Seeking Simplicity

Figured I’d do an update tonight rather than making you wait will Sunday evening.

That said, I really don’t have a lot to report on.

Tuesday evening I spent revisiting the required length of roof overhang on the south side of the house.  If I make it too long, it will block too much sun in the spring and fall potentially requiring me to depend upon alternative heat sources.  If I make it too short, then the house will be more apt to overheat in the spring and fall.  To cold, I burn a fire in the heater.  To warm I add shading to reduce the amount of sun penetration into the house.  My analysis involved reviewing average temperatures in the area for the spring and fall months as well as the elevation of the sun at various parts of the day for those months.  On this particular detail, for far too long I’ve been stuck in that analysis paralysis mode I mentioned in a previous blog.  Right or wrong, I’ve settled on a 6′ overhang which will result in a total span of 33′.  I have no concern about that length of cantilever.  What I need to sort out now is the best way to achieve that 33′ span.  Using a low slope truss is a no-brainer but really doesn’t align with what I envisioned.  Timber would be really cool I think but I haven’t found much in how-to on that and to appreciate the look I would have to rethink how I was going to do the ceiling.  Based on the table I just reviewed while writing this, I think I will go with 33′ 6″ 2×12 of selected structural lumber spaced 16″ on center.  My application of walls about 26′ apart would be well within specifications.  Ok.  That is settled.

Back to Tuesday.  Hmm… Guess that is it for Tuesday.  It was a very late night Tuesday pondering and planning the overhang.

Wednesday I reached out to the county assessor’s office on my request for a plat map as I could not remember if I had included a mailing address or other contact info in the hand written letter I sent (I have opted not to invest in a printer – trying to see if we can live without one).  She was kind enough to email me a copy of it.  It did not have much more info on it than I already had, but having it was a requirement for the building permit application.  I forwarded the map and other requested information to the septic system specialist so that he can document what is needed for applying for the septic system permit.  Talked on the phone for quite a while with family.  I then started work on a drawing for the building permit application.  That effort took me much later into the evening than I had planned on.

Thursday, as is becoming a routine I somewhat look forward I to, I drove to Douglas.  I enjoyed the light show put on by the thunderstorms in the mountains while driving.  Once there, it was dinner at La Fiesta Cafe.  Guacamole and chips, then enchiladas sonorenses this time (I’ve been trying a different entree every visit thus far).  I must say my first visit with the tamales was the best of the three thus far.  Then onto Walmart.  While in Walmart I realized I forgot to stop at TSC first (I like to do Walmart last because of the refrigerated and frozen groceries I buy there).  Oh well.  I remembered to bring a cooler with me this time because I planned to make another stop on the way home anyway so it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Got what I needed (remembered to put on my list) at Walmart and TSC then headed home.  As my mouth was watering for a tasty margarita after that nice Mexican meal, I was disappointed when I realized the tavern in Rodeo was closed.  Must be losing my mind.  Thought it should still be open.

After taking Sasha for her evening walk to the dog run I put away the groceries and retired early to bed.  Just as well the tavern was closed.  I was beat from the last two late nights and appreciated turning in at a reasonable hour.

Friday my afternoon work calendar was clear of meetings and for the first time in weeks there were no pressing late Friday afternoon issues that I had to deal with.  As such, I opted to take advantage of work’s summer hours and called it a day around 1 PM eastern.

I took that time to show Rusty (the RV park’s owner) how to access the software that controls the park’s wireless network.  Ran to the post office to check to see if there were packages for me.  Got an order of BBQ sauce and helicopter insurance welcome packets.

Prepared rice and veggies with peanut sauce again.  After the potluck was over, I was still in the mood to be social so I headed to the tavern.  Closed.  This time there was a sign on the door.  The business and liquor license is in the process of being transferred to the new owners.  I guess that explains why it was closed Thursday night too.  Oh well.  Didn’t need to poison my body anyway.

Back at the trailer I sat outside for a while practicing playing Texas Holdem on the iPad while petting the very demanding miss Sasha.  I sure hope it was Texas Holdem that Tom told me they play on poker night around here.  As it was cool and windy from the nearby thunderstorm, I decided to retire to the trailer.  Before heading in for the evening, I took Sasha for her evening walk to the dog run while enjoying the light show being presented by the thunderstorm in the distance.  While at the dog run while waiting for Sasha, it occurred to me to take out my phone and get some video of the lightning.  Of the two minutes of footage of multiple strikes, it was the strikes in the last few seconds that captured the best on the phone’s video.  Someday I will edit the video down or maybe just pull out some still photos and post them.

And now you are once again up to date.  Can’t wait to get onto the property when I can start writing and posting about less mundane activities.

That reminds me of a conversation I had with Bob the parks maintenance man this week.  I shared with him my Sunday night adventure of having to get into the two electrical panels to work on the wireless network.  He then shared with me that black widows and scorpions love hiding in those panels and he won’t reach into them without gloves on.  Geeze…  Not only was I reaching in without gloves, but I was doing it in the dark.  How lucky was I once again?  Someone must really be looking out for me.  For that I am thankful!

Heard tonight that the snakes like to come out at night.  Again, thankful I didn’t run across any in the dark that night although I was watching for those.

That is it for me.  Hope to have a productive weekend.

Night all!

 

 

 

Geez, what a slacker.  No updates in 5 days.  Sorry folks.  Hope you have time, this will probably be a long one as I search my memory for worthwhile things to write about from the last few days.

Starting with Thursday.  Working for a living as usual during the day.  Shower after work.  Sometimes I have to wonder if comparing me to pigpen from the Peanuts would be accurate.  No one around to provide that feedback.  Guessing by the time I smell myself it is a bit late.  Eeww!  Anyway, head to Douglas for what I think will be my regular Thursday evening activity – dinner at La Fiesta Cafe (yummy!!), auto fuel, and groceries.  Drive home was earlier in the evening so I didn’t see as many suicidal cottontails on the way home as my previous trip.

Friday.  Coyote’s suck!  They are frequently active in the vacant land around the park here and it seems that Sasha’s ears are perfectly tuned to hear them when she is sleeping.  So of course she has to start barking to let me know they are there and to scare them off.  Never mind that we are both in the trailer and the coyotes pose no threat to us.  3AM.  3:30AM, 4AM.  Have to getup at 5:30AM to get ready for work.  Ugh.  Thankfully it was both an uneventful and productive workday even though I did not get to enjoy summer hours (same as many of my peers) as I had hoped.  Threw rice in the instant pot and set it to cooking.  Ran out to to meet Victor at the property to review the house location and discuss the septic system.  His business is very busy right now but he said he would try to fit me in in the next week or two to drill a couple of test holes and do the soil analysis required.  Head back to the trailer to finish preparing dinner for the weekly Friday potluck.  This time, I was only a couple of minutes late with my contribution of saurkraut for the dogs they were eating, rice, and brussels sprouts.  Ate some sort of mild chili pepper at dinner (being good and trying new things).  Watch youtube videos on trusses as the spans I’m planning are right at the maximum fringe of those permitted by dimensional lumber by building codes.  I realize I have to figure out the length of roof overhang that will be required to shade the southern facing windows from the late spring, summer, early fall sun.  So, back to the passive solar home design books – Saturday.  Sensed in the evening that the pepper may not have been a good idea but forgot to take my digestion medication.  Huge mistake.  Had to get up in the middle of the night to take it but by that time, it was too late.

I ended up fighting digestion issues all morning and some of Saturday afternoon.  Before heading out to the property, I see Rusty is in the office so I go over to pay for lot rent for the month.  Rusty offer’s to comp my lot rent in addition to giving me the unused water tank they have in payment of the the hardware and labor.  I was a bit hesitant as I’m more worried about recouping my costs and was planning on the water tank as comp for labor.  We left it that I would provide her a breakdown of the cost of what I have invested in the equipment on her behalf.  I go ahead and pay the electric bill for the month I’ve been there – a whopping $36 and change.  That comes out to about 8.6kwh per day to run the fridge, lights, a fan 7×24, all my electronics, the air conditioner for a few hours for 5 – 7 days, power tools for some various repair projects,  and the instant pot pressure cooker.  I’ll have to compare that to the capacity I have planned for the solar system.

At the property I worked on a wood working project –  building a seat for the trailer that I didn’t get to before I left home.  After I finished planning the cuts to minimize wasted wood, I noticed it looked like rain on the far side of the valley.  So after making each cut, I’d take note of the progression of the rain.  Seems like it would come across the mountains then head north.  One shower after another.  Wood cut after wood cut.  Just as I was finishing the last cut, I heard thunder come from the canyon which was in my blind spot on the far side of the shed.  I take a look into the canyon.  Where the hell did that come from from?  The canyon was very dark from low storm clouds.  You would think that if storms appear to be coming from the east over the mountains, you wouldn’t get anything from the west.  You would think…  Oh well. I was done with cutting wood anyway and I was tired from not sleeping well due to a sore stomach and ongoing discomfort through the morning.  Put everything away in the shed and head back to the RV park.  Lay down for a nap after taking some more medication for my stomach.  Wake up after a few hours, take Sasha for her evening walk, make a smoothie for dinner since that should be easy on the digestion, put together and email the hardware costs for Rusty and spend the rest of the evening reading a second passive solar design book I hadn’t gotten too yet.

Sunday wake up well rested and ready to go.  Give Bob (the park’s maintenance man and grounds keeper) the last two wireless access points so he can physically install them while I’m working at the property.  Head back out to the property to continue work on building the seat.  While I’m working on assembling it, during one of the periods of time I had the generator off, I hear some commotion to the north of me on the property.  I look up to see two ranch hands trying unsuccessfully to herd a cow.  The cow chose to escape through the rough terrain on our property.  I guess the cowboy decided it wasn’t worth pushing his horse over that terrain to try to catch the cow.  He cursed at the cow and headed back to where he came from.  He didn’t look in my direction so didn’t notice me watching him from just a couple hundred feet away.  Back to work.  A while later as I was working on assembling the seat, I observed a few men approaching on horseback.  I paused working to greet them.  The man in the lead introduced himself as Mike and said that the cattle roaming the land were his.  They were working on herding them into the canyon so they could haul them out (presumably to slaughter).  He indicated he thought he had heard the generator running.  In retrospect, I wonder if one of the ranch hands did see me watching them and reported my presence to him.  I thanked him for stopping by and we both went back to work.  I completed assembling the seat, sanded it to my satisfaction (theme:  f’it, good enough given I don’t have any fine grit sandpaper and the cuts were not precision given my limited access to woodworking tools and very rusty woodworking skills).  I then put on a coat of stain that I happen to bring from Michigan.  By that time, it is about 4PM, it has been a good day of work, I’m tired, and weather is threatening.  Drive by the tavern wishing it was open.  Oh well.  Don’t need the poison I would consume there anyway.

Back at the trailer, I do most of the dishes since the maid hasn’t been there since I cooked on Friday and the sink is full of dirty dishes as is the stove top.  Take a look at the clock and decide I have enough time to configure the new wireless access points for the RV park before I settle down for the night to write a long overdue blog entry.  Wrong.

The first wireless access point (WAP) joins the network fine.  I upgrade it’s firmware while trying to join the second WAP.  This one fails to join.  Well that is new for me.  After some research on google I decide I will need to physically connect the ethernet port of the WAP.  Luckily it is not quite dark yet and it happens to be the WAP closest to me, the lot it is installed at is vacant, and it is not raining.  I grab my laptop, a network cable, my glasses, a screw driver to access the wiring then head out.  I remove the access panel to get to the wiring, connect my laptop and proceed to try and try again to get it to join.  Getting desperate I see someone saying disabling “uplink monitoring” on the controller resolved the issue so I proceed to do it.  As soon as I clicked apply, I remembered that that was the configuration that allowed all the WAP’s to communicate with each other wirelessly creating the mesh network without wires.  And I just disabled it…. Yep.. Lost wireless on my laptop.  Reconnect to the office WAP and view the controller software.  Yep.  All the WAPs except the office are now off-line.  CRAP! It is 9PM locally.  I’m sure there were users trying to use wireless.  It is getting quite dark by this time.  Ugh… I have to work in the morning so I don’t want to leave it until I get off work the next day.  Going to have to fix them all in the dark tonight.  Looking at the Controller’s configuration and see something that would resolve the root cause I was able to identify between google and accessing the down WAP I was currently connected to.  Root cause:  the stupid firewall/router the park is using for some crazy reason is serving a DNS name for default gateway instead of an IP address.  If the WAP’s can’t resolve the DNS name, they don’t know how to reach the default gateway so they think their network link is down and they go into a recovery cycle that ever ends.  Solution:  DO NOT DISABLE UPLINK MONITORING.  Instead, configure a specific IP address for the WAPs to monitor instead of relying on the default gateway provided by DHCP.  That is lesson one learned.  Reenable uplink monitoring and set that setting, restore the currently connected WAP to factory default.  Instruct the controller to join it to the network once they discover each other.  Bingo!  The original problem child fixed.  Now to fix the other three that I broke in the process.  Head to the next WAP.  Connect to it and decide to reboot it to see if that will be enough to get it online.  Mistake #2 of the evening (that I was aware of).  That WAP went into a boot cycle looking for a DHCP address and would not talk to my laptop.  Ugh.  Ok.  Stay calm.  What do I need to fix this?  I need a DHCP server physically connected to the WAP, I need my laptop connected as well.  That means I need a full mini wired network stood up at this site at the far end of the park in the pitch dark (no moon, no stars, no exterior lighting in the park as Arizona and this valley take “light pollution” very seriously as it is a popular destination for astronomers).  I walk back to the trailer, grab my backpack and shove in everything I’m going to need – network cables, firewall (with built in switch), raspberry pi which I happen to have previously installed and configured a DHCP server, a second laptop, power cables for everything including the laptop I have been using, a power strip, and a lantern to provide light to work by.  Once back at the site, I get the network setup in just a few minutes, connect my laptop, and still can’t connect to the WAP.  Console into the firewall to see if I had ports setup in different vlans.  Nope.  Must be my laptop needs to be rebooted.  Reboot… Oh but wait… Have to install pending OS updates before it will complete a reboot and let you use it again.

I must pause here from the technical story and inject some observations about nature.  Mind you I am sitting there with my laptop and a lantern in the pitch dark in the desert where bugs have adapted by coming out at night instead of during the day.  Holy Crap!  It seemed like I was under constant attack by dumb bugs that were drawn to the light.  So maybe attack is a bit strong…  They were flying, jumping, and bumping into me almost nonstop.  Get out of my shirt.  Get out of my shorts.  My ear, really?  Get out.  Get off my keyboard.  Get off my screen.  What was that scurrying across the ground?  It didn’t jump.  It didn’t flying.  It was fast.  It was insect like but about two inches long or maybe a bit more.  Hiding from the light under debris.  Hmmm… Was that a scorpion?  There it goes again.  Too fast.  Not sure what it is.  Not going to try to catch it to find out.  I had forgotten all about scorpions until that moment.  Hope it doesn’t climb up my leg or into my open bag.  Note I’m not smart enough to zip up my bag at that moment.

15 minutes later, my laptop is ready to go again, and is finally talking to the WAP of interest.  Restore it to factory default.  Instruct the controller to join it to the network.  Success.  Lesson 2:  Do not simply power cycle an isolated WAP.  When you gain access to it locally, it is better to just restore to factory default than power cycle it (at least in the version of firmware currently running).  As I’m finishing up, it occurs to me based on what I have read in Google and observed in the behavior of these WAP that I may be able to configure my wireless interface with a static IP address, walk up to an isolated WAP and connect wirelessly to either it’s previously known IP address or a standard default IP address used by these things.  Something to test on the last two.  That would save me about 15 minutes per WAP as I would not have to take the access panel off the electrical box to gain access to the wiring.

Pack everything up into the backpack being mindful of having light on what I am grabbing so as not to grab a scorpion.  Head to the next WAP.  Glad they have LED’s on them.  It would take much longer to find them in the dark without the LED’s.  Put my theory to the test.  Configure my laptop’s wireless interface with an appropriate static IP address, associate to the isolated WAP I’m by, connect to the CLI, restore to factory default.  The last WAP is in wireless signal range so repeat the process on it as well.  Connect to the wireless controller and join both of the last WAPs to the network.  Bingo!  All online.  That easy.  That would have been good to know three hours ago.  Lesson 3:  Wirelessly connect to an isolated WAP using an static IP and restore factory default.

Hmm… where are my glasses?  I’m sure I had them when I left the trailer to start working on these things.  Will double check when I get back to the trailer.  Nope.  No glasses in the trailer.  I am not going back out to search for them in the dark.  It is 11PM local, 1AM Eastern and I have to be up for work in 7 hours.  Too late and too tired to do a blog entry.  Time for bed.

Monday:

Very thankful the coyotes decided to roam elsewhere Sunday night/Monday morning.  Walked by the location of the first WAP I worked on the night prior as I was taking Sasha for her morning walk to the dog run.  Found my glasses sitting on the table at that site.  Yay!

Another productive day at work.

Found a couple of bug bites on my neck.  Hope they weren’t carrying a disease.  Put some antibiotic ointment on the bites.

Head out to the property after grabbing an after work bite to eat.  On my way there it occurred to me that I forgot to change into a work shirt.  I still had one of my “nice” tshirts on.  No other clothes in the truck with me and I didn’t feel like going back to the trailer.  What to do?  Solution:  Do what my mama tried unsuccessfully to teach me not to do.  Albeit, this time I intentionally chose to wear my shirt inside out.  Came across Jack (one of the neighbors) parked on the dirt road trying to move dirt around to direct water runoff off of the road and onto the adjacent land.  I offered a shovel for him to use that I had in the truck.  Grabbed a shovel myself, and worked with him.  Drove up the road a few hundred feet and repeated the exercise.  Said our goodbyes and headed up to the property.  As I got closer to the mountains, I noticed it wasn’t raining and the roads were drier.  Must be we didn’t have any rain up that far recently.  Unlike back where I had been working with Jack to divert the running water in the rain.  Fine by me.  I wanted to add a coat of polyurethane to my seat.  Remembered to flip my shirt inside out before starting to work.  Worked on applying the polyurethane as I was once again monitoring the progress of a thunderstorm coming across the valley.  Finished as much as I could do for this pass.  I think this is going to take probably about 6 – 8 sessions to get 3-4 thin coats of polyurethane on it.  Close up the shed and head back to the trailer.  Chatted on the phone for a bit, finished dishes that didn’t get done Sunday plus what I dirtied today, then wrote a very lengthy and long overdue blog post.

That is it for me.  Night all.

Cary

 

 

 

Time for an update again.

Monday at during lunch break:

• Gave the green light to move forward with ordering the new tractor.  It costs 2x as much as I had budgeted, but for what ever reason, my gut is telling me new instead of used for this one.
• Contacted the septic system specialist to schedule a time to meet at the property to review the build site and potential locations for the septic system.
• Contacted the County Assessor’s office to get guidance on getting a plat map which is needed for the building permit.
• Reached out to my property manager for the house I have rented instructing him to start the eviction process due to the lack of payment.

Monday after work:

Talked with Rusty at length about the wireless solution internet solution here at the park.  Minutes after we first met, while I was fixing her network cabling (the local Telco replaced a device and messed up the cabling) she told me she had two smaller DSL lines bonded then upgraded to one 10M line, and was thinking about installing a second independent 10M line for the far end of the park.  At the time, the park had 4 different SSID’s on various WAPs deployed through the park.  I told her I thought she would be better with getting the wireless all on one SSID and bonding the two 10M DSL lines.  Back to Monday.  While I was there, she got a call confirming that they will give her two 10Mb DSL lines bonded.  The result of our discussion was that she wanted a total of 5 WAP which meant I needed to order more, which I did before leaving for the property.

Remembered that I forgot to ask Rusty about someone to watch Sasha during my up and coming business trip, so I went back to talk to her about that.  She couldn’t think of anyone but volunteered to do it.

At the property, I took measurements needed for the building permit.  I then once again set out in search of the elusive property markers.  After spending what felt like an hour searching for the NW corner marker which in my mind should have been the easiest to find, I came to the conclusion that someone either removed it or buried it.  I have a good notion of where it should be within a 5 foot radius.  Given it is on the far side of the road (road cuts through my property), it is not like I am going to fence right up to the property line so I’m not going to worry about it (for a while 🙂  ).  I just need to note the location on a map for the building permit.   Easy enough.  I then set off in search of the NE corner marker.  I FOUND IT.  WHOO HOO.  believe it or not, it was sitting in a pile of rocks.

Called it a night and headed back to the trailer.

Cooked some dinner, chatted on the phone, spent an hour or so playing with google earth marking the property corners and putting in lines for the property boundaries, planned location of the house, patio, carport for parking at the house, and the RV carport.

This is what I came up with as a first draft:

Tuesday after work I worked on continuing to put away stuff from the move out in the trailer.  After a while, I noticed some rain coming in.  Checked the radar and it looked like the property was either getting it or going to get it, so I changed clothes quickly, threw on my snake boots, and headed out into the rain so I could observed where the water runoff  was going.  Upon arriving at the road we (will) live on, I immediately started taking mental notes of issues such as where water was pooling on the road, where water was streaming off of a property onto the road, the effectiveness of the work done on the road to reduce erosion and where and how it could be improved, etc.  I made these observations all the way up the road to our driveway and down our driveway to the shed.  I then scoped out and marked with yard markers where I could see water coming into the building site from and tracked and marked that water flow up stream.  Note that it had stopped raining by this time, so water flow was very light as water higher on the water shed slowly meandered down slope toward our building site and driveway.  While there I also grabbed a shovel out of the back of the truck and moved some dirt around in the drive way to provide a path for pooling water to drain.  Once done, I saw another shower across the valley that looked like it was coming my way so I sat in the truck and waited for it.  And waited for it.  And waited for it.  While waiting, I decided I could/should use this next shower to check out the road/earth work done at the west end of the property which is generally the highest area on the property, so I went and parked in a prime location to view to the area of interest.  As the water finally started to run after the rain finally arrived, I noted the issue so once again grabbed the shovel and started moving some dirt and rocks around to provide a path for drainage of pooling water.  While shoving, I wondered if shoveling with a steel shovel in the rain with lightening around classifies as one of those dumb decisions mom wanted me to avoid.  I’m guessing yes.  Oops, sorry mom.  As luck would have it I am still alive.

Why do I care if water pools on the road?  Pooled water increases likelihood of rutting up that location before it dries out, if it sits too long, it becomes a mosquito breading ground, and finally the damn cattle gather on the road to drink the collected water and don’t like to move when you want to drive by.

Mamma’s and their young getting a drink from the road on the west end of the property.  The view is looking south.

 

I’m really looking forward to getting fencing installed.  That won’t help with situations in the road like this, but I will feel a lot more comfortable working on the property knowing there aren’t any cattle in the area.  Unfortunately, I still won’t be able to crank the tunes as I will need to keep my ears open for rattling noises.  🙂

By the time I got home and got a bite to eat, I was ready to drop, so off to bed I went.

That brings us to Wednesday.  Not much to report today.  After work I was working on researching and documenting construction details for the various structures I will need to get a building permit for while I waited for Victor’s call to meet about the septic system.  Sadly my mind was a bit ADD while doing research and I kept going off on related but non-critical at this time tangents, so I didn’t get done as much as I had hoped.

I guess I should note that we do have another offer on the house and we finally got an addendum to the offer resulting from the home inspection.  The asks were minor and reasonable in my mind so we signed it.  The last two things that I can think of that stand in our way of closing this deal is FHA appraisal and financing for the buyers.  I don’t think we are asking to much so I don’t think FHA appraisal will be an issue.  Fingers crossed this is wrapped up in just a few short weeks.

Time to wrap up so I can get some sleep.

Night all!

 

 

 

Let me start this entry by saying thank you for all the feedback both in the comments left on the blog as well as via email.  While I may not respond to comments left, I do read and appreciate each comment.

Saturday morning I was up at sunrise, but hung around the trailer to take care of business before heading to the property to work.

The call to the equipment place to order my tractor was not as productive as I would have liked as the salesman was working in the field.  We agreed to touch base Monday after I finish work.  Next on the list was making my first run to the recycling pickup for Portal.  Finally, onto the property.

I started by spending an hour or two walking the SW section of the property.  All that brown in the satellite images is generally high land where water does not linger thus nothing is growing.  Seems like a good place to build to me.  Made use of the 300′ measure I bought Thursday evening to mark off distances from the nearest wash for the car port (50′).   Identified the SE corner of the attached car port for the house.  Made an attempt to mark the rough location of the other 3 corners of the series of house structures (car port is on the east end, utility room and house to the west, then covered patio on the west end).  Practiced finding true north using the shadow method.  I would like to note that this is impossible on cloudy days, and challenging on partly clouding days.  Given it is monsoon season here, I did not have the success I was hoping for due to cloud cover but I did get a semblance of a line.  Given I will have to redo it after the land is cleared for construction, I think what i have is good enough for planning purposes.  Why true north and not magnetic north with a typical compass?  I plan on building a passive solar home for heating and cooling purposes.  The purpose is to have a home that requires little to no resources other than nature to heat it in the winter and cool it in the summer.  The delta between magnetic north and true north (true north having to do with the rotation of the earth and the path the sun takes across the sky) is enough to lead to sub optimal heating and cooling.  Given this is my first attempt at such a structure, I want to make every effort to optimize the design and construction.  Just hoping the authors of the books I’m using for reference know what they are talking about and I can translate that into a functional home that stays comfortable year round.  Anyway, I digress.  As I was out of cold water (I do keep a gallon jug of water in the truck for emergencies, but it is certainly not cold) and the lunch I had taken with me was eaten hours before, I headed to the tavern for my usual, naked baked potato with a side of BBQ sauce and naked broccoli, nice cold ice water, and a couple of tasty margaritas.

Once back to the trailer, I started reviewing flight info as I learned I have to fly to PA in early August for work.  Left that matter undecided as it was getting dark and a laptop outside attracts pesky bugs.  Took Sasha for her evening walk then off to bed.

Sasha dumped her food dish around 1AM so she could eat while she lays on the floor.  Brat.  I scolded her and went back to sleep.  Sasha reminded me at 2AM that I forgot to give her water with some loud barks that woke me from a sound sleep.  Hershey woke me around 5AM at which point I gave up on trying to sleep for the morning.  Got up, made breakfast, ordered signed up for 3 year membership for two different medivac services (if you are seriously injured, helicopter to the hospital is your only choice around here).  Reviewed my to-do list.  Got food and water around for spending the day at the property.  Headed to the property.

At the property I started to clear brush from the building site for the house with pruners.  After about 15 minutes I had enough and went and got the chainsaw.  I think the chain saw wanted to take more breaks than I did.  None-the-less, I was appreciative of the breaks that the chainsaw wanted to take.  I’m sure I need to do some maintenance on it now.  The brush I was cutting with it was close to the dirt so the chain spent way more time in the dirt than is good for a chainsaw.  The bar oiler was already leaking some oil but by the time I was done, bar oil was all over the chainsaw case. So need to sort that out and now the chain is dull as would be expected.  Anxious for the tractor where I should be able to dig that stuff out with the backhoe instead of using the saw to cut it down and still need to dig it out later.  Fortunately, I was finishing up the last mesquite bush as my body was running out of the energy needed for running the chainsaw and clearing the brush.  As fate would have it, I could see a bit of rain heading my way around that time as well.  Packed everything up, closed the shed, and then spent another hour looking for that property marker on the NW corner (rain was just some sprinkles here and there).  No success.

On my way home, the lack of sleep from the previous night started to really hit me.  Got back to the trailer and set an alarm for an hour for a short nap.  I think I got up two hours later feeling much better.

Using the permit process as an excuse to obsess over the property marker (supposed to have property line info in my site building plans I will submit to the county for building permits), I once again opened google earth and started with data points I knew about – the two southern property markers.  With the understanding that the property boundaries should each be 1/4 mile long, a quick google on how many feet in a mile then divide by 4 gave me a distance in feet to the property marker.  Also under the notion that the lot boundaries are on E-W and N-S lines based on the plot map, I was able to estimate the location of the two yet unlocated markers.  I will likely go look for the NW marker again sometime this week in the area indicated by google earth.

And now, I give you what you have been waiting for:  pictures.

 

Night all.

 

 

Worked all day Wednesday.

Went and checked out the diversion swales (aka “Mother may I” , “Thank you mother”) on the roads and other earth moving I requested Francisco do.  Looked ok to me.  Will see what happens when the rains come.  I sure hope I can be there for a few heavy rains.  Visited a bit with Tom and one of his guests: Chris.  Chris is a vet injured in the line of duty by an IED.  Tom was telling me that the Travel Channel was coming to town and was going to rent some horses and his ranch hand Francisco was going to guide them into a part of the mountains that had some historical significance and remaining historical artifacts.  As I understand it, there are a number of artifacts in the mountains that you can go see.  Pretty cool stuff I hope to see some day.

Tom also mentioned that some other locals were interested in riding lessons and that he would like to give me my lessons at the same time he was giving them theirs.  After I left, it occurred to me that we did not discuss dates or anything.

Back at the trailer as storm was rolling in.  Really cool view of lightning in the mountains to the east.  Tried to get some pics, but was unsuccessful.  In retrospect, I guess I’ll just run video then pull still images from the footage – or maybe I’ll upload to youtube and provide a link.  Chatted with new RV park neighbor while watching the storm roll in.  We both decided about the same time it was close enough and we probably shouldn’t be outside given the lightning.

Wrapped up the evening thinking about next steps on the property and plans for the rest of the week and looking through a cookbook for ideas on what would be good to prepare for Friday’s potluck.

I decided to make my run to Douglas for food and misc supplies Thursday afternoon after work so that I would have what I need to make a dish to pass for Fridays potluck and so such a run would not cut into my weekend productivity.  I made multiple trips back and forth across the town of Douglas as I learned what stores do and don’t have in terms of hardware for home and garden and produce.  As per my plan, I asked a local (employee at the hardware store) where I could go for some good Mexican food.   Luckily, his favorite place was a place I had driven by the last time I was in town so I had a good idea where it was and how to get there.  As I was parking, I noted another Mexican restaurant in the distance but didn’t see any cars there where as this one, I was parking in the last available spot it was busy.  Good enough evidence for me.  What a great recommendation.  It is a small family run restaurant with great food.  Not sure I will bother trying any others in town.. well, maybe if this one is closed when I want to eat.  When he brought out the chips and dipping sauce, I looked at the small cup of sauce and thought geez thanks for being generous.  Then I took a bite of a chip dipped generously in the sauce.  I have to wonder if he went back to the kitchen and told his staff:  “Hey, come watch this new gringo eat the chips and sauce.”  Holy crap was that stuff hot.  That clearly explains the portion size served.  Luckily, the rest of dinner was not overly spicy and was quite flavorful.

It was dusk by the time I started to head home.  I swear, cotton tail rabbits must be the dumbest animals around.  I really wish I would have counted how many ran in front of me on the way home.  With no exaggeration, I would guess it was more than twenty.  One was so close I swore I was going to hit him, but I never felt the bump, although in that big truck, not sure I would feel a bump for a little suicidal cotton tail rabbit.

Made it home safe and sound just as it was starting to sprinkle.  Took Sasha for a quick walk so she could take care of business, put groceries away, and crashed for the night as it was after midnight EDT (I’m working east coast work hours).

Friday was yet another busy workday.  Problems at work prevented me from using my lunch time to prep some food for the potluck, so I had to do all the planned cooking after work.  I made rice and vegetables with peanut sauce.  For being the first time I made it, it came out very good.  Sadly, I finished preparing at least 15 minutes after they started eating.  There was still plenty of food left that others brought that was “close enough” to my dietary goals for me to gorge myself on.  Got some good feedback on the performance of the wireless service in the park from the other park guests during dinner.  In packing up my food, there was more gone than I expected given everyone was well into their first plate of food when I got there.  Rusty’s dad complimented me on the dish.

I decided to take another crack at leveling the trailer that seems to be a moving target.  I suspect literally.  Earlier in the week, I checked the underside of the trailer and saw the support beams were bent/sagging after the rear support/stabilizing jack.  While in Douglas I picked up another set of jacks to put under the beam in the far back to support it.  Next time we move it, I will have to make sure the back of the trailer is completely empty so it doesn’t give way going down the road.  That will be the last time we move it short of taking it to a dump or otherwise disposing of it.  By the time I finished, the trailer was close enough to level for me and the beams looked straight again.  Success.

I spent the rest of the evening browsing the county’s website reviewing permit requirements and etc.  In reviewing the permit requirements, I’m thinking I will be able to move onto the land with the RV in mid to late August.  I just need to make sure I keep making baby steps forward each day during the week and hopefully leaps forward on the weekends.  I just need to make sure I don’t fall into the ‘analysis paralysis’ trap that I spend so much time in.  I need to try to strike a balance between analysis (data and information collection, analyzing, planning) with concrete actions that move the process forward.  Otherwise, my tendency of late is to analyze things to death and then not act on it out of fear of making a mistake.  Out here, as long as the mistake doesn’t kill me, I will learn from it and keep pushing forward.  That is the only way I will accomplish anything and be successful in reaching my goals.

That’s it for tonight.

Night all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, I glossed over the resolution to yesterday’s water mess at the house.  Rachel had the brilliant idea of borrowing an extension cable from the neighbor and plugging the sump pump into a different outlet as she discovered that the GFI outlet it was plugged into was dead and would not reset.  She was in the process of cleaning up the water when Brian arrived and confirmed that the GFI outlet was toast.  He made a run to Menards for a new one and then replaced it.  No obvious point of entry for the water.  It rained heavily earlier in the day.  My theory is that with the GFI blown, the rainwater saturated the ground and entered the house through the pit overflowing onto the floor.  I am thankful that it was rain water and not septic water.    I am thankful Rachel happened to be working in the area for a friend, noticed the garage door was opened and stopped to close it.  I’m thankful the water detection alarm I bought and installed a while back was working and Rachel was able to hear it from the garage and she had the where-with-all to go investigate.  I am thankful Brian was available and able to take care of the outlet.  Even with the stress I was feeling upon receiving the news I had a flooded basement on a house I just signed a counter offer to sell, clearly the Gods were smiling on me with everything that aligned for the issue to be discovered by Rachel in a timely manner then  be resolved in an equally timely manner.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I also failed to mention that while I was away reviewing the work to be done on the road bordering the property, with the trailer roof vents wide open back at the RV park, it rained.  So here we go:  I’m thankful even when rainy it is low humidity relative to Michigan so my bed was dried out before bedtime.  I am thankful my computer equipment was not under a vent.  I’m thankful the trailer doesn’t have any carpet.

Tuesday was a workshop day at work meaning I was on the phone all day listening to a presentation and discussion on new technology we are preparing to start using at work.

After work I installed the new WiFi system here at the RV park.  Went well other than I installed one of them in the wrong spot.  Still seems to work well.  Certainly not good enough for an enterprise installation.  I’m not sure if Seth, our wireless SME at work, would laugh or cry at the low signal strengths (-85dbm) I’m leveraging to relay the wireless signal from one end of the part to the other in this wireless mesh configuration.  That said, the WAPs are not currently line of site as I didn’t have a ladder with me so the two out at the camp sites are only mounted 7ft in the air.  Driving through the park using iperf3 to test bandwidth back to the raspberry pi in the office, the lowest I had was 1Mb/sec.  That is sufficient for browsing the web (albeit a bit slow) and doing email.  Park rules are no streaming video and no large downloads on the park’s free wifi out of consideration of sharing the 10Mb/s down dsl internet circuit.  Sorry, I don’t remember what the up speed is.  I have 30′ ethernet cables being delivered tomorrow.  They will get a ladder and mount the WAPs 15-20′ up so as to be able to shoot the signal over the top of the RV’s for a better uplink to the office and hopefully sufficient penetration into all the RV’s when the park is full.  They will likely have me get one more WAP.  They had 1 WAP base station with a directional antenna and 3 repeaters with amplifiers spread through the park.  I’m simply replacing all four with Ubiquiti omni directional mesh WAPs.  In addition to the wireless updates, they may be getting a second 10Mbps DSL internet circuit and bonding it with the first.

Ok. Ok.  Enough tech talk.  I must confess… I’ve been stalling, waiting for photos to upload to the flikr from my phone.

Ugh… To no avail.  I seem to be iphone challenged.  Ok.  I know what to do, I was just trying to avoid it.

And here we are.  For those of you that have eyes glazed over from the tech talk, here is your reward for hanging in there… photos.

That’s it for me.

Night all.

Spent Sunday at the park.  Most of the time was spent installing Unbuntu (an OS) on my laptop, configuring the new Raspberry Pi that I acquired to use as the wireless controller for here at the park, and the three Ubiquiti mesh wireless access points that I was now in possession of for the park.  Once those more interesting projects were complete, then I moved on to laundry.  There were two sets of washers and dryers and I had two loads worth, and just enough quarters to run each machine once.  How convenient.  Chatted on the phone with friends and family while waiting for the laundry to complete.  As I was taking the still damp clothes out of the dryer, I was thinking back that I should have remembered that never in my life on a coin op dryer have I had the clothes dry with the first run of the dryer.  Oh well.  As I was walking back to the camper with the still damp clothes, I was pondering where I could put them to dry out.  As I started to lay them out on the couch and chair, it occurred to me that I could open all the cupboard doors and hang shirts from them.  The heavier jeans I just laid out on the chair and couch.  I even finally found a use for the window valences.  Glad no one is really in the park to see what I hung from the valences… 🙂   With all the clothes hanging everywhere in the tailer, it really killed my motivation to clean the trailer around the drying clothes.  Oh darn.  I was really bummed…  So I watched youtube videos to make take my mind off of it.  Video theme for the night was recovering and reusing lithium batteries.  The video’s changed my mind to spend the extra money up front on used lithium batteries instead of the new lead acid batteries I had been planning on using with the notion that it will save $$ in the long run.  The LI batteries I found on ebay will cost 2x what I had budgeted for the lead acid batteries but I will also get 2x+ the storage capacity as what I would have gotten with the lead acid batteries and they are expected to last 2x+ longer.

Lead time is 40+ days.  I will likely order here in the next few days.

Worked today to earn a paycheck.  Seemed like back to back meetings all day.  I had an hour or two to deal with email and work on other things.

Forgot to mention that Sunday my  realtor informed me that we had a new offer on the house and gave me a few options in terms of a counter offer.  Told him what I wanted to do for a counter offer.  He emailed the paperwork today which I printed, signed, and scanned, and emailed back.  This evening he notified me that the buyer signed off on the counter offer.  Fingers crossed that the inspection happens on a rainy day so the neighbors aren’t out.

Minutes after sending the counter offer back to him, I was notified by my eldest daughter who noticed the garage door open and stopped to close it that 2 of the 5 rooms in the basement had water on the floor.  Ugh.

Asking for help is difficult for me.  Don’t know why.  Didn’t have much choice in the matter so I reached out to my brother Brian who was thankfully available and willing to assist.  As there was not much I could do, I proceeded with my plans to go to the property and review the earth work with Francisco, Tom’s ranch hand.  I am happy to say that with a few minor corrections he was in agreement with everything I proposed.  Made me feel good that I was able to translate a little bit of that book knowledge on dessert water management into actionable plans.  We agreed on an hourly rate for him to do the work using Tom’s backhoe.  Tom and I had previously agreed on arrangements for the backhoe.  He will do the work this Wednesday.  Looking forward to getting that done so I can move on to other matters.  That is not to say there won’t be more work that needs to be done.  This is just step one to do the obvious.  More in-depth study of water flow across the land will be necessary before investing in any more changes though.

Next is trying to sort out placement of the RV+shelter, house, water cisterns, etc.  Once that is done, I can with confidence outline where I want fencing installed.  I can also then contact Victor from Elbrock water systems to then assess an appropriate location for a septic system and provide a design for it.  Once that is done, then I can check on getting a building permit, street address, and RV permit.  Once I have a street address, I can begin the process of checking on internet options.  I’ve already got plans brewing in my mind on how to get it from the box on the street to the area I want to build in which is about a 1000 feet away.  Once everything for internet at the property is lined up and scheduled, I’ll take a day off and move.  I’m thinking all that is going to take a month or maybe two.

Well, I think I wanted to write more, but I keep falling asleep at the keyboard and Sasha is snoring away behind me.  I’ve got a few more pics to post.  They are a PITA to get off my phone but will try to get them posted this week.

Night all.

 

 

 

Time for an update again.

After chatting with Tom, it became clear that my #1 priority should be to try to protect my investment in road improvements by investing in managing water runoff during the rainy season.

Thursday:

Earn a living during the day

Spent evening thinking about the property, watching YouTube videos on stone masonry ( I have tons and tons of stones at my disposal), rereading book on managing water runoff,  sleep.

Friday:

Earn a living during the day.

Finally gave myself a hair cut and beard trim.  It was only a couple months overdue.  My God.  Looking in the mirror I’m seeing hair going in more and more places on my head where it is not supposed to be… just not the top of my head where it is supposed to be.  Rip out those errant hairs.

Managed to get into the club house shower before folks started gathering for the pot luck.  Potluck food… Went to cook the asparagus that I bought a week or two before.   It was beyond mush… yuck.  Ok  plan B.  What is plan B?  Don’t know.  Dinner is Mexican themed…   How about Mexican rice.  I should have everything I need to make that.  Google is my friend.  Hmm… Time is tight and instant pot pressure cooker isn’t working quite right.  Possibly because the trailer once again is off level.  Hmm…  Not sure how the rice is going to come out and it is not going to be done before the potluck is scheduled to start.  Hmmm… Plan C… What is plan C?  I don’t know…. What do I have?   Green beans.  I brought over 24 quarts of canned green beans with me. Not Mexican but oh well.  Neither was Plan A (steamed asparagus).  Threw the beans in a pan on the stove and threw some red wine with garlic vinagar in with them while the rice continued to cook.  Hmmm  The pan that I grabbed to cook the beans in in my haste is not conducive to transport and I really don’t have a serving container to transport them in….   Solution:  dump into another pan that has a lid.  Take beans, drink, and place setting the the potluck.  They aren’t ready to eat yet so we chat for a while.  Timer for the rice goes of so I head back to the trailer to check on it.  Seems that it has cooked enough and other than being burned on the bottom, appears to be good to go.  Don’t want to take that pot over with the burned rice on the bottom… What to do?   Don’t have another pan with a lid.  Grab a big metal bowl and put the unburned rice into it with the intention of saran wrapping the top to keep the blowing dirt from getting into it as I make the walk to the club house….  Note I said intent…. I forgot to cover the top.  Oh well.  I didn’t notice any sandy crunching when eating it until today when I was eating the left overs.  I like to think that the dirt was from my dirty face as opposed to dirt blown in when I was transporting it.  🙂  Anyway.  Ironically, IMO, the rice came out better than the green beans.  IMO there was too much vinegar in the green beans.  Oh well.  It was a nice to socialize for a couple of hours.  Have I mentioned my love of mexican food?  Mexican food potluck… That is like mexican buffet.  Did I mention I ate way too much?  I did stick to my diet 90%, so that is mostly good.  It certainly could have been way worse with all the cheese and sour cream (mmm… cheese and sour cream) that I opted not to put on my food.

After dinner I watched some more videos, this time on building and using water levels that enable you to check level over distance without line of sight.  Developed a gameplan for Saturday.  Went to sleep.

Saturday:

Woke up before dawn (no alarm), got breakfast, did a few dishes to kill time waiting for stores to open, headed to Douglas to pick up materials to build a water level, yard marking flags for utilities, few food staples, and a ball cap to cover my recently cropped head.

Home by noon.  Lunch. Changed into lightweight long sleeve shirt.  Built water level while wearing my ball cap.  Should have worn my gardening cap because I think I got sunburn on my neck.  Headed to property.  Donned snake boots and gardening hat.  Walked roads on the west and south boundaries of the property reviewing road and land elevations and slopes.  Marked locations I wanted earth moved to make diversion swales, earth berms, and some basins all in hopes of minimizing erosion of the recently graded road.  Ate dinner while sitting on my tailgate enjoying the view of the mountains on the far side of the valley to the east.  Convinced myself that I needed quarters for laundry on Sunday and I should get them at the Tavern.  What the heck.  How about a couple of Margaritas while I’m there.   Home to write the blog and soon work on other tech projects now that the blog update is nearly complete and the night is still young (New Mexico time anyway).

Night all.

 

Searching my brain to remember what I did Tuesday, July 4th… Must not have been anything too important…

Oh ya.  Now I remember.

Started the day out by identifying stuff in the trailer that could go to the shed and spent a bit of time reorganizing the rest.  Loaded the truck with the stuff for the shed and off the the property I went.

At the property I shoehorned the stuff I brought from the trailer into the shed.  Here I thought all those hours playing Tetris in my younger years was a waste.  Seemingly not so.  Once I got everything in to my satisfaction (bar is pretty low here – f-it, good enough comes to mind), I once again donned my snake boots and armed with a bottle of water and the estimation of the GPS coordinates for the property corner posts Tom and I came up with, and a newly installed GPS app on my iPhone, I went in search once gain for the two northern property markers  Yes, I know… I’ve had problems with run on sentences since high school.   Anyway…  once I got to the area I thought the NE corner should be in I set an alarm for 20 minutes as a reminder to get in out of the sun.  As I was circling the area, in my mind I was comparing myself to a chicken on a rotisserie.  Constantly circling so as to get evenly cooked (by the sun in my case).  I passed through a few areas multiple times just to make sure I hadn’t missed it the first few passes.  Kinda like looking for my glasses Sunday at Tom and Alicia’s.  Alicia asked what I was looking for, I told her my glasses.  Her response:  You are wearing them.  Yes folks, they were on my face… OMG, what is happening to me? Any way, back to the search for the property markers.  Listening to my body, I gave up before the timer went off.  Sat in the truck for shade and water for a few minutes, then drove to the area where the NW corner should be.  Stymied once again.  During this search, my mind was reviewing what I could do differently to improve the chances of success the next time I searched.  A number of things were coming to mind.

Side note:  I find it interesting that if:

You think: This problem is too difficult, I can’t solve it.

The result is, your mind provides you no solutions.

However, if you think:  This is a difficult problem, HOW might I solve it or at least mitigate it.

The result is your brain starts churning out possibilities.  Some good, some not so good.  The more you practice, the easier the ideas come.  The longer you contemplate a given issue and open your mind to a variety of possibilities rather than focusing on the first one or two that come to mind, ideas of potential solutions keep coming.

I have to believe this is a skill that can be developed should one chose and not simply an ability people are gifted with.

Headed back to the RV park to continue work on my to-do list and get cleaned up for the evening’s festivities.  I noted that Rusty, Tim (her hubby), and Bob (the park’s handyman/grounds keeper) were relaxing under the shade canopy by the club house so I went over and discussed my thoughts on the WiFi solution for the park and got some input from them.  As they were getting ready to throw some ribs on the grill, I decided to head back to the trailer and cook some food of my own.  That was the first day I cooked food since I left home.  I’ve generally been eating left overs from the fridge and freezer to this point.  Once I got the potatoes and garlic in the pressure cooker, I turned my focus to “what can I do in the mean time”.  Ahh.. there is this emergency exit window whose handle I broke shortly after arriving at the park.  The replacement from Amazon wasn’t exactly right and there were no alternatives that I could find online.  My previous attempt to modify it was a failure, and I knew what I wanted to try next.  It should only take a few minutes.  Ya, right.  Long story short, after trying various things, a combination of parts from the broken one, parts from the new one, and a few other minor modifications, I have a working emergency window lever.  I can now open that window to get ventilation, and close it from the inside when storms roll in (a function I was sorely missing last week).

By the time I finished working on the window and put my tools away, it was too late to take advantage of the hair clippers I found earlier in the day, and Rusty and company were having a potluck in the club house where the bathroom with shower was located.  Going to the parade and community center without washing off a few days of sweat and grime was not an option in my mind.  Time to test the shower in the trailer.  That was an interesting but successful experience.  I determined that clearly that shower will not work for Cheryl for several reasons.  So, wheels are churning on various solutions.  Only time will tell which solution I go with.  Probably one I haven’t thought of yet.

After the shower, it was off the the parade.  I videoed the whole thing (I think – sometimes I’m phone camera challenged).  Decided to swing into the tavern to see who was in there.  Tom left shortly after my arrival as he was not feeling well.  Chatted a bit with Russ and Barbie.    Then, off to the community center for the fundraising meal.  Got there just in time to get an entry in for the door prizes.  I did not win anything in case you were wondering.  I didn’t stick around long as I really didn’t know anyone and hanging around in a large crowd of people without someone I know to talk to is not my scene.  Striking up conversations in that kind of environment is not my thing.  Ok, so striking up conversations with strangers in any environment is not my thing, but it seems to be easier to do in the Tavern for some reason.  Back to the trailer I went.  I was tired so I crashed pretty quickly.

After that verbose description of Tuesday’s going’s on, lucky for you, I was back to work today so not much to write about.  After work I made some phone calls to family, did the dishes, knocked off a couple of other items off my todo list, then retired to the easy chair in the shade outside with my laptop and a pen and pad of paper.  The objective was to “finalize” in my mind the arrangement and size of structures on the property so I could go mark them out.  Once I had them marked out, I would mark out where I want to put the fence.  My mind played hopscotch as I went from one related thought to another and I ended up researching roofing material.  What roofing material I use plays a role in the slope on the roof which plays a role in rafter spans which plays a role in size of rafters, which impacts how much overhang I will have which impacts how much sun penetration into the living space at various points in the year, which may impact how large of a structure I want to build…. see how I connected the dots there…  Anyway.  At dusk I took Sasha for her night time walk, then started pounding on the keyboard writing what I thought would be a quick update…. oops.

Past bedtime.  Night all.

 

 

Today was a pretty laid back day.  I was really struggling to find motivation to work on stuff this morning, but I pushed myself and got a few things done.  Very glad I did.

After breakfast (smoothie) and working on arranging the bathroom a bit better, finally leveling the trailer was first on the list.  I had snugged all four corner jacks the morning after my arrival and the trailer was kinda sorta level at that time.  However, over time, it seems like things shifted a bit.  The front was high and yet the back jacks were not making contact with the blocks under them.  Beats me.  Anyway, once the I got the trailer leveled, the screen door stopped sticking and I am now able to lock the deadbolt on the trailer.  Whoo-hoo.  Three things off my list with just one effort.  I replaced the screen door handle that I broke when roadside on that New Mexico mountain.  I replaced a plastic window knob that was brittle and had pieces breaking off every time I opened or closed the window.  I took out all the new LED trailer lights that were crap (flickering, burning out, over heating, etc), dug all the incandescent bulbs out of the trash and put them back into service so I would have reliable light inside the trailer in the evenings.  Printed, signed, scanned, emailed real estate document.  I replaced a turn signal bulb in the truck that burned out after I got here.  I made a run to Rodeo to pickup mail.  I finally recaulked the front sides of the trailer as cracks had formed from my previous caulk job on the road in Joliet, IL.  I observed that part of the cover to the air conditioner on the roof was cracked and flapping in the wind – added that to my to-do list since I didn’t have my latter to get up there to assess what I need to do to fix it.  Then I turned my attention to the project of testing the new WiFi solution at the park.  It became clear pretty quickly to me that a single AP centrally placed was not going to cover the park.  There was at least one bar of signal on my iphone7 all the way around the perimeter, but that would not be enough to adequately penetrate RV’s and all bets are off once the park is full of RV’s.  Once we tore down the test setup, I headed back to prepare to do my laundry.  As I was collecting my clothes that hadn’t made it to the laundry basket, it occurred to me that I didn’t have any laundry soap.  I had planned on ordering some special soap off the internet once I got down here.  I then realized, that the special laundry soap I wanted was not sold online so I would have to find someone “local” that carries it (they did not have a list of stores that carry it) or ask one of the local businesses to order it for me.  I decided to try the latter.  Forgot it was Monday, so I could have done it right then.  Now I will have to wait until Wednesday.  Got my firewall from MI up and running using the power supply I ordered from Amazon (I think in my haste I donated the one I was using to Goodwill).  Will put the new Linksys firewall/AP I just bought in storage to be used in case of failure of primary equipment.  Moved the DHCP server over to the Raspberry Pi.  ReIP’d everything.  Took an impromptu nap (aka feel asleep with the laptop on my chest).  Put more effort into researching possible WiFi solution for the park.  Seems to me based on my research, that I’m on the right path.  I just need more WiFi access points.  The model I bought to test can operate in a mesh configuration.  That is to say, that I can buy more of the same and install them at various points in the park and they will act as both wireless access point and wireless repeater to relay the signal back to the office in either a direct or multihop fashion.  If one unit upstream toward the internet router fails, they can reconfigure and talk around that missing AP presuming signal is strong enough which it should be.  I think most of these will be line of site with each other.  I’ll talk with Rusty about it tomorrow.  Ok.  Enough of the techie talk.

That about sums up my day.  Nothing to strenuous or exciting, just completing misc tasks that needed to be done.  Then nap and dinking around on the computer.

Looking over the trailer this evening… Kinda glad Cheryl didn’t come with.  There is no room in here for two people with all the stuff I still have in here.  Sure am glad there is still room on those shelves in the shed.  I just now watched Hershey try to traverse one of the paths that he used to take from one end of the trailer to another and because I moved a lot of stuff around on the couch today, it wasn’t so stable for him to walk on.  🙂  I guess that settles it.  Tomorrow morning will be spent moving more stuff from the trailer into the shed.  Hopefully I’ll find the hair trimmer when I’m going through stuff.  I’m about a month overdue for a hair cut and trim.  Of course that would also require me to find a ball cap to wear while I’m out and about.

One thing that is going to take some getting used to is relaxing in the afternoon, then working again in the evening after it has cooled down a bit.  Stopping in the afternoon won’t be a problem.  It is getting started again in the evening that is going to be the challenge.

Fourth of July festivities tomorrow.  I expect to be late getting back to the trailer so don’t expect any blog entries tomorrow.  I will try to get you caught up Wednesday evening (presuming there are no fires at work that need to be dealt with).

Night all.