Monthly Archives: September 2020
Rethinking The Plan . . .
We now have a real, physical address. Rob, our park owner, put in mailboxes a few weeks ago, and a couple of days ago he dropped off our key.
We also have a PO Box here in Santa Fe, but a lot of financial institutions won’t accept a PO Box, but require a physical address. Previously I’ve used either work, or Brandi’s up in Katy. So now we’re all set.
While I’m tracing out my lighting problems I’ve been rethinking my oil leak repair plan. Back in February after the repair place in Luling replaced the oil cooler gasket with no change in the leak problem, I got back under the rig to replace the single oil filter head adapter gasket with a double set. Several people, including a Cummins tech, recommended trying that before any doing anything else.
But when I got under the rig I found that the Luling shop had apparently over-torqued two of the four bolts holding the adapter head on the oil cooler. They’re only supposed to be tightened down to 212 inch pounds, a little over 17 foot pounds. And unfortunately the two stripped bolts are both on the same side, so I was wary about driving the rig anywhere, or even cranking up the engine.
So I was looking at having the rig towed up to the Channelview area to get the oil leak repaired once and for all. And that’s where things stood until the last couple of days. And then I had a thought. One word – Helicoil.
Thinking about how the stripped-out threaded holes would need to be fixed, I’m thinking about just doing this myself, which will probably save me several hundred dollars having the diesel shop do it in addition to fixing the leak problem.
That way I can just drive the rig up there rather than go through hassle of getting it towed. But after I repair the bolt holes, I’ll go ahead and replace the gaskets. And then do an extended rig test drive while towing the truck.
Who knows? That might fix the problem anyway.
But I’m still thinking about it, while I’m working on the lights.
Thought For The Day:
Everything will Kill You. So choose something fun.
.
.
.
On To The Bay of Fundy
September 12, 2009
Headin’ Home…
We left Wayside RV Park about 10:30 headed 180 miles to Moncton, NS on our way back to the States.
As I mentioned yesterday, we stopped and got diesel. Because the pump cut off at $150 I decided that would be enough to get us back the US, so I didn’t fill up.
We arrived at Moncton about 2:45pm and parked at Camper’s City RV Park. This is the same park we stopped at on our way in to Canada, so it was easy to find.
We got set up, and, after puttering around the coach for a while, we headed out to Boston’s Pizza for supper, one of our favorite places to eat.
Coming back to the coach, Jan sat outside with Mister while I got the satellite dish set up. After letting Mister roam around a bit, we headed in for the night.
Tomorrow we’re going down to the Bay of Fundy area to see the 30 foot tides in the Bay.
.
.
Heading Back to Houston
September 12, 2010
Gumbo
We left Jackson, MS about 10:30 and headed south on I-55 toward Breaux Bridge, LA, and some of the best gumbo in Louisiana.
Most of the road was really crappy. A lot of the Interstates down here are the old concrete type with the expansion joints that go BANG…BANG…BANG.
Pretty soon your fillings start to get loose.
But finally we were on I-12W and then picked up I-10W in Baton Rouge.
About the same time we also started picking rain, a lot of rain, and, of course, the winds to go along with it.
By the time we were coming up to the Breaux Bridge exit, I was really looking forward to registering and setting up in the pouring rain. But I really lucked out.
By the time we got to Poche’s RV Park about 5 miles north of I-10 and Breaux Bridge the rain had stopped in that area.
By 3:15 pm we were set up and had a chance to look over the park.
Poche’s is not just an RV park, it’s also a fish camp with cabins, and 5 – 10 acre fish ponds.
It’s really a beautiful park, and it’s PassPortAmerica too, only $15.00 per night. The only downside is that Internet and cell phone service just sucks.
About 4:00 we drove over to our favorite Cajun restaurant, Mulates. I’ve been eating there for more than 15 years, including twice a month for 10 years when I would drive to Birmingham from Houston and back to visit my mother.
They have a Cajun band every night and a big dance floor that’s always crowded.
Their gumbo is just about the best around, with shrimp, crab, and oysters, and a great roue. And it’s not a Mulate’s meal without a dessert of their bread pudding with bourbon sauce, and a cup of strong Cajun coffee. (BTW it’s pronounced ‘Mu lots’)
Getting back home about 5:30 I got the satellite dish set up and we settled in for the night.
Tomorrow we’ll make the 230 mile trip back to Houston and the Galveston Bay RV Park, where we’ll be for 4-5 months.
More from Houston…
Thought For The Day:
On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. – Peter Steiner
.
.
Gate Guarding Repairs
September 12, 2015
Fixed!
Well Kinda . . . Almost.
Well, our cooler weather has finally arrived. It made it up to a blistering 85 degrees today, and sunny with a light breeze. Couldn’t be much better. It’s supposed to stay like this for a few days before the temps creep back up into the low 90’s. Right now at midnight, it’s 60 degrees and I’ve got a long-sleeve shirt on. Nice.
Today’s count was 108, compared to yesterday’s 111, so maybe that’s what it will settle down to. Like I said yesterday, very doable.
I finally had a chance this morning to get back to my water heater problem, and finally got the access panel off so I could get to the electrical connections on the back.
The electrical side of the water heater died a couple of months ago, but with everything going on with the gate, I’m just now getting back on it. We’ve been using the propane side since then, but I didn’t want to have a problem running out.
The first thing I did was to turn off power to the unit using the switch on the side of the box. Well, I tried to, but the switch snapped and then went spongy with no more clicky-clicky. But I don’t think that was the initial problem.
So what I was pull the wires on the switch, and after cutting off the old spade lugs, I stripped the ends and joined them with a wire nut. So now I was finally ready to troubleshoot the real problem. And a couple of minutes with the ohmmeter told me what it was.
I used the ohmmeter to check the two thermostat units here, with one of them being the actual thermostat, and the other being the high-temp cutoff. The one on the left tested good with 0.0 ohms, but the right one showed open, or bad. They’re not marked, and I was hoping the bad one was the ECO cutoff, but after checking my Atwood manual, I found it was the thermostat.
Normally the power comes into the left unit, loops over the right unit, and then feeds power to the heating element.. So what I did was to move the wire going to the heating element over, bypassing the bad thermostat, so I could check the system.
At the lavatory I measured the hot water temp at 96 degrees. Then I turned on the wall switch for the heater, waited 20 minutes, and measured again. This time it was 132 degrees, so I knew the bad thermostat was my problem. But of course the problem won’t really be fixed until I replace the thermostat itself. I probably won’t replace the power switch
Checking, I found one on Amazon (of course) for $12 and it will be here Tuesday. But for right now we’ll just turn it on 20 minutes before our showers, and then turn it off when we’re done.
The other thing I fixed recently was the AC blower in our truck. The air flow just wasn’t what it should be, and it was a struggle to get the cab cool in hotter weather. Back before we left the Houston area, I replaced the blower resistor pak and that helped somewhat, but it just didn’t seem to be as strong as it used to be.
So after doing some checking I decided to go ahead and replace the blower motor itself. The reason I hesitated before is that changing one of these out can be a real pain in the rear. In some cases you almost have to disassemble the dashboard to replace it.
But this one was so easy it was almost ridiculous. Just reach under the dash, unclip the power connector, remove 3 – 8mm bolts, and the blower motor falls out in your hand. Then reverse the procedure and 5 minutes later your done. Easy Peezy.
And boy, did it make a difference. It’s back to cooling like it used to.
________________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
.
.
Off To Wal-Mart For A New TV
September 12, 2016
Well, Isn’t That Just Fine and Dandy . . .
The temp was a little hotter today, and the traffic a little heavier, but all in all, not a bad day. I guess except for the fact that when I get groceries this Thursday, it looks like I’ve got to buy a new front TV.
A few days ago, the 32” RCA we have in the front of the rig started losing video. The audio still works fine, but the screen goes black.
At first it might do it once a day, and just turning the TV off and back on fixed the problem. For a while. But over the next few days it got more and more frequent , until now it will only work for a few minutes before the video dies.
When the problem first appeared I thought it might the HDMI input itself, so I switched the cable over to HDMI-2, but the problem still occurred. So I dug out a 3 wire video cable, the one with the Yellow, Red, and White RCA phono connectors and tried that,
Again with the same result. So the problem seems to be in the actual video output stage, and not on the input side. And it doesn’t seem to be a loose connection, since rapping on it doesn’t fix the problem, even temporarily.
Now back in the day, when you could still fix things like this, I’d just order a Sam’s Photofact for the set and tear into it. Using my oscilloscope, I’d trace through the video section until I found the bad component, and then replace it.
Back in the early 90’s I used to contract out to several computer stores in the Houston area to do board level repair on Commodore VIC-20’s, Commodore 64’s, Commodore Amiga’s and Radio Shack TRS-80’s. At that time you could get service info from the manufacturers, and even specific parts, like IC’s and transistors, and you could actually fix something.
But no more. In many cases, depending on the TV, there may be no real parts to replace anyway. Just a couple of large chips that do everything. And without very specialized equipment, it would be almost impossible to safely unsolder the chip and replace it.
And you probably couldn’t even get a replacement chip anyway, since the manufacture won’t sell you one. So now it’s off to Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for a new one.
We bought both of these TV’s from Sam’s Club when we were in Fairbanks, AK in 2008 to replace the old CRT models that came with the rig, and this is the first problem we’ve had with them, so I guess 8 years is a pretty good record.
After all of this, at least my problem with my DVR randomly rebooting turned out to be a simple fix. The DVR plugs into a AC receptacle on the underside of the cabinets over the dashboard, and I noticed that often the reboots happened as one of us came into the rig and shut the door. Turns out that the AC plug was a little loose in the socket, so I spread the prongs apart, sprayed a little Strike-Hold on it and problem solved.
At least that’s something I could fix.
Thought for the Day:
The Wages of Sin is Death. But the Hours are Good.
.
.
Black Bear Diner
September 12, 2019
PB B & M . . .
Today was Black Bear Thursday so we were on our way by about 1pm where we’ve both have gotten hooked on their ‘Super’ salads.
This time Jan went with their Taco Salad, staying Keto by eliminating the taco shell and the refried beans.
But adding their delicious Bacon Ranch dressing.
I once again got the Bacon Cheeseburger Salad, also with the Bacon Ranch. But unlike last time, I asked to have the burger done medium. Last time it was so well-done it was actually crunchy and hard to even cut. But they got it perfect this time.
But even well-done their hamburger meat is delicious, both mine and Jan’s taco meat.
Next up was a stop at the big Flagship HEB store over on Hwy 96. We’ve never been to this location before, but we were looking to bulk up our Lola Savannah coffee stocks. We were running low on our nightly Decaf ration, and also wanted to see if they had any additional flavors, and we hit the jackpot.
So besides the Decaf, we got a pound of Chocolate Crème, Almond Delight, and Cozy Winter Night.
The Chocolate Crème is pretty much self explanatory, while the Almond Delight has a blend of almonds, coconuts, and dark chocolate, so pretty much a candy bar. And Cozy Winter Night has butterscotch and caramel flavors accentuated with flavors of cream, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
One flavor we didn’t get was Lunch with Elvis, a blend of peanut butter and banana flavors, mimicking Elvis’ favorite sandwich. And one of mine too. Of course to make it perfect you’d need to get some mayonnaise flavor in there somewhere.
You just can’t beat a peanut butter, banana, and mayonnaise sandwich. On white bread, of course.
Found out this evening that Brandi, et. al., have a new dog.
Jack, a shelter pup, is part Doberman, part Rottweiler, and has made himself right at home with the two other dogs, and the cat.
Thought For The Day:
With the rise of self-driving vehicles, it’s only a matter of time before there’s a country song about a guy’s truck leaving him.
.
.
.
Never Forget . . .
I was back on the phone this afternoon talking to Spartan about my brake lights. And then I called American Coach with the same question.
And now I have two different answers. Spartan says the brake lights should work with just the ignition on, and without the engine running and the air brakes working.
But American Coach says No, the brake lights won’t work without the engine running and air pressure built up.
So I guess I’ll have to ring it out manually. I know that both the brake lights and the turn signals work from the rear PDC (Power Distribution Center). so next I’ll try to trace the wires from the front panel back to the PDC.
Several people have asked me about the test switch that I’m using to test the rear lights at the PDC. It’s really pretty simple.
It’s just a toggle switch with spade lugs on the leads.
That way I can pull the relays and control the lights directly.
So back to it tomorrow.
On To Halifax
September 11, 2009
Titanic and Atlantic…
Today was our day to tour the Halfax, Nova Scotia area.
We had planned to get an early start, but then Jan woke up with a migraine. So she took her Imitrex and went back to bed for a while
Later, after the Imitrex had worked its magic, we went to breakfast about 10:30 am at the Finer Diner and then drove to Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
One of the things we wanted to see was the Titanic exhibit that they have. They also have an exhibit on S.S. Atlantic, a ship that went down off Nova Scotia in 1873. The 635 people who died when the Atlantic went down made it the largest loss of life until the Titanic in 1912.
They also had an interesting exhibit about the explosion of a ship in Halifax harbor that killed over 2000 people, very reminiscent of the Texas City explosion in 1947. In this case, it was a shipment of ammunition for use in WWI that blew up, rather than fertilizer, like in Texas City.
Finally leaving the museum about 2:30 pm, we were attracted by the smells coming from the Dragon King Chinese Buffet restaurant across the street and decided to give it a try.
And it was really good. Especially the Hot & Sour soup.
Leaving the restaurant, we drove around downtown Halifax for a while before taking the scenic drive down toward Peggy’s Cove. And it was certainly worth the trip.
On our way down the coast we passed St. Margaret’s Bay, a very picturesque dock area.
You can click on these pics to see a larger version
Arriving at Peggy’s Cove, we found a charming little village on the Atlantic Coast, filled with quaint little multi-colored houses.
The rocky coast is something we don’t see in Texas, but it’s always a scenic view.
And of course, the obligatory lighthouse.
With the sun setting, we headed back to the coach, stopping off at a hardware store, and driving thru a nearby gas station, scouting it out to see if we can get in and out easily in the coach.
Because fuel is so expensive here (about $3.60 a gallon vs. $2.50 in the US), I was hoping to be able to get back to the US before filling up the coach with diesel, but it will be too close for comfort. So we will probably fuel up tomorrow on our way out of Halifax.
One thing we found interesting in the area was this McDonalds complete with lighthouse.
Arriving back at the coach, we sat outside for a while and let Mister roam around for a bit and then it was in for the night.
Thought For The Day:
I know if I needed a lawyer, I’d certainly want a Dick.
Going Back To Jackson
September 11, 2010
Dancing On A Pony Keg . . .
We left Tom Sawyer RV Park about 11:45 to make the 220 mile run to the Moose Lodge in Jackson, MS.
Since we were leaving so late, we had a lunch of leftovers before we left. And while we were eating our daughter Brandi called with the latest Landon update.
Only two more days until we get to see him, me for the first time.
It started sprinkling a little while before we left, and then got progressively harder as the day went on. By the time we were about 30 miles outside Jackson it was really coming down, and the wind had picked up.
We got into the Moose Lodge about 4:15 pm and got set up. I just hooked up power, and didn’t worry about water or sewage. And lucky for me, the rain was gone by the time we got to the Lodge.
About 30 minutes later, we drove down the road about half a mile to Sonny’s BBQ, one of our favorite BBQ places. One thing I like about Sonny’s is that they have sliced pork, instead of just pulled pork. By my thinking, sliced pork is much better on a sandwich than pulled pork.
Getting back to the rig, I got the satellite dish set up and we were in for the night.
Tomorrow we’ve got another 220 mile run down to Breaux Bridge, LA for one night, and then it’s on to Houston for the next 4-5 months.
More tomorrow…
Thought For The Day:
A politician can’t give you anything he hasn’t stolen from you first.
One, Two, or Three Fracks?
September 11, 2014
Another Nice Drop . . .
Today’s vehicle count dropped off even more, from yesterday’s 148 to a nice 126. But it may be the calm before the storm.
We had heard they were soon going to be fracking a well further on in past our gate, but then the gate guard up the road said they were going to be fracking three wells at one time. I didn’t say anything at the time, but you always hear rumors about things like this. And when you look at them closely, they don’t make sense.
For example, last year when we worked a frack gate down south of San Antonio, our peak days were about 300 vehicles, and that was pretty exhausting. Remember that the 300 number is just the vehicles coming in. You have pretty much the same number going out, but not quite. Let’s call it 500 total in and outs. So three frack jobs would mean 1500 ins and outs a day. That means that in a 24 hour day, one vehicle a minute would have to past through our gate. But that’s physically impossible.
The road leading through and past our gate is pretty much a one and half lane road. Two pickups can squeeze by each other if they’re careful, but a semi and anything else just won’t fit. For this reason, there are several pull outs along the way so vehicles can pull over to let someone pass.
Plus our gate and cattle guard is only wide enough for one vehicle. And some of the semi’s hauling a big load have to be careful about squeezing through the gate.
Very quickly you would have a solid gridlock of vehicles clogging up the road. So logistically that’s just not going to happen. Then today a company guy came through, and to Jan’s question, confirmed that there are three frack jobs coming up.
But ONE AT A TIME. Now that makes more sense.
Our drill rig finally started drilling about 4am this morning. Kind of.
But I’m not sure they’re doing it right. I have never heard a rig make these kind of sounds. There’s clanking, clanging, squealing, and screeching. And then there’s this.
I’m not sure what happened, but all of a sudden this big cloud appeared tonight for awhile. It wasn’t smoke, and didn’t smell like anything, and it didn’t look like steam. So maybe it was dust. I don’t know.
But it’s certainly entertaining.
__________________________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
Predicting the weather is like trying to predict if the wife will be happy three days from now.
Back To School On The Gate
September 11, 2016
School Days . . .
Between a new low vehicle count of only 29, and a high of only 85 degrees, it was a really nice day.
I’ve decided to go back to school. And I’ve been accepted to Harvard. Well, HarvardX anyway, which is Harvard’s online presence.
Over the last few years I’ve seen articles and ads about Khan Academy and edX, Both offer free online courses on hundreds of subjects, pretty much on anything you can think of.
Khan Academy seems to concentrate on general subjects, like Chemistry, Biology, or Electrical Engineering, using their own class materials. They even have math classes for K – 8th grade, that are used by many homeschoolers. And another focus is on test prep for SAT, MCAT, GMAT, and more.
But edX offers actual specific classes from major universities around the country, like MIT, Harvard, UT, and many others. And again, they’re all free. The only possible charge is if you want an actual Verified Certificate or Diploma, which runs about $100.
edX offers two main types of courses, scheduled and self-paced. Scheduled is just like any college course, with a definite start date, and assignments due at a definite time. Self-paced are just that. You can start anytime and work at your own pace. In fact edX lists over 300 self-paced courses.
I thought I’d start off with Introduction to Computer Science, a course given, as I said by Harvard. I figure it would be interesting to get a more recent overview of the subject, since the last time I took a Intro Computer class was 1973, when Jan and I were both back in college.
Jan had to take the Intro class as part of her Medical Records degree curriculum and was worried about it. I had an open period at the same time so I signed up too. We did our programming assignments on an IBM 1170 at the school using punch cards.
My previous Intro class had been in 1966 at Vanderbilt University on a IBM 360 that took up a whole floor of the Science Building, again using punch cards and Fortran IV. But my first actual programming was on a Geniac analog computer that I got for Christmas in 1958 when I was 10.
If you’re anywhere near my age (i.e. ancient) you probably remember ads in magazines like this one
The actual computer looked like this – a Masonite board with six Masonite wheels, and a lot of jumper wires, as well as batteries, light bulbs, and a buzzer.
You wired it up using the jumper wires, and then you could solve simple math problems, guess you age problems, and many others. For me the best thing was that it taught you to logically break a problem down in small pieces and then construct a program to solve it.
At 10 I was already into shortwave radio, collecting SWL cards from all around the world, and studying for my ham radio license, so the Geniac was just another step.
Anyway, after the Intro course, I want to check out some of the newer languages that have come along in the last few years, like C++, C#, and Linux. I programmed in Unix at NASA,, but Linux is a newer version. Then after that, probably Java and Ruby.
Who knows?
For dinner tonight we had our leftover Blue Moon BBQ from yesterday. Since Jan had also fixed us a dessert we found we had leftover leftovers, so we have another meal for tomorrow too.
Tomorrow I’ll put in another call to Wilson about my DBPro cell phone amplifier, and see if I can get it working.
Thought for the Day:
What should you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant? – George Carlin
