The dog ate my homework!

The dog ate my homework and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. No posts for several weeks - utterly shameful! There is, however, a good excuse. Sadly it’s not as fun as having a job as a food taster for the US President nor being sent out to test all the various holiday packages around the world.

The reality is that over the last few months I’d been helping a friend out with her mother who was in the final stage of her life. Anyway, after being the first to discover she’d had second thoughts about planet Earth and had decided to move on to better things, there was a frantic rush. The trailer people were living in had certain issues and everybody needed to move out. Two other trailers were available, both in pretty sad states of repair.

In the past weeks I’ve been fixing floors, fixing plumbing but mostly building a disabled ramp for my friend. Then there was the Hughesnet satellite internet nightmare. I’ll be honest I’m not good with ladders but my friend had a letter from Hughesnet stating that if her deceased mother was unable to climb onto the roof to retrieve the box at the end of the arm on the dish to return it to them by post then they’d send their boys around to retrieve It themselves and would charge her $300. Really and truly had that been a letter addressed to me, the response would have been along the lines of... She’s dead - send the bill to the cemetary. Or more likely “get knotted and by the way I’m charging rent for every day that thing remains on my property”. As it is, my friend cannot get on the roof being registered disabled. She can barely walk from the bedroom to the bathroom!

Thus, up on the roof I was and a jolly good thing too. The satellite installers had not waterproofed their screws and so everything pulled out easily, the lack of waterproofing having caused water seepage that had rotted the wood. Needless to say as it’s not safe to climb down a ladder with a huge satellite dish on my back, I tossed the thing with much joy onto the ground where it got thoroughly bent. It got even more bent when I threw it on the trash pile.

Over the past few weeks I have managed to do a few things though. Today I set to in the bus and installed a light in the back closet above the emergency exit. I’d needed a light for a year and more. It was almost simple though I did attach the switch using rivnuts.

I loved the fact I didn’t really have to do any wiring. The wire from the light was perfectly long enough to reach into the switch. The other wire was perfectly long enough to reach the fuse box.

I put a lock on the battery door. I’d looked at all the funky locking door paddles and in the end decided rather than to spend $30+ replacing the paddle lock, I’d just put an ordinary Ace lock on the door. It worked really well. I did the same with the fuel door. Now I know what people are saying “Ace locks aren’t very secure” and this is true. The fact is though that I’d rather somebody picked the damned lock than broke the door to get to whatever they’re after. It’s much more expensive to replace the door or fix it than anything else. My good friend Glendoria had her home broken into. The stuff they stole was nothing much to bother about. The mess they created was horrible. The major problem was fixing the door after they broke it down.

That’s the lock on the battery door. As the Ace lock needs a hole with flats on two sides, I had to buy a shim to attach to the door (hence the two rivets). I could drill the hole just fine but don’t have a way of easily making a not round hole.

The lock on the fuel door was much simpler. That already had the right not round hole. I just slipped my lock in, tightened it all and it was done. Now my batteries and fuel are slightly more secure. I am thing though of putting a kill switch under the skirt, passed through the battery compartment wall so that I can flip it without having to unlock the door.

Today there was a forecast for a tornado, thunderstorm (with damaging winds) and a wind advisory. I’m glad to say that only the thunderstorm rain arrived. At least it will wash some of the pollen off the bus. Despite having taken lots of antihystemines I’ve been coughing, spluttering and have had it’s runny eyes for the past few days.

That pollen is pretty awful. In the yard here (4 acres) there’s a chicken coop and the water though changed regularly is green with pollen.

While I was in Walmart one day I found some elastometric white paint. I’ll wash the roof with my purple industrial cleaner and roll white elastometric paint on top and see what effect it has. One can is not supposed to be enough but I’ll see how far it goes before spending money on more.

My louvered vents that I bought have all proven to be pretty sad. They work reasonably well and claim to be paintable but thus far no paint has ended up staying on them. I tried both oil and acrylic paints. The acrylic scratches right off and the oil bubbles and peels off. I think the person that sold them wasn’t entirely honest. Thus, on with the next idea which is to use a hinge and a 3 inch diameter aluminum flapper. That I can put together on the ground and then install when I get up to the bus roof again.

The digital code lock still needs to be installed but it will be soon. Other than that, nothing to report other than I’ve been looking for better work than driving school busses.