Daily Archives: September 3, 2020
Once Again . . .
After spending some time on the phone with Spartan this morning, I was back outside tracing wiring harnesses. And I was able to confirm what I had come to believe, that all that mess of wiring is just several different owner’s attempts to wire in their toad light hookups.
I was able to trace the wiring harness that runs from the rear PDC (Power Distribution Center) to the right taillight and found no problems. So, back on the phone with Spartan, I’m again looking at the fuse panel/front PDC in the dash board, that looks to be my Saturday.
Thought For The Day:
To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you. – John Henrik Clarke
Almost To Newfoundland
September 3, 2009
Fresh Haddock and Fortress Louisbourg…
Today we packed up and headed toward Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, which is about 40 miles from where we will catch the ferry tomorrow…or rather, tomorrow night at 11:00 pm for the 15 hour ferry ride to Argentia, Newfoundland.
Our park here in Antigonish is actually right downtown, and is pretty nice.
And it came complete with a bridge and a babbling brook.
The 135 mile drive to Louisbourg, to put it plainly, just sucked!
We had long stretches of bad road, intermixed with shorter lengths of really, really bad roads. And we had a 25 minute wait for construction.
And I’m really dreading the trip back to the States after we return from Newfoundland, because we’ll have to go back on the same road. There’s only one.
Anyway, we pulled into the RV park about 3 pm and got set up. The park is right on the water next to the docks. Talk about scenic!
That’s our rig in the very front.
This time I didn’t even try the satellite since there was a building in the way. And since we’ll only be here one day before we head to Newfoundland, I won’t worry about it.
Later we drove over to the Fortress View restaurant for a great meal of Fish and Chips. This was fresh haddock, right off the boat. Really good!
After dinner we took a drive around the town. One of the sites to see is Fortress Louisbourg, built by Louis XV when the French held this area.
And of course, more great views.
Coming back to the park, I walked down to the docks in front of the park. It’s easy to see why the fish at dinner was so fresh.
More tomorrow…
More Gate Guarding in East Texas
September 3, 2015
Jan’s Just Exhausted . . .
We had a blistering 11 vehicles through the gate today, and three of them were repeats. And of those eight, one of them was the landowner. But we did have one driver show up with a load of pipe about 8pm. Said he was sorry he was running late, and he’d be back tomorrow with more.
I’m not sure how long we can keep up this torrid pace.
But we did pick up a lot of new info (rumors?).
Cudd Energy Services is the name of the company that will be moving over from Louisiana and doing our frack. Supposedly they will start moving in the frack equipment the middle of next week, and start fracking next Monday, the 14th.
The guys came in with the big hose reels today and ran hose from the frack pond down to the site. It’s amazing how far they will run these hoses to get water. I’ve seen them running for miles along the highway down in south Texas.
A number of our regulars are getting a four day weekend and won’t be back to work until Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. They’re working 40 hour weeks to hold down costs, so with 12 hour plus days, they’re done today for the week.
But it looks like we won’t be completely shutdown this weekend since a few have confirmed they will be working. Darn It!
I noticed my sewer connection into our trailer septic tank was leaking gray water while Jan was doing laundry. Turns out that one of the 3 lugs had broken off the elbow connector that normally goes into the park sewer.
The application of a little Gorilla Tape took temporary care of the problem. I’ll try to get a new one tomorrow at the Wal-Mart in Carthage. This is only the second one I’ve had in 8 years so they’re lasting pretty well.
I came across something today that almost makes me want to go back to Canada. It’s the CN Tower EdgeWalk in Toronto. For about $150 you can put on a harness and walk around the top of the restaurant on the CN Tower, 1168 feet above the ground.
You can literally ‘hangout’ while you’re up there.
You can also propose,
or even get marriage.
Even supermodel Kate Upton and her boyfriend did it.
You remember Kate Upton from those Game of War TV ads, don’t you.
At least I guess that’s what you should remember her for.
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Thought for the Day:
April Fools Day is the one day of the year that people critically evaluate news articles before accepting them as true.
Called On Account of Rain Here In Santa Fe, Texas
September 3, 2018
It Just Wasn’t To Be . . .
As you know I had planned to top off the rig’s engine oil this morning and then check for leaks,
But it just wasn’t to be. It poured down most of the night and continued into the morning. Not exactly conducive to working outside. So I’ll try again tomorrow morning. But I don’t have high hopes since The Weather Channel says there’s an 80% chance of rain tomorrow. And pretty much the rest of the week too.
Oh well.
About 2pm we headed out through the drizzle up to Webster to have lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse, our toss-up winner for local steakhouses.
As far as steaks go for us, it’s pretty even between Longhorn and Saltgrass. Strangely enough for picking steakhouses, the clincher is the salads. Saltgrass’ Wedge Salad has become our new favorite, and since Longhorn doesn’t normally have a Wedge Salad, they lose out.
I say ‘normally’ because sometimes they do . . . kind of. Occasionally they have what they call a Wedge Salad, but it’s not really.
Unless you call a stalk of Romaine a ‘wedge’. Now I like Romaine lettuce (Jan doesn’t), but a wedge it’s not.
This is a Wedge.
And yes, I like a lot of pepper on my salads. Actually I like a lot of pepper on pretty much every thing.
I got the 16 oz. Pat’s Ribeye with Steak Fries, first time for potatoes in a while.
And since I really can’t eat 16 oz. of steak anymore, the first thing I did is to cut it half for leftovers.
Jan got the 6 oz. Charlotte’s Center-Cut Filet with the Grilled Green Beans, Unfortunately for photo purposes, she got started on it before I could get a picture.
Note how ‘red’ Jan’s steak is. And it only took me 50+ years to get her here.
When I first met Jan she liked her steaks WELL-DONE. Note the CAPITALS. And by WELL-DONE, I mean Burnt. Shoe-Leather Burnt. But it was baby steps to get her to this point.
After many years I finally got her to Medium-Well. Then a few years back she segued all the way over to halfway between Medium and Medium-Well, which is sometimes hard to meet.
But today was a watershed moment. She actually ordered her filet Medium. And then proceeded tell me repeatedly how ‘tender and juicy’ it was.
Well, duh. I’ve only been telling her this for more than 50 years. She said that she always ate her steak like that because her father ate his that, so that’s all she ever knew.
Now she knows better.
Thought for the Day:
Or Maybe Ravens
September 3, 2019
I Blame Crows . . .
After coffee this morning I was outside about noon to pull my rig oil filter and oil filter adapter so I can replace the gasket.
As before the filter came off with no real problems, using this filter wrench especially sized for the large filter size.
When I do this I have a bucket ready to hold the filter since it’s full of oil. But then after taking a closer look at the adapter I went inside to call Cummins. I was told there were two bolts to remove, but I thought I saw four. So I wanted some clarification.
And I was told that yes, there were four and not two. I also asked what size the bolt heads were, and I was told 8mm. Which was a problem.
The other day while I was doing my rear brakes, I was using an 15mm, a 13mm, a 10mm, and an 8mm. And after doing one wheel I moved everything over to the other side, then came inside to cool off and hydrate.
And when I came back out my 15mm, 13mm, and my 8mm were missing, but the 10 was still there. As was the rest of my Crescent 1/4” and 3/8” drive metric and SAE which was right there too. But the only ones missing were 3 of the 4 loose ones.
We’re are the only RV’ers here, with most of the other residents working at the Texas City plants so I doubt anyone just walked by and picked up 3 sockets. And they’re no kids around either.
So I blame crows, who are known to like and steal shiny things. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
So I came in and got cleaned up a little and Jan and I headed out to have lunch at Yummy Yummy, pick up our Amazon packages from work, and buy some new sockets.
But first couple of stops, Harbor Freight, and Lowes, didn’t sell individual sockets, so I ended up at the O’Reilly’s on the way home and found just what I needed.
Then back under the rig when we got home, I found that the Cummins guy was wrong, that it was a 10mm socket. Oh well.
I had to plug together 2 feet of 3/8” extensions to get up to the adapter, but I quickly had the 4 bolts, expecting the adapter to fall off and hit me on the head. But it was stuck.
After thinking for a few minutes trying to figure out to reach it, I got my plastic mallet and tapped on it a bit, with no luck.
So next I screwed the old filter back on hoping to use it to give me more leverage to break the adapter loose. But again no luck.
So it’s back on the phone to Cummins tomorrow to see why it’s stuck. I did take this photo before I came in, and once inside I took a closer look at it,
I could see some type of screw up in here. So I’ll to ask about that too.
As it stands now, it’ll be at least Sunday before I can get back to it.
Thought For The Day:
A College Degree cost 297% more today than in 1979.
A Happy Meal costs 40% less.
One of these institutions is subsidized by the government.
The other one isn’t.
