Our RV Adventures

or It’s Alive!

Well, it started raining yesterday and it’s still raining today. And it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the next day. But if we had to have a lot of rain this is probably the best way to have it. Just a steady, light to medium downpour, with no wind.

And even better, we stayed inside pretty much all day since we had almost no traffic. Jan did stay outside for part of the morning, just knowing that the long-fabled Flowback crew was going to start coming in today. But she gave up after a while and came in where it was dry.

While we were having a lunch of Jan’s delicious homemade Pimento Cheese and fresh sliced tomato sandwiches, I suddenly had a thought about how to fix my problem with the new charger port on my ASUS laptop.

As I mentioned a few days ago, after I got my laptop disassembled and the old charger port unsoldered, I discovered that the new, supposedly OEM, replacement did not fit. The leads themselves were too big to fit in the circuit board holes, and, in addition, did not match up with the holes either. So I did what usually works for me. I just put it all aside and didn’t think about it. And today the solution popped into my mind.

I didn’t need to solder all five leads to the the board. I only needed two, power and ground. I checked the new port with my ohmmeter, and as I had hoped, the power from the center pin came out the lead at the back of the charger port.

The other four leads and the case were all grounds. So I snipped off the four ground leads flush with the bottom of the port, fastened the port to the circuit board with a drop of Super Glue, and then soldered the single rear lead into place. The rear lead was always the correct size so this wasn’t a problem.

Then I soldered a small piece of wire from the case to one of the ground pin holes, and it was done.

To recap, here’s how I took the laptop apart.

Above on the left is the hard drive, in the center is the Wi-Fi chip, and the green boards are the system memory.

I use cupcake papers to hold the screws for each step, and label them as I go.

I also have this set of tools for the small or weird screws. It also has the plastic ‘splugers’ that are very useful for prying things apart without scratching or breaking them. A great deal for less than $7.

Kaisi 16-Piece Precision Screwdriver Set

The keyboard now just pops out.

There are a number of these small ribbon cables that must be unlocked and carefully removed from the socket.

One more screw lets you remove the DVD drive.

At this point the top of the computer can just be popped off,

and seven screws later, the motherboard comes out.

And finally the culprit is revealed.

Here I’m using the solder wick to ‘wick’ the solder from the joints to remove the old port.

And this is pretty much where I left things until today when I figured out how to make it work.

About 45 minutes after I soldered in the new charger port,  I had it all back together.

And now for the moment of truth, i.e. the ‘magic smoke test’. Because everyone knows if you let the ‘magic smoke’ out of a piece of electronic gear, it won’t work anymore.

So holding my breath, I pushed the power button . . . and no magic smoke. Instead it started booting up. And a minute or so later I was looking at my desktop.

And note in this photo, I have the obligatory one screw left over. As they say, if you don’t have parts left over, you didn’t do it right.

As least that’s what I say.

After checking things over, like the keyboard, sound, Wi-Fi, and the touchpad, it was time for the final test.

And after plugging in the charger cord, I now had a charge light.

It’s Alive!

That done, I took the rest of the afternoon off. It’s not like I was really planning to do anything else, but I took it off anyway.

Later I came across this product on Facebook, and asked Jan what she would think about me doing this for Christmas.

“NO”

“Not even for special occasions?”

‘NO”

Party Pooper!

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Thought for the Day:

Reduce the Stupid

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the dangers of DiHydrogen Monoxide

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When I got up about 10:15 this morning I found the rains had finally arrived. I also found that our canopy had some leaks.

In anticipation for the forecast next five days of rain that was coming in, yesterday I had used Gorilla Tape and Rust-Oleum Clear Leak Seal Spray to patch the few weak places I could see. But unfortunately what I couldn’t see were the ones up under the small cupola cover at the top of the canopy.

Since I was just leaving for my Wal-Mart run, Jan suggested I just get another tarp to throw over the top of this tarp. Sounded like  a good idea.

And right before I left for Carthage, Jan, having read my blog this morning and not taking any chances, surprised me by saying she wanted Whataburger for lunch.

Darn, that just takes all the fun out of it.

Finally on my way, and getting out to the main highway, I first headed about 3 miles in the wrong direction to check out the Citgo station back toward Henderson. A number of the rig guys had said they had good food at the diner there and I wanted to check it out.

One thing kind of strange is that is that though it was overcast and raining at the gate, three miles west here, it was sunny with blue skies. Huh.

At past gates we’ve found the food pretty good at these places so we’ll probably give this place a try too. To make it easy for Jan to know what they have, I always just take a picture of their menu board.

Looks like the usual fare, with burgers, chicken, other sandwiches, and various other accoutrements. One of our favorite things at these places is the chicken strips and steak fries, and it looks like they’ve even got that covered.

And breakfast as well.

Though I don’t  know if they serve it all day or not.  McDonald’s does now, so they should too.

We’ll have to check them out soon.

A little later, after Wal-Mart, but before Whataburger, I dropped off my Amazon return package at a local UPS shipping ‘place’, which turned out to be a little computer repair store. This was the return of my defective Mighty Mule Alarm system. Earlier in the morning I had received an email saying that Amazon had issued my $63 credit on this.

The replacement has been working fine so far, except when the water guys knocked it over removing the frack water line the other day.

* * * * *

For some reason, it seems to get more and more difficult to put in my order at Whataburger every time I go.

To be sure I have it right, I read it off my phone. I tell them what burger I want and exactly what I want on it. But today she kept trying to get me to tell her what I don’t want on it, i.e. no lettuce. But the problem with that is that I don’t know what comes on their burgers normally, and no where on the menu board does it say.

And besides if I do it that, then I’m telling her what I don’t want on it, i.e. lettuce, and then what I do want on it extra, i.e. tomatoes, bacon, etc. I kept trying to tell her, start with a plain #6 Double Meat Cheese Whataburger Jr., just meats, cheese, and bread, and then I’ll tell you exactly what I DO want on it.

There is one guy that works there that I’m always happy to see at the counter. He takes the order perfectly, and we’re done it just a minute or so.

Later in the afternoon we did get another visit from the donkeys as they passed by. The brown one always just stops and stares at us while he waits for the 40 year old one to catch up.

Based on the radar, it looks like we dodged most of the heavy rains today. Most of it stayed to the north, running from southwest to northeast of us.

But there’s always tomorrow . . . and the next day . . . and the next day . . .

I guess we’ll see how the new tarp works.

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Thought for the Day:

“The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.” – Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics

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