SPOT setup, New kayak slide design, ‘The Hunting Party’, Florida load-up, Skype, Off to Florida!
(posted from Sportsman’s Cove Campground, McIntosh, FL)
(this post covers 29 January to 8 February, 2008)
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Friday, 8 February-
I woke this morning at Caravelle Ranch WMA after a good, quiet night. For some reason I was awake for an hour around 0500 so didn’t waken until 0800. While making breakfast I happened to glance out the window and I saw 15 wild turkeys. These are the southern or Osceola strain (I believe) and these looked to be in excellent health.
It rained pretty heavily overnight so I unhooked the boat and raised it via the trailer jack to drain water out from the bilge. It would probably drain out OK by itself as I drive up small hills but I wanted to be sure and wanted to see how much water there was.
I drove over to the Rodman Dam area to check that out. I’ve driven by the entrance on my way south the past two winters so I was happy to have the time to see it at last. I had heard the dam had been drawn down this year (for plant control) but I was surprised to see all the trees sticking out of the water. I bet this is great bass water given all that cover.
At the far end of the dam road there’s an ATV parking lot and a parking lot for this portion of the Florida Trail. As I walked to the information kiosk, I saw familiar tracks in the sand….. bobcat!
On the way out I stopped at the campground and the very nice lady gave me a 20-minute pass to tour the campground. The primitive sites are fine and the fee is reasonable at $12 but then again I stayed free just down the road at the Wildlife Management Area and had the place to myself. But the campground also has showers and a dump station.
I also prevailed upon the lady to let me use the yellow pages to look up bike shops for my flat tire. The GPS database doesn’t show anything locally and that turned out to be the case in the yellow pages—I’d have to go to St Augustine, Ocala, or Gainesville.
At that point I decided I’d go see the Kenwood Recreation Area on the lake and then go on to Gainesville, where I’d stay at Payne’s Prairie State Park. Labashi and I stayed there on a previous trip and I hoped to ride the road bike there.
The GPS was a godsend for leading me to the bike shop. The repair only cost $11 for a new tube and the repair (though I did have to drive 35miles to get here). Once the bike was packed away again, I turned to the trusty GPS and had it find me the closest Starbucks—only a mile and a half away near the University of Florida.
After my Starbucks fix I drove to Payne’s Prairie State Park but the campground turned out to be full – it’s a Friday in prime season. But they gave me a local campground list and I went about six miles south to Sportsman’s Cove, where I paid $19. I told the campground guy I thought I’d drive back to Payne’s Prairie to bicycle and he directed me to the Gainesville-Hawthorne Bicycle Trail. And when I asked whether there were any local libraries with wi-fi, he said there was wi-fi in the campground—VERY cool!
I left the boat in my campsite and drove to the bike trail access area. What a GREAT bike trail! I did a little over 12 miles on the delightful ultra-smooth paved trail, saying hi to dozens of cyclists and walkers.
Back at the campsite I called Labashi via Skype and we talked for 45 minutes or so, then I updated the blog.
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Thursday, 7 February-
I woke a bit late this morning and then went into the Wal-Mart to solve some problems. I still need to figure out how to best carry the extra gasoline and water we’ll need on the Everglades trip. I bought my fishing license ($48 for us out-of-staters) and came up with some possible solutions for the Everglades when the time comes, then did some shopping at Advance Auto (a steering-wheel spinner for the boat, by golly!), and Lowe’s (cable and lock for the boat/trailer). I then headed south on 19 out of Palatka. I stopped a few miles south at the Marjorie Carr Cross-Florida Greenway visitor’s center to pick up info on the greenway and look for a cheap place to camp. I saw the Caravelle Ranch Wildlife Management Area is nearby and know they allow camping during hunting season but didn’t think spring turkey was on yet. But my ranger called their ranger and got me the okie-dokie. Very cool!
I was told to park by the check station and found that easily enough—good spot and free! I pulled out the Trek and put it together, blew up the tars and pedalled out—for about 20 minutes. That’s when the rain started. Now it had been threatening rain all day but nothing ever came of it until I started biking. I got a good soaking on the way back to the van. But the good news was I had a nice roof at the check station. This is normally where they weigh, measure, and check over the deer and turkeys the hunters bring in but it also makes a nice picnic pavilion on a rainy day. I broke the seal on my Franzia White-Zin and settled in with some corn chips and Wholly-Guacamole (from Wal-Mart of course) while I dripped-dry.
Late in the day I cooked up the take-home box of last evening’s sausage-and-peppers-over-pasta meal at Egan’s. Life is good. Well, actually it could be better. For some reason the rear tire is now flat on the Trek—I must have pinched a tube on my little ride.
I spent the evening catching up on the blog.
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Wednesday, 6 February-
After a pleasant night at the Lumberton Wal-Mart I headed south again, but now into a wind. Old Mocha Joe did 15-16 miles per gallon on this trip the last two winters but pulling the boat makes a difference. I saw 13.3 mpg yesterday but the wind today cut it to a new record low—10.4 mpg. Well, at least the high price of gas makes up for it. (??????). Gas was $2.97 at home but $2.87, then $2.79 as I went south yesterday and today. I continued listening to Bill Moyers, ‘This American Life’ and a session or two of ‘This Week in Saskatchewan’ as well as NPR live today.
By 1700 I was in Palatka, Florida--- good ol’ Palatka. We like the Wal-Mart here because there’s a Chili’s on the lot and Labashi loves their fajitas. Also, this is the place where we first realized a ‘No Overnight Parking’ sign at a Wal-Mart doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t stay there. It was here that we saw the No Parking sign but the security guy said they had been forced to put them up by the city but they didn’t pay it any attention.
It was 83 degrees when I pulled in to Palatka this evening—almost too hot. I pulled out my old free wi-fi listing and found there’s a hotspot at a downtown coffee shop. Without a decent map of Palatka I wouldn’t have tried it in the past but today all I did was enter the address in the GPS and it took me right there. The one thing the GPS couldn’t do, though, was ensure the coffee shop would still be in business! I stopped in a nearby café (Egan’s) to ask about it and learned I could pick up a connection from the sweets-shop across the street. I returned to the van and fired up the laptop to hook up, then started Skype and saw Labashi was online on her computer back home. I plugged in my headphones and mike and we talked for a half-hour. That was our first long-distance use of Skype. I just installed it the night before last on both our PCs when I realized we’d be running up the Tracfone bills if we weren’t careful. I like our Tracfones because they’re so cheap (about $8 a month) the way we use them (not very much!) but using a lot of minutes adds up very quickly.
After our Skype conversation ended I took the laptop into the café and had supper. It was great to browse the news while enjoying my meal. Then I headed back to the Wal-mart for the night. I must have had too much Starbucks or too much sausage-and-peppers-over-pasta because I didn’t sleep until after midnight and then was awake for an hour when some RV guy started up his generator at three in the morning.
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Tuesday, 5 February-
This morning I did my final packing and left the house around 1000. I thought I’d stop at my regular gas station to top off tire pressures but the air pump was blocked there. At the next one (Rutters), the air pump had an ‘out of service’ sign (actually, it said “DO NOT USE THIS”). At the next (Hess), the pump was in service and sounded okay but the more I pumped the LOWER the pressure went in my tire— the pump hardly had any pressure at all. At the next (another Rutters), the pump was blocked from the direction I came in but I circled and by that time the truck left and I finally got the air I needed. Good thing—they were all down about five pounds. I then topped off the wallet at the ATM and headed south by 1030.
The day was a good one for travel. Traffic was light around Baltimore and even around the DC beltway. Below DC I stopped at the rest area and took off my jacket. It was getting warmer already. I spent the day listening to podcasts of ‘This American Life’ and Bill Moyers as I drove today and hit two Starbucks along the way. By 1900 I was in Lumberton, NC and pulled in to a Wal-mart there for the night. We stayed at this one last year and found it surprisingly quiet for being so close to I-95. I had some of that extra-good vinegary North Carolina barbeque at a Smithfield’s right across the lot, then spent the rest of the evening doing my grocery shopping at the Wal-mart. By 2200 I was ready for bed and spent a pleasant half-hour with my book, a reprint of ‘Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper’. This one is the story of E.F. Woodcock who started hunting and trapping in central PA (not far from Cherry Springs State Park) in 1868. I love reading about the way it was done back then.
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Monday, 4 February-
Today was tax day. Early last Fall I called up our tax prep lady and asked to be placed on the schedule as early as possible so I could leave earlier on my Florida trip this year. Our appointment only took forty-five minutes or so and we came out of it with no surprises and everything set up for next year.
That evening we finished Season one of ‘The Wire’—and just in time—I’m headed out tomorrow.
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Sunday, 3 February-
Today I finally figured out what to do with my road bike. This one is a Trek 1100, circa 1996 or so. Last summer I had new tires and a new seat installed and I want to take it along to try some of Florida’s nice paved bike trails. After trying to find room in the roof-box and envisioning the bike on a front-bumper rack, I’ve decided to try taking it inside the van. With the front wheel off the bike fits relatively hanging vertically and up against the back of the driver’s seat, a garbage bag over the greasy parts. We’ll see. If it gets to be a pain there I can toss it into the fishing boat and cable-lock it to the steering pedestal. I also finally got around to fixing the lock arrangement on the outboard motor. It functions okay but rattles around too much so today I dipped the slide into a rubber-grips compound to quiet it down and that seemed to work well.
That evening we watched three more episodes of ‘The Wire’- season one. I love being back in Baltimore.
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Saturday, 2 February-
Today I started loading up the roof-top Thule box with boating and camping gear. I also installed another seat in the fishing boat, installed a holder for the marine handheld radio and fixed a little problem with the GPS having the wrong zulu-time offset (I don’t understand why the GPS would come up with the central time zone as its default when I first fired it up in the Eastern time zone. Wouldn’t you think it would take that as default?). After that I started in on the improvements to the kayak-slide. I drilled the lower ends of the black-iron pipe and drilled matching holes in the top of the tie-down ladder so I can use metal pins for quick assembly. On the upper end, I added stainless-steel hose clamps to serve as purchase points for bungies to hold them tightly into the right place in the kayak saddles. The entire setup goes together or comes apart in about three minutes. I set up the slide and took down the kayak to check everything inside (I keep all the gear for each kayak stored in dry-bags inside the kayaks) and then put it back up.
That evening we watched ‘Ten’, a ridiculous comedy of ten stories loosely based on the Ten Commandments. It had a few funny moments but I can’t recommend it.
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Friday, 1 February-
It rained all day today and I spent most of the day on the web, mostly in preparation for next week’s trip but also catching up on what’s happening on the shooting forums. That evening we watched three episodes of ‘The Wire’. We’re really getting into this one….
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Thursday, 31 January-
Today Labashi and I realized we might have a problem with the two new chairs she ordered about a month ago for the living room. With my trip coming up next week, I may not be around to help pick them up from the furniture store or to help carry them into the house. We were considering paying for delivery when we learned they were currently sitting in a warehouse in New Holland and we could pick them up there if we wanted. I entered the address of the warehouse in the GPS and we headed out. The GPS took us right to the warehouse and that evening we had two beautiful new chairs in our living room. Problem solved!
That evening we embarked on a new adventure—‘The Wire’. Labashi had heard something good about it on NPR so we thought we’d give it a shot. We watched the pilot for Season One and the second episode. Too early to tell.
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Wednesday, 30 January-
Today was hitch-day. I’ve been using my bumper-hitch to tow the fishing boat but I have to be very careful about how tightly I turn. The boat-trailer’s chain-mounts and the trailer tongue conflict with the step-bumper if I turn too sharply. Last week I made arrangements with the local U-Haul center to install both a hitch receiver and a transmission cooler on Mocha Joe and today was the day. My appointment was for 1100 so I dropped the van off and went for a walk, going to the nearby Tractor Supply store to look for other gear for my trip. By 1330 I had received my call to pick up the van… not bad! Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. I was happy enough with the installation of the cooler and receiver but I needed a draw-bar and ball. I had asked about these items when making the appointment and was assured they had everything we’d need—even an extra-length drawbar to account for the step-bumper. But now the installation guy said I needed to go home and level the boat trailer, measure from the hitch to the ground, then measure to the bottom of the receiver hole and bring those measurements in for him to calculate the correct rise for the drawbar. Why that was just now coming up, I don’t know. So I drove home and prepared to level the trailer. At that point I realized there might be additional questions so I just hooked up the boat to my bumper-hitch and towed it to the U-haul shop. There the ‘hitch mechanic’ (as he called himself) made the measurements, entered them into his calculator, and determined that we needed a 7-1/4 inch rise. The closest thing was a unit with about a six-inch rise so we took that out to see what it looked like---and it was far too high. So much for hitch-mechanic calculations.
He then tried a drawbar with a four-inch rise and it was okay for height but this one had an additional triangle welded into the angle for strength and that triangle hit my step-bumper and would not allow the bar to go into place. Mr. Hitch Mechanic went into the shop and came back a few minutes later to say they’ve come up with a solution—they’ll just drill another hole in the bar tongue. No way was I going to let them do that— it would mean the bar tongue would not be fully seated in the receiver as designed. At that point I said I thought I’d look for another solution--- but at Tractor Supply, not U-Haul. We left on good-enough terms with Mr. Hitch Mechanic telling me to come on back if I couldn’t find what I needed at Tractor Supply—he’d fix me right up. Incredible.
At Tractor Supply I found the parts I needed. The best-fit parts put the trailer about an inch low though. But I don’t think I’ll go back to Mr. Hitch Mechanic. I found a high-rise ball on the ‘net which would do it but I really think I’m close enough so I’ll just give it a try.
That evening we watched ‘The Hunting Party’ with Richard Gere. It was okay. The most interesting part is that the storyline originated from an article in Esquire written in 2000. Five journalists were drinking together one night and decided to go looking for a war criminal the whole world was supposedly looking for. And nearly found him. But the film’s storyline cuts it to down to three journalists and makes up the reasons each one goes. It doesn’t ring true, the actions of each are clichéd, the acting’s only fair.
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Tuesday, 29 January-
This morning I registered the SPOT satellite messenger and tried sending a message for the first time. The registration process is simple enough but I ran into a really stupid implementation of security for the web site. The ‘feature’ is a security timeout you don’t know anything about until it bites you. In this case, the idiot ‘engineers’ who set up the web site implemented a timeout which counts from the time you first start the registration process until you are completely finished with the entire setup process. Nevermind the fact that you’ve changed screens dozens of times, have to make multiple choices on optional services (and have to read the help screens on them), have to read through the very long service agreement, have to find all the phone numbers, email addresses, and text addresses for your points of contact, have to construct the text of the message you want sent when each button is hit, and have to think about what information you want forwarded to the emergency-response authorities (like blood type, allergies, prescription medicines, presence or absence of medical implants, etc). So I spent over an hour and a half reading, thinking, finding and entering info and getting everything set up just the way I wanted. You can imagine my surprise when I hit the final “Finish” button and the web site tells me that my session timed out for lack of activity… and, oh-by-the-way if this is your first time on the site, you have to start over from the beginning—even re-creating the userID and password as if you had never been on the site. I felt like I could have knocked one of those satellites out of its orbit with my brand new SPOT. And, of course, all I could do was start over.
This time I did only the bare minimum, rushing through the setup (since there’s no indication of how long the ‘inactivity’ timeout is) hoping I’d be able to add the rest later. Once I got through the dreaded ‘Finish’ button I logged out and went back onto the site and could not find anywhere to add the info. Eventually I found you have to select ‘default’ as your profile and then can get to the right screens (more engineering genius at work). After re-entering all my info again, I fired up the SPOT to give it a try via its “I’m OK” button. Unlike a PLB (personal locator beacon), the SPOT allows me to send “I’m OK” messages via email and cell-phone text messages.
Unfortunately, the test was only partially successful. We did get the less-than-friendly email (with a very-cool link to Google Maps showing my position), but not the text messages. And that’s when I learned that Tracfone does not support email-to-text messages. Our two Tracfones can receive phone-to-phone text messages but not email-to-text messages and of course this is the way SPOT sends them. Fortunately, I found a hint on the Internet. If I know which vendor Tracfone uses for phone services, I could send via their email-to-text servers. I knew my older Tracfone at one time used Verizon (since the coverage map was identical to Verizon’s) and I knew Labashi’s GSM phone used Cingular. Problem fixed.
I spent a few hours in the afternoon re-designing the kayak lift. In a conversation with Maypo over the weekend, he had wondered whether I could rig up a slide from the rear using half-round 6-inch plastic pipe rather than a lift from the side. As I looked at the rear kayak saddles this afternoon, I realized they rise high enough and are the perfect width to serve as mounting points for a sort of open ‘slide’ made from the black-iron pipe I’ve been using for the side-track. As I put one pipe in place, I realized I could mount the lower end atop the little ladder I use for tie-down. I spent a few minutes lashing the two ten-foot lengths of pipe (each consisting of two five-foot pieces) to the kayak saddles on one end and the top of the ladder on the other. That put the lower end of the slide about chest height for me, an easy-enough lift since I could leave one end of the kayak on the ground (and positioned behind the slide). Two minutes later, I had the kayak on the roof….a Eureka moment! I showed it to Labashi and then set about figuring how I wanted to improve it.
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(posted from Sportsman’s Cove Campground, McIntosh, FL)
(this post covers 29 January to 8 February, 2008)
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Friday, 8 February-
I woke this morning at Caravelle Ranch WMA after a good, quiet night. For some reason I was awake for an hour around 0500 so didn’t waken until 0800. While making breakfast I happened to glance out the window and I saw 15 wild turkeys. These are the southern or Osceola strain (I believe) and these looked to be in excellent health.
It rained pretty heavily overnight so I unhooked the boat and raised it via the trailer jack to drain water out from the bilge. It would probably drain out OK by itself as I drive up small hills but I wanted to be sure and wanted to see how much water there was.
I drove over to the Rodman Dam area to check that out. I’ve driven by the entrance on my way south the past two winters so I was happy to have the time to see it at last. I had heard the dam had been drawn down this year (for plant control) but I was surprised to see all the trees sticking out of the water. I bet this is great bass water given all that cover.
At the far end of the dam road there’s an ATV parking lot and a parking lot for this portion of the Florida Trail. As I walked to the information kiosk, I saw familiar tracks in the sand….. bobcat!
On the way out I stopped at the campground and the very nice lady gave me a 20-minute pass to tour the campground. The primitive sites are fine and the fee is reasonable at $12 but then again I stayed free just down the road at the Wildlife Management Area and had the place to myself. But the campground also has showers and a dump station.
I also prevailed upon the lady to let me use the yellow pages to look up bike shops for my flat tire. The GPS database doesn’t show anything locally and that turned out to be the case in the yellow pages—I’d have to go to St Augustine, Ocala, or Gainesville.
At that point I decided I’d go see the Kenwood Recreation Area on the lake and then go on to Gainesville, where I’d stay at Payne’s Prairie State Park. Labashi and I stayed there on a previous trip and I hoped to ride the road bike there.
The GPS was a godsend for leading me to the bike shop. The repair only cost $11 for a new tube and the repair (though I did have to drive 35miles to get here). Once the bike was packed away again, I turned to the trusty GPS and had it find me the closest Starbucks—only a mile and a half away near the University of Florida.
After my Starbucks fix I drove to Payne’s Prairie State Park but the campground turned out to be full – it’s a Friday in prime season. But they gave me a local campground list and I went about six miles south to Sportsman’s Cove, where I paid $19. I told the campground guy I thought I’d drive back to Payne’s Prairie to bicycle and he directed me to the Gainesville-Hawthorne Bicycle Trail. And when I asked whether there were any local libraries with wi-fi, he said there was wi-fi in the campground—VERY cool!
I left the boat in my campsite and drove to the bike trail access area. What a GREAT bike trail! I did a little over 12 miles on the delightful ultra-smooth paved trail, saying hi to dozens of cyclists and walkers.
Back at the campsite I called Labashi via Skype and we talked for 45 minutes or so, then I updated the blog.
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Thursday, 7 February-
I woke a bit late this morning and then went into the Wal-Mart to solve some problems. I still need to figure out how to best carry the extra gasoline and water we’ll need on the Everglades trip. I bought my fishing license ($48 for us out-of-staters) and came up with some possible solutions for the Everglades when the time comes, then did some shopping at Advance Auto (a steering-wheel spinner for the boat, by golly!), and Lowe’s (cable and lock for the boat/trailer). I then headed south on 19 out of Palatka. I stopped a few miles south at the Marjorie Carr Cross-Florida Greenway visitor’s center to pick up info on the greenway and look for a cheap place to camp. I saw the Caravelle Ranch Wildlife Management Area is nearby and know they allow camping during hunting season but didn’t think spring turkey was on yet. But my ranger called their ranger and got me the okie-dokie. Very cool!
I was told to park by the check station and found that easily enough—good spot and free! I pulled out the Trek and put it together, blew up the tars and pedalled out—for about 20 minutes. That’s when the rain started. Now it had been threatening rain all day but nothing ever came of it until I started biking. I got a good soaking on the way back to the van. But the good news was I had a nice roof at the check station. This is normally where they weigh, measure, and check over the deer and turkeys the hunters bring in but it also makes a nice picnic pavilion on a rainy day. I broke the seal on my Franzia White-Zin and settled in with some corn chips and Wholly-Guacamole (from Wal-Mart of course) while I dripped-dry.
Late in the day I cooked up the take-home box of last evening’s sausage-and-peppers-over-pasta meal at Egan’s. Life is good. Well, actually it could be better. For some reason the rear tire is now flat on the Trek—I must have pinched a tube on my little ride.
I spent the evening catching up on the blog.
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Wednesday, 6 February-
After a pleasant night at the Lumberton Wal-Mart I headed south again, but now into a wind. Old Mocha Joe did 15-16 miles per gallon on this trip the last two winters but pulling the boat makes a difference. I saw 13.3 mpg yesterday but the wind today cut it to a new record low—10.4 mpg. Well, at least the high price of gas makes up for it. (??????). Gas was $2.97 at home but $2.87, then $2.79 as I went south yesterday and today. I continued listening to Bill Moyers, ‘This American Life’ and a session or two of ‘This Week in Saskatchewan’ as well as NPR live today.
By 1700 I was in Palatka, Florida--- good ol’ Palatka. We like the Wal-Mart here because there’s a Chili’s on the lot and Labashi loves their fajitas. Also, this is the place where we first realized a ‘No Overnight Parking’ sign at a Wal-Mart doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t stay there. It was here that we saw the No Parking sign but the security guy said they had been forced to put them up by the city but they didn’t pay it any attention.
It was 83 degrees when I pulled in to Palatka this evening—almost too hot. I pulled out my old free wi-fi listing and found there’s a hotspot at a downtown coffee shop. Without a decent map of Palatka I wouldn’t have tried it in the past but today all I did was enter the address in the GPS and it took me right there. The one thing the GPS couldn’t do, though, was ensure the coffee shop would still be in business! I stopped in a nearby café (Egan’s) to ask about it and learned I could pick up a connection from the sweets-shop across the street. I returned to the van and fired up the laptop to hook up, then started Skype and saw Labashi was online on her computer back home. I plugged in my headphones and mike and we talked for a half-hour. That was our first long-distance use of Skype. I just installed it the night before last on both our PCs when I realized we’d be running up the Tracfone bills if we weren’t careful. I like our Tracfones because they’re so cheap (about $8 a month) the way we use them (not very much!) but using a lot of minutes adds up very quickly.
After our Skype conversation ended I took the laptop into the café and had supper. It was great to browse the news while enjoying my meal. Then I headed back to the Wal-mart for the night. I must have had too much Starbucks or too much sausage-and-peppers-over-pasta because I didn’t sleep until after midnight and then was awake for an hour when some RV guy started up his generator at three in the morning.
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Tuesday, 5 February-
This morning I did my final packing and left the house around 1000. I thought I’d stop at my regular gas station to top off tire pressures but the air pump was blocked there. At the next one (Rutters), the air pump had an ‘out of service’ sign (actually, it said “DO NOT USE THIS”). At the next (Hess), the pump was in service and sounded okay but the more I pumped the LOWER the pressure went in my tire— the pump hardly had any pressure at all. At the next (another Rutters), the pump was blocked from the direction I came in but I circled and by that time the truck left and I finally got the air I needed. Good thing—they were all down about five pounds. I then topped off the wallet at the ATM and headed south by 1030.
The day was a good one for travel. Traffic was light around Baltimore and even around the DC beltway. Below DC I stopped at the rest area and took off my jacket. It was getting warmer already. I spent the day listening to podcasts of ‘This American Life’ and Bill Moyers as I drove today and hit two Starbucks along the way. By 1900 I was in Lumberton, NC and pulled in to a Wal-mart there for the night. We stayed at this one last year and found it surprisingly quiet for being so close to I-95. I had some of that extra-good vinegary North Carolina barbeque at a Smithfield’s right across the lot, then spent the rest of the evening doing my grocery shopping at the Wal-mart. By 2200 I was ready for bed and spent a pleasant half-hour with my book, a reprint of ‘Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper’. This one is the story of E.F. Woodcock who started hunting and trapping in central PA (not far from Cherry Springs State Park) in 1868. I love reading about the way it was done back then.
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Monday, 4 February-
Today was tax day. Early last Fall I called up our tax prep lady and asked to be placed on the schedule as early as possible so I could leave earlier on my Florida trip this year. Our appointment only took forty-five minutes or so and we came out of it with no surprises and everything set up for next year.
That evening we finished Season one of ‘The Wire’—and just in time—I’m headed out tomorrow.
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Sunday, 3 February-
Today I finally figured out what to do with my road bike. This one is a Trek 1100, circa 1996 or so. Last summer I had new tires and a new seat installed and I want to take it along to try some of Florida’s nice paved bike trails. After trying to find room in the roof-box and envisioning the bike on a front-bumper rack, I’ve decided to try taking it inside the van. With the front wheel off the bike fits relatively hanging vertically and up against the back of the driver’s seat, a garbage bag over the greasy parts. We’ll see. If it gets to be a pain there I can toss it into the fishing boat and cable-lock it to the steering pedestal. I also finally got around to fixing the lock arrangement on the outboard motor. It functions okay but rattles around too much so today I dipped the slide into a rubber-grips compound to quiet it down and that seemed to work well.
That evening we watched three more episodes of ‘The Wire’- season one. I love being back in Baltimore.
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Saturday, 2 February-
Today I started loading up the roof-top Thule box with boating and camping gear. I also installed another seat in the fishing boat, installed a holder for the marine handheld radio and fixed a little problem with the GPS having the wrong zulu-time offset (I don’t understand why the GPS would come up with the central time zone as its default when I first fired it up in the Eastern time zone. Wouldn’t you think it would take that as default?). After that I started in on the improvements to the kayak-slide. I drilled the lower ends of the black-iron pipe and drilled matching holes in the top of the tie-down ladder so I can use metal pins for quick assembly. On the upper end, I added stainless-steel hose clamps to serve as purchase points for bungies to hold them tightly into the right place in the kayak saddles. The entire setup goes together or comes apart in about three minutes. I set up the slide and took down the kayak to check everything inside (I keep all the gear for each kayak stored in dry-bags inside the kayaks) and then put it back up.
That evening we watched ‘Ten’, a ridiculous comedy of ten stories loosely based on the Ten Commandments. It had a few funny moments but I can’t recommend it.
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Friday, 1 February-
It rained all day today and I spent most of the day on the web, mostly in preparation for next week’s trip but also catching up on what’s happening on the shooting forums. That evening we watched three episodes of ‘The Wire’. We’re really getting into this one….
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Thursday, 31 January-
Today Labashi and I realized we might have a problem with the two new chairs she ordered about a month ago for the living room. With my trip coming up next week, I may not be around to help pick them up from the furniture store or to help carry them into the house. We were considering paying for delivery when we learned they were currently sitting in a warehouse in New Holland and we could pick them up there if we wanted. I entered the address of the warehouse in the GPS and we headed out. The GPS took us right to the warehouse and that evening we had two beautiful new chairs in our living room. Problem solved!
That evening we embarked on a new adventure—‘The Wire’. Labashi had heard something good about it on NPR so we thought we’d give it a shot. We watched the pilot for Season One and the second episode. Too early to tell.
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Wednesday, 30 January-
Today was hitch-day. I’ve been using my bumper-hitch to tow the fishing boat but I have to be very careful about how tightly I turn. The boat-trailer’s chain-mounts and the trailer tongue conflict with the step-bumper if I turn too sharply. Last week I made arrangements with the local U-Haul center to install both a hitch receiver and a transmission cooler on Mocha Joe and today was the day. My appointment was for 1100 so I dropped the van off and went for a walk, going to the nearby Tractor Supply store to look for other gear for my trip. By 1330 I had received my call to pick up the van… not bad! Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. I was happy enough with the installation of the cooler and receiver but I needed a draw-bar and ball. I had asked about these items when making the appointment and was assured they had everything we’d need—even an extra-length drawbar to account for the step-bumper. But now the installation guy said I needed to go home and level the boat trailer, measure from the hitch to the ground, then measure to the bottom of the receiver hole and bring those measurements in for him to calculate the correct rise for the drawbar. Why that was just now coming up, I don’t know. So I drove home and prepared to level the trailer. At that point I realized there might be additional questions so I just hooked up the boat to my bumper-hitch and towed it to the U-haul shop. There the ‘hitch mechanic’ (as he called himself) made the measurements, entered them into his calculator, and determined that we needed a 7-1/4 inch rise. The closest thing was a unit with about a six-inch rise so we took that out to see what it looked like---and it was far too high. So much for hitch-mechanic calculations.
He then tried a drawbar with a four-inch rise and it was okay for height but this one had an additional triangle welded into the angle for strength and that triangle hit my step-bumper and would not allow the bar to go into place. Mr. Hitch Mechanic went into the shop and came back a few minutes later to say they’ve come up with a solution—they’ll just drill another hole in the bar tongue. No way was I going to let them do that— it would mean the bar tongue would not be fully seated in the receiver as designed. At that point I said I thought I’d look for another solution--- but at Tractor Supply, not U-Haul. We left on good-enough terms with Mr. Hitch Mechanic telling me to come on back if I couldn’t find what I needed at Tractor Supply—he’d fix me right up. Incredible.
At Tractor Supply I found the parts I needed. The best-fit parts put the trailer about an inch low though. But I don’t think I’ll go back to Mr. Hitch Mechanic. I found a high-rise ball on the ‘net which would do it but I really think I’m close enough so I’ll just give it a try.
That evening we watched ‘The Hunting Party’ with Richard Gere. It was okay. The most interesting part is that the storyline originated from an article in Esquire written in 2000. Five journalists were drinking together one night and decided to go looking for a war criminal the whole world was supposedly looking for. And nearly found him. But the film’s storyline cuts it to down to three journalists and makes up the reasons each one goes. It doesn’t ring true, the actions of each are clichéd, the acting’s only fair.
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Tuesday, 29 January-
This morning I registered the SPOT satellite messenger and tried sending a message for the first time. The registration process is simple enough but I ran into a really stupid implementation of security for the web site. The ‘feature’ is a security timeout you don’t know anything about until it bites you. In this case, the idiot ‘engineers’ who set up the web site implemented a timeout which counts from the time you first start the registration process until you are completely finished with the entire setup process. Nevermind the fact that you’ve changed screens dozens of times, have to make multiple choices on optional services (and have to read the help screens on them), have to read through the very long service agreement, have to find all the phone numbers, email addresses, and text addresses for your points of contact, have to construct the text of the message you want sent when each button is hit, and have to think about what information you want forwarded to the emergency-response authorities (like blood type, allergies, prescription medicines, presence or absence of medical implants, etc). So I spent over an hour and a half reading, thinking, finding and entering info and getting everything set up just the way I wanted. You can imagine my surprise when I hit the final “Finish” button and the web site tells me that my session timed out for lack of activity… and, oh-by-the-way if this is your first time on the site, you have to start over from the beginning—even re-creating the userID and password as if you had never been on the site. I felt like I could have knocked one of those satellites out of its orbit with my brand new SPOT. And, of course, all I could do was start over.
This time I did only the bare minimum, rushing through the setup (since there’s no indication of how long the ‘inactivity’ timeout is) hoping I’d be able to add the rest later. Once I got through the dreaded ‘Finish’ button I logged out and went back onto the site and could not find anywhere to add the info. Eventually I found you have to select ‘default’ as your profile and then can get to the right screens (more engineering genius at work). After re-entering all my info again, I fired up the SPOT to give it a try via its “I’m OK” button. Unlike a PLB (personal locator beacon), the SPOT allows me to send “I’m OK” messages via email and cell-phone text messages.
Unfortunately, the test was only partially successful. We did get the less-than-friendly email (with a very-cool link to Google Maps showing my position), but not the text messages. And that’s when I learned that Tracfone does not support email-to-text messages. Our two Tracfones can receive phone-to-phone text messages but not email-to-text messages and of course this is the way SPOT sends them. Fortunately, I found a hint on the Internet. If I know which vendor Tracfone uses for phone services, I could send via their email-to-text servers. I knew my older Tracfone at one time used Verizon (since the coverage map was identical to Verizon’s) and I knew Labashi’s GSM phone used Cingular. Problem fixed.
I spent a few hours in the afternoon re-designing the kayak lift. In a conversation with Maypo over the weekend, he had wondered whether I could rig up a slide from the rear using half-round 6-inch plastic pipe rather than a lift from the side. As I looked at the rear kayak saddles this afternoon, I realized they rise high enough and are the perfect width to serve as mounting points for a sort of open ‘slide’ made from the black-iron pipe I’ve been using for the side-track. As I put one pipe in place, I realized I could mount the lower end atop the little ladder I use for tie-down. I spent a few minutes lashing the two ten-foot lengths of pipe (each consisting of two five-foot pieces) to the kayak saddles on one end and the top of the ladder on the other. That put the lower end of the slide about chest height for me, an easy-enough lift since I could leave one end of the kayak on the ground (and positioned behind the slide). Two minutes later, I had the kayak on the roof….a Eureka moment! I showed it to Labashi and then set about figuring how I wanted to improve it.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 21:04
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