Concours ride , back to the burg...
(posted from the driveway of Cburg house 2)
(This post covers 9 – 13 December)
----------------------------
Monday, 13 December-
In Cburg. Labashi installed vinyl cove under the kitchen cabinets today using Loctite Power Grab All-Purpose adhesive. We had used this same adhesive for installing ceramic tile on the Formica backsplash of house 1.
Labashi then fitted and installed shoe around the kitchen baseboard, using the brad nailer for the first time. She loved it. The brad nailer is much easier to use than pounding in finishing nails and occasionally hitting the shoe (or a finger!) and the little brad is so small and recessed slightly so just a dab of paint is needed to finish up.
She also touched up the paint in the kitchen cabinet interiors. We had used them for storing tools while we worked on house 1 and had made a few smudges here and there.
I spent the whole day demolishing a basement room in house 2 (and still have several days work to go). The tenant had built a room with a bar between it and the other side of the basement. We decided we should remove the shabby-looking, partially-completed partitions and clean and paint the entire basement and its floor. Opening up the room will also look much better and give the sense of more space. Today I managed to dismantle the bar and take down all the sheetrock and studding.
That evening we had supper in the van. The weather has suddenly turned colder and very windy (it was 19 degrees just after supper) so our electric heater is barely keeping up even though it's turned up as high as it will go. We started up the Buddy heater to supplement until bedtime.
----------------------------
Sunday, 12 December -
We're back in Chambersburg today. We stopped at Lowe's in Shippensburg on the way in to shop for parts for the bathroom fan in house 2 and quarter-round for the kitchen of house 1.
Labashi worked on paint-prep of the bedrooms of house 2 and I spent the entire afternoon working on the bathroom fan. I had hoped for a simple swap-in of parts but the parts weren't the same so I had to made some mods. As I was working I realized the fan unit had been installed upside down, probably to position the outlet conveniently. But this meant the flapper had never worked. It's a very simple valve which is balanced but normally closed until the fan blows it open. But installed upside down it was ALWAYS open. I drilled a hole in the back of the valve and hung a wire with a weight on it through the hole to balance the valve closed normally. When the fan starts there's sufficient force to blow it open and when the fan stops the weight pulls the back of the valve down, closing it until next time.
That evening we had supper at Quiznos (LOVE their Baja Chicken sandwich on rosemary bread and their raspberry vinegrette salad dressing on their small salad).
Back at the house I went online and noticed Orat was up on Skype. We had a nice long video chat, then I got to work updating the blog.
-------------------------------
Saturday, 11 December-
Home today. I worked on the web until 1100, then we buzzed up to Mechanicsburg to visit Mom and Dad and Labashi's brother and his wife. After chatting awhile we went to lunch at Theo's and returned home by 1630.
That evening we watched five (!!!!) episodes of 'Dexter, Season 2'. Neither of us was sleepy by bed time and we wanted to see how Season Two ends so we stayed up until 0100 (!!).
------------------------------
Friday, 10 December-
Still home today. I was hoping to go for another motorcycle ride today. I wanted to ride up to Velocity Cycles to pick up a battery harness so I can use my electric jacket on the F650GS. But as I checked the weather forecast I saw the radar showed rain or snow approaching. My regular weather service said there was only a 20 per cent chance of snow and it wasn't supposed to happen until afternoon. But to be thorough I also checked weather.com and it predicted a half inch of snow on the ground between 1100 and 1500. I didn't have time to make it up to Mechanicsburg and back.
And at 1120 snow furries began and lasted through 1430-- right on time. And the accumulation was a half-inch.
Since I couldn't go, I spent the time thoroughly testing the BearExtender's wakeup capability. I had had some problems getting the BearExtender back online after closing the laptop and later opening it. Sometimes I couldn't get it to come back up without rebooting the laptop.
In my testing I found a big difference if I used the amplifier cable and the re-connection times varied quite a bit. I wrote several emails to the company to notify them of the problem.
I also spent some time on Expedition Portal today. I found an interesting article on overlanding platforms, i.e. recommendations on what base platforms are best for travel in remote areas. In the lightweight category, the best is the Toyota Tacoma 4 x 4 pickup, also known as the Hi-Ace internationally. I then viewed dozens of videos of the Tacoma in challenging conditions and looked at some slide-in camper options. I'm still not convinced, though, that a pop-up slide-in camper is the way to go. It would be fine much of the time in the backcountry but I wouldn't like it in a Wal-mart parking lot. It would be too obvious and the soft sides would be like camping in a tent--- way too noisy.
That evening we watched three 'Dexter, Season Two' episodes.
------------------------------
Thursday, 9 December-
I took a glorious ride on the Concours today. The outside temperature is only 31 but I was fine and the Concours ran great. My electric jacket liner and gloves kept me warm enough and I was even comfortable wearing my open-face helmet. Today was a bit windy so I'd get a cold blast coming from the side once in a while but they didn't last long. The jacket liner was on high most of the time so there's not a lot of reserve capacity and I wouldn't want to ride for hours at a time.
I rode over to Lititz to Trans Am Cycles to look at the BMW R1200GS. I'm thinking I might want to trade in either the F650GS or the old Concours war-horse. The one comfort issue, though, is seat height. Fortunately, Dan had one of the optional low seats available and he swapped that in for me to try. It's just okay. My heels are off the ground, just about the same as with my Concours. This works out fine most of the time but I do have to be careful I don't pull into a downhill parking spot. With a bike as heavy as the Concours or the R1200GS I wouldn't be able to back it out of the spot while astride the bike. I'd have to dismount and pull from the side-- something I've had to do two or three times with the Concours before I started being much more careful about my parking spot.
I'm not too serious about buying one, though. I'd have to get a much better deal. Dan says I'd need $9K plus my F650GS to step up and that's just too much to even contemplate.
Afterwards I stopped at the Starbucks just south of the cycle shop and had a nice, hot mocha and read today's Times before heading home.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention I came close to being hit by a car today on the motorcycle. I was passing a car on Route 30 when it decided to pull into my lane. Fortunately I saw it coming and laid on the horn while I moved over to the edge of my lane along the guard rail. I think I would have been able to get over far enough to keep from being hit if she had continued coming but it would have been a very close call. Fortunately as soon as she heard the horn she swerved back into her lane. As I passed she had an astonished look on her face and was clearly rattled. I just waved. Next time she may actually check her mirrors before passing.
**************** END OF POST ************
(posted from the driveway of Cburg house 2)
(This post covers 9 – 13 December)
----------------------------
Monday, 13 December-
In Cburg. Labashi installed vinyl cove under the kitchen cabinets today using Loctite Power Grab All-Purpose adhesive. We had used this same adhesive for installing ceramic tile on the Formica backsplash of house 1.
Labashi then fitted and installed shoe around the kitchen baseboard, using the brad nailer for the first time. She loved it. The brad nailer is much easier to use than pounding in finishing nails and occasionally hitting the shoe (or a finger!) and the little brad is so small and recessed slightly so just a dab of paint is needed to finish up.
She also touched up the paint in the kitchen cabinet interiors. We had used them for storing tools while we worked on house 1 and had made a few smudges here and there.
I spent the whole day demolishing a basement room in house 2 (and still have several days work to go). The tenant had built a room with a bar between it and the other side of the basement. We decided we should remove the shabby-looking, partially-completed partitions and clean and paint the entire basement and its floor. Opening up the room will also look much better and give the sense of more space. Today I managed to dismantle the bar and take down all the sheetrock and studding.
That evening we had supper in the van. The weather has suddenly turned colder and very windy (it was 19 degrees just after supper) so our electric heater is barely keeping up even though it's turned up as high as it will go. We started up the Buddy heater to supplement until bedtime.
----------------------------
Sunday, 12 December -
We're back in Chambersburg today. We stopped at Lowe's in Shippensburg on the way in to shop for parts for the bathroom fan in house 2 and quarter-round for the kitchen of house 1.
Labashi worked on paint-prep of the bedrooms of house 2 and I spent the entire afternoon working on the bathroom fan. I had hoped for a simple swap-in of parts but the parts weren't the same so I had to made some mods. As I was working I realized the fan unit had been installed upside down, probably to position the outlet conveniently. But this meant the flapper had never worked. It's a very simple valve which is balanced but normally closed until the fan blows it open. But installed upside down it was ALWAYS open. I drilled a hole in the back of the valve and hung a wire with a weight on it through the hole to balance the valve closed normally. When the fan starts there's sufficient force to blow it open and when the fan stops the weight pulls the back of the valve down, closing it until next time.
That evening we had supper at Quiznos (LOVE their Baja Chicken sandwich on rosemary bread and their raspberry vinegrette salad dressing on their small salad).
Back at the house I went online and noticed Orat was up on Skype. We had a nice long video chat, then I got to work updating the blog.
-------------------------------
Saturday, 11 December-
Home today. I worked on the web until 1100, then we buzzed up to Mechanicsburg to visit Mom and Dad and Labashi's brother and his wife. After chatting awhile we went to lunch at Theo's and returned home by 1630.
That evening we watched five (!!!!) episodes of 'Dexter, Season 2'. Neither of us was sleepy by bed time and we wanted to see how Season Two ends so we stayed up until 0100 (!!).
------------------------------
Friday, 10 December-
Still home today. I was hoping to go for another motorcycle ride today. I wanted to ride up to Velocity Cycles to pick up a battery harness so I can use my electric jacket on the F650GS. But as I checked the weather forecast I saw the radar showed rain or snow approaching. My regular weather service said there was only a 20 per cent chance of snow and it wasn't supposed to happen until afternoon. But to be thorough I also checked weather.com and it predicted a half inch of snow on the ground between 1100 and 1500. I didn't have time to make it up to Mechanicsburg and back.
And at 1120 snow furries began and lasted through 1430-- right on time. And the accumulation was a half-inch.
Since I couldn't go, I spent the time thoroughly testing the BearExtender's wakeup capability. I had had some problems getting the BearExtender back online after closing the laptop and later opening it. Sometimes I couldn't get it to come back up without rebooting the laptop.
In my testing I found a big difference if I used the amplifier cable and the re-connection times varied quite a bit. I wrote several emails to the company to notify them of the problem.
I also spent some time on Expedition Portal today. I found an interesting article on overlanding platforms, i.e. recommendations on what base platforms are best for travel in remote areas. In the lightweight category, the best is the Toyota Tacoma 4 x 4 pickup, also known as the Hi-Ace internationally. I then viewed dozens of videos of the Tacoma in challenging conditions and looked at some slide-in camper options. I'm still not convinced, though, that a pop-up slide-in camper is the way to go. It would be fine much of the time in the backcountry but I wouldn't like it in a Wal-mart parking lot. It would be too obvious and the soft sides would be like camping in a tent--- way too noisy.
That evening we watched three 'Dexter, Season Two' episodes.
------------------------------
Thursday, 9 December-
I took a glorious ride on the Concours today. The outside temperature is only 31 but I was fine and the Concours ran great. My electric jacket liner and gloves kept me warm enough and I was even comfortable wearing my open-face helmet. Today was a bit windy so I'd get a cold blast coming from the side once in a while but they didn't last long. The jacket liner was on high most of the time so there's not a lot of reserve capacity and I wouldn't want to ride for hours at a time.
I rode over to Lititz to Trans Am Cycles to look at the BMW R1200GS. I'm thinking I might want to trade in either the F650GS or the old Concours war-horse. The one comfort issue, though, is seat height. Fortunately, Dan had one of the optional low seats available and he swapped that in for me to try. It's just okay. My heels are off the ground, just about the same as with my Concours. This works out fine most of the time but I do have to be careful I don't pull into a downhill parking spot. With a bike as heavy as the Concours or the R1200GS I wouldn't be able to back it out of the spot while astride the bike. I'd have to dismount and pull from the side-- something I've had to do two or three times with the Concours before I started being much more careful about my parking spot.
I'm not too serious about buying one, though. I'd have to get a much better deal. Dan says I'd need $9K plus my F650GS to step up and that's just too much to even contemplate.
Afterwards I stopped at the Starbucks just south of the cycle shop and had a nice, hot mocha and read today's Times before heading home.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention I came close to being hit by a car today on the motorcycle. I was passing a car on Route 30 when it decided to pull into my lane. Fortunately I saw it coming and laid on the horn while I moved over to the edge of my lane along the guard rail. I think I would have been able to get over far enough to keep from being hit if she had continued coming but it would have been a very close call. Fortunately as soon as she heard the horn she swerved back into her lane. As I passed she had an astonished look on her face and was clearly rattled. I just waved. Next time she may actually check her mirrors before passing.
**************** END OF POST ************
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 21:37
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