Our RV Adventures

They just won’t quit. Over the last three days there have been over 300 attempts to hack into my blog, one every 10 or 15 minutes or so.

Give it up already.

Striking out looking inside for my soldering iron, I finally started going through the bins in the basement outside. And after checking out all the obvious ones, Tools, Electronics, etc., I finally found them, my primary one and my back up one, in the bin labeled Air Tools & Compressor Parts.

Why the hell did I put them in that bin?

This is my main soldering iron.

A Weller Soldering Station with adjustable temperature control, the soldering iron itself can be unplugged from the station and plugged directly into the wall socket.

My back up one is this Radio Shack one that I got for $5 at a Store Closing Sale.

Although it ‘s only dual heat, it’s better than nothing when you need one.

But even more importantly for the upcoming job of replacing the power jack on my laptop, I found my ziplock bag of solder wick.

It’s used to remove the old solder out of the connections so I can get the bad jack out and leave the holes open so I can solder the new jack in.

But by the time I found all this it was too late to start on the laptop today, so that’s on the slate for tomorrow.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about mounting a power jack on my heavy-duty 12v power supply,

and that I would solder it in later.

Well, today was that ‘later’, so I got out my Weller soldering gun (I knew where it was all the time) and took care of that chore. I took the cover off, and ran the wires through vent holes in the top and then soldered them to the binding posts on the inside.

Then, routing the wires out of the way, I put the cover back on and fastened it down.

And yes, I know that just running the wires through the holes like this is not ‘good practices’, but the holes are smooth, the wire insulation is thick, and there’s going to be no movement or stress on them, and the worse it could do is blow a fuse.

But mainly I didn’t want to have to dig out my drill to make a bigger hole and then find a grommet.

Taking advantage of the continuing lull, about 4:45pm we headed out for dinner once again, this time to track down the almost-mythical KJ’s Whistle Stop.

We had tried to find this place once before, back before our frack started, and discovered the restaurant had moved and apparently left no forwarding address. No, really.

Everything on the Internet, both address and phone number, all pointed only to their old address. And when I called 411 for their new number, they didn’t have one.

WTH!

But our landowner here at the frack told us where it was really located, and said it was his favorite local place. But when we finally tried it a few days later, it was a Saturday. And as it turned out, they’re closed on Saturday and Sunday.

WTH!

But tonight we thought we’d try again. And it turned out to be a good choice.

We’d heard about their Friday night Seafood Buffet, and their lunch buffet, but we didn’t know that they had regular dinner buffet. So that’s what we had.

After a nice salad bar, we had Chicken Fried Steak, Chicken Spaghetti, Baked Potatoes, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Field Peas, Corn, Green Beans, Rolls, and Hotwater Cornbread. All delicious.

Our landowner has good taste.

I had heard of Hotwater Cornbread before, but had never actually had it until the night we stayed in Henderson before we started on the gate the next morning back in August.

We really liked it then, so we were happy to find it here tonight. The texture reminds me of a cornbread stick, with a slightly tough skin, and a moist center. Again, really good.

Coming back, although we’d locked the gate when we left, it was open when we came back. I told Jan I guess the guy who came through had never lived on a farm, because the rule is that if you pass through a closed (or locked) gate, you leave it closed (or locked) behind you, and if it’s open, you leave it open.

Whoever it was, opened the same lock we used, so it was probably one of the frack water guys since they had a key too.

Before we parked, I went down to check out the new Mighty Mule Alarm that I replaced last week. I noticed yesterday that it had stopped working, so I wanted to check it out. What I found was that someone had driven so far off the road that they’d run over the cord that runs from the sensor at the edge of the road over to the transmitter. This was enough to pull the USB connector out of the bottom of the transmitter. So plugging it back in, I reburied the cable and sensor, hoping the trucks would do a better job of staying on the road from now on.

But this is the second time this has happened, so I wouldn’t count on it.

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Thought for the Day:

All will become clear when it is too late to matter.

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Another quiet day, even apparently for the frack up the road. The water guys weren’t around, the frack pond pumps weren’t running, and the big blue hose was flat.

Since they just started fracking last Monday, I doubt they’re finished up, but probably just switching over to the second hole. Neither of these wells are as deep as any of our three were, so they might possibly be finished up next week.

Other than that, we had some tankers coming in hauling out water, and some other trucks hauling out some other stuff.

Later in the afternoon, I started filling our water tank from the well hose. I tried hooking up the hose directly to the rig, but with only about 20psi, it didn’t work out very well. So every week or so I just fill up our 500 gallon tank. Of course with the low pressure it takes two to three hours to top it off.

I’ve noticed a number of ya’ll still buying the Striped QUEEN Sateen Sheet Sets we mentioned a while back. We came across these a year or so ago and bought two sets.

They’re still very soft, with no pilling or wearing, and they still look great. They come in 9 different colors, and even better, they’re inexpensive (cheap). Only about $25 per set.

Several readers had asked me about how I liked the new Camco Bright White Light LED Bulb that I got for our shower after the old one burned out and blew a fuse.

After a little over a month it’s still working great. One thing I’ve noticed about this one is that there’s been no fade. Many LED lights, especially cheaper ones, tend to dim noticeably during the first few months. But I measured the output of this one when I first installed it, and then again a couple of days ago, and found no discernable difference. The same goes for the LED Strip Lights that I use as fluorescent bulb replacements.

And speaking of the LED strips, I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was going to use these strips to replace the 4ft fluorescent tubes in our kitchen when they died.

And of course, today they did die. At least one of them did, and they won’t work with just one bulb. So I dug into my storage bin and discovered I only had five strips.

I decided to do just a quick and dirty hookup until I could get some more strips. I had planned to use four on each side,  but five would have to do for now.

After cutting the 12v wires going into the ballast, I wired up the strips using wire nuts. Like I said, quick and dirty.

I then used clear packing tape to fasten them to the diffuser panel. And when it was all closed up, it looked like this.

Based on the light output, the five strips shown here are brighter than the tubes they replaced. So I’ll just add one more strip when I get some more in. Although the point source effect of the lights doesn’t bother Jan or I, when I get the new one, I’ll stick them to the top of the fixture using the furnished adhesive tape, which should diffuse the light even more.

I didn’t get to my laptop repair today because I couldn’t find one of my two soldering irons. I did find both of my soldering guns, but they’re too big for this fine work. I guess they must both be out in one of the bays, so that’s where I’ll look tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

Dumbest question, “Where did you lose it?”

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