Fay was no lady

Jacksonville got hit fairly hard by Tropical Storm Fay, but arguably not as hard as some of the more southern portions of Florida. We had high winds - but never at hurricane strength - and local flooding. A few roofs got blown away and for a time roughly 80,000 households in Jacksonville were without power.

But as a tropical storm that threatened to become a hurricane yet which never quite lived up to her potential, Fay was a bit of a pleasant disappointment.

Deb and I had planned to move the Mighty Bluebird out of our workshop because we have large overhanging trees here. Trees are a good thing in the summer as they keep the temperatures down but a really, really bad thing when they threaten to come crashing down and to crush buildings and vehicles. We had actually - no kidding - planned to move to a friend's bar because the bar has a large, open parking lot and hey ... if the power went out we had a deal to run our generator and to swap diesel-generated electricity for beer. That's the capitalistic system at its best, in my book! As things transpired the winds from Fay never got high enough to warrant moving, so we stayed put.

Interestingly, our local county government, in their infinite wisdom, closed two of the largest and most heavily traveled bridges in this area for about 2 days, when winds got to be over 40mph. We could have still gotten out of town because there are perhaps seven local bridges that cross the St. John's River, but the prospect of being trapped if the storm had intensified wasn't an attractive idea at all. I guess the moral of the story is to plan ahead and not to wait until the last minute to leave. This area has been spared from major hurricane damage for about the last 40 years and I fear that folks are getting complacent.

Crazy Fay wandered around the state of Florida like a bag lady looking for her long lost drinking buddies. She crossed the Florida Keys and was at one point was expected to stay out into the Gulf of Mexico for most of her life. Then she stalled and came ashore around Cape Coral, and took her time crossing the state. Regaining her strength over land - something that you seldom see hurricanes do - Fay drifted slowly out into the Atlantic. Then she decided to wander up the coast and to come back ashore somewhere slightly south of us! Egads!

As I write this the remnants of Fay are up into Georgia or Tennessee or Kentucky somewhere, bringing much-needed rain to an area that has been hit by a drought.

It was fun Fay. Now don't let the door hit you on the way out, Old Girl.

Here's downtown Jacksonville, so you can see that someone had some serious water. I heard that the local cops were doing patrols with an airboat in some areas near the river:

Here's a view out of the front window of the Wanderlodge during some of the rain:

We were driving over to the Broken Spoke (neighborhood bar) and the cops were blocking Cesery, which is a fairly major road in these parts. Never mind that the traffic lights were out, there was a power line down across Cesery, blocking traffic.

A new addition to the family, and that pesky Fay

I want to thank y'all who have expressed concern since we have this hurricane/near hurricane headed our way. I will have to say that Tropical Storm Fay has turned out to be one of the screwier storms that I've ever tracked - it was originally likely to head west of us, then right over us, and now it's expected to enter the Atlantic Ocean slightly south of us and then to return to dry land slightly north of us. Sheesh!

We are fueled up and ready to go on short notice but my suspicions are that we'll just move the motorhome over to a friend's bar just a few blocks away. That way we can get out from under some very large oak trees that are on our workshop property. The upside is that if the power goes out at the bar during their hurricane party then we can trade diesel-generated electricity for beer. Slick, no?

On one of my Bluebird motorhome mailing lists there is a couple who rode out a direct hit of a Cat. 3 hurricane while in a Bluebird Wanderlodge very similar to ours. They said that they wouldn't intentionally do it again, but a solid steel 23 ton motorhome doesn't get blown over, which is reassuring if worst comes to worst. They said it did leak in some interesting places, but that's beside the point.

Further complicating matters are that we are on call as FEMA subcontractors and have just started to talk to the Red Cross about rejoining as Disaster Volunteers, so we really don't want to be too far away (i.e. running to New Orleans for a week isn't in the cards) because we may get sent back into the disaster area on short notice.

~~~

I think that we have accidentally adopted a new addition. When I say "accidentally" the short version of this shaggy cat tale is that we had a stray on the property that the landlord equally-reluctantly claimed any ownership of. When Rich and his family went on vacation Deb and I got stuck with feeding the varmint.

Likewise when a charitable group was offering to spay and neuter the local stray cats Yours Truly took the wayward Siamese to the vet to get her "fixed" and we wound up taking care of the little PITA for several days.

Well, the final straw occurred when the landlord's daughter decided that she wanted to take the stray to live with her in a dormitory at FSU in Tallahassee. Rich and I both sorta thought that was a bad, bad idea and so the little Siamese has now been adopted and has become part of the brood inside the bus.

As I am typing this the little monster is in my lap and wanting to play.

Blue Eyes, the Siamese made her first journey with us last Sunday as we made our weekly cross-town trip and she seems to be adjusting well to the RV life. She has clearly adjusted well to sleeping in our bed, and you can practically find the little varmint there 24/7.

Oh, and for those of you that want to know about the nuts and bolts of keeping two (now three it would seem) cats in an RV without having the place smell like the Lion House at the local zoo, the first thing to keep in mind is "use the best cat litter available." It's not cheap, but the stuff works. That, and change it regularly.

As originally manufactured, there was an icemaker built into the cabinetry of the Bluebird opposite from the refrigerator. I removed that and we put a litter box into the space vacated by the icemaker, with a simple curtain rod and drape disguising the existence of the litter box. Out of sight, out of mind. It's worked well, although seeing the big gray cat trying to wipe his paws on the curtain from the inside is hilarious; it sorta looks like the litter box compartment has a ghost inside that is trying to get out.

We did replace our carpeted floor with what the building people call an "engineered" laminated wooden floor, and that also helps tremendously to keep the cat fuzz and such at bay. Vacuum it regularly and things are fine. The factory built-in vacuum wasn't up to the task and so that too was removed and replaced with a modern "turbo" vacuum designed for apartment dwellers with limited space.

Odors are a big issue with motorhomes and sailboats, and they seem to be one of the first things that come up for discussion every time we talk with fellow full-time RV'ers or liveaboard sailers. We really don't have any problems with odors at the present, and I chalk that up to a combination of repeatedly and methodically looking for mold and water leaks (EVERY motorhome or boat leaks, it's just a matter of degree), coupled with the design of the Bluebird and regularly putting some chemicals into the holding tanks.

Not only does the Bluebird have exceptionally large holding tank capacity, but it also separates the "gray water" (kitchen sink and shower) from the "black water" (that's the nasty stuff that goes down the toilet). It's perfectly legal to empty the gray water in a pinch, and while gray water is really nothing but soapy water around here that stuff can develop a really potent sulphuric smell if you don't empty the tanks regularly. Thankfully there are chemicals to treat the sulphur smell, and if you do need to empty the gray tank into the grass the odor vanishes in about 5 minutes. Hell, in this part of Florida ALL of the brackish streams smell worse than the discharge from a gray water tank, so it's not a big deal.

At our workshop we have installed special electrical hookups for our motorhome but we don't have the proper waste hookups, so we fire up the Wanderlodge weekly and head over to a nearby RV park to empty the holding tanks. Nothing damages a motorhome quite like sitting all the time, so bringing the engine up to operating temperature and taking a little drive across town weekly helps to insure that we can pack up and be gone at any time should an emergency (read: "hurricane") arise.

~~~

Sometimes you eat bear. Other times, the bear eats you. Lately it's been a real case of the dreaded Maintenance Blues.

Firstly, Deb and I were at the local Publix grocery doing our weekly shoplifting when we heard that call on the PA that no one wants to hear: "Will the owner of a green BMW please come to the office."

Some poor, clearly pregnant gal ran into the back of Deb's car. Thankfully the young lady did the right thing and didn't run off. Her friend whispered to me as the driver sobbed "She's a bit hormonal" and I responded "Ya think?"

I am not even going to mention that the pregnant young lady wasn't even pulling into the space next to Deb's car. She was pulling into a space 2 spaces away when she managed to hit Deb's BMW. Yikes!

Result: One creased fender, and BMW says that they are going to have to replace the taillights because those got bent in the accident. No, I'm not making this up. Total: $1,600. Thankfully the other gal's insurance appears to be paying for the damages.

Then we have the case of the never-ending motorhome maintenance.

Actually, the Bluebird has proven to be much more reliable than I anticipated - which is a scary thought - but simply the general nature of an RV is that you need to keep on top of the issues.

Deb and I both came down with summer colds and we have discovered that two people in the close but comfy quarters of a 40 ft. motorhome causes us to keep passing colds back and forth. So Deb took off to a house where we maintain a satellite office and stayed away for what turned out to be about 10 days after one of her clients came down with strep throat.

In the meantime I thought that I would take care of some motorhome mechanical problems that had been put off.

We have been plagued with low water pressure almost from the time that we bought the 'bird. Lately we had noticed that when we filled up the water tank that we had a leak somewhere. The water tank is underneath the bed so pulling all of that mess apart called for me to sleep on the couch for a few days (I might add that the couch is one of those foldout bed things and was surprisingly comfortable).

Many months ago Yours Truly had replaced an electrically operated valve in the water system with a more robust hand turned valve and I was expecting that the leak would be part of the connections to the valve. Nope, those connections held well.

But when I looked closely I realized that an old filter in the system was clogged up and consequently was blowing apart when the pressure built up.

Solution: Cut the hoses and bypass that filter (there is actually a second filter that assures drinking quality water). Now we are leak free and as a surprise bonus the water pressure is actually higher than expected assuming that there is some water in the tank and that you run the water pump when you shower. Neat!

Trust me, this is a lot more civilized than taking a shower with salt water on the deck of a sailboat.

We did, however, suffer the first of what I would think of as being a "serious" mechanical problem, considering that my definition of serious is one that keeps you from moving.

I was getting ready to make my run to empty the holding tanks and the blasted bus wouldn't start!

So picture this as a worst-case scenario. Deb's not around, so I had actually put off the weekly trip to empty the holding tanks, said holding tanks are full to the bursting point, and I cannot get the bus running. Arghhhhh!

A mobile truck mechanic who works on tour buses came out and decided that there was something wrong with the starter and starter solenoid. So he crawled under the back of the bus and pulled the unit out (about the biggest starter motor that you have ever seen, I might add) but being as how this was Sunday I had to wait until Monday AM to get the parts.

Monday rolls around and I take the assembly to the local Freightliner truck dealer and ... drum roll please ... the starter works just fine on the workbench.

So rather than replace both the starter and solenoid assembly we decide to replace just the solenoid. The only problem is that the solenoid by itself isn't in stock, so that part has to be ordered and it doesn't arrive until the next day.

I pick up the solenoid but my mechanic buddy can't get back out until about 6PM that evening (ironically I was right behind him in traffic at one point as he was making his way to another job site).

We got the bus started but then start to experienced all manner of weird electrical problems. The alternator isn't producing any current, and the battery chargers that run off of house current are shorting out.

So it's back under the bus to figure out which cable is hooked up incorrectly. Between the two of us we figured it out but there were plenty of sparks, swearing, and smoke to go around.

That was a long night. Once we got the Bluebird running I drove her over to the nearby RV park, emptied the holding tanks (Thank You Lord!), ran back to the workshop, showered for what seemed like the first time in several days, and then headed to a nearby pub for a well-deserved cold one. I got there just before Last Call at 1:30AM. Whew!

Cost of repairs: About $700.

Emptying the getting-close-to-being-ripe poo tank: Priceless.

~~~

Like I said, sometimes you eat bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.

Someone has gone around and installed what I think of as video slot machines at a number of the local bars. They come with a copy of a letter from the local High Sheriff stating that they aren't really gambling machines and are legal in the State of Florida, so who am I to complain?

Deb has to be about the luckiest gambler that I have ever seen. She won over $500 on the slot machines at a Mississippi casino last year. Earlier this year she won just under $600 on one of the video machines here in town.

Last night she hit the jackpot not once, but twice, at the same bar.

Now, if we could just get some of that luck transferred to the Lotto ... ;)

Why Pyrates aren't encouraged to attend the Olympics

The bike is my now much-modified BMW K1100RS, which was brand spankin' new back in 1996. The official Atlanta Games sticker that is mentioned in the tale below is that white circle above the headlight. Directly below the Olympic sticker is a sticker for the US Cycling Federation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm enjoying watching the Beijing Olympic Games. From what I have seen the Chinese are taking the challenge 100% seriously and doing a great job. Despite the jokes about their Engrish not being really good (how good is your Mandarin? I know that mine sucks), barring disaster (knocking on wood) this promises to be one of the better Olympic Games.

ol' John is, as many of you know, an old bicycle racer. Before Yours Truly decided to get old and pudgy I held a Category 2 (second highest of five categories) license as an amateur bikie in the first year that I went from being a high school aged kid to being an over 18 year old cyclist. As a friend of mine once said, has beens are a dime a dozen, but it's better to be a has been than a never has been.

With that said, cycling and international bicycle racing has always held a special place in my heart.

In 1984 ol' John was able to obtain a complete pair of "season tickets" to all of the Los Angeles Olympics cycling events. Alas, I changed jobs, and the powers that be at Square D (at the time Lexington, Kentucky's 2nd largest employer) wouldn't allow me to take the time off. Being the Good Corporate Warrior that I was at the time, I conceded and sold my tickets. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that short gig at Square D turned out to be one of the dullest jobs that I ever worked whereas the LA Olympics were a stunning breakthrough for US cycling as several members of our cycling team medaled. Moral of the story for anyone faced with the choice between a job and doing something that you have your heart set on: corporate jobs are a dime a dozen. Not only was the job at Square D breathtakingly boring and many of the inmates there equally dull, but a few years later a French company bought the company and sent everyone that I had been working with packing.

In 20/20 hindsight I should have jumped ship and set sail for Los Angeles.

So now it's 1996, a dozen years have passed, and I was running my own truckin' business. The Olympics are in and around Atlanta, Georgia. I had a brand new, bright red, K1100RS BMW motorcycle and BMW was sponsoring much of the Olympics, as well as providing a fleet of motorcycles for various purposes. BMW sent me an invitation to a party in downtown Atlanta wherein they would have plenty of autos and bikes on display and I figured "Hey! Don't get much better than this."

I was all set to ride to the games and back. YES!

Well ... some of the games. To be fair I wanted to see the spectacle and experience the atmosphere, but what I really wanted to see was one event. The cycling time trial.

Now, every modern Olympics has bragged about their high level of security. Atlanta was no different. There wasn't any talk of getting Cooter and his huntin' dogs to guard the Atlanta Olympics. Nosiree. They were going high tech and looking out for troublesmakers and terrorists.

Imagine my surprise when I was in a BMW motorcycle dealership in North Carolina and saw what appeared to me to be the official and super-secret Olympics officials stickers plastered all over most of the motorcycles on the showroom floor. How could that be?

I talked to the sales manager and told her that, having worked as a motorcycle marshal for some cycling events that BMW provided bikes for (remember the Tour duPont?), that judging by the construction of the stickers that I was pretty sure that someone had sent her the official stickers by mistake. Very curious! And could I have a sticker or two?

She said that she thought that she had some extras at home. A few weeks later a package arrived at my house - a pair of Olympic motorcycle stickers. I was ready!

So I slapped a sticker on, fired up the red K-bike and headed across North Carolina, down into South Carolina (where I realized that I was riding right by BMW's shiny new-at-the-time Spartanburg assembly plant and museum and that certainly called for a visit), and on down into Georgia to Atlanta.

After a little checking around I was able to find a room at a hotel that was completely full of hard-drinking blue-collar Russians who came to see the games. Not only were those guys hilarious, but at one point I realized that my brand-new helmet was missing and I found it, sitting on top of my motorcycle, right outside the front door to the hotel. What are the odds that you could leave a $500 helmet sitting anywhere else for 4 hours and not have someone nick it? My new Russian pals were taking turns watching it for me.

On to the actual events themselves - I was able to ride right up to the curbside and watch the competitors during the cycling time trial because, with those official stickers, all the cops and corner workers thought that I was some sort of Potentate involved with the cycling events. It was a fantastic experience - I was able to see the great Miguel Indurain win the Gold Medal in the last major race of his long career.

Later that night I was also able to sneak right up to the party and exhibit that BMW had set up at the Hospitality Center in downtown Atlanta. Getting into there required that I ride two blocks going against traffic on one-way streets. When I did get stopped and took off my helmet and so forth the security guys at the BMW Hospitality Center sorta looked at each other, looked at me, checked my ID, and smiled and said that my new bike would look fine sitting there at the entrance. And to enjoy myself.

(I later heard that one reason why I was able to get to the Hospitality Center so easily was that the head of BMW Motorcycles North America was riding around on a new, red, R1100RS. I was there on my new, shiny, red, K1100RS. Supposedly the BMW security folks saw me, blocks away, on their television monitors).

Ah, those were the happy days of a misspent youth. I'd hate to try some of those stunts today, considering how paranoid many folks have gotten over security at events like the Olympics.

Today, the scene would be something like this:

Funny recollections, and one more little hill successfully climbed

July 4th reminded me of a funny time in my life. The time in about 1995 or so when I was living in Wilmington, NC and dating Ms. DC. And I had this pal named Steve.

Everyone should have a friend like Steve. Steve was so politically incorrect that he was just a hoot. He once had a license plate that read "BARFLY." No joke. And you mention just about any subject and Steve would get on a tangent that always involved something political and something conservative. But never PC. Yet Steve was a lot more funny than he was mean spirited.

Steve was pretty much the ultimate good ol' boy.

Steve was pretty seriously into firearms and fireworks. We had been out to his family's farm doing some target shootin' in the past and Steve had a collection of military-styled firearms that wasn't exactly kosher, if'n you get my drift. For most of the time that I knew Steve he was a parts guy at a Buick dealership but had recently been accepted in the training program for the local fire department.

One day Steve, knowing that I had moved to Wilmington, got in touch with me. Steve wanted to set off some fireworks.

OK, I thought. We can find a place on the beach somewhere where he could set off some stuff to his heart's content.

Naw, Steve had a particular location in mind. Only problem was that Steve was afraid that he'd set a nearby condo complex on fire.

So I was thinkin' "Wait a minute Man. Come back to the light. That's getting a little out of hand."

Turned out that Steve actually had a permit to do fireworks displays commercially, and he was managing the 4th of July display at an amusement park in Carolina Beach, NC.

Duh. Of course.

So the big day arrives and Ms. DC happens to be in town. We motorcycled over to Carolina Beach and Steve makes us part of the crew and we get VIP access to where the fireworks are going to be set off. Ms. DC is really happy and tells me that she REALLY likes fireworks displays.

OK.

Now, commercial grade fireworks aren't anything like the sparklers or fire crackers that you buy in Tennessee and take back to Indiana. Steve and his crew of two workers had spent a day digging holes in the sand. Mortars made of PVC pipe were inserted into the sand, explosives placed into those mortars, and when the fuse was lit a rocket would shoot out of the mortar.

And the rockets looked to me like they were about 6 inches in diameter. Nothing puny about this at all.

The event starts, and Steve, wearing a fireman's fireproof jacket, sets off the first few rounds.

The rockets scream skyward with a tremendous "whoosh." Flaming embers are on the ground, and the crew is quickly stomping out one or two little brush fires.

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh!"

"BANG!!!!!!"

The crowd, who are at a safe distance, are applauding.

Of course, I'm at Ground Zero, hanging out with the guys from the local fire department. The noise and the heat are much more intense than anything that any of us expected and the fire truck is rocking back and forth. About that time the Carolina Beach Fire Department decided that they had better move their truck. Pronto. AWAY from Ground Zero.

"Whoosh!"

"BANG!!!"

The truck gets moved, and the firemen and I are all hanging on the side of the fire truck, shielding us from the heat and smoke and flames.

About then I noticed that Steve's two helpers had taken early retirement and were hanging with the firemen and myself. Steve's running around wearing that fireproof coat - and shorts! - alternately lighting fuses and stomping out burning embers. But the helpers have had enough and are seeking shelter.

That's when I noticed that Ms. DC was missing.

I was thinking that, My God, Ms. DC was probably scared to death.

I looked around at the growing crowd that was seeking shelter next to the fire truck.

I even looked inside the cab of the fire truck.

I literally looked underneath the fire truck, thinking that perhaps she had crawled under there seeking shelter because, at this time, Ground Zero resembled a war zone.

No Ms. DC.

I walked to the fence and looked out at the crowd. No Ms. DC.

Now I was really getting worried. Poor girl probably ran away in fear, and she was no doubt PO'd at me because I wasn't paying attention to her and keeping her away from danger.

I walked back to the fire truck and I was just getting ready to walk up to say something to Steve when I saw her. Ms. DC was sitting on the opposite side of the fire truck from where all of us manly men were hiding. She was sitting on the steps of the fire truck, all by herself, with a primo view of ground zero. Basically getting a sun burn from the glow of all of those pyrotechnics, and breathing in the fumes from all of those explosives.

That girl REALLY had a thing for fire works ;)

And Steve? Well, the last time that I checked Steve was Captain Steve at a major metropolitan fire department.

It's a funny world that we live in.

Oh, and the image at the top of the page? I found it online. That's literally the same venue, just a few years later. Small world.

~~~

Here's the source of my biggest irritation so far this summer:

Don't recognize 'em? Look at the three sets of grills on the lower side of our motorhome. Those are our CruisAir air conditioners.

At best, motorhome air conditioning is a bit of a black science. Even when brand new, and regardless of brand, they usually only promise to cool the interior 20 degrees, so if it's 120 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona at 5PM it's going to be 100 degrees inside the RV and there's not much that you can do about it, except to abandon ship and hit the pubs early.

The Bluebird, being the best-of-the-best when it was built 25 years ago, specified CruiseAir units for the first few years of production and then switched to more conventional overhead units like you see on your average motorhome.

Supposedly the CruiseAirs work really well. When they are working right.

At least CruiseAir is still in business. Only they make very few RV air conditioners these days. Most of their production is geared towards yachts.

It's a clever unit. The compressor is down below the interior floor where there is little noise. Alas, the condenser unit is buried wayyyy back in the interior cabinetry, which means that it takes an Act of Congress and a week's work to remove one.

And did I mention that it's very difficult to get to the compressor units to work on them because the bus has to be lifted, and none of our local rv dealers has a lift strong enough to lift the Bluebird?

A buddy of mine said that the CruisAirs are actually pretty easy to work on. Then again, he used to own a valve-manufacturing company, and has a grease pit in his personal garage where he works on his Bluebird. And, oh yeah. His new bus has overhead air conditioners anyway.

Another downside to a CruisAir unit is that they require quite a bit of power to run them and even more power to start the compressor. Many motorhomes and travel trailers can make do with 30 amp. electrical service. The 'bird requires 50 amp. service, which we are discovering is practically non-existent in Mexico. On 30 amp. service we would be lucky to run one of the units at a time, never mind all three of them.

We have three separate CruiseAir "basement" units. The bedroom unit at least works like a champ.

I got a household A/C tech out to check the things out and he concluded that the center unit was essentially dead and that the front unit was working awfully hard to cool anything.

As our Florida summer got hotter, the less effective that front unit had become.

Prevost, the big Canadian bus builder, has a service center here in Jacksonville. Hell, Prevost owned Bluebird for a few years! The local Prevost garage declined to work on the CruiseAir units, saying that they hadn't had a lot of luck repairing them. Luck? I was beginning to think that Voodoo and black magic was the only way we would every get the A/C running properly.

Bluebird said that if we'd drive up to Georgia then they'd be happy to look at them but that we should expect to hang out around the plant for a week waiting for parts.

And CruiseAir's closest authorized repair shop, down in Tampa, commented that they were used to working on yachts and had never even seen a CruisAir unit installed in a motorhome. They actually referred us to an RV shop that was up the coast a bit from them.

This was starting to suck. Fast. Things were getting to the point where the 'bird was so hot by 2-3PM that we were scheduling ourselves to be out and running errands in the afternoon.

The first owner of our Bluebird Wanderlodge must have had some similar problems because they had added a conventional Coleman overhead unit to the front of the bus. That unit had never worked during the tenure of the 2nd owner (we are the third owners) and I discovered many moons ago that the power to that a/c unit was disconnected. Running a temporary electrical cable had resulted in the factory wiring shorting out and a near fire, so understandably we weren't going to reconnect that sucker.

The solution? Striking out on getting anyone to repair the CruisAirs, we decided to replace that overhead unit.

After a bit of research we settled on a Coleman Mach III PS "power saving" unit. Requiring 10.5 amps to start one of these things (contrasting with 15 amps for a comparable standard Coleman unit) the savings in electricity should pay for the slightly higher purchase cost. More importantly we expect to be able to use the PS unit at campgrounds where we are unable to get 50 amp service.

With a little detective work ol' John was able to track the original wiring for the overhead unit back to where it had been disconnected. Unbolting that old unit and swapping for a newer unit proved to be surprisingly uneventful, with a friend helping me manhandle the 100 lb. a/c units on and off the roof.

I had some concerns about disposing of the old unit, but after I put it on the curb in the evening some scavenger grabbed it before the next morning. Go figure. You have to love living in a semi-industrial area.

After a week's worth of experience with the new Coleman we have been very pleased with it. In conjunction with the old bedroom unit, the Coleman has been able to keep the front area of our motorhome cool despite having two warm adults working on computers and watching television pretty much 24/7. (As an aside computers and televisions put out a tremendous amount of heat - switching everything over to LCD monitors earlier this spring made a noticeable difference).

If we continue to have good luck with the Coleman unit I expect that we'll add a second one to replace the center A/C unit, which these days basically works as just a ventilation system.

The fate of the installed CruisAir units is uncertain. I could remove them and save the weight. One the other hand getting them working again is tempting, because one thing that you learn from living and working in a motorhome is that backups for all essential systems is a wise idea, and everywhere that we travel to makes A/C practically mandatory. My friendly A/C tech told me that he would be interested in fiddling with them during his off season and I guess that I could put all 23 tons of Bluebird bus up on wooden blocks at our workshop in order to get in under the thing and to lower the units down. Not a small job, for certain.

Stay tuned.

Here's the new Coleman unit (the white box) installed on the roof:

And here's the old unit after being hoisted off the roof. Can you believe that after I left this on the curb for the garbage man that someone took it?

~~~

Been writing and riding a little bit lately.

Got a few more chapters of my (presumably) first novel roughed out. I have been making a point to drop every thing else and hit one of our local pubs early in the day before the noisy regulars got in. Yeah, it's a tough gig but someone has to do it. Deb has been encouraging me to grab a pitcher of beer and to write. Bless her heart.

~~~

I was hanging out with some former club members of our now-defunct vintage motorcycle club last Monday. They have been having get togethers at a place called the Fly's Tie in Atlantic Beach, FL. Interesting place; it's a seriously Irish bar owned by a seriously Irish family. Ralph used to have some really great food there, much better than you would associate with a small bar, before the anti-smoking laws forced the closure of the kitchen. Ralph's girlfriend was, back in the day, a singer in a name Celtic band and they managed to book some other well-known bands into this tiny little bar. If you are familiar with a band called Flogging Molly, imagine them singing in a bar that doesn't hold more than maybe two dozen people. Talk about a great private show!

If you are in Atlantic Beach, Florida and looking for a pint, let me suggest the legendary Fly's Tie.

177 Sailfish Drive E, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233-4126. Phone: (904) 246-4293

~~~

Hanging at the Fly's Tie I ran into my pal Scott, who was a loyal regular of the vintage motorcycle club. We discussed doing a little riding, and since I needed to pick up some parts and kick some tires at BMW of Daytona in a few days we made an afternoon of the the trip.

After leaving BMW of Daytona we headed over to my favorite Irish pub in Daytona Beach, the
Tir na nOg. Thank God they had cold Bass Ale on draft, because as I mentioned previously Bass on draft has been getting scarce in these parts. We were there on a Wednesday which was a bit slow, but if you catch the 'nOg on a night when there is a band or the rugby guys are there it's a hoot. Tir na nOg - 612 E International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32118 (386) 252-8662 www.tirnanogpub.com/

Scott outside the Tir na nOg. That reflective thing right behind Scott, incidentally, is my jet black K1200LT. Pretty effective graphics. Yes, I do have this thing about getting my ass run over in the middle of the night and I do like lots of lights and reflective tape :

~~~

If you follow the financial news you are probably aware that InBev of Belgium bought that American standard, Anheuser-Busch, brewer of Budweiser.


Hmmm ... Stella Artois and Bass Ale are InBev products. Busch and Budweiser are A-B products.


Here's to hoping that no jobs are lost in the merger, but I am cautiously optimistic that Stella will bring better beers to a wider distribution here in the USA.

~~~



An Alabama-based friend of mine from the BMW bike circles is doing a contract programming gig here in Jacksonville for the next few months. We were discussing going the the open house at the local Honda dealer. That place is literally within bicycling distance from our workshops and I figured "Why not?" Bikes, burgers, and young nymphets washing motorcycles. What's not to love, right?


All kidding aside, in years past this particular Honda dealer was a big supporter of the Iron Butt Association and was a stop in an Iron Butt Rally in years gone by. Now their business seems to be all about sport bikes for kids (it was amazing how many used bikes they had for sale that had obviously taken one slow, sliding accident and then presumably the owner decided to get rid of it) and cruisers, but few touring bikes.


Robert and the ladies. Three guesses which one is Robert:






And what kind of idiot rides a bicycle to a motorcycle function, right? Even if the bicycle comes complete with an Iron Butt Association/Long Distance Riders sticker:

Please note - I may be moving my blog to another service!

I hate to start off on a negative note, but I may have to move this blog to another service.

Blogger, which is a Google product, is having some significant problems with "spam blogs" which, as I understand it, are blogs that are run by robots and repeat nonsense just to screw up the search engines.

Should this blog move, the new address will be http://www.piratejohn.wordpress.com/

I am sure that spam blogs read like some of the political blogs that are out there lately, but I digress.

Anyhow, in their infinite wisdom, the Blogger robots decided that my blog was a spam blog and so they locked it pending a review by real, live humans.

After about 10 days, Google finally released my blog from their idea of probation.

Judging from what I have been reading in some of the Blogger support groups I am far from being alone. Many people are commenting that they are experiencing the same problems and there are no human beings available to review and unlock the blogs. Google's Blogger product, it seems, has zero telephone number or email addresses with which to reach a real, live human being. Talk about frustrating!

Even worse, it appears that many blogs will get unlocked, and then, a few days later, get locked again and the cycle of inaction repeats itself as Google's software just won't learn.

Needless to say I am not impressed. For those of us who are trying to stay in touch with friends literally worldwide not having a working blog is ... well ... not very biznesslike.

Assuming that my blog gets unlocked long enough to send out this note to my faithful readers I am going to move the blog *IF* they lock this one again. Fun's fun, but it's time to move on if Blogger/Google cannot get their act together.

Once again, *IF* I have to move the blog, the new address will be http://www.piratejohn.wordpress.com/

Hopefully that won't happen, because I feel that Blogger has a good product. Just lousy customer support.

And for those of you who just cannot miss my periodic posts (that's "periodic," not "idiotic" or at least hopefully those are your feelings;) I usually announce a new post on my joke list, the Humourlist.

I've done the HumourList for something like 15 years with the goal of delivering an office-safe joke daily 4-5 times a week. The list is for adults, but I avoid anything that would be obviously offensive in most workplaces, like nudity, political, or ethnic jokes. I do very few ethnic jokes although I do enjoy laughing with, but not at, my Irish ancestors.

Back in the Olden Days when jokes by email was a newish phenomenon the HumourList had a pretty good following. Playboy Magazine published my jokes a few times and a number of radio stations used them. I well remember flying into Guam and one of the first things that I heard on the radio was the DJ reading my joke for the day on the air.

Bizarre. Must have been a slow day in Agana.

Times change, and jokes by email are no longer anything that unique. Still the HumourList continues. So if you want to subscribe to the HumourList (and that will keep you in touch with this blog, no matter where it moves to) you can subscribe at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HumourList

~~~

Technology changes too. Remember when the Sony Walkman came out? Kind of a chunky device that played back music on cassette tapes and later from CDs? If that's your frame of reference then you need to get thyself over to Circuit City ASAP and take a look at the new music players. The iPod generation has arrived, and it's already having some really brilliant grandchildren.

Apple's iPod was the original revolutionary innovator in this segment but I needed an MP3 player that had a built in FM radio and that eliminated the iPod from my selection. Thankfully there is no shortage of competitors willing to sell 2, 4, and 8 gigs of storage space for $60 to $150 with a sleek form factor, just to keep Apple honest these days.

In the final analysis I wound up getting a SanDisk View, which is meant to be a tiny video player as much as an MP3 player. I needed something with a form factor that was large enough that I could handle it while wearing gloves and I needed to be able to actually see it when I was riding my motorcycles and bicycles without inadvertently riding off the highway. That eliminated the tiny, tiny MP3 players that are on the market, at least for my purposes, 'cause I can't read the displays on those things without reading glasses. Yeah, it sucks getting older.

My little 8 gigabyte MP3 player isn't the tiniest one out there by any stretch. Still, it's amazing that the vendor can cram that much storage plus an FM radio into an ultra thin little piece of plastic.

In the photo is my SanDisk Sansa. In the background, just for comparison purposes, is my old CD-playing Walkman and Deb's very tiny 2 gigbyte Sansa clip, which she picked up when I was looking for my own MP3 player.

Technology does indeed move on.

~~~

Movie reviews:

Ironman. Go and see it. Robert Downey, Jr. may enjoy a well-earned reputation in some circles as a jerk, but he's the right actor for this part and the movie has a ton of personality and quirky humour. Special effects are ... well ... believable for a science fiction.

The Incredible Hulk. If Ironman gets an A, give the Hulk a B. I enjoyed the flick and it's a ton better than the last Hulk movie, but not as good as Ironman. Still highly enjoyable however.

Incidentally, am I the only one who finds it either scary or disappointing that the best movies of the last decade or so are coming out of comic books? This stuff is good escapist entertainment, but as much as I enjoyed the X-Men, for example, when I was a kid it ain't exactly War and Peace.

Next, go and see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Crystal Skull follows the same general theme as the original Indiana Jones films, but updated to the 1960's with a more mature Harrison Ford. This film is like visiting old friends, and if you've seen the other Indiana Jones films then there is little suspense in the plot, but it's still a pleasant romp.

Finally, Hancock got two thumbs up from Deb and myself. Will Smith does an excellent job of bringing some humility and believability to this tale of a lonely and bitter superhero who drinks too much and who has less than a sterling attitude. Hancock is a different sort of comic bookish figure, that's for sure. Hancock's advertising campaign is more comical than the film is, which has some pretty adult, gritty moments. There is a pretty interesting and surprising plot twist. All in all, a good film, but not really for youngsters.

Now that I'm on a non-conventional schedule, I am rediscovering all sorts of neat little things that you don't realize when you work 9 to 5. One of those things is that our local mega- movie theatre shows films for $5 during the day Monday through Thursday. If you too are working at home or have a schedule that gives you the time for personal errands during week days you might look into your local theater's policies.

~~~

Summer's here folks. Get your Walkman or iPod out and walk around your neighborhood. Or, for that matter, walk to your local theatre. It's time to get out and do stuff!

Misc. ramblings

In their infinite wisdom, Amazon has decided to reprint my 2005 book on motorcycling in Northeastern Florida. You can buy a copy at

http://www.amazon.com/PirateJohns-Unique%C2%AE-Motorcycling-Northeastern-Florida/dp/141960872X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213555517&sr=1-2

or, if that link doesn't work, go to http://www.amazon.com/ and search for "PirateJohn" (one word).

I wish that they had done this a few years ago when there was a demand for the book and I was sold out, but I guess "better late than never" applies here.
~~~~

Here we are, grabbing a little breakfast at a really nice little place a number of blocks away. We had the bus out in the morning for some errands and decided to stop by on the way home.

Walking or riding our bicycles around the neighborhood has become our morning routine and I highly recommend getting some exercise for those of you so inclined. And breakfast at the local little restaurants is turning out to be a great way to get the mornings started. I'm trying to wean myself off of some of my arthritis meds and am discovering that bicycling and a little aspirin in the morning go a long way towards loosening those stiff joints without taking a dose of mystery chemicals in the morning.

~~~

In the sport touring or long distance touring (or whatever else you want to call it) motorcycling communities we do a number of "RTE" events. Ride to eat. Basically an excuse to get on the road, have a meal, and return.

I saddled up the Phantom Cruiser, a/k/a our K1200LT last night and rode up to meet some friends who were having dinner at Hooters in Savannah, Georgia. Yeah, we really did go to Hooters for the wings, but that's beside the point.

Actually, we all ran up (or ran over; most of the folks were in Savannah to begin with) to meet up with my pal Robert Munday, who has organized a number of Internet BMW Riders gigs over the years and well understands the RTE mentality.

Robert was in Savannah to visit his uncle, who is now in a rest home. Time flies, because I remember Robert's uncle as a sprightly World War II vet who had been a guide at Savanah's legendary Mighty 8th Air Force Museum ( http://www.mightyeighth.org/word/index.php ). Hard to believe that it's been 6 years since Robert's uncle gave several of us riders that tour of the museum. Uncle Stan had been aboard two airplanes that crashed during WWII and didn't have a fear of flying, but he had a bad experience on a motorcycle as a young man and wouldn't ride. Life's funny that way.

Now, at age 92, time is catching up with him. Just as it does with all of us, I'm afraid.

If the truth is to be known, I've ridden very little during the last few years. Oh, I was commuting to the office every day on a motorcycle, but I haven't ridden long distances for some time. And after being a 20 year member of the biggest BMW motorcycle national club, I had let my membership lapse as I concentrated on our motorhome and other projects.

I guess that when you have literally written The Book on motorcycle touring in your part of the country that sometimes it's tough to find new riding experiences.

Now I confess that the itch to start riding again is coming back.

So it was great fun to saddle up the LT and to ride through the rain yesterday in order to have dinner with old friends, and then to drag back into Jacksonville around midnight. It was good seeing everyone - even if I was disappointed that some of the "usual crowd" from years past in Savannah didn't materialize - but the ride at night brought back memories of the best of motorcycling. On I-95 after dark your fate is in your own hands as you mix it up with cars, trucks, road surfaces of varying quality (Georgia is rebuilding what seems to be literally every bridge and overpass in that part of the state), and that #1 terror of motorists everywhere: the Yankee tourist. Pretty demanding riding, that's for sure.

But the temperatures were perfect with the rains keeping the summer heat at bay, and the LT offers plenty of radio and communication options to keep a rider awake and interested. Last night was a perfect night for the road warrior, and the good ol' Phantom Cruiser was as happy to be out of the garage and running along as I was to be happy being the pilot.

On a cool night, at a steady 70 mph, and lightly loaded the fancy computer indicated that I was getting a really lazy 44.5 miles per gallon. Not too shabby for a performance-oriented motorcycle that was built in that seemingly long lost days when gasoline was cheap and (we always thought) plentiful.

I often feel that motorcycles and good motor vehicles have a soul. Perhaps they have more soul in them than some of the people that I have met over the years. Last night was a perfect example of that as the Phantom Cruiser so obviously rejoiced in being cleaned up and set free to do what she does the best - eat those miles like an athlete.

Yesterday was good, indeed.

Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana

During our last trip to the New Orleans area Deb and I drove down into Plaquemines Parish, which is where the road runs out roughly 100 miles due south of New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with Cat. 3 winds but it is widely believed that the southern tip of Plaquemines was actually hit with Cat. 4 winds. No one knows for sure, because the wind measuring instruments were destroyed. A tidal gauge in Plaquemines did, however register a storm tide in excess of 14 ft. Yikes!

And with a height of 3 ft. above sea level in the little hamlet of Buras, Louisiana, there wasn't any place to go to if you were foolish enough to try to ride out the storm. The place is quite like the Florida Keys in that there is only one road in. And one road out.

Plaquemines is an interesting industrial area. Petroleum production is king, with several refineries in the parish. Further out and closer to the southern end of the parish you run across shipyards and helicopter fleets dedicated to servicing the offshore. There is a small commercial fishing industry, and there was a small sport industry before the hurricane. At the present time there are plenty of fishing boats up for sale and the sport fishing industry looks pretty dead. We had trouble finding gasoline and didn't see anything that looked like a working motel, so you can tell that things are dire economically unless you are workin' for one of the oil companies.


Plaquemines is basically a narrow peninsula, with the Mississippi River on one side and an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico on the other. In many ways being out in Plaquemines Parish reminds me of driving through the Florida Keys, but with a cajun flavor.


About the first thing that caught our attention was this big gambling boat in a scrapyard:

Down here the ships are pretty durned close to the houses and the highway. We drove over the levy and watched the pilot boats heading out to guide this ship into the Mississippi River:

Like I said, there were some pretty impressively sized ships not far from the highway. This part of Plaquemines Parish reminds me quite a bit of Savannah, Georgia where ocean-going ships cruise down the river near downtown, but in the case of Plaquemines the ships are much larger; there were some big muthas out there in the Mississippi! :

There are a couple of VERY large refining complexes in the parish. Ironically, this one small pump was one of the few pumps that we saw; most of the oil is coming from the offshore platforms which are out in the Gulf of Mexico:

It doesn't take you too long before you start seeing the first FEMA trailers. The trailers are everywhere. Find a nice looking house and as you get closer you realize that the house is trashed, the windows are out, and there are two or three trailers in the yard.

And there are communities of FEMA trailers everywhere:

Basic services were trashed. We got concerned that we would run out of gas after stopping at several stations that didn't have gasoline in the tanks. Finally we put a couple of gallons of regular into our SUV, which was, painfully, meant to run on premium fuel.


There were few groceries open on the end of the parish, and restaurants ... well, forget it. There ain't none.

I thought this was interesting because the fire department was still trashed, several years after Katrina blew through. In my semi-limited experience with disasters, I always thought that the Feds repaired the emergency services fairly early on:

Finally, we got down to the end of Plaquemines Parish, literally where the road ran out. When we crossed Haliburton Drive we knew that oil was in command here.

At the end of the state highway the road was flooded (the Mississippi was unusually high for that time of year). Even though there is supposed to be some sort of nature park at the end of Plaquemines Parish the only visible aspect was a small compound (and by small I mean maybe 200 ft by 200 ft.), fenced in, with no personnel, the gates locked, and a gunboat inside.

Clearly petroleum production gets the nod down here, although, in fairness, it appears that the bulk of that preserve is out in the water somewhere and presumably accessible only by boat.

If you look closely at this display of wildlife posters, you can see the gunboat anchored behind the signs:

Wedged between the various oil patch operations there are some commercial fishing operations:

But make no mistake about it. Plaquemines Parish, and the people that live there, are all about the oil production industry:

It's just too bad that the workers living down there seem to have been forgotten in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Keep the faith folks, and don't forget that, years later, Louisiana is still rebuilding and that the folks down there are still struggling.