Tag Archives: Jarel Beatty Cabinetry (Logansport IN)

2016/4/16-20 (S–W) From Ham to Home (Again)

2016/04/16 (S) A Local Hamfest

I heard Butch and Fonda get in their car a little before 6 AM this morning and leave for the quad-county hamfest at the fairgrounds between Peru and Mexico (in North Central Indiana, not Central America).  I got up quietly at 7:30 AM, got dressed, put my camera in the car, and walked over to Small Town Brew to say “good morning” to proprietor Lisa Paul and fill my coffee thermos before driving to the hamfest.  As I approached the coffee shop I sensed that something was amiss.  The lights were off and something about the appearance looked different.  A closer view revealed that the interior had been redone and the name Small Town Brew was nowhere to be seen.  “The Branded Bean” was written on the window instead, but regardless of the name it clearly was not open for business.  I walked back to my car and drove to the hamfest about 10 miles away, slightly disappointed at not starting my morning with a nice cup of coffee and a cheery chat with Lisa.

There were quite a few cars parked around the venue when I arrived.  I’m not sure why, but hamfests and swap meets always seem to begin at sunrise and end by early afternoon.  Perhaps it’s a certain residual military influence or because it just leaves the rest of the day open to go home and play with new found treasurers.  Whatever the reason, I paid my $5 admission, got my door prize ticket, found Butch to say “good morning,” and then got some coffee.  Fonda was already taking her Amateur Radio Operator General Class license examination and Butch was busy with potential buyers so I walked the aisles in search of ham radio or other treasurers I could not live without, but did not find any.

Hamfests and swap meets are mostly cash only affairs unless there are larger commercial vendors there, in which case they might take credit cards.  I do not carry much cash, which is a good way to make sure I don’t spend much money buying junk I don’t need.  I did find a placemat size laminated grid square map of the United States for $5 and a laminated letter size sheet with the U.S. Amateur Radio frequency allocations for $1 and bought those.  Butch liked them so I went back and got a set for him too.  I also found some relays mounted to substantial heat sinks.  The seller had four of them for $1 each so I bought one without any specific purpose in mind.  The heat sink alone was worth more than $1 and Butch bought two of them later.

I eventually sat down at Butch’s tables and chatted with him (when he wasn’t busy) while we waited for Fonda to emerge from the testing room.  When she did she had a big grin on her face and we knew she had passed the test.  She only missed one question out of 35, which was an excellent performance.  Butch immediately got their W5YI / Gordon West General Class Study Guide and CDs out of a storage tub and put them out for sale.

Although Fonda had not studied for the Amateur Extra Class license exam she decided to take it since there was no additional testing fee beyond the $15 she had already paid to take the General Class test.  I decided to stick around and keep Butch company (not that he needed me to do that) until Fonda finished the Extra exam.  She got 19 items correct out of 50, not enough to pass but not bad for not having prepared, and it gave her a sense of what the test is like.  She wants to get her Amateur Extra license before the end of June as a new question pool goes into effect on July 1, 2016, and is very different from the current item pool.

I spent a few minutes talking to a soldier from the Indiana Army National Guard about the Hum-V they brought to the event and then returned to our rig in Twelve Mile.  I told Linda that Fonda had earned her General Class license (which Linda already has) and that Fonda was determined to get her Amateur Extra Class license by the end of June.  Not that Linda typically responds to a challenge, but this seems to have rekindled her interest in doing the same.

I had not eaten breakfast so we had vegan hot dogs and fresh fruit for lunch around noon.  I worked on blog posts until 1:30 PM when Butch and Fonda returned from the hamfest and I helped them unload their truck.  We all sat around chatting for a while but we were all very tired and Butch/Fonda needed to eat, so we returned to our motorhome to take naps.

Butch and Fonda had not reappeared by 5 PM so Linda checked to see if they were up as we wanted to go see the progress on their “new” house in Metea.  They were up so that is what we did.  We were at the house for over an hour looking at the interior reconstruction and discussing the plans for what was still to be done.  The house will not be ready to occupy this year and their hope/plan is to have it ready in 2017 before they leave again for the winter.

The property was seriously distressed but they got it for a good price.  Besides the house, which they are gutting and rebuilding inside, there is a 40′ W x 48′ L building with a concrete floor and two 12′ W x 16′ H overhead doors.  They could not build a new building like that for what they paid for the entire property.   We know, because we have been trying to figure out how to put up a similar building on our property.  Still, they bought themselves a big project and it is going to take some time and money to make it habitable and useable, or saleable if that is what they choose to do.

Fortunately they are now “retired” and still have the place in Twelve Mile to live as well as the converted bus.  Indeed, they still have an enormous amount of work to do to get the Twelve Mile property ready to sell.  It is an unusual property, having started life as a GM dealership in the 1930’s and only closing in 1981.  It then housed an electrical harness manufacturing operation before Butch and Fonda acquired it more than 20 years ago.  They turned the old showroom area into living quarters, retained the two bay auto service area for that use, as it has a functioning in-ground lift, and repurposed the rest of the space as a parts room, machine shop, wood shop, and warehouse for their business.

All told they have about 12,000 square feet under roof on two acres in the center of town on a state highway within very short walking distance of a bank and Post Office.  All-in-all, it has served their business and personal needs quite well over the last two decades but is now much more building than they need having sold off much of their business inventory in 2014 and closed Service Motors as an active supplier of parts for Crosley automobiles.  It will make an excellent building for someone, but it is going to have to be a buyer with specific and appropriate needs.

By the time we left it was 7:30 PM so we drove to the Mi Camino Real Mexican restaurant in Logansport for dinner.  Linda and I split a taco salad (no meat or dairy) and an order of vegetarian fajitas (no dairy).  We sat a long time after we were done eating just chatting before returning to Twelve Mile.  It was 9:45 PM by the time we got back so we called it a night and went our separate ways.

Back in our rig I checked my e-mail.  I had several from Gary at BCM, one of which had the first draft of the June 2016 issue.  My article on servicing the Webasto DBW2010.75 Diesel Burner is in that issue and needed to be proofread and corrections noted.  I made a first pass at that, replied to a couple of e-mails, and went to bed.  It had been a long but satisfying day and tomorrow was the first morning since this past Tuesday that we did not have to set an alarm and/or get up early.

2016/04/17 (N) Parts Shuffle

Fonda goes to church on Sundays.  She typically leaves around 9 AM and gets home between noon and 1 PM.  Butch is often up very early but not necessarily ready to interact with the world except through his computer so I tend to not bother him first thing in the morning.  We had a leisurely morning sitting around in our sweats (pants and shirts), enjoying our coffee, and eventually having breakfast.

When I finally got dressed and was in the humor to work, I unloaded the old tag axle caliper, old-old brake pads (not the ones I burned up), and the old torque plate, along with the new left-hand caliper rebuild kit, and moved them into Butch’s machine shop.  I also moved the old/broken Shur-Flo 4048 12 VDC water pump to his shop as he wants to see if he can figure out what failed and why.  With all of that stuff out of the car I repacked it to try and evenly distribute the weight of the remaining cargo.

Late morning I texted Jarel Beatty in Logansport to let him know we were here and invite him to come out and see the cabinetry he built for us last year as it was finally installed in the bus.  He had a shooting competition at 1 PM at the gun club/range near Twelve Mile and said he would try to stop by afterwards.

I had finally located the 24VDC regulator yesterday and showed Butch where it was located on our bus at the outside rear corner of the storage bay over the DS drive axle.  It was a very convenient location except that Royale Coach installed the slide out storage tray tight against the cover, making it impossible to remove without first removing the tray, which did not look easy to do.  Butch suggested that I unplug the chassis battery maintenance chargers, connect the batteries, and leave some of the bay lights on to draw off the surface charge so we could get a more accurate reading of the battery voltage later.  He also wanted to draw down the battery voltage a bit so that the alternator would have some work to do after starting the engine.

We were discussing how to deal with the failure of the regulator or alternator on the road and Butch suggested that I could always maintain the chassis battery voltage with a battery charger powered from the onboard genset.  I mentioned that besides the sophisticated, but low current, maintenance chargers that I have installed the coach came with a 24V emergency charger hardwired to the chassis batteries and powered from a 120 VAC outlet in the electrical bay.  The instructions for that charger, however, clearly indicate that it is for short time emergency charging to get the engine started and not for continuous use.  It given its age it is clearly not an “intelligent” multi-stage charger and would boil the electrolyte if left connected for too long.  Butch suggested that I remove the emergency charger and replace it with a modern, high amperage one that could be used to run the batteries and not just top them up for starting.  That seemed like a good idea to me so I added it to my (mental) project list.

Butch has been redoing the solar battery charging system on their bus and had one solar panel still to install.  Since it was loose he had me photograph the mounting rails he devised and attached to the long edges of the panel flanges.  The photos were for a future BCM article.

Jarel showed up sometime after 3 PM.  We showed him how we had installed all of the cabinetry and woodworking he had done for us based on my design drawings.  He had been in the bus several times before to discuss the project, so he had a good idea of what we were trying to accomplish, but visualizing it was one thing and seeing it quite another.  He really enjoyed seeing how the project turned out and took some photos with his phone to show his wife.

Linda started preparing dinner around 4:30 PM.  Jarel stayed and chatted until 5 PM and then went into Butch and Fonda’s house to visit with them and their dogs, Rascal (a Jack Russell Terrier), and Daffy (some kind of wire-haired Terrier mix thing).

While Jarel was visiting I borrowed a set of jumper cables from Butch and some sandpaper.  I used the sandpaper to clean the two terminals in the passenger side engine bay that are used to jump start the engine.  I then attached the jumper cables in such a way that the free ends could not touch, or the positive lead short to the chassis, by clamping the ground lead to a rail in the bay and setting the positive lead on a piece of cardboard on the ground.  I then clamped my VOM leads in the two jumper cable clamps so we would not have to hold them.

After Jarel left we checked the voltage on the battery bank.  It was 24.95 VDC.  A fully charged lead-acid battery bank at rest would be 25.2 VDC, so the voltage was reasonable given that I had the maintenance chargers off and there were some small loads on the system.  Butch had me start the bus motor, let the oil pressure come up, and then shut it off.  He had me start it a second time and then shut it off, and then start it a third time and leave it running, switching it to high idle.  While I was doing all of that he was monitoring the voltage on the VOM.

The voltage was showing just over 28 VDC, which is what we expected from a properly adjusted, correctly operating voltage regulator.  The voltage rose slightly when I switched the engine to low idle, but the batteries were probably fully charged by then and the current draw was probably minimal.  In any event it did not rise above 28.5 VDC, nowhere near the 30 VDC that would trigger a “high battery voltage” warning light on the dashboard.  There was also no indication of the alternator/regulator not producing adequate voltage as the “low battery voltage” warning light (the same light, actually) is triggered by a voltage below +24 VDC.

While the engine was running I made a mental note of the position of the needles on the two analog battery voltage gauges in the dashboard.  The “24V” gauge was higher than the 28V mark by a full needle width, i.e., there was a needle width gap between the 28V position and the left edge of the needle.  The gauge is only marked every 4 volts so it looked to me like it was reading around +29V.  The “12V” gauge was sitting right on the 14V mark.  The “24V” gauge should read 28 VDC and the “12V” gauge should read exactly 1/2 of that if the Vanner equalizers are working correctly.

Our simple test did not preclude intermittent problems with the alternator and/or voltage regulator that might occur after they were warmed up, and/or vibrating with the engine rotation at full RPM, and/or bouncing down the road.  It also did not rule out problems with the Vanner battery monitoring system, which is what controls the warning lights on the dashboard.  We also did not check the voltage at the battery bank center tap to see how closely it matched the gauge on the dashboard or how closely it was tracking 1/2 of the overall voltage as a check on the operation of the two Vanner Battery Equalizers.  Still, it appeared that the alternator and regulator were functioning correctly.

Linda made black beans and rice for our dinner and Fonda made baked squash and pork chops for their meal.  We also had carrots, grapes, strawberries, and pickled vegetables, including okra, to share around the table.  After dinner we got out our lawn chairs and sat outside for a while, pretending we were “camping.”  The air temperature dropped as the sun set and we finally put the chairs away and went inside the house to continue visiting as we had no way to make a campfire in their driveway.

By 10 PM we were all tired.  I asked Butch if I could use his big auto shop air-compressor in the morning to adjust our tires and he said he would turn it on and put the hose out first thing.  We returned to our coach and were fairly quickly off to bed.

2016/04/18 (M) Twelve Mile To Turkeyville

I was awake at 6 AM and finally got up at 6:30.  I put on my sweats, fed the cats, and prepared our morning coffee.  I noticed that Butch had already put the air hose out where I could use it so I checked/adjusted all of the tire pressures while the coffee brewed.  I also turned on the TireTraker TT-400 receiver/monitor and plugged in the repeater in the PS rear closet of the bus.  The outside air temperature was in the low 50’s F and all of the tire pressures were slightly below the cold pressures I like to run so I adjusted them.

After all of the tires were adjusted, and the air hose and tools were put away, I went inside the bus and used the monitor to check all of the tire pressures/temperatures and make a chart showing the actual and indicated values for each tire.  All of the sensors indicated pressures higher than the ones I had just set, using a known good digital tire gauge, by 1.0 to 4.5 PSI.  While this was within the specified “precision” of +/- 4% for the sensors, it was not as accurate as I think it should be.

Linda was up by this time but waited for me to have coffee and cereal (homemade granola) for breakfast at 9 AM.  Today is a travel day for us, and we would not normally have coffee or breakfast on a travel day, but we were not planning on leaving until around noon for the 3-1/2 hour drive to the Camp Turkeyville RV Resort near Marshall, Michigan.  We will also pass the Michigan Welcome Center / Rest Area and stop for fuel at the M-60 exit, so we will have opportunities to use facilities if needed.

After thinking about it overnight I decided that it did not make any sense for us to take the three new/rebuilt brake calipers home to Michigan only to have to haul them back to Indiana in a few weeks to have our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, install them.  I borrowed one of Butch and Fonda’s hand trucks and move them from the car to the machine shop one at a time.  I then repacked the back of the car, which was now 300 to 350 pounds lighter than when we arrived in Twelve Mile.

Sometime between 9 and 10 AM I called Camp Turkeyville to make a reservation for today.  Angela was not in the office but a woman took our name and request.  The park was far from full and the reservation not really necessary, but we wanted to make sure we got a full-hookup pull-through site.  We visited for a while with Butch and Fonda before making our final departure preparations.  By 11:30 AM we were ready for the final steps in the departure process.  Linda moved the car from in front of the bus and battened down the inside of the bus while I got the shorepower disconnected.  I started the motor, let the chassis air up, and pulled it straight across the street into the grain elevator driveway where Linda pulled the car up behind it.  With the car connected and prepared for towing I restarted the bus engine and we did our light check.  Butch and Fonda walked over for one last, quick conversation and then it was time to go.  They never chat with us while we are hooking up as they know it can create a dangerous distraction.

We knew the exact route we planned to follow but entered the destination into the Rand-McNally GPS anyway.  Ever since I did the update at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort the unit has been very sluggish in its response to screen taps but appears to still work.

I looped around through the grain elevator driveway back to IN-16 and headed east out of town.  At US-31 we headed north.  The GPS unit kept trying to get me to head east on county roads but I stayed on US-31 all the way to US-20.  At US-20 we headed east and stayed with that route all the way to I-69 in spite of the GPS unit’s repeated attempts to get me to turn north and head up into Michigan, presumably to pick up US-12.  At I-69 we headed north and soon enough we were back in our home state, the first time since November 27th last year.

About 12 miles into Michigan we stopped at the Welcome Center / Rest Area briefly and then continued or trip.  We exited again at Tekonsha / M-60 (exit 36?) and stopped at the Travel America for fuel.  The pump would not accept our Chase VISA card and we assumed that Chase Bank, ever vigilant with regards to its use as we cross state borders, had rejected it.  It turned out that the truck pumps were only set up to accept corporate/fleet cards so Linda had to go inside anyway and used one of our other cards to pay for the fuel.  All of this caused a bit of a delay but I eventually put 50 gallons in the tank.  I did not fill it because I did not want to put in the additives at this fuel stop.  I wanted to do that at the Mobil Truck Stop near our house and top it up just before getting home.

On our way once again we exited I-69 at N Drive North and a half mile to the west pulled into the entrance to Camp Turkeyville.  It was just before 4 PM and Angela was in the office and expecting us.  The site she planned to put us on had a car parked in it, without the owner around, so she moved us to a different one a few sites down.  It was a difference without a distinction and was an easy in, easy out, relatively level pull-through full-hookup site, which was all we cared about.  I adjusted the level and then shut off the motor.  The only hookup we needed for the rest of the day and evening was electricity so I took care of that and shut off the chassis batteries and air supply for the engine accessories.

Since we would only be here for one night we did not set up the interior the way we would if we were sticking around for even a few days.  We were parked facing south and the afternoon sun was bright and warm so I put out the awnings on the passenger side of the coach.  Gary, a fellow camper from a few sites down, stopped to chat and compliment us on our motorcoach.  After we wrapped up our chat we went inside and had an easy dinner.

One of our routines (traditions, rituals?) is to walk an RV park when we arrive unless the weather is very disagreeable.  The weather was near perfect this afternoon, and it was still plenty light at 7 PM, so we walked over to the Cornwall’s Turkeyville building to see if it was still open.  The building houses a restaurant, ice cream parlor, and general store.  They were open until 8 PM so we meandered through the store but did not buy anything as neither of us brought our wallets.  We strolled back to the campground and walked the outer loop before returning to our coach.

We had access to quite a few OTA TV signals and tuned in one of the CBS affiliates with a strong signal.  We watched our usual Monday evening TV programs and turned in for the night without setting an alarm.

2016/04/19 (T) Home Again

With the overnight low outside air temperature forecast to be in the upper 40’s we left the bathroom roof vent and bedroom windows open as we knew the outside conditions would make for wonderful sleeping conditions inside the coach.  We were tired, and did not have to be up at any particular time, all of which made for good sleeping snuggled under a thin blanket.  I got up at 8 AM, tended to the cats’ needs, and made 7 cups of coffee.  A little after 9 AM we had toast and preserves for breakfast.  We don’t usually have breakfast and coffee on a travel day, but today was the final leg of our winter 2015-16 snowbird season, and the trip from Camp Turkeyville to our home was only 80 miles, with rest stop opportunities along the way if needed.

Checkout time at Camp Turkeyville RV Resort is noon and our target was to pull out between 11:30 AM and noon.  Part of the reason for stopping here for one night before going home was to empty our waste tanks.  Another reason was to give us a short, easy drive at a time of day that avoided the rush hour traffic at the beginning and end of the work day.  This was the third year in a row that we have done this and it works very well.

We started tending to our departure tasks around 10 AM and would have been ready to go by 11 AM except for a very nice, but very talkative, neighbor.  Still, we were on schedule and not in any particular hurry.  We pulled out of our site at 11:30 AM and made the long, slow trip around the outer road of the campground to get back to the exit.  Once we were on I-69 N I set the cruise control at 63 MPH and let the bus roll.  I-69 between I-94 and I-96 is a concrete road made of small, discrete slabs, and you feel every joint between them.  But hey, it’s Michigan; we expect the roads to be in bad shape and we like it that way (not).  Well, apparently the majority of our fellow citizens like it that way, OR at least prefer it to paying taxes and enforcing weight limits and speeds.  If that wasn’t the case, our elected officials would do something about it.

There was rain headed our way but it was not expected until tomorrow or later.  Still, the sky was overcast and we had not traveled very far up I-69 when we started getting a light, intermittent drizzle.  It stayed with us all the way to Lansing where we picked up I-96 E.  By the time we got to exit 122 (M-52), where we stopped at the Mobil Truck Stop for fuel, we had driven out from under the rain.

Since the bus would be sitting for at least a couple of weeks I added Stanadyne Performance and Lubricity Formulas, and Racor Biocide before filling the tank.  It’s always better to have fresh diesel fuel but it is also good to store the bus with a full tank to prevent condensation from moist air in the tank.  My solution has been to use the Biocide and store the bus with a full tank.  If it is going to sit for any length of time I run the Parker Fuel Polishing Module to slowly filter it and remove residual moisture.

From the Mobil Truck Stop it was only 11 miles to exit 133 (M-59), another 10 miles to Hacker Road, and about 2-1/2 miles (on dirt roads) to our house.  This stretch of Hacker is scheduled for paving this year and we knew from the Livingston County Road Commission that work had already begun.  Indeed, the surveyors were working in the fall before we left for Florida.

The initial work this spring was the removal of trees along both sides of the road and as soon as we turned off of M-59 onto Hacker it was immediately obvious that this had occurred.  It was also obvious that the road had been very recently graded and that there had not been any rain since then.  We still took our time, keeping our speed to about 25 MPH, but it was one of the smoothest trips we have ever had in the bus along this stretch of Hacker.  To our delight, the grader had also obviously done our street recently and we noticed that a few of our neighbor’s had apparently trimmed or removed a lot of trees and bushes near the road.  Yeah!

As we got to the first of our three driveway entrances I stopped the coach and lifted the tag axle while Linda got out.  She always spots for clearance to obstructions and guides me into the final parking position.  There were a few larger tree limbs in the driveway so she picked those up before I pulled in.  Once I was positioned on the level parking pad area of the driveway I put the tag axle down.  The coach was close enough to level that I did not bother adjusting the suspension.  After letting it idle for a couple of minutes I shut off the motor and we started our arrival routine with one notable difference; Linda’s first task was to get the cats in their carriers, unlock the house, take them inside, and let them out of their carriers.  Coming home us a big deal for them, too.

I turned off the engine accessories air supply and the chassis batteries and connected the shorepower cord.  The circuit breaker for this electrical service is in the sub-panel in my office.  I turned on the wrong breaker the first time so it took a second trip to the basement of the house to get power to the coach.  We had no intention of unloading everything today but there were a few things we wanted to get into the house right away, such as wallets and keys.  At the top of my list was all of our computer, networking, and photography technology while Linda’s focus was on clothing and food.

Once we had our highest priority items moved into the house I texted the small circle of friends who we have been keeping in touch with about Linda’s illness and our bus problems to let them know we were home safe and sound with no further problems.  I then went to the garage, found our good battery charger, and connected it to the 12V starting battery in the Honda Civic Hybrid.  Brendan had told us a week or so ago that the battery was dead and when I connected the charger it would only accept about 2.5 Amps of current and quickly tapered off to less than one Amp.  That wasn’t much current for a depleted battery but I left it and went back into the house.

I checked a little while later and the charger had given up and displayed an “F01” error code.  I did not even bother looking it up as the car is a 2007 model and this was probably the original battery.  I decided to go ahead and get a new battery from O’Reilly’s in Howell, but first we had to unhook the Honda Element from the bus.  The car was filthy, having been towed at least 1,500 miles since it was last washed, but I stopped and got the new battery first and then went to the car wash just down the street on the same side of Grand River Avenue.  I then went to the Meijer’s supermarket at Grand River Avenue and Latson Road and picked up a few things.

Linda started preparing dinner at 5:30 PM and was just about to put the pizza in the oven when Butch called.  We chatted for about 15 minutes and he updated me on the removal of the radiator blowers and T-drive from their MCI MC-9 NJT bus.  This assembly is above the engine and almost the width of the bus but they were able to get it out using their forklift.  (It really is nice to have the right tools for the job.)  Butch noticed last weekend that a lot of the oil had leaked out of the T-drive and figured it needed new shaft seals, at a minimum, and might need new bearings.  With the assembly out of the bus Butch can conveniently do all of the needed work on a bench and repair/rebuild some other things while he is at it.

Our first dinner course was a nice salad with arugula and Italian kale.  The pizza was one of our favorites, an Amy’s Roasted Vegetables with Caramelized Onions.  By the time we were done eating it was almost time for our Tuesday evening CBS TV shows and I decided to replace the car battery tomorrow morning.  I did, however, move the NAS and my computer to my office and connect them to power and the Netgear switch.  To my great relief, the network interfaces on both devices still worked just fine.  Clearly, the Amped|Wireles SR20000G wired network ports had failed although I still do not know why and probably never will.

The 2015-16 TV season is coming to an end so the season finales are now airing and they are all cliffhangers, of course.  We went to bed at 11 PM, watched a rerun of Two and a Half Men, and a few minutes of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before going to sleep.

2016/04/20 (W) Core Return

We love our bus, love being in the bus, and love the lifestyle the bus affords us.  But we are not true gypsies at heart, and we also love our house and property.  We like the anticipation of travel and the promise of new experiences, but we also like the comfort and stability of finally landing at home after a long voyage.

We slept in this morning and finally got up at 8 AM.  Some things are the same regardless of whether we are at home or in the bus, and morning coffee is one of them.  We were enjoying our morning brew when our son texted Linda to see if we were available to FaceTime.  Of course we were!  A short time later we were “face-to-face” with grand-daughter Madeline (and her parents).

Another constant is Linda’s homemade granola.  She managed to make enough of it, and/or we managed to limit our consumption of it sufficiently over the winter, that we still had some left for breakfast this morning.  We might have one or two more servings beyond today, but she will be shopping for ingredients and making a new batch very soon.  She will also be making sure we have the necessary ingredients on hand to make vegan pancakes and vegan cupcakes as we anticipate an overnight visit with Madeline in the very near future.

After breakfast we got dressed and got to work.  Linda called Alchin’s to restart our weekly trash pickup while I made a service appointment for the Honda Element.  We checked our home phone messages.  Only a handful of the 42 messages contained any actionable information.  I made note of those details and then deleted all of them.  I called Catamaran Home Delivery and ordered refills for two prescriptions.  I then called Keith at Kish Lawn Care to see when he was planning on starting our mowing this season.  Keith’s wife just had major surgery, and the grass has not grown much yet this spring, so the first cutting is probably still a couple of weeks away.

With our calls taken care of we turned our attention to replacing the 12V battery in Linda’s Honda Civic Hybrid.  The nuts on the two threaded hold down rods were badly rusted and did not want to come loose so I sprayed them with WD-40 and let them sit for a while.  I eventually got the nuts broken loose and backed off enough to remove the rods, but bent the retaining brackets in the process.  I put the rods in my bench vise, and finished removing the nuts.  We removed the old battery, transferred the anti-corrosion pads to the new battery, set it in place, and reinstalled the protective plastic 2-piece cover.  We connected the vehicle cables and then connected the good battery charger to it to bring it to full charge before trying to start the car.

Back in the house Linda unloaded containers of water from the house refrigerator and then wiped it out.  She then unloaded a few more things from the bus, including clothes and food.  I texted Jim and Kristine Gullen to let them know we were back and then started researching small tractors and mobile Wi-Fi devices.  Linda was getting ready to order an Instant Pot and a couple of 12VDC power adapters for our Rand-McNally GPS unit through Amazon and I suggested she look for the Burton portable induction cooker that we saw at Butch and Fonda’s place.  The Suntunpen unit we have now works fine but the Burton unit has two advantages over it; a completely flat/smooth top and higher maximum power setting.  She found it, added it to the cart, and placed the order.

Linda heated a can of Amy’s vegetable soup and we split it for lunch.  I checked the battery charger and it said the battery was full so I put the old battery on the back seat floor and had Linda start the car.  It started on the second try and she backed it out of the garage so I could get in.  The hybrid battery was depleted and there was a red battery symbol illuminated on the instrument panel that we had never seen before so we got the Owner’s Manual out and looked it up.  It either meant that the 12V battery was not charging or that the hybrid battery was drained below some threshold, or possibly both.  We could see the charge level coming up on the hybrid battery so we waited and the battery warning light eventually turned off.  Linda also noticed that the in-dash navigation system, having completely lost power, was requesting a security code to reactivity it.  I found the code on a sticker inside the glove box and after Linda entered it the system returned to normal operation.  When the hybrid battery charge indicator was above 50% she backed out of the driveway and we went on our errand run.

I was on Golf Club Road last night when I went to O’Reilly’s to get the new battery so I knew it was in rougher shape than usual.  We took Hacker Road south instead which kept us on pavement.  We headed back west on Grand River Avenue to O’Reilly’s to return the old battery and get the core charge refund.  We then drove back east a short way to the drive-through car wash.  Linda had not used it before and was unclear about its location.  With the car all cleaned off we headed west again to Teeko’s Coffee and Tea to order some fresh roasted coffee beans.  Jeff was there and roasted the beans while waited and enjoyed a cup of Sumatra Manhelding coffee.  We got our usual Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caffe blend and decided to try a Costa Rican Terrazzu half-caffe blend.

We took the long way home, going back east on Grand River Avenue and then north on Hacker.  The extra driving around gave the hybrid battery plenty of time to recharge and cycle up and down and kept our just-cleaned car mostly on paved roads.

Back at the house I backed my car up to the large garage door and unloaded everything inside in preparation for my 10 AM service appointment tomorrow at Brighton Honda.  While I did that Linda unloaded a few more things from the bus.  We had quite a few rocks on the concrete driveway, as a result of Kerry Fear plowing snow this past winter, so I swept them off with a push broom.  We also had 6″ high ‘curbs’ at our three driveway entrances as a result of recent road grading, so I graded them out using a metal toothed rake.

By the time we finished those tasks we were ready to be done with physical work for the day.  Linda decided to spend an hour or so studying the item pool for the ham radio Amateur Extra class license exam.  I gathered up the laundry, took it to the laundry room, sorted it, and started a load.  I then joined her on the back deck to work on blog posts for a while.  By 4:30 PM it was a little chilly and we went inside.  I took up my usual spot on one of the living room sofas and almost immediately Juniper (our female cat) was in my lap.

For dinner Linda made a nice salad with arugula, Italian kale, strawberries, and slivered almonds.  The main course was pan-seared tofu with caramelized onions and barbecue sauce, served with a side of corn kernels.  Yum.  After dinner Linda wanted to go for a walk so we patrolled our street from one end to the other, which took about an hour.

Wednesday night is usually PBS night for TV but neither of us were in a TV watching mood.  I went to my office for a while, checked in to RVillage, and changed our location.  I then went to the WiFi Ranger website, downloaded some manuals, and opened a support ticket.  Back upstairs I texted Joe Cannarozzi, our mobile mechanic, to arrange a time to call him and discuss brake work.  I then called Mike (W8XH) to catch up on ham radio and SLAARC stuff and check on borrowing his trailer to transport our non-functional Cub Cadet Lawn tractor to Sloan’s for repair.  By the time I wrapped up my conversation with Mike, Linda had gone to bed and was watching a program on PBS about a previous live broadcast from the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary called The Best of Big Blue Live.  Linda fell asleep but I stayed up long enough to watch a rerun of Two and a Half Men and the first half hour of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert while working on this post.  With the stroke of midnight came sleep.

 

2015/11/13 (F) Road Trip

I set my alarm for 5:30 AM and got up when it went off.  I got dressed quietly, fed the cats, refilled their water fountain, and took my allergy pill and B-12 vitamin.  I used a plastic bag to pack a change of underwear and socks, a basic oral hygiene kit, my iPad, my checkbook, and my phone charger cable.  I loaded my travel bag and walnut pieces into the car and then checked the mousetraps in the pantry.  One of them had two mice in it.  It was still pitch dark outside so I drove to the end of the new driveway, parked with my headlights pointing across the road, took the trap to other side of the road, and released them.  They went scurrying off into the thick undergrowth of the woods and I drove back to the house.  I left the trap on the front porch and went inside to wash my hands.

I finally left on my road trip to Indiana at 6:20 AM.  I needed fuel so I headed south on Hacker Road and stopped at the Shell Station on Grand River Avenue at I-96.  There is a Dunkin Donuts co-located with the station so I got an extra-large coffee and was on my way.  I decided to head east a couple of miles on I-96 and then south on US-23 to Ann Arbor where I picked up I-94 west.  I took I-94 as far as I-69 and then headed south.  Somewhere along this segment I realized I had forgotten the box with the two swivel ring bearings.  That meant I would not be stopping at Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan to return them, which would save me time but necessitate getting them back to Josh another time and/or another way.

The change in plans would loosen up my schedule a bit but I still had four stops to make and was anxious to make time.  I stayed on I-69 south into Indiana and then took the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90) west.  Traveling west there is one travel plaza between I-69 and the SR-19 exit.  I stopped there to use the restroom and get another cup of coffee.  Back in my car I called Josh to let him know I would not be stopping by his shop today in Edwardsburg.  I then called Linda to update her on my whereabouts and change in plans.  She said she would take care of getting the box with the swivel ring bearings ready to mail.

The weather was overcast, drizzly, cool, and windy when I left this morning.  The winds were out of the west so I had a crosswind or a headwind for the entire trip down.  By the time I reached Indiana I had driven out from under the cloud cover.  The temperature remained very cool but the sunshine was refreshing.

My first stop was A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana.  Much to my surprise Terry had used the exact same fabric for the filler cushion that we had her use for all of the other ones, so it was a perfect match!  I got a call from Josh while I was there and called him back as soon as I left, but got his voice mail.

My next stop was at Pat and Vickie Lintners’ house, about three miles from A-1 Upholstery, to pick up a critical accessory piece for the built-in Nutone multi-function kitchen appliance.  We have a functional power base built in to our kitchen counter in the bus but only had the blender attachment.  Vickie gave us a number of other attachments at a rally back in September but many of them required a right angle tower adapter.  She had found the adapter a few weeks after the rally.

From Pat and Vickie’s I backtracked to the main north-south road, went south back over the St. Joseph River, and headed west on Old US-33 (Lincolnway).  I got a call back from Josh and he said to stay on my current road all the way to the Mishawaka bypass and then head south to US-20.  From there I was on familiar road as I headed west to US-31 south.  Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint had called while I was at Pat and Vickie’s and I let it go to voice mail.  I called her back when I was done talking to Josh.  They had both called me with some recent scuttlebutt about a service facility in Elkhart where friends of ours had some major remodeling work done on their vintage bus, but it was also a chance to catch up on things in general and helped pass the time as I drove.

I stopped in Argos for fuel and called Bill Tharpe with an ETA of 12:30 PM.  I then called Jarel to let him know I would be there by 1:30 PM.  Butch had driven me past Bill’s place once some time ago so I had a fairly good understanding of where it was and what it looked like; not that I needed it.  Given the address my Garmin 465T GPS unit took me right to Bill’s place on Mexico Road south of Mexico and north of Peru.  Sounds like I was in Central America.

Bill was outside waiting for me and we unloaded the antique SUN Electric Distributor Tester from my car and into Butch’s truck, which Bill had for the winter.  He was headed to his building in Wabash, where he has a paint booth, to repaint the truck so we did not chat for very long.  Besides, I still had one more stop and it would take at least a couple of hours.

A couple of miles on down Mexico Road I headed west on US-24 towards Logansport and arrived at Jarel Beatty’s cabinet shop at 1 PM.  Jarel was not expecting me until 1:30 so he was in the middle of cutting dados in side panels for a tall cabinet.  When he finished that task he switched to a regular blade in his table saw to work on my pieces.

We selected the most suitable pieces of walnut from among the ones I brought.  He ripped two pieces, one 2″ wide and the other 2-1/16″ wide, and crosscut them to 19-11/16″ long.  He then ran them through his shaper to round off the edges.  He changed the blade on his table saw, reset the depth of cut, and set the fence to cut off the amount of material I had marked with blue painter’s tape on the bump out for the passenger side HVAC duct cover.  With the sawing done he sanded the two new pieces and then sprayed them with a Sherwin-Williams pre-catalyzed lacquer.  He let the first coat dry for 15 minutes and then lightly sanded it with 220 grit paper to knock down tiny bubbles and splatters.  He then applied a second coat.  It was remarkable to see how it changed the appearance of the wood.  Jarel described it as being like “putting water on a rock” and I thought that was an apt description.

After another 15 minutes the pieces were dry enough to be transported without damaging them.  I wrapped things up with Jarel, including finally remembering to get all of my drawings back, and was ready to leave at 3 PM.  The GPS said I would be home by 7 PM, quite a bit earlier than I expected when I left this morning.

I had smooth sailing until I encountered a major traffic jam on I-96 eastbound just east of US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing, Michigan.  It took 45 minutes to go three miles and I was sitting at about 1/8 tank of fuel.  Ugh.  There turned out to be multi-car accidents in two separate locations about a mile apart plus a car stopped in the right lane that appeared to have run out of fuel.  What a mess.

Once I was clear of the accident area it was clear sailing once again.  I stopped at the Marathon station at the Fowlerville exit (#127) for fuel and checked out the truck pumps.  Although there were lots of semi’s parked there for the night I was disappointed to find that the back lot was in as bad a shape as the Mobil Truck Stop at exit 117.  Still, the round trip from our house would be 20 minutes shorter and it was an alternative place to get fuel.  The closest place to our house where we can fuel the bus is actually the Marathon station on Grand River Avenue at I-96 in Brighton, which has truck pumps around back, but we have some low branches in the southbound lane of Hacker Road just before we get to Grand River Avenue, so we tend to avoid that route and that stretch of Grand River Avenue is often very busy and not someplace I want to be with the bus unless it is later at night.

I checked the mousetrap in the pantry when I got home and we had caught yet another mouse.  I unloaded the car and then took the mouse trap to the end of the new driveway and released it across the road as I had done with the previous four.  As I walked down the driveway it was obvious that Phil had been here with his bulldozer, which Linda confirmed over dinner.

The “parking pad” area is now presumably level but it was definitely not flat as it had deep marks from the bulldozer treads and ridges where the gravel had not been completely smoothed out.  The top inch or so also seemed very loose.  I don’t think Phil is done working on the project as he still needs to spread straw over all of the topsoil that he placed, graded, and seeded the other day.  I suspect that he still needs to compact the gravel one last time with his track loader but I won’t know for sure until I can talk to him.

Dinner was chili and crackers; simple but delicious.  It had been a long day but I had taken care of four things in one trip, three of which were directly related to the bus and two of those of a somewhat critical nature.  We were both off to bed not long after dinner.  Tomorrow was our weekly ham radio breakfast so we would have to be up early to get there on time.

 

2015/11/12 (R) Unforced Solutions

When I got up at 7 AM Linda had already left for the bakery.  I had granola for breakfast and made a cup of Stash China Black hot tea.  I went to my office and processed the photo that Byron sent me of him and Betty and e-mailed it to Gary and Jorge at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I then replied to an e-mail from Nancy (& Big Bill).  We met them at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida in April 2014.  They are from Ontario but have a place near Ocala, Florida where they spend at least part of the winter.  I also replied to an e-mail from the Mitch in Florida regarding good places for bus service and forwarded my reply to Chuck.  I cleaned the kitty litter tray and finally got to work on the bus.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

First up was to finish screwing the down the SurePly underlayment on the floor of the passenger seat platform.  With that done I turned my attention to trimming the switch panel next to the passenger seat.  This panel is just 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood but has both AC and DC switches mounted in a row across the entire top portion.  The added thickness of the underlayment and tile on the floor and back wall of the platform required the bottom and back edges of the panel to be trimmed so it could be installed and removed in case I need to get to the wiring behind it.  I used pieces of underlayment as spacers/guides and trimmed off the edges using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw.  This was the perfect tool for this situation where I could not remove the panel and take it to the shop.

With the panel trimmed and the sawdust vacuumed up I turned my attention to the tile.  After test fitting some pieces to see where the edges would land I decided to tidy up the front of the bus so it would be easier to work.  While that was certainly true it was also a tactic of stepping away from the work and letting solutions float into consciousness rather than trying to force them out.  After several trips to bring things inside the house and garage it was noon and time for lunch, which meant more time to relax and let my subconscious work on the tile layout.  Hummus and sourdough pretzel nibblers made a quick, easy, tasty meal and a cup of Constant Comment decaffeinated tea helped wash it down and warm me up while I worked on this post.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

As long as I was taking a break I called Pat/Vickie Lintner to let them know I would be coming through Elkhart tomorrow (Friday) and verify that they would be home in the morning.  That sounded fine to Pat.  I will be picking up an accessory for a Nutone power base unit from them.  We have one of the power bases installed in the kitchen counter of the bus but the blender was the only accessory that came with the bus when we bought it.  Pat and Vickie had a power base in their bus but it broke years ago.  They never replaced it, and don’t plan to, so they no longer needed the accessories and were willing to give them to us.  We got most of the pieces from them at the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally back in September but we were missing a critical piece which Vickie thought she still had and eventually found.

After my break I reinstalled the large front trim board on the driver side vertical wiring/plumbing chase that is located on the outside wall next to the back of the driver’s chair.  I don’t recall how I got it out but I could not get it back in.  I ended up trimming off a small protrusion on the lower end and then it went into position without any further difficulty.  It was a small thing, but it needed to be done and it was good to get it checked off my (mental) “to do” list.  When I cannot solve the problem I am trying to solve (tile layout) I try to keep moving and get other small tasks completed.

I took a few more minutes to carefully measure the adjustment needed to the bump out on the passenger side HVAC duct cover and the dimensions for the two new pieces of walnut that will go on either side of the sofa seat.  I brought the old pieces in the house and found the leftover walnut in the garage as I have to take some of it with me tomorrow to Jarel’s cabinet shop in Logansport, Indiana.  I think an hour of my day disappeared between these small, simple tasks.

I continued to ponder the tile layout for quite some time, taking and retaking measurements as I tried to figure out an arrangement that would allow the joints to fall in reasonable places while making sure I could notch around things that go through the floor and avoid having any small pieces.  That is a lot of constraints.  The arrangement I finally came up with had three full 16×16 tiles centered on the landing and into the driver area.  There will be pieces about six inches wide along the fore and aft edges, and the first full tile will also be about six inches back from the edge of the landing (by the entry stairs).  The joints (grout lines) resulting from this placement will continue up the front of the passenger seat platform and result in tile placements on the platform that should work out well.

Linda called at 4:15 PM to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery and was stopping at Kathi’s on the way.  I was done working in the bus for the day so I adjusted the thermostats on the heaters and checked the house battery bank status.  The battery bank voltage was at 25.0 VDC, just slightly down from the 25.2 V level of a fully charged and rested “24 V” lead acid battery (2.1 V per cell x 12 cells in series).  The State Of Charge (SOC) was at 84% and I decided to leave the charger off until Saturday morning after breakfast.  I did have the shorepower turned off for a few hours Wednesday so the refrigerator was running on the inverter for a while but there are no DC loads operating in the coach at the moment and the Magnum remote is showing zero current coming out of the battery bank.  There must be some loads, however, as the battery SOC wound not drop that much that quickly due to self-discharge.  I locked up the bus, went in the house for the evening, and turned on the outside lights for Linda.  Given when she left the office I knew it would be dark by the time she got home.

I took a few pictures throughout the day so I went to my office and off-loaded them onto my computer.  I had an e-mail from Gary at BCM with the latest markup of the PDF for the December 2015 issue.  I proofread my article and highlighted a half dozen things that needed to be changed, using the sticky note feature for the first time to indicate the corrections, and e-mailed it back to Gary and Jorge.

Linda got home about the time I clicked ‘send’ so I wrapped up my desk work and went upstairs.  She had not been grocery shopping this week and wasn’t sure what to fix for dinner so I suggested vegan pancakes.  Fifteen minutes later we were enjoying flapjacks with real maple syrup and cups of hot tea.  Breakfast for dinner is always a treat.  We spent a little time in the living room by the fireplace and then went to the rec room to watch a few TV programs while we doodled on our iPads.  We have been trying to break the habit of watching TV in bed but we finished watching the last show in bed and then turned out the lights.  In a reversal of our recent usual morning routine I have to be up early and Linda does not, but she still fell asleep before I did.

 

2015/11/11 (W) Two for One

We had late morning dentist/hygiene appointments today so Linda did not get up early to go to the bakery and we slept in and got up at 8:30 AM.  We showered and dressed and finally had granola for breakfast at 9:15.  She made this batch of granola yesterday and it was very yummy.

Since the mice have recently been defeating our simple live traps I cleaned our more complicated one yesterday and set it up last night with a broken open peanut butter pretzel for bait.  When I checked the trap this morning it had two brown field mice inside.  They were anxious to get out and I was glad to oblige.  I set them free in the southwest part of our property on the other side of the road.  The last I saw of them they were headed south into dense cover and away from the house.

Our appointments were at 11 AM in Dearborn.  Linda left at 9:45 and I followed about five minutes later.  We took separate cars since she had to go to the bakery following her appointment.  Before I left I checked on the state of charge of the house batteries in the bus.  There were at 95% SOC.  I turned the charger off last night to let the battery bank drain down a little.  I turned off the Broan cube heater and the three toe-kick heaters and then shutoff the AC power coming into the coach.  I checked that the inverter was working, which it was, and left for my appointment.

We both had good checkups but Linda will need a crown in the spring.  A tooth with an old filling had weakened and needs to be capped.  The dental assistants/hygienists have started taking blood pressure readings as part of modern dentistry’s role in monitoring and promoting overall health.  I don’t know how accurate the wrist cuff machines are but my blood pressure was 121/59 and Linda’s was 128/67, which are excellent readings if they are even close to being correct.

On the way home I stopped at the new Menard’s on Wixom Road just north of I-96.  I was looking for 1/2×2″ fine thread carriage bolts but all they had were coarse thread in longer lengths.  As long as I was there I picked up a 6-pack of work socks and two more of the good live traps like the one we already have.

Back at the house I called Terry at A-1 Upholstery to confirm that our spacer cushion for the bus sofa was ready and that she would be there Friday morning.  Her response was affirmative on both counts.  I then called Josh to verify that he would be at his shop on Friday morning and he said he would.  I need to stop there on the way to A-1 Upholstery and return two swivel seat ring bearings.

The new gravel driveway extension and RV parking pad.  Phil, on the left side of the driveway by the nearer utility pole, rakes out the topsoil he placed along both sides of the driveway.

The new gravel driveway extension and RV parking pad. Phil, on the left side of the driveway by the nearer utility pole, rakes out the topsoil he placed along both sides of the driveway.

Philip Jarrell from Precision Grading was here working on the driveway extension when I got home.  After my phone calls I changed into my work clothes and went out to chat with him for a few minutes.  Phil had brought another load of screened topsoil and was using his track loader to place it along the sides of the driveway extension and at the west end of the property where the French drain begins.  He rough graded it with the track loader and then raked it out by hand and spread grass seed.  He will bring straw bales with him on a subsequent trip to cover the soil/seed but he wanted to get the seed down before he left as we have rain and wind forecast starting late this evening and through tomorrow into Friday.

I finally got to work in the bus at 2 PM.  My objective was to get the SurePly underlayment installed on the passenger seat platform floor.  I lightly sanded the floor patch compound I spread around last night and vacuumed up the particles.  I then mounted the head of each of the new carriage bolts to a thick plastic washer using 3M Heavy Duty (double-sided) Mounting Tape.  I slid the heads into the two mounting channels with the washers under them so the washers held the bolts up off of the bottom of the channel and forced the square collars up in the open slot of the channel where they could not turn when a nut was tightened on them.  This was a critical step because once the underlayment and tile are down I will not be able to get to the heads of these bolts.

With the bolts in position I got the piece of SurePly from the garage.  I was starting to slip it into position when I remembered that I installed an angle bracket yesterday but had not cut out a small piece of the underlayment to fit around it.  So I took the piece back to the garage, cut out the necessary space, and took it back to the coach.  I am starting to wonder how many hours I would have saved by having a proper shop set up right outside the front door of the bus.

[ Photo 2 of 2 – HR – The SurePly underlayment on the co-pilot/navigator platform floor showing how it fits under the outside wall panel and over the four mounting bolts for the seat. ]

The SurePly underlayment on the co-pilot/navigator platform floor showing how it fits under the outside wall panel and over the four mounting bolts for the seat.

The SurePly underlayment on the co-pilot/navigator platform floor showing how it fits under the outside wall panel and over the four mounting bolts for the seat.

The underlayment slipped under the switch panel by the outside wall and dropped over the four mounting bolts just like I planned it, so taking most of yesterday to carefully cut and drill the piece paid off in the end.  That felt good, especially in comparison to how yesterday felt.

The weather today was lovely, reaching a high of 58 degrees F with sunny skies and I am sure that added to by general sense of well-being.  Our part of Michigan is under a high wind warning starting this evening, however, with maximum gusts of 55 to 60 MPH possible.  It’s a good thing we have a whole house generator because those kinds of winds cause power outages.

I decided to screw the underlayment to the bus floor rather than use staples.  Again, I did not want to get the big air-compressor and staple gun out, but I also wanted to use the screws to pull the underlayment down tight to the bus sub-floor.  I was about 50% done when I saw that Phil was putting his track loader back on the trailer.  I thought he was packing up to leave so I went out to talk to him briefly.  I went back to the bus and got another 25% of the piece screwed down before I ran out of screws.  I was using primarily 1″ #6-SR self-drilling screws with some 1-1/4″ of the same kind.  Once again my work was halted short of completion by the lack of some small part.

Phil was finished and on his way at 4:15 PM and by 4:30 I was headed to Lowe’s.  Linda texted me that she was leaving the bakery and I had a nice QSO with Tom (K8TAF) while running my errand.  Lowe’s only had one pack of the 1″ screws, quantity 100, but I thought that might be enough to get me through tomorrow.  I also bought a pack of 100 1-1/4″ screws.

For dinner Linda cooked a couple of yams, heated up a couple of vegan sausages with sautéed onions and red peppers, and steamed some fresh green beans. Yum, yum, yum.  After dinner we sat in the living room for a while using our iPads.  At 8 PM we watched a few nature and science programs on PBS.  Jarel called to confirm when I was coming down to Logansport, Indiana and said that Friday would work.  Linda is headed back to the bakery in the morning so she went right to sleep after we were done watching TV.

 

2015/11/06 (F) MEF3

Rain was forecast for overnight with the highest probability between 4 and 7 AM.  I think we had some light rain starting a little after midnight but around 6:45 AM a front moved through with intense thunderstorms.  The heavy rain lasted at most 15 minutes, but while it was coming down I could not see past the railing on our deck.  The winds were also very intense judging by the sound and movement of the Crimson King Maple Tree next to the deck.

When we finally got up Linda checked the weather.  The storm front had already pushed into Ontario, Canada and it looked like we were done with the rain.  Temperatures will drop during the day and we have some below freezing lows coming up the next few nights, but it’s November so we can’t claim to be surprised and have no basis to complain.

Linda left around 9:45 AM to go to the supermarket.  While she was gone I worked on my iPad finishing my posts from Wednesday and yesterday.  I made a few phone calls and sent several e-mails before getting to work on the bus.

One call was to SLOAN’s in Linden to see about having the lawn tractor repaired.  The service tech said the normal turnaround this time of year is about two weeks depending what is needed and whether they have the parts on hand.  He said that if I brought it in soon and they did not get it finished before Thanksgiving they would store it for us until spring.  Given the limited space in our garage and the need to get Linda’s car in there for the winter having them store it would be a real bonus but would require the better part of day to borrow Mike’s trailer, haul the lawn tractor up there, and return the trailer to Mike.

The second call was to A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana.  Terry said the fabric was sewn for our spacer cushion and she was expecting the foam today or Monday.  Once the foam was stuffed into the fabric she would have to stitch the seam closed.  She figured it should be ready by Wednesday.

My last call was to Pat Lintner from our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) chapter.  He and Vickie live just outside of Elkhart, Indiana and found several pieces for an old Nutone kitchen counter mounted multi-function appliance.  We have a Nutone power base in our bus that works and got a few accessories from Pat and Vickie at the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally back in September.  They subsequently found more, and were going to bring them to Florida, but I let them know I would very likely be passing through Elkhart late next week and could pick them up.  Pat offered me the use of the guest room, as he always does, and I may take him up on it this time.  Given the number of places I have to stop it will likely be a very long day.

One of my e-mails was to our cabinet maker, Jarel Beatty, to update him on when I might be coming to Logansport and to see if he could/would get a 60″x60″ sheet of Baltic Birch plywood and cut it into four 30″x 30″ pieces for me.  I then e-mailed Bill Tharpe to let him know I would be in his part of Indiana late next week and would drop off the antique SUN Distributor Tester at his place in Mexico, Indiana.

Bus floor under the driver’s seat.  Black tray to rear (upper left) has been sprayed with rubber undercoating.  Seat mounting rails (center) are visible.  Open area is the bay below the driver’s seat.

Bus floor under the driver’s seat. Black tray to rear (upper left) has been sprayed with rubber undercoating. Seat mounting rails (center) are visible. Open area is the bay below the driver’s seat.

Linda got back around 11 AM and we finally got to work on bus-related projects at 11:15.  The POR-15 and black spray-on rubberized undercoating paint seemed to have dried adequately overnight but the wood I treated with Thompson’s Water Seal was still tacky.  The directions said it took 48 hours to dry but we don’t have that kind of time to wait.

We removed all of the painter’s plastic and painter’s tape from the cockpit of the bus and put it in a trash bag.  I then drilled a 1/4″ drain hole in the bottom of each tray area where water had accumulated.  The one under the passenger seat opened into a dark space but I was fairly certain it was outside the body behind the plastic wheel well trim.  I could see the driveway gravel through the driver side hole so I knew it was outside the body.

The next task was putting spray foam insulation in a few critical spots.  We did not need much for the bus so I sealed two holes in the floor of the bedroom in our house (under a couple of the baseboard radiators) and then added some around the back door frame of the garage.  Once I start using a can of this spray foam insulation I find it best to use it up.

Cutting and fitting the new plywood to patch the area under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Cutting and fitting the new plywood to patch the area under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Patching the floor under the passenger seat involved three pieces of wood.  The tray area under the plywood floor between the seat mounting channels is slightly raised along the inside edges of the channels.  I had cut a piece of 3/16″ SurePly to fit between the raised edges and slide under the existing floor towards the center of the bus.  I set it in place and slid it under the old floor while Linda and I help it up slightly with pry bars.  Because of the geometry of the situation I had to cut about six inches off of the end of this piece towards the outside of the bus.  I had notched this piece to fit around the drain line for the front AC evaporator, so it slipped in behind the first piece just right.  The third part of the patch was a piece of recycled 3/4″ plywood that I had cut yesterday to just fit between the mounting channels.  With that in place I screwed through the old wood into SurePly and screwed through the 3/4″ plywood into the SurePly and pulled it up tight.

By this time it was 1:15 PM and I was ready for lunch.  Linda made hummus and onion sandwiches and served them with tangerine halves.  A simple but delicious mid-day meal.

After lunch we worked on the driver side floor patch.  The driver side was trickier because the patch has to rest on and span structural members.  As with the passenger side I am trying to replace 1″ thick plywood without having access to material of that thickness.  The plywood sold as 3/4″ actually measures from 0.707″ to 0.717 inches in thickness.  As it turned out the combination of so-called 3/4″ plywood with the SurePly underlayment plywood was just thick enough to match the old 1″ stuff.

Yet another layer of plywood to fill in and even up the floor under the driver’s seat in the bus.

Yet another layer of plywood to fill in and even up the floor under the driver’s seat in the bus.

I had to trim the piece of SurePly several times and drill holes for the seat mounting bolts.  The holes were not quite in the right place but I was able to trim it to my satisfaction and it was generally a good fit.  We then used it as a template for laying out the same shape on a piece of 3/4″ oak veneered plywood.

Hardwood veneered plywood is more expensive than regular fir plywood but it has more layers and is dimensionally more stable.  I had a piece that was flat and big enough to cut out the part we needed so I used it.  After some minor trimming it fit properly and lined up with the SurePly layer.  I turned them upside down, aligned them carefully, and screwed the SurePly to the underside of the 3/4″ piece.  I then installed them back into the open area.

We now needed another piece of SurePly, but it needed to be larger and a different shape.  It would be one of two pieces that would replace the 1/2″ thick top layer of plywood.  I removed the old piece from the bus after feeding two wires back through a hole.  We used the old piece as a template to outline the new piece and mark the four holes for the mounting bolts and the one for the wires.  I cut out the new piece and drilled the holes and then put it in place.  I was surprised by how much it was off.  It needed to be wider and longer and the holes were not as well aligned with the holes in the plywood below it as they needed to be.

All of the patch pieces in place in the driver’s compartment.  The four holes are for the mounting bolts for the seat pedestal base.

All of the patch pieces in place in the driver’s compartment. The four holes are for the mounting bolts for the seat pedestal base.

SurePly is not expensive but it’s not free either.  It is relatively easy to work with, however, so making a second piece was not a big deal.  What was a big deal was the cloud cover, dropping temperature, wind, and diminishing light, all of which were making outside work more difficult and less enjoyable with each passing minute.  But we took our time and got it cut, and after some minor trimming it fit very nicely.  I did not, however, secure it, or the 1″ plywood sandwich under it, as I needed the top piece to use as a template for the final piece.  This last piece will not only cover the area under the driver’s seat, it will extend out towards the door and cover the landing.  Once I have that cut correctly I will secure the bottom sandwich and then use floor leveling compound to fill in gaps.  I will then install the last two layers of SurePly.  At that point I will need to go to Lowe’s for another sheet of SurePly to finish the passenger seat platform and will probably get two sheets just to make sure I have enough.  As much as I like going to Lowe’s and The Home Depot, each trip takes time away from actually working on the bus.

We quit working at 4:30 PM to get the tools put away before Brendan and Madeline arrived.  They got here at 5:15 PM and she was very excited to see us and be at our house.  Linda and Brendan got all of Ms. M’s stuff from the car to the house and Brendan transferred the car seat to Linda’s car.  Brendan entertained Madeline while Linda got the inflatable toddler bed set up.  Madeline went immediately for the cabinet under the sink in the hall bathroom where we keep the bandages and found one to put on.  She likes cartoon character bandages.

Brendan hung around until 6 PM and left just as Linda put dinner on the table.  He and Shawna are headed to Ajo, Arizona this weekend for a wedding.  Their flight to Phoenix leaves tomorrow morning so Madeline will be with us until Monday afternoon when Linda takes her back to her house in Ann Arbor.  Her parents’ flight is due in at 7 PM so Linda won’t be home before 9 PM that evening.

For dinner Linda made roasted potatoes and mock chicken tenders.  She and Ms. M had broccoli and peas but she was kind enough to only serve me broccoli.  I don’t think I will ever develop a taste for green peas.

By the time we finished dinner Madeline was a little tired and had a brief crying episode when I told her she could not use our bed as a trampoline.  Linda offered to let her watch an episode of Daniel Stripped Tiger and that seemed to ease her distress at having been told ‘no’ which is a very traumatic experience for her at this age.  She wanted to put on her pajamas and brush her teeth first, so Linda helped her with that.  The two of them climbed into our bed and watched the video on Shawna’s iPad while I stayed in the living room and wrote this blog post.

When the video was over Madeline wished me ‘good night’ and went quietly off to bed.  Linda and I lingered in the living room and I texted Chuck to inquire about their travels yesterday and today.  I then went to my office for a while where I updated our WordPress site, off-loaded photos from today’s work, logged in to RVillage and checked the forums of various groups, and dealt with a few e-mails.  I came back upstairs at 9:45 PM and we were in bed by 10 PM where I finished the draft of this post.

 

2015/09/17 (R) Counter This

I went to breakfast before Linda as she was still asleep.  I wanted coffee but it wasn’t ready so I toasted a blueberry bagel and ate that.  Eventually the coffee was ready and I had some.  Linda showed up a little while later with our granola and fruit and most of the rally attendees arrived and had breakfast.  I got a call from Josh regarding the Corian desktop.  He indicated that Ferman Miller of Countertops Plus in Shipshewana had a piece of Sandstone Corian big enough to make our desk top and was expecting us to call or visit.

After breakfast we gave Vickie a tour of the bus and visited for a while.  We then drove to Countertops Plus, located east of downtown Shipshewana, and met with Ferman Miller.  He had a piece of 1/2″ Sandstone Corian that was a perfect match to our existing counters.  It was 96″ long by 30″ wide.  He needed a 72-3/4″ by 25-3/4″ piece for the desktop plus a 72-3/4” by 1″ piece and a 25-1/4″ by 1″ piece for the front and left edge returns.  It looked like he might have enough Corian left to make our dining room table so I made a quick sketch but left off the length and width dimensions.  We ordered the desktop and the table.  He figured out the price and we gave him a deposit.  I need to determine the length and width of the table and call him in the morning with those dimensions.

We set the GPS for Jarel Beatty Cabinetry and headed for Logansport.  I called Jarel to let him know we were on our way and verify that it was still OK to come.  We drove through the pleasant Amish/Mennonite countryside on small count roads we had not previously traversed and passed a school where the children were playing softball dressed in their plain, traditional clothing.  It was an odd yet delightful sight.  Once we were on US-20 we were on familiar roads.  We stopped along US-20 for fuel and a break and bought some peanuts and water.  We arrived at Jarel’s place at 2:11 PM.

We brought a 60″ long piece of 1/4″ walnut veneer plywood and had Jarel rip two pieces 4-3/4″ wide.  He actually cut them slightly wider and then trimmed off a small edge to get the long edges clean and square.  We loaded the half sheet (96″ by 24″) of 3/4″ walnut veneered plywood in the car and then loaded the half box cover for the forward passenger side OTR HVAC duct.  There were other pieces of plywood and hardwood left so we loaded all of those as well.  We only realized after we left that we forgot to get the drawings back from Jarel.  I sent him a TXT message and asked him to hang on to them until I could get them from him and he agreed to do that.

We stopped at the Martin’s supermarket about a mile from Elkhart Campground and made salads for dinner at their excellent salad bar.  It was 5:30 PM by the time we got back to the campground.  Dinner was nominally at 6 PM but was ready to eat closer to 6:30.  Linda reheated seitan stroganoff (vegan, of course) for our main course.

After dinner we gave Charles and Connie Martin the tour of our interior remodeling project and chatted for a while.  There were thunderstorms in the overnight forecast so I rolled up the two driver side awnings.  We then joined Scott and Tami Bruner at the fire pit by their bus.  I took a couple of folding chairs over and Linda brought our glasses of Franzia Moscato.  Charles joined us and so did Dan.  Tami had interviewed for a new job this morning, gotten the offer, and accepted the position, so it was a big day for her.  She and Scott have also been successful finding things they need for their bus conversion projects (they own two buses) so it has been a very good week for them.

Tami was tired and headed off to bed and Linda had the same idea a short while later.  There was a fairly high probability of rain starting at 2 AM with but we got occasional drops starting at 10 PM.  By midnight we were all getting tired and the raindrops were becoming frequent enough that they gave us an excuse to call it a night as we needed to put our lawn chairs away so they did not get soaking wet.  I wrote for a while in bed but I was too tired to work efficiently and went to sleep around 1 AM.

 

2015/09/16 (W) CSD to GLCC

I spent the night in the coach at Coach Supply Direct, in the fenced in parking lot, next to the train tracks that run parallel to M-62 through Edwardsburg, Michigan.  I was up late and went to bed tired.  The trains did not bother me (they run at every hour of the day and night) but aching knees and joints in my hands, especially the base of my thumbs, made for a less than sound sleep.  I had also not leveled the coach when I arrived yesterday but it was slightly low to the front passenger side so it did not bother me as me head was higher than my feet, the head of the bed being on the driver’s side of the bedroom.

I had granola for breakfast, checked my e-mail, and was just settling in to start today’s post using my iPad when Josh showed up at 7:30 AM.  He opened the building and retrieved a small desk/cabinet and loaded it into his car to take back to the cabinet maker.  A portion of the back needed to be finished as it will be exposed when installed.  Having just been through the process of designing built-in RV furniture and interacting with a cabinet maker I understood how a detail like this could easily be missed.  We were fortunate in our choice of Jarel Beatty, as recommended by our friend Butch Williams, to build our pieces.  Jarel’s meticulous attention to the details of how something would be constructed, installed, viewed, and used, resulted in our not having any post-construction issues.

After Josh left I checked the status of the house batteries.  They were at 81% SOC (State Of Charge). Not bad after 11 hours of use.  Extrapolating, it appears that given some reasonable energy management we could go 24 hours without recharging before hitting the 50% SOC level.  I did not, for instance, use the microwave oven.  That is much better than before we replaced the refrigerator so it appears that the new one is clearly more energy efficient than the old one.

I also checked the coolant levels in the Aqua-Hot and generator expansion tanks.  The Aqua-Hot tank was still above max cold but the unit was also still a bit warm to the touch.  The level in the generator tank yesterday was very low with the engine fully warmed up and operating under load so I added antifreeze up to the “hot” mark.  If was slightly above that level this morning although I expected it to be lower as the system cooled off and drew the coolant back in.

Tyler showed up at 8:15 AM and knocked on the door.  He had stopped at McDonald’s and bought me a large coffee, half regular half decaf.  He had asked about this before leaving yesterday and remembered it this morning.  I was impressed with both his memory and thoughtfulness.  He got right to work on the cockpit seats, starting with the driver’s seat.  Before installing it, however, I had him repair the swivel plate.

That plate has always wobbled which was an uncomfortable and annoying sensation while driving.  Now that I had a clear view of the top of the plate it was “obvious” that there was once a washer under the retaining nut but it was no longer there.  Tyler removed the retaining nut, found a large washer with the correct hole size, put it on the threaded shaft, replaced the retaining nut, and tightened it.  No more wobble.

I am always trying to deconstruct the details of how this coach was built or serviced.  My best guess is that old seat was removed when CMI installed the tile floor in the cockpit area right after we bought the bus.  The installer probably removed the seat from the swivel plate in order to have better access to the pedestal and the area around it to lay the tile and either did not replace the washer or failed to recognize that it was missing and needed to be replaced.  I will never know for sure, but that’s my best guess.

Tyler bolts the new Flexsteel driver’s seat to the existing pedestal swivel base.  There is not a lot of room to work around the base of this seat.

Tyler bolts the new Flexsteel driver’s seat to the existing pedestal swivel base. There is not a lot of room to work around the base of this seat.

I connected the chassis batteries so Tyler could connect the 12V DC power to the seat and reposition it.  The outside rear mounting bolt was particularly difficult to reach but with the power on he was able to slide the seat forward and swivel the front to the left creating better access to the left rear.  Once it was bolted down he had me sit in it and make sure all of the adjustments worked.  They did!  The seat is comfortable, fits better in the available space, and has a range of adjustment that should allow either of us to position it comfortably.  It is still a little tight on the left side, but not like the old chair, and the only control there is a manual level for adjusting the back tilt that I can reach it without difficulty and generally do not change once I have it adjusted.

When Josh returned at 10 AM with the parts for the living room slider bases he and Tyler got busy prepping them.  Linda texted me around 10:20 for a status update and I suggested that she not leave before 1 PM.  There was more custom work required to get the chairs assembled and mounted than I thought there would be, but as I was able to watch every step of the process, and talk to Josh and Tyler as they worked, I could clearly see what the problems were and what they were doing to solve them.  They were on task and focused on getting it done correctly.

One of the new Flexsteel 529 captain’ chairs with the new swivel/slide pedestal base attached.  Note the handle for the swivel release.

One of the new Flexsteel 529 captain’ chairs with the new swivel/slide pedestal base attached. Note the handle for the swivel release.

The problem this morning was getting the swivel release cables on the cockpit seats to stay in place when the swivel tang was released from the detent in the base.  The reason for the problem is that we are reusing the old swivel bases because they have base plates that match the mounting bolt locations in the floor.  The way the swivel release cable is retained on these bases, however, is different from the attachments on the ends of the new cables.  Tyler was able to figure out a solution but it took a little time.  I don’t mind paying for that kind of experience and problem-solving.

I texted Jarel to give him a status update and indicated that we could come down Thursday, Friday, or Saturday to pick stuff up.  He texted back that any of those days would work.  I checked the Magnum remote and the SOC status had gone back to “Think’n”.  Nuts.  This has happened before with the Battery Monitor Kit and I think it has to do with the 4-pin connector that plugs into the bottom of it.  Whatever the case I need to investigate and fix it if I can.

The two class C captain’s chairs installed on the passenger side of the living room.

The two class C captain’s chairs installed on the passenger side of the living room.

With the driver’s seat installed I sat and tested its various adjustments and found a position that I liked.  Next came the two class C captain’s chairs for the passenger side of the living room.  Tyler and I worked for quite a while using a base with no chair on it to determine the correct location for the bases.  The seats needed to be far enough from the passenger side wall, the desk, and the co-pilot seat to swivel without interference but no farther as we did not want them to encroach into the center isle one inch more than necessary.  We also ran them through their full range of slide and swivel motions to make sure we could pull them up to the table.

We ended up with the edge of the front seat 16″ from the front edge of the main floor and 16″ from the HVAC duct.  We checked it for square and marked the holes.  Tyler drilled pilot holes using nuts to limit the depth.  We set the chair in position and secured it with four lag screws.  We measured 36.5″ to the front edge of the second base and positioned the base 16″ from the HVAC duct.  We made sure it looked right and then Tyler marked the hole locations and we removed the temporary base.  He drilled the pilot holes, we set the chair in place, and lag screwed them into floor.

The new navigator (L) and pilot (R) seats installed in the cockpit.  The navigator seat has a powered footrest.  We reused the old 6-way power bases for both seats.

The new navigator (L) and pilot (R) seats installed in the cockpit. The navigator seat has a powered footrest. We reused the old 6-way power bases for both seats.

With the captain’s chairs installed in the living room Tyler installed the co-pilot seat.  Once that was done the job was finished except for the cleanup and paperwork.  Josh and I chatted some more about the Corian desk top.  He had inquiries out to three suppliers but was having trouble getting replies from them.  We needed a temporary desk surface, so Tyler cleaned off the 4’x8′ piece of 1/2″ plywood that had served as the workbench for integrating the seating components. He marked and cut a 72″ long x 24.5″ deep piece.  I notched the center of the back edge 18″ wide by 3″ deep.  Tyler and I installed it while Josh totaled up the bill.  I wrote him a check for the balance due, prepared the coach for departure, and left a little after 2 PM.

I could have titled this post “Edwardsburg to Elkhart” but I like to keep my titles short.  The trip from Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana was a short trip of approximately 15 miles that took about 25 minutes.  Upon arrival I parked the coach to the side of the entrance road and went in to the office to register.

We have been to this campground many times before but I managed to miss the turn for the row with our assigned site so I had to go all the way around a second time.  Once I had the bus in the site I leveled it and then shut it down.  I texted Linda our site number and then chatted with other GLCC chapter members who were already there and parked.

While I helped set up tables in the meeting room Linda arrived and got the cats, litter tray, etc. on board our coach.  After settling in for a few minutes I called Terry at A-1 Upholstery.  She was there so we drove over to pick up the sofa cushions, wrote her a check for the balance, and drove back to camp.  We were unloading the cushions when Dan stopped by.  He had retired at the end of July and bought a converted GM4104 a couple of weeks later.  His wife Kathy and son James had made the trip up from Huntsville, Alabama just for this rally.  They planned to join FMCA and GLCC but wanted to check us out first.

Linda had cleared the sofa earlier and put stuff away under the bed.  By the time I came in she had the new sofa cushions in place.  They were a tight fit but they looked nice.  We might make a small adjustment to the depth of the plywood seat but I think they are going to work out OK.

Linda went to the meeting room to help prep dinner and heat our vegan chili.  I took a short nap and joined her at 6 PM to eat.  We went back to the coach and gave Ed Roelle the tour and chatted for a while.  We then went back to the club house, met up with Vickie, and went for a walk.  When we got back to our coach I opened the box of Franzia Moscato and poured two glasses of wine.  We took two lawn chairs over to Scott and Tami’s bus to sit and chat.  Scott Crosby of www.busgreasemonkey.com was also there.  He arrived after I did in his 1948 GM 3751 “Silverside” bus.  It eventually got chilly so we went inside and went to bed where I worked on blog posts for a while on my iPad.

 

2015/09/14 (M) Final Prep (for now)

We were up at 8 AM and had breakfast but I did not take the time to make coffee.  I gathered up the laundry and started a load.  I then headed to Lowe’s to buy an outlet strip that I could easily hardwire.  I looked at angle iron to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal desk cover at the wall but did not buy any.  The iron has holes and slots manufactured into it that I thought might allow me to adjust its location vertically without having to move the location of the screws.  Alas, the slotted openings were horizontal rather than vertical.

Linda was cooking a batch of granola when I got home and made a pot of coffee.  I decided to tend to some travel preparation items before getting back to work on the remodeling project.  I wanted to check/adjust the tire pressures while it was still cool.  The tires were all down about 1.5 PSI, which was very good given how long it has been sitting.  I used the new 6-gallon air-compressor to bring them up to the pressures I like to run and it worked OK.  I will have to pause a little more often while it re-pressurizes but it is less than half the size of the 15-gallon DeWalt and will travel with much more easily.

My next task was to unload the front bay which I did while Linda continued to work on our food for the week.  We find it much easier to deal with food at rallies if she “cooks ahead” and “reheats to serve.”  I set everything in the driveway in front of the bus and tried to sort it into two groups; things were staying home for this trip and things that were going with us.

I then opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank, which goes through the floor of the water bay, and let the water run onto a container lid so it wouldn’t dig a hole in the gravel driveway.  I was getting ready to deploy the fresh water hose(s) when I noticed that they were in need of some serious cleaning.  Linda agreed to take care of that and cleaned their storage tub too.  Ditto for the waste water (sewage) hoses and their storage tub.  Her taking on this task allowed me to return to working on the installation of the desk.

I had a 12″ long piece of 1/8″ aluminum angle and decided to use it to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal shelf/cover.  I drilled and countersunk five holes in one of the flanges.  Linda finished cleaning the hoses and then got our wireless thermometer from the house.  It has a base thermometer and two wireless remotes so she put one remote in the freezer and the other one in the fresh food compartment.  We wanted to monitor the temperature and dial it in to where we needed it before loading the refrigerator with food.

The stacked mending plates used to create a tongue-&-groove alignment system between the center cover and both the left and right desk pedestals/bases.

The stacked mending plates used to create a tongue-&-groove alignment system between the center cover and both the left and right desk pedestals/bases.

I removed the interpedestal cover and set the left pedestal aside so I could complete the AC wiring connections.  I mounted the outlet strip to the wall centered between the two pedestals and about two inches below the level of the underside of the plywood that will support the Corian top.  The outlet strip had a 15 foot cord.  I determined how much of that length I needed to get through the right pedestal and forward along the wiring chase to where the other wires were located.  I cut off the extra length, routed the power cord into the right pedestal at the left upper rear corner, down the inside left rear corner, and out the left end of the upper base.  From there it ran forward to the other wires where I connected them.  I turned on the circuit breaker and then turned on the outlet strip.  The switch lit up, indicating the presence of 120V AC.  I used my Etcon tester to check the duplex outlet by the passenger seat.  It also had power so the wiring was good.

I set the interpedestal shelf/cover back in place, aligned with the right base, and then aligned the left base to it.  I checked the distance from each end of the base to the HVAC duct and adjusted it to be the same.  We then adjusted the position of the left pedestal until we were satisfied with the alignment with the interpedestal cover.  We checked the alignment of the front top edges of the pedestals with a 6′ metal ruler.  Everything looked OK so I secured the pedestal to the base using two screws that will be hidden by the laser printer in normal use.

I needed to screw the pedestal to the wall in the two upper corners to minimize the visibility of those screws.  It was not flush to the wall at those points so I used a shim in the upper right.  We will have to cover the vertical gap at the left rear with molding.

Bruce finds the center of a drawer front by finding the point where the diagonals of the face intersect.  The handle mounting holes were located horizontally 1-1/2” to either side of this center point.

Bruce finds the center of a drawer front by finding the point where the diagonals of the face intersect. The handle mounting holes were located horizontally 1-1/2” to either side of this center point.

We put the removable plates back in the bottom of each pedestal.  I drilled the holes for the pulls in the four desk drawers, installed the pulls, and put the drawers back in the desk.  To find the correct location for the holes Linda suggested that we put a piece of painter’s tape in the center of the face and then draw a small segment of the two diagonals to find their intersection.  For the two small drawers that was all we needed as they got single knob style pulls.  For the two larger drawers we needed to locate the holes 1-1/2″ to either side of the center on a line through the center parallel to the top and bottom edges.  I measured carefully and I think we did a pretty good job.

Sometime during the morning I texted Jarel the dimensions for a 3/4″ thick piece of walnut 1-7/8″ high by 34″ long to use as a face for the edges of the three layers of plywood under the refrigerator.  He texted back and said “no problem” which lead to an exchange of a dozen e-mails clarifying just exactly what I wanted.  I did not mind, better that than assumptions that result in wasted time making parts that don’t fit.  Jarel is an experienced cabinet maker and is meticulous in his work.  He knows all the questions to ask about things I did not specify and does so before cutting any wood.

Our last construction task before departure tomorrow was rehanging the bathroom door.  I measured the distance from the bottom hinge to the bottom edge of the door and compared it to the distance from the hinge in the door frame to the floor.  It looked like it should fit without rubbing so we hung the door.  (The old ceramic tile rubbed as the door was swung to its fully open position, but the thickness of the underlayment and vinyl tile is less than the ceramic and thinset, at least in that area.)

Linda was still trying to prepare our food for the rally as there will be very little of the included food that we can eat.  She made a grocery run while I returned to emptying out the front bay of the bus.  I plan to leave most of the stuff that was stored in that bay at home so Josh has access to the ceiling to see if we can through-bolt mount the two captain’s chairs in the living room.  I might also store all of the GLCC stuff down there as Linda will be coming down on Wednesday in the car with the cats and we want to minimize the amount of other stuff in the car.

I thought about sanitizing the fresh water system by using the 12V DC water pump and the winterizing valves/tubes to draw a dilute chlorine solution from a bucket and pump it through the fresh water pipes.  I decided against it based on available time and higher priority items that needed to be done.  I connected the clean fresh water hoses to the coach and started filling the tank.  I checked that the fuel polishing pump was off and checked the air springs and latch on the generator.  I made a mental note that the aft air springs (front of the Yanmar diesel engine) needed air and made sure the slide tray was latched in place.  I was going to start the generator and let it power the air conditioners but decided to forego for now that as well.

We had unlatched and removed the towbar from the bus receiver earlier in the summer.  I used one of our hand trucks to move it over by the car.  I put the passenger side rear seat down and loaded the towbar in behind it along with the bag that holds all of the other pieces.  That left plenty of room for the two cat carriers, litter tray, and any miscellaneous things she may bring along on Wednesday.

We put the mattress back onboard and Linda made the bed, but forgot the electric heating pad.  Linda did some cleaning and then we loaded clothing and food.  Computers, cameras, and other technology will go on first thing tomorrow morning.  We then got the various GLCC items out of the garage and staged them by the passenger side of the bus.  I loaded our personal items onto the driver’s side half of the slide tray and loaded the GLCC stuff onto passenger side half.

Our goal was to be done by 5 PM but it was 6 PM when I finally had the pressure washer ready to use.  It took me a little over an hour to spray the car and the coach and I wrapped up for the day at 7:30 PM.  We had seitan stroganoff for dinner with the 2013 Egri Merlot and had watermelon for dessert.  It was another long day but we got a lot accomplished and most it did not require me to work on my hands and knees, for which I was grateful.

 

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

Linda had to go to the bakery today so she was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15.  I was vaguely aware of the activity but fell back asleep and finally woke up a little before 8 AM.  I skipped breakfast save for a glass of juice to wash down my vitamin and allergy pill.  I spent time finishing yesterday’s blog post and thinking about what I absolutely had to get done in next four days.

I was working at the dining room table instead of in the living room so I got to watch a Red squirrel dart back and forth across the deck all morning.  It was gathering walnuts from the tree northeast of our house and taking them somewhere west of our upper deck.  It would run (hop) across the deck with a giant walnut in its mouth and then return by way of the deck railing.  While it was gathering another walnut I moved to our library where I had a good view of our lower deck.  It came down the stairs from the upper deck and disappeared behind the grill.  It may be storing them under the deck or under the cover on the grill, in which case we will have to move them.

The main pieces of the desk set in place but not yet assembled or secured, and without the temporary plywood top or permanent Corian countertop.

The main pieces of the desk set in place but not yet assembled or secured, and without the temporary plywood top or permanent Corian countertop.

Once I was in the bus I continued pondering how to get the desk installed so that everything would line up.  Built-in furniture is just that, and I had not spent a lot of time in advance figuring out how I was going to fasten pieces together and secure them to the coach.  I retrieved the piece of 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood from the garage to use as a spacer at the right end and just slid it in place temporarily.  I decided I would use mending plates attached to the back and underside of the left and right bases and pedestals to align the center cover.  I also decided to use a length of angle against the wall to support and align the pedestals and cover.  Along the same lines I decided to use smaller angle brackets to attach the vertical front panel of the built-in sofa to the two plenum/support boxes and the air return shelf, and to attach the plenum boxes and shelf to the HVAC/wiring chase.

One of the original living room AC light fixtures.  These were no doubt high-end fixtures but no longer worked in our remodeled interior.

One of the original living room AC light fixtures. These were no doubt high-end fixtures but no longer worked in our remodeled interior.

Feeling like I should get something tangible accomplished I decided to re-install the AC light fixture and the three DC reading lights under the overhead cabinets above the desk.  Linda and I agreed last night that we needed to replace the three 120V AC light fixtures in the front of the coach so I turned my attention to that issue.  I removed the fixture on the driver’s side by the kitchen end of the sofa alcove and removed the mounting ring.  I also measured the size of the base and the overall size of the fixture and wrote them down.  Ideally I will find a fixture that has a similar size base but with most of the light fixture above the center point.  One of the problems with the current fixtures is that they hang down far enough that a person sitting on the sofa would bump them with their head and probably break them as they are made of glass rods.

I headed towards The Home Depot in Howell and stopped at McDonald’s first for French fries and a soda beverage.  I looked at all of their wall sconce light fixtures.  They had two different ones that I thought might work but deferred a purchase until I had checked at Lowe’s.  THD had 72″ piano (continuous) hinges, however, so I bought one.  I also looked at PEX plumbing parts as Butch mentioned last night that I could use them to plumb the fan-coil heat exchangers.

Lowe’s had a wall sconce that was a little more to my liking.  I needed three but they only had one in stock, which I bought.  The Associate checked inventory at other stores and indicated that there were two more in stock in New Hudson.  He wrote down the Model number and the phone number for the store and said I could call and they would hold the items for me.  I picked up a couple of 75W GE Reveal light bulbs, the mending plates, angle brackets, and two different pieces of aluminum angle while I was there.  I looked for pieces of felt but all they had were very thick furniture pads which was not what I needed.

The new living room light fixture.  The color, style, and fit are a better match to the remodeled interior.

The new living room light fixture. The color, style, and fit are a better match to the remodeled interior.

I was going to stop at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to check on heater hose, fittings, and band clamps but decided to skip that stop in favor of getting home and installing the new wall sconce light fixture.  It installed without too much difficulty and I liked the look.  The fixture, however, was rated for a maximum 60W bulb.

I closed up the house and bus and drove to the Lowe’s in New Hudson.  They did indeed have two more of the wall sconce light fixtures that I needed so I bought them.  I also picked up three 60W (equivalent, 8.5W actual) 800 lumens dimmable LED warm white light bulbs.  Linda texted me while I was at the store to let me know she was leaving the bakery and heading home.

I stopped at Michael’s Arts and Crafts in Brighton and bought a 36″ x 36″ piece of walnut brown felt.  I plan to use the felt underneath all of the pieces of the desk and sofa that contact the floor, and possibly in some other areas as well, to keep the wood from marring the tile.

When I got home I called Elkhart Campground to make a reservation for the GLCC rally next week.  I also called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana to check on our sofa cushions.  Terry said they were almost done and we could pick them up on Monday.  I then sent several text messages to Jarel with photos attached of the desk and sofa in place on the bus and indicated I had some questions and would call him later.

I was getting ready to install the other two light fixtures when Linda got home.  The timing was good as she got to see the first one and approve it before I installed the other two.  We discussed the covering up of the mirror strips in the corner and decided we would leave them for now.  We can cover them up later if desired.  Linda went in the house to fix dinner.  I got the second sconce installed and went inside.

I had a few minutes until dinner was ready and used it to send an e-mail to Jarel.  Dinner was couscous on power greens and small slices of bread from a baguette Linda bought the other day.  I also had the leftover corn on the cob.

After dinner I called Jarel.  We had a long chat and it was 8 PM by the time we finished.  Linda headed to bed and I went back to the bus to install the third/final light fixture.  I also installed four small frosted bulbs in the light fixture under the overhead cabinets above the desk, replacing the clear bulbs that were there.  This light fixture is part of the same collection as the ones I removed from the living room walls but its design and location do interfere with anything.  We might replace it someday, if we find something we like better for use over the desk that is the right size and shape, but for now it will remain in place.  I locked up the bus, closed up the garage, and headed to my office.

I dealt with some BCM-related e-mail and then off-loaded today’s photos from the Sony a-100 DSLR.  I went through all of the photos from September, selected about a dozen, and processed them into 300×200 pixel size images so I could share them with friends and family via e-mail.  I have written extensive blog posts everyday but last posted to the website in mid-July.  I don’t like being that far behind but getting the posts uploaded is just not as important as other things I have to do at this time.

I was heading to bed when I decided to replace the two light bulbs in our home kitchen that were burned out.  I had the two 75W GE Reveal bulbs that I could not use in the bus, so I installed them in the kitchen downlights, and that really brightened things up.

I got to bed just before midnight.  It had been a beautiful day, weather wise, and a cool night was in store portending good sleep.  But first I had to capture the details of today’s work for this post.

 

2015/08/19 (W) If It’s Wednesday This Must Be Indiana

 

As we did last Wednesday we were up earlier than usual to drive to Indiana.  We wanted to be at Bontrager’s Surplus when they opened at 9 AM to pick up some battery terminal covers for Butch, and possibly ourselves, so we pulled out of our driveway at 6:16 AM.

We took our usual route west on M-59 to I-96W to Lansing Road south.  Rather than get on I-69S we stayed on Lansing Road all the way to Charlotte where we stopped at the Biggby’s Coffee to use the restroom and get coffee and bagels.  From there we then took I-69S to Coldwater and headed west on US-12 since Bontrager’s Surplus is located on US-12 in White Pigeon, Michigan.

We arrived at Bontrager’s Surplus just after 9 AM.  We looked around briefly but did not spot the battery terminal covers so we asked one of the employees where they might be and he took us directly to them.  We bought 36 (18 red and 18 black), 10 of each for Butch and 8 of each for us.  Bontrager’s is probably the best stocked of the surplus and salvage stores in this area and I could have spent hours here, but we had other places to be and a long day ahead of us.

Our shopping done we continued on to Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan where we found Josh Leach hard at work on some interior remodeling of a Fleetwood Revolution.  He removed the Notion Linen sample from his Lambright Comfort Chairs book and we chatted for a while.

I reflected on fact that one of the nicest Class A motorhomes we ever saw was a Fleetwood Revolution.  The interior was a (faux) cherry wood with satin finish nickel hardware.  It had modern, clean cabinetry and light grey wall treatments and a light tile floor with nickel colored inserts, as best I can recall.  We eventually toured the American Coach factory in Decatur, Indiana where the Revolution was made and after seeing some of the construction methods we were less enamored with it.  Like all of the American Coach products it was out of our price range as a new unit but it was very much to our taste.

Before continuing our Journey Linda pulled up Jarel’s address in our GPS.  I then texted Jarel to give him a revised, and more accurate ETA.  We headed southwest out of Edwardsburg on M-62 which becomes IN-23 through Granger.  We turned onto IN-331 which bypasses most of Mishawaka east of town and delivered us to US-20 where we headed west.  We stopped at the Meijer’s, which has a filling station, fueled the car, and switched drivers.  We exited US-20 just south of South Bend, Indiana and headed south on US-31.  We exited US-31 at Rochester and took IN-25 south to Logansport.  I texted Jarel an updated ETA enroute.

We arrived at Jarel Beatty Cabinetry at 11:45 AM and pulled around back.  I texted Jarel to let him know we were there and he came out of the shop to meet us.  We chatted for a while, loaded up the pantry, the slides, the three pieces for the built-in sofa that we forgot last week, a piece of walnut trim for the pantry face, and a leftover  piece of 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood.  Linda wrote a check for the balance we owed.  The only thing left for Jarel to build is the HVAC/wiring chase cover but he cannot do that until I give him the length, which I cannot do him until the desk is installed in the bus.

We left the cabinet shop at 1 PM and stopped at the Martin’s supermarket in Logansport for lunch.  This particular Martin’s did not have a salad bar but they did have pre-made salads.  We each had one along with a bread roll.  I called Butch to let them know we were on our way, and headed for Twelve Mile, Indiana.

I gave Butch the battery terminal covers.  He and I figured their cost ($1.25 each) covered the cost of the 12 fiberglass pole mast sections ($2.00 each) we took last week and called it even.

I brought the small window frame stop block from our bus to see if Butch could make one.  He had some aluminum bar stock that looked like it would work.  We decided to make it longer than the original to accommodate three machine screws and cut it to size using a band saw.  Butch then marked three points to drill holes using the old block as a template.  Two holes were drilled through and one end hike was blind.  The blind hole will fit over the shaft of the old screw that would not come out in case any of it is still protruding above the surface.  The middle hole will line up with other existing hole and I will have to drill and tap a hole in the frame to match the third hole.  But first I need to get some brown spray paint, put some sacrificial screws in the holes, and paint the piece.

While we were working on the stop block I noticed that Butch had a torque multiplier sitting out.  He commented that it was available to a good home for a good price; hint, hint.  These torque multipliers are used to break the lug nuts loose on bus and truck wheels and I have had one on my mental wish list since I first became aware of them five years ago.  I had not pursued getting one as they tend to be expensive even used on Ebay.  Butch wanted $75 for it so I wrote a check and put it in the car.  It has three different lug nut sockets so I hope one of them first the ones on our bus.  I also hoped they would fit the very large torque wrench I bought from Butch last fall but they are 1″ square drive sockets and the torque wrench has a 3/4″ square stud.  I’m not sure I have a correct socket for the torque wrench so that’s another thing I still need to get.

Butch and Fonda bought a compact stacked clothes washer/dryer for their bus and asked if we would help them get it into their rig.  Of course we said yes.  We got it on a dolly and wheeled it out to the entrance door and then pondered the situation.  We have some recent experience getting things out of and into a bus entrance door and this did not look promising.  Butch handed me a tape measure and I determined that the maximum width that would fit through the step well was 23.5 inches due to the door hinges.  The washer/dryer is 24″ wide and 28″ deep with a recessed back on the washer (lower unit).  It is also tall, being a stacked unit, and we all agreed that the only way it was going in was on its back, through a window, using a forklift.  It was Deja vu all over again; been there, done that, didn’t even get a T-shirt.  That approach required more preparation than Butch cared to tackle today, and more time than we had to spare, so we moved the unit back under the overhang and left it covered with a blanket.

We all went back in the house and visited for a while longer.  Butch had found his 4″ pneumatic body sander and loaned it to me along with three boxes of AA50 sanding discs.  While not quite as aggressive as the #36 ceramic grit belts I have been using on the 4″ portable belt sander, this tool will allow me to get under the cabinet toe kicks where the belt sander won’t reach.

As much as we would have liked to stay and go out to dinner again, we did not want to be getting home at midnight.  We wished them a safe journey, again, but this time it really is unlikely that we will see them again before they leave for Arizona.  We left for home at 4:45 PM with Linda at the wheel.  From SR-16W (CR-700N) we took CR-700 (Meridian) north to its northernmost point and headed west into Fulton on W750S where we picked up IN-25 and headed north.  At Rochester we left IN-25 and took US-31N to US-20W.  We exited US-20 at SR-19 and drove north through Elkhart, finally arriving at the Martin’s supermarket at CR-4 around 6:15 PM.  This Martin’s has an excellent salad bar and a nice dining area with an upstairs, which is where we chose to sit and eat our dinner.

Linda continued to drive after dinner.  There is an entrance to the Indiana Toll Road (I-80/90) on SR-19 just south of CR-4 so we got on going east.  The toll road is a few extra miles compared to US-12 through Michigan, but it is posted 70 MPH (max) with no stops, compared to 55 MPH with six towns that have reduced speed limits and stops.

We exited the toll road, paid our $2.90 toll, and headed north on I-69.  A few miles later we were back in Michigan.  We left the Interstate at M-60 (exit 25) to refuel at the Shell station, use the restrooms, and switch drivers.  It was about 8 PM and still light, but it was cloudy to the west and the light was fading.  I find night driving easier than Linda does and I had been able rest while she drove so I was good to go.

I followed our usual route, leaving I-69N and using the Lansing Road cutoff to get to I-96E.  We passed mile marker 100 on the south side of Lansing, which meant we had 33 miles to the M-59 exit.  From there it was 11 miles to Hacker Road and then the final 2.5 miles to our house.

We arrived home at 10 PM, five hours and 15 minutes after we left Twelve Mile and just over 16 hours from when we left home this morning.  The trip odometer indicated 534.8 miles traveled today.  We unloaded the camera, phones, wallets, etc. from the car but decided to wait until tomorrow to unload the cabinetry, tools, and parts.  We headed off to bed and watched part 3 of a PBS program The Mystery of Matter:  The Search for the Elements.  Interesting stuff.  We both find programs that inform and educate to be entertaining.

 

2015/08/13 (R) Sanding Success

Linda was scheduled to go into the bakery today but knew before we went to bed last night that the visit was postponed.  That was just as well; we were very tired from our long day yesterday and slept in this morning.

Before I even had a chance to make coffee I spotted wild turkeys by the road in our easternmost driveway entrance.  They walked past the east end of the house into our backyard.  They hung around by the deer block for quite a while so we had a good long look at them and I took a few pictures.  There was a big tom, a younger/smaller tom, and a half-dozen hens, one with a surprisingly small chick for this late in the season.  The turkeys eventually moved on and we got back to our normal routine.  While I made the coffee Linda made her own version of raisin, date, walnut oatmeal with some quick oats that she had in the pantry.  It was very good.

We read for a bit but I needed to finish the blog posts for the last several days and Linda needed to return some items to the Howell Library and run a couple other errands.  While working on the blog post for yesterday I realized that we had not loaded all of the pieces for the built-in sofa.  I checked the pieces we had against the drawings, which we should have done yesterday, and confirmed that we were missing the two top pieces (E) for the support boxes (HVAC plenums) and the top piece (H) for the return air plenum.  I texted Jarel and he replied quickly that he would try to take care of it in time for me to drive back down on Wednesday to pick up them up.  It’s a 12-17 hour, 550 mile day, for me and costs about $60 in gasoline, so hopefully he will have the pantry done by then as well.

Linda got word from our son via TXT message that Shawna’s father, Mick, had passed away.  He had an aggressive but non-cancerous brain tumor that did respond to two separate surgeries and was moved to hospice care about two weeks ago.  Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline are cutting their vacation short by a day to head to the Grand Rapids area but are still leaving Tuesday to fly to Denver to visit Shawna’s mother, Carol, and her husband, Cliff.  It appears that a memorial service may be in the works for the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd, in which case we will probably drive over.

My sister tried to call me today.  Linda was on the house phone quite a bit today with bakery-related business so Patty tried my cell phone but did not leave a message.  I was working in the bus at the time, did not have it with me, and Linda could not find it in time when it was ringing.  Being deaf in one ear she cannot locate where sounds are coming from.  She does a little better when she uses her BAHA, but rarely wears it around the house.  I called my sister back and left a message and she eventually called me back and we got to talk.

Our father, who is 90, had been admitted to a hospital near where he lives.  The staff said he appeared to have severe dementia, but he was fine (for his age) just a couple of weeks ago, so I suspected a stroke or some other sudden change.  Patty sent me a text latter that the CAT scan of his brain revealed two recent lesions (last few weeks), the telltale sign of two strokes.  She also said he was being transferred to Missouri Baptist Hospital, which is much closer to where she lives, for further care.

Those two pieces of news certainly put a damper on the day, and may cause an adjustment in my plans if I have to travel to St. Louis.  In the meantime there is stuff that has to get done, so even though it was warm today and I wasn’t really in the humor, I kept working in the bus, off and on.  I vacuumed up loose material, including inside the bases of cabinets, and then cleaned the wiring in the refrigerator alcove with Lysol.  I decided to make a template for the refrigerator alcove plywood base filler panels so I could cut them the right size/shape on the first try.  I then used one of the new ceramic sanding belts on the residual thin-set and mastic, and it worked!  My sense of hope was renewed that I will be able to install the new floor correctly.

By 7 PM I was feeling drained so I wrapped up my work and took a shower.  For dinner Linda made pan-grilled BBQ tofu with caramelized onions and served it open faced on a hamburger bun with a side of fresh steamed asparagus.  It was delicious.

After dinner I went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot in search of several items but only ended up buying another 36 grit sanding belt.  I needed floor leveling compound but was not prepared to choose between their limited options.  I also needed a self-centering drill bit but neither store had them.  Lowe’s and THD really are focused on the tools and materials one needs to work on a house and its surrounding property.  Things like self-centering drill bits, though useful for things like drilling holes for door hinges, are really cabinet-making tools.  As big as these stores are they can’t, and don’t, sell everything.

I talked to Butch on the drive home.  The self-centering drill bit that Jarel recommended for installing the pull-out pantry slides is a Vix and Butch suggested four places where I could buy it:  Rockler, Custom Service Hardware, McFeeley’s, and Grizzly’s.  Before ordering one I need to e-mail or text Jarel and ask him what size screw I need to mount the pull-out pantry extension slides.

Back home I thought of four other things I could have bought while I was out so I added them to my list.  I then went to my office and worked on blog posts, updated the BCM Group page on RVillage, e-mailed Gary Hatt at BCM, responded to an e-mail from Howard (PlayaDog) re: screens for sliding bus windows, and started downloading Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 updates.  Jack Conrad had responded to my earlier e-mail asking if he knew what was going on with the Arcadia rally and I sent him a reply.  By the time I dealt with all that I was ready to recline and rest.

 

2015/08/12 (W) Back to Indiana (Again)

Today was early arrival day for the annual Back-to-the-Bricks converted bus rally in Clio, Michigan.  This joint rally of the Converted Coach Owners (CCO) and the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) chapter has become an annual event that typically draws 20 to 30 rigs.  Most of them are converted highway buses and many of those were converted or re-modeled by the owners.  Many of them are works in progress but such is the nature of the bus conversion hobby and the true bus nut.  But that is not where we were headed today.  Our bus is unusable at the moment as the toilet is disconnected, the bed platform has been removed, and all of the cabinet drawers have been taken out.  But the main reason was that we had multiple commitments in Indiana today.

Our first appointment was with Josh Leach of Coach Supply Direct.  Although CSD is located in Edwardsburg, Michigan we had arranged to meet him in the parking lot of the Martin’s Supermarket at SR-19 (IN) and CR-4 on the north side of Elkhart, Indiana at 9:30 AM to take delivery of 15 yards of upholstery fabric.  We picked that location, rather than his shop in Edwardsburg, for several reasons.  He had to be at the Forest River Owners Group (FROG) rally at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds at 10 AM so that location got him half way to his destination at a good time of day.  For us, Elkhart is a 3-1/2 hour drive.  That meant we had to be up at 5:00 AM and on the road not later than 5:45 AM to be there on time, allowing for coffee, fuel, and bathroom stops.  Had we met him at his shop we would have had to be there by 9 AM requiring us to get up even earlier.  You have to draw a line somewhere.

I took the wheel for the start of the trip.  It was still dark but the faint glow of the impending sunrise was visible as we pulled out onto Hacker Road facing a rising crescent moon.  At M-59 we headed west to I-96.  I reset one of the trip odometers before we left and verified that it was 13 miles from our driveway to the end of the entrance ramp from M-59 onto I-96W.  We skirted the southern edge of Lansing on I-96 and took Lansing Road to I-69 south.

Nineteen miles south of Lansing, and about an hour into our trip, we stopped at the Biggby’s Coffee in Charlotte for coffee and bagels.  Biggby’s is not my favorite coffee but this particular store is in just the right location.  Linda checked the M-DOT website and it appeared that the bridge work on M-60 in Mendon was completed, so we exited I-69S and headed west on M-60.  Unfortunately the bridge was still closed so we had to follow the detour to the south toward Sturgis.  Unlike our previous trip in early July, when we continued on to Sturgis, we followed the complete detour through Nottawa and Centreville and back to M-60 in Three Rivers.  We had never driven through Nottawa or Centreville before so that provided some new scenery for the trip.

As we have done many times before we continued our trip on M-60 as far as Jones where we stopped at the Shell station for fuel.  We then took M-40 south to US-12.  This seven mile stretch of M-40 traverses steeply rolling hills and is both beautiful and fun to drive.  We took US-12, running west just north of the Michigan-Indiana border, and eventually exited onto Old 205 (M-205?) which turns 90 degrees to the left a mile later and drops straight south into Indiana where it becomes SR-19.  A few miles later we arrived at the Martin’s Supermarket at CR-4 just after 9 AM.

Josh was not there yet so we went inside to use the restrooms and get some coffee.  This particular Martin’s has a nice salad bar with a beverage station, a Starbucks Coffee outlet, and a seating area with Wi-Fi.  Josh showed up right on time and parked next to us.  I met him outside and we transferred the roll of upholstery fabric from his car to ours and then went inside to visit for a few minutes before he had to leave for Goshen.

When we left Linda took over the driving.  Our next planned stop was A1-Upholstery in Elkhart to order the cushions for our built-in sofa.  Continuing south on SR-19 we stopped at Factory RV Surplus to look for battery cable end covers but the ones they had were too expensive.  I think they now sell more retail-packaged merchandise than they do true surplus material, and even less salvaged parts.

Lou (mom) and Terry (daughter) own and operate A-1 Upholstery and were recommended to us by Josh.  We discussed the project with Terry, who I had previously spoken to on the phone.  We reviewed my dimensioned scale drawings, which were on one sheet of 11″x17″ 1/4″ grid-square paper, and agreed on how the cushions would be made.  Terry thought she would have them done by the end of the month but noted on the order form that we needed them by September 14th.  We noticed that she had a lot of sample books from which we could have selected a fabric but we like the Lambright Notion Linen, and Terry thought it was a very good fabric that should look good and wear well in our application.  We left the fabric and drawing with her and wrote a check for the deposit.

All of our stops were important today, but our primary reason for the trip was to pick up the pieces of the custom desk and built-in sofa for our bus from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana.  We continued our trip south on SR-19 to US-20, took that west to US-31, and went south, exiting at Rochester onto IN-25 for the final 22 miles to Logansport.  This is a route I have driven many times but Linda had the wheel this time so I provided some occasional guidance.  I called Jarel to let him know we were making better time than we had anticipated and would be there between noon and 12:25 PM.  I then called Butch to give him a status update.

This was the first time Linda and Jarel had met and so it was also the first time Linda had met Mya, Jarel and Georgette’s sweet little dog.  Mya came up to me, sat, stared up at me like we were long lost friends, and waited patiently for me to give her the attention she was seeking.  I was happy to oblige.

Jarel Beatty Cabinetry, Logansport, IN

Jarel Beatty Cabinetry, Logansport, IN.  Panorama taken from the entrance door.

Jarel Beatty Cabinetry, Logansport, IN.

Jarel Beatty Cabinetry, Logansport, IN.  Panorama from the center of the shop.  Entrance door is far left.

As I have previously described in this blog, the desk consists of nine pieces (if you count the four drawers as separate parts):  two pedestals with separate bases, a cover that goes between them, and four drawers.  The left pedestal has a fold up work surface with two support wings, and a fold down fake drawer front, so technically those are four more pieces, but they are attached to the pedestal with hinges so I am not counting them as separate parts.  The bottoms of each pedestal have been cut out to provide access to the fan-coil heat exchangers that will be installed in the bases, so those are really two separate pieces now, put I am not counting them as such.  I am also ignoring screws, drawer slides, blocking, and other assembly items in my parts count as they are all “installed components.”  With the drawers installed we only had five major pieces to load plus the two access plates.  Jarel also had the pieces ready for the built-in sofa so we loaded those as well.  I took pictures of his shop and the pull-out pantry, which was mostly assembled but not quite finished.

The installed desk will have more pieces than just described but these are the pieces that Jarel made.  The finished desk will have five grills that we have to cut and install, at least four drawer pulls that we have to install, a plywood top that will span the two pedestals and leg space, and a Sandstone Corian countertop that will go on top of the plywood.  While not actually part of the desk there will also be a large cover for the passenger-side living room HVAC duct and wiring chase and a small hose cover at the desk end both of which align with the left end of the desk and will look like they are part of it.  Jarel will make the chase cover later after the desk is installed and we can get a final, accurate measurement for its length.

As long as we were in the neighborhood we naturally stopped to visit with our friends, Butch and Fonda, in Twelve Mile, Indiana.  While we were at their house we loaded a dozen 4-foot army surplus fiberglass mast sections in the car.  Butch had bought these at a swap for me some time ago.  We will use them for ham radio antenna projects.  Butch gave me his old, non-functioning, Vanner battery equalizer to see if I can figure out how it does what it does.  He also lent me his air-powered brad nailer which can also drive 1/4″ crown staples and gave me a box of 5,000 staples to go with it.  Fonda found a scrap piece of resilient underlayment designed for free-floating wood floors.  Butch though it might work well under the 1/4″ plywood underlayment to fill in the gaps and irregularities so we took it with us.

When we were done loading stuff into our car we went to see their new property on SR-25.  They have already had a new roof put on the barn and new doors put in the house.  They have bought themselves a BIG project, but it will be a much more appropriate and manageable place for them going forward than the building complex in Twelve Mile that has housed their business operations for the last 20 years.  It’s an old GM dealership from the 1940s and they have approximately 11,000 feet under roof including a 2-bay service garage with a functioning in-ground lift.

We drove to Rochester and had dinner at Pizza Hut.  Linda and I split a medium specialty veggie pizza and had the salad bar with it.  We might have had a few more restaurant choices in Logansport, but Rochester was 22 miles closer to home.  With the 19 hours we were gone today, and over 525 miles we had to travel, 22 miles and 30 minutes was significant for us.

We got back on the road at 6:30 PM with Linda at the wheel and headed back up US-31N to US-20 and headed east.  We decided to stay on US-20 all the way to I-69, stopping in Lagrange to use the restroom at the Marathon complex.  We stopped again at the Shell station on M-60 in Michigan for fuel.  It was getting dark and I had been able to rest while Linda drove, so I took over the driving duties.  From this point on we were just reversing our route from this morning.  We got home at 10:30 PM, unloaded everything from the car, and then went straight to bed.

 

2015/08/10 (M) Keep on Buss’in

We have a doe and her spotted faun that have been coming in the early morning to the deer block we set in our back yard the other day.  They were there again this morning and the block is close enough to the house that we got a good look at them through the bedroom doorwall.  They must be comfortable with the setting as the faun wandered off towards the western part of our property and the doe let it go while she continued to lick the block.  Eventually, however, the faun was out of sight and the doe headed off in that direction to find it.

We had cinnamon raisin toast and soy yogurt for breakfast, with orange-grapefruit juice to wash down the vitamins.  I used up the last of the Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff coffee beans for our pot of morning coffee.  Keith usually mows our grass on Mondays and he came to the front door around 9:30 AM to ask if we wanted it cut this week.  That’s the first time he has done that this summer but it was an appropriate and timely question.  We have had very little rain the last couple of weeks so the grass had not gown much since last Monday and was a little brown in places.  We agreed to skip this week, which I think was what Keith was hoping I would say.  There was a high probability of rain starting around noon and I suspect he had another yard he wanted to cut before it started.

We have been very busy the last few days and I have not had time to do more than outline my blog posts.  Linda needed to work on an analysis for the bakery so I spent much of the day filling in the details of my recent posts.  Our days are very full and if I wait too long I cannot capture them accurately.

Linda looked up the information on the DTE Energy “Energy Efficiency” appliance recycling program.  I called the 866 number and was assisted by Reginald.  The earliest available pickup date was Friday, August 28 so I took that.  It took quite a while to arrange the pickup but Reginald appeared to get all the pertinent information and give me a confirmation code and a phone number to reach the truck on pickup day.

Once the refrigerator pickup was arranged I texted Chuck to let him know the details.  That prompted a return phone call and a conversation about refrigerators.  Having seen how our swap went on Saturday he and Barb are also thinking very seriously about replacing the refrigerator in their bus.  The rationale is the same as ours; the fridge is old, so it is noisier and less efficient than newer ones, and having it break on the road would be more than inconvenient.

Replacing a refrigerator in an RV, especially a residential unit in a bus conversion, is not like replacing one in a home.  Access is a major problem and there is not a lot of space to maneuver it or get more than two pairs of hands on it.  If they replace theirs here (in Michigan) their bus will be inside their garage/shop, the forklift will be available to do the heavy lifting, and trusted friends and family will be available to help.  And, most importantly, they won’t be living in it and dependent on the fridge for preserving their food.

Before the day got away from me I pulled up the PDF of the manual for the wireless keypad for the large garage door.  When I installed the new opener for the small garage door and reprogrammed the wireless remotes for our cars I inadvertently rendered the keypad inoperable.  Reprogramming it was simple enough once I had the procedure.  It’s the small, simple tasks like this one that become big burdens if not taken care of in a timely manner.

The predicted rain started around noon and was steady until 3 PM.  It was just the kind of rain we needed; gentle enough to give it a chance to soak in but hard enough to provide a useful quantity of moisture to the ground.  Six to 10 hours of this would have been even better but we were glad for what we got.

I had thought that we might mask off the inside of the coach today with painter’s plastic but with the rain and humidity, and plenty of other things to do, I decided to defer that until tomorrow.  During the afternoon Jarel texted me a couple of pictures and a brief status update on our custom woodworking projects.  Not surprisingly he is already well along on the construction of the pull-out pantry and has spray lacquered the pieces for the built-in sofa.

One of the photos showed one of the 1/8″ thick aluminum plates that will form the side rails for each shelf in the pantry.  He applied a brushed finish to the plate and countersunk the screw holes so the heads would not protrude beyond the surface.  Jarel did metal work at one time before he became a cabinet maker so he knows how to do this kind of stuff.  He is also meticulous and takes great pride in his work.  Given a choice I would always prefer to hire a craftsman who cares as much, or more, about the quality of their work as I do.

When I know I am going to have a long full day, such as this coming Wednesday, I will try to “write ahead” on my blog, basically outlining the plan for the day but obviously not filling in the details of things that have not yet happened.  Along the same lines, I often use future blog posts as a planning tool.  As things occur to me that I need to do I will note them in the draft of a future post.  If the thing actually gets done on that date I flesh out the details, and if not, I move it to a new date.

I think I did several loads of laundry today and spent some time editing and uploading blog posts during the evening, but as I am finishing this post later in the week I have lost the details and will just end here.

 

2015/08/07 (F) Arrangements

We had our usual, but never boring, homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast.  I brewed a pot of the Costa Rican half-caff coffee we bought yesterday without tasting it first.  We found it to be somewhat bitter, which is not our taste in coffee, so we probably will not buy more after this batch is gone.

We spent a good part of the morning researching cabinet pulls on the Cabinet Service Hardware (CSH) website.  We found a pull on the CSH website that appeared to be identical to the one from The Home Depot, which is a Rockefeller Antique Brass from Liberty Hardware.  The one from CSH was a Belwith Keeler HH.P135-AB for $2.47 each.  The one from The Home Depot was $2.48 plus tax but no S&H.  Since we have the one from THD in hand and like how it looks we will probably buy them locally.

Many of the drawers in the bus have the pulls attached to the walnut face and then the face attached to the front of the drawer box.  Thus, the only way to remove the pulls is to first unscrew the box from the face.  I took the face off of one drawer and installed the new pull.  It fit perfectly, confirming that the mounting hole spacing is 3″ center-to-center.   The one from THD comes with 1″ and 1.5″ #8-32 machine screws but it looks like we will need something shorter than 1″ for the framed drawers and shorter than 1.5″ for the solid drawers.  The cabinet doors have 3/4″ thick frames so the 1″ machine screws may work for those.  Thus we should be able to use some of the machine screws that come with the pulls from THD but will have to buy some as well.  The pulls from CSH do not come with screws so we would have to buy those anyway.

Linda left around noon to meet Diane in Livonia to see a movie (Ricki and the Flash) starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Rick Springfield.  I went on an errand run while she was away.  At The Home Depot in Howell I found 10 packs of the drawer pull we like so the price came out to under $2 per pull compared to $2.48 when purchased individually.  We need 58 to replace all the ones in the coach plus at least four for the new desk drawers so I bought six 10-packs.  We have not decided if we will replace the single screw round pulls on the two TV cabinet doors with the double screw pulls.  If we do we will need a couple more pulls.  If not, we will need two round pulls in the same style and finish, which THD also carries.  I bought small packs of #8-32×3/4″ and #8-32×1-1/4″ lengths so I can figure out what lengths work best in each location.

Jarel called while at was THD.  The plans for the built-in sofa had arrived in today’s mail and he had a few questions.  We talked through the issues and came to the conclusion that it would be better for us to come down on Wednesday instead of Tuesday to pick up the desk.  That will give him time to cut the sofa pieces and do some minor assembly and finishing.  The plywood seat and side pieces need to be stained to resemble the walnut hardwood and a 3/4″x3/4″ piece of walnut hardwood needs to be attached to the front edge.  He also needs to cut the piece of walnut veneered plywood for the front and then spray everything with the same lacquer he has used on all of the walnut desk pieces.

As I was finishing up at THD I also got a call from Chuck letting me know that everything was on track for the refrigerator swap tomorrow.  My next stop was at the Howell Lowe’s for a 4′ x 4′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood but I did not like their selection any better than THD.  I ended up buying two quarter sheets (24″ x 48″) of birch plywood.  This plywood has a lot of thin layers, so it is very flat and dimensionally stable, with defect free surfaces that are sanded smooth and very clean edges.  These sheets will go on the bottom of the refrigerator alcove in the bus to elevate the new refrigerator above the new vinyl tile floor.

Back home I texted Josh at Coach Supply Direct, called Terry at A-1 Upholstery, and called Butch regarding the change in our visit date for next week.  Linda got home shortly thereafter and helped me reattach the edge trim to the two doors of the old refrigerator and load them into the back of my car.  We covered everything with blankets and then loaded all of the drawers, shelves, racks, and bins.  Once the old fridge is out of the bus we will clean it, reassemble it, plug it in, and make sure it is cooling.  We will then call DTE Energy to arrange pick up through their recycling program.

Loading pieces of the old refrigerator into the back of the Element to take to Chuck's shop.

Loading pieces of the old refrigerator into the back of the Element to take to Chuck’s shop.

Linda bought an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza while she was out and cooked it for dinner.  It is our favorite store bought pizza, and much better (for us) than what we can usually get at restaurants and pizzerias (with the exception of Satchel’s in Gainesville, Florida), but not as good as the pizza we had while Mara was here.  That pizza was memorable.

After dinner I got a shower and then worked on the design/drawings for the seat and back cushions for the built-in sofa for the bus.  I started editing blog posts for July but did feel like uploading them.  We went to bed earlier than usual as we had to up at 7 AM tomorrow to go to our weekly ham radio club breakfast.

 

2015/08/05 (W) No Mask Wednesday

Linda was up at 6 AM and left for the bakery around 6:20 AM, I think. I was more asleep than awake and did not get up until later. I wanted to do a load of laundry but needed powdered detergent which I did not have. I also needed to make a run to Lowe’s so I left to take care of my errands without making coffee or having breakfast.

I picked up a couple of 2x4s at Lowe’s that I will use to cut a pair of support arms for propping open the fixed window in the bus while we exchange the refrigerators. I was going to buy a 4’x4′ (half sheet) of plywood to cut for the base of the refrigerator alcove but did not care for the selection. I also did want to wrestle with the size and weight by myself. I will have to go back to The Home Depot with Linda to get what I need. I got my laundry supplies across the street at Meijer’s and headed home.

After unloading the 2x4s I thought I would program the remote control in my car for the new garage door opener. The procedure is very simple but much to my dismay the remote would not connect with the opener. The remote is a 3-button model made by Chamberlin, and both garage door openers are identical Chamberlin models. We have four of these 3-button remotes, one for me, one for Linda, and one for each of our children. We got the 3-button model because we have two overhead doors on our garage and plan (hope) to have a barn someday with an overhead door. All four of the 3-button remotes programmed to the large garage door without a problem and the new door opener came with a single button remote that works just fine, as did the large garage door opener. I won’t know if the problem is the opener or my remote until I can try programming Linda’s remote. If her remote will program then I know it’s my remote, but if it won’t program I still won’t know where the problem lies.

I had originally planned to mask off the interior of the bus today so I could start sanding the floor tomorrow but decided to put it off. Not only would the painter’s plastic be difficult to manage by myself, I realized that it did not make a lot of sense to tape it up in advance of doing the refrigerator swap. I was on the phone with Chuck arranging to bring our bus to his shop this weekend to take care of the refrigerators when our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door bearing gifts. Well, OK, they were packages, but I did not expect them until tomorrow so that made them more like gifts in my mind. One was from Amateur Electronics Supply (AES) and the other was from Morgan Manufacturing, so it was all ham radio stuff.

I went to my ham shack/office and mounted the control head for the Yaesu FTM-400 on the stand that just arrived from AES. I e-mailed Steve (N8AR) to arrange a time to test the lightning arrestor before installing it in our cable entry box. I then e-mailed Jarel to start trying to arrange a day next week to drive to his shop in Logansport, Indiana to pick up the custom walnut desk. Finally, I e-mailed Josh at Coach Supply Direct to make sure he was going to be around. I was checking out the TVFool.com website, which Steve recommended, when the art frame shop in Howell called to let us know that three of our four paintings were ready to pick up. They would have all been done but he ordered the forth frame the wrong size and had to reorder it. Linda then called to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery. So much communication, so little time.

When Linda got home we discussed going out to dinner and researched a new place that had opened in Howell. As usually happens, however, there is almost no place that serves anything we choose to eat and we ended up staying home. Linda had a couple of Boca burgers in the freezer and we had those with corn-on-the-cob and fresh fruit (peaches, nectarines, and strawberries). We eat better food, and in smaller quantities, when we dine at home.

After dinner I caught Steve (N8AR) on the radio and we agreed that I would bring the lightning arrestor over to his QTH at 8 PM. I had an e-mail related to the draft of the July issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and checked to make sure a correction had been made correctly.

At Steve’s house my lightning arrestor tested better than the previous one, and should work OK in my system, but it was very clear that there is something wrong with the design and/or manufacturing of these VHF/UHF I.C.E. units. We also came to the conclusion that the quality control testing the manufacturer was doing (if any) was inadequate to reveal the problem. I expect, however, that this one will work when I install it so if it is typical of their units most hams would not have a reason to suspect that it was flawed. Someone would have a problem with it, however, as it is clearly not usable for all frequencies from 40 MHz to 1 GHz as stated on the label. My unit has a 0.31 dB loss at 445 MHz (it should be 0.01) but has an 11.59 dB loss around 635 MHz, which is a huge factor of 16 times loos of signal, and the loss from 500 MHz to 1 GHz is unacceptably large making it useless in that range of frequencies.

Steve captured all of the data and e-mailed it to me. He then tested one of his Polyphaser lightning arrestors and sent me that data file. He also sent me the link to the VNWA software from SDR-Kits.com that I needed to work with the data file. We spent a few minutes talking about the problem we are having at home with our ham radio transmissions interfering with our OTA TV signals. He sent me a link to the free student version of the ELSIE (“L”,”C”) filter design software.

I left about 9:45 PM and called my friend, John Rauch, to see if Saturday noon would work for him in terms of our refrigerator swap. He said it would and that he would check with his son (also John) to see if he could/would also help. I will let Chuck know tomorrow that it looks like Saturday is a “go.”

Linda was asleep by the time I got home so I worked in my office until after midnight. I captured the data attached to the e-mails from Steve and then downloaded and installed both the VNWA and the ELSIE software. I then uploaded my personal blog posts for June 28, 29, and 30. I logged in to the FMCA Freethinkers website, the FMCA GLCC website, and the SLAARC website and installed updates for the themes and numerous plug-ins. With that I came back upstairs and worked on this post in the living room so as not to disturb Linda and finally went to bed around 1 AM.

 

2015/08/03 (M) Happy 37

Today is our son’s 37th birthday anniversary.  Happy birthday Brendan.  Linda sent him a happy birthday text and his reply confirmed that they are at Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

My main task today was to finish the design of the built-in sofa for the bus and get the drawings in the mail to Jarel Beatty, the cabinet maker in Logansport, Indiana.  I dovetailed that work with breakfast, lunch, and a long chat with Pat Lintner from our FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches (GLCC) chapter, but by 2 PM the two 17″ x 22″ sheets were ready.

I was not satisfied with the quality of the copies I got from The FedEx Office store in Brighton so I drove to the store in Novi where their large sheet scanner/printer does a really nice job.  Copies in hand I drove to the post office in Brighton, bought a Ready Post mailing tube, addressed it, put the copies inside, and sent it on its way.  Back home I sent Jarel an e-mail letting him know the sofa drawings were on their way and explaining them a bit.  I then settled in to continue uploading blog posts to our website.

Later in the evening I got a text message from Jarel with three more photos of the custom walnut desk.  He had sprayed all of the pieces and was letting them dry.  He planned to work on something else tomorrow but thought he would have the drawer slides and drawers installed by the end of the week.  He will probably start on the pull-out pantry but wasn’t sure he would get it done before he leaves for a vacation trip on the 21st.  It is unlikely that the built-in sofa pieces will be done by then and the HVAC chase cover needs to wait until after the desk is installed in order to get a final, accurate measurement for its length.

I will probably drive down and get the various desk pieces from him before he goes on vacation so I can install them as soon as the new floor is installed.  I have to install the two fan-coil heat exchangers in the bases and redo the hoses before I can put the pedestals in place so it will be easier for me to do this at home.  As part of the same trip I will stop at Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg, Michigan and pick up the fabric we ordered for sofa cushions.  If we decide to use A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart I will drop the fabric off there along with drawings of the cushions we need made.

For my evening relaxation I read a little more of “Number Theory and Its History” by Oystein Ore and then went to bed.

 

2015/08/01 (S) Refrigerator Swapping (NOT)

We had a good crowd for our weekly SLAARC breakfast.  We sat across from Mike (W8XH) and had a chance to discuss what to do about the ‘extra’ user accounts on our computers.  We also discussed the release of Windows 10 that occurred on the 29th of July and all came to the conclusion that we would not be upgrading anytime soon.

When we got home I talked to Chuck on the phone.  He said the sun room company was still moving out of the building in front of his shop and that there was still too much stuff in the way to be able to move our buses around.  Given the circumstances we agreed that we would not do the refrigerator swap today and probably not tomorrow.

At breakfast Mike suggested that we look in the Users folder on our computers to see what files were associated with each of these previously unknown users and then delete the User accounts.  It turned out that these users did not exist, or at least had no folders or files associated with them that we could find.  Linda’s computer did, however, have a couple more folders in the Users folder that did not have User accounts associated with them.  When we deleted each of the phantom accounts we were given the option of saving any associated files in a folder on the desktop.  We selected that option each time but no such folders ever got created, confirming (I suppose) that there were no files associated with that account.

Bill, who takes care of the computers and software for the bakery, installed software on our machines when we first got them and Linda speculated as to whether these phantom accounts might have been inadvertently created at that time.  At this point we will probably never know.  We have strong security systems in place and are reasonably careful in how we interact with the online world, but it was a bit unnerving to find these accounts on our machines.

We were on tap for another warm, humid day and I elected not to do any work on the bus or in the garage.  With the phantom User accounts taken care of I transferred the photos that I received of the custom walnut desk from Jarel from my SG3 phone to my laptop computer and edited them for use on our blog.  I copied recent photos from my DSLR camera to my computer and then settled in to copy blog post drafts from e-mails into Word and edit them.

In the course of the day I did a couple of loads of laundry, worked on the sofa design/drawings, chatted on the ham radio, and took time out to have lunch and dinner, which was the left over Pad Thai.  Having sat for a day or two the dish had absorbed the liquid and, although Linda thought the broccoli was now too soft, I liked it better than when it was freshly made.  I also got to add a generous amount of peanuts, which is how I remember Pad Thai being served in restaurants.  After dinner I started reading “Number Theory and Its History” by Oystein Ore.

 

2015/07/31 (F) A Blue Moon Family Gathering

As soon as Linda got up this morning she busied herself making collard greens cole slaw while I made our morning coffee.  Once the cole slaw was assembled and in the refrigerator we had breakfast.  We were due at our daughter and son-in-law’s house later in the afternoon for a family gathering so we decided not to take on any overtly physical tasks today.  We both got cleaned up instead and settled in to more sedentary tasks.

Linda has been getting somewhat regular text messages from Mara apprising us of her travels and I have been getting text messages from Jarel with photographs of the progress on the construction of our custom walnut desk/workstation for the bus.  Linda worked at her desk and I worked in my office transferring the photos from my phone to my computer and working on the design/drawings for the built-in sofa.

Linda restarted her Samsung laptop computer (for some reason that I do not recall) and was presented with a choice of four user profiles for logging in.  One was hers, one was named ‘Diane,’ and two of them where random letters.  Until that moment we were unaware that these other accounts existed on her machine.  She selected her usual account and logged in.  I checked my ASUS laptop computer and discovered that I also had a user profile named ‘John’ of which I was unaware.  We noted that we have, coincidentally, been good friends with a couple named John and Diane for 36 years.

I e-mailed Mike (W8XH) to ask him about this situation.  He is a friend from our local SLAARC ham radio club who works part time as an independent computer service provider and has become our ‘go to’ guy for computer issues that do not involve the bakery software or VPN.  Because he is often working during the day I do not always hear back from him immediately, but we knew we would see him at breakfast tomorrow and decided not to do anything until we had talked to him.

We plinked away at our tasks until it was time to get ready to go to the family gathering.  Brendan and Shawna were headed ‘up north’ and needed to borrow a few things.  We had previously gathered up our portable induction cooker and battery powered camp lantern and loaded these in the Element along with the Thule car top carrier.  We loaded the cole slaw, a bottle of wine for dinner, and a bag with a couple of gift bottles of wine and cards for Brendan and Shawna’s upcoming birthdays, and headed for Dexter.

Meghan and Chris are very interested in professional sports and today at 4 PM EDT was the trading deadline for 2015 Major League Baseball season.  That’s a big deal if you are really into professional baseball.  They had the radio on when we arrived and were following the trading action closely.

Meghan had obviously been hard at work on dinner preparations long before we arrived.  She and Chris had acquired a Sous Vide, a countertop appliance for cooking foods in sealed bags immersed in hot water, and she was cooking country style pork ribs with two different sauces. The bags had been in the Sous Vide for over 24 hours and from comments during dinner the meat was obviously very moist, tender, and tasty.  Meghan had also prepared tempeh for us.  She had soaked it and then pan grilled it with the same two sauces; a classic bar-b-que and a mustard.  Except for the meat everything else was vegan; collard greens cole slaw, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad.  Meghan had a pudding bar for dessert that included vegan tapioca and chocolate puddings in addition to regular chocolate pudding, and lots of toppings.

Before dinner Brendan and I tried to figure out a way to mount the Thule car top carrier on their Subaru Outback but it became clear fairly quickly that we did not have the correct adapters and could not engineer a way around that.  There was no possibility of buying them at this point so we put it back in our car to take home.

Grand-daughter Katie and boyfriend Josh arrived late having run into traffic on their drive back from Iowa.   Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline were still there but getting ready to leave.  After introductions Katie and Josh had dinner.  Meghan then got out the “Ticket To Ride” board game.  We played one complete game with me and Linda working as a team.  This is Katie’s favorite game and she came in first.  Katie is very bright but is also, apparently, very competitive.  This was a side of her we had not seen previously.

By the time we were done it was dark so we all gathered up our things and bid each other fair well.  It was a clear night and the full moon had just risen and now shone brightly over the land.  It was a Blue Moon, the second full moon of the month, and the kind of evening that you could see well enough to go for a midnight hike in the woods.  The next Blue Moon will be in January 2018, so that are not common events.

 

20150730GP H3-40 Custom Desk Build

Here are a few photos of the new desk for our bus in the process of being built.  All photos are courtesy of Jarel Beatty, Jarel Beatty Cabinetry, Logansport, Indiana.

2015/07/28 (T) Mighty Dremel

I got up at 8 AM.  I must have been sleeping soundly as I was unaware until then that had already gotten up.  She had gone for a walk and left me a note.  The high temperature today is forecast to hit 90 degrees F and she wanted to get her walk in early.  I fed the cats and checked the mouse trap in the pantry.  We caught another one overnight so I carried the trap back to the northeast corner of the yard and released it.

I made our morning coffee and had just settled in to work on my iPad while it brewed when Linda returned from her walk at 8:35 AM.  We enjoyed our first cup of coffee and then had breakfast.  She made a batch of her fabulous granola yesterday but we have to finish the previous batch first.

Today was the day to get back to work on the bus.  First I spray lubed the two overhead garage doors, both rollers and section hinges, and ran them up and down and back up.  I needed to open them anyway to get out the ladder and tools and sometimes it’s better to spend an extra minute while you are thinking about something and just take care of it.  Besides, I had no way of knowing if I would accomplish anything else today so at least the doors worked more smoothly.

This is where the "stop block" was located.  The left screw came out but the right one did not.  I had to grind it off.

This is where the “stop block” was located. The left screw came out but the right one did not. I had to grind it off.

In a very real sense our entire bus remodeling project hinges on getting the old refrigerator out and the new refrigerator in.  The refrigerator swap, in turn, hinges on being able to open the fixed window panel on the passenger side of the bus.  That panel is hinged at the top by a pair of rolled channels, one on the top back edge of the window frame and the other on the lower back side of a rail that runs almost the entire length of the bus.  Most of the upper body side panels are hung from these rails and secured at the bottom with latches or other fixed hardware.

The window frame in question has two latches that can be released allowing the frame to swing open and provide an emergency exit, except for the two “stop blocks” in the upper outside corners which are attached to the frame (with two screws) just below the rail.  As the name suggests, these blocks appear to stop the frame from opening more than about 10 inches. That would make emergency escape difficult but it makes it impossible to remove a refrigerator.  We know these frames will open farther as someone posted a photo of an H3 on one of the Prevost bus websites with this same frame open almost 90 degrees (horizontal).

As I have described here before I successfully removed the left block and the left screw from the right block a couple of weeks ago but have been unable to remove the right screw from the right block.  Early in my attempt to remove it I stripped the Philips head and things just got worse from there.  I borrowed an impact screwdriver from Chuck, which successfully extracted the left screw but the right screw would not budge.  I eventually bought and used three different screw extractor sets and broke two drill bits using one of them.

The Dremel with a cutoff wheel installed.  The stop block was unusable by the time I got it of.

The Dremel with a cutoff wheel installed. The stop block was unusable by the time I got it of.

I borrowed a soldering gun and Dremel Kit from Chuck on Saturday and finally got around to using them today.  The idea of the soldering gun was to heat the screw causing it to expand and then contract when it cooled.  This will sometimes cause screw threads to separate from tapped holes.  In this case the block was already turning relative to the shaft of the screw but the screw was not turning so I hoped the heat might free it from the threaded hole in the frame.  To find out, however, I needed to create a slot in the shaft that would accept a flat blade screwdriver, in particular the large bit that is part of Chuck’s impact screwdriver kit.  Enter the Dremel.

In order to create a wide enough slot I put two cutoff wheels on the arbor.  The block is at the top of the window frame so standing at the highest safe step of our 8-foot step ladder I was at a comfortable height for holding the Dremel vertically and cutting a horizontal slot.  The cutoff wheels are about the size of a quarter so the slot extended well beyond the screw head, or what was left of it, into the block.  Using the Dremel was a last resort and I knew that once I made that decision the block was going to get destroyed.

The Dremel cutoff wheels cut through the block, which is aluminum, very easily and did not have any trouble with screw or the broken drill bits.  The drill bits eventually loosened to where I was able to extract them with pliers.  I tried several different screwdrivers in my newly created slot but to no avail.  I sprayed WD-40 around the block and screw using paper towels to catch the overspray and clean up any runs.  I kept cutting the block until I was able to pry it off of what remained of the screw.  With less than a quarter inch of the shaft left I cut a slot in the end and tried to unscrew it but the tangs just broke off.  I tried unscrewing it with pliers but it would not budge.  The protruding stub would interfere with opening the frame 90 degrees so I used the Dremel with a cutoff wheel to grind the shaft down flush with the frame.

All the "stuff" I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Some of the “stuff” I used to attack 25 cents worth of aluminum because of corrosion.

Linda came out to help at this point.  I repositioned the ladder and then we unlatched the frame on the inside.  Linda pushed it out while I supported it from outside.  It opened farther than it had before but we did not try to raise it to a horizontal position.  The frame/glass is very heavy and we did not want to risk having it come loose at the hinge. We closed the frame and latched it.  I took a few pictures and then put all of the tools away.  The weather was very warm and humid and that was enough outside work for today.

We had hummus, pita chips, and black grapes for lunch.  After lunch I spent a few minutes in my office checking e-mail and then typed up the minutes from our July SLAARC meeting.  I then started working on the design/drawings for the built-in sofa.

I have a very long list of things to do but the furniture design remains a priority as I need to make sure Jarel has all the information he needs to keep moving forward on the custom cabinetry.  Although I will be assembling the sofa Jarel will be cutting all of the pieces.  I will be using a long rip of a full sheet of plywood and a long piece of 3/4 x 3/4 walnut hardwood as an edge band for the horizontal platform.  In order to give Jarel a cut sheet I needed to design the unit.  I also needed to design it so I knew it would fit when assembled.

I took an occasional break to chat with friends on the two local ham radio repeaters that we tend to use but otherwise stayed on task until late afternoon.  I had pulled a book on cryptology from our personal library and started reading it.  I took a nap before dinner and continued reading afterwards.  Fascinating stuff, cryptology.

 

2015/07/27 (M) Finish Drawings

I got up at 7:25 AM and fed the cats.  There was a very large tom turkey feeding in the back yard by the basement walkout and just far enough out from the house that I could see him from the dining room doorwall where we keep the cats’ food dishes.  He walked up the west slope and then cautiously headed for our lower deck.  I kept an unseen eye on him from the kitchen corner window as he headed east towards the main deck.  I thought he might have spotted Linda’s tomato and herb planters but he kept on going.  Perhaps he caught sight of Jasper, or me, or his own reflection but something spooked him and he trotted to the east end of the deck.  He had Jasper’s full, undivided attention by this point and just walked around until he decided to walk down the stairs into the east yard and around the east end of the house.  I lost sight of him after that but we have seen turkeys feeding on that end of the house before and they have ready access to dense, protective cover from there.  I suspect this is the same lone tom that we have seen feeding in Cory’s yard across the street.

I sat and played games for a while and then started working on this post at 8:15 AM.  At 8:30 I caught a glimpse of a deer crossing the road into our yard by the main driveway but could not get up to get a better view as Juniper had settled in in my lap.  Linda got up around that same time having finally gotten a good night’s sleep.  I got dressed and made coffee.  We finally had breakfast at 10 AM.

My initial focus for today was to finish the drawings for the pull-out pantry, design/draw the cover for the front half of the passenger side HVAC duct and wiring chase, and design/draw the small cover that will connect the chase cover to the left side of the left desk pedestal base and hide the heater hoses.  I took occasional breaks to chat with friends on the South Lyon 2m repeater and finished my drawings at 4:30 PM.

Linda located a FedEx Office location in Brighton so I drove there instead of to the one in Novi to make copies and buy a mailing tube.  The copies did not come out as well as at the other office so I rolled up the originals and put them in the tube.  I checked to see what it would cost to have FedEx deliver the tube.  Their cheapest method was going to cost $28 and take three days to get there so I went across the street to the post office and mailed them to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana it for $2.94.  It will be there by Thursday and may get there by Wednesday.

When I got home I e-mailed Jarel to let him know the drawings were on the way.  Linda then reheated various leftovers for dinner.  I had started the day with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish but by the time we were done with dinner I decided I had accomplished enough for the day and took an uncharacteristic nap.  I had just woken up when Butch called and we chatted about buses for a bit.  We turned in earlier than usual and watched Antiques Roadshow and the concluding episode of Ken Burn’s “The Dust Bowl” on the Detroit PBS station.

 

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

I was up at 8 AM but did not make coffee as Linda was still asleep and the grinder is fairly noisy.  I put the last load of laundry in the washing machine, cleaned the litter tray (which we keep in the downstairs shower), and then worked in my office.  Jasper (the cat) came down to assist me but mostly ended up supervising.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system.  The Dell is in the middle.  There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system. The Dell is in the middle. There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

I mounted the fourth (last) arm on the wall-mounted rail in our ham shack.  I swung it back against the wall to get it out of the way as I do not have a monitor that I want to install at that position at the moment.  I cleaned up the tools and staged them by the stairs and then moved the coiled coax out of the way and cleared a few things off of the desks so I could move the desks back into position.  I left them farther out from the wall than before so they were appropriately placed relative to the three wall-mounted monitors.  I then put various pieces of ham radio equipment back on the desks.

Monitors obviously need computers.  I removed the Dell Precision laptop from my computer desks, removed the computer from the combination docking station and monitor stand, cleaned all of the pieces, and reassembled it.  I set it at the left edge of the ham desks, slid it under the left monitor, and placed our old Icom IC-706 HF transceiver on the monitor platform, just for appearance sake.  We are not using thus radio at the moment but it fit nicely in that spot.

I placed the GoBox with the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver and 12VDC power supply at the right edge of the desks, put the MFJ-998 Intelli-Tuner to its left (under the right monitor), and put the larger variable voltage DC power supply on top of it.  The time we spent yesterday determining where to mount the rail on the wall was time well spent.  The monitors are at a comfortable height for viewing when seated at the desk, tilted down slightly to avoid glare from the overhead down lights, and the bottom edges are high enough above the desk to permit sizeable equipment to slide under them.  The desks are also far enough out from the wall to make it easy to attach and manage cables.

I rearranged my primary ASUS laptop on my computer desks and checked my e-mail accounts.  I have had a discussion going on this past week with Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine about hats with the BCM logo and responded to a couple more of those communiques.  Around 10:15 AM I heard footsteps and knew that Linda was finally up so I wrapped up the work in my office, transferred the laundry to the dryer, and went upstairs.

Linda was working at her desk and was not hungry but wanted coffee.  She did not sleep well last night so I made a pot of Sumatra Manhelding which is NOT one of our half decaffeinated blends.  I got myself a bowl of granola and had a large glass of orange juice.  We spent the rest of the morning in the living room reading, writing, and menu planning.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor.  They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor. They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

I like to hear the grandfather clock strike 12.   Besides the charming Westminster chimes, it serves to announce that the part of the day has arrived where I am supposed to get some of the physical work on my to-do list accomplished.  Today, however, my #1 priority was to redesign the pull-out pantry so I limited my physical work to gathering up my tools from the basement and moving them to the garage, moving the bus back to its normal parking spot, and taking photos of cabinet details in the bus for Jarel.  I mixed in a little e-mail, a few computer updates, some ham radio, and time for meals, but basically I worked at my drafting board most of the day and evening.

For dinner Linda made a very tasty dish that we had not had before.  The base ingredient was rice and she used basmati even though the recipe called for brown.  I prefer basmati rice to brown rice so it was a good substitution as far as I was concerned.  The other ingredients were garlic, power greens, mushrooms, and blanched fresh green beans.  She sliced and caramelized a large onion and used it as a topping.  This was essentially a “1-pot” dish in that all of the ingredients ended up combined prior to serving.  Linda makes a lot of dishes like this and we both like them. This particular dish had the crunch of the green beans, the chewiness of the rice, and the soft earthy character of the mushrooms held together by the garlic and olive oil and topped with sweet earthiness of the caramelized onions.

At 8 PM local (EDT) I participated in the weekly SLAARC Info Net for the first time in a couple of years and did so from the comfort of our ham shack.  It was a pleasure using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band transceiver with our Diamond X-50N 2m/70cm antenna at a height of 40 feet and connected by good coaxial cables all the way through.  Club president Harvey (AC8NO) served as net control operator and did a nice job.

After the net wrapped up at 8:45 PM Steve (N8AR), Andy (N8DEV), and I chatted for another 20 minutes trying to find some rhyme or reason why our Yaesu FTM-400’s are experiencing random audio dropouts.  We did not get it figured out and wrapped up our QSO so Steve and I could check into the LARK (Livingston Amateur Radio Klub) net that started at 9 PM (EDT).  This was the first time I had checked in to this particular net even though LARK is based in Howell and the repeater is closer to us than the ones in South Lyon or Novi.

The LARK Net was much briefer than the SLAARC net and concluded at 9:16 EDT.  Steve and I went back to the South Lyon repeater where Paul (N8BHT) heard us and joined the conversation.  When we finally wrapped up our testing QSO I went back to work on my pull-out pantry drawings.  I was about to shut everything down at 10:45 PM EDT when Mike (W8XH) announced his presence on the South Lyon repeater.  He was mobile but full-quieting and I did not experience any dropouts during our 25 minute QSO.  I took a few minutes to e-mail Jarel and then called it a night.  I had a few almonds as a snack, got ready for bed, and worked on this bog post for a while.

 

2015/07/24 (F) Open and Shut

I was up at 7:30 AM and made coffee but I did not see Mara or Linda until after 9 AM.  Around 9 AM I heard a knock at the front library doorwalls and heard someone saying “hello?,  hello?, David?”  I went out the front door and saw the front end of a red Ford Focus parked in front of our bus.  I had never met this guy but he was not unexpected and I knew he was looking for David LaVoisne, who lived here with his wife, Maria, until we bought the house from them in February 2013.  I knew this guy might stop by as he had once before when we were away and chatted briefly with our lawn care guy, Keith.  I also knew that he had worked with David at the Ford Wixom plant before they retired.

We introduced ourselves and had a nice chat.  I explained that David and Maria had sold the house and their Airstream motorhome, bought a newer motorhome, and were now full-time RVers.  (As I recall they bought a used Foretravel.)  Apparently they did not let all of their friends or former colleagues know what they were doing.  I also mentioned that they had moved the few possessions they did not get rid of to their son’s house somewhere in the region and that they probably visited there occasionally.

Mara emerged about the time our visitor left.  Unfortunately I do not recall his name.  We all had breakfast together after which Mara went about her final departure preparations.  She gave Linda a small fir tree and two small herbs.  Linda transferred the herbs to her herb pots and gave Mara’s small pots back.  She needed to top off her fresh water tank so I helped with that.  The lock on the water fill door stuck in the open position so Mara got her can of dry lube and I sprayed a little in the lock by holding the protective cover open with the tip of the key.  That did the trick, another quick fix to a small but potentially annoying problem.

When her rig was basically ready to go Mara made one last use of the shower, got dressed to travel, unplugged the power cord and stowed it away, and pulled in the slides.  After hugs all around she climbed into the pilot’s seat and fired up the engine and Sabra (one of her two cats) climbed up on the dash just in front of the steering wheel.  I guided her as she backed out onto our road.  She drove down to the court, did a three point turn, and a few minutes later drove past our house in the opposite direction, back on the road again after almost two weeks at our place.  It was noon, but she was only going as far as London, Ontario today.  Linda got a text message later letting us know that she had arrived at the Moose Lodge and the border crossing on the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario had only taken 30 minutes.

After Mara was out of sight I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started a load of warm whites.  I wrote out a list of parts I needed to finish the garage door opener installation and the monitor mounting system in the ham shack and then drove to Lowe’s in Howell.

I was back home by 1:30 PM and we had hummus and chips along with black grapes for lunch.  We started working on the garage door opener installation when my phone signaled that I had a voice message.  It turned out that I had one on the house phone too.  Both messages were from Jarel.  He had a few questions about dimensions on one of desk drawings so I called him back and we sorted that out.  He retrieved the half sheet of walnut veneer plywood from Butch last night and bought 16 board feet of walnut.

In spite of the 85 degree temperature and what felt like high humidity, even though it was only 41%, we worked for about three hours and finished installing the opener on the small garage door.  It was quite an involved process but it worked when we were done.  The new opener has automatic reverse if it encounters an obstruction and an infrared sensor beam about 6″ off the floor.

At 5:30 PM we loaded the old garage door opener into the dump trailer.  We then loaded the old OTA TV antenna pieces.  Brad is picking up the trailer in the morning so we will not fill it but it we put the junk in it that we needed to get out of the garage and a few other things as well.

We took a break around 6 PM to have some water and get off our feet for a while.  At 6:45 PM Linda made salads and cooked up some vegan Italian sausages.  After dinner we planned to work for a while in the ham shack on the installation of the wall-mounted track system but we were too tired to start a project that was going to require decisions and careful attention to detail.  We sat in the living room instead and used our iPads for the usual things.  It was great having Mara here and we look forward to her return someday.  But for now she is off on the next leg of her open-ended adventure and we have a lot of work yet to do to get our bus ready for the 2015-16 winter season.

 

2015/07/23 (R) Wrapping Up Mara

Mara’s plan was to make this the last full day of her visit.  Our day started without her as we had cinnamon raisin toast, juice, and coffee for breakfast.  I got a call from Jarel with clarifying questions and ideas about the desk and the pull-out pantry.  After a thorough discussion we had better ways to approach a few things.  He also had a better feeling for the estimated cost of the project and I agreed to send him 50% as a deposit.

I typed up a short letter and printed off the graph that Steve made of the return loss for the M-302N V/U lightning arrestor.  I packed the unit for shipping to Morgan Manufacturing and included the letter and graph.  Linda wrote out the check for Jarel and got it in an envelope to mail.  She then went to the library, Post Office, and Humane Society where she donated cat and dog paraphernalia that we had accumulated over the years.

While Linda was gone I worked in the bus for a while and Mara worked on travel preparations.  I started by removing the old 3/4″ plywood floor from the refrigerator alcove.  The original plywood bus floor appeared to mostly be in good condition but I will put a new secondary floor in the alcove to keep the refrigerator legs above the level of the new tile floor.  There are a LOT of wires running along the floor of the alcove at the back wall and I may fashion a cover for them and seal up the holes at either end.

I removed the AC dimmer for the living room lights and the DPDT momentary contact DC switch from the floor-mounted walnut box where they were installed.  The DC switch controlled the passenger side sofa footrest.  I had to remove the wires from both switches to get them out.  The AC dimmer was easy but the DC switch had four different color wires with spade connectors.  I made careful note of which terminal each color went to and then pulled the spade connectors off.  With the switches out I was able to remove the box and its mounting cleats from the floor and wall.  This area will be tiled and the box will not be reused.

Out of curiosity I tested the switch with an Ohm meter to see how the terminals were connected internally.  I also checked the wires with a DC volt meter to see how they were being used.  Two of the wires were +12VDC and DC ground and the other two went to a connector that was originally plugged into the footrest.  The switch applied 12VDC to the two load wires in one position and reversed the polarity in the other position, making the footrest go out or in respectively.

Last year I had removed two blank outlet covers on the walnut panel next to the co-pilot seat so I knew that these two switches were originally installed there and subsequently moved to the floor-mounted box.  I unscrewed the 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood panel from the wall to see what was behind it.  What I found was a LOT of wires and it was not a pretty sight.  I re-installed the two switches in their original locations and re-routed some other wires so they went up over the HVAC chase.

There was still a large bundle of wires running along the floor at the base of the HVAC chase that I needed to re-route but I decided not to mess with those today.  They are connected to four different switches and a doorbell and disconnecting everything was going to require careful attention to detail.  I pondered the refrigerator some more and decided there wasn’t anything else I could do with it for now and that I was done working in the bus for today.

There is too much to do at the moment to just sit around so I decided to install the new garage door opener for the small garage door.  New is relative; it has been sitting in the garage in its original packaging since we moved into the house, supplied by the previous owners.  The old one has not worked correctly since we moved in and the previous owners bought the new one but ran out of time to install it.  It turned out to be rather more complicated than I expected, with very comprehensive assembly and installation instructions.  It also turned out to be a two-person project so Linda worked on it with me.

We were working and Mara had started prepping dinner when a UPS truck showed up with four boxes.  The delivery included:  Mara’s refrigerator vent cover; the Cutco knives and scissors, and; the ZioTek track system for wall-mounting the monitors in the ham shack (2 boxes).  The vent cover was due for delivery today but the knives were not due until tomorrow, so we were really glad to see them as two of them were for Mara.  The monitor mounting system was also due for delivery today but I had temporarily forgotten about it.

The north wall of the ham shack/office.  This is where the ZioTek wall-mounted monitor mounting system will go.

The north wall of the ham shack/office. This is where the ZioTek wall-mounted monitor mounting system will go.

Mara was understandably anxious to see if the vent cover fit her base properly.  It was a VentMate and appeared to be identical to the old one.  She climbed up the ladder on the back of her motorhome and I handed parts and tools up to her.  I then climbed up was well.  She removed the old cover and we set the new one in place.  It was a perfect fit!  We put a small amount of putty under each screw head and then ran them down snug and congratulated ourselves on another job completed and well done.

With Linda’s help we put Mara’s kayak back in its custom carrier which fits in the receiver on the back of her motorhome (she does not tow a car).  The carrier was built by a welding shop in Mesa, Arizona to Mara’s specifications and is made from 2″ square tubular steel and powder-coated black.  The carrier holds the kayak diagonally across the back of the motorhome from lower left (driver’s side) to upper right.  The nose of the kayak sits in a pocket near the driver side rear corner of the motorhome and the midpoint is nestled in a much larger cradle.  A strap runs from the nose pocket up to the midpoint on one side and across the kayak to the other side where it is attached to a ratchet and has a hook on the end.  With the hook engaged in a ring the strap is ratcheted tight and the kayak is secure for travel.  Mara runs an anti-theft cable through an eyelet near the nose and attaches a lock for safe keeping.  The tail sticks up higher than the top of the roof-mounted air-conditioner covers but does not extend beyond the passenger side wall.  The tip of the kayak is 13′ 2″ from the ground.

We made good progress on the garage door opener but had to stop at the point where we needed to attach the motor housing to the ceiling as I needed to get some parts (angle iron and lag screws) that did not come with the unit.  The front of the track was attached to the header above the door opening and we left the motor assembly resting on top of a 6 foot stepladder.

The pieces of the ZioTek monitor mounting system laid out on the floor of the ham shack/office.

The pieces of the ZioTek monitor mounting system laid out on the floor of the ham shack/office.

While Mara and Linda prepared dinner I unboxed all of the monitor mounting components.  I was curious to see the parts and wanted to make sure everything was there and undamaged, which was the case.

Dinner was Thai vegan spring rolls in rice flour wrappers.  The prep work was in the cutting of lots of veggies (carrots, zucchini, onions, red and yellow peppers, Chinese cabbage, and mushrooms).  Mara made two dipping sauces, one with ginger, hot peppers, and other things and one based on fish sauce (so we passed on that).  Linda selected our bottle of Malvasia Bianco wine from the Heart of the Desert winery in Alamogordo, NM.  It was white, which we thought would go well with the delicate spring rolls, but very sweet with a slightly thick mouthfeel, like a late harvest Riesling or a Sauternes.  Perhaps not the best choice, but we finished the whole bottle anyway.

We chatted for a while after dinner but like most of our evening meals dinner was a drawn out affair with lots of conversation.  Everyone was tired and the women turned in for the night.  I went to my office and answered e-mails from Gary at BCM that I had seen earlier in the day.  I then went to bed and tried to catch up on blog posts for the last few days but could not stay awake long enough to finish them.

 

2015/07/21 (T) A Long Day

I was awake at 6 AM, and up shortly thereafter, even though I did not set an alarm.  I packed a change of clothes and a few toiletries and then gathered up my cell phone and iPad chargers, my iPad, and my checkbook.  I loaded the desk/pantry drawings and travel bag into my car and then did a temporary installation of the weBoost cellular booster.  I put the outside magnetic base antenna in the center of the roof and experimented with the placement of the inside antenna, eventually setting it above the passenger side sun visor facing down.  I backed out of the driveway at 7:05 AM and headed for Indiana.

I took Hacker to Golf Club to Latson with some thought of stopping at Teeko’s for coffee but decided to get some miles behind me first and proceeded to I-96 westbound towards Lansing.  I should have looked up the frequency for the Lansing area repeater, where Don runs a net Monday through Friday from 7 AM until at least 11 AM, but I didn’t think of that ahead of time.  I would also have had to figure out how to switch Mike’s Icom IC-2820H radio from memory mode to VFO mode.  Eventually I will, but not today.  Today was not about ham radio, it was about bus projects.

I took the Lansing Road cutoff to I-69 south and about 20 miles later took the Lansing Road exit at Charlotte.  I stopped at the Biggby’s Coffee not far from the highway and resumed my trip around 8:30 AM.  When Linda and I drove to Edwardsburg, Michigan to visit Coach Supply Direct on July 1st we discovered that M-60 was closed at Minden (between I-69 and US-131) and had to take a long detour.  Rather than risk having that happen again I headed west on I-94.  I had been playing with the cell phone booster but unplugged it and plugged in the Garmin 465T GPS instead.  I eventually saw that M-40 came all the way north to I-94 and decided to take it instead of US-131.

I had never been on this stretch of M-40.  The road was a good 2-lane at 55 MPH except going through small towns.  I drove through miles and miles of vineyards and eventually got to the charming (looking) little town of Marcellus where I discovered a large Welch’s plant.  I knew that a lot of the grapes grown in southwest Michigan ended up as Welch’s grape juice but I did not know where their processing plants were located.  Now I know where they have at least one.

When I reached the intersection with M-60 in Jones I stopped at the Shell station for fuel.  Regular unleaded was $2.52 per gallon which was better than I had seen so far during the trip.  Instead of continuing down M-40 to US-12 I put the address for Coach Supply Direct into my GPS and headed west on M-60 towards Cassopolis.  The GPS had me bypass Cassopolis by heading south on Calvin Center Road to Brownsville Road and then west to M-62 where I headed south towards Edwardsburg.

When I arrived at Coach Supply Direct it was locked up with no sign of Josh.  I called his 800 number and he answered, which I appreciated.  He was in western Pennsylvania heading home from a customer service call and said he could meet me at the shop after 4 PM.  We agreed that I would call him when I had a clearer picture of what time I could get back to his shop.

I left Edwardsburg and drove back on US-12 to Cassopolis Road which merges briefly with Old-102 and then becomes IN-19 (SR-19) in Indiana.  I stopped at Factory RV Surplus in Elkhart, which is on SR-19, to buy a special two-piece bracket for mounting the edge of a table to a wall.  I saw it on their website and luckily they had it in the store as well.

I proceeded south on SR-19 to US-20, went west to US-31, and took that south to the SR-25 exit at Rochester.  From there it was 22 miles to Logansport and a few more blocks to Jarel Beatty Cabinetry.  Jarel is a cabinet maker and a mutual friend of Butch Williams.  I have been talking to Jarel about the custom desk we wanted for the bus for several years and, more recently, about the pull-out pantry and HVAC duct and wiring chase cover.  The purpose of my visit was to deliver the design drawings for the desk and pantry and go over them with Jarel.  I got there around 1:20 PM and left around 5:50 PM.  After discussing the projects at length we agreed that I would change the design of the pantry so I did not leave those drawings with Jarel.  The Fulterer pantry slide had been delivered to Jarel so I took that with me as it turned out to be too wide for this project.

I set my GPS destination for Edwardsburg and it indicated I would arrive around 7:45 PM.  I called Josh to see if that would work for him and he said it would.  I headed north on SR-25 and then called Butch to let him know that I would not be able to stop and visit or spend the night.  That was probably just as well as he was in the emergency room when I called.  He had nicked his thumb in his table saw and was having it tended to.  I stopped at the Kroger in Rochester to buy some snacks for dinner and got a return call from Butch.

The drive to Edwardsburg was pleasant and took me on some more roads I had not driven before.  US-31 north to US-20 east was familiar territory but I exited at Elm Street (US-331 north) which bypassed the west side of Mishawaka and eventually took me up through Granger and onto M-62 in Michigan.  A few miles later I was at Coach Supply Direct in Edwardsburg where Josh was waiting for me.

I returned the Lambright Comfort Chair fabric samples and the MCD shade material samples (the reason for my visit) and we chatted for about 45 minutes.  Our new MCD shades had already arrived but I asked Josh to hang on to them.  We tentatively agreed that we would bring the coach to his shop on Monday September 14 to have the new chairs and shades installed.  The GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally starts on Wednesday the 16th in Elkhart and Josh offered to let us park at his shop the evenings of the 14th and 15th with 30A electric.

I left around 8:30 PM and started for home.  Again, the initial route was familiar as I took US-12 east to M-40 north, to M-60 and stopped at the Shell station in Jones for the second time today.  I then travelled east on M-60 to Three Rivers where I picked up US-131 northbound.  Rather than continue east on M-60, which I presumed was still closed at Minden, I stayed on US-131 all the way to I-94 between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.  On I-94 east I encountered a major traffic jam due to construction.  The highway was down to one lane and traffic was barely moving as people merged down and then gawked as they went past the very busy construction site.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and familiar as I left I-94 for I-69 north, stopped at the McDonald’s in Charlotte for coffee, and got back on I-69.  I took the Lansing Road cutoff to I-96 and rolled along eastbound to the M-59 exit on the far west edge of Howell.  Eleven miles on M-59 put me at Hacker Road and a few miles later I pulled into the driveway.  It was just after midnight when I arrived, about 17 hours from when I left, and I had put over 550 miles on the car.  I unloaded a few things from the car and then went straight to bed.

 

2015/07/15 (W) Prime Wednesday

It was brisk when we got up this morning, with the temperature in the upper 40’s (F), light breezes, lower humidity, and clear, blue skies.  When the weather in Michigan is at its best it is near perfect.

After our usual coffee and granola we spent a little time browsing Amazon.com looking at their “Prime Wednesday” sale.  Neither of us are compulsive shoppers or impulse buyers and scrolling through thousands of items on a slow Internet connection looking for something we can’t live without at a price we can’t pass up is not our idea of fun.  I have things I need to order, like the multiple monitor mounting system for the ham shack, but it quickly became obvious that I was not going to find those items for sale as part of Amazon’s special July 15 Prime Sale.

Mara was up and took her garbage to our trash to can and returned to her rig.  Linda then took our garbage out and moved the can to the street.  By 10:30 AM Mara had not yet emerged from her rig, so I went to my basement office and resumed work on the custom desk design for our bus.  I still need to design the pull-out pantry but I finally ordered the Fulterer top/bottom slide mount from Rockler and had it shipped directly to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana.  It is a serious piece of hardware that will support 450 pounds, so it should be more than adequate for the task.

Mara eventually emerged from her rig and the ladies left for 12 Oaks Mall and Mara’s first ever appointment with Renee in the J. C. Penney’s Salon.  They were gone quite a while, tacking on several stops at pet and food stores before returning home.

I received a second quote for a wall-mounted monitor mounting system from AFC Industries.  It included itemized pricing and an offer of a 15% discount but was still way too expensive.  Though more expensive than a desk-mounted pole system I decided I to order the ZioTek wall-mounted monitor mounting system from CyberGuys.  Being wall-mounted it will get my monitors completely off the desks, leaving room for ham radio equipment to slide underneath and all the way to the back edge of the desk (and beyond).  It will also isolate the monitors from the desk so they won’t move if the desks are bumped.  Another bonus is that I can move the desks to get to the cables at the back of the radios without having to move the monitors.

The monitor mounting system is a significant purchase so I wanted to make sure the components would work the way I need them to.  I measured the three monitors that will initially be mounted using the system and then made a scale drawing to see how they would fit.  I added all of the items to the shopping cart and was getting ready to complete the purchase when I noticed that a 5% discount was available if I joined their e-mail club.  I signed up, received an e-mail, and confirmed my intention to join but the 5% discount did not show up in my shopping cart.  I called the 800 number and was told it would take 24 hours for the discount to be available so I cleared all of the items out of the cart and will re-enter them tomorrow.

I finally settled in to my design work but took several breaks to talk to friends on the Novi and South Lyon repeaters.  The Morgan Manufacturing VHF/UHF lightning arrestor was once again degrading my signal to an unusable level/quality so I once again disconnected the antenna and radio coax and joined them together with an N-female to N-female barrel adapter.  Once I did that I was able to transmit and receive to/from both repeaters full-quieting.

I exchanged a couple of e-mail updates with Jarel Beatty, the cabinet maker in Logansport, and finally quit working around 5 PM.  I came upstairs and found that the weBoost cellular booster systems had arrived from Amazon so I unpacked the shipping box and opened them.  I had not realized when we ordered them that they were designed for use in a car with an inside antenna that requires the phone or other cellular device to be 18 – 36 inches away.  That is not very far and it is a fairly small range.  As the name implies, however, it is designed for use while in motion which is what both we and Mara need/want.  I decided to temporarily install one of them in Linda’s car to test it.

Sitting in the driveway in a relatively bad location my phone was in 3G mode with a weak, but usable, signal that hovered around -115 to -118 dBm.  With the booster turned on my phone switched to 4G-LTE and the signal strength improved to anywhere between -103 to -94 dBm.  (The less negative the signal strength in dBm the stronger the signal.)  That may not appear impressive on the surface, and it was certainly not the 50 dBm gain that is claimed for this device, but it was actually a significant improvement.

“dB” is the abbreviation for “decibels” which is a logarithmic scale.  Logarithmic scales are useful for representing quantities that vary over a large range, like cellular signal strengths.  A change of 3 dB represents a factor of two, i.e., a doubling or halving of the quantity.  Thus a change from -118 dBm to -115 dBm (decibels to a millivolt) represents a doubling of the received power.  It is still a weak signal, but it is twice as strong.  Going from -118 to -103 is a change of +15 dBm and is five doublings (-118 to -115 to -112 to -109 to -106 to -103) which is an increase of 2x2x2x2x2 = 32 times.  Continuing from -103 to -94 is another +9 dB change representing three more doublings (-103 to -100 to -97 to -94) for a total gain of 32x2x2x2 = 32×8 = 256 times.  Starting from a signal in the -118 to -127 dBm range that is potentially the difference between useable and not useable.  (BTW:  a change of 10 dB is a factor of 10, so going from -115 dBm to -105 dBm and then to -95 dBm represents an increase of 100 times.)

We had decided at dinner last night that we wanted to go to The Blue Nile restaurant while Mara was here.  The best time to go turned out to be this evening, so Linda made an online reservation for 7:30 PM at the Ann Arbor location (there is also one in Ferndale).  We tested the weBoost Drive 4G-X cellular booster on the drive to/from Ann Arbor and it definitely made a difference in the signal strength we saw on our phones.

It wasn’t until we got part way down Main Street that we realized that today was the opening day of the Ann Arbor Art Fair.  The last place I wanted to be driving, parking, or walking was at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, not because I dislike art (we love art), and not because I dislike art fairs, but because I dislike congested traffic and crowds, which the AAAF has in abundance.  Surprisingly, we were able to park in one of the parking structures a couple of blocks from the restaurant.  After fighting our way through the pedestrian traffic I was even more surprised to find the restaurant essentially empty.  The Blue Nile is slightly outside the portion of Main Street where the AAAF takes place and streets to either side that are closed off to vehicles during the AAAF.  All of the restaurants and the beer/burger joints in and around the AAAF venue were doing a brisk business, especially if they had outside seating (it was a very pleasant evening), but the restaurant was open and the host was very gracious.

The Blue Nile serves Ethiopian cuisine.  Some of the tables are upside down rope baskets with four chairs and two side tables.  We always ask to be seated at one of these because we always order the Vegetarian Feast which is, in fact, vegan.  The Feast comes on a large round tray covered with a layer of Ethiopian sponge bread (made from teff flour) with small piles of the seven different vegetable-based dishes on the menu surrounding a pile of (optional) salad in the center.  Beverages and platters of rolled up sponge bread are placed on the two side tables (we had water and Ethiopian spiced tea).  The meal is eaten by tearing off suitable sized pieces of sponge bread and picking up the eight different selections from the tray.  Before the food was brought to the table we were given hot, moist towels to wash our hands.  Nice touch.

The food was amazing and the experience somewhat more communal than sitting at a standard American table and eating with utensils.  The waitstaff was gracious and attentive and it was a wonderful experience for all three of us.  Mara asked one of the waitstaff to take a picture of the three of us, which they gladly did.  She then uploaded it to her Facebook page along with a brief description of her visit and meal.  One the drive home she already had 12 “likes.”  This is the side of Facebook, and other social media, that is fun.

It was getting dark by the time we got back to the house but we took the time to unload Mara’s kayak from its special mount on the rear of her motorhome that is installed in the tow receiver.  The kayak mounts diagonally from the lower driver side up past the roof on the passenger side and the tip is about 13′ 2″ above the ground.  She was leaving at 6:30 AM the next morning to drive to Cummins Bridgeway to have her main engine and genset serviced and would be traveling south on Hacker Road to Grand River Avenue.  The last time we did this we clipped a branch in the southbound lane on Hacker just north of Bendix Drive not far from Grand River Avenue.  I was concerned that she would catch the same branch and damage her kayak which is why we took it off the rig.

Once the kayak was off the back of her rig and sitting in our yard we said a quick “good night” and all trundled off to bed as 6 AM would come all too soon.  I wrote for a while in bed but was too tired, and full of food, to stay awake.

 

2015/07/13 (M) weBoost

Linda got up before I did and went for a long walk.  I was up by the time she got back and made a full pot of the Sumatra Mandheling coffee I just got from Teeko’s.  Mara eventually joined us for coffee and then breakfast.

Mara wanted to get the engine and generator serviced in her Fleetwood Bounder motorhome and asked for recommendations in the area.  There were three relatively convenient options but we had her contact Cummins Bridgeway in New Hudson, in part because she has an Onan (Cummins) generator and in part because we took our Itasca Sunrise motorhome there and were always pleased with the quality of the service.  They said they could take her on Thursday and she set up the appointment.  They estimated three to four hours so she plans to wait for it.

Mara was also interested in a mobile cellular booster for her motorhome, and I have been planning to get one for several years, so we researched the current offerings online.  At one time Wilson Electronics practically owned the mobile booster market.  They have more competition now and their consumer systems have been rebranded “weBoost.”

After scanning what was available we focused in on the weBoost Drive 4G-M and Drive 4G-X.  I downloaded the PDF manuals for each of them and studied the specifications. I don’t care about the marketing hype.  As they used to say on Dragnet “the facts mam, just the facts.”  Both units are 5-band, multi-mode units designed for in-motion use and the specs were very similar, but not identical.  The MSRP on the X model was almost $100 more than the M model so I called Cellular Solutions and talked to Judy.  In practical terms, she said the X model would work with weaker signals.

I was prepared to order two of them but they did not have them in stock at their Sanford, Michigan location.  She thought she could have them to us by Friday but that was not soon enough and we did not want to pay $30 for 2-day shipping on top paying almost $30 in sales tax (for each unit).  So we did what we always do, we checked Amazon.  Amazon had four of the weBoost Drive 4G-X systems so I ordered two of them with Prime 2nd day shipping of $4.99 each and no sales tax.  They are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday July 15 which will give us enough time to get them installed.

The installation on both rigs will require me to attach a steel plate to the roof to act as a base for the small 4″ tall magnetic mount outside antenna.  On our rig I will probably put the antenna up front and screw the plate to the existing aluminum plate, using putty under all the edges and the screw holes, and then caulk around the edge and the heads of the screws.  The cable will come in through the front weatherhead.  On Mara’s rig I will see if I can route the cable through the refrigerator roof vent or the roof-mounted air-conditioner cover.  The route will determine the placement of the steel base plate.

Linda made an appointment for Mara with our hairdresser, Renee, at the J. C. Penney’s salon at 12 Oaks Mall for Wednesday at 1:30 PM.  By the time we had accomplished all of this it was early afternoon and time for a light lunch.  After lunch Linda and Mara went for a long, vigorous walk and I retreated to my office and worked on the custom desk design.  I e-mailed Jarel to see if he would be available on Thursday.  He e-mailed back that any day but Thursday would be OK, so I may go Friday but more likely it will be next Monday.   I thought I could have the design done by Wednesday bedtime, but it would have been a push and I did not want to rush the process and risk making a mistake.  As much as I hate to delay this until next week I may have to.  Mara may leave on Friday, or delay until Saturday or Sunday, and I want to be hear when she leaves.  Meanwhile, Madeline is coming to stay with us on Friday and will be here until Monday.  These are indeed busy times.

I came back upstairs just before 5 PM and found the ladies sitting in the shade at the east end of the deck.  Mara was busy using MapMyPlaces to plan the next leg of her travels from our house to Quebec City, a trip of just under 1,000 miles.  I got a couple of ice cold beers (Linda did not want any) and we sat and talked until Mara returned to her rig at 6:30 PM to tend to her cats and have an hour of quiet time before dinner.

We got back together at 7:30 PM for dinner, which consisted of leftovers plus a simple salad for us.  Dinner led into a long discussion about health and nutrition.  We talked about the Holistic Holiday at Sea vegan cruise, which usually takes place the first week in March, and the vegan summer fest that takes place each July in Pennsylvania.  Mara seemed interested in both and thought she might be able to get her friend, Michael, to go on the cruise with her.

The more we talked the more we thought we might like to go again.  The last time we went, in 2013, we researched places where we could board the cats.  The only place we found that looked any good was in Punta Gorda.  Punta Gorda is quite a drive from Ft. Lauderdale, but it is not that far from Arcadia where we will be parked for January and February.  It would be easy to take the cats there and then drive to the Port of Miami to catch the ship.  However, if Mara goes on the cruise we might have another option.  When she has to leave her rig for a while, such as her recent trip to Belgium, she flies her sister in from California to house and cat sit.  She assured us that “sis” would be happy to take care of our cars as well.  All that would be required would be for us to have our motorhomes at the same RV park.  That could be Big Tree in Arcadia (since we would already be there) or someplace near Miami (if we could both get in).  Adjacent sites would be nice, but not necessary.  I have no idea if we will do this, but it was fun to consider the possibility.

 

2015/07/08 (W) Custom Desk Design

Linda continued to research Florida RV parks this morning over coffee.  Riverside RV Resort which was fully booked but she found Big Tree RV Resort in Arcadia, Florida.  It is located in a similar part of the state and Arcadia is where the annual Arcadia Bus Rally is held between Christmas and New Year’s.  Big Tree is a Carefree Resort, which means they had a nice, professionally done video on their website.  We checked it out on Google Earth and it looked OK.  Hey, the entrance is right across the street from a Walmart, so the shopping is convenient.

Linda called Big Tree and talked to Pat.  They only had five openings for the 2015/16 winter season so we reserved a spot for January and February 2016 with the understanding that we can probably extend through March if needed.  First, however, we want to see if we can find someplace else to stay in another part of Florida for March and perhaps some of April.  We would like to spend some time in northeast Florida.  Our friends, Pat and Vicki, spend late February and early March at Jetty Park near Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral.  Besides their presence there is a lot to see and do in that area, so that is appealing to us.  However, the spring FMCA national rally will be in Perry, Georgia the third week of March, so we are being pulled in several directions.  Such is the RV life; so many places, so little time.

Breakfast was cinnamon raisin toast and fresh melon.  After breakfast I called Chuck It Junk Removal and left a message that we would like to rent their dumpster trailer for starting on Monday 20 July with pickup on Friday 24 July.  Brad called back and said those dates would work for him.

Linda continued to research RV parks in Florida for December and March.  She called Williston Crossings to ask about space for December but the lady on the phone said someone else would have to call us back.  As much as we liked Williston Crossings the winter before last we wanted to spend the heart of the winter farther south in the state.  A more southerly location would afford us a warmer climate and position us to explore a part of the state we did not see last time.  It would also put us closer to many of our friends who winter in southwest Florida.  We really enjoyed the southwest Arizona climate this past winter and have talked about trying a winter in southern Texas and/or southern New Mexico.  I have no doubt we will visit those areas in future years but this year we wanted to return to Florida.

I typed up a short letter to go with the defective Morgan M-302N coaxial cable lightning arrestor and boxed it up for shipping back to Morgan Manufacturing in Martinsville, Indiana.  Linda got a new 90-day prescription for me when she saw the dermatologist yesterday so we also got that ready to mail.  She then left for the library, post office, and grocery store.

My focus for the rest of the morning was on uploading posts to our personal blog but before I even got started I discovered a mouse at the entrance to the utility area in the basement.  It had not survived its encounter with one of our cats, probably Juniper, so I put it in a small zip lock bag and put it in the trash.  I know that food and shelter are powerful attractions for mice but I am surprised that the presence of two cats in the house is apparently not a deterrent for them.  Other than the one mouse we live trapped in the bathroom the mice are not taking the bait so far.  Indeed, it may be that we are luring them out of hiding and Juniper has figured out where to lie in waiting to ambush them.  From what we have seen she is a very skilled, and determined, mouser.

Linda went for a walk as soon as she got back from running her errands.  By the time she returned and prepared tofu hotdogs for lunch I had uploaded eight blog posts covering June 8 through 15.  After lunch I sent an e-mail to a dozen or so folks letting them know where we would be this winter.  I then got to work on the design for the custom desk.  Except for a dinner break I worked on it until 9 PM when I quit for the day and went upstairs to watch the final episode of The First Peoples on PBS.

Butch and Fonda are at the Crosley Automobile Club national gathering in Wauseon, Ohio this week and will be back home on Sunday.  I would like to have the design for the desk and other custom woodwork done by this Sunday so I can drive it down on Monday or Tuesday next week, give it to Jarel Beatty (the cabinet maker), and visit with Butch and Fonda before heading home.  The desk will take some time to build and I would like to take the bus to Butch and Fonda’s in August before they leave for Arizona so Jarel can bring it to their place and help me install it, assuming, of course, that I have the new floor installed by then.

The desk is proving to be quite challenging to design but after thinking about it for the last couple of weeks I had several “breakthrough” ideas today.  One was to turn the printer 90 degrees so it faces fore and aft rather than side-to-side.  Another was to leave the front of the printer box open and cover it with a swing up work surface.  But the basic difficulty I am having is figuring out how to draw it.  I finally decided to draw a plan view of the base which really helped me see where the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers will go and how the coolant lines will run.  I still have a lot of work to do, and I really wish I had AutoCAD (and knew how to use it), but I went to bed feeling like Sunday was a realistic target date for this piece of the project.

 

2015/06/18 (R) Chiseled Bikinis

The light rain that started late yesterday afternoon continued off-and-on through the overnight hours.  We awoke to heavily overcast skies but a forecast that called for dry conditions until the early afternoon.  We were up at 7:15 AM and had our usual granola breakfast.  I took some more Ibuprofen in advance of working in the bus.  We were just getting ready to have our morning coffee when I noticed several cars in the driveway.  It was 7:45 AM and the roofers were arriving.  Pat Davidson was among them so I went outside to chat briefly with him.

We had our morning coffee and then got to work, Linda at her desk and me in the bus. I spent another two hours using the Makita 11 pound power chisel.  By 11 AM I had removed as much material from the floor as I felt was worth the effort.  Linda brought the camera out and took a few photographs of me at work after which I packed up the equipment, closed up the bus, and went to Home Depot in Howell to return it to their rental department.

I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home and ordered the new Frigidaire refrigerator for the bus, an FFHT1621QB (16.3 cu. ft., top freezer, black, no ice maker or water).  I scheduled delivery for Friday July 3rd to Chuck’s shop in Novi.  I will arrange with Chuck to take the bus their sometime after that when he is available to operate his fork lift and I can get Brendan or some friends to give us a hand.

Me using the Makita 11 lb power chisel to remove thinset and mastic from the floor of our H3-40.  (Photo by Linda)

Me using the Makita 11 lb power chisel to remove thinset and mastic from the floor of our H3-40. (Photo by Linda)

Work continued on the roof through the morning and then the crew tarped off the roof and left in a few of their vehicles for a long lunch.  As forecast it started to sprinkle around 2 PM as they returned from their lunch break.  It never rained hard and they kept on working but always with the tarps at the ready in case they were suddenly needed.  One of the guys finished installing our two Velux Sun Tunnel skylights which required a tall step ladder in our living room.  They looked very nice when he was done.

I had a chat with Jarel Beatty in Logansport, Indiana about the custom desk he is going to build for the bus.  I sent him a follow-up e-mail describing the pullout pantry we also need him to build.  I then spent an hour working on drawings before I had to quit and change clothes.

Kate had secured tickets through her cousin, Michaela, for this evening’s performance of The Bikinis at the Meadow Brooke Theatre at Oakland University in Rochester Hills.  Kate suggested O’Conner’s Public House (Irish Pub) in Rochester for dinner.  The roofers had been working in the living room installing the Velux Sun Tunnel skylights but were done by 3:45 PM.  That allowed us to get cleaned up, dressed for the theatre, and out the door at 4:30 PM even though the roofers were still working up on the roof.

We got to the pub at 6 PM.  Kate got there shortly before us and had ordered a soft pretzel appetizer before the happy hour prices expired at 6 PM.  Conveniently there were three large sticks so we each got one.  Kate got the cheesy dipping sauce and we split the spicy horseradish mustard, which really had a kick to it.  Linda and Kate each had a Smithwicks ale and I had a pineapple ale.  To paraphrase “the world’s most interesting man”:  I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer a fruit beer.  Not as mysterious as Dos Equis, or as authentic as Guinness, but it’s what I like.  Kate had a regular (beef) burger and we both had black bean burgers on soft pretzel buns with fresh hand-cut French fries.  The burgers and fries were both really good and the pretzel buns, which had been toasted on a grill, did not get soggy.

The musical was a lot of fun with a wonderful performance by the cast of four women.  All four of them were on stage singing and dancing with a lot of energy for most of the performance.  Their singing was excellent, each voice having its own unique quality but blending well, and they carried 4-part harmonies in tune with one another and the small 4-pieces band.  Two of them, Bambi Jones and Jeanne Tinker, were also in the Meshuggah Nuns musical we saw a month or so ago at the Meadow Brooke Theatre.

The Bikinis is the last production that Kate’s cousin Michaela will work on at the MBT.  The production run ends on Sunday and one week later she leaves for a summer stock gig in New England.  Meadow Brooke Theatre is a wonderful venue but not convenient to where we live, even less convenient to where Kate works, and very inconvenient to where she lives.  All of which is to say, I doubt that the three of us will be going there very often now that Michaela is moving on.  That is too bad in a way as we have all enjoyed the shows we have seen.  The fact that Michaela, as a cast/crew member, was able to get us tickets did not hurt.

Michaela met us in the lobby where Kate gave her a nice assortment of flowers.  She then gave us a behind the scenes tour of the wardrobe area where she has spent the past year working on costuming.  We walked out to our cars and by the time we all drove off it was 11 PM.  Even with light traffic it took us almost an hour to get home but we arrived while it was still Thursday, albeit just barely.