Occasional thoughts and deeds of an Engineer
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  • Harbor Freight Day

    Posted on March 14th, 2013 cwmoore No comments

    I went to Harbor Freight to make the last purchases this seasons:  4 jack stands, voltmeter, expanding pole to use to fish wires, slingshot to shoot wires across ceilings.  I shopped for about and hour, having previously dropped SAM at Salvation Army, and then drove to the Salvation Army on 66th Street.  I spent time walking the dog twice after lunch and dinner because I have found it helps to pund down the food.  If you eat then sit the food just seems to sit there too.

    A bit cool today but the sun was out and radiated heat right down on you.  All-in-all it was a very nice Florida winter day.  Well, I had better go as West Central Florida Eagle Net is going to start in a few moments.

  • Preparing

    Posted on March 13th, 2013 cwmoore No comments

    We started to prepare for the trip back to Indiana this morning.  The itch is starting to itch more and I am ready to head back.  I tore down the tower computer, which failed to boot lately, and have it sitting in the front room ready for packing.  The Tower goes into, as the very last item, the truck cab since it can still get cold enough to give the HD problems.

    (Just took out time to dry the dishes from breakfast)

    Pulling the Civic around on the car dolly (or flat 4) is a pain.  Neither way allows you to back up.  Thus, planning ahead for not getting boxed in is a real issue.  Additionally, with the car dolly you cannot turn too sharp because the dolly fenders come very close to the doors of the car.  I could visualize that turning very sharp could dent the doors.  In order to fully pack up here in St. Petersburg we must first pull all the vehicles out of the driveway, back in the Honda Civic, position the dolly for a straight runup of the Civic, back in the truck and connect the dolly and finally pull the Ciciv onto the dolly.  Then we are ready to go.  All this effort takes about a half hour – but what the heck – we are retired so time is not an issue 🙂  We then fully pack the car, truck and camper.

    I have a very new-found respect for my Mom & Dad, in the fact, that they spent months and months in their 11′ camper. The departed Indiana and went all the way to Alaska and back. Wow, I am impressed.  Our camper is just too small being only 8′ long.  It is good for overnight and long weekends but not much more.  I also have new-found respect for motorhomes in the 24′ to 29′ class. Perhaps this is the way to go?  Still a boat in the 42′ class has appeal too.

    We have pretty much finished the work around Martha’s house and I have organized my tools in the living room so that they can be packed in the truck in the next day or so.  I usually put these in the cab of the truck, behind the driver’s seat since they weigh a lot and I do not want more weight in the camper.  We do have a strategy: (1) Tools, Tower, dog stuff and snacks are in the cab, (2) very light bulky items go in Civic trunk, (3) other bigger items and even bulkier items go into the Civic passenger compartment and (4) eating and sleeping items  go into the camper.  The loading booklet that comes with the car dolly says not to load the towed vehicle with excess weight.

    OK, enough boring things for now.

  • Florida Keys Trip

    Posted on March 4th, 2013 cwmoore No comments

    We just returned from the Keys via Marco Island and Miami.  We stayed in Naples for three days to look at John Meyers Youngsun 43 Pilothouse sailboat.  John was a gracious host and we had a good time talking with him.  From there we went to Miami for three days to see Roger Sanders (and wife plus all the family).  Rogers wife is having a baby very soon so he is in for a lifestyle change.  While we stayed in Miami at the  Larry and Penny Thompson RV Park.  What a great RV Park; however, you need a vehicle to travel around Miami and we only brought the truck with the camper.  Our bikes helped in getting around locally but still no shopping for SAM.

    From Miami we drove down to the Keys to visit with Steve Bennett.  Steve is now retired and living in his small but very nice ocean front house.  We had a good visit with Steve and got to see a locals view of Marathon Key.  On Saturday we went to a nautical flea market plus sever others in the city of Marathon.  We returned to St. Petersburg on Sunday afternoon 3/3/2013 in beautiful but cold sunshine and very high winds.

    Upon arrival after a 6+ hour return trip we found the Magic Jack computer was left on but the internet was not working.  After a trouble shoot session and a reboot of the computer nothing worked.  More troubleshooting only to find the router wired ports were all inop.  The tablet, note book, android phone and Nook all connected ok wirelessly so we went to bed.  In the morning the computer would not boot beyound the windows wallpaper screen so did a safe mode boot and fell back to a restore point a few days earlier.  After a few reboots Windows XP worked again so we installed the wireless usb access point to make a wireless connection.  By 1030 we were all good to go.  Yea.  Moore later.