Not The Magazine I Remember From My Youth

Recently we bought a copy of National Geographic. Saw in big letters on the cover, "War on Science" and thought it might be an interesting article. (Not Really.) The Old Lady noticed how little written content there was and how short the articles were.  (The Old Lady said that even tho' I don't read as fast as she does, I finished reading the magazine very quickly.) I noticed a lack of what was the main draw of the magazine when I was young. No chocolate tits. There used to be articles on tribes in Africa, or South America, or New Guinea

The photo above is an example of what I remember being in National Geographic. Then again with the intratubes there is no need to look at National Geographic to see naked tits.

Winter Returns

It's been Spring for a week now and there actually were signs of Spring, leaves budding out, some flowers appearing, etc.... Then this:

If I wanted to put up with snow during Spring, I'd have stayed home. There was snow when we arrived here and looks like snow will bid us farewell. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer so this won't stay.

The heater doesn't work worth a shit on this cart!!!????

The funny thing is it feels better today than it did the other day when the temp was a little higher. It's around freezing today and the other day it was in the 40s. It felt colder when it was 40 and damp than it does when it's 32 and snowing.

On April Fools Day we will be leaving here and a week or so later we'll head further South in search of Summer. Finding Spring appears to be a bust, so we'll push on looking for nicer weather before heading home.

$10 Dollar Fish

Went fishing yesterday, and caught dinner. Caught a trout about 10" long. Fried it up for dinner, broke in the new cast iron skillet. (We found a new 10" cast iron skillet at REI that was cheaper than some old ones we saw at flea markets!!) Maybe the fish was longer than 10" because it was longer than the frying pan was wide.

It was $7 for a one day non-resident license and $3 dollars for the day tag to fish in the park. Had thought about getting a yearly non-resident license, but it's been cold enough that I haven't felt like fishing.

More Improvements

Made some more improvements to The Guppy. I replaced some handles on some drawers and closet doors.

Original cabinet handle.

The handles on all the cabinet doors and drawers are such that they can catch on stuff. In the tight quarters of the motorhome they would snag on clothing when trying to get by. I replaced some of the handles in the bedroom area as that was the area where it was happening the most.

These are the replacement handles. There is only 16 inches between the bed and the drawers under the closet. We would occasionally get caught on either the handles on the drawers or on the ones on the closet doors. With these replacement handles that should no longer be a problem.

One of the problems I encountered when replacing the handles was the screws were too long. The new handles didn't have as deep a threaded hole as the old ones and some places the screws had indented the wood. Luckily the crimping tool I brought along to work on the wiring of the radio also could be used to cut small screws and bolts. I cut about an eighth of an inch off the screws that were too long. The screws in the drawers were longer than the ones in the package with the new handles, so I had to use the screws from the original handles. What I can't figure out is the screws were just going thru wood into the handles so how the hell did they get bent??

I need to get some more handles to replace the rest of the ones that are low enough to catch on clothing. I think I'll leave the original handles on the upper cabinet doors as they aren't a problem. 

Improvements For The Guppy

The Guppy has a radio with speakers in front and back in the bedroom. The only problem is it's a pain in the ass to turn the radio on and off because it is in the dash in the cab of the motorhome. I figured it would make life simpler if there was a radio that was easy to get at.

Radio and one of the speakers temporarily wired up to see if it works. 

I had some radios laying around and some speakers from a surround sound system so I brought a couple radios and some speakers with us on our trip. I got power from one of the 12v lights close to where I figured I'd put the radio when the installation was done. When I tried one radio it seemed to stop at stations when I did a scan, but all I got was a loud hum. So I hooked up the other radio and it got some stations and played fairly well. One odd thing was at times there would be a lot of static and discovered that if I turned on a light the static went away. Sometimes there would be some static, but could listen to the radio. That may have been the problem with the first radio I tried.

Radio installed in an overhead cabinet.

Yesterday I installed the radio in an overhead cabinet in the kitchen/dining area. The space where I put it is kind of a dead space in the cabinet. There is a metal rack above the radio in the cabinet so about the only space not usable anymore is the area taken up by the radio. Now we no longer have to crawl into the cab of the motorhome to turn the radio on or off.

The radio has a CD player in it. Need to get a CD and see if it works. Forgot to bring any along. Should also run a CD cleaner disc thru it to get rid of the cobwebs, etc.

Originally thought I'd have to mount the antenna on the outside of the motorhome, but when I had it hooked up temporarily I discovered that it worked with the antenna on the inside. (The outside of the walls are fiberglas, which explains why I can get a signal with the antenna inside.) So now it's on the valance for the curtains by the table. If I can find an adapter to go from coax to auto radio I would try hooking the radio up to the TV antenna on top of the motorhome.  I have a hunch I'll have to try make one myself. (That would be the only use for the TV antenna where we are now because we are down in a valley and the only TV reception is via satellite.)