House rehab continues (attic stairway, bathroom floor, new countertop); testing the BearExtender wi-fi antenna
(posted from home)
(This post covers 1 – 18 November, 2010)
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Thursday, 18 November-
By mid-morning I was antsy to get out on this nice day. I rode the F650GS down to the East York Starbucks and Lowe's. I had some returns for Lowe's and then spent another hour or so researching some stuff for the van. I want to make some small changes to the 110-volt shore-power system, I'd like to replace some el-cheapo storage containers we have with something more substantial, and I'm looking for a suitable shower-pan to make a portable shower. I also picked up some small tools for our house-rehab projects.
Back home I spent a few hours on the web researching tile mastic adhesives, more on the TW200 dual-sport motorcycle, and I'm starting to look into radio frequency scanners for our travels. We could have used one on British Columbia's logging roads which all have signs warning drivers to monitor specific frequencies for logging-truck traffic. I'd also like to have been able to listen to park-ranger traffic in BC's Mount Revelstoke National Park the day we saw the park closed because of brown bears getting too close to tourists. We had seen the bears the rangers were reacting to near the upper parking lot and had talked with a ranger about seeing a brown bear come within a few feet of a hiker (fortunately without any harm to either the bear or the hiker!) Within an hour of that incident the park was evacuated and we encountered a park service pickup pulling a bear trap up the mountain as we left.
That evening I worked on updating the blog while watching the Thursday-night shooting shows on Sportsman Channel.
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Wednesday, 17 November-
This morning I rode the Concours to a dentist appointment to replace a filling I lost to a Canada mint on the Labrador Ferry. The replacement only took a few minutes and I was on my way.
I then rode over to the local Yamaha dealer in Camp Hill. I looked at a TW200 dual-sport bike, thinking I might want to take one of them to Florida this winter. But I think it's going to prove to be too heavy. It's only about a hundred pounds lighter than my F650GS so I may as well take that. On the other hand, the TW200's extra-fat tires would better handle the sandy dirt roads of the Florida backcountry (I'm thinking Ocala National Forest here). I guess it comes down to determining how I want to use the bike and whether I could find a super deal on a clean used TW200 before trip time and can convince myself the additional insurance, licensing, and maintenance costs are worth it.
This was my first visit to the Camp Hill store and I was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice Tourmaster ¾ riding jacket in a hi-viz color. A few months ago I took a tour of what I thought were all the local shops to look for a replacement for my aging Joe Rocket mesh jacket and couldn't find anything even close to acceptable. I bought the Tourmaster on the spot. I also found a clearance sale on my favorite riding gloves so I picked up a pair of those too.
That afternoon I picked up the van from the inspection garage and took the laptop and the BearExtender out to the van in my driveway to test the active antenna cable. I also tried several external mounting options for the BearExtender and its antenna. The unit appears to operate better in vertical mode and I picked up some signal by simply mounting it a bit higher, in this case by tie-wrapping it to the top of the van's radio antenna. I don't think this will be necessary in normal operations. I was very pleased with how well it pulled in signals from inside the windshield. It seemed to operate a bit better clipped vertically to the rear-view mirror than lying horizontally (with the antenna turned up) on the dashboard. But I think either one is going to work for the typical situation of my being parked in the parking lot of a library, McDonalds, Panera, Starbucks, or other coffee shop providing the hotspot. I love the idea of being able to go in for a coffee and then relax with it in the van while I make a Skype-video call to Labashi.
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Tuesday, 16 November-
This morning we took Mocha Joe up to our local garage for inspection. Today's a very rainy one but I wanted to install and test out my new wi-fi extender. The extender is called a 'BearExtender n3'. Installation was very easy and it worked on my home wireless network right away. I then hopped in Labashi's car and drove to a couple of known wi-fi hotspots for testing.
I had an errand to run at the Galleria Mall and I saw some people working on laptops in the Food Court. After my errand, I went back to the car and set up the laptop and BearExtender. I was surprised to see I had a reasonably good signal way out in the middle of the very large parking lot. I called Labashi via Skype video. We could see each other and audio seemed normal for me but she said my voice sounded very gravelly to her.
I then drove to Panera and ran another series of tests. I first parked a few rows away from the front door and successfully used the BearExtender. I tried just using my built-in wi-fi card but it kept disconnecting.
I then moved about 50 yards away and tried again. The internal card could not connect at all of course but I was able to have a long Skype-video call with Orat using the BearExtender. We did have a disconnect and at one point the connection slowed down so much that we turned off video to free up bandwidth but I still considered it a very successful test.
I then drove to the nearby Starbucks and ran another series of tests and speed measurements. This time I was far across the parking lot yet had a very reliable connection with a low noise level. This is going to work!
That evening we watched a 1951 Turner Classic Movies film, 'Westward the Women', with Robert Taylor. What a great movie!
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Monday, 15 November-
Today we spent the morning running errands and shopping. I took the improperly-fabricated S -shaped window-stop cover back to the fabricator and had it re-done. This turned out to be a case of the brake operator trying to bend the long pieces of two-inch wide aluminum stock by himself when he should have had a helper to assist him in getting the stock correctly lined up. Fortunately, there was no hassle about re-doing the work to get it right.
Labashi and I then shopped for a replacement kitchen faucet at Lowe's.
That afternoon I turned my attention back to the window-frame cladding. I cut stop-covers from the newly re-done S-shaped stock and finished up the two front windows of the bedrooms and then fitted cladding for one of the east-side windows by dark.
We drove home that evening and stayed up late watching 'Entourage' episodes and a 'Dexter- Season Two' episode.
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Sunday, 14 November-
Today Maypo joined us and took the lead on the installation of the new countertop. We first had to cut off the integrated backsplash to allow the sink to fit. Because of the non-standard under-counter cabinets, the sink must fit very close to the wall and the integrated backsplash would push it too far away from the wall. Maypo then made patterns of the not-very-square space the countertop goes onto and installed cornerpieces for installation screws while I continued working on the cladding around the windows of the house next door. We did a trial fitting of the countertop and found the back edge has a quarter-inch gap for several feet along the back wall. Maypo used his slick little trim router to also cut a quarter-inch from the inside of the front trim piece and that brought the entire countertop close enough to the wall for our planned tile backsplash to work. He then made the sink cutout, leaving only an inch-wide lip on the back. And after we moved the countertop back into place we found the inch-wide piece does not have adequate support. I'll have to glue in some shims or light wooden strips to fix that.
While Maypo was working the sink cutout, I got busy cleaning up the stainless steel sink and fixture with Goof Off and a Scotchbrite pad. Everything went well until I took my putty knife to what looked like a glob of dried caulk on the back of the faucet base. As I scraped it away, I found a big hole in the faucet base. What I thought was dried caulk was actually corrosion. So much for that faucet. I'll have to replace it.
We worked until dark at about 1730.
That evening Labashi and I watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.
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Saturday, 13 November-
This morning we were awakened at 0530 by an intrusive heavy-equipment noise in the distance. After a half-hour it went down in volume but of course we were awake. We decided to go ahead and start our day.
We had breakfast at McDonald's, then went to Lowe's for the countertop we had picked out last night. We took along the defective window sash and screen once again and dropped them off for the warranty claim. We spent an hour or so selecting tile, grout, and adhesive for this project and a few small items to finish up the bathroom.
We had a small problem with the countertop. This one too --- just like the ones at Home Depot --- had a rough spot about a foot from one end. We talked it over with the kitchens specialist and she believes the rough stuff is adhesive and it should come off with a little Goof Off. Given that all the countertops we are interested in have some of this rough, sandpapery feel somewhere or another, we felt we didn't have much choice but to take one along and give the remover a try.
We didn't get back to the job until after lunch. I spent the rest of the day installing aluminum cladding for sills, stop, and brickmold trim. I did run into a problem, though. The aluminum stock for covering the window-stop didn't fit properly. The fabricator made one section of it a bit wider than the half-inch we ordered. I'll have to take it back Monday. In the meantime I can continue to fit all the other aluminum. Once I get the stop-cover material, it will only take ten minutes or so to cut and fit it.
We had supper in the van tonight, a good taco-free taco. We then watched 'Iron Man 2' on the laptop.
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Friday, 12 November-
Today we headed back to Chambersburg to the house-rehab project. We stopped at the Carlisle Home Depot to pick up a countertop only to find all three of the ones in stock had defects in the finish ; we left empty-handed. We also picked up aluminum stock from a fabrication shop for covering the brickmold and sills on the second rehab-house.
That afternoon Maypo and I cut and installed aluminum capping on a kitchen window of house #2. Maypo has done this before but this is my first time so he's giving me pointers and then I'll take over.
After Maypo's departure I made up a sill cover for the next window but by then it was too dark to continue working.
Labashi and I went to supper with Maypo at Norland Pub. We then had a short visit with Maypo before driving to Lowe's to pick up a countertop. But alas we spent too much time picking out backsplash tile and had to abandon for the evening when Lowe's closed at 2100. We'll pick it up in the morning.
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Thursday, 11 November-
I needed to give the Miata an exercise run before putting it up for the winter so I drove down to Tractor Supply to look for parts for a home-built portable shower for Mocha Joe. I was looking for a livestock feeding pan or something similar to use as a catch-basin. I did find something that could work but it's circular and that makes it more difficult to store. I then realized that a simple change to a storage container we already have in the van would work for the shower and would not require additional storage space. Now I need to find the right shower curtain and the means to support it and secure it while in use.
I also took a look at how to provide a shore-power plug on Mocha Joe without mounting a receptacle in the body of the van. Today we merely slam the driver's-side door on our heavy-duty extension cord after it has been plugged in to the plug leading to receptacles inside the van. All I have to do is replace the wire leading to the receptacles with a longer one and route it to exit the van inside the gas-fill door. If I do it right, I'll be able to merely lift a few inches of the extension out past the gas cap and close the filler door, then plug in. Now I just need to attend to the pesky details of actually doing it as envisioned.
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Wednesday, 10 November-
I was urgently in need of a motorcycle ride today. I buzzed down to Flying Feet in York to pick up some new sneaks and circled back home via the East York Starbucks. I've really missed riding the Concours and now ask myself whether the F650GS was a mistake. It was a great replacement for the KLR650 but airflow over and around the Concours is much better than the F650GS, shifting is smoother and power delivery is much silkier (and there's a lot more power to deliver). The Concours is showing its age, though. Running it through the winter months has taken a heavy toll on the undercarriage and I'm going to have to decide by Spring whether to refurbish it or sell it and move on to something else.
I spent much of the afternoon on the web reading Sportsmobile Forum and the evening reading Expedition Portal Forum. When Labashi became available we watched the last episode we have of 'The Closer'- Season Five.
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Tuesday, 9 November-
We're home for a couple of days. I spent the morning on the web researching some stuff for the house rehab. Yesterday as I installed the shower faucet handles I found we have a leak. I'll need to figure out how to get at the seals in the cartridge-style faucets. I also noticed the trim ring around the shower head-pipe doesn't fit anymore because of the new surround is slightly higher than the old.
That afternoon I rode the Concours to the dentist's office for my regular checkup appointment. That evening I updated the blog and we watched 'Maya Lin- A Strong, Clear Vision' from Netflix.
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Monday, 8 November-
Still in Chambersburg working on the house rehab. This morning I made the mistake of using a pneumatic staple gun to install toe strip. Some of the staples didn't penetrate the surface and became a nightmare; I couldn't drive them in further and couldn't remove them. The staples had worked fine on the lauan underlayment for the bathroom because it was soft enough for the staples to penetrate fully. But the grain of the pine toe strip was too hard. I eventually removed the toe strips and worked the staples out from the back, then used more traditional means (finishing nails) to re-install the strips.
I also took on the job of replacing the overflow and drain of the bathroom tub. I was able to remove the tub drain by cutting off the under-side drain block's tailpiece with a Sawzall. That enabled it to spin the assembly off the threads and once that was done, I could break the putty sealing it to the tub's porcelain surface. Installation of the new one was pretty straightforward (but then again I have yet to test it).
I also installed the fake vent I made up for the siding. This is a bit ridiculous but we had a 3-inch hole in the siding by the bathroom where bathroom fan used to vent. The new bathroom fan exits at the soffitt so we had this empty hole to fill. Rather than simply cover it over with sheet aluminum, I used a soffitt vent cover to look a little less like an afterthought.
Labashi finished up her painting of the interior doors today.
That evening we headed home, stopping at Chili's in Carlisle for supper, then spending an hour in Home Depot next door. I think we've finally found the 'right' countertop and the vinyl flooring for the kitchen.
At home we watched all four episodes of 'Entourage' Season Three, Disk 1 and three episodes of 'The Closer', Season Five. For some reason we weren't sleepy and stayed up until 0100.
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Sunday, 7 November -
We woke extra-early this morning because of the time change but we were both refreshed and ready to get started.
Labashi is painting interior doors again today. I want to get the baseboard and toe strips cut but don't want to wake the neighbors so I worked other projects. I removed the clips from under the stainless steel kitchen sink in preparation for removing the sink when we install the new pre-fab countertop. After taking measurements of the existing installation yesterday and then measuring the countertops available at Lowe's, we determined we can adapt it to our non-standard situation if we cut off the upright piece on the back.
I then went to work on the existing backsplash. I removed an aluminum cove strip covering the joint between the backsplash and counter top and then carefully removed all the dried caulk from the backsplash. We'll be using that surface for mounting the tile later on.
I then turned my attention to the bathtub overflow. The bolts for the overflow control are broken off and I'll have to replace the entire assembly. From the basement access hole I was able to unscrew the sealing nuts and then lift the heavy brass assembly out.
That afternoon I stopped over at Maypo's to discuss the overflow and our countertop findings. While there we got caught up in a network problem. We were trying to troubleshoot a router problem but my Mac laptop couldn't get through. That turned out to be a proxy problem generated by a content filter he subscribes to.
Late in the afternoon I attempted to install the baseboard trim but had trouble locating studs reliably. After supper I picked up a stud-finder at Lowe's (thank goodness for Sunday hours) and things went better that evening. We worked until 2100.
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Saturday, 6 November-
Our working late last night backfired. We didn't wake until 0900 this morning. I can't remember the last time that happened.
This morning we glued down the vinyl flooring in the bathroom. The work went well but when I used a laminate roller to work out any air bubbles, I somehow got some adhesive on the good side of the vinyl during one pass of the roller and then couldn't get the adhesive off. The instructions on the can say dried adhesive can be removed using 'safety solvent' so I called the flooring shop to find out exactly what that is. The shop offered to give me some 'Afta' adhesive remover so I drove to the shop and picked that up and it worked as described-- instant removal. This remover is made by the same folks who make 'Goof Off' and it smells very similar so I think the 'Goof Off' I have would have worked.
That afternoon I finished up the dryer receptacle installation and mounted it on the basement wall. I also made some changes to the soffit vent plate to make use of it to cover up a hole in the siding where the old bathroom vent exited. I painted it using the same Duramax we used for the siding. I then planned out replacement of the bathroom baseboard and toe.
That evening Labashi and I went to Benny's Italian restaurant for supper, then spent the evening at Lowe's. One of the new replacement window panes had cracked (apparently due to a manufacturing defect) and the screen for that window hadn't been made properly. There was nobody around to address the issues tonight so they'll have to call. We also looked at countertops, Formica, backsplash tile, vinyl flooring, and bought the baseboard and toe stock.
Though it was nearly 2100 by the time we returned to the house, Labashi painted the baseboard and toe stock for tomorrow and I made more detailed measurements of the existing kitchen counter and its underpinnings.
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Friday, 5 November-
Today we got a reasonably early start for a work-day in Chambersburg and after loading up the van we were underway by 0830. We stopped in Shippensburg (at Pague and Fagan Hardware-- a trip back in time!) to pick up a soffit vent then we drove on to Sam's Flooring in St. Thomas. We bought a linoleum remnant for the bathroom floor and looked for remnants for the kitchen floor and the other rehab-house (without success).
I spent much of the afternoon making a pattern and cutting out the vinyl flooring material while Labashi painted interior doors. That evening Maypo stopped by and offered to drop off his pancake-style compressor and staple gun to make the job of nailing down the lauan underlayment easier. I had made today's cut-to-exact-size pattern out of resin paper so once I finished with it I laid it between the sub-floor and the lauan to prevent squeeks, then stapled every four to six inches in both directions. But I thought I'd better hold off on the actual gluing of the linoleum until tomorrow so I have Labashi's help.
I turned my attention to the dryer receptacle. The old receptacle was intended to be installed in a wall was just hanging loose. I changed it out for a new surface-mount receptacle box, finishing up around 2100. Labashi continued painting until 2130. She wants to git 'r done, son!
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Thursday, 4 November-
Today was a rainy, take-it-easy day. Labashi went to her appointment and I spent the morning and a few hours of the afternoon reading through some new web sites of great interest to me. The first is a Ford truck enthusiasts site which has a fairly extensive history of postings about vans like Mocha Joe. I was particularly interested in reading the postings of a West Virginia guy who is building a travel van and he provides photos of every detail of his work. He's building the next level up from my van so I'm interested in his ideas and the problems he runs into as he works.
That site in turn led to another van-traveller site called Sportsmobile Forum. I've been aware of Sportsmobile vans but wasn't aware of the forum. It's a goldmine of info about Ford vans and mods to them for travel and self-sufficient backcountry travel.
When Labashi returned we had a movie marathon. We watched three Netflix DVDs almost back to back. The first was called 'Babies' and is a documentary about four babies from birth to first steps in four different cultures-- in Namibia, Siberia, Japan, and the US. Very charming!
We then watched 'The Art of the Steal', a documentary about the Barnes Foundation art collection – said to be worth 25 to 30 billion dollars-- being 'stolen' by the enemies of Dr. Barnes after his death. Another good one but certainly a film with a point of view.
The third DVD was 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller', the Robert Altman film with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. I had recently read something about it and wanted to see it again, some forty years after first seeing it. This time we had the benefit of subtitles, a rewind button, and Altman's commentary to help us understand and appreciate it. Loved it! Now I'd like to read the book ('McCabe', a 1959 novel by Edmund Naughton) but the books now appear to be collector's items and are very expensive ($35 and up).
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Wednesday, 3 November-
Labashi has an appointment tomorrow so we're taking a few days off from the Chambersburg project.
I spent an hour catching up the blog this morning, then headed to town on the Concours to run a few small errands. I picked up StarTron, a gasoline preservative, to put the F650GS into storage for the next few months. I also bought a can of SeaFoam to (hopefully) clean the carburetor passages on the Concours. I picked up some travel info from AAA and then took a walk at Rocky Ridge Park. I did the five-mile end-to-end course in 1:44, about right for walking it after a long layoff from my daily walks.
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Tuesday, 2 November-
We were surprised to see the overnight temperature had dropped to 24 degrees but we were very comfortable in Mocha Joe. We have an electric baseboard heater in Mocha Joe which we very rarely use when travelling. But it sure comes in handy for living in driveways as we're doing for this project or when we visit family.
This morning I put hinges on a closet door which Orat had prepared last week but we had run out of hinges at the time. It should have been simply a matter of screwing on the hinge plates on the door frame and door but when I went to hang the door I couldn't. The lower hinge plates on the frame were a sixteenth lower than those on the door. It's difficult to understand how the hinges wouldn't fit right away. Is this a manufacturing tolerances issue? Not really. There's still a tiny bit of play available. I was able to get the hinges lined up by loosening the screws with the hinges still attached to both the door and frame and then re-tightening the screws.
I installed the sink drain basket in the kitchen's stainless steel sink. This is the sink which had a small leak which turned out to be an unexplained cut in the stainless steel material of the sink, in the sealing lip for the drain. I repaired it with JB Weld and installed a new rubber gasket underneath and plumber's putty to seat the drain on the sealing lip.
After lunch I painted the color coat on the carport's attic stairway and its trim. I also took care of the missing ductwork in the attic between the bathroom fan and a duct leading to the outside at the soffit. I now see why it was missing. I had a hard time fitting the duct over the fan exit because it was so close to a joist. I had to trim a half-inch off the duct elbow just to get it in place and this made the elbow to the next pipe just barely able to reach. I put on a 4-inch clamp there and secured all the joints with duct tape.
Labashi spent her day preparing and then painting the basement steps with a gray porch enamel.
We quit early today-- 1600 – and drove back home so we could vote. We didn't have our Netflix delivery yet so had to make do with TV fare. But we did find two episodes of 'Art Race' on our cable system's Free On Demand system.
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Monday, 1 November-
This morning we left bright-and-early for the Chambersburg house. It was so nice to have had a few days off. We stopped at the Shippensburg Lowe's along the way and picked up paint for the basement steps and boards for the attic stairway so our work day started around 1000.
Today we worked on several mini-projects. We had to move some of the door stops on the newly-installed doors and one of the re-installed exterior doors. I noticed the kitchen exterior door made a creaking sound when opening and found that the change in hinges had made the clearance to the hinge-side door stop so tight it was causing the door to peel off paint and lift up splinters. I moved the door stop and glued down the lifted-up splinters.
I also installed trim around the new attic drop-down stairway and prepared it for paint. We decided to go with a simple 1 x 3 board frame rather than a window-frame trim.
That afternoon Labashi and I installed new shutters around the front windows and re-installed the side-window shutters, giving the outside of the house a nice finished look from the street.
As we were talking what to do for supper I decided I'd like to get the primer coat on the attic stairway and its trim while Labashi made supper. I had the job about half done when supper was ready and had to turn on the carport light to finish up when I returned.
Maypo dropped by and we talked about the kitchen counter-top and backsplash. Labashi and I had looked at a replacement counter-top and had almost bought it. But after taking more detailed measurements of the old, non-standard installation, it looks like a replacement counter-top wouldn't work. We may just have to tile over the existing countertop or replace its formica laminate.
We worked until 2000 or so, then retired to the van to read and blog.
**************** END OF POST ***********
(posted from home)
(This post covers 1 – 18 November, 2010)
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Thursday, 18 November-
By mid-morning I was antsy to get out on this nice day. I rode the F650GS down to the East York Starbucks and Lowe's. I had some returns for Lowe's and then spent another hour or so researching some stuff for the van. I want to make some small changes to the 110-volt shore-power system, I'd like to replace some el-cheapo storage containers we have with something more substantial, and I'm looking for a suitable shower-pan to make a portable shower. I also picked up some small tools for our house-rehab projects.
Back home I spent a few hours on the web researching tile mastic adhesives, more on the TW200 dual-sport motorcycle, and I'm starting to look into radio frequency scanners for our travels. We could have used one on British Columbia's logging roads which all have signs warning drivers to monitor specific frequencies for logging-truck traffic. I'd also like to have been able to listen to park-ranger traffic in BC's Mount Revelstoke National Park the day we saw the park closed because of brown bears getting too close to tourists. We had seen the bears the rangers were reacting to near the upper parking lot and had talked with a ranger about seeing a brown bear come within a few feet of a hiker (fortunately without any harm to either the bear or the hiker!) Within an hour of that incident the park was evacuated and we encountered a park service pickup pulling a bear trap up the mountain as we left.
That evening I worked on updating the blog while watching the Thursday-night shooting shows on Sportsman Channel.
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Wednesday, 17 November-
This morning I rode the Concours to a dentist appointment to replace a filling I lost to a Canada mint on the Labrador Ferry. The replacement only took a few minutes and I was on my way.
I then rode over to the local Yamaha dealer in Camp Hill. I looked at a TW200 dual-sport bike, thinking I might want to take one of them to Florida this winter. But I think it's going to prove to be too heavy. It's only about a hundred pounds lighter than my F650GS so I may as well take that. On the other hand, the TW200's extra-fat tires would better handle the sandy dirt roads of the Florida backcountry (I'm thinking Ocala National Forest here). I guess it comes down to determining how I want to use the bike and whether I could find a super deal on a clean used TW200 before trip time and can convince myself the additional insurance, licensing, and maintenance costs are worth it.
This was my first visit to the Camp Hill store and I was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice Tourmaster ¾ riding jacket in a hi-viz color. A few months ago I took a tour of what I thought were all the local shops to look for a replacement for my aging Joe Rocket mesh jacket and couldn't find anything even close to acceptable. I bought the Tourmaster on the spot. I also found a clearance sale on my favorite riding gloves so I picked up a pair of those too.
That afternoon I picked up the van from the inspection garage and took the laptop and the BearExtender out to the van in my driveway to test the active antenna cable. I also tried several external mounting options for the BearExtender and its antenna. The unit appears to operate better in vertical mode and I picked up some signal by simply mounting it a bit higher, in this case by tie-wrapping it to the top of the van's radio antenna. I don't think this will be necessary in normal operations. I was very pleased with how well it pulled in signals from inside the windshield. It seemed to operate a bit better clipped vertically to the rear-view mirror than lying horizontally (with the antenna turned up) on the dashboard. But I think either one is going to work for the typical situation of my being parked in the parking lot of a library, McDonalds, Panera, Starbucks, or other coffee shop providing the hotspot. I love the idea of being able to go in for a coffee and then relax with it in the van while I make a Skype-video call to Labashi.
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Tuesday, 16 November-
This morning we took Mocha Joe up to our local garage for inspection. Today's a very rainy one but I wanted to install and test out my new wi-fi extender. The extender is called a 'BearExtender n3'. Installation was very easy and it worked on my home wireless network right away. I then hopped in Labashi's car and drove to a couple of known wi-fi hotspots for testing.
I had an errand to run at the Galleria Mall and I saw some people working on laptops in the Food Court. After my errand, I went back to the car and set up the laptop and BearExtender. I was surprised to see I had a reasonably good signal way out in the middle of the very large parking lot. I called Labashi via Skype video. We could see each other and audio seemed normal for me but she said my voice sounded very gravelly to her.
I then drove to Panera and ran another series of tests. I first parked a few rows away from the front door and successfully used the BearExtender. I tried just using my built-in wi-fi card but it kept disconnecting.
I then moved about 50 yards away and tried again. The internal card could not connect at all of course but I was able to have a long Skype-video call with Orat using the BearExtender. We did have a disconnect and at one point the connection slowed down so much that we turned off video to free up bandwidth but I still considered it a very successful test.
I then drove to the nearby Starbucks and ran another series of tests and speed measurements. This time I was far across the parking lot yet had a very reliable connection with a low noise level. This is going to work!
That evening we watched a 1951 Turner Classic Movies film, 'Westward the Women', with Robert Taylor. What a great movie!
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Monday, 15 November-
Today we spent the morning running errands and shopping. I took the improperly-fabricated S -shaped window-stop cover back to the fabricator and had it re-done. This turned out to be a case of the brake operator trying to bend the long pieces of two-inch wide aluminum stock by himself when he should have had a helper to assist him in getting the stock correctly lined up. Fortunately, there was no hassle about re-doing the work to get it right.
Labashi and I then shopped for a replacement kitchen faucet at Lowe's.
That afternoon I turned my attention back to the window-frame cladding. I cut stop-covers from the newly re-done S-shaped stock and finished up the two front windows of the bedrooms and then fitted cladding for one of the east-side windows by dark.
We drove home that evening and stayed up late watching 'Entourage' episodes and a 'Dexter- Season Two' episode.
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Sunday, 14 November-
Today Maypo joined us and took the lead on the installation of the new countertop. We first had to cut off the integrated backsplash to allow the sink to fit. Because of the non-standard under-counter cabinets, the sink must fit very close to the wall and the integrated backsplash would push it too far away from the wall. Maypo then made patterns of the not-very-square space the countertop goes onto and installed cornerpieces for installation screws while I continued working on the cladding around the windows of the house next door. We did a trial fitting of the countertop and found the back edge has a quarter-inch gap for several feet along the back wall. Maypo used his slick little trim router to also cut a quarter-inch from the inside of the front trim piece and that brought the entire countertop close enough to the wall for our planned tile backsplash to work. He then made the sink cutout, leaving only an inch-wide lip on the back. And after we moved the countertop back into place we found the inch-wide piece does not have adequate support. I'll have to glue in some shims or light wooden strips to fix that.
While Maypo was working the sink cutout, I got busy cleaning up the stainless steel sink and fixture with Goof Off and a Scotchbrite pad. Everything went well until I took my putty knife to what looked like a glob of dried caulk on the back of the faucet base. As I scraped it away, I found a big hole in the faucet base. What I thought was dried caulk was actually corrosion. So much for that faucet. I'll have to replace it.
We worked until dark at about 1730.
That evening Labashi and I watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.
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Saturday, 13 November-
This morning we were awakened at 0530 by an intrusive heavy-equipment noise in the distance. After a half-hour it went down in volume but of course we were awake. We decided to go ahead and start our day.
We had breakfast at McDonald's, then went to Lowe's for the countertop we had picked out last night. We took along the defective window sash and screen once again and dropped them off for the warranty claim. We spent an hour or so selecting tile, grout, and adhesive for this project and a few small items to finish up the bathroom.
We had a small problem with the countertop. This one too --- just like the ones at Home Depot --- had a rough spot about a foot from one end. We talked it over with the kitchens specialist and she believes the rough stuff is adhesive and it should come off with a little Goof Off. Given that all the countertops we are interested in have some of this rough, sandpapery feel somewhere or another, we felt we didn't have much choice but to take one along and give the remover a try.
We didn't get back to the job until after lunch. I spent the rest of the day installing aluminum cladding for sills, stop, and brickmold trim. I did run into a problem, though. The aluminum stock for covering the window-stop didn't fit properly. The fabricator made one section of it a bit wider than the half-inch we ordered. I'll have to take it back Monday. In the meantime I can continue to fit all the other aluminum. Once I get the stop-cover material, it will only take ten minutes or so to cut and fit it.
We had supper in the van tonight, a good taco-free taco. We then watched 'Iron Man 2' on the laptop.
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Friday, 12 November-
Today we headed back to Chambersburg to the house-rehab project. We stopped at the Carlisle Home Depot to pick up a countertop only to find all three of the ones in stock had defects in the finish ; we left empty-handed. We also picked up aluminum stock from a fabrication shop for covering the brickmold and sills on the second rehab-house.
That afternoon Maypo and I cut and installed aluminum capping on a kitchen window of house #2. Maypo has done this before but this is my first time so he's giving me pointers and then I'll take over.
After Maypo's departure I made up a sill cover for the next window but by then it was too dark to continue working.
Labashi and I went to supper with Maypo at Norland Pub. We then had a short visit with Maypo before driving to Lowe's to pick up a countertop. But alas we spent too much time picking out backsplash tile and had to abandon for the evening when Lowe's closed at 2100. We'll pick it up in the morning.
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Thursday, 11 November-
I needed to give the Miata an exercise run before putting it up for the winter so I drove down to Tractor Supply to look for parts for a home-built portable shower for Mocha Joe. I was looking for a livestock feeding pan or something similar to use as a catch-basin. I did find something that could work but it's circular and that makes it more difficult to store. I then realized that a simple change to a storage container we already have in the van would work for the shower and would not require additional storage space. Now I need to find the right shower curtain and the means to support it and secure it while in use.
I also took a look at how to provide a shore-power plug on Mocha Joe without mounting a receptacle in the body of the van. Today we merely slam the driver's-side door on our heavy-duty extension cord after it has been plugged in to the plug leading to receptacles inside the van. All I have to do is replace the wire leading to the receptacles with a longer one and route it to exit the van inside the gas-fill door. If I do it right, I'll be able to merely lift a few inches of the extension out past the gas cap and close the filler door, then plug in. Now I just need to attend to the pesky details of actually doing it as envisioned.
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Wednesday, 10 November-
I was urgently in need of a motorcycle ride today. I buzzed down to Flying Feet in York to pick up some new sneaks and circled back home via the East York Starbucks. I've really missed riding the Concours and now ask myself whether the F650GS was a mistake. It was a great replacement for the KLR650 but airflow over and around the Concours is much better than the F650GS, shifting is smoother and power delivery is much silkier (and there's a lot more power to deliver). The Concours is showing its age, though. Running it through the winter months has taken a heavy toll on the undercarriage and I'm going to have to decide by Spring whether to refurbish it or sell it and move on to something else.
I spent much of the afternoon on the web reading Sportsmobile Forum and the evening reading Expedition Portal Forum. When Labashi became available we watched the last episode we have of 'The Closer'- Season Five.
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Tuesday, 9 November-
We're home for a couple of days. I spent the morning on the web researching some stuff for the house rehab. Yesterday as I installed the shower faucet handles I found we have a leak. I'll need to figure out how to get at the seals in the cartridge-style faucets. I also noticed the trim ring around the shower head-pipe doesn't fit anymore because of the new surround is slightly higher than the old.
That afternoon I rode the Concours to the dentist's office for my regular checkup appointment. That evening I updated the blog and we watched 'Maya Lin- A Strong, Clear Vision' from Netflix.
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Monday, 8 November-
Still in Chambersburg working on the house rehab. This morning I made the mistake of using a pneumatic staple gun to install toe strip. Some of the staples didn't penetrate the surface and became a nightmare; I couldn't drive them in further and couldn't remove them. The staples had worked fine on the lauan underlayment for the bathroom because it was soft enough for the staples to penetrate fully. But the grain of the pine toe strip was too hard. I eventually removed the toe strips and worked the staples out from the back, then used more traditional means (finishing nails) to re-install the strips.
I also took on the job of replacing the overflow and drain of the bathroom tub. I was able to remove the tub drain by cutting off the under-side drain block's tailpiece with a Sawzall. That enabled it to spin the assembly off the threads and once that was done, I could break the putty sealing it to the tub's porcelain surface. Installation of the new one was pretty straightforward (but then again I have yet to test it).
I also installed the fake vent I made up for the siding. This is a bit ridiculous but we had a 3-inch hole in the siding by the bathroom where bathroom fan used to vent. The new bathroom fan exits at the soffitt so we had this empty hole to fill. Rather than simply cover it over with sheet aluminum, I used a soffitt vent cover to look a little less like an afterthought.
Labashi finished up her painting of the interior doors today.
That evening we headed home, stopping at Chili's in Carlisle for supper, then spending an hour in Home Depot next door. I think we've finally found the 'right' countertop and the vinyl flooring for the kitchen.
At home we watched all four episodes of 'Entourage' Season Three, Disk 1 and three episodes of 'The Closer', Season Five. For some reason we weren't sleepy and stayed up until 0100.
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Sunday, 7 November -
We woke extra-early this morning because of the time change but we were both refreshed and ready to get started.
Labashi is painting interior doors again today. I want to get the baseboard and toe strips cut but don't want to wake the neighbors so I worked other projects. I removed the clips from under the stainless steel kitchen sink in preparation for removing the sink when we install the new pre-fab countertop. After taking measurements of the existing installation yesterday and then measuring the countertops available at Lowe's, we determined we can adapt it to our non-standard situation if we cut off the upright piece on the back.
I then went to work on the existing backsplash. I removed an aluminum cove strip covering the joint between the backsplash and counter top and then carefully removed all the dried caulk from the backsplash. We'll be using that surface for mounting the tile later on.
I then turned my attention to the bathtub overflow. The bolts for the overflow control are broken off and I'll have to replace the entire assembly. From the basement access hole I was able to unscrew the sealing nuts and then lift the heavy brass assembly out.
That afternoon I stopped over at Maypo's to discuss the overflow and our countertop findings. While there we got caught up in a network problem. We were trying to troubleshoot a router problem but my Mac laptop couldn't get through. That turned out to be a proxy problem generated by a content filter he subscribes to.
Late in the afternoon I attempted to install the baseboard trim but had trouble locating studs reliably. After supper I picked up a stud-finder at Lowe's (thank goodness for Sunday hours) and things went better that evening. We worked until 2100.
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Saturday, 6 November-
Our working late last night backfired. We didn't wake until 0900 this morning. I can't remember the last time that happened.
This morning we glued down the vinyl flooring in the bathroom. The work went well but when I used a laminate roller to work out any air bubbles, I somehow got some adhesive on the good side of the vinyl during one pass of the roller and then couldn't get the adhesive off. The instructions on the can say dried adhesive can be removed using 'safety solvent' so I called the flooring shop to find out exactly what that is. The shop offered to give me some 'Afta' adhesive remover so I drove to the shop and picked that up and it worked as described-- instant removal. This remover is made by the same folks who make 'Goof Off' and it smells very similar so I think the 'Goof Off' I have would have worked.
That afternoon I finished up the dryer receptacle installation and mounted it on the basement wall. I also made some changes to the soffit vent plate to make use of it to cover up a hole in the siding where the old bathroom vent exited. I painted it using the same Duramax we used for the siding. I then planned out replacement of the bathroom baseboard and toe.
That evening Labashi and I went to Benny's Italian restaurant for supper, then spent the evening at Lowe's. One of the new replacement window panes had cracked (apparently due to a manufacturing defect) and the screen for that window hadn't been made properly. There was nobody around to address the issues tonight so they'll have to call. We also looked at countertops, Formica, backsplash tile, vinyl flooring, and bought the baseboard and toe stock.
Though it was nearly 2100 by the time we returned to the house, Labashi painted the baseboard and toe stock for tomorrow and I made more detailed measurements of the existing kitchen counter and its underpinnings.
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Friday, 5 November-
Today we got a reasonably early start for a work-day in Chambersburg and after loading up the van we were underway by 0830. We stopped in Shippensburg (at Pague and Fagan Hardware-- a trip back in time!) to pick up a soffit vent then we drove on to Sam's Flooring in St. Thomas. We bought a linoleum remnant for the bathroom floor and looked for remnants for the kitchen floor and the other rehab-house (without success).
I spent much of the afternoon making a pattern and cutting out the vinyl flooring material while Labashi painted interior doors. That evening Maypo stopped by and offered to drop off his pancake-style compressor and staple gun to make the job of nailing down the lauan underlayment easier. I had made today's cut-to-exact-size pattern out of resin paper so once I finished with it I laid it between the sub-floor and the lauan to prevent squeeks, then stapled every four to six inches in both directions. But I thought I'd better hold off on the actual gluing of the linoleum until tomorrow so I have Labashi's help.
I turned my attention to the dryer receptacle. The old receptacle was intended to be installed in a wall was just hanging loose. I changed it out for a new surface-mount receptacle box, finishing up around 2100. Labashi continued painting until 2130. She wants to git 'r done, son!
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Thursday, 4 November-
Today was a rainy, take-it-easy day. Labashi went to her appointment and I spent the morning and a few hours of the afternoon reading through some new web sites of great interest to me. The first is a Ford truck enthusiasts site which has a fairly extensive history of postings about vans like Mocha Joe. I was particularly interested in reading the postings of a West Virginia guy who is building a travel van and he provides photos of every detail of his work. He's building the next level up from my van so I'm interested in his ideas and the problems he runs into as he works.
That site in turn led to another van-traveller site called Sportsmobile Forum. I've been aware of Sportsmobile vans but wasn't aware of the forum. It's a goldmine of info about Ford vans and mods to them for travel and self-sufficient backcountry travel.
When Labashi returned we had a movie marathon. We watched three Netflix DVDs almost back to back. The first was called 'Babies' and is a documentary about four babies from birth to first steps in four different cultures-- in Namibia, Siberia, Japan, and the US. Very charming!
We then watched 'The Art of the Steal', a documentary about the Barnes Foundation art collection – said to be worth 25 to 30 billion dollars-- being 'stolen' by the enemies of Dr. Barnes after his death. Another good one but certainly a film with a point of view.
The third DVD was 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller', the Robert Altman film with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. I had recently read something about it and wanted to see it again, some forty years after first seeing it. This time we had the benefit of subtitles, a rewind button, and Altman's commentary to help us understand and appreciate it. Loved it! Now I'd like to read the book ('McCabe', a 1959 novel by Edmund Naughton) but the books now appear to be collector's items and are very expensive ($35 and up).
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Wednesday, 3 November-
Labashi has an appointment tomorrow so we're taking a few days off from the Chambersburg project.
I spent an hour catching up the blog this morning, then headed to town on the Concours to run a few small errands. I picked up StarTron, a gasoline preservative, to put the F650GS into storage for the next few months. I also bought a can of SeaFoam to (hopefully) clean the carburetor passages on the Concours. I picked up some travel info from AAA and then took a walk at Rocky Ridge Park. I did the five-mile end-to-end course in 1:44, about right for walking it after a long layoff from my daily walks.
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Tuesday, 2 November-
We were surprised to see the overnight temperature had dropped to 24 degrees but we were very comfortable in Mocha Joe. We have an electric baseboard heater in Mocha Joe which we very rarely use when travelling. But it sure comes in handy for living in driveways as we're doing for this project or when we visit family.
This morning I put hinges on a closet door which Orat had prepared last week but we had run out of hinges at the time. It should have been simply a matter of screwing on the hinge plates on the door frame and door but when I went to hang the door I couldn't. The lower hinge plates on the frame were a sixteenth lower than those on the door. It's difficult to understand how the hinges wouldn't fit right away. Is this a manufacturing tolerances issue? Not really. There's still a tiny bit of play available. I was able to get the hinges lined up by loosening the screws with the hinges still attached to both the door and frame and then re-tightening the screws.
I installed the sink drain basket in the kitchen's stainless steel sink. This is the sink which had a small leak which turned out to be an unexplained cut in the stainless steel material of the sink, in the sealing lip for the drain. I repaired it with JB Weld and installed a new rubber gasket underneath and plumber's putty to seat the drain on the sealing lip.
After lunch I painted the color coat on the carport's attic stairway and its trim. I also took care of the missing ductwork in the attic between the bathroom fan and a duct leading to the outside at the soffit. I now see why it was missing. I had a hard time fitting the duct over the fan exit because it was so close to a joist. I had to trim a half-inch off the duct elbow just to get it in place and this made the elbow to the next pipe just barely able to reach. I put on a 4-inch clamp there and secured all the joints with duct tape.
Labashi spent her day preparing and then painting the basement steps with a gray porch enamel.
We quit early today-- 1600 – and drove back home so we could vote. We didn't have our Netflix delivery yet so had to make do with TV fare. But we did find two episodes of 'Art Race' on our cable system's Free On Demand system.
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Monday, 1 November-
This morning we left bright-and-early for the Chambersburg house. It was so nice to have had a few days off. We stopped at the Shippensburg Lowe's along the way and picked up paint for the basement steps and boards for the attic stairway so our work day started around 1000.
Today we worked on several mini-projects. We had to move some of the door stops on the newly-installed doors and one of the re-installed exterior doors. I noticed the kitchen exterior door made a creaking sound when opening and found that the change in hinges had made the clearance to the hinge-side door stop so tight it was causing the door to peel off paint and lift up splinters. I moved the door stop and glued down the lifted-up splinters.
I also installed trim around the new attic drop-down stairway and prepared it for paint. We decided to go with a simple 1 x 3 board frame rather than a window-frame trim.
That afternoon Labashi and I installed new shutters around the front windows and re-installed the side-window shutters, giving the outside of the house a nice finished look from the street.
As we were talking what to do for supper I decided I'd like to get the primer coat on the attic stairway and its trim while Labashi made supper. I had the job about half done when supper was ready and had to turn on the carport light to finish up when I returned.
Maypo dropped by and we talked about the kitchen counter-top and backsplash. Labashi and I had looked at a replacement counter-top and had almost bought it. But after taking more detailed measurements of the old, non-standard installation, it looks like a replacement counter-top wouldn't work. We may just have to tile over the existing countertop or replace its formica laminate.
We worked until 2000 or so, then retired to the van to read and blog.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:08
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