November 20, 2005

November 20, 2005

Pahrump, Nevada

YEAR 2 DAY 156

 

Today was another sunny, hot day. I sure could get used to this desert weather all winter.

Today was a day for maintenance and "home improvement" projects. After regular morning routines, chores, and preventive maintenance, I started on a series of projects. First I had to remove a floor register to retrieve the mushroom plug that had fallen into it. Then I had to find where that mushroom plug, and another one I found on the floor the other day, belonged. Travelling on bumpy roads dislodges the little wooden mushroom plugs that are covering countersunk screws all over the inside of the trailer. Usually when they fall out, I glue them back into place, but even the glued in ones sometimes fall out on really rough roads. I found the locations of the 2 missing mushroom plugs, and replaced them. Next I fabricated another slide wedge for use under the front edge of the living room / dinette slide when it's retracted for travel. I had previously made two wedges, but decided I need a third one. I bought the materials I need recently, and today made the third one by gluing felt to the underside of a wheel chock. Then I took Bo for an obedience session. Good dog, Bo. He really does quite well most days when I take him for an obedience training walk fairly early in the day. Like I said before, I guess that's why we send children to school in the morning, not the evening. Next I cleaned, polished, and weather protected my black leather shoes. I sure am hard on shoes. Always have been. Working on my shoes inspired Joanne to clean and polish a pair of her shoes that she thought were beyond redemption. I gave her a special shoe cleaning compound that I have, and when she was finished cleaning and polishing her shoes, they looked like new.

Finally I got started on my main project of the day. First Joanne emptied everything out of the "basement" pass through storage area while I got out all the tools and hardware I was going to need. I did some careful measuring, then squeezed myself into the pass through to drill through the wall, into the back of the stairs inside the trailer. I drilled and installed three screws into the back of the lowest stair to secure the stair box in place. What a cramped, hot space to work in. Then I cut, filed, sanded, and stained a piece of quarter round to replace the one on the top stair that broke recently. That part of the job went better than I had expected. Then I decided I might as well remove the 2 pieces of moulding on the bottom stair, and replace them as well. Those pieces looked somewhat dirty, and I didn't think MRO Services in Vancouver had varnished them. I removed the 2 pieces of moulding, then cut and stained replacement pieces. It was time for a very late lunch.

By the time lunch was finished, the varnish on the moulding pieces had dried enough that I could handle them. I drilled little pilot holes for finishing nails, and installed the three pieces. Joanne had intended to varnish them again after they were installed. Well, everything with this job went as well as could be expected, but when I was done, I was dissatisfied. First of all, the bottom edge of the riser of the bottom stair is slightly warped, and the moulding piece doesn't quite sit flat against the riser. Maybe longer brads / finishing nails would have been better, but I bought the smallest, shortest finishing nails I could find, to do this job. Secondly, the quarter round moulding isn't the right colour to match the rest of the wood in the trailer. The quarter round I bought must be spruce, or perhaps pine. All the wood in the trailer is oak, and looks darker than the quarter round that I installed today. I guess MRO Services had indeed varnished the moulding they used, but like mine, it wasn't oak. The job is finished, for now, but eventually I'm going to want to do it again using oak moulding. When I was all finished, I was left feeling quite dissatisfied / dismayed that most of a day's efforts will have to be done again another time.

Late in the afternoon, we headed into town to go Wal-Mart'n ( which is a verb in parts of America ). On the way to Wal-Mart, I had a close call, almost running over a motorcyclist who wiped out beside and in front of me. This is the second time recently that I've encountered similar bonehead manoeuvres. Today, a motorcyclist behind me thought I was taking too long to make a right turn at an intersection. He attempted to make the right turn, from behind me to in front of me, on the right hand side of me, inside the turn. As I turned right, looking left, he spun out on the gravel shoulder, spun the motorcycle 270 degrees, fell, and slid across the road in front of me as I turned. What a total bonehead ! As I turned my head to the right while turning, all I saw was a motorcycle spin out, and the driver fly off and slide across the road in frontof me. I slammed on the brakes just before running over him. He picked himself up, looking very embarrassed, and as he started to pick up his motorcycle, with the now broken rear view mirror, Joanne rolled down her window and we both asked him if he was okay. He mumbled. We asked again. He mumbled again as he picked up the motorcycle and examined the broken mirror. We took his mumbles to mean he was okay. Jerk ! Last week, as we made a left turn into a shopping mall in Oakhurst, California, I had a little car cut me off severely, by turning left from behind me to in front of me, into the shopping mall entrance. I was enraged, and chalked it up to southern California drivers. Joanne commented today that in both cases she noticed that the drivers were Mexican. I would adopt a policy of being extra careful around Mexican drivers, except down here that's 80 % of the population. I don't think that I'm turning into a particularly slow, old man driver. Quite the contrary. My normal driving style is pretty aggressive. Joanne thinks that the Mexican drivers are particularly impatient.

We did our Wal-Mart shopping, then filled up with diesel on the way back to the RV park. I had a minor confrontation with the gas bar attendant over this fairly common southwest U.S. practice of refusing to turn on the fuel pump unless if they hold your credit card while you pump gas. They don't trust the customer to pump the fuel, then come in to pay, but they expect the customer to trust that they're not electronically racking up fraudulent charges on your credit card while you're out pumping gas. For me, the solution lies in paying at the pump, which I usually do, but today, as happens occasionally, after swiping my credit card at the pump, it asked for my 5 digit U.S. zip code. Sorry, don't have one, I'm a "foreigner". The attendant says that's to prevent use of stolen credit cards, but it's beyond me how inputting a zip code prevents use of a stolen card.

I did today's accounting and journal entry while Joanne put away the groceries, fed the animals, got supper started, then applied another coat of varnish to the stair mouldings. During supper, we watched a show on TV about the rescue of abandoned pets in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. After supper I spent about half an hour trying unsuccessfully to sign onto Wi-Fi. I finally went to the clubhouse where I had no problem signing on. I sent and retrieved e-mail, updated my blog, and tried to retrieve my MasterCard statements. They weren't ready yet. I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow.

DSK