Mar 30th - Nap Day

This morning I did some more grouting around the stove in the Prayer Chapel. I didn't quite get finished. I had to leave because the group coming in was scheduled to have a meeting in it. I just need to pull off the masking tape on the trim and some do a little cleaning. After that I took some of the stuff I had, in the back of the car, back to the warehouse/maintenance shop and swept out the back of the car. I've been using it for my "tool truck". Not a real busy morning.

Kathy did more cleaning and more laundry this morning.

It misted rain almost all day today. It was light enough that you didn't bother with a rain coat unless you were going to be out in it for a lengthy period of time.

We had lunch at home today. There was no breakfast or lunch in the dining room today. After that we both took naps. Kathy took a short one but mine was about 2 hours.

I've pretty much got all the things on my work list done, or done as far as I can go without someone else doing something before I can finish. Today I got the OK from the Director to run the splitter but the rules are that two people have to be there when anyone runs it. A safety thing.

We walked down to the dining hall and just finished dinner. Some type of chicken with sides of rice and steamed vegetables. As always there was lettuce and other salad stuff.
Kathy has already headed back up the quarter mile walk to the RV. Coming to the dining hall is all downhill, of course that means going back is all uphill. Not a huge elevation change, maybe 50'. Enough that by the time I get to the RV my heart is pumping. I'm still at the dining hall. I will head back to the RV as soon as I get this sent.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 29th - Misty Rain

Yesterday’s weather was reasonably nice. We occasionally had a little sunshine. Today it was supposed to be partly cloudy in the afternoon but we got solid clouds and mist instead.

The Intervarsity teenagers left after lunch (hamburgers and hot dogs). Since there were no “guests” last night we were on our own for supper. I got out our little propane grill and grilled steaks. Kathy baked potatoes and made a salad. Life is good.

A new group of people is supposed to come in tomorrow (Friday) afternoon.

Work around the camp the past two days has been pretty much the same. Still working on the door trim (it is a good thing they aren’t paying me by the hour <grin>). I removed one of the old shims that trimmed the door and made a new variable thickness shim so that the new redwood trim would fit the door frame and existing gypsum board. I now have two coats of polyurethane on the redwood and it is going to take a third coat.

Today I grouted the big (1/2”-1”) gaps between the stone work and trim in the Prayer Chapel. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I grout the smaller gaps. The stonework was recently (within the past year) installed for a small propane stove. The stove looks like a wood stove. I think the guys who did the stone work had some type of edge boards installed to help them define the borders but when those boards were replaced with finished wood trim the finish trim could not be installed to exactly match the edges of the stone work, thus there are gaps.

Frank and I drove around today looking at the different things on which I had been working. Everything looked fine to him. He asked if Kathy and I, especially Kathy was working to hard. He wanted to make sure that we took as much time off as we wanted. I told him that nobody was pushing us, except our desire to be reasonably productive.

I am running out of things to do in the short term. Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, I volunteered to split some wood as a “fill-in” job. Once I get tired of that, again depending on the weather, I make try my hand at taking the furnace out of the motorhome and cleaning it. The exhaust is REALLY STINKY and the consensus is that it is because the burner is dirty. The furnace is only about the size of a desktop computer. The only way to clean the burner is to remove the furnace from the motorhome. One of the Tuesday/Thursday volunteers offered to help me if I have any problems.

Below are some photos of some of the tools in the wood shop. This is the good table saw. You are supposed to be able to stick you finger in the blade and it will shut down before hurting you. You can't cut treated wood on it, to much moisture, or damp wood. It thinks the moisture is a finger. Every time it stops it costs over $100 to replace the blown circuitry.

 

 The benches along the wall are awesome. Far down you can see a sliding chop saw. From the chop saw to the far wall is slightly over 8'.

 I don't mess with the good table saw. This Bosch is the "worst" one they have, they have one other one between the Bosch and the good one. I use it. It is the best table saw I've ever used.

 This is the remnant of the board I cut 12' off of to use for door trim. It is black and wet from laying outside for years.

 The boards below are what I ended up with after planing the rough sawn board and ripping it width. The one on the right is bare. The one on the left has one coat of polyurethane on it. The board with the coat of polyurethane on it is much redder than what it appears in the photo.

I wrote part of this message before leaving for supper. Once again we had a mediocre restaurant meal in California. Other than the fish and chips we had the day we drove down the coast south of San Francisco, we have not had one really good restaurant meal since we have been in California.

I'm now at the Staff Room, where we have access to WiFi to send it. If I've gotten off track please forgive me.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 27th PM - Still Raining

I’m not sure how much it has rained since the middle of last night but it has been a LOT. By 9 AM the normal road to Sebastopol was flooded. Apparently having the road flood at one area is not unusual during the winter (the rainy season). Frank gave us a map showing “flood routes” to get to town when the normal route is flooded.

When you drive through the area that is the first to flood you can see why it floods. It is down in a “bottom” and close to a creek. In all its wisdom the state of California will not allow any modifications to roads within 100’ of a natural waterway, so the road floods and people just have to deal with it. It would not be all that disruptive to drive sheet piles along both sides of the road and raise the road surface at least 5’. Of course the government would be involved so they would probably require that taxpayers pay for a bridge across the low area. Money is never an object when politicians and bureaucrats are spending taxpayer dollars.

I worked in the warehouse/maintenance shop today. Four of the Tuesday volunteers were in there working on a “portable” shower house. Previously the camp  rented units but that got to expensive so they are now building their own. They can’t build permanent shower facilities because the government won’t let them; but they can have portable/temporary shower facilities.

I spent all day working on some trim boards for a door. Frank had showed me where there was some rough sawn redwood boards that have laid outside for years. The boards were about 1 3/8” thick by about 6” wide and the one I dragged out of the pile was around 16’ long. I should have put it inside the warehouse yesterday but I didn’t want it to be in the way of others. It took me all day to plane the board down to 7/8” thick and cut it into the proper width for the door trim. I still need to cut them to length and put polyurethane on them before installing them. It is so cool and  humid that the polyurethane will take forever to dry.

I got to spend some time chatting with the guys but most of the time I had in ear plugs because the little planer was VERY loud. Kathy and I sat with two of them during lunch. Chris and his wife pulled their travel trailer to Alaska last year. They stayed there three months. The spent six week volunteering at two different camps while there. He said he is ready to go back but his wife isn’t. He spent six months volunteering at a church in New Orleans, after Katrina. He was their Operations Manager. They had a large facility and could house a lot of volunteers. They would tell  him how many volunteers were going to be there for the week and he would have all the necessary tools out and ready for the volunteers to go to work.

We just finished supper at the dining hall. Yesterday we had some great roast beef. Tonight we had bloody chicken. (Kathy would probably say she liked it.) No way did I eat any of it. They also had salad, vegetables and rice. The rice was good. Cake for dessert. I also passed on it, but it did look good.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 27th AM - More Rain

It started raining during the night. I'm not sure when because I hardly remember my head hitting the pillow. One of the guys at breakfast said that it has rained an inch since it started. It is supposed to rain all day and into the night.

There are 96 older teenagers here. They came last Friday. They are with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Kathy commented last night that being around them gives one hope for the future of our nation. I haven't had much contact with them but she has as she has been cleaning.

Yesterday I think I finally finished the demo on the bathroom floor. First thing in the morning I took my recip saw with me because I thought I was going to have to cut off a cast iron toilet flange. When I walked into the bathroom the flange was off. Bob worked on it over the weekend and finally cut it off after trying to get it off using other means.
I took out some more questionable floor and installed some new floor supports that will be under the 3'x4' piece of new subfloor we will need to install. That took me most of the day, although it doesn't sound like it should have. In the afternoon I tied up some plastic fencing the had broken down. That was my day.

Today is Tuesday and the local Tuesday volunteers, I think there are 4 or 5 guys today, are here to work. I think I can get one of them to help me plan a redwood board so that i can rip it to width and use it for trim around a door.

Chris, one of the guys, is the one who invited us to church last week. This morning he invited Kathy and I to have Easter dinner with him and his family. He smiled and said his wife regularly takes in "strays" for Easter dinner.

Time to get to work, actually it is past time.

Hope you all have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 25th - Hessel Church

This morning we went to Sunday School and church at Hessel church. It is loosely affiliated with Mt Gilead. It is located south of Sebastopol, a 30-35 minute drive from the camp. The location of the church was in the information packet Frank had given us. In addition Chis, one of the regular local volunteers, invited me/us. It is quite a facility. Their monthly budget is over $130,000. The Sunday School teacher in the class we attended was born and raised in a Jewish family. As an adult he converted to Christianity. He is teaching on the book of Esther and, as you might expect, because of his Jewish background he had some interesting insights to share.

We had lunch at a small Mexican restaurant in Sebastopol. Not bad but not worth going back. As we were driving through town we noticed a Farmer’s Market so we parked and walked through it. Based on what we saw at the market, and later at the grocery store, this place is certainly a home for aging hippies. At the Farmer’s Market in Oakland we could buy a small citrus fruit for 89-99 cents per pound. Here they want $2.00 per pound. Other items that were available were lamb steaks, rabbit meat (at $8.99/pound!) and burdock roots (weeds!) at $2.99/#.

We then stopped at a local grocery the first thing I noticed as we walked in was the low light level and row upon row of different wines. There were lots of high priced organic this and organic that. The store did have a deli that included a buffet line that included LOTS of cooked food that you could purchase to take home and eat. I didn’t see any place to eat in, or near, the store.

Not everything it Sebastopol is hippie. This was our view when we left the restaurant after lunch.

This is the stencil on quite a few of the church parking spaces. I think it is nice they reserve spots for seniors but I don't think they should just reserve spots for the skinny seniors. We had to find another place to park and walk quite a distance (no we didn't).

It is not raining today. There is a fair amount of sun today. Hooray and Praise the Lord! It rained all through the night and stopped this morning.

We are on our way home from a very enjoyable evening. We went back to Hessel to listen to the Senior Choir and the Bell Choir. There are 27 people, including 10 men, in the Senior Choir. They sounded really good to me. It was a 90 minute program and I enjoyed it all. You have to be over 55 to be in the Senior Choir.

I didn't proof any of this, since I am trying to get it typed and sent while I still have a signal, as Kathy drives us home. Sorry for any errors.

Good day to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 24th AM - Rain Today

Rain, or a chance of rain, is in the forecast here 6 out of every 7 days. This is the first day that it has actually rained since we arrived. It isn't a hard rain, more like a heavy drizzle.

Yesterday I did end up eating at the Dining Hall. Breakfast was at 8, not 7 as I had been told. It was being put out on the steam tables before I finished using the WiFi. WiFi is active only in the Dining Hall and "Staff Room", which is an appendage to the Dining Hall. I have to be within 50' of the building before my phone starts picking up the WiFi, so there isn't a chance that we can get it at the RV.

I'm in the Staff Room again this morning (the Staff Room/Dining Hall are about a quarter mile from our RV, I drove this morning but normally we walk) to check emails and write/post this blog. I will be eating breakfast here again this morning. Yesterday we had plain pancakes, blueberry pancakes, smoked sausage, fruit and cereal for breakfast choices. For lunch yesterday we had hamburgers, a baked bean type chili, and fries. Our hamburgers were overcooked and were barely warm, but they were free <grin>. Last night for supper we had barbecued chicken, fries and salad. Dessert was oatmeal/raisin cookies.

For work yesterday Kathy continued with the sheet changing and bathroom cleaning. Tamara the "staff" lady who is supposed to do all this is new. She seems to be a little overwhelmed by the amount of work required between weekend retreats. Kathy worked with her for 3 days and she still didn't get everything finished. There a several couples who both work here and who live at the camp. Tamara is Rick's wife. Rick is the Maintenance Manager. They, and their daughter, live "up the hill" from us, in a trailer at the top of the RV park. Rick's dad, Bob also works here doing maintenance. I think he is an employee but he may be a volunteer. I think he (Bob) lives in a 5th wheel unit in the RV park.

I got the bathroom floor torn out enough for people to decide that we don't need to remove the tub. I found more deteriorated floor adjacent to where I had already removed the floor so I need to cut out another 8" wide by 48" section of the subfloor. I can't get the cast iron toilet flange loose from the plumbing. Roper (Roper is the Operations Manager. He and his wife live in a house on the camp grounds) suggested that I try cutting it into three sections, with my reciprocating saw (SawsAll), and then trying to break it off the plastic pipe it is threaded onto. Hopefully I will be able to do this without destroying the threaded plastic pipe. Those jobs are for Monday.

I also painted the 8' section of 2x4 I scrounged Thursday, and then used it to replace the damaged piece in the fence by the Admin building.

Today we are heading back to Oakland for Drew's birthday party. Kathy asked, several times I'm sure, if there was anything we could do to help and he said we could some early and help him do some cleaning. It will be interesting to see how far he progressed with the interior painting since we left last Tuesday.

By the way, it was a balmy 50 degrees in the RV when I got up this morning.

Have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 23rd - 7:30 AM

I got up early to meet with one of my "bosses" but it appears that the person (the Camp Director) who told me that Roper, the Operations Manager, was going to be at the cafeteria at 7 AM was in error. I can hear people are working in the kitchen but no one else is here. This is OK because I was to tired to come down here last night, so that I could access the Internet and post to the blog. I went to be early. Kathy came down after I went to bed partly to get on the Internet and partly to see what "treats" might be available in the "Staff Room." Matt, the chef/cook, had made chocolate eclairs for treats last night. For lunch yesterday he made cream puffs. There are still a few choclolate chip cookies left over from Wednesday. I had one of them, it was good!

Yesterday's activities:

Today (Thursday) was partly sunny with a high of 62. Last nights (Wednesday night) low was 48. We haven’t turned on our propane furnace since we have been here. It was right brisk in here this morning during breakfast. In the extended forecast there is either a chance of rain, or rain, in the forecast every day. Most of the rain here falls in the winter months. Basically it is the rainy season. Sebastopol's average annual rainfall is 41", the same as that in Indianapolis. 25" of that comes in Dec, Jan & Feb. Mar brings another nearly 6". The TOTAL average rainfall June-September is 0.72".

The camp will fill one propane bottle a week for volunteers who have RV’s that use propane bottles for free, a nice perk. I’m not sure what they might be willing to do for us, since our tank is inside the RV. We filled our propane tank before arriving at Drew's and it still reads full. The stove top burners are the only things that have used any propane while there. We ran the electric element in the water heater and used the heat pumps for heat in the mornings.

Kathy worked stripping beds, laundering sheets and making beds again today. It is after 5 PM and she is over changing loads right now. There are washers and dryers about 100’ from our door.

I worked on the bathroom in the trailer again today. I finished ripping out the underlayment and removed a 30”x48” damaged section of the subfloor. I want the “bosses” to look at it now and tell me if they want me to remove even more.

I measured a damaged 2x4 in a fence and cut a replacement piece. It was to late to paint it today. I also measured for some trim pieces around a door and scrounged up some redwood for the trim. I will need some assistance planing it tomorrow and then ripping it into the proper width strips for trim.

I had a nice visit this afternoon with another volunteer. He is one of the regular, local “Tuesday” volunteers, but he came on Thursday this week. He is now a local retiree but he and his wife lived in Hawaii for 30 years.

All the redwoods around here are “new growth” trees. The area was logged after the big 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Most of the redwoods I’ve seen here have started from the stumps of the ones that were logged after the fire. Many are 100’ tall. The largest diameter I’ve seen here at the camp is around 42”.  It is close to an old stump that is approximately 60” in diameter. These are all babies. I haven't read it all yet but there is some interesting information on the size of trees at http://www.cathedralgrove.eu/text/05-Pictures-Politics-4.htm

Below are three photos of the camp. One is looking down at the Administration trailer. It is the little beige spot off in the distance. Another is look at some one of the groups of cabins for girls. I think there are 17 cabins in this cluster. The third is the gateway to Recreation Canyon. I’ve not been up there yet. There is a zip line, climbing wall and a BMX track up in the trees somewhere. What you see is the skate park. The ramps are covered with blue tarps right now.

Today - Friday:
It got down well into the 30's last night. Kathy likes it "cool" at night and it was COOL last night. When I got up it was 50 in the bedroom and 45 out in the front of the RV. She complains about the noise from the furnace and asked me to leave it off since I was just going to get dressed and head down to the dining hall to see Roper.

Time to go back to the RV, turn the heat on, and fix me some breakfast.

Hope you all have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 21 - Day One at Mt Gilead

Today was our first work day at Mt Gilead. I met with Frank (he and his wife have been pretty much full time volunteers here for years) at 9 AM and we spent the next 2 1/2 hours looking at jobs. Frank gave me a list of things I can work on and basically said to find him or "Roper" if I had questions.

Kathy helped Sue (Frank's wife) set up for the lunch they serve seniors on Wednesday's. The seniors come out for a program and lunch, quite a few of them. After helping clean up after lunch she helped another lady take sheets off beds, launder them and put clean sheets back on the beds.

We are pretty much turned loose. Frank gave us keys to almost all the buildings. One of the jobs he gave me was to trim a door. He previously trimmed an adjacent window with redwood and suggested I do something similar with the door. He took me down to the "warehouse" and showed me where they stock the redwood they have rough sawn on site. He also showed me the planer and table saw and basically said make what you need.

I fixed some exterior trim and did some sealing on one of the trailers in the RV park. Then I took a toilet out of the trailer, took the laminate floor out of the bathroom and started tearing out the underlayment that was installed under the laminate.

This place isn't nearly as large as Spring Hill, but I will be ready for bed again tonight. It is very quiet here and the weather is great sleeping weather.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 20th - At Mt Gilead

We arrived at Mt Gilead around 4:30 PM. Mt Gilead Bible Camp is about 10 miles northwest of Sebatopol, CA. It is about a 20 minute drive in the car. We are all set up and ready for a good nights sleep. I can't believe how tired both of us are tonight. It doesn't seem like we did all that much but I guess there is a fair amount of labor involved to get things back stored in the RV after spending over two months at the same place.

No problems getting here other than Garmin must make the world's stupidest GPS's. I paid extra to get a GPS that was supposed to have a setting the prevented routing you down cowpaths. NOT! We came up here before, in the car, to look around. The route we took then was MUCH easier. Today it routed us down roads that were barely two lane, and with one switchback after another. More than once we just had to go around a corner blind because it was so sharp that we had to take up both lanes to get around it and we couldn't see if there was oncoming traffic.

Folks here see happy to see us. Kathy is going to help set up for a Seniors luncheon tomorrow. I'm either going to be tearing the floor out of a bathroom in a trailer or working on the Fir Lodge renovation. I won't know until 9AM, thats when the decision will be made on who gets me for help.

Below are some photos of where we are parked. They run from right to left and cover about 180 degrees.

The tree by the motorhome is a baby coastal redwood. It is only about 30 inches in diameter.

This is the roof of the building I might be helping remodel.

In the distance are more baby redwoods. These are maybe 36" in diameter and at least 60' tall.

I had to walk down to the dining hall to get on the Internet. They have WiFi down here but it doesn't come close to reaching up to the campground. We just barely have cell phone service at the RV. Verizon is the only service that works at all. We knew all that before coming here, so we expected to be pretty isolated.

If you want to learn more about Mt Gilead check out http://www.mtgilead.org/

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 19th - Ready to Move

If all goes according to plan we will be spending tomorrow night at Mt Gilead Bible Camp in Sebastopol, CA. Sebastopol is about 70 miles north of Drews.

This morning I went to a Cummins Service Center in San Leandro and picked up an oil filter for our generator. I need to change the oil in the generator when we get to Mt Gilead.

Drew and I did more painting (mostly Drew) and then Drew mowed the lawn. Kathy went to a luncheon at one of the lady's with whom she has worked at the storefront church.

I've mentioned the storefront church before so I thought a photo of it was in order.

I filled up with gas on the way back from San Leandro. I don't know what any of you are paying for gas but this is what I paid today. Ain't California grand.

This is Drew's dining room. Obviously the Seseme paint is not finished on the back wall. The big square of light in the ceiling is a skylight.

 Below is the other side of the dining room. The large doorway on the right leads  into the kitchen.

 This is looking the other way, at the front of the house, the living room. The photo doesn't look as good as the actual room. The red walls around the bay window look really nice.

 Below is one side of his office and the "hall" closet. The upper closet provides access to the attic. Drew has some interesting ideas about decorating the upper closet and calling it Rosita's (a Hispanic maid who he doesn't have) room.

 Below is the other side of his office. The shelves didn't get put back up on the wall yet. Under the plastic along the wall is a desk area, lateral files and more. The wall is actually green, as seen in the above photo. The ceiling will be gray and Drew only just got started painting it.

A lot of progress has been made while we have been here, but there is still a ways to go.

Drew is taking the week off and hopes to finish painting the interior before his birthday party next Saturday.

This evening we went to Cash and Carry, the restaurant supply grocery, and then had supper at Fenton's Ice Cream shop. Kathy and I had lunch at Fenton's one day last week. I didn't make the connection but Drew made us aware that Fenton's is in the movie "UP".

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 18th - Sunday

We had a fair amount of sun today, which was great after the recent rains.

My trip to Best Buy, to exchange the Bionic for an Incredible 2, went far better than I expected. I walked over to Best Buy and was there about 10 minutes after they opened. It took an hour to do the exchange but they didn't balk at anything. They even refunded the $24 for the screen protector I had them put on the Bionic. (That is a nice thing about the area. Best Buy, Office Depot, Home Depot, IKEA, a grocery store, and more, are within walking distance of his house.)

Vivian, from Verizon, called me around 1:30, just a few minutes late. She says she set me up with a 2 GB data plan, instead of the 5 GB plan I used to have. Supposedly Verizon no longer offers the 5 GB plan. She told me Verizon will pick up any "overage" charges if I exceed the 2 GB. I'm sure they won't pay the charges if I exceed 5 GB, nor should they. They "win" because I'm sure that when I upgrade the next time I will have to pay more for whatever plan I get, since I will no longer be "grandfathered" on the 5 GB plan. We are still "grandfathered" on our base plan which includes unlimited data when not tethered to a laptop.

I only thought we were done painting in Drew's office. The walls we painted yesterday needed a second coat. Kathy did that today. Drew went back in after supper last night and painted two coats on the "hall" closet. This morning he painted the wall of the storage area above the closet. After that he took off to go to an all day birthday party for a friend. The only work I did today was to clean off the screws that hold his back security door in place and see how difficult it will be to move the door slightly in the frame. Getting the screws out of one side of the frame is going to be a real job since the installer ground off most of the heads. Of the 12 screws in the frame I was able to move 6 of them. The other 6 will have to be drilled out and/or removed with an easy-out. I think they might be hardened screws. I tried drilling one of them and neither of two bits even made a dent in the screw.

Drew is taking vacation next week, I think to make a push to get more things ready for his birthday party next Saturday (his birthday is Friday). I didn't realize he was taking the week off or I would probably would not have told the people in Sebastopol that we were coming up there Tuesday. After being parked here for over two months it will take me most of tomorrow to get things back packed in the "basement" and ready to move.

We filled out a bunch of forms for volunteering at Lazy F Camp in Ellensburg, WA; later this year on our way north. This afternoon I scanned them, added some reference letters and other information and emailed them to Dave, the guy I've been emailing. Ellensburg is pretty much in the center of Washington. It won't be warm enough for us to want to volunteer there until around May 1st. The average temperatures at that time are high/low of 64/38. So far I've not been able to find a place to between Sebastopol and Ellensburg where we might spend some time volunteering. Worst case is that we find a nice RV park on the Oregon coast and spend 2-4 weeks at it. Not much of a "worst" case. Lord I love retirement!

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours, and thank you Lord for making my phone exchange much less of a hassle than I expected.

Mar 17th - Phone Fun & More Painting

Yesterday I did some painting in Drew's office. As I was getting started I bent over to put a pan full of paint on the floor and my cell phone fell out of my pocket into the paint. It was nearly submerged before I could finish setting the pan on the floor and digging it out.

I washed if off, dried it, cleaned out the ports but after played with it in the evening it was apparent that it was no longer functional, even though the screen would come on. I spent maybe an hour researching a replacement phone, including the time I spent chatting with a Verizon rep. I asked the rep, several times, if upgrading to a 4G Bionic would cause any changes to my plan and evey time she assured me that the upgrade would not change my current plan, nor the cost of the plan. I kept a copy of the online chat. This morning I went over to Best Buy and bought one. I was in the store for over an hour. When setting things up I told the young lady that I wanted no changes to my plan.

This afternoon when I tried to make sure the mobile hotspot worked, I had that function on my old phone, a note popped up that there would be a $30 charge to activate the function. I called Verizon, and after spending a half-hour on the phone with a Verizon Rep, the bottom line is that the people at Verizon/Best Buy are either ignorant of what they are selling, or liars. Either the sales girl at Best Buy, or Verizon changed my data plan when the new phone was registered. This evening the Verizon rep told me that my plan was an old plan and that I could not get the same plan any longer. I could get a similar plan, but of course, it would cost more. I told her that I was not going to pay Verizon more for the same plan. I informed her that I was already paying far more what I had paid Sprint for a similar plan. I mentioned that the only reason I had changed to Verizon was because I thought they had better coverage but that after two years of Verizon service I was very disappointed in Verizon's coverage.

Eventually she told me to take the phone back to Best Buy and trade down to a 3G phone. She will call me back tomorrow, after I have the 3G phone, and put me back on my old plan. Based on my previous experience with cell phone companies I think they all are about as ethical as politicians.

Today we finished washing the interior walls, except for the kitchen. We also finished painting in Drew's office, except for the ceiling, and started painting the stairway.  I made three trips up into the attic to finish installing a new roof support and remove the temporary jack and post. There is still another jack that Drew will keep adjusting over the next several months before finally installing another permanent post.

This evening we were all tired. After getting cleaned up we went to Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe for supper. The meal was OK.

It sprinkled here during the day but the sun did come out for awhile this afternoon. I think the weather is supposed to be nicer tomorrow.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 16th - Oakland

Not much going on. Other than a trip to the Post Office to pick up a package and a trip to Costco I didn't do much yesterday.

The wall I painted Wednesday is going to need three coats to cover. It was a wall in the front of the house and it didn't get washed because it didn't appear to be dirty. Today I'm going to try washing the other walls in the room with TSP to see if that will help with painting.

In the RV we use a Eureaka Whirlwind Lite (mostly Kathy uses it) for vacuuming. We bought it for my office in Lebanon so it has a few years on it. The foam filter is getting ratty so I went to Eureaka's web site to find the correct replacement filter and ordered one through Amazon. That is what we had to go to the Post Office to pick up. I guess the box was to big to fit in the mailbox, although I haven't checked.

The postal service here SUCKS! They only seem to deliver what they want/when they want.) We were here both days when the postman claims he tried to deliver the package. The second day we were in the front of the house with the front door open during the time he apparently put the non-deliver notice in the mailbox. Guess he/she was to lazy to look at the door to see that people where home. The only good thing is that Drew gets virtually no junk mail. Guess the postman is to lazy to carry it around.

Tuesday evening Amazon notified me that that postman couldn't deliver the package and gave me a tracking number. I checked out he tracking number on the USPS web site and it said the the postman was unable to deliver the package and that I would be able to pick it up after 10 AM the next day. Wednesday I went to pick it up and the man at the post office told me that the postman still had it, which is why we left the door open so that he would know we were home. All he did was leave a card saying he couldn't deliver it, so I had to go back to the post office, a 40 block drive, on Thursday.

The difference between the UPS and FedEx people who have delivered here and the USPS is just another indication of how the government can screw up anything.

OK now that I've vented on that.

It is raining again today, and supposed to rain tomorrow, and it has rained for the past several days. We are supposed to get sun again on Sunday.

Check out my political commentary blog if you want to feel warm and fuzzy about the use of your tax dollars. The Dems are pushing hard to force responsible taxpayers to subsidize the irresponsible, by bailing them out of their mortgages. Did any of you ever even think that the government should force others to make your mortgage payments. Ayn Rand saw it all coming over 60 years ago.

Good afternoon to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 13th PM - Fentons

We took the day off, other than Kathy helping at the food give away. After she returned we went to Fenton's Creamery for a late lunch.
http://www.fentonscreamery.com/

Kathy has a salad and I had a ham & swiss. The food was good.

Surprisingly good.

Dessert was even better. Mine was the "diet" version. I did without the whipped cream and the cherry.



Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 13th - Rain

Not much exciting happening. It has been raining, lightly since early morning.

We pretty much took the day off Sunday. Drew and I went "across the bridge" to a Lowe's in San Francisco. He bought lumber and screen wire for a chicken coop. He plans on getting 2 or 3 chickens, to go along with the bees. Don't know if I mentioned bees. He has all the hardware ready to go for a beehive (I think they call it an aviary). In a month of so he plans on buying a queen bee to get things going. Tonight he is going to a bee keepers meeting after work.

After Lowe's we stopped at a Burger place in San Francisco. It had maybe four small tables and seating at a counter. It probably qualified for the label of a "greasy spoon", although it did appear to be reasonably clean. It was an old, non-fancy, place, probably used to be a gas station. The burgers and fries were great.  I got double cheeseburger and he ordered a single plus a corn dog. We shared a large order of fries. I left the last couple of bites of my double and we left a few fries, just to much to eat. Price wasn't bad for California. I think the bill was $18. The double cheeseburger was $5.50 and the larger order of fries was $3.00. We were the only white people in the neighborhood. The place was run by Hispanics and the other customers were either black or Hispanic. Service was good.

Monday we got off to a slow start in the morning. We drove down to ALCO Iron & Metals in San Leandro. The drive is about 12 miles and takes about 20 minutes. We picked up a piece of aluminum angle for Drew. He wanted 1/2"x1/2" aluminum angle for a project but the smallest they had was 3/4x3/4, so we got it. Pricing for the aluminum angle was interesting. A 12' piece of the 3/4x3/4x1/8 aluminum angle was $33. The guy wanted to give me a better deal on a more common angle. Could have bought a 25' piece of 1x1/1/8 aluminum angle for $47, but the legs of that angle were to larger than Drew wanted.

ALCO is a huge facility. The have large buildings on both sides of the road. They actually let you wander around in the building I was in, to look at scrap pieces as well as other things they have in stock.

On the way down to ALCO we stopped of and had lunch at an In and Out Burger place. We also stopped at Walmart and picked up oil so that I can change the oil in our generator once I find an oil filter.

In the afternoon Kathy cleaned all the "basement" windows, painted the frames on the inside, painted the security inserts (3/4" pieces of plywood that fit inside the window frames and that are held in place by steel bars), and washed the windows inside and out. I think she also did several loads of laundry.

I installed a piece of trim that I had cut to fit the gap between some original trim and a piece that we had previously replaced. I also was up in the attic several times getting things ready for the permanent post we plan to install near the center of the attic. We aren't making much progress getting the sag out of the roof. I think that maybe when the front of the hip roof was torn off for the addition, many years ago, the roof sagged. Instead of correcting it I think they just ignored the sag and installed the new rafters.  Hopefully over time, and with constant pressure on the jacks we have installed, at least some of the sag might come out. It isn't a real problem. The roof doesn't leak. You can't even see it unless you purposely get in a position to see that part of the roof.

I also finished the second coat on the green trim around the top inside of the porch. With as many times as I have mentioned painting you must wonder at our seeming lack of progress. The main house is orange, the main trim is green and then there are also red and blue sections of trim. Everything it getting at least two coats, the main house got two coats of primer and then two coats of finish. Nothing has been done to the side that is basically on the lot line, and where you have to go into the neighbors fenced yard, with their 4 pit bulls, for access. These are the neighbors who have the brisk 24 hour drive up buisness. So far, other than the BOOMING bass from the cars that drive up and sit out front while making purchases, they appear to be relatively good neighbors.

It is raining today, and rain is in the forecast every day for the next five days. We probably won't be doing much, if any, exterior painting before we leave (tentatively scheduled for the 20th). There is still a lot of interior painting to do. Based on an early morning message from Drew he must have worked late into the night doing some wall repair, and wall washing, to get some areas ready for interior paint.

Kathy is down at the local storefront church helping with today's food distribution. She has been working down there from about 11:30 - 2:30 the two days a week that they have the free food.

I'm in the RV and thinking that a nap might be in order. I got a good nights sleep last night but Sunday night I stayed up until 4AM so that I could read three of Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter novels. I might even pay to go see the movie before it comes out on DVD.

I've also been listening to Ayn Rand's book Fountainhead, I have an audio copy on my phone. As I've said before I am amazed at her insights into the future. She wrote books in the 1940's and what she wrote about, government stamping out creativity by subsidizing cronies, is certainly currently coming to pass. My guess is that I won't like her ending because I suspect that the "hero" will lose and society as we have known it will be no more. At best future generations will live under government control similar to China or Russia. Anyone who thinks that isn't happening in the United States, no matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in office, is not paying attention. Politicians and bureaucrats, and those in business who give them bribes (campaign contributions) will live the high life at the expense of the common man. Enough of that, it makes me angry.

Good day to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 10th - Not A Lot to Report

Didn't do much yesterday. Took some stuff over to the hazardous waste facility and that was about it.

Today Drew spent most of the day painting trim on the front of the house.

The colors don't show up well at all in the above photos, except maybe the orange. The main trim is green while the minor trim is either blue or red. The front isn't 100% done but it is close.

I built a brace for the long ladder so that Drew could reach to paint the different colors at the roof peak. I also did some work repairing some trim around the kitchen bay window and getting the attic/roof ready for the first shoring post.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 7th PM - Sightseeing Day

Today we did some sightseeing. First stop was the Conservatory at the San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is a beautiful place with lots of interesting plants. The Conservatory is the white building.

 This is inside one of the Conservatory wings. All the concrete walkways had these ornate cast iron grills down the centers.

 There is some stained glass around the top of the center section of the Conservatory. These plant leafs actually looked like they had blue sections, until I realized that it was just the sunlight coming through the blue panes of stained glass.

 After spending about 90 minutes at the Conservatory we drove to the other end of the park, to Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden. (The garden is named after one of Holland's longest serving monarchs.)

The windmill at Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden.

Queen Wilhelmina's Tulip Garden is just a couple of stone throws from the ocean. We walked down to the ocean and had a late lunch at Louis' (pronounced Louie's). You can see the restaurant towards the top of the photo, a little to the right of center. We had a corner table with large windows on both walls. The place was opened in the 30's and is still run by the same family.

After lunch we walked out to the ocean. The concrete foundations you seen in the two photos below are what is left of the Sutro Baths. When opened in 1896 it was the worlds largest indoor swimming pool establishment. If interested you can read more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Baths

On the left side of this photo below you can see a "stick". It is one of the Golden Gate's suspension towers.

The photo above was taken from just around the observation area on the left side of the photo below, out next to the ocean. We walked out on the path you see. What you can't really see in this photo is the steps that run from the walkway up to the right side of the photo. The steps extend beyond the edge of the photo. That was the way we "climbed out". I wished that I would have counted the steps.

This crane is within a mile of the park I went to last week. I didn't notice it then, but I was back behind the white crane you see on the right side of the photo. The photos are blurry because I took them while we were going down the Interstate, near the east end of the Bay Bridge. I have to go back to see if I can find a way to get a better look at it.

I almost forgot, when we walked out to the ocean we walked a short distance up and down highway 101, just sightseeing. Kathy made mention of all the motorcycle cops parked in the center "median". We could see at least 8 motorcycle cops, at maybe 100 yard intervals, down the highway. Previously we had noticed a helicopter constantly circling above us for quite some time. We hung around for awhile and they completely shut down all traffic on the highway, this is a busy highway! The 3 motorcycles, a couple of limo's, several black vans, many black suburbans, an ambulance and assorted other vehicles rolled down the highway. As the caravan went by the motorcycle cops fell in at the rear of the procession. We finally found out that Israel's Prime Minister Peres was here trying to Silicon Valley tech shops into building some facilities in Israel. No doubt the government was scared to death that some Arab nut cases would try to assassinate him while he was here.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 7th RV Repairs

Yesterday I did some "bodywork" repairs to the motorhome. We had a side panel that had come loose and when we were at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, just before moving to Drew's, I noticed that my previous repair attempt had failed. Hopefully the ones I made yesterday will hold up better.

Last evening we (Kathy, Drew & I) went to Berkeley, walked around, had dinner and later dessert. Downtown Berkeley is a very "happening" place. Berkeley is home to one of the University of California campuses. It used to be known for all the left wing whacko's that were there. They are probably still there but are just being out "whacko'ed" by nut cases like those in the Occupy movement. There are virtually no vacant stores and there is a lot of activity occurring on weekday evenings. The only difficult thing was finding a parking place.

Kathy and Drew almost at the crepe place where we went for dessert.

Have a great day. May God bless you and yours.

Mar 5th - Breakfast at IKEA & Our First EARTHQUAKE!!!

This morning we were awakened as the bed shook. Our first California earthquake. At 5:33 AM there was a 4.0 earthquake centered a few miles from us. For us it was similar to one of the old vibrating beds at motels, except that it lasted less than 10 seconds. There were actually two earthquakes. The first was a 2.9 magnitude and then 7 seconds later the 4.0 earthquake occurred. There were a couple of lesser aftershocks later, but we slept through them.

When we got up we went to IKEA for a free breakfast. It is only about a 10 minute drive from Drew's. The last time we were there we noticed that they served free breakfasts on Monday mornings. It was a decent breakfast, even the coffee was included for free. We bought the "Swedish pancakes" because we were curious about them. Our breakfast cost us less than $2.

The counter we sat at while eating was against large exterior windows. It was clear today and we could look across the bay and see San Francisco. Our view was to far north to see the high rises.

Actually our breakfast cost us around $18. We wandered around the store for nearly two hours after finishing breakfast. We ended up buying some glasses, a knife sharpener and some cup cakes papers.

In the afternoon I went to the Zoning Office, at the Oakland City Hall, to get some information on the building permit for the place next door. A developer owns it. Based on my experience working with developers (Praise the Lord I didn't have to work with them a lot) they are real low lifes who will do anything for a buck, sort of like politicians. The guy who owns the property seems to fit the mold. He told me and then Drew, at different times, that the fence between the properties was on his property and needed to be moved over a foot onto Drews to be on the property line. It is a long, convoluted story. Bottom line is that it appears that the fence is actually on the property line except for the first 20' out near the street. There is a jog in the fence at that point. The first 20' is actually about a foot onto Drew's property, and if it gets moved it needs to be moved toward the developers property. The people at the Zoning Office were very helpful.

The night news is on now. A bunch of college students marched in Sacramento today and then took part  in a sit-in at the capitol. The are complaining because tuition is to high. I doubt that many of them are actually intelligent enough to be in college. They all seem to think the only answer is to raise taxes on "rich". Not one of them appears to have the intelligence to wonder why colleges spend 4-10 times more per graduate, in inflation adjusted dollars. than they did 40 years ago. The cops had to drag all of them out of building at closing time. Numerous extra officers had to be called in, at taxpayers expense, to handle the situation. To bad our politically correct court system will give them, at most, a slap on the wrist. If the courts would hit them with some significant fines, enough to at least pay the cost for the police, courts, extra clean-up, etc they would probably stop. Today far to many people are so covetous that they think it is governments job to force someone else to support them.

Mar 4th PM - Trim Painting

It was a beautiful day. I took off my long sleeve shirt in the afternoon and worked outside in a tee shirt. Today we painted more exterior trim, "opaqued" a window and oiled more woodwork. I think we may be doing washing and oiling woodwork.

I think I forgot to mention that Drew planted a multi-fruit fruit tree in his backyard yesterday. We also cleaned some tree/bush roots out of an area in the front yard and he planted a plant there.

Not much excitement but we are making progress.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Mar 4th - Ayn Rand

This should probably be in my political blog but I want more people to see it. I just finished listening to Ayn Rand's book titled "Anthem." I strongly urge every one of you to read/listen to it. I downloaded it from the Indianapolis Marion County public library and listened to it on my phone. The Crossville, TN library has a hard copy available, an audio copy that can be played on Windows media player, and a digital copy that can be read on Kindle or Android systems. I am sure that other libraries also have copies available.

Ms. Rand wrote in the 40's and her vision of man and events that can/will occur to choke out initiative, innovation, etc. are astounding. Her book Atlas Shrugged, was recently made into a movie. The distribution of the movie was limited and I have not seen it but I will be purchasing a DVD copy so that I can see how well it follows the book.

The weather today is beautiful, as it was yesterday. Yesterday we worked on some odds and ends around Drew's house and I helped Bill, a friend of Drew's, build a base section for his bee hive.

Kathy has already been to the grocery. She came home with a load (8 boxes) of pop/soda (if you bought four cases you got them for the same price as two). I know there were bags of other groceries but I'm not sure what they contained.

Drew has already been up working on flashing and is now working on his gutter. Time to get off my butt and get out and see what I can do to help.

Mar 2nd - Cookies and the Park

After I posted last night Drew texted us to say that he was testing his newly repaired oven by baking chocolate chip cookies. He told us to come over at 8:45 to try the first batch. He texted some of his other friends also. Collin and Stephanie came over to eat cookies. We had not met them before.

We had thought about going to SF's botanical garden today but Kathy decided that she wanted to help with the food pantry at the storefront church down the street.

I went to the Farmer's Market, mostly just to see who would be providing music at the center of the market. Today it was a white guy in his 50's, playing a regular guitar. The guitar was "mic'd" so that everyone could hear. He was good. No singing, just plain ole guitar playing. I recognized some 60's songs but did not recognize the blues/jazz music that he played. Even though I didn't know the songs I sure enjoyed them.

After the farmers market I went to Shoreline Park. It is right in the middle of hundreds of cranes for unloading containers from ships, and likely a thousand trucks picking up and dropping off containers.

On the right side of the photo below you can see a few of the cranes. More centered in the photo is the San Francisco skyline. The "water" up next to the shore is actually a tidal mud flat. When the tide comes in it fills with sea water, when the tide leaves many of them then have some fresh water the comes down a river. I walked over to the other side of the water and out on a fishing pier. It was a mile over there.

 Nice to see flower along the way.

 The bees liked these blue flowers.

 Below you see one of the cranes that was off in the distance in an earlier photo. Note the "tower" in the distance, between the cranes.

 I zoomed in on the tower. The crane on it is not a small crane. The structure is falsework around the center pier for the new bridge from Oakland to Treasure Island.

 The pier shown below is for  fishing. There is a large hole in the center of the pier so that people can either fish around the outside or through the hole in the center. The Oakland skyline is in the background.

The weather was beautiful. I need to go back another day and explore down to the south. Today I only walked north.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

March 1 PM - Some Activity

Today we went to Walmart to get some prescriptions filled and worked the timing so that we could walk over to In and Out Burger and have lunch while we waited on the prescriptions. I like going to that place. The burgers and fries are good but even better is watching the workers while waiting on your food. You get a number on your receipt when you order. Our number was 85 and they were handing out food to people who had numbers in the low 70's when I started waiting for our food.

There are a LOT of people working behind the counter and they keep BUSY. You don't see any of them standing around. What is really interesting is that most of them are smiling a lot of the time. By the time we finished eating they were serving numbers in the 20's. From the time we ordered to the time we were leaving they had served around 40 customers inside. I don't have any idea how many drive thru customers they served during that time, but I'm sure it was a lot. The drive thru line always has a line waiting.

Have I mentioned the cost of living in California? I saw a gas price $4.39/gallon for regular today. The two prescriptions I had refilled are the $10 for 3 month prescriptions, at least that is what they are in Lebanon. In California pharmacies sued Walmart because they were selling drugs to cheap. Instead of paying $10 in Indiana people get to pay $24 for the same thing in California. I ended up paying $48 for two prescriptions in California instead of the $20 I would have paid in Indiana.

On our way back we stopped a couple of places and walked along the shoreline. The wind was a little brisk but the sun was brilliant.

Since we were "downtown" we also had to stop at Cash and Carry, the restaurant supply place. This is the parking area. The store has the same roof framing. They apparently just took a huge old building, built an interior wall, and turned part of it into the store while leaving the other part for parking.

This is the meat and cheese walk in cooler. There is an interior wall between it and the dairy walk in cooler. The two of them take up around 1,800 sq ft.

The vegetable cooler isn't quite that big nor is the walk in freezer. I went into the walk in freezer just to see what frozen foods they had, but I didn't stay long. The thermometer said the temperature in the freezer was 10 degrees below zero.

All in all it was a nice day. We had planned on going to the San Francisco botanical garden today but it was rainy this morning so we postponed our trip until tomorrow. Of course tomorrow is Friday and we will probably need to hit the downtown farmers market before we head into San Francisco.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.