Category Archives: Maintenance

20181201 Things are Poppin’:

We are in the midst of an exciting weekend. First of all we came back to Pearl Texas for the “First Weekend Jam Session.” It was every bit as fun as the first one we
attended in November. The bands may not be major festival headliners, but most are very good.

Ketogenic lunch
My first Ketogenic lunch; lettuce, cheese, tomatoes and mayo.

To keep things exciting, this

weekend I have gone on a radical low carb high fat diet to see if it will help me keep this Parkingon’s beast under control. It’s easy to find food for this diet. Just look at your grocers under “Meat.” Most vegies are off limits and don’t even mention fruits, chips, breads or deserts. I have been loosing a pound a day for nearly a week now, pounds that I don’t have to spare. For all these years I have kidded about being on a “see food and eat it” diet, I am now beginnning to understand. My heart goes out to you folks who have suffered through diet after diet. I can see where you can start thinking about food all the time.

To cap off the morning, while I was making my special “Semi-automatic Bullet Proof” coffee I forgot to turn the space heater off before I touched off the microwave. Poof! Went the circuit breaker. I turned off the space heater and went back to reset the circuit breaker. I shined my flahlight into the recesses of the panel and observed a thin curl of smoke in the air. I figured out that I had fried the breaker. We will pick up a new one back in Austin.

Ma! I think I cooked the inverter!
Ma! I think I cooked the inverter!
O.K. it is a couple days later and I can most positively state that I cooked the inverter. This is much more serious. I have found out from YouTube that there is a circuit breaker on the inverter box itself. It was completlly hidden beneath a huge cable from the battery.
Fine Bluegrass Music at Pearl Texas every first Saturday.
I will explore that in the morning. Meanwhile the place is laced with extension cords just so we can live in here. This unit is so shoehorned in under the closet that I took me a full afternoon to take out 14 screws holding the cover so that we could look inside. The replacement will come in a few days, meanwhile I have jumpered the missing inverter and the whole house is once again on the grid. It is four inches longer and a little shorter than the old one. It will bbe a shoehorn job for sure.

Go to this link to see some photos.

20180903: Wet Socks; Or How to Replace a Leaking Hot Water Heater:

After 17 years of faithful duty providing piping hot water, our hot water heater started leaving puddles around the kitchen. At first we blamed them on the kitchen sink drain. I had to create a more flexible version of this sliding sewer hose many years ago. There has developed a bit of a gap when the slider is retracted but it had not been giving us trouble when extended. We were just not dumping water in the sink when retracted, “Let a sleeping dog lie.”
Continue reading 20180903: Wet Socks; Or How to Replace a Leaking Hot Water Heater:

20180728 The Grand Adventure – Part 3

We were having just another one of those perfect days of sailing in the Gulf Islands. You know, the winds are about 5 to 6 miles per hour coming from exactly were we were going. This simply means we get to tack a lot, (that is turn into the wind and sail close to the wind in a zig zag up wind direction.) Unfortunately familiarity breeds contempt. We have gotten so good at tacking that we decided we needed to spice it up a little.
Continue reading 20180728 The Grand Adventure – Part 3

20171220 BOB Arrives

For the past month we have been staying on Neil and Renee’s new home lot in Leander Texas. This is a six acre “Ranch” very near what is known as the Texas Hill Country in Austin Texas. Austin is in central Texas, just a bit east and south of dead center. Houston is a few hours east of us and San Antonio is a couple hours south of us. There is very little to the west except the Big Bend Country and El Paso.
Continue reading 20171220 BOB Arrives

20171026 What Is With This Week?

Things have just not been going my way this week. The week started out “Crappy.” Tu-wit, I sat on the toilet and the plastic hinges shattered from old age and brittleness. “No Problemo” I think, I’ll just order new hinges. Nope…so I ordered a new seat. End of the week came and no seat. So I canceled that order and re ordered it at the next town, Henderson, NV. That one failed to show also, so I had it shipped to Judy’s Sister, Sonja’s house for next week. Besides it is kind of fun skating around the toilet on a loose seat.
Continue reading 20171026 What Is With This Week?