Friday 8/31/12 Vacation Preparation – Detail The Filthy Monster

The RV sits under walnut tree’s at Blackhawk leaving the top of the rig filthy, not just a little bit filthy but nearly black with whatever walnut trees drop. I should have taken a before picture of the AC unit and vent covers, ick… My family used to own a 28ft aft cabin Wellcraft boat, that was hard to clean, but it was nothing compared to the almost 7 hours I put into cleaning the entire roof and exterior of the rig. I also power washed the entire front of the house!

By the time I was done I had soaked through my clothing completely, it was 96f with the sun blazing down so I was thankful of the wind hitting me hard enough to splash the rinse water back at me and cooling me off. The roof is cleaner than when we bought it and just climbing the ladder to take this picture took a lot of effort, my arms were numb and shaky!

We packed up the rig and drove to Geneseo, we of course brought rain with us because we can’t go to Geneseo without it raining at least once! It’s now Saturday and it’s raining and it’s nice and cool outside. We’re watching the movie “White Noise” and then heading to the store to find me some walking shoes and to get supplies for the next 8 days.

Have a great Labor Day holiday everybody!

Our Government–A Repost From MyOldRV.Com

Link – > Our Government

By Andy, on August 26th, 2012

Andy’s note:  Before you go busting my ass about specific facts and figures cited in this article treat it as I did — it is a modern day parable. One fact that is indisputable –  Government is only going to get bigger. It never gets smaller.  From 2008 to 2012,   private sector jobs decreased 6.6% while Federal Employment grew 11.7%.

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, “Someone may steal from it at night.”

So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?”

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?”

So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

Then Congress said, “How are these people going to get paid?”

So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.

Then Congress said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?”

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, “We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back.”

So they laid-off the night watchman.

NOW slowly, let it sink in.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter. Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the Department of Energy during the Carter administration?

Anybody?

Anything?

No?

Didn’t think so!

Bottom line is, we’ve spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency, the reason for which very few people who read this can remember!

Ready??

It was very simple… and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977, to lessen our dependence on Foreign Oil. (Ed. note — very disingenuous and simplistic  — see cite here)
Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

And now it’s 2012 – 35 years later – and the budget for this ‘necessary; department is at $24.2 billion a year.  It has 16,000 Federal employees and approximately 100,000 contract employees……..  and look at the job it has done.

(THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?”)
34 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes — good old Federal bureaucracy.

Now, we have turned over the banking system, health care and the auto industry to the same government.

Hello!! Anybody Home?

Signed….

The Night Watchman”

Common sense and logic, very foreign to the Government!

Mars In High Definition

Go here, it’s awesome when you go full screen and look around!

Mice, Smelly Dead Mice

I came up to the RV last night and I opened the door and the smell of rotting death assaulted me. I called Ronda at home to try and explain the smell and I couldn’t do it justice! I have smelled dead animals before but never one that died inside of an RV that was subjected to high heat and humidity. I spared you all by not taking a picture of what I found… oh it’s ok, no need to thank me.  

Let’s just say it’s so much better to catch mice in the winter! I came here last week to cut the grass and the traps were untouched. So this unreal stench happened in the space of 6 days! I cleaned up everything and tried to clean the carpeted area under the kitchen sink. The mouse had, how do I say this… ahhhhhh well it, leaked… that’s the only word I can think of. Gross I know!

Ronda bought this odor neutralizer a while ago and after I cleaned the carpet I sprayed a liberal amount into the carpet and around the area and aired out the RV with the Fantastic fan on full blast blowing out. You know what's coming next right, oh yeah you guessed it, METHANE!!! I figured I was cleaning so why not clean the toilet? Yep, cleaned the bowl and flushed and the fan sucked a large amount of methane up into the RV.

So, dead animal smell mixed with black tank odor, more than I can handle, I left the fans going and took a drive. I came back 45 minutes later and it smelled much much better but there was still an underlying odor that was something I could deal with over night.

I was yanked out of actually sleeping (rare for me at 4:30am!) up by whatever runs on our roof every friggin morning at 4:30am, only this time there was a fluttering sound included. No clue what it is or was because whenever I investigate I find nothing. The smell is much better this morning but I either have memory of the odor or its still there slightly. I’m going to head over to Collier RV in a few minutes to discuss the emergency flashers and turn signals they fixed earlier this year. I’m going to look for something to use on the carpet and then I think I’m going home.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Good Morning!

Straight East, beautiful sunrise! It’s going to be a hot one today! They predict 96..

Straight North, storms coming!

I Started A New Blog - The Viking Ham Blog!

I put a link to the right, if you click the picture it will take you there as well. I figure I should try and keep these two hobbies separate.

Sunday This And That

Today was Prevost day, I must have seen 20 of them heading east on I-90 just West of Elgin, IL. It was also Class A day as there seemed to be a LOT of Class A’s on the road. I love watching them go by, it makes me wonder what kind of journey they’re on or what they have seen.

Today I cut the grass on our RV lot and trimmed everything and made it look nice and neat. Then I went home and did most of the same things there until my back and right hip went out. Then I went back inside and plopped onto the couch and did nothing for the rest of the day.

Oh yeah, I think I left some lights on inside the RV and forgot to plug the rig on and turn the batteries off… ack… going back there tomorrow night to set it all right. 

 

Have a great week everybody!

Sometimes Life Throws You A Curve…. And It’s A Good Curve!!!

I have written this blog post several times and have deleted all of them. I’m not sure how to write a thank you post to somebody I can’t talk about here. Time for some back story. I sold my Icom 746Pro to pay down some debt and to help insure we could RV for another year. We were/are also scaling back but my decision to sell the radio was a bad one, I was gung ho to sell “stuff”, any stuff.

During emergencies these types of radios can often be the only source of communication available. In my haste to scale back I sold off a valuable asset, an asset very hard to re-acquire without substantial investment. There are HAMS out there that make claims that Amateur Radio can be done cheaply, I humbly disagree, unless you have LOTS of free time to seek out bargains.

Anyway, fast forward to the past few weeks. I had a discussion with Ronda about saving up for a new or used radio because 1. I miss it A LOT and 2. if something should happen it could come in very useful. She agreed 100% and said she tried to tell me not to sell the Icom, she was right, as usual and I have regretted that decision to this day.

Here is the Icom 746Pro I sold, an all mode radio that really did handle almost all frequencies including 2 meters plus it was portable and could plug right into the 12 volt system in the RV. What was I thinking?? The other unfortunate thing about it is the cost to replace it with something new from Icom is $3,600.00!!! Needless to say that is way out of my league right now and for quite some time to come.

   

I wanted to get another radio but I also wanted it to be the equal or better of the Icom 746Pro. Not an easy task for very little budget and I could not find a decent used 746Pro anywhere so that was ruled out. I happened upon several rigs on Craigslist and eBay, most of which were too expensive as well, including the one pictured below, a Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark-V, I logged that as “I wish!”. Priced at nearly $2,000!! I kept several rigs on the burner that were more affordable but kept going back to this one, what to do, what to do. I discussed it with Ronda and her response was buy it, we’ll work it out. I couldn’t do it, there is no way I could spend that in one big chunk, I didn’t feel it was fair to her.

I can’t go into too many details but somebody purchased the radio for me as a gift. It came out of left field and I’m still in shock and it’s been almost 3 days! I still can’t express in words what this means to me.

It’s an incredible radio out of the reach of most people, new or used. It came to my home last night, I can’t wait to have my first QSO in the new to me rig! Sometimes life throws you a curve that puts a smile on your face. I’m going to set up the RV for mobile use, not sure how yet but will investigate it and post about it soon.

Here it is all boxed up.

  

The rig all set up, probably not how it’s going to look after this weekend but it will do for now! I have a remote control cable coming so I can control the rig from my PC. That’s it for now, tomorrow I head out to the RV to mow the lawn and bring the rig in to get the emergency flashers fixed again.