Our RV Adventures

Another hot day here in Texas.

In fact, as far as we’re concerned, it’s the hottest one so far. We have a remote digital thermometer outside in the shade, and today was the first day it’s hit 100°. And tomorrow’s supposed to be a couple of degrees hotter.

Oh well, that’s Texas in the summertime. One thing that’s funny though, is that when I check the temps along our upcoming route when we leave here next Sunday, i.e. Breaux Bridge, LA, Biloxi, MS, and Gulf Shores, AL all the temps for the next week are in the mid to high 80’s, not the high 90’s like here.

Sounds like a good time to be moving on down the road.

We had originally thought about doing the park Potluck this afternoon, but decided it was cooler to just stay home, and also because then Jan wouldn’t have to heat up the coach preparing something.

Maybe next Saturday night right before we leave.

A few days ago I posted a time-lapse photo of the recent SpaceX Falcon 9 Take-off and the landing of the 1st stage back at the Cape.

Well, here’s a interesting video of the landing from both the land and the rocket itself.’

But the Falcon 9 is just the start. Next up is the Falcon Heavy, basically 3 Falcon 9’s tied together, making it the most powerful rocket since Apollo’s Saturn V. That’s 27 engines firing at once.

It even does mid-air refueling of a sort. All 3 engines are firing at lift-off, but the two side rockets are also pumping their excess fuel in the main rocket. So that when the side rockets shut down and fall away to land back on earth, the main rocket is left with a full tank of fuel to continue on into orbit. Then when the payload is ejected into orbit, the main engine then deorbits and also lands back at the Cape.

Its first launch is scheduled for this December.

In fact, the Falcon Heavy could launch a new moon mission in only two launches. And since all three rockets are recoverable, it would be at a fraction of the cost of a Apollo mission.

And according to SpaceX, the next stop is Mars.

I mentioned a few days ago that Jan and I sometimes go through old photos of our trips and play ‘Name The Site’, trying to figure out where we were parked in that particular photo.

Well, we also play ‘Been There’, The winner is the first one to yell out ‘Been There!” when they mention a place  on TV that we’ve been to on our travels.

Today they were talking about Harrisburg, PA. ‘Been There’. A few days ago, the Statue of Liberty. ‘Been There’.

Even a few years ago when CSI was still on the air, and they visited a gun store in Las Vegas, and although they called it by a different name, it was obvious it was The Gun Store where Jan found a new favorite toy.

I guess this would make a good drinking game, but since Jan and I really don’t drink, you’re on your own.

Thought for the Day:

“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian.” – Henry Ford

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As I said yesterday, today was a ‘rest up’ day from my rooftop AC coil cleaning. And it was definitely needed, since I woke pretty sore this morning. Mostly I think from getting down on my knees and back up several times as I was working around all sides of the AC unit.

One blog reader ask why I didn’t use something stronger to clean the coil, something stronger like Greased Lightning, or our favorite strong cleaner, Awesome.

Awesome certainly has its uses. In fact it’s the best thing I’ve found for getting dead, stuck bugs off the front cap of the rig. Just spray it on, leave it for a few minutes, and then spray it off.

But be sure to get it all completely off, because it will start to eat your paint. In fact, Awesome recommends you don’t use it full strength at all, but dilute it first.

The reason I didn’t want to use it for cleaning the AC coil, is that all these cleaners are highly alkaline, and if you don’t get every last drop out of every nook and cranny, it will start eating the thin aluminum fins, just dissolving them away.

I’ve seen this happen before on a home AC unit. The homeowner had put in a new underground sprinkler system where one sprinkler head sprayed slightly on the outside unit.

But he also had a setup that automatically added liquid fertilizer to the spray. And that fertilizer was alkaline, as most are.

After a couple of months his AC just quit working. When they had it checked out, a large section of the coil fins had just disappeared, and if you rubbed your finger over the rest, they just disintegrated at your touch.

But the 409 I used is perfect for breaking loose the dirt and gunk without harming the coil.

Wrapping up, it’s the end of an era. The last VHS VCR will roll off the assembly line the end of this month. Funai, known as Sanyo in the US, is still selling about 750,000 units a year, but that’s dropping steadily, and they’re having more and more problems getting parts.

Last VCR

The last VHS tapes were made in 2008, but the supply stored away in warehouses has kept them on the market for years after. And the last movie on VHs was The History of Violence, and was released in 2006. So it’s been all downhill since then.

We got our first VHS recorder, a Panasonic, in 1980, paying, I think, around $800 for it.

It looked just like this one.

Of course I couldn’t keep my  hands out of it.

These units only had a fast forward/rewind mode that didn’t let you see the picture as you were using it. But within a couple of months I had come up with a way to add a wired control box with an on/off switch and variable speed knob.

With the 20-30 foot cable stretched across your living room, it would let you fast forward through commercials as you watched the picture in fast mode. The knob let you speed up or slow down the mode.

I was working at JSC-NASA at the time, and after word got around, I installed these on a lot of other people’s machines, making enough to more than pay for our VCR. Nice.

Thought for the Day:

Common sense is like deodorant. The people that need it most never use it.

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