Monthly Archives: March 2013

Shirts and Shower Curtains . . .

Today turned out to be pretty much a stay-at-home day. Something that it seems we don’t do often enough.

I think Jan pretty much read most of the day. It looks like I’ve got her hooked on one of my favorite authors (besides Nick, of course), Saxon Andrew. Saxon has 5 different science fiction series, with anywhere from 4 to 7 books in each series for a total of 20 books, all of them excellent.

Nick turned me on to Saxon, who I guess you could say writes in the Golden Age style, with rousing space battles and amazing inventions that save the day at the last moment.

I, on the other hand, worked on some projects, some around the rig, and some website stuff.

I never heard back from the Blue Ox people about getting my Aventa tow bar serviced, so I guess I’ll have to try and catch them at another rally, or maybe visit their factory in Pender, NE later this year.

About 4:30 this afternoon we lost power again. And just like yesterday, our 30 amp breaker wasn’t popped. And resetting it just in case did nothing. The outlet was just dead.

I think today we probably were drawing too much power. Jan had just taken a shower, so the water heater was running, plus she was using the microwave for supper and the AC was running.

I had called the RV office this morning and reported yesterday’s problem, but no one ever came out to fix it. So today I was still using the outlet for the empty site behind us. And now that one was dead too.

So I pulled a little more power cord out and connected us to the outlet of the site beside us. I told Jan that I had enough cord length to reach 5 other outlets before we would no longer have power to the rig. So she can blow the breaker a few more times before we’re out of luck.

I now think that the problem is that there is another circuit breaker in the line somewhere, which is blowing before the 30 amp breaker in the outlet box at the site. And having two breakers in series like this is against every electrical code I’ve seen.

I’ve got to go down to the RV office tomorrow and re-up for another week, so I’ll ask them then.

Finishing up, for you Big Bang Theory fans, I came across this website called SheldonShirts.com. It tells you where you can buy pretty much all the shirts that the characters wear on the show, and even things like Sheldon’s Clothing Folding Board that he used to fold his laundry, and of course Sheldon and Leonard’s Periodic Table shower curtain.

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Thought for the Day:

When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving.

adfs

Rib Fix . . .

I called the Blue Ox guy about 11 and they put me on the standby list to get my Blue Ox tow bar serviced. So hopefully they’ll be able to fit me in tomorrow.

Otherwise I’ll try to catch them at another rally, or, if necessary, we’ll make a detour by their factory in Pender, NE. This would work out well because Nebraska, along with Kansas and Oklahoma, are the only three states we haven’t RV’d in yet. So it might all work out anyway.

About 3:30 our power went off. At first I thought we had popped the breaker since we’re on 30 amps and both the AC and dryer were running. But when I checked the breaker, it wasn’t blown. I reset it anyway, but no luck.

My next thought was that the power to the whole park had gone off, but I seemed to be the only one out looking around, so maybe not. My next try was to move the plug to the other box on the pole. And that worked.

It could have been that the power came back on right when I moved to the new box. But for right now I left it like that since we were getting ready to leave in a few minutes for dinner. I’ll check it out later.

About 3:45pm Jan and I headed up to north Tucson to have dinner at Famous Dave’s BBQ, one of our two favorite BBQ chains, (the other being Sonny’s BBQ). We were both going into rib withdrawal and needed our fix.

Jan had a Half Rack of ribs, while I had my usual Rib and Brisket Plate. Along with their Devil’s Spit sauce, it’s a meal that’s hard to beat.

Leaving Famous Dave’s, we first headed a few miles north to an El Pollo Loco so we could pick up some of their delicious marinated grilled chicken to have for meals here at the rig.

Then finally heading home, and after we stopped to fill up the truck, we made a quick stop by Sam’s Club for a couple of things. It was kind of ironic that, after having BBQ for supper, we encountered a large BBQ Cookoff being held in the Sam’s Club parking lot. If we’d known beforehand, it might have been interesting to check it out. But we were so full we didn’t even want to think about more BBQ.

By the time we got home, it was dark and the drag strip right down the road was in high gear. And like last year, they obviously had a jet-powered dragster there.

I say ‘obviously’, because you can tell by the sound even if you can’t see it. And I’d be willing to bet that the jet engine they were using was a GE J-79, Used in the F-104 Starfighter, the F-4 Phantom, the A-5 Vigilante. and even the B-58 Hustler.

The J-79 was noted for making a particular ‘howling’ noise at different thrust settings, especially when it was throttled back on approach and landing. And the jet dragster tonight was howling up a storm when they shut down at the end of their run.

In fact the howl was one of the things that led to the F-4 being called the “Phantom”, and when I used to do DOD work at airbases around the country, even Jan knew when an F-4 went over.

And since we got home after dark, I didn’t get a chance to check further on the power problem. But there’s always tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity." – Harlan Ellison

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