Stupid Human Tricks While Boating, Florida trip prep, “Nip/Tuck” Two (posted from home)

(this post covers 3-12 February)

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Monday, 12 February –

Things seem to be coming together for our trip. Labashi’s camera came in the mail after its long journey from the repair shop in Colorado. The tech did an excellent job of repairing the broken back-cover latch. Labashi’s new Tracfone arrived via FedEx and a parts order came in today via UPS. We’re a regular transportation hub around here today.
Today was much warmer (44-degrees) so I took advantage of the nice day and washed Labashi’s car, stowed gear in Mocha Joe for our upcoming trip, started securing the house and vehicles for our departure and prepared a checklist of last minute items so we don’t miss them. Late in the day we drove over to the tax-prep office to file our taxes and that went fine too.
That evening we had a few more last-minute financial things to take care of to have everything as settled as we can before the trip.

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Sunday, 11 February –

This morning we woke up in Mocha Joe in its parking spot in my brother’s driveway. Maypo always invites us to sleep in their spare room in the house but we’re so nice and comfy in the familiar surroundings of Mocha Joe that we prefer to sleep there and give them a break from their social-host duties. Overnight I had seen the outside temp drop to 7.4 degrees but thanks to the electric heater the temp in Mocha Joe never dropped below 43. That’s good sleeping weather and warm enough in the morning for us to dress comfortably without firing up the propane heater. We spent the day chatting again and visited Mom at the assisted-living facility. That evening we had a very nice family meal before Labashi and I broke free around 2000 for our hour-plus drive home.
That evening we watched two more ‘Nip / Tuck’ Season Two episodes. What was Julia thinking in telling Christian about Matt?

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Saturday, 10 February-

Today we drove Mocha Joe to my brother Maypo’s home. My other brother, Orat, and his wife drove down from the Rochester, NY area for the weekend. We spent the afternoon chatting away and catching up then went out to dinner at a local restaurant and dessert back at the house.

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Friday, 9 February -

I spent most of today blogging , searching the web, and preparing for our upcoming trip. Each time a trip approaches we have a flurry of updates to do, from updating maps, tourguides, and campground directories to getting new lists of wi-fi freespots, geocaches, launch ramps, state and national forests, and water-protection and wildlife conservation areas. That evening we watched three more Nip/Tuck episodes.

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Thursday, 8 February –

Today I spent much of the day researching gun laws of the various states we’ll be in during our upcoming trip. I want to take my .22 target rifle and pistols along and don’t want to chance violating any state or federal (or local!) laws. I have a book (“Traveler’s Guide to Gun Laws of the Fifty States”) and I’ve spent a lot of time on Packing.org’s state-laws section to get up to speed. I’m planning to stay on a military base for a few days of the trip so I made arrangements with a local gunsmith while in that area. What have I missed?
That afternoon I fired up the Concours in the 24-degree temperature (a heat-wave according to temps earlier this week) and rode in to Wal-Mart. I finally found the ‘right’ protector for Labashi’s nano—one that protects not only the case but also the screen and click-wheel. For some reason the people at Wal-mart thought it odd to see someone in motorcycle gear. But I also know I’m not the only crazy person out today. I saw a Ural side-car bike ahead of me but I got caught at the light and didn’t see him again. I wonder if it was one of the two-wheel-drive models?

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Wednesday, 7 February –

This morning I bought a Tracfone for Labashi to replace her Simple Freedom phone. Hers had escalated in price to $15 a month. The Tracfone deal will give her a new phone and lock in a rate of $6.93 a month for the next 15 months with enough minutes to last the entire time if she continues to use so few minutes per month. This morning I also cleared the driveway of snow for the first time this season. We only had an inch and I easily swept it away with a shop broom.
Later that day I completed the podcast setup for our trip. I’ve downloaded 383 podcasts and all our purchased music onto the Nano in a little over half of the 8 gigs available. I’m now subscribing to 29 podcasts, 15 of them various Canadian Broadcasting Company podcasts and the rest various National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Old Time Radio, Popular Science, International Spy Museum, and Wildebeat podcasts. I also worked with the Shuttle to download some of the podcasts and our music so we can separately listen if we like. The little Shuttle is turning out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s simple, easy to use and the battery lasts for days and days.

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Tuesday, 6 February-

Today I spent most of the day on the web. While traveling we’ve had difficulty finding butane cartridges for our little stove and several times had to pay exhorbitant prices (over $6.50 a cart) for them. I found some $3 ones on the web but the silly vendor wouldn’t provide a shipping price until after I’d fill out a form with all my identifying info. Thanks but no thanks, Mr. Vendor. I’m not about to provide my info to you to sell to someone else only to find out you have a crazy shipping and handling price. Labashi had bought some at a local restaurant supply several years ago so I checked there and then drove over and picked up six of them for $2.16 each.
On the way home I stopped in at the local police station to alert them we’d be going away soon. They’re good about including us as a ‘vacation check’ location on their patrols. I also checked whether there are any trends in crime in the area and picked up some tips there. We also reviewed my security prep, motion-detectors, security alarm and electricity-monitoring setups.

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Monday, 5 February –

Today I met my brother Maypo in Hanover to finalize the purchase of our new jon boat at Moto-Sports. The transfer went smoothly for the most part but we had to drive to a local used-car dealer to transfer the boat-trailer title and there we met Carol, the most customer-service-challenged person either one of us has met in a long time. She was a trip—very abrupt and argumentative for no apparent reason. We got through the paperwork and then drove up to Bass Pro in Harrisburg to start outfitting the boat. There we bought a lock and cover for the outboard, fishing seats, a marine fire extinguisher, canister-style boat-horn, cleats and lines and other sundries. I added an anchor I had found while scuba diving in John Pennekamp State Park in the Florida Keys years ago. Maypo was trailing the boat and says he can hardly tell it’s back there. I’m sure Spring will seem particularly slow in coming this year. I had thought about taking the boat along on our upcoming trip to Florida but that’s probably not a good idea—at least not this year. I would want to have worked out how to secure the boat and gear and would want a good cover before parking somewhere in a Wal-mart and have the locals cruising by looking for an opportunity.
When I arrived home I started filing my copy of the paperwork and noticed our good buddy Carol had registered the trailer incorrectly—she had used part of my address but had used Hanover as the city. I immediately called to try to stop the transaction from being sent in that way but Carol was being Carol and told me that’s how I had told her we wanted it done and I’d have to talk to Mary when she came in Wednesday about the address change transaction I was now requesting. She would not admit she had registered the trailer incorrectly and was again very abrupt. Frustrated, I called the dealer and explained the treatment we were getting from her sub-contractor and she said she’d get it squared away.


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Sunday, 4 February-

Today we started preparing Mocha Joe for our next trip. The temperature was only in the teens and windy so I first ran a heavy-duty extension cord to the van and connected up the baseboard electric heater to the outlets in Mocha Joe--- and it didn’t work! I retrieved the little electrical tester plug I have to test campground electric supplies (which I’ve heard are notorious for being wired incorrectly) and it indicated a reversed hot wire. “Must be the new electric outlet I’m plugged into at the house. How could the electrician have gotten that wrong?”, I thought. But a test there showed OK. “Hmmm. Must be the extension cord”, I thought (as unlikely as that seemed). No, that’s OK too. I was sure the outlets in Mocha Joe weren’t the problem since I’ve used them a dozen times or more since the installation. But there it was—the top receptacle on the first outlet (the one I normally use) was good but the other three receptacles were wrong. That means I had switched the wires when extending wiring from the first outlet to the second. That was indeed the case and only took a few minutes to fix. But I’m still mystified how my laptop worked fine on those back outlets.
Labashi vacuumed out the van and we have the storage containers in the mud room to check through, clean and re-stow.
I spent the latter part of the day researching covers for the new boat and some Florida destinations for the next trip.

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Saturday, 3 February –

Today I spent much of the morning blogging and the afternoon on iboats.com. I found this site while looking for boating forums which seem to be more into the smaller outboard boats like ours. I had posted a message or two there and today saw a section called “Stupid Human Tricks While Boating or Fishing”. After enjoying the posts there, I thought I’d post my own “stupid human tricks while boating”. I first posted one I called “NEEDED AN EXTRA- LONG GAS LINE”: A few years ago I anchored my little sailboat in the crowded Baltimore harbor (near the National Aquarium) for the night. I was low on gas so I unhooked the tank and put it in the dink, thinking I'd row over to the marina for gas later on. A few hours later the anchorage was filling fast and a large sailboat anchored too close to us. When it became apparent the dancing winds would swing him into us sooner or later, I decided to move. I started up the outboard while wifey went forward. I powered the anchor loose, paused while she pulled it up, and then eased forward through the densely-packed boats to circle around to my new spot. That's when the engine died. I still remember my astonishment as I looked down to check the tank and realized where it was. I quickly pulled in the trailing dink, grabbed the tank, and hooked up and all came out well. But I imagine it was fun for all those folks watching me sheepishly retrieve my gas tank as I drifted among the other boats.

Then I posted another, this one called “WHERE NOT TO HOOK YOUR TRAILER’S SAFETY CHAINS”: Years ago I volunteered to teach sailing to Girl Scouts at a lake near the Girl Scout camp. I needed to tow a trailer loaded with six Sunfish from the camp to the lake and back. At the time the only hitch I had was a little clamp-on unit I had clamped to my van's bumper. But I had nowhere to hang the safety chains. I put the trailer hitch on the ball and tried mightily to dislodge it and when I couldn't I decided I'd just hang the chains from the attachment straps for the van's gas tank-- just this once. I towed the trailer to the lake with no problems. We unhooked it and wheeled it close to the water for easy unloading/loading. But late in the day I was struck with a blinding headache and had to lie down for a bit so I had one of my adult assistants go get the trailer. Unfortunately, she had done some towing but was unfamiliar with hitches and failed to open the ball-hitch-- she just sat the closed hitch atop the ball and hung the safety chains on the gas tank straps (as I had told her). A short time later another of the assistants came rushing up to me and said I had to come quick. As we approached the scene I knew exactly what had happened. There sat my van in the middle of the main road with this big metal box (my van's gas tank) lying behind it. The fully-loaded sailboat trailer sat off the road with its tongue jammed into an earthen embankment. The state park ranger and township police were there by that time and asked what happened. For some reason they accepted my flimsy excuse that my assistant was unfamilar with hitches and had not opened it to put it down over the ball. They never asked about the safety chains or why my gas tank was lying in the middle of the road. But I have no doubt they knew the answer.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Later in the day I ran over to the post office to drop off our passport renewals. On the way home I picked up Season Five of ‘The Sopranos’ and we watched the first two episodes that evening. It has been so long since we’ve watched ‘The Sopranos’ that it took us a little while to realize we had already seen Season Five. I guess this qualifies as another Stupid Human Trick but in my own defense I had asked at the video store how far back they keep rental records on the computer and it’s only the last 24 rentals. I had checked the DVD cover for plot info but starting with Season Five they dropped the episode-by-episode descriptions and only had titles. We were surprised how little of the plot we remembered as the two episodes unfolded but nevertheless we decided to abandon ship on Season Five.