Monthly Archives: April 2012
Settling In at a new Gate . . .
Well, we’re finally starting to settle in here at our new gate. We’ve got our canopy up (held down by 5 40 pound buckets. The wind here never stops.) and are getting used to the routine.
Although this is a 24 hour gate, overall it’s not that busy. We did about 90 vehicles yesterday which is less than we had some days at our old gate. But then our old gate was shut down between 10pm and 6am.
When we got here, they were cementing the casing, but now they’re drilling again so there’s a lot more activity on the rig. And noise.
The noise never stops. It’s a dull roar from the generators, coolers, chillers, and all the other equipment they use. In fact, all the power for the site comes from their own generators. There is no power coming in from outside.
We’re now located about 8 miles west of Karnes City about 3 miles off FM 99. And the road is so much better than our other gate. You can actually drive 30-40 mph on it with no problems.
Here’s what it looks like directly across from our site.
They’re hard to see, but there are two more drilling rigs visible in this photo to the right of the big tree. We don’t have near the wildlife here as we did the other gate, but Jan has killed two brown scorpions. I guess they count as wildlife too.
Our generator here runs slow, frequency-wise. It’s running at 57.5 Hz instead of 60, so our AC powered clocks lose about an hour a day. I’ve looked for a frequency adjustment on the generator, but haven’t found one yet. I’ll ask our support guy, Mark, when he comes by.
I’ll probably only be posting every other day while we’re at this gate, and I’m still going through the over 1100 emails that accumulated while we were off the grid, so it will take me a while to get back to everyone.
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Thought for the Day:But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. – Carl Sagan
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Yea, Piper!
Or Up Close and Personal!
First up, congratulations to our granddaughter Piper who graduates from high school next month. Our son Chris called yesterday to let us know that Piper had been awarded a merit four year full scholarship to the University of Houston, one of only four given out every year.
Separately, she earlier had received a $2000 a year grant.
Way to go, Piper!
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Well, after 12 days in the wilderness, we’re back in civilization.
Kind of.
The one main problem with where our gate was, was the fact that we had no cell phone or Internet service. But after days of trying, I finally found a solution.
I bought a Wilson DB 65 Pro amplifier and antenna, and then put the antenna on top of a 30 foot pole mounted to the ladder on our RV. And lo and behold, we had cell and Internet service.
Ten minutes later we got our first call from the outside world. It was the Gate Guard Services office telling us to get packed up because we were moving to a new gate.
So now we had to take everything down and get packed up.
Finally we pulled out about 2:50 for the 8 mile trip on the dirt road from Hell. This road is so bad we can only do about 5 mph in the rig. So it only took us about an hour and ten minutes to go the 8 miles. But once on the highway we made good time.
We pulled into our new location a little after 6 pm and got set up. Or rather I set up and Jan was already running the gate.
And unlike our other gate where the drilling rig was 3 miles away, here we’re up close and personal.
And boy is it windy here. But we do have cell and Internet, so that’s a plus.
I’ll have more later with pictures from our old gate and our new one.
Thanks to everyone for your comments and concerns when we kind of disappeared for a while. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more regularly now.
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Thought for the Day:
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. – Doug Larson
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