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.

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:
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?