Playing catch up

Slowly working our way back from the holidays break.  We had a good Christmas and fairly sedate New Year's.  Spent time with family, friends.  Ate too much, spend a bit more than we had planned, watched several movies and tv marathons, generally slacked off.  

A lot of different shows on this year.  I recall from a few years ago that one channel ran a James Bond Marathon on for New Year's week.  This year the BBC channel ran a Doctor Who Marathon.  Dang it.  And I had things I meant to do... 

I did manage to get back out to the annual New Year's rally with our Airstream club.  This is at a rural campground about an hour west of town.   We drove out in the pouring rain, my brother got his rig stuck (had to pull him out with my truck), the weather was wet and dreary for most of the week.  Not sure if it was because the holiday fell in the middle of the week or because of the weather but the number of attendees this year was pretty light.  My folks did not go because they are still recuperating from their wreck and have no tow vehicle.  We are not sure of their long term plans.  I spent part of the holidays with my dad and I got the general feeling that his wreck may be the writing on the wall for them.  I kinda got the general impression that they are questioning the possibility of hanging it up.  Maybe a few more local runs/rallies but they are definitely not doing any more long term road trips.  Some of their friends in the club have already retired and many of them were younger than my folks.  We'll have to see what the year brings.  

A few shots from the rally.  At least the dogs enjoyed getting out to the house for a while. It was fun and the heater worked well this year (yea!).  It wasn't as challenging or exciting as camping out in the back yard in a tent in the snow/freezing weather.    

Hello 2014

Starting out the new year already behind.  THAT's not a good sign.  I had hoped to clean up my act a bit and get more organized, but I am still stuck in holiday mode and finding it hard to get motivated.  

First of all, holiday wrap up.  The holidays were  good to us, if not a bit anticlimactic.  Way off our normal year end frenzy. Momma is still spending nights over at SIL taking care of her, so that leaves the house to just me and the dogs.  Kinda quiet over here (except for the occasional football game).  I had hoped to used the rest of the holidays to catch up, but got caught up in some marathon series watching (Walking Dead, Dr Who, Firefly, Breaking Bad).  You can really lose track of time/days if you get hooked on it.  

The New Year Rally went off very well (despite my furnace not working).  It has been a problem I have been working on for a while and I think I got it resolved.  Fortunately, I have electric blankets and a small quartz heater that will take the edge off the cold.  Although, the dogs seem to prefer the cooler temps.  The weather was nice, if not a bit chilly, the dogs liked exploring new territory, got a chance to spend some more time with my parents.  Stephen and Rebecca came out for the New Year's Eve dinner we had with the group so we got to spend a few more hour with them (first time I got to see her since she has been ill).  With this group, we always plan a dinner on New Year's Eve and some games or celebration.  Last year we attended a dinner/theater at a local castle in Bellville.  This year, the hosts decided to have a murder-mystery play along with dinner.  Some people were assigned roles to play and given a script to follow.  The actors were given hints and clues to drop along the way, but nobody (including the actors) knew who really "did it" until the end.  Was a fun evening.  My mom was chosen to play one of the roles.  She was given the role of Lotte Hauptengruben - a floozy/wine merchant/double agent.  Her instructions were to dress up and show some skin/leg.  

Nothing like having your 90 year old mother flashing some leg at the party even if it was all in fun.  

Of course the dogs had a good time just being out of the house for a few days although it looked like Claire partied a wee bit too much champagne the night before.

Can't hold her champagne 

The new year is starting off well.  Looking forward to seeing all of the new surprises/twists that 2014 will bring.  

13 days

Never slow down

I wish I had some good excuse for not posting but, let's be frank, I've really been slacking off.

I've been swamped at work with reports and our system validation.  After 10 months of development and weeks upon weeks of testing, we are almost ready to make the switchover.  This has been one long, slow, painful project.  on top of that, i've been out of town for the past three weekends and I am sitting here in California leading another round of audits.  I wish I could say this was my last road trip but there is still too much time left in the year to be that optimistic.

Last three weekends have been busy for me.  Earlier, we took the trailer and dogs down for one of our Airstream rally's at a local state park. The park is a nice place just south of Houston located along the Brazos River.  Great park, lots of trials, lakes.  Great place to see some of the local indigenous wildlife (raccoons, armadillos, possums, eagles, ducks, geese, and lots & lots of alligators).  Yes, I said alligators.  This is a regular haven for thiose cute little swamp critters.  This time of year , they are pretty slow/dormant, but in the spring during their mating season and you need to keep an eye on your kids and pets.

Two weekends back, everyone was in town for my day's birthday (the big 90).  The entire family gathered again at out local Italian restaurant for the gala event.  Even Stephen and  Rebecca were able to make down from Austin for the weekend.  Great to be able to spend time with them, even if it was brief.  Was a great party.  Even my brother from Seattle flew i with his wife to join in.  My middle brother, the budding photographer, spent some time a few years back pouring through all of the old Kodak slides was amassed over the past few decades of family life.  He extracted a lot of pictures and had the printed out or scanned on line.  He brought out a number of those at my mom's 90th in February and did the same for my dad.  It was fun to have my dad hold up the picture and explain where he was and what was the occasion.  Got to see the picture of them on the prom date, one of him in his flight jacket when he had earned his wings, on beefcake shot on the beach, many of them together on the road. Great way to look back over a long life.  

My dad is still going strong - still hauling their trailer all over the state, always active.  I honestly feel that is the reason the both of my parents are still going strong - staying active, never slowing down.  They even took the trailer up to College Station for the weekend game with my brother who flew in from Seattle for his birthday.  They are planning to take the trailer up to Dallas in a week or so to have some work done on the side panels and back end (he violated the 3 foot rule while traveling this summer).  

I spent last weekend up at the game as well with the furry children.  They love to travel and meet new people.  Part of the routine is to walk over to campus to see all the preface hoopla.  Of course, those two were the center of attention wherever the went.  We even stopped by a booth for veterinary service run by a bunch of vet students where they give out tips for pet first aide - in case your dog or cat is injured or eats something bad.  With all of the attention Claire was getting, she became the unofficial spokesdog for their cause.  I even had one of the students ask can i leave Claire there for a while because of the crowd she was drawing in.  Claire live for these show deals and is a natural.  

Unfortunately, I cannot seem to post any pictures from my iPad while on the road, but I will be trying to play catch up on everyone's blogs over the next week.  

Happy trails!

Old dog, new tricks

For an old school neanderthal like me, technology can be a challenge.  I spent part of the weekend trying to reprogram a new garage door opener.  The Caddy had a built in door opener so, when I sold her, I had to get a new remote.  Of course, they don't make the same kind as when I installed the garage door opener in '07, so I had to rely upon the latest and greatest remote.  Took several attempts at reprogramming before it finally took hold.  Nothing like the old days when I had to reprogram the door openers by manually setting the binary switches in both the opener and remotes.  

It just goes to show how much technology changes.  I had to go through our files to find the garage door opener instructions to figure out how to program the codes.  While going through the old warranty files, I pulled out all sorts of old instruction/warranties for stuff we have bought over the years.  A vacuum cleaner that is long gone.  The technical book on the Motorola flip phone we once had.  The original contract for the bag phone I bought back in '95.  Or the the high end stereo system I bought with my first Army paycheck back in 1978.  

I saved up my money to buy a modular system with an amp and tuner and tape deck.  Even got a direct drive turntable for my albums.  The CD player came later.  I wanted a really good sound system at the time and spent some good coin getting the pieces.  Started out with cassette tapes and eventually migrated over to CDs.  I made a ton of mix tapes to take on the road for long trips.  Lots of jazz and country music.  An eclectic selection of music collected over the years.    

What I find interesting that is how all of my old tapes, CDs, and records fit in the palm of my hand.  Technology can be really amazing to an old fart like me.    

I am still trying to figure out all the new buttons on the new Edge (still pondering her name, but Elvis is starting to grow on me).  Took me two days to figure out how to program the radio settings.  One really neat feature is the radio sync system.  The car will sync to my iPhone as soon as I get in.  I can not only talk and make calls without touching the phone, it will also play the music I have on the phone without being hooked to the car.  Pretty neat trick.    

I did get one project done this weekend that has been long in coming.  Finally got the new skylight installed on the trailer.  I kept thinking this was going to be a long, complex pain in the assets project but it actually turned out to be incredibly simple.  The new light fit like a glove and took almost no time to install.  I just wish all my projects were that easy.       

     

A man's home is his castle

Or so the expression goes.  

During our New Year's Rally, the hosts typically try to plan for events to keep everyone entertained/busy.  We've done tours, shows, museums and the like.  This past weekend's rally had something different.  We attended a dinner show in a local castle.  Now, if I was over in Germany or England, visiting a castle wouldn't seem so out of place, but in a small Central Texas town of barely 4000 people?  Turns out that we do have a few, if you know where to look.  

Several years back, the owner of a bakery in downtown Bellville, bought 20 acres of land just outside of town.  He was going to build a house on it but nothing really struck his fancy.  Then one day, he came up with the idea to build a castle.  He spent eight years erecting a 3,400-square-foot castle - and then he moved in.  He surrounded the turreted structure with a moat and installed a working drawbridge, portcullis, and a trebuchet that can shoot big rocks about 100 yards.  He opens the castle for tours and various events (weddings, receptions, dinners).  In 2010, he began working with Murder by Chocolate, a Houston group that stages [dinner theater] murder mysteries on weekends.  There’s a mock siege of the castle, and someone is kidnapped and murdered.  People can participate and get into costumes and follow scripts.  For dinner, he serves a medieval feast with a whole roasted pig and all the fixings.

Newmans Castle

Was a very interesting/fun event, if not a bit cold.  It turns out that central a/c and heating were not part of the old medieval architecture.  I had taken a few pictures of the event but it was at night and many did not come out well.  Besides, I was knighted (Sir Cuss) to stand guard over the drawbridge.  At least I wasn't named Sir Circumcision.  Everyone got to play a part in the play and entertainment.  Kind of a campy play, but it was very entertaining.  

The royal couple

Fairy Godmother and Godfather

Just desserts 

Storming the New Year

I meant to post an update before we high-tailed it out of town last week before the weekend.

Christmas came and went as planned.  Kids came done for a few days, we celebrated only two Christmases this year with them and my family.  Was fairly quiet/uneventful (aka drama free).  Everyone got new toys to play with (including the dogs).      

Last weekend we loaded up the wagon and headed west of town for our annual New Year’s Eve rally in a small campground out in the country.  Nice, quiet affair.  Good way to ring in the New Year with friends and family in the country.  3rd time out in the new trailer with momma and the dogs.  The more I use it, the more I learn how to make things work or, more importantly, what doesn't work.  A 16 year old trailer is going to have a few quirks/hiccups – my parents have been cruising the country in their trailers for over 30 years and they have pretty much seen & done it all.  From flat tires, melted power lines, lost wheel, refrigerator quits, a/c problems, water leaks, broken hitch, and even rolling their trailer has not dimmed their thirst for the road.  

My old trailer was always having one problem or another.  The A/C was built like a tank – it would run, but it was noisy, vibrated all night long but it would put frost on your pumpkin.  I was always chasing leaks in the trailer, the floor needed replacing, and I won’t even begin my diatribe on tambour doors.  The new rig is light years ahead of our old one.  5 feet longer, 3 feet wider, lots of room, lots of storage, bigger holding tank capacity, quieter a/c, great shower.  Makes the trek a lot more enjoyable when we have the room.  We are still learning how to operate the trailer and some of its quirks.  Last trip I deemed I needed a sway control/stabilizer.  On  this outing we came up with a few new challenges that made the trip interesting (lost a sky light, the furnace didn't work).  Arrived late Friday evening only to find my sky light in the bathroom had not made the trip out of Houston, so now I had a 2 foot hole in the top of the trailer (much foul language ensued).  Spare sky lights are not something I normally keep in the tool bag, so I had  to improvise a cover from some cardboard, garbage bag and duct tape.  After all that drama, I wasn't really in the mood for Mexican food at a local restaurant.  Maybe the mini-crisis put me in a bad mood, but the food wasn't appetizing at all to me (or perhaps it was the 3 hour wait).  The furnace never came on and I called in a local repair guy that specializes in RV repairs (handy when you live next to an RV park).  He figured out that the relay was shot and needed to be replaced.  Of course, he didn't have that part and would have to order it (remember it is the weekend before New Year’s) but it would probably not be in until Tuesday (the day we go back).  This did not really pose a major problem since we had a heat cube (small ceramic heater that will pretty much cook you out of the trailer) and electric blankets.  New Year’s Eve we had plans for a lot of activities but the front hit early and it was pretty much nonstop rain all day.  Normally I don’t mind the rain but camping with two very hairy dogs that love to walk, I envisioned chaos inside my new rig.  No matter how much I tried to dry them off and lay down towels, it was a mess.  I was also worried that my jury rigged sky light would not hold up well in the rain, but it held up quite well.  

Despite those challenges, the rest of the rally went well.  Saturday morning we had biscuits on a stick - cooked over an open fire (or heater).  Saturday night we attended a local dinner theater - "Murder By Chocolate" in a local castle (yes, I said castle).  I was going to cover that trip here but it would make the post way too long so I'll go into detail in one of my next posts.  Sunday night we cooked turkeys Scout style (in a foil tent with charcoal) but the cooks were having problems getting the turkeys to the right temperature so we "rigged" up some of our propane heaters and created an outdoor oven.  Not exactly per the manual, but it did the trick.  (Improvise, Adapt, Overcome)

 

Home sweet home (before the rain set in)

Sadly, our planned New Year's Eve parade was cancelled due to the rain so I will just pass along some of the pictures from last year's festivities.   

The 2011 Toilet Bowl Parade

One good outcome was that my sky light repair job held up on the trip back home.  Had fears that it was going to blow off on the ride and the inside of the trailer would be soaked.  Never underestimate the power of duct tape.   

Now quite an official "Airstream" approved modification

And just to tease you on the castle visit, there was an actual working trebuchet that we got to operate.  To give you an idea of how it operated, I snagged this clip...  

And for anyone keeping count, 7 days until liftoff...

Trailer tails

Thanks for all the compliments on my new toy.  From some back end conversations I had with RC, I realized that I should probably give a few more details about these shiny metal looking trailers and what is my fixation with them.  Forgive me if I go long, but I thought I would break this saga up into two posts just to relieve the monotony (or build the suspense).  Bear with me and I will give you a little peek in to agg79's warped family past.  And I promise more pictures of the new trailer next.  


To answer Rock's challenge, yes, they do look like an old Air Force B29 bomber, but that is by design.  This trailer is call an Airstream.  The actual design was based on old aircraft frames the early 30s/40s.  The designer/founder was Wally Byam and he started building travel trailers by hand back in the late 1920's and he even published an article on “How to build a trailer for One Hundred Dollars”.  There was so much demand for more trailers and information, he started a business of building these trailers and they have been on the road ever since.  Of more than 400 travel trailer builders operating in 1936, Airstream was the sole survivor of the Depression.  They are built with an aluminum frame and skin and are structurally stronger than most standard square fiberglass trailers and usually weight less.  One of the original marking ploys Wally used was that the trailer was so lite and well balanced, it could be towed by one guy on a bicycle.  

The original trailers were built torpedo style to cut the wind.  They were the first of several companies to build a “towable” camper and considered a step up from tent camping of the 20's and 30s.  During World War II, travel became a luxury most could not afford and non-military industries faced an acute aluminum shortage. When World War II ended, the economy boomed, and people's attention once again turned towards leisure travel, Airstream went back into production in 1948.   

Airstream trailers have been all over the world.  They seem to have become an iconic treasure from the past.  If you look back at some of the earlier NASA picture of astronauts, you will see an Airstream motorhome used by NASA.  These trailers are built to last years.  There are a number of trailers from the 60s and 70s still in use.  My other trailer is a 25 foot 1979 model (33 years old) Airstream Sovereign.  My "new" one, while looking somewhat newer is actually 16 years old (circa 1996).  My parents belong to an Airstream club that travels all over the US to various rallies.  They joined the club when I graduated from college (ahem, 33 years ago) and have been wandering the highways and byways ever since.  Mom and dad bought their first Airstream in 1979 from my uncle (retired Air Force Colonel who liked to travel the US in style) and, once my dad retired, they joined the club full time and has been out traveling ever since.  My brother and I got sucked into the club 15 years ago.  He bought his first trailer at a swap meet and has had owned several since.  I bought my brother's first trailer from him when he wanted to move up and have had used it for 10+ years.  After countless weekend football games, Airstream rallies, road trips to visit junior in Austin, and one road trip to Branson, Missouri, she may not be the biggest rig in the park, but she has held up well.  Classy.

Shadow standing post as guard dog

Next up:  Changing of the guard...

New toy

Long road trip.  650 miles.  Left town at 0600 and did not get back until 1930 (7:30 pm for all the non-regs).  On top of that, it was hovering around 100 degrees Saturday and Sunday.  But, despite the heat, a deal was struck and success was achieved.  As of now, daddy has a new toy.            

More later as I have time.