Our RV Adventures

Once again today, the weather was in the low 40’s, with no sun, and windy enough to not be very conductive to working outside on any projects. So I stayed inside and mostly goofed off.

Well, I did finish up with my client’s new computer. But, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any data off her old hard drive.

I opened up the case and plugged in the frozen-overnight hard drive, and I was encouraged to not hear the ‘clicking’ sound after the drive spun up. But unfortunately the computer could not see the driver at all.

Just to sure I didn’t have a problem with the way the drive was hooked up, I connected another old drive I had, and it work with no problems. So then to double-check I hooked the bad drive up again, but still with no luck. So at this point I just packed up the computer and got it ready to deliver tomorrow afternoon.

A little later, our friend Randy came by to ask for some help. He wanted help getting his big, old, heavy, CRT TV out of the overhead cabinet of his Monaco. Later, I drove my truck over to his site and we put the TV on the tailgate and drove it over to the dumpster and dropped it in.

The reason Randy didn’t need his old TV is a friend of his son’s gave him this one. For Free!

It’s a 65 inch Mitsubishi LCD and it sits on one side of the rig, across from the sofa on the other side. To me it would be like sitting on the front row at the movie theater, but Randy seems to be happy with it.

Did I mention it was free?

Tomorrow we’re going to deliver the new computer, along with making a couple of other stops. First we’re going to have lunch at Katz’s Deli in the Montrose area on Westheimer. Then I want to check out the iBurn store down on Bellaire to look over their stock of hot stuff.

I always need more hot stuff.

Then it’s off to Pasadena to deliver the computer. Coming home we’re going to go by one of the new El Pollo Loco locations that have just opened here in Houston and pick up some chicken and stuff to bring home.

We first encountered them a number of years ago out on the West Coast, and we’re really glad to find them spreading out eastward. There are two open here now, and a third one opens soon. And hopefully there are more in store for this area.

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Thought for the Day:

“Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality.” – Victor Hugo

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Readers of this past Saturday’s blog post saw the photos of the burned-out Newmar Kountry Star that we saw while we were checking out the Marina Bay Lake Cove RV Resort down in Dickinson.

Blog readers who check out the comments also know, that amazingly, the owners, Mike and Vanette Miedl, are blog readers.

The fire happened December 17th, and was a refrigerator fire. At least Mike saw flames coming out from under his Norcold. To me, that’s a dead giveaway.

Here are the blog comments in case you didn’t catch them.

Hey Greg. Imagine my surprise this morning. The burnt Kountry Star was ours. Burnt Dec 17th. Guess they are a little slow to get it cleaned up as they are arguing with Norcold over fire cause. I saw flames coming from under the fridge when we woke up. I believe the fridge was the cause, but of course there is contention. I mean, I was there but evidently eye witness account doesn’t mean a lot to the people trying to protect their company. By the way. The satellite dish was 15′ in front of the rv on a raised platform. (trailer)

Mike and Vanette

So sorry to hear about this.

It’s amazing sometimes how small the RV community is. I speculated to Jan that this might be a refrigerator fire.

Glad ya’ll made it out OK.

Was there anyone parked on either side of you at the time?

Do you mind if I pass this info on to our readers in a future blog post?

I just talked to Nick and Terry a few minutes ago, and they also send their condolences.

Let us know how you’re doing.

Hi Greg,
Yes there was a 5er next to us. It sustained damage to the side, and the clear cover over the shower and air conditioner cover. No one on the other side. Yes, you can pass on any info. Best part was, reading Nick’s blog we had decided to replace our Noroold as soon as we got to Waco. (About 2 wks) We looked at refers at Home Depot and found one like Nikes, but needed a carpenter to drop make the size just over an inch bigger. (We had no Miss Terry aboard) So, that’s what happens.

I had planned a number of outside chores today since the weather was supposed to be 55 degrees and partly sunny.

They lied.

It never got over 45 and not a ray of sunshine was to be seen. But I wanted to at least get the truck AC repaired, so I bundled up, broke out my trusty soldering iron, and had at it.

First off, I cut the insulation where the wire was already broken and pulled it back.

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This didn’t give me a lot to work with, but I found the plug endcap could be pulled off, leaving me more wire to work with.

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It’s hard to see here, but I stripped the two ends back about an !/8”, and then tinned them with solder.

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My next two photos didn’t turn out very well, but I took a 1” long piece of 14 gauge jumper wire, stripped and tinned the ends, and then slid a piece of heat shrink tubing over it. Then I soldered the ends of the jumper wire between the two broken ends and then used a heat gun to shrink the tubing on both ends.

Putting the endcap back on left me with this. .

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Then using my ohmmeter I confirmed the circuit was working fine. Once I try it out for a few days, I’ll wrap the entire thing in electrical tape to seal it up

It’s not pretty, but it works.

Later Jan and I headed into Columbus for dinner and Wal-Mart. Going by the Colorado County Fuel Co-op where we got diesel a couple of weeks ago for $2.59, I was happy to see it is now $2.49. Nice.

Our dinner stop was the Los Cabos Mexican Grill, where we’ve eaten a number of times and always enjoyed it. And tonight was no exception.

I had the Plato Loco, which had a Beef Fajita Taco, a Tamale, a Beef Enchilada, and a Cheese Enchilada.

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Jan had the Pollo Relleno, which was a Chicken Breast stuffed with Shrimp, Tomatoes, Cilantro, and Onions, and covered with a Butter Wine Sauce made with Shrimp, Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Jalapeños and Onions.

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As usual, everything was seasoned perfectly, and really delicious.

Coming home, we stopped off at Wal-Mart for a few things, including a stack of DVD’s. Then as soon as we got home, I ran the Recovery Disk Creation Software, and made the 5 DVD backup set for the new computer I’m setting up for a client.

Tomorrow I’ll see how the ‘freezer trick’ works on the old hard drive.

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Apparently Facebook doesn’t like the word . . .

Butt!

As in yesterday’s blog title – Pucker Butt

As in the Pucker Butt Pepper Company, developer of the Carolina Reaper, the hottest pepper in the world.

As usual last night (actually very early this morning), after I made the latest post to the blog, I also posted it to Jan’s Facebook page. Then about 15 minutes later it was gone. It still showed up on Jan’s personal page, but it had disappeared from her Timeline. So I posted it to Facebook again. And again, about 15 minutes later it was gone.

So I  guess these Facebook recipe pages better not post any recipes for a Boston Butt Pork Roast.

Of course I guess it could be the word ‘pucker’, so be careful around Valentine’s Day when you ask someone to ‘pucker up’.

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Thought for the Day:

Do it for the children.

I’m doing my part. How about You?

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