Wow the last few weeks have been stressful and today was no exception.
Short story with most of the last few weeks is Thom has a new job. Funny thing is it is at the same place and doing the same job but with a different company. That's the short of it but it was long in that it was a bidding war with several companies and whether we would stay in California or move to Texas. It was almost Texas but just a few days before vacation was supposed to start on Monday it ended up with us now staying in California.
Now onto the last 2 days of packing and getting ready to go. On irv2.com I read about where a couple's TV fell out of the slot above crashed in between the driver and passenger's seats and just missed hitting their 3 dogs. Needless to say Thom had to make sure that ours was not going to do that. Well we did not get to pull out on Monday and finished up getting ready to pull out on Tuesday. We were going California to Florida to Alabama and then back to California all within 2 weeks.
Well as we started to pull out the brake controller started saying that first it was connected to the trailer and then it said it wasn't so checked several things and unconnected and reconnected several points and viola it worked. So down the road we go about 15 miles and all of a sudden the volts on the engine start to go down. The power going down is never a good thing. So off to the side we pull over and check the voltage regulator since the last time it did this it was coming half unplugged. It was not that. So we tried a few things including putting the invertor on standby/off. That seemed to help the power stay up. Then about 10 miles later we go to stop at a stop light and there are almost no brakes. We end up going thru the red light, luckily there was no opposite traffic coming and we did not hit anyone. Finally got stopped and after a few minutes they started to work. And then about 15 more miles down the road the volts again started going wonky. You would think something was saying to NOT to go on the trip. Well since the only real reason for us going all the way across the country was to see the youngest where he was stationed we just decided to turn around and stay at the Antelope Fairgrounds for a few days.
Needless to say we are not going to Florida or Alabama. We may need a new alternator and/or voltage regulator. Then we need to replace all the brake lights and change them out to LED in the back since that seems to not help the voltage stay up when we put them on. Then trace a short back on the front passenger lights.
Wow again on what's happened over the last few days.
I will try to keep posting over the next few days and weeks to let you all know what happens next.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
March 11, 2013
Well, it seems that more and more people are finding my little blog. There are more comments and questions. If you do post a comment it will not show up right away so don't be concerned if you don't see it right away. I can see what country people are showing up from. Any blog can show you all kinds of information on who is visiting your site. What I cannot see is people's personal information and that is fine. That being said it seems that I am now seeing more people from Russia showing up. Yes some of the sites that are "referring" are spam but some are not and it seems more non spam Russians are reading the blog. Welcome to all the people all over the world that read about my little trials and tribulations of living in an RV and well just living.
Hmm let's see what's been going on for the last few weeks.
Yes the leak is fixed for the grey tank so more leaks there. Remember that you do NOT need to get alot of stuff to fix one of these things from an RV store. Most of the time when they put RV on the label they also up the price and usually by alot. To get the parts for the plumbing we got them from the big box hard ware store, in our case it was Lowe's. They cost maybe about $20 total for all the pieces.
Thou now we seem to have a leak in the roof. We are in CA where it really does not rain all that much or we probably would have seen the leak before now. But we know it's there now. Some would say "just get some silicone caulking and fix it" but they would be VERY wrong. Silicone might work on most roofs but NOT on RV roof. Silicone does not flex all that well and it will crack and pull away from where it's attached. What you need is to use either something like Eternabond tape or Polyurethane caulk. Silicone and/or latex is not really good for areas that need to move. We will get to the fix soon, had to wait till the rain stopped and now Thom has to wait till after work.
Oh!!! One thing we did about 2 weeks ago was to go to The Edwardian Ball in Los Angeles this year. It was amusing and amazing. If anyone wants to see some pics from this year and past years you can go to Edwardian Ball yes everyone dresses in "costume" and they are encouraged to do so. Yep we dressed up too. Well we have all kinds of costume pieces from doing all the faires and festivals over the year so we dressed. I can tell you that if you are one of those that does not like to see people with coloured hair or with not so normal clothes on then I would suggest you not go. Some people just seem to believe "Individuality is fine as long as we are all the same". That's fine for them but don't push it on me, lol. Oh my hair is purple again and Thom's is major blue again. We heard a new band, well they are new to us anyway, called Rosin Coven. We picked up their newest CD while there.
Well I did put up a notice in the RV park here to see if anyone would like to have Gascap our cat ...... no I did not want to do that but Thom's allergies are worse so his health has to come first. Someone over here has a rather large dog and a few weeks ago the dog had 14 puppies, not sure how much she is selling them for thou.
We are thinking of replacing the RV fridge with a residential one. Not sure yet when but I have a feeling it will be sooner or later that the RV fridge will go away.
Last week I did 3 days of baking - 2 batches of Snickerdoodles, 2 batches of Hazelnut cookies and 4 batches of Granola muffins. Then I sent out 3 packages to a few people. They all loved them. Well since 2 of them went to the boys I cannot see them saying "mom that sucked!" ROFLMAO. I will post the recipe's here shortly on the recipe page.
Thom's bass playing is getting back to where it was a few years ago when he was in the band. No you probably have not heard of their band as they were local in Florida about 10 years ago. But they did and do have fun when they play. Come August Thom and Andy will be on stage again at a festival. They have written a few originals together. Oh well we shall see lol.
Edit for today: I forgot to add in that there were some auditions for a Panto of Snow White yesterday. Thom will be cast for sure in the play but since I do have some medical problems I just cannot do the dancing that will be required for the show so the director asked me to be stage manager instead. Well she knows that I will be at every rehersal anyway cause Thom will be in so why not help out. Thom's directed shows and I have helped him before so it won't be that much different. It does take someone who is somewhat OCD to be able to remember what the footwork is for everyone and where props go and I am a little OCD, lol.
Hmm let's see what's been going on for the last few weeks.
Yes the leak is fixed for the grey tank so more leaks there. Remember that you do NOT need to get alot of stuff to fix one of these things from an RV store. Most of the time when they put RV on the label they also up the price and usually by alot. To get the parts for the plumbing we got them from the big box hard ware store, in our case it was Lowe's. They cost maybe about $20 total for all the pieces.
Thou now we seem to have a leak in the roof. We are in CA where it really does not rain all that much or we probably would have seen the leak before now. But we know it's there now. Some would say "just get some silicone caulking and fix it" but they would be VERY wrong. Silicone might work on most roofs but NOT on RV roof. Silicone does not flex all that well and it will crack and pull away from where it's attached. What you need is to use either something like Eternabond tape or Polyurethane caulk. Silicone and/or latex is not really good for areas that need to move. We will get to the fix soon, had to wait till the rain stopped and now Thom has to wait till after work.
Oh!!! One thing we did about 2 weeks ago was to go to The Edwardian Ball in Los Angeles this year. It was amusing and amazing. If anyone wants to see some pics from this year and past years you can go to Edwardian Ball yes everyone dresses in "costume" and they are encouraged to do so. Yep we dressed up too. Well we have all kinds of costume pieces from doing all the faires and festivals over the year so we dressed. I can tell you that if you are one of those that does not like to see people with coloured hair or with not so normal clothes on then I would suggest you not go. Some people just seem to believe "Individuality is fine as long as we are all the same". That's fine for them but don't push it on me, lol. Oh my hair is purple again and Thom's is major blue again. We heard a new band, well they are new to us anyway, called Rosin Coven. We picked up their newest CD while there.
Well I did put up a notice in the RV park here to see if anyone would like to have Gascap our cat ...... no I did not want to do that but Thom's allergies are worse so his health has to come first. Someone over here has a rather large dog and a few weeks ago the dog had 14 puppies, not sure how much she is selling them for thou.
We are thinking of replacing the RV fridge with a residential one. Not sure yet when but I have a feeling it will be sooner or later that the RV fridge will go away.
Last week I did 3 days of baking - 2 batches of Snickerdoodles, 2 batches of Hazelnut cookies and 4 batches of Granola muffins. Then I sent out 3 packages to a few people. They all loved them. Well since 2 of them went to the boys I cannot see them saying "mom that sucked!" ROFLMAO. I will post the recipe's here shortly on the recipe page.
Thom's bass playing is getting back to where it was a few years ago when he was in the band. No you probably have not heard of their band as they were local in Florida about 10 years ago. But they did and do have fun when they play. Come August Thom and Andy will be on stage again at a festival. They have written a few originals together. Oh well we shall see lol.
Edit for today: I forgot to add in that there were some auditions for a Panto of Snow White yesterday. Thom will be cast for sure in the play but since I do have some medical problems I just cannot do the dancing that will be required for the show so the director asked me to be stage manager instead. Well she knows that I will be at every rehersal anyway cause Thom will be in so why not help out. Thom's directed shows and I have helped him before so it won't be that much different. It does take someone who is somewhat OCD to be able to remember what the footwork is for everyone and where props go and I am a little OCD, lol.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013
Not too much right now going on but here's some stuff.
We had a small leak at a connection point in the grey line in the service bay itself. Put it off on fixing but we finally took the time Sunday the 17th to fix it. Thought we had all the parts together but for some reason the 90 degree was missing/missplaced. Well Thom took apart the whole thing and we took it to the hardware store just to be sure we got the right piece. Good thing we did do that cause there are lots of different sizes on the pipes. Also got a "real" hacksaw not the little mobile one.
Got the rest of the stuff we needed and went home.
Then we started to do what we had to fix and put it all back together. Thom then changed out the other light to an LED one. We had picked up several little circular marine LED's to change out that one and the ones for the steps, so while it was open in the bay Thom did it. We still have one light there to change out but the ones we got will not work there so we need a different one, oh well. Well, as Thom went to put all the covers back on and that one that we have not changed yet seems to have a short somewhere cause it caused the 20 amp fuse to blow. Well we ended up needing to change out 2 20 amp fuses and as long as we don't do anything to that cover and light they don't blow. Thom will try to figure out why but it was getting on past dark and getting close to bed time so for now it's just closed up. That fuse only impacts a couple of lights inside according to the schematics that we have. We've had that fuse blow before but we thought we had fixed the problem but I guess not. Well it will get fixed soon now that we know it's a little bigger. And even thou we picked up a whole house water filter system the other night we decided to not add that just yet cause of it getting so dark.
We are thinking about giving the cat - Gascap - away. Thom is quite allergic to cats and we should not have gotten one but we've had one before Gascap and Thom was able to work around the allergies but with us now in an RV and with Thom getting a little older and allergies do get worse as you get older .... Whomever does get to take Gascap will have to be a place that does not have young kids or other animals. Gascap is a love but he is very skittish and sometimes younger kids and other animals jump all over which would not be good for him. We've had him for about 3 years and have traveled all over with him. Travel in a car is not something he likes but the RV he enjoy's. He see's us put things away and stuff he gets in his spot which is on the dash. He really enjoy's watching out the window as we go down the road. We are not just going to take him to a shelter thou. So if anyone is thinking about a cat let me know and you can come visit him to see if he's a fit for you. We are near Santa Clarita, CA right now.
Thom and Andy are getting the band back together and will be playing at Grinfest in August. Things go well who knows what might happen, well we will see.
We are on our 4th set of managers over here at the RV park in 6 months. Frank was here for about 3 yrs and then moved on. The next set was a couple and they lasted about 3 wks and had 24 hrs to leave the park. The 3rd set was another couple and after about 2 1/2 mths he got a better job and they left. We now have just a guy with Chelsea back in the office. Honestly the owner should just let Chelsea do the job, she's been here for almost 4 yrs and knows the system inside and out. But she has 2 things going against her - 1 she is female and 2 she just turned 21. The owner will not give it to a female 21 yr old but he relies on her to fix the mistakes of everyone else ..... The same groups and families keep coming back yr after yr and they don't want to deal with anyone else but Chelsea and her mother. They take care of just about everything. Anyway enough of my ranting.
We had a small leak at a connection point in the grey line in the service bay itself. Put it off on fixing but we finally took the time Sunday the 17th to fix it. Thought we had all the parts together but for some reason the 90 degree was missing/missplaced. Well Thom took apart the whole thing and we took it to the hardware store just to be sure we got the right piece. Good thing we did do that cause there are lots of different sizes on the pipes. Also got a "real" hacksaw not the little mobile one.
Got the rest of the stuff we needed and went home.
Then we started to do what we had to fix and put it all back together. Thom then changed out the other light to an LED one. We had picked up several little circular marine LED's to change out that one and the ones for the steps, so while it was open in the bay Thom did it. We still have one light there to change out but the ones we got will not work there so we need a different one, oh well. Well, as Thom went to put all the covers back on and that one that we have not changed yet seems to have a short somewhere cause it caused the 20 amp fuse to blow. Well we ended up needing to change out 2 20 amp fuses and as long as we don't do anything to that cover and light they don't blow. Thom will try to figure out why but it was getting on past dark and getting close to bed time so for now it's just closed up. That fuse only impacts a couple of lights inside according to the schematics that we have. We've had that fuse blow before but we thought we had fixed the problem but I guess not. Well it will get fixed soon now that we know it's a little bigger. And even thou we picked up a whole house water filter system the other night we decided to not add that just yet cause of it getting so dark.
We are thinking about giving the cat - Gascap - away. Thom is quite allergic to cats and we should not have gotten one but we've had one before Gascap and Thom was able to work around the allergies but with us now in an RV and with Thom getting a little older and allergies do get worse as you get older .... Whomever does get to take Gascap will have to be a place that does not have young kids or other animals. Gascap is a love but he is very skittish and sometimes younger kids and other animals jump all over which would not be good for him. We've had him for about 3 years and have traveled all over with him. Travel in a car is not something he likes but the RV he enjoy's. He see's us put things away and stuff he gets in his spot which is on the dash. He really enjoy's watching out the window as we go down the road. We are not just going to take him to a shelter thou. So if anyone is thinking about a cat let me know and you can come visit him to see if he's a fit for you. We are near Santa Clarita, CA right now.
Thom and Andy are getting the band back together and will be playing at Grinfest in August. Things go well who knows what might happen, well we will see.
We are on our 4th set of managers over here at the RV park in 6 months. Frank was here for about 3 yrs and then moved on. The next set was a couple and they lasted about 3 wks and had 24 hrs to leave the park. The 3rd set was another couple and after about 2 1/2 mths he got a better job and they left. We now have just a guy with Chelsea back in the office. Honestly the owner should just let Chelsea do the job, she's been here for almost 4 yrs and knows the system inside and out. But she has 2 things going against her - 1 she is female and 2 she just turned 21. The owner will not give it to a female 21 yr old but he relies on her to fix the mistakes of everyone else ..... The same groups and families keep coming back yr after yr and they don't want to deal with anyone else but Chelsea and her mother. They take care of just about everything. Anyway enough of my ranting.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Feb 1, 2013
I know I could try to come up with names or titles for each page but it's just easier for me to just use the date, this way I am not trying to come up with things and use more time on just the title.
Some have asked where we got our new inv/char. Well we got it off of Ebay as a package deal. That is the inv/char, new control panal and new wiring to go from the control panal to the inv/char. It cost us around $1200 if I remember right.
We have also been asked about where we stay for the price we get. We pay $520 a month for FHU and wi-fi, that is electric, water, sewer and wi-fi. You can find places that do not charge for the amount of electric, you just have to call around. If you know you are going to be in an area for 6 months or more you could call up some MH parks to see if they will allow an RV to set up for a short time. Some are doing that now. One good thing with a MH park is you should have access to cable connections for TV and/or internet. You will have to pay for it of course but it might be an option. Just remember with an RV if you don't like your neighbors you can pack up fast and move to the next spot. Check out any place first before settling on one long term.
Here's a story about Lisa, our granddaughter. Josh and Erin had a parent/teacher conference yesterday. Appearently all the parents had a meeting setup for yesterday to go over how the kids were doing in their first year in school so far.
Kids start off kindergarten at lvl 1 for reading and should be at lvl 4 by the end of the year, Lisa is already at lvl 8. Because of the what Joshua has her reading it seems she has picked up on the fact that for talking you use quotation marks to tell what the person said. She has no clue why just that cause she sees it all the time she knows thats what you do. It seems that now until 2nd grade the kids can get away with writing phonetically and not correctly but Lisa is writing all words correctly. (ie sign We as adults understand there is a silent g but they don't bother to correct kids until 2nd grade.) Anyway the upstart to the whole thing is they are recommending her for an advanced class now so that she does not get bored with school.
Now I am about to go into infomercial mode here, so you can stop reading now if you don't want to read this part:
Some have asked where we got our new inv/char. Well we got it off of Ebay as a package deal. That is the inv/char, new control panal and new wiring to go from the control panal to the inv/char. It cost us around $1200 if I remember right.
We have also been asked about where we stay for the price we get. We pay $520 a month for FHU and wi-fi, that is electric, water, sewer and wi-fi. You can find places that do not charge for the amount of electric, you just have to call around. If you know you are going to be in an area for 6 months or more you could call up some MH parks to see if they will allow an RV to set up for a short time. Some are doing that now. One good thing with a MH park is you should have access to cable connections for TV and/or internet. You will have to pay for it of course but it might be an option. Just remember with an RV if you don't like your neighbors you can pack up fast and move to the next spot. Check out any place first before settling on one long term.
Here's a story about Lisa, our granddaughter. Josh and Erin had a parent/teacher conference yesterday. Appearently all the parents had a meeting setup for yesterday to go over how the kids were doing in their first year in school so far.
Kids start off kindergarten at lvl 1 for reading and should be at lvl 4 by the end of the year, Lisa is already at lvl 8. Because of the what Joshua has her reading it seems she has picked up on the fact that for talking you use quotation marks to tell what the person said. She has no clue why just that cause she sees it all the time she knows thats what you do. It seems that now until 2nd grade the kids can get away with writing phonetically and not correctly but Lisa is writing all words correctly. (ie sign We as adults understand there is a silent g but they don't bother to correct kids until 2nd grade.) Anyway the upstart to the whole thing is they are recommending her for an advanced class now so that she does not get bored with school.
Now I am about to go into infomercial mode here, so you can stop reading now if you don't want to read this part:
Well I broke down and bought the Neat Receipts. I have now scanned all the receipts from last year and so far for this year. It takes most of the info straight from them and puts into a format that you can then run different reports. You can fix the numbers if it doesn't bring them over correctly. Sometimes a 0 or 8 gets mixed up. You can even designate which ones are for tax purposes and which Schedule it should go on so that at the end of the year it goes right into tax software or whatever. It seems that the IRS also accepts the digital copies from Neat so that I wont have to keep all of them in case of an audit.
I am actually impressed with what it can do. If something does not scan right I can fix it right away. Like all the bussiness cards with all the graphics it sometimes does not see things right or if it is real shiny. It scans fine but can't seem to read it very well. I can input the info and the card is still there to see anyway.
I know I sound like an infomercial but I thought it might be something for us or others to keep track of stuff and for household things so that on taxes you can separate the house and stuff into house and work areas and keep track of spending for things for taxes.
As you can tell I am really liking this so far. I have done all of the receipts now and I found that I can "split" something like a Rite Aid receipt into several pieces so that I can classify parts of it into like Medical, Grocery or whatever and then add what part of taxes to classify the Medical for like Medicine and Drugs for the Sch A.
Or say I stop off at Flying J and get fuel and food, I can split it into fuel and food so that in the budget or what ever I can keep track or say we travel for work then for tax purposes I can keep track of what is reimbursed and what I can use for taxes.
I am now about to go thru and scan all the documents into it so that I can get rid of the suitcase of paperwork.
Why did I get the Neat Receipts instead of Neat Desk? Well the desk is bigger and twice as much. It's basically the same software in it so why not go for the one that is under $200 and takes less space?
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Jan 17th
Let's see. What's been happening?
First thing, let me tell you about what happened to Thom Jan 16th in the morning.
Thom rides his motorcycle most of the time into work, saves on gas a lot besides he likes the ride. Well, he stopped off at the gas station to get gas, then went to use the card for something else right away. A notice passed across the screen to contact the issuer of the card ASAP and then the card got locked. He called his bank. It seems that someone else used the card number for $95 of gas at that station and then also 2x's for $1 each at the station across the street. Thom had them make sure to verify and to keep it locked till he could get into a bank in person to fix what might be the problem. Found out that probably happened is someone used a faceplate over the gas pump face plate that read the number and all codes that go with it. So he got VERY lucky that they only got under $100 before it got locked. Now he has a new card coming and has to remember everything that he has attached to the card to change that when it comes in.
So now both of us have had our numbers stolen. Mine was about 15 yrs ago in FL and let me tell you that it is a lot more involved in fixing with everyone. People forget how much is connected to the cards until it's stolen.
On a better note Thom and I stayed on the Queen Mary ( http://www.queenmary.com/ ) the night of Jan 12th. They had a Steampunk Symposium ( http://www.hrmsteam.com/ ) over that weekend. We used to do lots of medieval, renaissance and pirate festivals so we had the basic costume pieces already. We did some shopping and aquired a few other pieces to fit in better. Good thing with costumes like this is they are never complete you can always change or add more. We saw several people that we have not seen in about 8 yrs or more and they are all from the FL. Funny really how small the world can be!
First thing, let me tell you about what happened to Thom Jan 16th in the morning.
Thom rides his motorcycle most of the time into work, saves on gas a lot besides he likes the ride. Well, he stopped off at the gas station to get gas, then went to use the card for something else right away. A notice passed across the screen to contact the issuer of the card ASAP and then the card got locked. He called his bank. It seems that someone else used the card number for $95 of gas at that station and then also 2x's for $1 each at the station across the street. Thom had them make sure to verify and to keep it locked till he could get into a bank in person to fix what might be the problem. Found out that probably happened is someone used a faceplate over the gas pump face plate that read the number and all codes that go with it. So he got VERY lucky that they only got under $100 before it got locked. Now he has a new card coming and has to remember everything that he has attached to the card to change that when it comes in.
So now both of us have had our numbers stolen. Mine was about 15 yrs ago in FL and let me tell you that it is a lot more involved in fixing with everyone. People forget how much is connected to the cards until it's stolen.
On a better note Thom and I stayed on the Queen Mary ( http://www.queenmary.com/ ) the night of Jan 12th. They had a Steampunk Symposium ( http://www.hrmsteam.com/ ) over that weekend. We used to do lots of medieval, renaissance and pirate festivals so we had the basic costume pieces already. We did some shopping and aquired a few other pieces to fit in better. Good thing with costumes like this is they are never complete you can always change or add more. We saw several people that we have not seen in about 8 yrs or more and they are all from the FL. Funny really how small the world can be!
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
After the holidays
Well it's been an amusing few weeks of holidays and birthdays.
We got and mailed our granddaughter's Christmas and bday gifts, her bday is the 27th. According to UPS they were supposed to be there Christmas Eve. They did not show up then. We checked the tracking number and all of a sudden they were now supposed to show up on the 29th. We paid alot extra to have them there BEFORE Christmas so that she would not be opening all her gifts the same day. My bday is close to Christmas and I know how annoying it can get to just have people give you all of them at once. Well we finally got ahold of UPS in the morning after Christmas and it seems that the package was "left" at a UPS location. They made the effort then to deliver it that day and refunded part of the delivery price back to us. She got them and opened her Christmas gifts that night with us watching on video Skype chat. Then since her "Mom's" bday is New Years Eve they had a party together a few days later and she got to open those ones then.
Ok the reason I put "mom" in quotes is she has a step mom but she has decided that her bio mom is "Mommy" and her step mom is "Mom". That is how a now 6 yr old keeps them separated in her mind. That is just like Thom is not Grandpa, she is allowed to call him "Mudd" since she has something like 4 or 6 sets of grandparents now. She came up with this idea of different versions and if it makes it easier for her (and us) to figure out who she is talking about then we will go with it.
Joshua (her dad, our oldest son) came up with a way to get her to read alot more. It has to do with the old text based commputer games. He starts the game and she reads all the text that the characters say and she decides the questions answers while Joshua does the keyboard stuff. This has upped her reading time and ability ALOT. She loves games and why not help her get her schooling stuff up at the same time?
When we used to hang out a game shop in FL and parents would come in and be not so sure about the whole DnD tabletop gaming (ya know that devil worshiping thing) I would explain to them away from the kids that in order for the kids to play that they would have to read the books, learn more math and be able to interact with all kinds of situations which would end up helping them in the real world later. After they actually looked at what was involved with "playing" what they thought was a waste of time they ended up getting behind the kids playing. Now thou it's hard to find the mom and pop gaming stores and it's hard to find those tabletop gaming groups.
For New Years eve we were asked if Thom would run karaoke up at the lodge here at the park for whomever showed up. We got up there and the heat did not work. Not many were showing since really most in the park are in the older group and most end up going to bed at their normal time. So with the cold and everything we were packed up and back home by 9:30pm. We did stay up long enough to watch the ball drop but by 12:15 am we were in bed and going to sleep.
Jan. 3 rd was my bday and even thou Thom kept asking what I wanted to do and that it was my day and we would do everything and go anywhere I wanted to, I just wanted to veg in jammies and we played Guild Wars 2 all day and almost all night. We did stop long enough to video call on Skype with Lisa and she read some books to us. I got to play with Joshua, Justin and Thom on the game. We chatted on Teamspeak while playing and just enjoyed the time. Then on the 4 th we called Justin cause then it was his bday. Like I said lots of holiday and bday stuff in the last few weeks.
Sunday night Thom was sitting in the living room and I was putting away some pots and pans and all of a sudden we lost power to the front half of the coach. After making sure nothing got tripped or was wrong Thom figured out that the GFI in the kitchen got tripped and made everything go down. He clicked the reset on it and bam everything came back on ...... hmmm not sure why it went off but we may replace that GFI plug.
We got and mailed our granddaughter's Christmas and bday gifts, her bday is the 27th. According to UPS they were supposed to be there Christmas Eve. They did not show up then. We checked the tracking number and all of a sudden they were now supposed to show up on the 29th. We paid alot extra to have them there BEFORE Christmas so that she would not be opening all her gifts the same day. My bday is close to Christmas and I know how annoying it can get to just have people give you all of them at once. Well we finally got ahold of UPS in the morning after Christmas and it seems that the package was "left" at a UPS location. They made the effort then to deliver it that day and refunded part of the delivery price back to us. She got them and opened her Christmas gifts that night with us watching on video Skype chat. Then since her "Mom's" bday is New Years Eve they had a party together a few days later and she got to open those ones then.
Ok the reason I put "mom" in quotes is she has a step mom but she has decided that her bio mom is "Mommy" and her step mom is "Mom". That is how a now 6 yr old keeps them separated in her mind. That is just like Thom is not Grandpa, she is allowed to call him "Mudd" since she has something like 4 or 6 sets of grandparents now. She came up with this idea of different versions and if it makes it easier for her (and us) to figure out who she is talking about then we will go with it.
Joshua (her dad, our oldest son) came up with a way to get her to read alot more. It has to do with the old text based commputer games. He starts the game and she reads all the text that the characters say and she decides the questions answers while Joshua does the keyboard stuff. This has upped her reading time and ability ALOT. She loves games and why not help her get her schooling stuff up at the same time?
When we used to hang out a game shop in FL and parents would come in and be not so sure about the whole DnD tabletop gaming (ya know that devil worshiping thing) I would explain to them away from the kids that in order for the kids to play that they would have to read the books, learn more math and be able to interact with all kinds of situations which would end up helping them in the real world later. After they actually looked at what was involved with "playing" what they thought was a waste of time they ended up getting behind the kids playing. Now thou it's hard to find the mom and pop gaming stores and it's hard to find those tabletop gaming groups.
For New Years eve we were asked if Thom would run karaoke up at the lodge here at the park for whomever showed up. We got up there and the heat did not work. Not many were showing since really most in the park are in the older group and most end up going to bed at their normal time. So with the cold and everything we were packed up and back home by 9:30pm. We did stay up long enough to watch the ball drop but by 12:15 am we were in bed and going to sleep.
Jan. 3 rd was my bday and even thou Thom kept asking what I wanted to do and that it was my day and we would do everything and go anywhere I wanted to, I just wanted to veg in jammies and we played Guild Wars 2 all day and almost all night. We did stop long enough to video call on Skype with Lisa and she read some books to us. I got to play with Joshua, Justin and Thom on the game. We chatted on Teamspeak while playing and just enjoyed the time. Then on the 4 th we called Justin cause then it was his bday. Like I said lots of holiday and bday stuff in the last few weeks.
Sunday night Thom was sitting in the living room and I was putting away some pots and pans and all of a sudden we lost power to the front half of the coach. After making sure nothing got tripped or was wrong Thom figured out that the GFI in the kitchen got tripped and made everything go down. He clicked the reset on it and bam everything came back on ...... hmmm not sure why it went off but we may replace that GFI plug.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012
Wow been so busy in the last week.
First off both Thom and I were in "A Christmas Carol" so we had rehersals and performances to do ... did them all well and finally we are done with this show!! We had are cast party last night and watched a taping of the show. Great job to those that were in the show and all the ones behind the scenes.
We started Saturday off going to install the new Xanbus System Control Panel were the old one was but realized that the new one is about 1/4 inch longer. Would not matter much but the space the old one was in was tight to start with so out comes the dremel to cut the whole panel to separate it slightly in order to fit the new control panel in. We did make sure where we cut that it would not be cutting anything but the panel holding all the buttons and stuff. The whole thing took us about 5 hrs to finagle and figure it out and to do just that part.
We then had the last performance to do for the show Saturday night.
Then on Sunday we got up had 1/2 cup of coffee and started in with putting together the smoker so that we could smoke the ham to take to the cast party at 5pm. After that we started right in on shutting down all electric in the RV so that we could take out the old 1500 watt inv/char and put the new 3000 watt inv/char in. Running the line for the battery temp sensor took a little longer than what we first thought it would take. I think it was at least 6 or 7 hrs to do the switch over. We got it done enough so that we could hook back into and use the heater and what not for the night. We still have to reattach the starter battery to the inv/char and bolt the inv/char down but since we are not driving anywhere for the next few days it will be fine for a few days. If the pass thrus for the new wires were not so tight it would not have taken us so long to do the switch over :)
I will add - If you are not electricaly and mechanicaly inclined then have a professional do the installs!!!! I can not stress enough that this is very involved and even thou we did shut all the electric down and unplug from the shore pedistal that there is still voltage running around in the wires and you could still hit some so be sure you know what you are doing or spend the money and have a professional that you trust do it for you!!
Then just a quick wash and off to the party which we got there about 5:30 pm or so. The ham did not last everyone LOVED it. It's so simple to smoke it the way we do. You put 1/2 spiced rum and 1/2 water in the drip pan then add cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon sticks (break them into a couple of pieces) into the water. Score (lightly cut) the ham and put some cloves and brown sugar. Then just put it in the smoker and keep it at about 250 degrees or so for at least 4 hrs, we did it at 6 hrs thou. Keep an eye on the drip pan and refill with the half rum and half water mixture if it goes empty. We usually use Oak and Apple wood to smoke with but CA has a ban on using Oak so we just used charcoal and Apple wood chips, we added the wood several times while it was smoking.
Last note for today
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHUA!!
Our oldest son turned 28 yrs old today. He took the day off of work and is spending it playing games and some of the day with his wife and when Lisa gets out of school with her too. Games, movies, resturants and family - what more could you ask for for a great birthday?
First off both Thom and I were in "A Christmas Carol" so we had rehersals and performances to do ... did them all well and finally we are done with this show!! We had are cast party last night and watched a taping of the show. Great job to those that were in the show and all the ones behind the scenes.
We started Saturday off going to install the new Xanbus System Control Panel were the old one was but realized that the new one is about 1/4 inch longer. Would not matter much but the space the old one was in was tight to start with so out comes the dremel to cut the whole panel to separate it slightly in order to fit the new control panel in. We did make sure where we cut that it would not be cutting anything but the panel holding all the buttons and stuff. The whole thing took us about 5 hrs to finagle and figure it out and to do just that part.
We then had the last performance to do for the show Saturday night.
Then on Sunday we got up had 1/2 cup of coffee and started in with putting together the smoker so that we could smoke the ham to take to the cast party at 5pm. After that we started right in on shutting down all electric in the RV so that we could take out the old 1500 watt inv/char and put the new 3000 watt inv/char in. Running the line for the battery temp sensor took a little longer than what we first thought it would take. I think it was at least 6 or 7 hrs to do the switch over. We got it done enough so that we could hook back into and use the heater and what not for the night. We still have to reattach the starter battery to the inv/char and bolt the inv/char down but since we are not driving anywhere for the next few days it will be fine for a few days. If the pass thrus for the new wires were not so tight it would not have taken us so long to do the switch over :)
I will add - If you are not electricaly and mechanicaly inclined then have a professional do the installs!!!! I can not stress enough that this is very involved and even thou we did shut all the electric down and unplug from the shore pedistal that there is still voltage running around in the wires and you could still hit some so be sure you know what you are doing or spend the money and have a professional that you trust do it for you!!
Then just a quick wash and off to the party which we got there about 5:30 pm or so. The ham did not last everyone LOVED it. It's so simple to smoke it the way we do. You put 1/2 spiced rum and 1/2 water in the drip pan then add cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon sticks (break them into a couple of pieces) into the water. Score (lightly cut) the ham and put some cloves and brown sugar. Then just put it in the smoker and keep it at about 250 degrees or so for at least 4 hrs, we did it at 6 hrs thou. Keep an eye on the drip pan and refill with the half rum and half water mixture if it goes empty. We usually use Oak and Apple wood to smoke with but CA has a ban on using Oak so we just used charcoal and Apple wood chips, we added the wood several times while it was smoking.
Last note for today
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHUA!!
Our oldest son turned 28 yrs old today. He took the day off of work and is spending it playing games and some of the day with his wife and when Lisa gets out of school with her too. Games, movies, resturants and family - what more could you ask for for a great birthday?
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