Our RV Adventures

Strangely enough I spent most of today at work ordering baby furniture. My client and his wife are fostering a two-week old baby, so I’m apparently in charge of the Amazon Prime ordering.

I did get my tax forms in the mail today. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I hate to give money to anyone before I have to, especially the government.

Following up on our LegalZoom wills, Jan and I will stop by my client’s tomorrow afternoon to get him and the office manager to witness our wills. Also, if after you do your will, download it, and then find a problem, you have 30 days to make any further updates or changes at no charge.

Right now I’m printing 3 copies of our wills and affidavits for tomorrow, and I’m really surprised that I’m able to do that. On our trip up to Kingsland last weekend my HP 4650 Inkjet printer took a header off the computer desk. Scared the barf of Karma (literally) because she was sleeping between our chairs about a foot away.

I had pulled it out to the side so I could access the printer’s document feeder and forgot to push it back into place. So I was really surprised when, after I popped the document feeder lid back in place and powered it up, it printed and scanned fine.

HP builds them tough, I guess.

As if I didn’t have enough to do right now, this weekend the front disc brakes on our Dodge Dakota started complaining, so I stopped off at O’Reilly’s on Saturday to order a set of ceramic pads, that I picked up on the way home from work today.

Ideally I’d wait until A.C. (After Cruise), but right now I’m still on the warning area of the worn-down pads and don’t want to start scarring the rotors. So it looks like Thursday will be the day.

But since my jack stands seems to have moved up to Kingsland with Chris, I’ll pick up a couple tomorrow at WalMart. Only $8.83 each, so not bad.

Ever since our rig’s blowout in May 2015, our windshield has leaked around the top outside corners. And it had nothing to do with the actual blowout.

When the repair place was replacing the dented diesel fuel tank, they lifted the front of the rig up about  4 feet using one of those vertical lift jacks. And when they let it back down they torqued the frame enough to crack the passenger-side glass. And it’s leaked every since. But we didn’t discover it until months later when we were back in Texas and had our first heavy rain.

I had it looked at several times to have it resealed but it never fixed the problem. So after trying to caulk it a couple of times with no real luck, I got out the big guns.

Gorilla Tape Waterproof Patch and Seal Tape

Like Eternabond Tape, it has a peel-off release liner that covers a super-strength adhesive that once stuck in place, stays in place. And the outer black layer is waterproof and UV resistant.

So I cut strips to fit, peeled off the liner and stuck it in place. Looks pretty good too. You have to be up close to see the difference. Now I’m really looking forward to the next big rain.

I booked what is probably our last pre-cruise London tour this morning. Any others we will probably wait until we’re in the area. Long-time friend and blog reader, Jim Hamm recommended that we check out one of the many Jack the Ripper tours.

Most of them seem to be in the morning or afternoon, but who wants to take a spooky Ripper tour in the daylight. So we picked one that starts at 7:30 at night.

Jack the Ripper Tour with RipperVision

And this one comes with Ripper-Vision.

Apparently ‘Ripper-Vision’ is some sort of projector system that shows what the buildings and areas actually looked like at the time of the murders.

This still leaves us one completely free day in London, and, of course, the morning and afternoon of the Ripper Tour.

Thought for the Day: 

“Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler”. – Albert Einstein

ghg

I finished up my LegalZoom will this morning and then did one for Jan. And it really couldn’t have been much easier. Of course, ours wasn’t really very complicated to start with.

The LegalZoom system just leads you through filling out the information, kind of like TurboTax does, asking for more data depending oh how you answer the previous questions.

And as they advertise, it only took about 15 minutes. And Jan’s was even quicker, since the system lets you create a ‘mirror’ will that just reverses the names of the spouses, leaving everything else, beneficiaries, etc., the same.

Jan’s and my wills leave everything to each other, and then equally to our kids, with no special bequeaths. Just let them fight over it, since at that point we won’t really care.

Both of them are named as co-executors, again so they can figure out how to divide up the spoils. And since we sold the house, there’s no real property to worry about either.

My will, with digital download option, was $69, and $59 for Jan’s, with a $10 discount for two wills. If you don’t want to print them out yourself, for $9.95 they will send you ‘professionally printed’ copies for you to just sign. Not exactly sure what they mean by  ‘professionally printed’. Probably just some person taking it out of the laser printer and sticking in a envelope.

As far as signing the documents, you can either have your signatures notarized, usually at your bank,  or witnessed by two adults who are not part of the will.

I did use their Live Chat feature to ask about residency, since Jan and I are actually South Dakota residences, but the wills will almost certainly be probated in Texas. And I was told that for simple wills like ours, it didn’t make any difference, and to just put down Texas as our ‘residence’ since we spend pretty much all our time here.

Apparently every will is looked over by a human, since it was about 45 minutes after I paid before I got an email saying my documents were ready. And logging back in they gave me this list of 5 PDF files

to download and get signed. But actually only two of them need to be witnessed and signed – the Self-Proving Affidavit and the Will itself.

The Self-Proving Affidavit is used to validate a will for probate to prevent the witnesses from having to show up at the Probate hearing to testify that the will is genuine.

LegalZoom did also offer to add a Durable Power of Attorney  and a Medical Power of Attorney to my package . . . for only $35 each. So $140 for both of us. That’s more than the two wills cost, and these are just add-ons.

But if you don’t want to pay that much, you can go here, PowerOfAttorney.com, and download your own valid forms . . .  for free.

Durable Power of Attorney Form
Medical Power of Attorney Form

A little Googling showed that a simple will in Texas, done by a lawyer, can cost $300 to $1000, and that’s for each of us. So $128 with LegalZoom is a real bargain.

Tomorrow it’s back to work, trying to wrap any last minute items on my checklist, while I try to anticipate any new ones that might pop up while I’m gone.

Wish me luck.

Thought for the Day: 

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

ghgh