC-7000 and/or IC-706 to, and control them from, a computer using something like Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) software.

I also got to meet and talk to Norm, from Norm’s Fabrication in Adrian, and his wife, who is president of the Adrian Amateur Radio Club.  Norm is a welder, and his side business is fabricating tower parts out of steel and aluminum for fellow hams.  If I cannot get what I need from Heights Tower Systems, Norm may hold the key to getting our used tower erected.

A very classy portable ham radio station (go box).

A very classy portable ham radio station (go box).

A number of other hams from the South Lyon, Novi, Livingston, and SEMDXA radio clubs were there.  I brought my camera and tried to get photos of our club members for the club website.  None of us won anything from the hourly drawings (must be present to win) and we left shortly after noon to meet up at the local Steak-n-Shake for lunch.  I had not eaten breakfast so I enjoyed my garden salad and French fries.  I had a good chat with Dave (K8ESQ), the current president of SEMDXA, and Don (N8CAK) from SLAARC.

We had a good chat on the drive back, stopping briefly at the Michigan Welcome Center on US-23 northbound shortly after entering Michigan from Ohio.  We dropped Steve off at the Lee Road Park-n-Ride and helped him unload the Heathkit equipment.  When we got back to Mike’s I moved my purchases and personal gear to my car and then spent some time examining his Heights tower, especially the fold-over mount.  After studying the parts and the geometry of the design I had a much better understanding of how it works and what we need to get our tower erected and fully operational.

On the way back to my house I got a call from Darryll letting me know he would be out in the morning as long as someone would be home.  Back home I unloaded everything and moved Linda’s car to the side parking pad to make space for Darryll’s truck in the morning.  It was nice to have a day away from our house and property projects.

I spent a little time checking e-mail and websites and off-loading digital photos until Linda called me to dinner.  We had leftover kale salad, quinoa with pineapple and nuts, fresh steamed broccoli, and corn-on-the-cob.  After dinner I recorded the events of the last few days in rough drafts of separate blog posts.  By 10:15 PM the early start and long day finally caught up with me and I turned the lights out and drifted off to sleep.