Our RV Adventures

We started today with some of the great Gevalia Cinnamon coffee that our friend Gina gave us a year or so ago. I thought we had used it all, but I found one last box in the back of the cabinet. And since it was still vacuum-sealed, it was still fresh.

Next I called my client Kim to tell her that I’d come up with a kludge to get all her phones working again. This doesn’t fix the real problem, but it does get the pressure off, and means that I won’t have to go back to Houston to get things working. The only problem will come when they have to add more computers and phones as the business grows. And since they’re just getting started, hopefully that will be a little while, at least long enough for me to fix the problem. I do have an idea, but I need to check with the VOIP company first.

When I went outside I got this shot of this Gambel’s Quail running around behind the rig. When I first saw them at a distance I thought they were roadrunners, but when I zoomed in I saw the difference.

A roadrunner looks like this,

or even this.

About 11am I called American Coach to check about drilling a hole in the floor next to the driver’s seat. I need to bring in a 2nd cable for our new DVR and figured the best way was to come up from the compartment right underneath. They said there should be no problem. I’ll get to it in the next few days. Right now I’m just coming in the driver’s window and using a piece of pipe insulation to seal it.

Next I got back to pulling up the carpet under and around the computer area. It’s a real pain in the rear getting up all the staples around the edges.

About 12:30 we headed out to our other favorite restaurant here in Gila Bend, the Space Age Restaurant. Originally built in the 1960’s, the owner owned copper and manganese mines, and a plastics company, that all supplied materials for NASA. So he was really enamored with the space program. So when he built a motel/restaurant it had a space theme.

It’s even got a flying saucer.

Our next stop was the local hardware store  where I found a air deflector for the AC vents in the bedroom.  The way vents are now the air blows directly down on us in the bed. I’d been looking for deflectors, but could never find the right size. However these are adjustable in length so they fit perfectly and are held on by magnets. We’ll have to see if the magnets will hold while we’re on the road.

Getting back to the park, we stopped off at the gift shop/gas station to check their souvenirs. I also wanted to take a look at the two old tractors they have out front.

This one’s a John Deere, of course, but something I’ve never seen before

are these bolt-on rubber tire covers.

The second one is a McCormick-Deering, but the placard says it was made by International Harvester in Chicago IL.

Looking at these wheels makes me wonder if the John Deere above was originally like this, but then the metal teeth were replaced with the rubber covers. It would be a real problem to drive it on the highway like this.

After talking to another client about a keyboard problem he was having with his laptop, we called our daughter Brandi to get the lowdown on Master Landon’s 6 month check up yesterday. Apparently everything was fine, and he won’t need another one for 3 months.

A little later I took down the curtains on the passenger side of the windshield to wash them. I noticed the other day that they were kind of dusty and this seemed to be a good time to take care of that.

About the time I was taking them out of the dryer, Nick called to say that they would be finished up mailing out the latest issue of the Gypsy Journal, and would be heading toward Yuma on Thursday. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet up on the way there.

A little after 4pm I drove over to the Elks Lodge to double check on my initiation on March 1st.

Then it was back to carpet pulling. Tomorrow I should be ready to pull up the driver’s chair to get the carpet under it. We’ll see.

For dinner Jan fixed up the last of yesterday’s hot dogs that I had grilled up. Still good.

That’s about it for today. More tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

How to Fix Social Security —

If you start with $500 at birth, add $20/month, at 9% per annum (roughly the stock market gain over any 65 year period in history), after 65 years you have almost a $1 million to retire on.

Make the $500 an additional one-time tax credit, and put it in an investment account where it can’t be touched.

Give the parents a tax credit for the $20/month until the child starts getting a pay check. The $20 per month then becomes his FICA tax.

Wouldn’t you rather be paying $20 per month for your SS?

OR

If you start at age 20 with $5000, and save $80/month, you will have over $800,000 in 45 years.

If a 20 year old wanted get in now, make the $5000 a low-cost government loan, like a college loan.

asfd

First off, I want to thank Nick Russell for keeping all the bad weather over in Apache Junction with him. For the second day in a row, it’s been great here in Gila Bend. Sunny with daytime temps in the low 70’s and nighttime in the low 40’s. Couldn’t be nicer. Thanks, Nick.

Jan and I slept in this morning enjoying the cool temperatures so we didn’t get up until about 10am, to find a call from our daughter Brandi waiting for us. Yesterday was Landon’s 6 month birthday, and today is his 6 month checkup.

Brandi laughingly wanted to know if Jan could babysit Landon this Saturday. Sure, I mean it’s only 1250 miles back to Houston. No problem.

Though I think Jan would do it, just to get some Landon time.

After fixing coffee, I caught up on some computer work, while Jan read her new Janet Evanovich book. Then about 10:30 I got a call from the client that I did that one last job for right before we left Houston. And she had a problem.

All of her phones quit working this morning. They worked just fine on Friday, but when she came in this morning they quit working … one at a time.

I spent a good while on the phone with the VOIP company Tech Support guy with no luck. He didn’t know what the problem was, he just knew it wasn’t his companies fault. He kept wanted to blame our routers, but he couldn’t answer my question about why it worked for two weeks and then went down one phone at a time.

I guess tomorrow I’ll be spending more time on the phone, this time with AT&T.

Nick called a little after 11 updating us on their departure date from Apache Junction after they get the latest issue of the Gypsy Journal in the mail.

About noon Jan fixed a lunch of sandwiches and chips, then I went out and pulled out our Weber Q200 grill from the bay.

Our kids gave it to us for Christmas in 2007 right before we hit the road. We haven’t used it as much as we should have, but Jan had a hankering for hot dogs this evening so I wanted to be sure the the grill worked and had enough LP gas in the bottle.

After being sure the grill was working, I made a run into Gila Bend to the hardware store and the NAPA auto parts store. I was looking for a 3/4 wrench to make it easier to remove the rig seats to get at the carpet underneath them. I was also looking for a set of small snap ring pliers to let me disassemble our electric heaters to clean the dust and cat hair out of them.

Getting back to the rig I pulled the passenger chair and starting ripping up the carpet. It was slow going due to all the staples they used in the corners, but I did make some headway.

About 4:30 I started up the grill while Jan had already started the baked beans.

I grilled the hot dogs and the buns on the Weber and they both came out great. So about 5 we sat down to delicious hot dogs, beans, and chips.

Then after supper I did a little more on the carpet and then fixed evening coffee.

Tomorrow, more work on the carpet.

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Thought for the Day:

“Our ancestors settled a continent, but we get upset if we have to go to both the bank and the dry-cleaners after work.”

asdf