GPS setup, outboard recall, kayak lift, ‘The Wire’, ‘Klimt’
(posted from home)
(This post covers 22 to 28 January 2008)
----------------------------------------------------
Monday, 28 January-
Today was a frustrating day. I chased down some additional parts for the new kayak-lift design and then assembled everything and gave it a try. Another failure. I had bought two deer-hoists at Bass Pro to hoist the kayak sideways up a track to the roof-rack and they worked fine as far as they went. But they don’t take the kayak high enough. I thought I might be able to muscle it the rest of the way but that didn’t work—I came very close to straining my back messing with it. And then the hoists wouldn’t release properly to let the kayak back down—the polypro rope kept jamming. I finally got it down, then gave up and took my walk to clear my head. On the one hand I don’t mind trying different approaches to solving this problem but I am frustrated by the expense. The deer-hoists were a comparatively-good deal at $15 each but if I can’t get them to release properly, I can’t use them.
That evening we watched ‘Klimt’ with John Malkovich. Unless you’re a Klimt fan (or a Malkovich fan), better skip this one. As one critic says, it’s ‘lovely but unfathomable’… and I’m not so sure about the ‘lovely’ part. We were particularly frustrated by the lack of subtitles and the poor soundtrack. The music track was much louder than the spoken-word track and we found ourselves continually adjusting the sound to try to understand the thick accents. The camera work was dizzying and affected, inexplicably spinning around and around and around for no apparent reason.
I see RT gave it a 30 on the critics tomato-meter, though a 50 on the top-critics meter. I think I’d give it about a 5.
---------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 27 January-
Today we had a little errand to attend to. A little over a month ago we borrowed a compound miter-saw from Maypo. This week Labashi finished upgrading all our interior doors (by adding mullion panels to them) so the saw can now go home. We found my brother in his workshop and happy to see his saw again since he’s just starting a new project where it will come in handy. We spent half the afternoon with him, doing some planning for the upcoming trip, and then let him get back to work.
On the way home we stopped at Chili’s in West York for supper, then did a little shopping at the new Lowe’s nearby before heading home. We arrived home far too late for my walk but that was probably a good thing. That evening we watched the third episode of ‘The Wire’ and the extras from the ‘Lost’ DVD.
Later than night, I finished Randy Wayne White’s ‘North of Havana’, one of the Doc Ford novels I’ve come to enjoy as guilty pleasures. This one wasn’t my favorite but I did enjoy the descriptions of Cuba. So far, ‘Everglades’ is my favorite. I’ve also read ‘Twelve Mile Limit’, ‘Shark River’, ‘The Heat Islands’, ‘Sanibel Flats’, ‘Tampa Burn’, ‘The Man Who Invented Florida’, ‘Dead of Night’, ‘The Mangrove Coast’, ‘Captiva’, and ‘Dark Light’. I have particularly enjoyed reading them right before or right after my Florida trips.
-----------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 26 January-
I spent a few hours blogging this morning then the remainder of the day working on the kayak-lift project. The perforated steel angle I installed yesterday turned out to be too light. Today I bought sturdier steel angle and fitted it. But late in the day I decided I didn’t like this solution. The new steel is strong enough but the weight of the kayak is a bit much for the extended rack bar and the leverage lifts up too much on the rack’s attachment points. I’m afraid that may eventually cause a failure. Back to the drawing board. Again I broke late in the day for my fast-walk.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Wire’- Season One. We’ve been looking for something else to try and Labashi heard a complimentary piece about this on NPR. We also like the idea of a Baltimore-based production. We used to love watching ‘Homicide- Life on the Street’. We’re familiar enough with Baltimore to have recognized many of the sets and hope to do the same with ‘The Wire’. The initial two episodes were interesting but it’s too early to tell whether we’ll like it.
-----------------------------------------------
Friday, 25 January-
Today I started on a little project to build a means for me to more easily load my sea-kayak on Mocha Joe by myself. Last Fall I had problems with it at Raystown. I managed to get it up onto the carrier but in the process put some deep scratches on the stern by dragging the stern across the asphalt as I heaved the bow up to the roof.
I’ve bought two lengths of perforated steel angle and drilled holes in the roof-rack bars, then pinned the angle to the rack-bars to extend them. That will be an attachment point for a rope-ratchet. I broke late in the day, just leaving enough time to get my walk in before dark.
That evening we finished up “Lost- Season Three”. We still like to see the plot twists and turns but the game is getting a little old.
------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 24 January-
This morning I fired up the motorcycle and headed for the indoor shooting range. The bike loved the dense air on this pretty, 26-degree morning and I enjoyed the ride down I-83. I felt I didn’t shoot well on the first target though once I scored it I was in the ballpark of my regular scores. I set a new high (for me at that pistol/distance combination) on the second target, and did well on the third though I could have done better on the fourth. I’ve got to learn to keep my concentration.
Afterwards I spent a pleasant hour reading the papers at the Tollgate Starbucks, then made a DVD run. I did my regular walk and that evening we watched a ‘Lost-3’ episode.
-------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 23 January-
Today I hooked up the fishing boat to Mocha Joe and towed it up to Harrisburg Seaplane Base for service. A few weeks ago I had received a recall notice on the outboard—something about fuel canisters cracking prematurely—and have had a hard time getting the service scheduled. I wanted to get this service done before the upcoming trip rather than try to deal with it in Florida and end up stuck somewhere awaiting parts or time on their schedule. The dealer I bought the motor from said I was #18 in line and they were only allowed to order five parts-kits at a time so the timing might get tight; they’d call me when my turn came up. I contacted Honda customer service but they couldn’t help, though they did say I could possibly speed up the parts-ordering turnaround by paying to overnight the parts. I had called the Seaplane Base but the main guy was out for a few days and the receptionist couldn’t help; she hadn’t even heard of the recall. But I finally talked to the right guy late last week and he said their kits were enroute and all I had to do was show up today and then pick the boat up tomorrow. I dropped off the boat and headed home, stopping at Starbucks and Borders along the way.
Shortly after arriving home the mechanic called and said the boat was ready so I made the trip again, this time taking along the new GPS. At home I keyed the word ‘Seaplane’ in to the GPS and it found the Seaplane Base and showed selections ‘Map’ or ‘GoTo’. When I hit ‘GoTo’, the GPS gave me turn-by-turn directions and gave me a double-beep as each turn came up. Very cool!
At the Seaplane Base the mechanic showed me the fuel canister he had replaced and helped me hook up. I reset the GPS and headed home, this time making two departures from the route laid out by the GPS. I thought it might just tell me I was going off-course it simply re-calculated a route to the goal from that point and began giving me the turn-by-turn directions on the new route with no intervention on my part. I love it!
Back home I took my walk and then spent the evening online. I was looking for map and chart updates and finally called the Garmin tech support line. Though Garmin sells a map-updates disk, it turns out that one didn’t apply to me—I already have the latest.
--------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 22 January-
This morning I was surprised to see the UPS guy in the driveway. He delivered the City Navigator software I just ordered yesterday afternoon on Amazon. It turns out the company I ordered from (Atlanta Network Technologies) has a distribution center in nearby Camp Hill. This was fantastic. I paid $103 for a $139 package, didn’t have to pay tax, and had next-morning delivery.
I spent the rest of the morning installing and learning how to use City Navigator in MapSource and loading the maps and marine charts into the GPS. City Navigator has maps for the entire US and Canada and they are all available to me—no unlock-codes for regions like the Blue Charts. I was a bit skeptical of what the detail level would be like until I zoomed in on Churchill, Manitoba. At the early zoom levels it looks like there is no road detail but then the roads appear--- right down to the little dirt roads we cruised while looking for polar bears along Hudson Bay last summer. Fantastic!
I selected all the US and most of Canada (all but Nunavut) and downloaded it all to the GPS. All that fit on less than half of the 2GB storage. The GPS comes with a 128 MB micro-SD chip but I bought a replacement 2GB chip (for only $25!!!). The download first went through a get-ready process of 15 minutes or so, then said it would take over an hour to load to the GPS but finished in about forty minutes.
Today I also called the Gulf Coast Visitor’s Center in the Everglades and talked with Gail, a backcountry ranger. She says we shouldn’t have any problem getting waterway campsite reservations (you can only get them 24 hours before the trip).
That afternoon I took the GPS along on my walk. I was very happy to find that it never lost sight of the satellites even though I had it in my pocket. My old GPS would lose the track if it just turned over, nevermind carrying it in a pocket. The GPS confirmed it’s almost exactly four miles from my driveway to my turnaround point and told me I’m doing about 3.5 miles per hour on the fast-walk.
======== end of post ==========
(posted from home)
(This post covers 22 to 28 January 2008)
----------------------------------------------------
Monday, 28 January-
Today was a frustrating day. I chased down some additional parts for the new kayak-lift design and then assembled everything and gave it a try. Another failure. I had bought two deer-hoists at Bass Pro to hoist the kayak sideways up a track to the roof-rack and they worked fine as far as they went. But they don’t take the kayak high enough. I thought I might be able to muscle it the rest of the way but that didn’t work—I came very close to straining my back messing with it. And then the hoists wouldn’t release properly to let the kayak back down—the polypro rope kept jamming. I finally got it down, then gave up and took my walk to clear my head. On the one hand I don’t mind trying different approaches to solving this problem but I am frustrated by the expense. The deer-hoists were a comparatively-good deal at $15 each but if I can’t get them to release properly, I can’t use them.
That evening we watched ‘Klimt’ with John Malkovich. Unless you’re a Klimt fan (or a Malkovich fan), better skip this one. As one critic says, it’s ‘lovely but unfathomable’… and I’m not so sure about the ‘lovely’ part. We were particularly frustrated by the lack of subtitles and the poor soundtrack. The music track was much louder than the spoken-word track and we found ourselves continually adjusting the sound to try to understand the thick accents. The camera work was dizzying and affected, inexplicably spinning around and around and around for no apparent reason.
I see RT gave it a 30 on the critics tomato-meter, though a 50 on the top-critics meter. I think I’d give it about a 5.
---------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 27 January-
Today we had a little errand to attend to. A little over a month ago we borrowed a compound miter-saw from Maypo. This week Labashi finished upgrading all our interior doors (by adding mullion panels to them) so the saw can now go home. We found my brother in his workshop and happy to see his saw again since he’s just starting a new project where it will come in handy. We spent half the afternoon with him, doing some planning for the upcoming trip, and then let him get back to work.
On the way home we stopped at Chili’s in West York for supper, then did a little shopping at the new Lowe’s nearby before heading home. We arrived home far too late for my walk but that was probably a good thing. That evening we watched the third episode of ‘The Wire’ and the extras from the ‘Lost’ DVD.
Later than night, I finished Randy Wayne White’s ‘North of Havana’, one of the Doc Ford novels I’ve come to enjoy as guilty pleasures. This one wasn’t my favorite but I did enjoy the descriptions of Cuba. So far, ‘Everglades’ is my favorite. I’ve also read ‘Twelve Mile Limit’, ‘Shark River’, ‘The Heat Islands’, ‘Sanibel Flats’, ‘Tampa Burn’, ‘The Man Who Invented Florida’, ‘Dead of Night’, ‘The Mangrove Coast’, ‘Captiva’, and ‘Dark Light’. I have particularly enjoyed reading them right before or right after my Florida trips.
-----------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 26 January-
I spent a few hours blogging this morning then the remainder of the day working on the kayak-lift project. The perforated steel angle I installed yesterday turned out to be too light. Today I bought sturdier steel angle and fitted it. But late in the day I decided I didn’t like this solution. The new steel is strong enough but the weight of the kayak is a bit much for the extended rack bar and the leverage lifts up too much on the rack’s attachment points. I’m afraid that may eventually cause a failure. Back to the drawing board. Again I broke late in the day for my fast-walk.
That evening we watched two episodes of ‘The Wire’- Season One. We’ve been looking for something else to try and Labashi heard a complimentary piece about this on NPR. We also like the idea of a Baltimore-based production. We used to love watching ‘Homicide- Life on the Street’. We’re familiar enough with Baltimore to have recognized many of the sets and hope to do the same with ‘The Wire’. The initial two episodes were interesting but it’s too early to tell whether we’ll like it.
-----------------------------------------------
Friday, 25 January-
Today I started on a little project to build a means for me to more easily load my sea-kayak on Mocha Joe by myself. Last Fall I had problems with it at Raystown. I managed to get it up onto the carrier but in the process put some deep scratches on the stern by dragging the stern across the asphalt as I heaved the bow up to the roof.
I’ve bought two lengths of perforated steel angle and drilled holes in the roof-rack bars, then pinned the angle to the rack-bars to extend them. That will be an attachment point for a rope-ratchet. I broke late in the day, just leaving enough time to get my walk in before dark.
That evening we finished up “Lost- Season Three”. We still like to see the plot twists and turns but the game is getting a little old.
------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 24 January-
This morning I fired up the motorcycle and headed for the indoor shooting range. The bike loved the dense air on this pretty, 26-degree morning and I enjoyed the ride down I-83. I felt I didn’t shoot well on the first target though once I scored it I was in the ballpark of my regular scores. I set a new high (for me at that pistol/distance combination) on the second target, and did well on the third though I could have done better on the fourth. I’ve got to learn to keep my concentration.
Afterwards I spent a pleasant hour reading the papers at the Tollgate Starbucks, then made a DVD run. I did my regular walk and that evening we watched a ‘Lost-3’ episode.
-------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 23 January-
Today I hooked up the fishing boat to Mocha Joe and towed it up to Harrisburg Seaplane Base for service. A few weeks ago I had received a recall notice on the outboard—something about fuel canisters cracking prematurely—and have had a hard time getting the service scheduled. I wanted to get this service done before the upcoming trip rather than try to deal with it in Florida and end up stuck somewhere awaiting parts or time on their schedule. The dealer I bought the motor from said I was #18 in line and they were only allowed to order five parts-kits at a time so the timing might get tight; they’d call me when my turn came up. I contacted Honda customer service but they couldn’t help, though they did say I could possibly speed up the parts-ordering turnaround by paying to overnight the parts. I had called the Seaplane Base but the main guy was out for a few days and the receptionist couldn’t help; she hadn’t even heard of the recall. But I finally talked to the right guy late last week and he said their kits were enroute and all I had to do was show up today and then pick the boat up tomorrow. I dropped off the boat and headed home, stopping at Starbucks and Borders along the way.
Shortly after arriving home the mechanic called and said the boat was ready so I made the trip again, this time taking along the new GPS. At home I keyed the word ‘Seaplane’ in to the GPS and it found the Seaplane Base and showed selections ‘Map’ or ‘GoTo’. When I hit ‘GoTo’, the GPS gave me turn-by-turn directions and gave me a double-beep as each turn came up. Very cool!
At the Seaplane Base the mechanic showed me the fuel canister he had replaced and helped me hook up. I reset the GPS and headed home, this time making two departures from the route laid out by the GPS. I thought it might just tell me I was going off-course it simply re-calculated a route to the goal from that point and began giving me the turn-by-turn directions on the new route with no intervention on my part. I love it!
Back home I took my walk and then spent the evening online. I was looking for map and chart updates and finally called the Garmin tech support line. Though Garmin sells a map-updates disk, it turns out that one didn’t apply to me—I already have the latest.
--------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 22 January-
This morning I was surprised to see the UPS guy in the driveway. He delivered the City Navigator software I just ordered yesterday afternoon on Amazon. It turns out the company I ordered from (Atlanta Network Technologies) has a distribution center in nearby Camp Hill. This was fantastic. I paid $103 for a $139 package, didn’t have to pay tax, and had next-morning delivery.
I spent the rest of the morning installing and learning how to use City Navigator in MapSource and loading the maps and marine charts into the GPS. City Navigator has maps for the entire US and Canada and they are all available to me—no unlock-codes for regions like the Blue Charts. I was a bit skeptical of what the detail level would be like until I zoomed in on Churchill, Manitoba. At the early zoom levels it looks like there is no road detail but then the roads appear--- right down to the little dirt roads we cruised while looking for polar bears along Hudson Bay last summer. Fantastic!
I selected all the US and most of Canada (all but Nunavut) and downloaded it all to the GPS. All that fit on less than half of the 2GB storage. The GPS comes with a 128 MB micro-SD chip but I bought a replacement 2GB chip (for only $25!!!). The download first went through a get-ready process of 15 minutes or so, then said it would take over an hour to load to the GPS but finished in about forty minutes.
Today I also called the Gulf Coast Visitor’s Center in the Everglades and talked with Gail, a backcountry ranger. She says we shouldn’t have any problem getting waterway campsite reservations (you can only get them 24 hours before the trip).
That afternoon I took the GPS along on my walk. I was very happy to find that it never lost sight of the satellites even though I had it in my pocket. My old GPS would lose the track if it just turned over, nevermind carrying it in a pocket. The GPS confirmed it’s almost exactly four miles from my driveway to my turnaround point and told me I’m doing about 3.5 miles per hour on the fast-walk.
======== end of post ==========
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 22:18
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