Cheeseheads

My friend Terry grew up in Wisconsin - although some folks wouldn't agree with that statement.  Those folks would say he was raised in WI but didn't grow up there - or anywhere else, for that matter - and most likely never will.  Be that as it may, he's a WI native so he's a Green Bay Packer fan - a Cheesehead.

Recently, Terry came across a slightly damaged Cheesehead hat at a garage sale and, after reviewing his financial situation at length, decided to splurge and pay the 25 cents ask price.  He never had a Cheesehead hat and was delighted to finally acquire one.

We were over at his place a couple nights back so I asked him to trot out the hat.  I'd never seen one except on TV, was curious about how they were made and how they felt on your head.  Turns out they're not cheese at all.  Nope.  They're synthetic sponges.  I tried it on and quickly determined that a. it wasn't very comfortable (no lining), and b. my head got very warm very fast - a good thing on a crisp fall day, but on a warm day unbearable.

I'm a MN native so am honor bound to support the Vikings.  If any fellow Minnesotans see this picture, they'll disown me, thinking I've gone over to the dark side.  Don't tell 'em, okay?

Traditional Cheesehead hats are wedge-shaped, but there are several other cheesy styles as well.  And bow ties.  And bras.  All sorts of stuff.  Go to amazon.com and enter cheesehead.  You'll be amazed.  Or not.

Grout Girl

A couple posts back, (Holy Buckets, Batman!) I reported on the floor tile repairs in our home.  That project was just the preliminary event.  The main event, which started Monday and ended today, was Grout Girl vs Grime N Grit.  The judges are in full agreement on the winner: Grout Girl by a landslide.

Several years of once-over-lightly, greatly enhanced by a year of housekeeper abuse, resulted in absolutely filthy grout.  Housekeeper, who really should have known better, used a Shark floor cleaner that uses terrycloth pads.  It may work well on hardwood and linoleum floors but on tile it's the worst, nothing more than a dirt mover, transporting dirt from tile to grout - and leaving it there.  The original grout was tan.  After The Year of the Shark, it was totally black in the high traffic areas.

The larger tile on top: Before.

The smaller tile on bottom: After

A friend passed along the Grout Girl tip, and a good tip it was.  GG and her 2 helpers spent 3 days on their knees, doing their thing: scrubbing, staining and sealing.  The floor looks great, and we bought the right kind of floor scrubber to ensure it stays that way.  Professional steam cleaners do a good job of cleaning tile and grout, too.  But, when they're done, the grout needs to be sealed.  I've spent 100s of hours on my knees, sealing grout.  Never again!

Grout Girl rocks!    

Global Warming Q and A

Q: What do we really know about global warming?
A: Precious little.  We do know that:
     1.  A 400-year mini ice age ended about 1850 and there's been a gradual warming trend since then.
     2.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have steadily increased since record keeping started in 1958.
     3.  Polar and glacial ice volume is decreasing in some areas.

Q: Is human activity causing the warming trend?
A. Did human activity cause the mini ice age?  I very much doubt it.  By definition, when an ice age ends, be it mini or maxi, the atmosphere gets warmer.  Human activity may be a contributing factor but there's no way to measure how much, if any.

Q: Has human activity contributed to the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases?
A: Yes.  Fossil fuel usage and deforestation are the main culprits.

Q: Are greenhouse gases contributing to the warming trend?
A. Probably, but again, no way to measure it.  Poor air quality is potentially harmful in itself because nearly all living things need 'healthy' air to thrive.  If air quality gets too bad, the living things will start dying off - and one of those things will be us.

 Q: Will ocean levels rise due to melting ice, wiping out cities, ports and human habitat?
A:  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Ice volume isn't decreasing everywhere and is actually increasing in some areas.  Sea level increase projections are generated by computer modeling, which is based on few facts and lots of assumptions.  To date, the accuracy of those projections has been so far off it's laughable. Garbage in, garbage out.

Environmental research and analysis products are often suspect because the findings are interpreted and spin-doctored to support the agenda of the funding source.  Follow the money.  To get really credible information, neither the researchers nor the analysts should know who's paying for it. Further, the analysis group should be totally independent of the research group.

The book, State of Fear, by Michael Crichton, inspired this post, and some of the information provided here is borrowed from the book.  Mr C spent 3 years poring through environmental publications before he started the book and, although it's a novel, it's chock full of solid environmental information supported by reference footnotes; it also has an extensive bibliography.  I found it to be quite an eye opener, especially in regard to the alarmist hype that the media shovels into our laps on slow news days.

Pirate’s Den, Parker, AZ

Last spring we took our house guests, Ron and Holly, on a tour of the Parker Strip.  The Strip is a scenic, mountainous stretch of the Colorado River immediately south of Parker Dam.  It’s home to several RV campgrounds, both public and private, a few riverside taverns and a mixed bag of older and newer housing developments.  Most of the private businesses are old and shabby but the new Pirate’s Den RV Resort/Grill/Tavern – which we discovered on that excursion – is quite impressive and nicely done.  We went there for dinner last night with good friends Terry and Lisa to celebrate my 70^th.

This huge pirate stands at the entrance to the restaurant.

I was hugely disappointed.  First, the place was crawling with flies; I killed a dozen or so but they just kept on coming.  Second, they had a wine list but no brew list.  Bad sign: Terry and I both love microbrews and they didn’t have a single one.  Third, my filet mignon came well done instead of medium rare as ordered.  Normally, I don’t bitch and whine much when restaurant food or service is below par but at $30 a plate, I expect more than flies, swill and burnt offerings.  So, I pulled out the stops, bitched loud and long.  The waitress no doubt declared me Asshole Customer of the Month. 

 

I felt obligated to fondle the larger than life plastic pirate boobs.

It wasn’t all bad.  The rest of the gang had generous portions of barbecued ribs and declared them delicious.  The waitress was attentive, kept her cool, apologized for the shortcomings and offered me the choice of either replacing the steak with one done right or switching to the ribs.  I declined both, didn’t want to wait on another steak and I was definitely in a steak kinda mood so didn’t want ribs.  Instead, I told her to knock some $ off the bill, which she did.

Another shapely pirate, very unresponsive.

Upon leaving I told the waitress that the biggest disappointment was the lack of microbrews and that if they wanted to attract ‘cool people like us’ they darn well better get some.  In retrospect that was probably counterproductive cuz she was probably thinking the hell with getting microbrews in here; they’d just attract more SOBs like you!

‘Holy Buckets, Batman!’

Why the buckets? 

1.  The roof is leaking.
2. We’re practicing our kicks for the final.
3. It’s a slalom Nascar course for Artie.
4. We’re making a list.
5. None of the above.

Actually, they’re part of a floor tile repair project.  Whoever installed the tiles did a lousy job of gluing them down and now there are dozens of them that are loose on 1 or 2 sides.  When you walk on the loose tiles they move up and down, causing the grout to crack and crumble.  I re-grouted the worst tiles 3 years ago but, since the tiles were still loose, it was an exercise in futility. 

So, what to do?  Live with it?  No!  Replace the loose tile?  Not an option: there are 90 loose tiles in the traffic areas alone, I only have 11 unused tiles, and they quit making new ones long since.  Last spring, we discovered what we hope is a permanent solution and the buckets are part of it.  You drill holes in the grout around the edges of the tile, vacuum up the loose grout, squirt a special adhesive into the holes, place a bucket of water on it for 24 hours, and re-grout.  In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m having a contractor do the work.  No way would I consider taking on the project.

It’s a tedious, messy process but it darn sure beats having to replace the entire floor.  In that event, all furniture, wall décor, and everything else not permanently attached must be removed – including residents.  Move into a hotel for 2 weeks, return when the project is completed.  Think of all the steps involved: remove the baseboards, break up and chisel out all the old tile, grind down the old, hardened adhesive, install the new flooring, paint and install new baseboards, wipe down the dust accumulation on everything.  Yuk!

Old farts like myself (I turned 70 today) may recall where the title of this post originated - the Batman TV series of the mid 60s.  Robin used the Holy Buckets expression regularly.  

Tehachapi 2008

Our recent overnight near Tehachapi reminded me of our first overnight there in late December, 2008.  We were en route to LHC for the first time, had rented a home here for the month of January, 2009.  We had the A-frame pop-up trailer (Chalet) in tow.

We had spent the previous evening with Doug (Trish's brother) and Jan in Sacramento.  Doug recommended Orange Grove RV Park, just east of Bakersfield, for our next overnight stop.  He and Jan always overnight there en route to and from LHC because it's large, well managed, conveniently located, and has a nice bonus if you're there in winter: free oranges.  I ignored Doug's advice because I wanted to put more miles behind us: I had planned to overnight in Tehachapi and stayed with that plan.

Bad decision!  I failed to take the altitude into consideration and was unaware of the constant brisk winds.  It was below freezing when we arrived at sunset, quite a shock after the mild weather at lower elevations.  The RV park was up in the hills above town so it was even colder, and to top it off, there had recently been a heavy snowfall.

We pulled into the campground at dark.  It was very cold, very windy, downright nasty outside, wind chill probably below zero.  Lovely!  And us with only summer clothing!  The office was closed so we just pulled into a vacant site, hopped out of the truck and ran around like crazy people setting up the trailer and hooking up to shore power so we could get some heat in the trailer.

The plot sickens: The Chalet had no WC and I had been delaying a pit stop for some time, trying to arrive at our campground before dark.  I really had to go!  Number 2!  I abandoned the warmth of the trailer and dashed out into the frigid night in search of the restroom.  I found it - all locked up.  Sunnavabitch!  Now what?  Then, I remembered that I had had the foresight to anticipate this situation and had purchased a device called Luggable Loo.

Loo is nothing more than a toilet seat designed to fit atop a 5-gallon plastic pail.  Place a plastic bag in the pail, set Loo on top, drop 'em, take care of business.  Which I did - inside the trailer because I'm fond of my delicate parts, still find them useful occasionally and prefer they not get frozen off.  Business completed, Loo quickly exited stage right, air freshener entered stage left.

Kudos to Mr Loo and raspberries to Mr Dumbass for deciding to overnight in Tehachapi in late December!

Summer 2014 Summary

This may be of little interest to anyone besides me.  Well, Trish maybe.  Here's the thing: I love to quantify, always want to know how many, how big, how old, how hot/cold, and on and on.  I'm a born analyst and statistician, certainly no surprise to folks who follow my blog.  Here we go.

1.  Total miles towing: 4551, close to what we'd planned.

2. Total miles driven in pickup, including towing: 7271; more than planned because we had 2 long stays in Portland area parks.

3.  Number of days: 106

4.  Best private RV park: Olde Stone Village, McMinnville, OR.  Well designed, well managed, well maintained.

5.  Best public campground: Merrill on Eagle Lake, Lassen National Forest, CA.  Quiet and peaceful, lovely setting.

6.  Worst public campground: El Chorro Regional Park, San Luis Obispo County, CA.  See blog post Poorly.

7.  Lessons learned:
        A.  Engage truck parking brake prior to raising landing gear on the 5W.
        B.  Running RV furnace when not on shore power quickly drains the batteries.

8.  What went bad: water heater stopped working on shore power but still works on propane.  I don't want to mess with it, will take it to the shop.

9.  Best surprise: Grand Teton National Park scenery and campgrounds.  I recall that my first time there, many years ago, it seemed blah compared to next door neighbor Yellowstone.  This time though, I was impressed.  It has a whole bunch of pretty!

11.  States where I played Pickleball: Utah, Washington, Minnesota, Oregon and California.

12.  Number of pieces of quilting material Trish cut out: 758, half of which were also sewn and ironed; pieces will ultimately be made into 2 quilts.

PS:  Here's a picture that should have been included in my July 19th post, Champoeg SP, OR.  In that post, I wrote that Champoeg Village was wiped out in a flood in December, 1861.

The 1996 Flood high water mark is slightly above my knees in this picture.  I lived in the Portland suburb of Lake Oswego at the time so was eye witness to the extent of the flooding and the damage it caused - which was relatively minor.  The high water mark of the 1861 flood is about 12' higher than the 1996 mark.  That's hard to even imagine!  The entire Willamette Valley was one big lake.