Hello All John Here.

I thought today was going to turn out quite mundane, but excitement soon set in with the arrival of the Door Lock mechanism I had ordered about a week ago. Shortly after the UPS guys dropped it off, the WiFi company called, and said they would be out today too. And to think I was afraid I wouldn't have anything to do since I ran out of work for Tom, and nothing had arrived yet.

So first, I started to tear into the door. I decided last week to go ahead and order a new door lock mostly because ours was getting 'Sloppy" and after seeing another fellow winnie owner literally be locked out because the mechanism failed, and even with a key he still had to dismantle the lock from the inside to open the door, I figured if I could find one reasonably (as in not the $350.00 price Winnie wanted, but less than $100.00) I should change it. Add to that our auto lock solenoid was bad again, so I could kill a couple problems at once. The part arrived, it was what I thought to be correct, so I began to strip down the door. After getting the old one out I saw some key differences. One being the Deadbolt was way shorter on the new one, and the other being the trip mechanism was way different. I determined that there was no way to make the new part work unless I scavenged some parts from the old assembly, which this meant I would have to reuse the catch mechanism, which did not look worn, but I would have rather installed the new one. Either way, I made it work. I also replaced the solenoid for the lock, and by some odd coincidence the one I found on Amazon is the actual OEM one that not even Winnie carried any longer. I had a bit of a laugh out of that since the last two I installed both had to be "Ghetto Engineered" to work, which mostly entailed an elaborate "Zip Tie" holding system. This one fit in the door pocket, and screwed right in place. The best part, I found it on Amazon for $3.00. The last one was over $70.00. After getting everything set right, I decided to burn up some of the packaging material that comes with our Seattle Sutton meals. The aluminum faced bubble wrap is awesome insulation, and I have wanted to insulate the door for some time now since it is one of the coldest spots on the camper. I cut several pieces to size, and glued them in with 3M Super Headliner Glue. We will see if it adds insulating properties, but it certainly did "Deaden" the door noise a lot, so I suspect it will help keep the temp in here too. I am still amazed why Winnie didn't think they should insulate a huge steel hollow door?

Here is a pic of the new lock installed, but sans insulation. I was going to take a pic post-insulating, but it was threatening rain and I wanted to get the job done (Well, I mostly forgot until I had the door trim back on, and wasn't going to take it off again).



After I got that all wrapped up I ran to get some spare keys made. I found 'Butch's Lock and Key' on Salisbury, cool old time lock shop, and one of the very few businesses that have survived the "Urban Blight" of that area. Nice people, and he even had my goofy Trimark blanks, which no one else seems to even know who Trimark is unless they are an RV dealer...

In other Motor Home News, I got a call back from Eric, the guy who I called a week ago about recovering the couch. He said he is still trying to find the fabric, and wanted some more information on the couch itself. I think he mostly called to feel me out on pricing. I reminded him it would need to get done quickly as I am not sure how much longer we will be here... He said he would get back to me in a day or so. Even if the cost of recovering comes close to the new "Seat Craft" sofa, I think we would be better off having this one recovered. This sofa is a designer series Flexsteel, which to replace with similar today would be about $2300.00. The "Seat Craft" isn't near the quality, but in the big picture I just can not justify spending more than $1000.00 on a sofa. We will see how this turns out...

Ok, So back to the WiFi. They have the new equipment installed, but the tech was having some trouble at the end getting the router into "Bridge" mode. He after several attempts through AT&T customer service he was quite irritated, and I think burnt out for the day, so he said he would be back in the morning. They did do a pretty decent job installing and removing the old equipment, and ran new wires, etc. Hopefully this will all work out tomorrow, and the park will again have decent WiFi.

About 3:00 the Mail finally showed up here, and I had some work stuff come. I didn't start on it yet, so I will have lots to do tomorrow. I don't know what is up with the mail here lately but after we lost our regular girl, it has been REALLY bad. I am contemplating calling the post master to bitch, the new people are Awful. Delivering mail from people who haven't been here for months that have forwards on file, and it seems to take at least an extra day to get my stuff from Milwaukee. Must be nice to have a federal job...

No real news on Derek's employment. He has been putting out resume's left and right, hopefully we will get a hit soon. Tom called today with an interesting offer, that I am strongly considering. He has been interviewing for a second shift dispatcher, and hasn't really found the right candidate. With the spring surge coming he wants to get someone in place, but, with so many unknowns he is reluctant to hire anyone. He asked if I wanted to fill that spot temporarily while Derek is looking. The positives of it is that Tom is well aware I have no intentions of remaining in that role permanently, or really even long term temporarily. He needs the help now, which would help us out as a bit of a bridge. It would also aide in building the relationship I have with Jason. Tom is also well aware that if Derek needed to go to Timbucktoo, we would be gone immediately. The negative is that Rent at State Fair Park isn't exactly cheap (now it's $800.00/month). I am looking at a couple other places that might pan out, so that might not be as big of a negative as I think, but in any case, it is much more than we are paying for here. It is also second shift, which has it's good points and bad, but I am normally not a second shift sorta guy... and it involves some weekends, though Tom has always been more than flexible in the past, so I am not overly concerned about that. The biggest negative is running up to Milwaukee away from the park here, as I really don't want to leave Lynn & George hanging heading into the camping season. I am going to think about it for a day or so and get back to him. We really wanted to hang out for the summer in STL, but that is starting to look more and more less likely.

Anyhow, that is about all I have.

Have a good night.

John

Hello all John here...

Weather here continues on with the spring like feel, almost like mother nature is taunting us to get ready for the warm temps but we all know she is gonna slam us one more time with a wintery blast. We did get some rain late last night, and then a few drops this afternoon, but it continued to be in the 50's, and may have reached 60 today.

Last night we went out with David and Jacob. They are here on business and staying in the RV park. Saw the URL on the camper and emailed us late last week. We decided it would be fun to show them a few of the bars on Manchester... We started at Rehab, then Attitudes, then Just Johns, and finally back to Rehab for bar close. Yeah Imagine that, I made it till bar close... Actually it was a fun evening, even though I am so getting old, and was quite irritated with the overly loud music, and smoky bars, it was still fun.

Tonight when they get done they wanted to do dinner, but we haven't seem them yet, so they might be tied up with there show yet. So much for the diet this weekend...

Some Drama in the park again last night. From what I understand about 9:00 last night 4 or 5 squad cars came swooping in, they had a tracked someone with a warrant from Kentucky staying with one of the residents in the park. The Resident claims he had no idea about the warrant or the "Missing Car", and that it was an acquaintance he met in a bar that was passing through and needed a place to crash for the evening. Personally, I think it sounds a little fishy, but the resident so far has been a fairly decent guy. I am sure he's on Lynn's radar now, and she will be watching him.

This afternoon, we decided to go check out the "Liquidation" sale that David and Jacob are vending at. It was in the old Office Max location on Manchester. We both sorta miss the flea markets that we down south, and this was similar... only a tad more ghetto. David says they did quite well at the show here even though the guy who puts it on didn't get much advertising out. It did seem fairly busy. They resell computer equipment, so we figured it would be fun to go check it out. There was also a car audio guy there, and I have been looking for an amplifier that will replace the crappy DHS one in the motor home. I have yet to find one with dual switched inputs, so chances are likely I am going to have to pay what RiverPark wants for the OEM one, which is so not worth it. It would be nice though to have the surround sound working on all channels. again.

After the show we had to make a Target run for Milk, soap, and a few other items. Derek wanted to get his hair cut, so I dropped him off, and did the little bit of shopping. I then ran into Bed Bath and Beyond looking for a decent 2 qt pitcher. We ad a gallon jug we were using, but the opening wasn't big enough to clean it, and I was using it for Crystal Light knock off drink mix... So we scratched that idea and I found a fairly decent polycarbonate one. I wanted a nice glass one, but I have yet to find one that suits my taste or isn't too expensive. This will be fine until it gets all scratched up like polycarb tends to do...

Saturday I did get another work packet, so I will have stuff to do Monday. I could have started on it this weekend, but then decided that it could wait and I would enjoy the nice weekend...

That's all I have to report. Have a good evening.


John

Hello all, John here.

Wow, Wednesday already. Derek is a slacker dainty princess.

We have had some sun the last couple days. But it has still been quite cool. I guess 40 is better than less, so I won't complain a whole lot.

So, I guess I will start with Monday. I spent most of the day working on work stuff I had been sort of putting off. Got most of it done, and spent some time dealing with the WiFi contract for the park. Lynn was hemming a hawing a bit, mostly because the old system started to work OK for a couple days. Monday it went down, and I think that finally convinced her we needed to do something. I know there are a few in the park that won't be happy because they will have to pay for the WiFi now, but tough-- going with WiFiRV will be a good thing, and the park will have good service.

I had to pick up our food at the distributor at 3:00, so off I went. Drama happening there... When I arrived John (our distributor) told me that there was a note in our meals, and this would be the last week he would be our distributor. Of course I inquired as to what was going on, since I thought the time spent searching for info about Seattle Sutton would have revealed any bad business practices. He explained he had no idea, that he was just notified that day there was a note in the meals that we would have to go on Home Delivery, instead of picking them up, and that he had not even seen the note yet, as they were sealed in our meal boxes. I said, well, lets open on so you know, and we pulled it out. Didn't say much other than that we had to call Corporate to place our orders... I asked what was up again, and got some background on the Franchisee, and told him I would let him know if I found out more. So being the nosey fuck that I am, I called the 800 number as soon as I got home, but it went to the Franchisee, who proceeded to tell me that they had no idea what was going on, and gave me the number to call Ottawa and that I should "Give them a good piece of my mind." So loaded for bear, I gave the number a call, after all, if I was going to spend this kind of cash for prepackaged food, the company I am going to buy from will have the decency to at least notify their distributors before they can them... So I called, and Seattle Sutton herself answered the line, and explained as much of the situation as she legally could on the phone.



She wouldn't say what was up, but apparently they have had some run in's with this franchisee for quite a while, and they notified them 90 days ago that this would be happening. The Franchisee choose not to inform the distributors, and Ottawa couldn't because of the franchise agreement. She apologized up and down, and told me to call her Daughter Ruth for more information. After 30 more minutes on the phone talking about eating healthy, and me whining about how much I dislike Kiwi, and her literally telling me to quit whining and eat it, I called Ruth. Ruth didn't have much more information, but did express her concern, and would make sure that the home delivery team contacted us if we wanted to keep the program going. Both ladies were very friendly, and I do think they are doing their best to retain customers in a rather ugly situation. I did think it was pretty cool that the business owner answered the phone and spent so much time with me.

Tuesday morning Paula called as Ruth promised she would, and explained the pricing for home delivery. It works out that we actually save $.25 a week (Yeah, a whole quarter) by having the meals delivered by UPS. They will come refrigerated with Dry Ice in a cooler box. The savings is because they don't have to charge sales tax from IL to MO. Cool. It saves us the hassle and gas to go get them too then!

Now, I am still struggling with the food, but I can still say I am not hungry between meals, and it is healthy. So far the only things I haven't eaten all of have been the yogurt (I can't stand it-- ever, but I did try it). And I had enough Kiwi so I passed on it for one meal. Though the "Fun" of eating has gone away somewhat, but that probably isn't a bad thing in my case. I am continuing to loose weight, so that is a good thing too.

Moving on. Tuesday I spent most of the day with work stuff then we had a bit of an impromptu Saint Louis RV Club dinner at the Tap Room (yes I know we cheated). Doug, Mike, and Rich S. were there, and Doug wanted to talk about what to do about Rainbow RV, etc. We did, and I think we were all pretty much on the same page. I sort of ended up in the middle of it all since I have been a big proponent of RRV with the STL group, and had some discussions with Doug about it. I think Doug's path has the best interest of the STL group in mind, and he will make things work. Dinner was OK, I had a Ruben, which was WAY too much food after eating these little meals, I probably shouldn't have finished it but it was pretty good. Derek was much more behaved, and had the ground turkey stuffed red pepper special, which he said was alright.

Today, I started off by taking Derek's lunch to work for him since he forgot it. While I was in the parking lot, Jason called from Donahue. He seems to have a knack of only calling when I am not home. Anyhow, I talked to him for a while about some changes, and hopefully I am convincing him my way is better . After that I ran to Office Depot to get a longer network cable for Derek, since our WiFi has been funky (I think there is something/someone interfering with it, and I can't seem to find a clear channel.) and of course more printer ink. I am going to have to start billing Tom for ink, it is getting sorta crazy as I think this is the 4 cartridge in the last month.

After I returned the AT&T guy was here to install the neighbors DSL line. I told him I would help him string the wire to his RV since we had to put a pole on it to bridge the site next to him. The AT&T installer was quite the jerk. Whining about having to work a little, and how he should have to climb phone pole after 36 years on the job. All the time I am thinking "you little bitch-- YOUR AN INSTALLER, WTF do you think you should be doing for your outrageous union salary?" In the end he got it done, but I do think if someone wouldn't have been around he would have just said to hell with it and left. Too bad, because the last guy that came out to hook up mine was actually a pretty decent guy.

Tomorrow they are supposed to come out again to installed the new DSL line for the new WiFi system that is coming. We needed to upgrade for the faster speed, and for a static IP, plus the modem they have is ancient, and really needs to be replaced too. I heard back from WiFiRV with the signed contract, and hopefully soon their tech will be here to install the new WiFi system. They have to ship the equipment here form CT yet, and supposedly will have the tech come out yet this week to do the site survey. With some luck we should be up and running in less than 2 weeks with the new system, and not have any gap in coverage.

So that brings up up till now. I had some more work stuff arrive today, but mail didn't get here till late so I probably won't deal with it till tomorrow or Friday. It is nice to set my own hours.

Anyhow, have a good night. I really don't have any pics to add, so maybe Derek will round some up.

Hello all John here.

Well, hopefully the weather has broke for a while anyhow. This weekend was quite nice here, though still a bit cool, it was sunny all weekend and at least in the mid 40's to upper 50's. Today, we were able to have the door open most of the day, and the fresh air was welcome.

I received my "work" from Donahue Friday, but have been sort of distracted. I guess one needs to be in a certain mood to just sit in front of the computer an punch numbers in for hours. I did get things sorted out and started entering in miles for fuel tax, etc, but then became distracted with the WiFi adventure here at the park.

The RV Park contracted with Dexter Broadband about 5 years ago to take care of the WiFi for the guests. They came out and put a Wireless Access Point on the roof, and setup a epay site to collect for it. A few years back they were having so many problems with the ePay portal and the original company was sold off to another that doesn't really do this sort of thing decided to "Not charge" for the service and just take it off line. So basically they have had open access for the last two years, which is part fo the problem that it isn't working well. Add to that no one has maintained or supported the 5 year old equipment, and the lack of knowledge on Lynn's part, it is sort of a mess. Friday, after several complaints I went in to see what I could do... I found a Switch and a Hub that were in line that had relaly no purpose, I understood why the Hub was there since it was in the office where Lynn used to plug her Laptop into the DSL, but she no longer does that (the Modem is quite old, and only has one port on it). I removed the hub and switch and rebooted the modem and tower (I assume it is just a WAP but I chickened out climbing on the roof since it is quite high and literally nothing to hang on to). Now it seems to be working OK, but the fact remains that they really need to have someone that knows what they are doing support this thing, especially coming into the busy season.

So, I spent a large part of the day Thursday and Friday looking for someone to come out and upgrade this setup. After dozens (literally) dozens of calls, and no calls back finally someone responded. WiFiRV was the company, and they do mostly RV Parks, and Tengo's only major competitor. Well, I started hashing out the deal with them, and I think we have a winner, but now Lynn needs to first deal with the old company to make sure to properly end our expired contract (She is under the impression that it Automatically renews, but I don't see it). The new company when and if we give them the go ahead will basically come out and install new equipment that will work, at there cost, and there will be some revenue share with the park. We are negotiating the terms of the rates and revenue share, as one of Lynn's priorities is that she wants to keep the cost to the customer as low as possible. Unfortunately I don't think she is being realistic on what WiFi typically costs, but we have had this argument over daily rates several times. I finally convinced her to raise rates this year, and she only raised them $1.00 on the 50 amp sites, and left everything else the same. Argh. Now, I am certainly not saying that we should be gouging customers, but she clearly doesn't understand that the going rate for an RV site in an urban environment is much higher than what she is charging... Anyhow... Hopefully the deal will come together, as I really
do not want to get stuck supporting it, but on the other side, I was a little surprised how difficult it was to find someone who was willing to do so. It is a really simple installation, and the revenue potential I think is quite high, with a low cost of investment.

Prince also got some mail from my Aunt in Florida. She had a Kitty Blanket that she bought for herself but has decided that it just wasn't her. I can't imagine that the cute little white kitties always staring at her had anything to do with it! Well, Prince seems to love it, as he does anything fleecy (especially my jacket...) But this is white, and won't show his hairs as much. Here are some kitty pics...






Saturday we didn't have much planned. I changed our WiFi router password and name since I saw a number of people logged in that I didn't recognize. I never give out the password, but it wasn't particularly difficult to figure out since it is plastered across the back of the motor home. This one is a bit more challenging.

After our wonderful lunch (So exciting I forgot what it was) I talked Derek into a walk downtown since it was pretty nice out. Well, the wind was quite cold, so we only made it as far as Starbucks, where we warmed up with a cup of tea, the walked back. At least we got out of the house, as I have been going a bit stir crazy being cooped up in here all day. Sort of funny, when I was a teenager, I remember my mother always complaining about feeling trapped inside... I can really relate, and can understand how being so isolated could have been... Anyhow, not a subject for this arena...

Derek got laundry done, and we watched Year One. It has it's funny moments, but it wasn't any great flick that is for sure. Not sure what the next one is on the list...

Today we went to breakfast as our weekly "Cheat", We were headed to Chris's, but I didn't call to make a reservation and they were just packed. I hate standing there like cattle waiting for a table, so I motioned to Derek for us to go, and we went down to try Ari's Breakfast buffet. It was OK. We both ate more than we should have, and I walked away wondering if it was worth the waste of my cheat meal... The price was right though, at $6.95 each. Seattle Sutton is convenient, but the food is eh. Derek likes it, but I am having a much more difficult time with it. It isn't so much that the portions are smaller, because really, I am full. The food is quite bland, but yet a lot of things I normally would never eat. The lack of red meat is annoying, and the abundance of big green leafy shit is ich. But, I have for the most part stuck to the plan, and am down 13.8 lbs in two weeks. I was a little upset yesterday as I actually gained a pound back, but then today I was down twice that, so all better. I Know don't weigh myself daily, but that is about the only enjoyment I get out of this-- As I must have some sort of goal or it simply isn't gonna work. Derek says that the gain was most likely because I started to use some salt on the food, since it is so bland, I guess I will have to cut that out and go get some other spices.... Ugh.

I finally decided to bite the bullet and order new gas shocks for the motor home bay doors. Almost all of ours will not hold the doors open any longer, and it is very difficult to dig stuff out of the bay with it hitting you in the head. We have 24 of the buggers, but 4 are still holding well. I got on the SPD site, and hit order, but something is broken, so I sent them an email. Hopefully they will respond quickly, after all it will be over $300.00 to replace them all...

Sort of that nothing else exciting going on here... I might go play on the radio for a while, so Have a good evening.