Tag Archives: iPower webhosting

2015/09/05 (S) Building the Built-in

We set the alarm for 7 AM as we had to return the 100 pound floor roller to The Home Depot by 8:08 AM.  We got the roller out of the bus, reattached the transport wheels, and loaded it into the back of my car.  We positioned it so that Linda could hold on to the handle while I drove.  One-hundred pounds that is designed to roll is not something you want loose in your car.  We got to the store at 7:40 AM but the associate was busy renting a ditch digging machine to someone.  We had to wait 15 minutes but that was OK.  After returning the roller we drove back to the house so Linda could get her car and our iPads and then drove separately to Panera in Brighton.

Linda had her usual Everything bagel and I had my usual Cinnamon Swirl & Raisin bagel, both sliced and toasted with nothing on them.  Two large coffees rounded out the order.  The coffee was hot and did not have grounds in it (for a change).  For some reason we got an extra Everything bagel that we did not order so which we split it.

Linda left at 9 AM to drive to Ann Arbor to pick up grand-daughter Madeline who will be with us until sometime on Monday.  Her mom and dad are attending a wedding on Sunday in Madison, Wisconsin so they are driving over today and driving back on Monday.  I stayed at Panera getting my money’s worth of coffee while finishing yesterday’s blog post and starting on today’s missive.

I left Panera at 9:45 and stopped for gasoline at the Shell station on the way home.  $2.29/gallon.  I would love to see $2/gallon gasoline again.  Better yet, I would love to see $2/gallon diesel fuel.  Linda planned to stop at the grocery store on the way back but I wanted to start a load of laundry and be home when Linda got back to the house with Madeline.

I got the laundry sorted and the first load started and then spent a little time at my desk.  I had to reset a password for someone on the SLAARC website and I logged in I was reminded that WordPress 4.3 was now available.  There were seven other updates available as well; three plug-ins and four themes.  I don’t use any of those themes and should probably delete them, but for now I just updated WP and then updated everything else.  I then logged in to our personal website, the FMCA-GLCC website, and the FMCA Freethinkers website and did the same updates.

While I was in our personal website I cleared out the 104 spam comments that had accumulated since my last house cleaning.  In the Freethinkers website I activated all of the plug-ins except Wordfence.  I have problems with this website and tech support at iPower says it is the Wordfence plug-in that is at fault.  They ask for permission to deactivate it and I give them permission but ask that they only disable that one plug-in.  Instead they disable ALL of them; every time.  I would really like to move this website to QTH.com and I may just do that as an add-on domain to our account.  Unfortunately our e-mail reflectors are set up on through the iPower account and I doubt that the club will want to pay for two different web hosting services.

It was a nicer day than we have had for most of the week, cooler with clearer skies and a nice breeze, so I opened up the windows in the motorcoach and turned on all three ceiling exhaust fans to air out the interior and get rid of the lingering smell from the floor tile adhesive.  (Yes, that is one, long sentence, but since I have added this one, it is now a proper paragraph rather than a single sentence paragraph.)

Linda and Madeline stopped at the Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor, which is not far from our son and daughter-in-law’s house, and got to our house at 11 AM.  Madeline and I helped Grandma Linda unload the groceries and put them away.  I moved a few things from the front hallway into the library where Linda put most of the bus drawers last night (three of them are in our bedroom).  Madeline wanted her inflatable porta-bed set up so Linda took care of that.  Once her bedroom was arranged we got out her toy box and started playing with things.  She also had a couple of bags of things she brought with her and got a small soccer ball out of one of them.  We had a great time throwing and rolling it around the living room.  It is always wonderful to see the pure joy of a young child at play doing something as simple as this.

By 12:30 PM Madeline was ready for lunch so Linda made a PB&J sandwich and washed some green grapes.  She washed some black organic grapes for us and I had a few pretzels dipped I Sabra Roasted Red Pepper Hummus.  It’s my favorite hummus from them, or pretty much anyone else.

After Madeline laid down for her afternoon nap at 1 PM Linda and I both got busy with chores.  As much as I would like to have taken today off, at least from hands and knees work, we only had eight days left to get some significant tasks accomplished on the bus.  In terms of a critical path view of the overall project the critical task is grouting the floor tile that we finished installing at 9 PM last night.  Not only will it take some time to do but once it is done it cannot be walked on for 24 hours.  As much as it needed to be done, however, I needed a day of not being on my hands and knees.  If I get it done on Sunday I can resume work inside the coach on Monday.

While Linda made a batch of granola I worked on assembling some of the pieces for the built-in sofa.  My plan was to fully assemble the two plenum boxes that will support the ends of the plywood seat, and I intended to do that by gluing and screwing the four pieces together for each.  In order to do that I needed screws of the appropriate type (#6 SR) and length (1-1/4″) so I went to Lowe’s to get them.  While I was there I looked at continuous hinges and angle brackets but did not buy any.  I need a 72″ hinge but all they had were 48″, 30″, and 12″.  I may be able to use two 30″ and one 12″ but I need to check the actual dimension.  I also needed a #6 drill but with an integral countersink but Lowe’s did not seem to have what I needed so I went to The Home Depot and found something there.

I think this marking scribe belonged to my mother’s father.

I think this marking scribe belonged to my mother’s father and is at least 100 years old.

Back home I was getting all of my tools and supplies ready when I realized that I would not be able to attach the plenum/support boxes to the adjacent cabinets if they were fully assembled.  This was an example of incomplete design; either I have forgotten how I planned to anchor these boxes, changed my thinking about this in the time since I did the design work, or never figured out this detail in the first place.

Ideally I could anchor them in a way that does not destroy the cabinets or the floor.  One way to accomplish that would be to attach them to the HVAC plenum at the back and the vertical front support board using angle brackets, and to the top of the wiring chase above the HVAC plenum via the two filler strips on either side of the seat.  If I do that I can fully assemble the two plenum/support boxes before installing them.

For now I only assembled half-boxes with one side piece attached to the bottom piece and the other side piece attached to the top piece.  I built one of them for the left end and the other one for the right end. What this leaves open as an option is screwing the side/bottom assembly to its adjacent cabinet and then screwing the other assembly to the first one without using any glue.  The dry assembly would allow everything to be disassembled later if needed.

Madeline was up by this time and helped Grandma Linda put the new seed block in the bird feeder.  They then walked around to the front of the garage to see what Grandpa Bruce was doing.  I showed them my tools and the pieces of wood and explained how everything was going to work and fit together.

Two pieces of one of the plenum boxes held at right angles for gluing and screwing.

Two pieces of one of the plenum boxes held at right angles for gluing and screwing.

I aligned the pieces being joined, which are all 3/4″ cabinet grade 13 ply plywood, using two corner clamps.  I then scribed a line 3/8″ from the edge of the piece that was sitting on the edge of the other piece.  I marked screw locations every two inches with the spacing centered along the line.  I drilled pilot holes with countersinking to ensure the screw heads would be below the surface of the wood.  I disassembled the two pieces, leaving the piece that the screws would go in first in the clamps, and sanded off any rough edges.  I ran screws part way into each hole so the tips protruded just enough to put the two pieces back into alignment when they were rejoined.  I applied Titebond II wood glue to the edge piece spread it out, and wiped off my finger with a wet cloth.  I inserted the edge piece back into the clamps, used the screws to make sure it was aligned, tightened the clamps, and ran the screws most of the way down.  I then loosened the clamps holding the edge piece and drew it up tight by running the screws all the way down.  I used a wet towel to wipe off the excess glue that was squeezed from the joint and set it aside to dry.  I took a lot of pictures too.

The center portion of the storage space under the seat will have an elevated platform with closed ends to create a plenum for the OTR HVAC return air.  I assembled the two end pieces to the ends of the platform using the same method I used for the plenum/support boxes.  There is also a support piece for the middle of the platform but I cannot use the clamps to hold it in position relative to the platform so I will have to do something else.  I was thinking that I did not feel like tackling that task when Linda and Madeline came back to the garage to let me know it was almost time for dinner.  Saved by the food bell, I closed up the garage and went inside to eat.

Linda set out some carrot slivers, diced peaches, and home grown cherry tomatoes.  She cooked some mock chicken patties and heated up some vegan gravy to go with them as a main course.  For sides she heated black beans, edamame, and vegan Mac-n-cheese.  We all enjoyed our meal.

Madeline really enjoys the swings at the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape.

Madeline really enjoys the swings at the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape.

Our son let Linda know that Madeline had not been sleeping through the night recently and had developed a sensitivity to noises.  Linda figured Madeline might sleep better if she engaged in some vigorous play after dinner and suggested that we go to the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape.  Ms. M liked the idea but wanted to make sure I was coming too.  I found a reasonably good parking spot and pushed her over in the stroller because she does not like to walk for the sake of walking.  But once we got to the playscape she was in “go mode.”  As the sun set and the light faded we strollered her over to Jack’s for a scoop of vanilla ice cream with sprinklers.  We then strollered her back to the car and drove home.

Linda had promised Madeline that she could watch a video before she went to bed.  She had selected an episode of Daniel Tiger, an animated children’s program based on the Daniel Striped Tiger character from the old Mr. Rogers TV program.  We had Shawna’s iPad with access to her Netflix account but the program was downloading slower than molasses poured on a cold day.  We had problems with video, then audio, but eventually got it to work after I turned off the Wi-Fi transceiver on my smartphone.  Linda got Madeline ready for bed while fiddled with the technology.

After the video Grandma Linda carried Ms. M around to look at all her favorite artwork, a bedtime ritual that goes back to the first time she ever stayed at our house overnight.

 

2015/02/01-05 (N-R) Another Month in Q

2015/02/01 (N) Hola February

Yesterday would have been an excellent day to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus—cool and cloudy without a lot of breeze—but it was also an excellent day for the inside computer work that we both needed/wanted to do.  I downloaded the free version of the Simple:Press forum WordPress plug-in the day before yesterday and was going to make a priority of installing it today on the FMCA Freethinkers website I have been developing until the activation of the Jetpack Site Management feature caused the admin panel (app) to crash.  We have had a problem for a while with one member who was unable (or unwilling) to interact appropriately online via our e-mail reflector.  The reflector does not require a login and does not have any way to moderate discussions or block/remove posts, so our options as a chapter were very limited.  A WordPress-based forum would give us all of those features.

I had an e-mail reply from support@ipower.com indicating that the Wordfence plugin had caused the problem.  They needed the answer to the security question in order to authenticate my support request and fix the problem. Bob Pelc provided me with that information which I supplied back to ipower.com.  Later in the day I got an e-mail indicating that the problem was resolved and I was, in fact, able to log in without any problems.  The e-mail said the Wordfence plugin had caused the crash and that they disabled it, but after I logged in it was still activated.  I did not, however, take the time to check if it was functioning correctly.  I also did not install the Simple:Press forum at this time.

For breakfast Linda improvised a potato tofu scramble with nutritional yeast, garlic, and other seasonings.  It was a hearty and flavorful start to the day.  After breakfast I called Jim A. back to discuss the FMCA seminar listing categorization document we have been working on.

I settled in to work at my computer on the consolidated blog post for November 10-16 while Linda settled in to work on accounting for the bakery.  She is also approaching the time of year when she has to pull tax returns together.  She uses Turbo Tax and needs an updated version each year.  The products she needed were on sale through Amazon Prime.  She purchased and download them, which also placed them in her Amazon software library, and they installed and opened without a hitch.

I got an e-mail from Harvey Carter (AC8NO), president of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC), asking me to update the officer listing on the club website.  I took care of that and also changed that contact form (Contact Us page) to e-mail him instead of former president Mike Sharpe (WX8H).

By 2:30 PM I was tired of sitting in front of my computer so I changed into my work clothes and spent an hour trying to clean and wax a couple of windows on the bus.  The passenger side, which faces south, was so hot I cloud not touch it for very long, so I worked on the north side in the shade.

Jim/Flo L. and Jim/Barb B. disassembled the Select Comfort air mattress we had put in the park model trailer and divided up the parts.  We were going to donate it to the Salvation Army but did not get it done fast enough.  Jim B. would like the pump and controllers but Butch and Fonda need them to replace the defective unit on the mattress in their guest bedroom.  Since that is where I sleep when I am there, it is in my best interest to give it to them.

We invited all of our neighbors to come over for happy hour at 4 PM.  Barb B. came over with a glass of wine at 4:20 PM, so I poured a glass for Linda and me.  Jim B. was taking a nap as were Butch and Fonda.  (Hey; retirement is hard work!).   Butch and Fonda eventually shook the cobwebs out and came over.  Jim and Flo L. arrived but busied themselves with dinner preparations.  They were joining Jim/Barb B. for a belated Christmas dinner.  Jim B. eventually awoke and Barb left to join the other three for dinner.  Fonda left just before 6 PM to go to church but returned a few minutes later.  Apparently the evening service had been cancelled because of the Super Bowl.  She and Butch visited as the sun set and eventually it got chilly enough that we all decided to go inside.

I e-mailed Chuck Spera and my long-time friend John (J. C.) Armbruster earlier in the day but had not gotten responses from either of them by bedtime.  During the evening I had e-mails going back and forth with Steve Willey regarding the upcoming informal FMCA Freethinker gathering at the Liar Peg Leg Smith Monument boondocking area in Borrego Springs, California.  I also e-mailed Jim Ellmore regarding the same event.

A typical sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona.

A typical sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona as seen from our campsite on the north end of town.

2015/02/02 (M) Market Day

The last 24 hours have brought into focus why we are here for the winter.  It will be sunny and 80 degrees F today.  Detroit got 16.7 inches of snow from the storm that hit over the weekend, with 12 inches in Ann Arbor and similar amounts in Dexter, Howell, and Brighton.  When we checked this morning it was 7 degrees at home and going up to a high of 14.  Yeah, we are not missing that.

Breakfast was the bland store-bought bulk granola we have had to eat since running out of Linda’s homemade granola some weeks ago.  I wish we could carry a five-month supply of her granola; it’s that good.  Right after breakfast Linda started putting together menu ideas and a shopping list while I reviewed the latest seminar listing from Jim A. and e-mailed it back to him.  He called later to discuss it briefly.  I started working on yet another consolidated blog post for 17-23 Nov 2014 and did that until I could not stand to sit any longer.  The antidote for was go outside and work on cleaning and waxing the rear cap of the bus.

Butch and Fonda left around 9 AM and drove to Parker to go shopping at Wal-Mart.  Back home they shop at the Wal-Mart in Logansport and are familiar with the items there.  Not long after they left Linda drove to Blythe, California to do our grocery shopping for the week.  Of the supermarkets available to us we prefer the Albertson’s in Blythe, followed by the Smart & Final Extra at the same intersection.

Butch and Fonda returned from shopping and so did Jim and Barb.  Butch asked if I had ordered the coil for the MAC solenoid air valve that controls the a-c shutters behind the front bumper.  I hadn’t, so I took a break from cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus and called MAC Valve to order a replacement coil for the 111B601BAAA solenoid valve.  (I still have the old valve but I do not think I have it with us in the bus.)

Jim L. stopped by with some very fresh grapefruit and we got to talking about automotive detailing.  He recommended Finesse from 3M for polishing paint without leaving marks.  He said it works so well that the paint looks “wet” when you are done.  Butch had also suggested that I look at the Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher.  Apparently this machine can finish paint with no swirl marks.

The FMCA Freethinker website /WP-admin/ panel was back up and running.  I logged in and checked the plugins.  They were all there but they had ALL been deactivated.  Tech support at ipower.com had indicated that they were going to disable the Wordfence plugin.  I re-activated most of them, but not all, and specifically did not re-activate the Jetpack plugin.  It is a large, feature rich plugin and the only thing I use is the Carousel feature to manage native WordPress image galleries.  Unfortunately I need that feature and have not found another plugin that does what I need.

I worked for most of the evening on the consolidated blog post.  By the time I finished it was too late to start selecting and editing photos, so I will do that tomorrow if I have time.

2015/03/03 (T) Wax On, Wax Off

I knew there was something else I was supposed to do yesterday, but I could not remember what it was.  I sometimes put “tasks” on my calendar, but that does not help if do not check it.  I remembered this morning what it was; I needed to call Sunset Sportswear in South Lyon, Michigan and follow up on an e-mail I sent last Thursday regarding our order for personalized SLAARC jackets.  I made that call and Pam took our credit card information.  Barb handles sales but had not made it in yet due to the snow.  Sunset Sportswear was closed yesterday because of the storm so if I had remembered to call them it would have been for naught.  Things often work out like that.

I also got an e-mail from the Escapees RV Club regarding the upcoming Escapade rally.  It indicated we could extend our stay until Sunday noon.  I called Lou Petkus, the head staff photographer for the Escapade, to let him know.  The rally ends on Thursday with normal departure on Friday and staff departure on Saturday.  Lou is trying to arrange a photography field trip for Saturday so the fact that anyone can stay until Sunday should help with participation.  I called the SKP headquarters and booked the extra night.

I confirmed which RV Park Lou and Val will be in on March 5th and I think we will try to get in there as well.  That location will position us close to the rally venue and allow us to caravan in together and park together.  (We have to be in by 11AM on the 6th.)  That, in turn, should make our staff photography work more convenient.  We plan to hang out (dry camp) with RVillage founder Curtis Coleman for a couple of nights before this at his rental home near Casa Grande, which will put us a lot closer to Tucson than we are here in Quartzsite.

We had also mentioned to Lou and Val at Quartzfest that we were thinking of heading to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument after the Escapade.  They had been discussing it and decided they would like to go there as well so we will probably caravan there with them.  After OPCNM we plan to head to Big Bend NP (BBNP) in Texas and Lou and Val would also like to go there.  That is a three day drive for us, and we may take six or seven days to get there depending on where we might stop and what there is to see long the way.  Whether we travel together or separate will be determined later.  Our friend, Mara, and another women from the WINs are also headed to BBNP sometime in March and we have tentatively agreed to meet up with them if we can work out the timing.

I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Jetpack tech support at WordPress.com. “Happiness Engineer” Jeremy said that Wordfence has been known to cause issues with the Jetpack plugin.  He acknowledged that Wordfence is a powerful and important plugin but can be very aggressive in protecting websites.  Given that Wordfence appears to have caused the crash of the FMCAA Freethinkers WordPress /WP-admin/ Jeremy said I probably did not need to reinstall the Jetpack plugin.  I filled out a support ticket yesterday for this issue on the Wordfence website as I have a premium (paid) membership.  They acknowledged the support ticket right away but an actual response will likely take longer.

I had all of these communications chores done by 11 AM and decided to continue cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus.  I started with the rear, as it was still in the shade, and finished the lower half.  It was tedious as that is the engine hatch and it has numerous horizontal indentations that run the full width.  These indentations are open on the inside top for airflow and have screens to keep things from getting in (like fingers).

Another view of the sunset from our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ.

Another view of the sunset from our campsite in Quartzsite, AZ.

I continued on around to the driver side of the bus which faces north.  The temperature this afternoon got up to 80 degrees F, and it was very hot in the sun, but it was pleasantly cool in the shade of the bus.  It was near perfect conditions for the work I was doing.  I worked most of the afternoon and did not quite get the back half of the bus cleaned and waxed.  A couple of bay doors and I will be past the half way point on that side.

I am going to try to work on this at least a few hours every day, otherwise it will never get done and this is an ideal place to work on it as long as I am not working in the sun.  The south facing passenger side is going to be more of a challenge and I will have to limit my work to the morning before the body panels heat up.

UPS showed up today with my coil for the MAC valve which turned out to be an entire new valve.  Rather than try to remove the solenoid coil I may just install the whole valve.  UPS also brought Fonda’s new sewing machine.  It only weighs 13 pounds.

Butch got back from a rock hunting field trip late in the afternoon and we stood around chatting as an amazing sunset developed around us.  As I have mentioned before, sunsets here are often 360 degree events and this one surrounded us with color before finally fading into another starry night.

Linda made a wonderful dish for dinner last night and we had it again this evening.  She pan-grilled polenta and served it on a bed of dark leafy greens topped with puttanesca sauce made from scratch.

After dinner I selected photographs for my November 17 – 23, 2014 blog post and processed them.  I uploaded the text to our WordPress site and then uploaded, captioned, and integrated each photo in turn.  I also had to enter all of the tags, which I figure out as I read through the post.  If there is one thing I would like to have at this point it is the ability to highlight key words and phrases in my Word document and have them automatically become tags when the text is uploaded.

By the time I published the post and went to bed to finish this one it was midnight.  At eight minutes after midnight MST I was one hour into my 63rd year as I was born on this date at 00:08 in the Central Time Zone, where eight minutes past midnight happened an hour ago.

2015/02/04 (W) 63 and Counting

I finished my blog post for yesterday late last night and e-mailed it to myself at eight minutes after midnight, the hour and minute of my birth, or so I have always been told.  Linda and the cats were all asleep and I observed the moment in quiet solitude.  As I noted at the end of yesterday’s post I was actually an hour late in my observance as we are currently in the Mountain Time Zone and I was born in the Central Time Zone.  But it was the thought that counted.

Sixty-three is not a milestone birthday anniversary, other than making it that far.  On my 60th birthday I became eligible to retire, and did so four months later.  On my 62nd birthday I became eligible to start drawing social security, but didn’t.  On my 65th birthday I will become eligible for Medicare.  The year I turn 66 Linda will apply for Social Security benefits and immediately suspend them.  I will be eligible for my full Social Security benefit but will not apply for it.  I will apply for the spousal benefit instead.  Our monthly Social Security benefits continue to increase by 8% per year until age 70, a solid and guaranteed return, so Linda will start taking her benefits then and I will file for, and take, my benefits when I turn 70.

Having thought through the complexities of birthdays, we had breakfast and then I got to work cleaning and waxing the outside of the bus.  My plan was to finish the driver side but not spend all day at it.  As it turned out, I spent most of the day at it, taking breaks to check e-mail.  It is just slow work, especially since so much of it has to be done on a step ladder.  I have no idea how many trips I made up and down that ladder, but it was a lot.  It is only a seven foot step ladder so I have to stand near the top to reach the top of the sides which are over 12 feet from the ground.  I cannot reach very far to the side either, so I work from one side of the ladder then climb down and climb up the other side and work from there.  I then climb down and move the ladder about three feet and do it all again; over, and over, and over.  But as Long as I keep going it eventually gets done.  I am, however, seriously considering getting a Cyclo 5 dual head orbiting buffer/polisher.  There is simply too much bus to do this by hand.  I am also considering getting a platform to put between two ladders and/or a four-wheel elevated work platform to use in the barn if/when we get it built.

I got a call from our daughter wishing me a happy birthday and had a nice chat with her.  I asked if Katie had made a final college selection but she is not done with interviews yet.  Perhaps we will know in a few weeks where she is headed in the fall.

Yesterday Linda invited all of our camping neighbors to come over today at 4 PM for happy hour to celebrate my birthday.  In preparation she spent part of the day making cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  When she wasn’t cooking she did accounting and tax return work for Butch and Fonda.  Around 3 PM she prepared bruschetta using what was left of a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread and the puttanesca sauce she made a couple of nights ago.  Larry/Sandy, Jim/Barb, and Butch/Fonda all brought chairs and beverages of their choice.  Butch and Fonda brought chips, salsa, and hummus and the peanut and dried fruit mix they make.  We sat around talking until the sun set at which point the air temperature cooled off and we all retreated to our rigs.

I got a call from our son during our happy hour and excused myself for a few minutes to chat with him.  It was 7:40 PM back in Ann Arbor and Madeline was getting ready for bed.  I got to “chat” with her and she wished me a happy birthday.  With encouragement from her mom she asked me “How is Arizona?”  I told her it was very nice here.

We skipped lunch today and did not have dinner because we filled up on happy hour snacks.  Linda played online word games while I started assembling the consolidated blog post for November 24 – 30.  She turned on the MiFi and trundled off to bed to watch an episode of Downton Abby on her iPad.  I finished editing the post and selected two photos to go with it.  When I checked I found that I did not have photos for most of the days covered by the post.  I thought about uploading it but decided against it as it still takes time to upload the text, upload and insert the pictures, and create all of the tags and I was too tired to maintain the needed concentration.  Somewhere in there I read through a reply from Chuck Spera and sent him the next volley in our e-mail conversation.

Overall it was a good 63rd birthday.  Given our winter travel lifestyle I face the interesting prospect of celebrating my birthday somewhere different every year for many years to come.

Our fellow campers gathered by our bus for my 63rd birthday happy hour.  L-2-R: Sandy, Larry, Barb, Jim, Butch, Fonda, me.   Photo by Linda (not shown).

Our fellow campers gathered by our bus for my 63rd birthday happy hour. L-2-R: Sandy, Larry, Barb, Jim, Butch, Fonda, me. Photo by Linda (not shown).

2015/02/05 (R) A Screwy Tire

The overnight lows are now dropping into the upper 40’s at night and the coach cools off just enough that I turn the heat on in the front of the bus while I make coffee in the morning.  Soon enough the sun starts heating up the coach and we are pulling the accordion shades down to keep it out and opening windows and turning on ceiling exhaust fans to draw cool air in.  A couple of days ago we finally put the awnings out on the south facing passenger side of the coach.  Between the patio awning and the bedroom awning they shade more than half of the upper portion of the coach and help keep the interior temperatures in check.  We have not had them out much, however, because of the somewhat persistent winds in the La Paz Valley.

After breakfast I wanted to setup the TireTraker TT-400C TPMS.  Once I started I would need to install the sensors on all 13 tires.  In order to install the sensor on the spare tire in the car I had to empty out the back so I could get to the tire.  Linda was helping me and noticed a screw in the passenger side rear tire.  It was right at the edge of the tread but not technically in the side wall.  The tire was holding pressure but when I started to back the screw out it started to hiss so I screwed it back in.  Nuts.

Linda got online to look for tire repair shops in Quartzsite.  The first three numbers we tried were out of service and the Love’s Truck Stop only repaired big tires, not small ones, so I called Jim Liebherr to see if he knew of some place in town.  Flo answered the phone and could not locate Jim so I asked for a return phone call.  Butch then offered to drive me downtown where he thought he remembered seeing a tire shop.  As we were pulling out of our camp it occurred to Butch that the RV Pit Stop, just south of us on Central Avenue, might do tire repairs.  Before we even got that far we saw the sign for Best Auto and Tires.  We have walked or driven past this place dozens of times but never paid any attention to the fact they sold and serviced tires.  At the time we did not care.

They said they would have to see the tire so we drove back to camp and I drove back in the car.  They said they could repair it properly with an internal patch and they would get right on it if I wanted to wait for it.  $14.  Deal.  I could easily have walked back to camp from there but I was back with the car within an hour.  If the tire had not been repairable we would have had to take it off the car and use Butch’s Chevy Suburban to drive it to Yuma or Lake Havasu City where there are Discount Tire Locations.

Jim L. returned my earlier phone call while I was waiting for the tire.  He and Flo use a dentist in Los Algodones, Mexico and are very satisfied with the service and price.  I have a tooth that is bothering me just a bit and was giving some serious consideration to making an appointment with someone in Los Algodones.

I installed the batteries in our new TT-400C sensors and programmed the baseline pressures into the monitor (receiver).  I then installed the sensors on the bus and car tires, linking each one to the monitor as I went.  Programming the baseline pressures first is the easier way to install the system.  In setup mode the monitor displays each tire position in turn.  While the position is displayed a sensor is screwed onto the valve stem.  The application of pressure to the sensor “wakes it up.”  When the sensor starts transmitting the monitor associates it with the displayed tire position.  After exiting setup mode only the programmed tire positions display on the monitor.

In addition to the overall setup procedure there are several things I like better about the TT-400C system compared to the PressurePro system we have had since the 2008 FMCA national rally in St. Paul, Minnesota.  A major one is that the baseline pressures are programmed into the monitor.  On the PP-TPMS the baseline pressures are determined by the pressure in the tire at the time the sensor is put on.  Another thing I like is that the TT-TPMS monitor is powered by rechargeable batteries and is not plugged in when in use.  That makes it much more convenient to move it between the bus and the car, but especially to carry it around while installing and associating the sensors to wheel positions.  Finally, I like the sensors, which are much smaller and only weigh 0.4 ounces each.

Linda helped me reload the back of the Element and sort through all of the “stuff” that was “stuffed” in the glove box and the passenger side dashboard trays.  (When was the last time someone actually stored gloves in an automotive glove box?).  With everything sorted out and repackaged in ZipLock bags I stored it back in the glove box and locked up the car.

Linda spent part the morning working on accounting and tax returns for Butch and Fonda and talking on the phone to Dave, the controller at Metropolitan Baking.  I got a call later from Jim Ammenheiser and then did a final proofreading of our Education Committee recommendation to FMCA staff for how to restructure the categorization and listing of seminars and activities in the national rally programs.

We took a break and had the last two cupcakes from yesterday with some vegan Mocha Almond Fudge coconut “ice cream.”  We were supposed to have these last night for my birthday but we were not hungry after snacking at the happy hour birthday gathering.  Linda then went for a walk.  Linda got me a birthday card and a towel with an elastic edged hole for my head.  I tend to get food on my shirts when I eat and the towel is basically an adult bib that can be easily laundered.

Our fresh water tank was a bottle cap shy of empty so I filled it.  It usually takes about 50 minutes to fill the tank starting from empty so I set the timer on my smartphone for 40 minutes.  When it signaled me to check on the progress the tank was already overflowing.  (It has a vent tube on top of the tank that runs through the floor of the bay.)  I don’t think I wasted more than a few gallons of soft water so it should not throw my water usage and softening calculations off by much.  The good news was that the post-fill hardness test showed the water coming out of the softener at 0.0 to 0.5 gpg total hardness (0 to 10 ppm.)  That was better than the reading I got right after I recharged the softener, so perhaps it still had some residual salt in it initially.

At 4 PM I was getting ready to upload a blog post when the UPS truck showed up and dropped off two boxes for me.  It was the Chemical Guys microfiber products I had ordered recently, including two microfiber auto detailing aprons.  Butch returned a few minutes later with a small package for me.  It was the lens hood I had ordered for my Sony zoom lens and it had been mailed USPS.  He also had eight (8) Full River 6V L16 AGM batteries.  I helped him unload them from the Suburban onto the concrete pad on the driver side of their bus.  Fonda emptied out the driver’s side of their battery bay and she and I then moved the batteries to the bay where Butch positioned them.  He left them in their boxes and will install them when they get back to Twelve Mile.

At 5:15 PM I finally got around to uploading the consolidated blog post for the last week of November (2014).  I then started thinking about what to do with my December 2014 posts.  As of today I am still 67 posts behind and putting up daily posts is not realistic.  In looking through my photos I was surprised to find that I took very few from the time we left the house until we arrived in Quartzsite.  I decided to do consolidated posts for Dec 1 – 4 (Twelve Mike, IN to Alvarado, TX), 5 – 8 (visit with Donn Barnes), and 9 – 12 (travel from Alvarado to Quartzsite, AZ).  I have more pictures for the rest of the month, so I will have to figure out what makes sense.  I compiled the posts for December 1 – 4, selected and processed one photo, uploaded it, selected the categories, and entered all of the tags.  I posted it and then realized I wanted to edit the URLs slightly so I logged back in and found that I was unable to type anything.

It took me a while to figure out that the problem was the built-in keyboard on my ASUS G750JM ROG notebook computer.  I got it at the end of April last year, so I have only had it for eight months.  I decided to run a full scan using ESET Smart Security since I could do that with just a mouse and the Bluetooth mouse was working just fine.  It found 18 threats and dealt with 16 of them.  I then ran CCleaner, after which I enabled the onscreen keyboard.  Although intended for use on touchscreen computers, at least I could type things into a search box using my mouse.

I found some references to similar problems on answers.microsoft.com with the suggestion to examine the keyboard device properties.  If it indicated the device was installed and working correctly it was probably not a Windows 8.1 problem.  The other suggestion was to try an external keyboard.  If that worked it would confirm a keyboard hardware problem.  I had already gotten my Gigaware wireless keyboard out so I plugged in the USB dongle, turned on the keyboard, and voilà, I could type again!

Another post on the Windows forum listed website links for ASUS support so I started following those.  One ASUS website wanted the serial number of my computer, which I had to get off of a tag on the bottom of the case with really small type.  Once I had that entered correctly I was able to go to a download page with 81 files available, including bios and chipset code.  There were two files that seemed to have something to do with the keyboard.  By 1:15 AM I had a half dozen tabs open in two different browsers with no definitive understanding of what had happened or what to do to fix it.  I then realized that the Shift Lock key on the keyboard was illuminated and I could toggle it on and off.  I could also toggle the Number Lock, so I tried typing and the keyboard was working once again.  That, however, did not give me any confidence that it would continue to do so.  I decided I was not going to shut the computer down for fear of not being able to log back in on startup.  I was not about to start downloading and installing anything at that hour so I went to bed tired, annoyed, and, frankly, a bit discouraged by this unwelcomed turn of events.

 

2015/01/27-31 (T-S) Q 2015 W5

2015/01/27 (T) Ahhh, Mexico

We packed quite a bit into today.  After having toast and coffee for breakfast we drove to Yuma through heavy cloud cover and fog.  It made for an interesting and beautiful drive, but we did not pull off the road to take pictures.  There is often a tension between the need to get somewhere and the desire to stop and take photographs.  Today the destination took precedence.

When we got to Yuma we drove around looking for the Main Street that led to the heart of downtown and Yuma Territorial Prison.  This was only the second time we had been in Yuma and the first time I had driven here and I did not quite remember how the streets ran, which is unusual for me.  Yuma is not that big of a town and I was able to get oriented fairly easily with the help of the GPS map.  I missed a turn, however, and we ended up driving over the single lane bridge on the Ocean to Ocean Highway.  We stopped at a Casino just short of the California border, turned around, and went back over the bridge.  Being single lane the traffic is controlled by stop lights on each end.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison.  Yuma, AZ.

Main cell block, 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison. Yuma, AZ.

I made the correct turns this time and got us to the parking lot for the 1875 Yuma Territorial Prison State Park.  Very little of the original prison remains, but there is enough of it to give a feeling for what it was like.  The small museum does a good job of telling the story, but a tour guide (from Canada) helped fill in details and answer questions.  Although part of the Arizona State Parks system, it is operated by a local organization staffed by volunteers.

The prison and the Quartermaster State Park are the two main tourist attractions in Yuma.  Beyond those two things it is the closest city to Quartzsite with a good selection of major retailers.  Yuma is also home to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and the U. S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds are just 20 miles north of town.  But the thing that interested us is that Yuma is the wintertime lettuce bowl of North America.  The flat topography and rich soil, watered by an extensive irrigation system fed by the Colorado River and worked by Mexican laborers, spreads as far as the eye can see and supports a vast crop of a large variety of leafy green vegetables.

From the prison I drove west on I-8, almost immediately crossing the Colorado River into the extreme southeast corner of California.  Eight miles later we exited onto CA-186 and headed south through the Quechan Indian Reservation to the U.S./Mexican border crossing at Los Algodones.  We parked in the Indian owned/operated lot and walked across the border into Mexico; our first ever visit to our southern neighbor.  We found it interesting that no one checked us on entry.

Los Algodones is an interesting and unusual little town.  It exists because of tourists from north of the border and has been developed to serve some specific needs of those visitors.  It has the highest concentration (and number) of dentists and optical shops of any place on earth and quite a few pharmacies too.  Many American and Canadian RVers come to this area during the winter months not only for the warm, dry climate, but for annual dental work, eye exams, glasses, and both prescription and over-the-counter drugs.  The vast majority of them park on the U. S. side and walk across the border.

We walked the streets of Los Algodones for an hour or more and finally settled at the Pueblo Viejo restaurant for lunch.  Linda and Marilyn had bean burritos and bottled mineral water.  I made the riskier choice and had a green salad and deep fried peppers.  The peppers were thinly sliced jalapeños mixed with sliced onions.  Linda and Marilyn had some too, but between the three of us we did not finish them; too hot.  At least they were authentic!  Puerto Viejo was the #2 rated restaurant on Trip Advisor and everything we read said the town was safe, including the food.  (The #1 rated restaurant was a sushi bar.)

The restaurant was just across the street from the port of entry so we walked over there and got in line behind a couple of hundred other people.  It took 30 – 40 minutes to reach the customs agent, but the sidewalk was shaded by an overhanging sunscreen and lined with benches so it was comfortable enough.  When it was finally our turn we each cleared customs in less than a minute and were finally back the U.S.A.  We got to use our credit card size passport cards for the first time.

We drove back to Yuma and found the major outdoor shopping mall where I stopped at Best Buy to look for a lens hood and cap for my Sony alpha kit/zoom lens (DT 3.5-5.6/18-70mm) but they did not have any compatible products.

The drive home up US-95 was very different than the drive down.  The clouds and fog were gone and we had a clear view of the mountains to either side of the valley.  Once we were north of the U. S. Army Proving Grounds the land to the east of the highway was part of the KOFA a National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest in the country at over 650,000 acres.  (KOFA stands for “King OF Arizona, a large mine that once operated in this area.)  Between the Proving Grounds and the BLM land south of Quartzsite there are four roads that lead east into the refuge.  Overnight camping is permitted within 100 feet of the roads unless otherwise posted, but we saw very little evidence of anyone out there.  It is, however, a large, remote, area without any services so it only appeals to a certain kind of boondocker, such as those seeking solitude and a semi-wilderness experience.  I say “semi-” because if you can drive there in a 40′ motor home, or a pickup truck pulling a 35′ 5th wheel trailer, it is not wilderness by definition.

About 20 miles south of Q we turned off onto the KOFA NWR road leading to the Palm Canyon trailhead.  The canyon is a huge crevice in the 5,000 foot tall mountain and is home to the only indigenous Palm trees in Arizona.  The trailhead was another seven (7) miles in from the highway and the trail into the canyon was a half mile hike from there, so we will come back another time earlier in the day and do that.  The sun was getting lower in the western sky and the top of the very large mountain to our east was obscured by clouds so the situation was setting up for the possibility of good photographs.  We drove in about 3 miles (at 10 – 15 MPH) and then pulled off the road at a good vantage point to take photos.  We were rewarded for our decision as the sun bathed the mountains in glorious, warm light.

Although the road was generally good gravel and clearly defined we wanted to leave the refuge and get back to the coach while it was still daylight.  As often happens the sunset lingered and the colors deepened as we drove.  One of the challenges with shooting sunsets is that if you hang in there until it is over, you have to pack up your gear and extract yourself from the location in the dark.  Unless, of course, you are backpacking and have already pitched your tent right there.  The same goes for sunrise photography, only in reverse.

Back at the coach we had various snacks for dinner.  Butch brought the mail over and we chatted for a few minutes.  I worked on several e-mails from Gary at BCM, and Bob from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter.  I transferred photos from my camera to my computer and backed them up to the NAS.  I then used MS-ICE to create a couple of panoramas from today’s trip and used FIV to post-process them along with a photo of the mountain at sunset.  By the time I was done it had been a very long, but interesting, productive, and satisfying day.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

View looking north from the 1875 Yuma Terriorial Prison State Park, Yuma, AZ.

2014/01/28 (W) Boomerville

After a light breakfast Linda and Marilyn drove to the local Farmers Market and also spent a little time looking around Desert Gardens.  Linda bought some asparagus and a Romanesco brocciflower, which is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.  It grows in a fractal manor based on a Fibonacci number sequence which makes it visually very interesting.

While they were gone I worked on survey items for the FMCA NEC member education survey and suggested a minor change to the seminar categorization spreadsheet that Jim A. had prepared.  I had planned to work on my blog posts for the third week of October (2014) but did not get to those before lunch.

After lunch Linda and I drove out to the BLM Scaddam 14-day area east of town and found the site where Boomerville was set up all last week.  Most of the rigs had pulled out.  Many of them were also geocachers and moved to the Roadrunner area south of town.  We were looking for Bill Stewart and Lynn Pearlmutter from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and finally spotted their Tiffin Phaeton.  We sat and chatted for over an hour and then headed back to camp where Marilyn had been re-treating in our absence.  I think it has been a good visit for her.

I worked on consolidating seven blog posts from the third week of October while Linda started preparing dinner.  For Marilyn’s final dinner meal (dare I say ‘last supper’) Linda made her mock stroganoff.  No, she did make Marilyn mock her stroganoff, she made a vegan version of stroganoff and served it over white rice, the way I like it.   She also steamed the Romanesco brocciflower.  The taste and texture was mostly cauliflower-like so I seasoned my pieces with a little white vinegar, which is the way I like my cauliflower.

While the ladies played Scrabble online I worked on the blog post and got the pictures selected and edited.  I was up very late again but I got it posted before I went to bed.  I was also having trouble logging in to RVillage using the Google Chrome browser.  I tried Firefox and got in without difficulty and was able to navigate the site.  Remembering that Butch had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago with a different website, I cleared the browsing history (cache) for the last week and tried again.  That resolved the problem, at least for now.  RVillage support had indicated that they were having login issues with the site, so my browser may have cached a bad page.  I primarily use Chrome to browse, so the bad page had probably not been cached in Firefox.

I spent some time on e-mails dealing with an issue we have in our FMCA Freethinkers chapter.  I updated Piriform CCleaner on my computer and ran it.  I then opened Piriform Defraggler, checked for updates, and started it.  It said the remaining time was “> 1 day” so I let it run and went to bed.

Although it was late I worked on the draft of my blog post for yesterday as I had only had time to outline it on my iPad.  I then worked on this post.  Even though I am still way behind in uploading posts to our WordPress website I have to write them each day or I lose the details.  It also takes a fair amount of time, and if I get behind I risk not being able to catch up.  I don’t have to do this at all, of course, but it’s something I want to do and enjoy doing.  I just don’t like being so far behind.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

One of the many covered sidewalk market areas in Los Algodones, Mexico.

2015/01/29 (R) The Flying Nun

We have had an excellent visit with Marilyn since she arrived on the 22nd with a nice mix of local activities, distant sight-seeing, and quiet time at home to visit and allow her to read, rest, and contemplate.  She flew back to St. Louis, Missouri this afternoon but before she left Linda made vegan blueberry pancakes for brunch.

Marilyn’s flight home was at 4 PM MST from the Phoenix airport, which is over 130 miles east of Quartzsite, so they left at noon to get her there in plenty of time.  I stayed home to work and decided to reconcile the financial statements for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter with the copies of the bank statements I received yesterday from the Treasurer, who lives in Chico, California.  While I was at it I updated my financial statements and dues analysis worksheets and the master roster.  Linda called at 2:30 PM to say she was starting back to Q but that traffic was very heavy and she might not be back until after 5 PM.  That proved to be a very accurate estimate.

We had an early dinner that that consisted of a large salad and an equally large glass of Sangria.  I continued to work after dinner dealing with e-mails and then editing together the blog posts for October 23 through 29 into a single post.  I got the post compiled but it was too late (I was too tired) to select and process photos, much less upload the whole thing to WordPress, so I went to bed.

2015/01/30 (F) Regen Aggravation

Rain was forecast for last night and into today and that forecast turned out to be accurate.  It started raining around 11 PM and rained through the night and into mid-late morning.  The precipitation rate was never very high but the rain was persistent.  Even after it quit raining heavy clouds filled the valley and obscured the mountain tops in all directions.  There was a lower chance of showers for this evening after which the system is then supposed to start clearing out.

Marilyn does care for breakfast cereals or things that look, taste, or feel like milk, so we tended to have toast for breakfast while she was here (except when we had vegan cinnamon rolls and vegan blueberry pancakes).  This morning we returned to our normal breakfast of granola, fruit juice, and coffee.  After breakfast we both had work to do and set both of our laptops up on the dinette table.

Linda got a package yesterday from the bakery via UPS with work papers related to the 12th accounting period of the 2014 fiscal year.  This was also the first accounting period in which the bakery was running only on the new software.  Linda did the software configuration and conversion in September, October, and November of 2014 and the 12th accounting period corresponds approximately to the month of November.

My “work” was completing my blog post for October 23 – 29, 2014.  I selected 10 photographs for the post that were representative of the work described in the narrative, visually interesting, and technically OK.  I uploaded the text to WordPress and then uploaded, captioned, and inserted each image.  I got finished about the same time Linda got tired of staring at numbers and made pocket pita sandwiches for lunch. She went for a long walk afterwards and I turned my attention to our fresh water system.

I knew we were below 1/3rd of a tank of fresh water based on the monitor in the house systems panel.  I checked after lunch and we were at ~1/6th of a tank (~20 gallons).  The last time I filled the tank I checked the hardness afterwards and it was higher (3.0 grains per gallon, or gpg) than it had been.  After the last regeneration (recharge) it measured 1.5 gpg and continued to give that reading after each of the next few fill ups.  (It should have measured 0 gpg but I was not able to get it recharged to that extent.)   We have been keeping a log of the dates, gallons, and hardness but I had not yet analyzed the data so I added 100 gallons to the tank.  Afterwards I checked the hardness of the water coming out of the softener and it measured 25 gpg, which is the low end of the very hard water range.  Oops.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

Although Los Algodones, Mexico was crowded and bustling with tourists from north of the border there were many quiet places like this.

I did not want to leave that water in the tank and run it through our plumbing and fixtures, but I had to regenerate the water softener before I could do anything else.  I removed the filter from the housing on the input of the water softener.  It was brown all the way through from the outer surface to the inside, so it needed to be replaced even though I had just installed it when I did the last regeneration.  Quartzsite city water is safe to drink but in addition to being very hard it has a lot of sediment in it.  Butch also thinks it is over-chlorinated and Jim L., who qualifies as a local, just doesn’t think it tastes good.  The water we drink and cook with in the coach goes through three filters and a softener before it reaches our lips so we do not have any issues with it.

I put the special recharge tube into the filter housing and filled the bottom half of the housing around the outside of the tube with solar salt.  I then poured half of a container of Morton table salt (non-iodized) on top of the solar salt.  I aligned the center tube with the center of the head and threaded the housing onto the head.  I ran water through the filter housing and then through the softener until I got a strong salty taste out of the softener.  The instructions that came with the unit say to run water through the filter housing and out the softener until the saltiness is gone, but it gives no indication of how strong or weak the flow should be or how long it should take.

[When salt (NaCl) dissolves in water (H2O) sodium ions become available.  The special media in a water softener has an affinity for dissolved ions.  Recharging the softener dislodges the calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) ions from the media and replaces them with sodium (Na) ions as a result of the supersaturated saltwater brine.  During normal operation the sodium (Na) ions in the softener are exchanged for the calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) ions in the water.  “Soft” water is not demineralized water, but the sodium (Na) ions do not cause the scale and build up in plumbing systems that the harder calcium and magnesium ions do.]

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

This is where we ate lunch in Los Algodones, Mexico.

When the water coming out of the softener was very salty I reduced the flow to a small amount and let run.  I lost track of exact time, but I eventually shut the flow off, shut off the incoming water, and unscrewed the housing.  It still had salt in it; not as much as when I started, but too much to be done.

[It takes a certain quantity of salt to produce enough sodium ions (Na) to completely recharge a softener of some given capacity.  Softeners do not treat a certain number of gallons of water before needing to be regenerated; they remove a certain number of grains of hardness based on the design.  The harder the water coming in the fewer gallons that can be processed.  Softer water in, more gallons processed.  When you understand the science involved, it is really quite simple.]

I stirred the salt in an attempt to dissolve it and put the housing and tube back on the head and ran more water through it.  One of the problems with this arrangement is that I am starting with very hard water while trying to regenerate a water softener, but there is no easy way around that.  The other problems is that I do not have a sediment filter ahead of the softener.  If particulates are allowed to enter the softener and accumulate they will reduce and eventually destroy the effectiveness of the ion exchange media.  This is a design flaw that is easily remedied by adding another filter housing between the sediment filter and the inlet of the softener.  I will probably rig up something like this when I redo the water bay and use a clear housing so I can see when the salt is gone.  Assuming, of course, that I do not replace the entire system with one like Butch’s.

After fooling around with this for a while I tested the water coming out of the softener and it was still up around 15 gpg.  It appeared that nothing I had done for the last two hours had made any difference.  I removed the housing yet again and added an entire 26 oz. container of Morton non-iodized table salt.  I ran the water until it came out of the softener very salty and then shut it off.

I set the timer on my phone for one hour and drove down to the Tyson Wells market area on Kuehn Street to buy a T40 GAC (granulated activated carbon) filter from the Water Filter guy.  While I was down there I stopped and bought a loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread.  When I got back to the coach I ran the water for 30 seconds, shut it off, and set my timer for 20 minutes. I repeated this cycle for another hour and then set an outlet valve on the softener to emit a slow stream and let it continue to run.  I periodically tasted the water coming out and eventually it did not have any saltiness.  I checked it with a test strip, my third of the day, and it finally tested at 1.5 gpg.  Evening was approaching and I once again found myself in the position of having to finish this process in the dark, so I abandoned any hope of getting it fully recharged to zero (0) gpg, if the unit is even capable of that.

I opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank part way and let the entire 120 gallons drain out.  I did not like wasting that water, but I did not want it in our system.  I also do not like the amount of time and water it seems to take to regenerate our softener, but it’s what we have for now.  At least we are parked on gravel so all of the salty water can just soak in without harming anything.  In an RV resort with landscaping we would have to be careful not to discharge the brine onto the grass or plants.  The salt water is also not great for septic systems, but in sticks-n-bricks homes it usually ends up in one of those two places.

I installed a new 5 micron melt-blown polypropylene sediment filter in the pre-softener housing and screwed it back on to the head.  I let filtered water run through the softener and onto the ground to flush any remaining brine out of the tank.  While that process was taking place I turned my attention to the post-softener filter.

We have a filter housing built into the water bay of the coach.  Water enters the coach through a garden hose connection then (presumably) passes through a check valve before going through the filter.  From there it runs throughout the coach to all of the fixtures and the Aqua-Hot.  One of the fixtures is the fill valve for the fresh water tank.  When the onboard 12VDC water pump is used it simply takes water out of the fresh water tank and pressurizes the entire system the same way the shore line does.  The pump has a check valve to prevent the pressure from an external connection from forcing water backwards through the pump.

The filter housing is hidden behind a beauty panel that makes it awkward to access and service but I managed to get the housing loose and to remove it without spilling too much water.  The installed filter was just a pleated sediment cartridge but it was basically clean so either sediment was not getting this far or was small enough to pass through.  I installed the T40 GAC cartridge and put the housing back on the head.  I then turned off the water coming into the softener and connected the output to the hose from the fresh water inlet on the coach.  The directions said to flush out the T40 with at least five gallons of tap water before using the water so I filled the kitchen sink half full while running off of the shore line.

I started this process at 1 PM.  It was now 6PM and I was finally ready to fill the fresh water tank.  The T40 filter cartridge does not have a micron rating but it was a rather snug fit in the housing and the design looks like it could constrain flow rates.  I opened the fill valve for the fresh water tank and set my phone timer to 40 minutes.

While the tank was filling I started putting the dump and fill data we have been logging into a spreadsheet.  Our softener tank is the same size as Butch and Fonda’s, which is labeled as having a 10,000 grain capacity.  Our data indicated that the last 100 gallons we added took our total from 515 to 615 gallons.  We knew we had obviously run too much water through the softener based on the first hardness test today, but this data was confirming that we had, at most, a 10,000 grain capacity tank.  Given the 25 gpg city water coming out of the tap we will need to regenerate the softener somewhere between 400 and 500 gallons.  Given the aggravation involved in trying to recharge our unit I doubt that it will be a long-term solution for us.  It simply should not take that much time to do something so simple, especially when it has to be done so often.

At the end of 40 minutes the fresh water tank was 3/4s full so I set the timer for another 10 minutes.  With the current filter setup the flow rate into the tank appears to be about 2.5 gallons per minute.  The Shur-Flo 4048 pump has a 4 GPM maximum flow rate, so that is another reason we run off the tank rather than the shore line.

By the time the tank was full it was too late to actually cook dinner so Linda heated up an Amy’s Barley Vegetable soup and put out some crackers and peanut butter; easy but delicious.

I worked on this blog post after dinner, spent a little more time with my water usage spreadsheet, dealt with some critical e-mail, and went to bed way too late.  But then, I did not have to be up by any certain time and I can take a nap tomorrow if needed.

Palm Canyon at sunset.  KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

Palm Canyon at sunset. KOFA National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles south of Quartzsite, AZ.

2015/01/31 (S) January LTT

The last day of January dawned under cloudy skies.  We are well past the midpoint of our first winter in Quartzsite and continuing to enjoy our time here.  The “Big Tent” RV Show has been over for a week and the BLM STVAs (free, 14-day limit) have thinned out as the visitors who were here for two weeks surrounding the ‘show’ have moved on.  There are still lots of RVs in the BLM LTVAs (fee-based, up to 180 days) but those are longer-term visitors who, like us, are here for ‘the season.’  The commercial RV Parks in town still have healthy occupancy, but the ‘vacancy’ signs are out once again.  There are still plenty of vendors set up in the various markets along Kuehn Street and the flea markets along west Main Street are still operating.  There is still traffic but not the parade of RVs and gridlock of the previous couple of weeks.  There is still lots of activity but the frenzy appears to be over.  Experienced visitors have told us that we will notice a gradual slow down as we move through February into March.  We will also notice a general warming of temperatures.

A small bird of prey has been active around our campsite for the last few weeks, probably longer, and was finally successful in catching something to eat this morning; at least this was the first time that were aware of it.  It took a small bird down by the seed block that attracts various birds and rabbits to our ‘front yard’ and sat where we could see it while it ate.  WE identified it as an American Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk) and the small bird it caught was indeed a sparrow.  The American Kestrel ranges from 4 to 10 ounces in weight and has a wingspan up to 24 inches with the larger birds being the mature females.  It is the only Kestrel native to North America and is the first one we have had a good look at in the wild.  It normally eats large insects, small mammals, and lizards, but will take smaller birds if it can, thus the name.  They also have the unusual ability to hover given a very slight amount of wind.

We planned to stick around camp this weekend and work on various tasks so after breakfast Linda started a load of laundry.  I like laundry day because I get to stay in my sweat clothes while my regular ones get laundered.  Between loads Linda continued working on accounting for Butch and Fonda and for the bakery.  I prepared a 4-day and a 7-day consolidated blog post and then worked on reformatting and expanding some more survey items for the FMCA national education committee.  I received a draft report/recommendation from Jim A. for the seminar classification work we have been doing so I went through it, made minor corrections, and added several comments for his consideration.

Linda can only sit for so long so around 2 PM she made mock deli meat sandwiches for lunch with vegan cheese slices, lettuce, vegan mayo, and honey mustard on Barry’s Basic Bread.  She then went for a long walk while I continued to work at computer-based tasks.  She made it to the market area at Kuehn Street and Central Avenue and bought another loaf of Barry’s Basic Bread as we worked our way through the one we bought yesterday fairly quickly.

Butch installed his new TireTraker TPMS sensors yesterday.  (I still need to install ours.)  In the process he discovered that his Chevy Suburban spare tire only had 14 PSI of air pressure in it.  Worse yet the valve stem on his bus spare was too damaged to get the sensor on.  But the real problem was that one of the two attachments for the front bus bumper broke off.  Four bolts had rusted through and snapped.  This morning he looked at what would be involved it drilling out the pieces that were stuck in the threaded holes and decided that was not a job he could do on the road.  He bought some metal strap and fashioned two loops around the front of the bumper and behind the mounting plate and bolted the ends of each to draw them in tight.  When he was done the bumper closed and opened just fine and aligned well with the body when closed.  I joked that this might be another “Long-Term Temporary” repair, or “LTT” for short, and suggested that we should coin the phrase.

Linda made a new dish for dinner, Savory Orange Roasted Tofu and Asparagus.  As the name indicates, it consisted of tofu cubes roasted in a mixture of miso, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil to which asparagus was added while roasting continued.  A sauce is made from miso, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, and orange zest and mixed in to the roasted ingredients just before serving.  She also made Farro with a little oil, salt, and pepper and served it as a side.  It may be the first time we have had Farro all by itself rather than as an ingredient in a dish.  It really is a wonderful grain.  Clementine orange sections and Franzia Fruity Red Sangria completed the meal.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

A Romanesco Boccliflower.

Towards the end of dinner I had a call from Neal Sunderland wanting to know if we knew of anyplace in Q where he and Nora could get prime rib (of beef) for dinner.  An odd request to make of a vegan, perhaps, but we only just met during the Eagles International bus rally and he did not remember how we eat.  Linda got on an iPad and did her best to find out what was in town.  The problem with Q is that a lot of the restaurants close at 8 PM, or sooner if they run out of food.  They were already driving when Neal called and he spotted a sign at the Stagecoach Restaurant on Main Street (B-10) for a prime rib special so they pulled in to the parking lot.  I heard the hostess in the background tell Neal that they were out of the special.  They had 37 of them available for dinner and they were all sold.  Yeah, Q is like that.

I have been reading up on the WordPress.com Jetpack: Site Administration feature.  It sounds very cool as it would allow me to manage multiple WordPress websites via my WordPress.com account.  This includes self-hosted sites, which all four of mine are, plus WordPress.com hosted sites.  I have the Jetpack installed on all four Websites but I have never activated the Site Management feature, which must be done from within the admin panel.  I decided to activate it tonight on the FMCA Freethinkers website, hosted by iPower.com.  The activation failed and took down the /WP-admin/control panel.  The site is still there (structure/functionality/content) but I cannot get to the dashboard to do anything.  I sent a support request to iPower and cc:d Bob Pelc, the President of the FMCA Freethinkers, who is the owner of the clubs iPower account.  I also sent a support request to Jetpack and an e-mail to Larry (K8UT) seeking his thoughts on the situation.  This was not how I wanted to end my day but there was little more I could do late on a Saturday evening, so I went to bed.