Our RV Adventures

After a nice quiet morning Jan and I headed out for a late lunch and some shopping.

But our first stop was the real estate office to see if our absentee ballots from South Dakota had come in. But it looks like the office closes on Saturdays, or at least no one was there, so I’ll check back on Monday. I also need to check with the bank to see if VISA check cards have come in on our new DBA account.

One of the things we were shopping for was a new toaster oven. Our 4 year Farberware model had stopped working, or at least the broiler element on top had.

So a new one was in order.

We had decided to try Bella Sera, a well-recommended local Italian place, but first we drove on up to the Wal-Mart to pick up a new toaster oven. I had found this one in stock online for only $40 and it’s a convection oven too. And even better, it’s all manual.

The last two ovens before the one that died today both had the digital electronic controls and neither one lasted much more than a year due to them going completely dead. So we’ll see how long this one lasts. Hopefully another 4 years.

Finally we were back at Bella Sera, just about a quarter mile back down the road from Wal-Mart.

After looking over the menu and getting a recommendation from our waitress, Jan went with the Chicken Florentine, with spinach, mushrooms, and garlic in a creamy white wine sauce over spaghetti.

I chose the Bella Sera Chicken with fresh basil, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, olives and capers, in a fresh lemon sauce over spaghetti.

Our entrees came with Chicken Soup or Tossed Salad, so I checked out the Chicken Soup while Jan went with the Tossed Salad with homemade Bleu Cheese dressing.

The soup was really good, with lots of chicken and perfectly seasoned. After tasting mine, Jan says she may get the soup next time. And there will be a next time.

Right before our entrees were served, I checked my phone and saw a text message from Todd at SiteWatch. It had come through about an hour before, while we were still at the rig and for some reason I didn’t hear it.

It said, “FYI, the shelter is out of water, so be sure and take what you need with you tonight.” Thinking maybe he had just texted the wrong person, I texted back, “Does this concern us?”

About 5 minutes later, Todd texted back, “Oh crap. Sorry. I meant to tell you yesterday you’re on a gate tonight starting at 5pm. Can you work tonight?

It was now 3:15pm.

So I texted back, “Yep!  Where? Just me or Jan too?”

Turns out it was just me (to Jan’s glee) and the location was only a few mile away from our last week’s gate, and actually only about 5 miles from our very first Marathon gate back in 2012. Looks like it will be for at least 3 nights and maybe more. And still only about 15 minutes from the rig. So nice.

So we quickly ask for ToGo boxes and the check, and headed home. Didn’t even unload the new toaster oven. Just changed clothes, packed my stuff and headed back out.

Brandi took Landon down to Clear Lake this morning so that his Uncle Chris could make a Halloween costume for him. Landon wanted to be a robot, and Chris certainly did him up right.

Of course with any project, the first thing you have to do is to take measurements.

Landon and his Aunt Piper are hard at work too. Every project needs supervisors overseeing things, right?

Things are starting to take shape.

Almost there.

And now the finished project.

Great Job, Chris!

Thought for the Day:

“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” – Mark Twain

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Jan and I are beginning to wonder if Miss Karma needs glasses.

Since we’ve had her, she’s always had a propensity to run into things. She’s much more careful about where she steps or how she jumps down from something than any of our other cats.

This afternoon she jumped down from one of the chairs and ran right into my leg. She sometimes runs from the front of the rig back to the bedroom and runs into the bed. I did look in her eyes to see if she might have cataracts, but saw no signs of them.

So how do you give an eye test to a cat?

Heading out a little before 1pm, our first was at the Lone Star Real Estate office to pick up an Amazon package that came in this morning. The lady that owns this office also owns our RV Park, and kindly lets us receive mail and packages there.

Thanks, Nancy.

Our next stop was at Barth’s Restaurant for a 3rd shot at their great lunch buffet, and today was no exception.

We’re gradually working our way through the week, having already had the Friday Mexican fare, and Sunday’s Turkey & Dressing/Fried Chicken offering. All great.

And today’s Chicken Fried Steak Fingers and Fried Catfish continued in the same theme of really deliciousness. And from what Jan says, we’re going back for more Turkey & Dressing on Sunday.

After lunch we had planned to check out the local HEB, but as we were entering the restaurant earlier, I discovered that I had left my cellphone back in the rig. And not wanting to miss a possible Todd text about another gate, we decided to loop back home to pick it up. But as happens, once we got back home, we decided to stay and do HEB another day, maybe tomorrow.

A reader, Richard, left a comment wanting to know more about the voltmeters I use to monitor our rig’s battery voltages. Actually I have three voltmeters that I’ve install in our rig – two 12 volt meters to monitor both engine batteries and house batteries, and one that monitors our AC house voltage, whether shore power or generator power.

Early on, I discovered that 12v power that feeds the overhead spot lights, map lights, and the power plugs at the dashboard comes from the engine batteries. And the 12v power in the rest of the coach comes from the house batteries.

So that means I should be monitoring both if I want to know what’s going. One reason is to be sure that the engine batteries are being charged. On our American Eagle, the engine batteries are only topped off when the house batteries are fully charged and the battery isolator switches over to charge the engine batteries.

So I have one 12v meter underneath the overhead cabinets at the dashboard. This one monitors the engine batteries.

And I have another one over the sofa monitors the house batteries.

Both of these are visible from my computer chair so I can always keep an eye on things.

I also have another one for 120vac that resides right over my driver’s chair. I put it in that position so I can monitor the generator output while we’re on the road.

And when we’re parked I can keep an eye on the shore power, especially important when the park voltage starts dipping in the Texas summertime with everyone running their AC’s full bore.

Here is the 12v version from Amazon. At $7 they’re an inexpensive addition.

And here’s the 120vac version, also from Amazon.

And this one’s only $8.

As far as hooking them up, it was really pretty simply. I was able to tap into 12v sources in the cabinets. In both cases, I hooked up the 12v meters like this.

I wired them across a couple of lights that we never use, just hooking up the red wire (+) to one side of the switch and the black wire (-) to the other side. And yes, the meter will go dead if you close the switch, but it won’t hurt it.

One of these is a rope accent light over the sofa, and the other is a high power halogen light over the dash, so they were perfect to use.

As far as the 120vac meter, it was even simpler. There is a 120vac socket in the cabinet overhead, so I just wired a two prong plug on the meter leads (polarity doesn’t matter) and plugged it in. Easy Pezy.

Now on to DKIM.

I may be taking my life in my hands, but I’m going to dip a toe into the election mess, but on a technical level.

I’m sure pretty much everyone has heard about the emails, Wikileaks and otherwise. Depending on your point of view, some of the information contained within either depressed you or encouraged you.

And a couple of the people referenced in them, after writing things they probably wished hadn’t been made public, have said the emails were tampered with, changed, or modified, to make them look bad.

But that didn’t happen, and it’s easy to tell it didn’t. Even you could do it if you wanted to. You just use a DKIM verification program.

DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail, a combination of two different pieces of email verification software.

Pretty much every piece of server software that you would use to set up an email server contains the DKIM routine. In some cases it’s already set up, and in other cases, it must be manually configured.

Depending on whether your email is stored on your home computer, or on the email server, all the emails, all attachments, etc., all the emails are stored in a single large file, either a .pst file, or an .ost file.

These found, stolen, leaked, emails are not copied off one by one, like you would make a copy on one on your personal computer, but the entire .pst or .ost file is stolen, leaked, or copied.

Think of the DKIM software as being similar to the https: secure login for credit card purchases online. An encrypted handshaking takes place between your computer and Amazon’s (for example), guaranteeing that you are really talking to Amazon, and not some spoof site, giving away your credit card data.

The same thing takes place in an email from a DKIM server. It guarantees that the email is coming or going from the specified email server AND no changes have been made to any of the text in the emails.

So you can download DKIM verification software and check this out for yourself.

And now you know.

Thought for the Day:

“It’s terrible to contemplate how few politicans are hanged.” – G. K. Chesterson, British philospher (1874 –1936)

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