Our RV Adventures

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On my way home from work I detoured over by Sundowner Canvas to pick our finished awning and dropped off the old one.

Karma thinks the Ocean Blue looks pretty good.

I’ll install the new one tomorrow afternoon and then let them know how it fits. Then they can do the other rear one.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was going to take a look at our friend Bob’s Kindle. It would not longer charge so I thought I’d pop it open and see what I could do. And unfortunately, that was not much.

First thing I did was check the voltage from the wall charger which showed 5.5 volts, right on target.

This is a first generation Kindle, one that probably a lot of you have never seen.

It debuted on November 19, 2007 and cost $400. The first run sold out in five and a half hours and was out of stock for the next five months.

Besides the hardware keyboard, another difference is the fact that the charge connection is separate from the data connection.

The first thing I noticed is that when you plug the charger connector in, it doesn’t seem to touch anything, just moves around in the hold.

So taking out the screws under the back cover, I popped the case open.

And it was quickly evident why it wasn’t charging, and why there was no connection.

The entire inside connector had melted and broken loose from the circuit board. So it’s pretty much toast.

BUT . . . if you were really determined to save it, you could solder two wires to the circuit board contacts and then run them out the old charge connector hole. Then you could install a new connector on the wires and a matching one on the charger wire.

It wouldn’t be pretty, but it would work. However, the time involved probably wouldn’t be worth it for a 10? year old device when you can buy a new Kindle Fire for $50.

For dinner tonight we decided to hit up the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria at Baybrook Mall. After thinking about it, it’s been nine months since we last were at a Grimaldi’s and that was this past March in Tucson at the 57th Escapade, where we had dinner with our friend’s Chris and Charles Yust.

So it was about time for another slice.

After our Chopped Kale Salad, we got the big (18”) pizza with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Italian Sausage, and Meatballs.

Cooked in their Coal-Fired Brick Oven, it doesn’t get any better than this. And we also get the big so we can eat half and take the other half home for leftovers. Yumm!

The Word of the Day is:  Deasil

Thought for the Day: 

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With nothing on our slate for today, we had a nice relaxing morning, reading and computing.

About 2pm I went outside to take down the other rear awning, Since I’d down the first one about a month ago, this one went faster.

First off I started by clamping the flange that connects to the torsion spring. This allows me to control the unwinding of the spring.

Next I removed the screw that fastens the flange to the tube.

Then I pulled the flange off the arm while holding the vice grips to keep the spring from unwinding. After lowering the arm to the side of the rig, I carefully unwound the spring, counting the turns so I would know how many turns to rewind it.

At this point I put the now-loosened flange back on the arm.

This let me now drill out the rivets so I could remove the spring.

Now pulling the tube from the other end, I could pull it off the bottom of the awning fabric.

So now I should have been able to pull the fabric off the top rail, but it wouldn’t budge. So I removed the screw right above the rail that holds the first link of the cover in place.

This let me pull the fabric and the cover segment out from the other side.

This let me see that the reason the fabric wouldn’t come out is the fact that the rail was crimped on each end.

Normally if they want to lock the fabric in place they just use a small screw through the rail and into the fabric.

But after I use a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to open the channel, the fabric slide right out.

Tomorrow I’ll drop this one off at Sundowner Canvas and pick up the new one. I am going to ask them to hold off on doing the next one until I reinstall the new one. That’s to be sure that everything is OK with how this one was done.

I did get a chance to check out the laundry room here at Petticoat Junction RV Park and it looks pretty nice. We normally don’t use a park laundry because we have our own washer/dryer, but Jan does occasionally like to do her throw rugs in one.

Really nice and clean.

I mentioned earlier that Jan and I have been going through a lot of old photos, many I’ve never seen before.

My father was a police officer in Birmingham AL starting the 1930’s. During WWII he enlisted in the Navy and ended up in the Shore Patrol, guarding the Navy Pier in Chicago.

Here’s a photo of him in his uniform.

After the war he came back to the Birmingham Police Department as a Detective Sergeant  until he retired in1951. Then he and my mother moved down to Gulf Shores, AL where they opened a motel right on the beach.

I always knew he was an excellent shot, starting when he began to teach me to shoot when I was six. Somewhere along the line I was told that he had won the Alabama State Pistol Championship five years in a row, until finally they pretty much asked him to stop competing and give someone else a chance.

But I never had any hard info on this until I came across this clipping from the Birmingham newspaper. I’m assuming this was from the 1930’s since they refer to him as a police officer and not a detective.

Since the clipping is kind of hard to read, I’ve transcribed it below.

Man, That’s Really Some Fine Shooting

Police Officer W. H. White today had a room all to himself in the Police Department’s Hall of Shooting Fame.

At annual target tournament this week, Sharpshooter White sent 30 slugs into the bulls-eye with 30 pulls of his pistol trigger, then followed up his perfect score with 29 out of 30 shots in the second round.

Capt. H. V. Early, director of target shooting said Officer White’s perfect 300 was the first ever scored by a member of the Police Department, which rates 250 out of 300 the work of an expert.

Shoot is at three speeds – 10 slow shots at 25 yards, with five shots required in five minutes; 10 timed shots at 25 yards, with 20 seconds allowed for five firings, and 10 rapid shots , with 15 seconds the maximum for five shots. A bulls-eye score 10, each succeeding ring one point less.

So for the first round he got all thirty shots in the bulls-eye, while on the second round he got 29 shots in the bulls-eye and 1 shot in the 9 ring.for a total of 299 out of 300.

I’m about halfway through Nick Russell’s latest book, Big Lake Snowdaze and it’s hard to put down, even to recharge. Well worth a read.

Get your copy before Amazon runs out of electrons.

The Headline of the Day:  Another Human Foot Washes Ashore in Canada. That Makes 13 . . .

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