Our RV Adventures

Jan and I left the rig about 9:30 this morning to head up to the house for more work on our trim job. What we’ve got planned today is to get the planks painted with two coats and ready to install tomorrow. Jan came with me because later this afternoon we’re going to pick up Landon at his daycare and spend some time with him.

I was a little worried about the cold temps today and how it would affect the paint, but as it turns out, according to the can label, you can use the paint down to 35 degrees. It just takes longer to dry.

After we laid the boards out, it only took us about 30 minutes to get them all painted.

By this time it was after 11 so we all headed out for lunch. I mean it’s got to be better than watching paint dry, right?

We ended up at Berryhill Baja Grill, a chain known for their fish and shrimp tacos, and a place we haven’t eaten at for a couple of years. But it was still good as ever.

After killing some time and getting back to the house, we found the boards ready for a second coat of paint. By the time we were finished, it was still only about 1pm, but since we needed to let the paint dry completely before we did anything else, we called it a day.

Tomorrow we’ll run a level line along the siding bottom edge and nail the planks along it.

The new trim boards will be nailed right above the brick to cover up the deteriorating bottom edge of the wooden (actually T-111) siding.

We will also do the courtyard entrance area the same way, for the same reason.

Then after we get the trim installed, we’ll run a bead of caulk all along the top edge of the boards to keep water from getting down behind the boards.

Don’t know if we’ll get this all done tomorrow, but by Thursday for sure. Then I just have a a little touchup painting to do and that will wrap it up.

My son Chris headed out, and I had time for a nap before Jan and I headed over to Landon’s daycare to pick him up for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

By the time your youngest child is a mother herself, you forget what a logistical nightmare it is to travel with a 2 year old. It’s like a cross between maneuvering with Patton’s 3rd Army and herding ducks. And the ducks are winning.

Between the car seat, stroller, diaper bag, backup diaper bag, toys, sippy cup, and the many other accoutrements necessary for the moving of a small boy from one location to another, it’s a major undertaking. But finally we were on the road and heading down to the Ryan’s in Texas City for supper.

Landon was his usual sweet self and a good eater. As Brandi told us, he’s not real big on meat, but he loves vegetables and fruit. He ate corn, carrots, green beans, mac and cheese, and even BROCCOLI! The kid loves broccoli.

After getting Landon’s food, Jan went back to get hers, and came back with a small fried chicken leg for him. She took it off her plate and put it on his. He looked down at it and calmly picked it up and put it back on her plate, and then went back to his veggies. The kid knows what he likes. Then for dessert, he had fresh pineapple and cantaloupe, along with a cookie. Like I said, a good eater.

By now it was dark so we headed up to the Dickinson Festival of Lights to take Landon through it.

And like the one in Galveston last weekend, Landon had a blast.

He talked constantly, pointing things out and naming them. It’s amazing how many words he knows.

After we got back to the car, and Jan was taking off his jacket before I put him in his car seat, he pointed back at the lights and said, “Had fun. Come back”. And we probably will.

Like I said, the kid knows what he likes.

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Thought for the Day:

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." — Henry David Thoreau

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Leaving Jan at the rig, I headed out about 8:30 to meet my son Chris up at Lowe’s to pick up the lumber for our trim project.

After getting our 1 x 6 x 10 Pressure-Treated boards we headed over to the house to decide how to proceed. What we want to do was install a horizontal trim board along the ends on the house, and also around the entrance way courtyard.

We decided to measure and cut the planks to fit, but leave the square end a couple of inches too long to allow us to cut it to fit as we install the boards. But before we nail them in place, I want to paint them first. Then we’ll just have to touch them up a bit later.

Our next step was to set up my 12” compound mitre saw so we could easily make the 45 degree angle bevels on the boards to make nice smooth joint between the individual boards. But our first cut showed a problem, The blade was shot and would hardly cut through one board.

My first thought was to head back over to Lowe’s and get a new blade. But on second thought, remembering that a new one is at least $50 and probably closer to $75, we decided to head over to our storeroom and pick up Chris’ saw.

While we were there we grabbed some other tools that would come in handy – a 4 foot fiberglass level and my heavy-duty air-driven nail gun. This will make it a lot easier to fasten the trim in place. But the flaw in this plan was we couldn’t find any extra nails to go with the gun, so we ended up heading back to Lowe’s anyway. But a $10 box of nails was a lot cheaper than a $75 blade.

By the time we left Lowe’s it was getting to be lunch time so we headed over to King Food which was nearby. Getting back to the house, it only took us about an hour to make all the cuts now that we had a good saw.

At this point we decided to call it a day because our next step was to paint the boards, and I hadn’t bought the paint yet. I didn’t figure we get that far today, and I planned to pick up the paint on the way back to the rig anyway.

But before picking up the paint and heading home, I stopped off at a client’s office to finish installing Google Cloud Print on one of their machines.

Cloud Print is another neat free program from Google, that once installed, allows you to print to an attached printer from any other machine, anywhere on the Internet. This will allow me to print online orders directly to their office printer instead of having to fax them over, thus saving me a lot of time.

Installation on the printer end is very simple. Just install the Google Chrome browser. It does not have to replace your normal browser, i.e. Internet Explorer, FireFox, etc., It doesn’t even have to be running. It just has to be on the machine. Then start Chrome, go to the Settings, and then the Advanced Settings, scroll down, and turn on Cloud Print. The only other thing you’ll need is a Google Gmail account. If you don’t have one, you can create one from here. And like Google Chrome, you never have to use the Gmail account again if you don’t want to.

Now if you want to be able to print from your Android phone, just download the Android Cloud Print app from the App Store (there’s also one for the iPhone too). The app will lead you thought the setup using the login name and password of your Gmail account, and then you’re ready to go.

You can print anything from your phone that has a Share command, or you can choose a file from within the Cloud Print app.

As far as the PC, I’m using a free program called Paperless Printer. Once you install it and give it your Gmail info, Paperless Printer will now appear as a printer selection with your normal Print command. Just select Paperless Printer, click the Print button, and your document or picture is sent to the remote printer, anywhere on the Internet.

It’s magic!

Thought for the Day:

"There is nothing so powerful as truth, — and often nothing so strange." – Daniel Webster

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