Tag Archives: Lloyd De Gerald

2014/06/13 (F) Day 3 Shop-Learn-Eat

Day 3 of the 2014 GLAMARAMA kicked off with coffee and doughnuts at 7:30 AM.  Those attendees going on the morning tour of the Jayco factory had to assemble early.  We had coffee and visited with friends until the vendors opened at 9:00 AM.

At the 2013 GLAMARAMA last September I had decided to buy a small video camera/recorder to mount on the inside of the windshield and record what is happening in front of the coach.  By the time I went to buy it on the last day at 3:00 PM the vendors were closed.  I did not make the same mistake this time and bought one this morning.  We still need to get a 32 GB high speed SD card to go with it.

We had spotted some Velcro straps at another vendor and decided to buy a pair to use for securing the Pressure Pro TPMS repeater to the inside rear view mirror in our Honda Element.  The same vendor had an LED light that looked like it might fit in our downlights.  They loaned us one to try.  It fit well and the light was OK.  I returned the sample and bought a new one.  Lloyd De Gerald had his Aqua-Hot service booth right next to the Aqua-Hot factory booth and I purchased an inline secondary fuel filter from him.

Michele Henry from Phoenix Paint ordered some silver (white) reflective tape for us as it was on sale and we thought it might look OK around the lower portion of our bus.  (There is a channel on all of the lower body panels, as well as the front and rear bumpers, where this reflective tape is intended to go.)  Our hope was that the tape would reflect the adjacent paint color while making the bus much more visible at night.  Alas, it did not pick up the surrounding color and the tape was a little wider than the channel, which would complicate the installation.  I did not see it, but Linda did, and did not like the way it looked.

Josh Leach specializes in interior projects and is currently working out the Phoenix Paint facility.  He teamed up with Darin Hathaway (the Aqua-Hot technician who serviced our Aqua-Hot system on Monday) and Michele Henry (who painted our coach two years ago) to get a booth at the GLAMARAMA.  We discussed our interior remodeling ideas and agreed to have him come by the coach to see it.

Just after noon Linda drove to the Whole Foods store in Mishawaka, Indiana to get ingredients for dishes she planned to serve back at the house on Sunday.  I attended two seminars, both by Gary Bunzer (the RV Doctor).  The first one was on balanced battery systems.  The key concept of that seminar was that there are poor, OK, and optimal was to interconnect multiple batteries to form a battery bank of the required voltage and energy storage capacity (Amp-Hours).  The second seminar was on controlling/eliminating holding tank odors.  Linda dropped in on this one for a little while and then headed over to the reception for vendors and chapter officers.  I joined her at the reception after the seminar concluded.  Gary has published a column somewhere on RV maintenance and operation every month for the last 38 years.

The vendor and chapter officers reception was very nice, with fresh fruit and veggies, cheese and crackers, some deli meats, and a choice of wines.  We returned to our coach for a little while after the reception before heading over to the evening entertainment.  Keith Longbothum and his sidekick, an excellent harmonica player, put on a high energy show that was initially Nashville country but morphed into gospel and patriotic.  One thing I noticed about entertainment tonight and on Wednesday was the use of pre-recorded instrumental soundtracks which make it possible for a small ensemble to produce a very full sound without having to pay a lot of musicians.

There was a door prize drawing after the entertainment.  We did not win.  The head of the parking crew also gave instructions for departure on Sunday.

 

2013_09_20 (Fri) Techs and Trains

The Frustrated Maestros perform each day at breakfast.

The Frustrated Maestros perform each day at breakfast.

I was up early again working on blog posts and finally uploaded several pertaining to early last week.  By the time Linda got up it was time to walk over and get some coffee.  We tried to catch Michael Canode before his 9:00 AM seminar on digital photograph, but did not get there in time.  I missed his seminar yesterday on designing and publishing website, but he offered to bring a copy of the handouts to today’s seminar.

Breakfast was coffee and donuts (rear) with “concert” and table seating.

Breakfast was coffee and donuts (rear) with “concert” and table seating.

We headed back to the vendor area, found Lloyd De Gerald, and paid him for the annual maintenance he did on our Aqua-Hot yesterday.  We also bought a replacement nozzle to keep on hand.  Lloyd suggested that we have the spare nozzle installed at our next annual service and buy another one to replace it at that time.  His experience has been that nozzles that sit unused for too long often do work well when they are finally installed.

The morning was overcast and a bit dreary, so there were not a lot of folks talking to the outside vendors.  We took the opportunity to chat with Lloyd about our interior remodeling plans and asked him what issues we should anticipate in moving the heat exchangers.  He said that the coolant loops can be difficult to prime if they get drained and suggested that once we had re-plumbed everything it might be best for us to have him refill and start the system.

He also indicated that we could have up to three heat exchangers on each of the three zones (bedroom, bathroom, and living room / kitchen.)  We have one heat exchanger in the bedroom, one in the bathroom, and two in the living room.  We also have radiators in the water bay and the front storage bay.  Lloyd indicated that the water bay was probably plumbed in with the bathroom and the front bay was probably plumbed in with the LR/kitchen, but that was not guaranteed.  It should be easy enough to determine this by turning on the Aqua-Hot and then activating one zone at a time and checking for heat; I just haven’t bothered to do this yet.  He suggested that we add heat exchangers to have three per loop, and that we replace the radiators in the bays with heat exchangers (which have fans).  He also said the newer heat exchangers are smaller and much quieter than the ones that are probably in our bus conversion, and that we should probably replace those as well when we remodel the passenger side of the kitchen/LR area.

We needed to kill some time before Michael’s seminar ended, so we strolled through the inside vendor building again.  The FMCA booth had shirts on sale, and they were even cheaper with our “rally bucks” coupons, so we bought a matching pair of plum pocket Ts.  (The matching clothes phenomenon gets a double whammy due to age and RVing sub-culture.)  We caught up with Michael at the end of his photography seminar.  Someone had taken the handout he brought so he e-mailed the PowerPoint file to me.  We ran into Butch and Fonda.  Butch and I decided to wander over to Ron & Meredith Walker’s coach to see if we could fix the new door latch.  The part arrived yesterday from Prevost and Ron had installed it, but it wasn’t working quite right.  Butch saw what was wrong right away and corrected it.  We then returned to our buses where Linda and I had leftover pizza for lunch and I took a nap.  (That’s the problem with getting up really, really early; not that I consider taking a nap a problem.)

The Blue Ox technician showed up mid-afternoon to service our Avanti II tow bar and brought my nap to an end.  The tow bar is showing signs of stretching in the latch pin holes and will apparently need to be replaced sooner rather than later; but not today.  He completely disassembled the tow bar, cleaned it thoroughly, added new rub plates (washer), lubricated it, and reassembled it.  I thought that was a pretty good deal for $25.  Since I was now awake again, I did more work on blog postings and we had more leftover pizza for dinner.

I have been remiss in not saying more about the trains going past the fairgrounds. The trains have been so constant here that I am hardly aware of them anymore and keep forgetting to mention them.  The tracks run along the southern edge of the fairgrounds and the trains seem to be almost constant at times.  Linda read online that a train passes through Goshen approximately every 6 minutes, presumably headed to or from the Chicago area to points east and south of here.  These are often medium length trains traveling fairly fast in both directions and the sound their horns long and loud at every crossing, of which there appear to be a very large number.

Linda talking with Alma Baker (L) and George and Sue Myers (R) at the reception for officers and vendors.

Linda talking with Alma Baker (L) and George and Sue Myers (R) at the reception for officers and vendors.

We went to a 4:15 PM reception for officers and vendors.  This was a “ticketed” event, and we got to attend because Linda is the Treasurer of the Great Lakes Converted Coaches, which is organized under GLAMA, and I am the VP/Secretary of the Freethinkers Associate Chapter, which is organized under the International Area (INTO).  This was another new feature at this rally, and was another example of how FMCA and its area associations are trying to recognize those who serve and make FMCA function.

Officers reception in the food hall, hor d’oeuvres and beverages on the left, seating on the right.

Officers reception in the food hall, hor d’oeuvres and beverages on the left, seating on the right.

FMCA has 11 areas and almost 500 chapters, but many of the members do not belong to a chapter and/or have never been to a rally.  Not that chapters and rallies are for everyone, but FMCA is very much aware that members who do not get involved in a chapter and/or attend an occasional rally often do not remain long-term members.  And why should they?  If you don’t engage with the people that are the organization, the benefit of membership boils down to a monthly magazine.  This is essentially our relationship with the Good Sam Club up to this point.  Our Good Sam membership is paid through 2017, but I don’t know if we will renew it at that time.  We have, however, met several people over the last few months that recently attended Good Sam rallies and said they were excellent and that they had a great time.  Of course, endorsements are like movie reviews, not very meaningful unless/until you can calibrate your taste with that of the reviewer.

The last light of the day.

The last light of the day.

The reception provided enough food for our dinner and we returned to our coach to relax before going to the evening entertainment.  The last light of the day turned dramatic as we were preparing to leave.  The featured performer for the evening entertainment was Sarah Getto, assisted by her father, who drives her motorhome, sets up the equipment, and runs the sound board.  He is also a guitarist and adds guitar and vocals to some of her songs.  Blind from birth and born with a cleft palette and lip, she is now an attractive, talented, 29 year old singer/songwriter with a music education degree that included training as an opera singer  Her preferred vocal style, however, tends to lean towards country, although she does a very good impersonation of Karen Carpenter.  She has much richer sound on stage than you would expect from a solo keyboard, as she prerecords richly layered sound tracks and then performs along with them.  All of the vocal and instrumental work on these sound tracks is done by her, and her dad was very transparent about the process Sarah uses to create her shows.  We enjoyed her performance along with the rest of the audience.

The evening concluded with a 50/50 drawing and door prizes.  We didn’t win anything, but that was OK.