Monthly Archives: March 2014

Busy, Busy

Damn, time is flying by even quicker then ever.

Before we left AZ, I needed something to make it easier for planning our trip and my to dos……I need something that I can see one week at a time and also month at a time. Found this assignment planner at an office store that has been a huge help since.

I love it! With the month view, I could put in where we were going to be on what date and the how much each place would cost for our budgeting. With the week view, it gave me enough room on the days to list what I needed to get done.

I have no idea why I didn’t think about one of these kind of planners before…..Purdue had one called the Mortar Board that I loved using when I was there.

Every weekend, I start laying out what I need to get done. I have a list for work, our personal stuff and our things around here. I have been totally utilizing this more then ever. Especially since I’ve been able to get focused finally.

With using my planner, I’ve been trying to get some of our spring cleaning done, little at a time. Totally attacked the bathroom the other day, love going in there and seeing how clean it is, I’ve attacked some of our windows, and got the rig vacuumed (got our dyson back…yes!). Still need to finish cleaning the vacuum, because it looks like it was use on wet stuff. But we got a good part of it cleaned. Been trying to reorganize stuff…it is a constant battle when you live in a box, we are always trying to improve it.

Because we live the full time rv life, unless a place has wifi….which is very unusual and not dependable….we have to use MiFi hotspots. Those are bandwidth limited, which is why I don’t put even one cam on anymore.

We have one 20GB one that works on Verizon and one that is 10GB that is on ATT. Wellll…we totally blew through our 20GB this month =( I think it was doing our taxes online with turbo tax. The only good thing is that the ATT reset the next day after the 20GB closed down. The problem with ATT is that if you go over the 10GB, it is $15 a GB and that can get very expensive, very fast.

We had been planning on getting another 20GB Verizon one anyway and with everything timing itself, we ended up getting it. They were suppose to prorate the remaining month, but since we ordered it so late in the month and they weren’t sure when we would get it, they didn’t charge us. Which is sweet. We got 20GB to use until the 1st for free….grin Very helpful.

And now we are giving ATT a break. I normally use that for work stuff only. But for now, with 20GB free, I just using that one and going from there.

That 20GB timed itself very well. Saw that Mac was offering a free operating system update…..unlike windows, I don’t feel the pressure to update because it works so well…..so forgot that it has been offered for awhile. The update was a 5GB download, so I took it. I kind of like it once I got around some bugs.

The first bug was that it wasn’t recognizing my second monitor. Now I use this for my book keeping and support, doesn’t need to be fancy or very high def. So I have a simple AOC E1649FWU 16″ USB-Powered Portable LED Monitor….just a plug and play. After googling, I hit up apple chat support and they were extremely helpful and gave me the link for the software updated I needed. I was very relieved to have that working.

There is no way I can work very well without it anymore, I have no idea how I did it before.

The next bug was my notes in my mail client disappeared…icks!!!

Hit up support, we were going to do a call today, but I finally found that they took the notes out of the mail client and they are their own separate app. With all my work notes on there, I was very, very happy to find them.

Due to that, I’ve found a new app called SimpleNote that is much easier to use, I can use on my Mac, iPad and iPhone without accidentally deleting one with a sync. Spent the day cleaning out my notes and copying them over, so now I have them in two spots….but I love getting things more organized.

The Maverick update helped get some of the bugs out of my mail client that I have when I try I use my work email that uses MS Exchange. There are little changes that I can’t pinpoint, but I do like. I seem to be running faster and smoother now.

That is how I’ve spent my weekend. =)

Gallery

who the hell wants to read our tweets? 2014-03-22

By Twitter Source: WhereTheHellAreWe     

Last Monday Today!

Pauline and I went birding Monday, while the weather was still amazing when we saw the forecast was calling for a week plus of rain and wind, we knew we had to get outside while we still could.

It was sunny with a slight wind and low 50’s so we grabbed the camera and binoculars and ended up doing 4 miles in about 3.5 hours. It’s amazing how far you will not go when you stop and stare at birds.

We walked mostly in the forested trails where it was peaceful, but not too birding friendly. The few birds we see move too fast to get a decent look at.

However we did get some good pics of a Bald Eagle as well as 2 new birds for our list, the Red-breasted Merganser and the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The Kinglet was a bear to get a decent shot of, and the only reason I got these two pics was due to taking about 50 pics of blurred tree’s as it jumped from one spot to another and then another…

We have walked a lot of beach trails since we been here, that it has been a few months since we walked in the woods. Again, so peaceful. Could use more birds. Saw a few deer. A salamander. Heard some tree frogs and a few birds we never saw, even when it sounded like they was 10′ from us.

This week was suppose to be a nasty mess, but so far, we’ve had little rain, some winds, but much more sun then we expected. It still says this week is going to be a bad one weather wise, but at least we got this good weather.

We was going to go to Whidbey Island to meet some people we are going to work with this Summer, I just forgot to set it up, and when I thought about setting something up, I was never near my Mac to send a email, so that will need to be doe next week.

We are expecting neighbors this weekend. We finally was forced to give up our perfect water view and park like everyone else, in your own limited parking pad. We moved Ackbar yesterday and spread about 10 bucket loads of new gravel on both of these pads since they had some major low points with too many ponds. It took us about 3 hours to get it, but even I am impressed how well it turned out. Much better then expected.

Got our new MiFi today. Still having issues. Need to park facing East and not West. Miss facing South. Need another 10′ worth of sewer hose to be able to park with the hose going under the RV to the other side. Not happy about that. But we gotta do what we gotta do.

Feeling lucky to have had such a great view and appreciating it much more now that I no longer have it… Until next Fall.

MiFi and Admiral Ackbar…

When we started this adventure, we had 2 MiFi hotspots, a Verizon (20gbs) and a AT&T (10gbs) and via a friend, we found another Verizon based one that was unlimited 3G. We also learned how to force both 4g MiFi’s to use only 3g which prevents some of the needless advertisement/bandwidth burning crap for loading, as well as we are learning to surf with our iPads or iPhones more.

Using our WiFi Ranger, we was lucky enough to have a good connection while at TNC Patagonia for 6 months whch you just never realize how good it was until you no longer have access to it. While we was on the road, we only had a few days/stops where we had issues with getting online, but over all we figured it out and life went on.

While staying here at Fort Falgler, we discovered that it also matters how you park, we had issues getting connected while parking East/West and really good connection parking North/South. This is the sort of things you must think about when you live in a box.

Of course, the majority of of our surfing was done using the unlimited MiFi which worked out great until late January when all the sudden, we was not getting any connection at all, which forced us to call the service provider only to be informed that they discontinued the unlimited MiFi as well as their MiFi service, so thanks for the memories and thanks for letting us know in advance.

I love great customer service like that…

So now for the first time in a year plus of living in a box, we are limited on bandwidth and quite honestly, it sucks huge snot balls. (I can keep it clean, or not be gross, I can not do both.)

When you work online, you must be online. But even when you are not working, you want to blog, or read other blogs, or catch the sports scores, or read your favorite news site, watch tutorial videos and whatever else. You find out fast that you burn up a ton of bandwidth on stupid crap like auto play videos and flash and banners of some stupid advertisement or whatever else there is to burn your bandwidth. Not to mention when you are missing episode 2 of “True Detective” on your DVR and do not want to start watching the series until you know you have the bandwidth to finish it via HBOGO.

We had our Verizon shut off 2 days ago for burning 29+gbs. How we got 9+ gbs of over usage before they shut it off, I have no idea, I think it’s insane I can’t see how much I use of it just by looking at it, but I’m starting another rant… And of course the AT&T was also .33 from maxing out, but lucky for us, that was set to reset for the month that night.

It is just too stressful to worry about something stupid like bandwidth, so a few days ago Pauline ordered a new MiFi hotspot and it should arrive tomorrow. It is also a Verizon, this is a newer model that we can not force to stay in 3G, but we have read other blogs who give it positive reviews, so we will now have 50gbs worth of bandwidth.

The plan is to make this new one iPad/iPhone only until we can figure out what the best system is and change as needed.

We decided to start making plans this Spring/Summer for redoing the interior of Ackbar.

We have needed a new overhead cabinet in the driving area since we got Ackbar. The overhead entertainment center was built in 2002 when the TV’s were still square, so we had them take the TV out and I cut the bottom half of the TV area off since it was blocking WAY too much windscreen. Not that we had any use for the entertainment center anyway since we do not even face that direction when we are home having gutted the sofa and table out for our desk.

We think we want to do it ourselves. We tried to hire a friend of a friend, but he declined, and we did find a guy who offered to do it for $350 which we almost (and still might) jump on, he told me it was pretty much to cover the cost of the materials, he just loved wood working.

Pauline and I also love to do woodworking. We just suck at it. And have no real clue. And did not have the space or most of the tools needed. But we do have hard heads and strong wills.

We now have access to a VERY nice wood shop. And if we plan it out right and take our time and do small areas over trying to do it all at once, we can do this on our own.

We think…

Maybe…

For the overhead driving area, we want a nice, but simple cabinet. We need to figure out what we really want to use the space for, to store _____ and build to that end. I have been looking online of “how” and I think I have an idea, but of course the only REAL way of knowing how to do this is tearing out the current particle “wood” cabinets and look at what is holding it up. Not a big deal, its not exactly pleasant to look at now, but I hate the idea of starting something and not being able to finish it.

For the slide out, we want to rip it all out. Everything. The desk, the overhead cabinet. The interior walls. An almost complete gut job, just so we know what is there and that it is done exactly how we want it done. Which means more power outlets desk top high and not on the floor (Need a electrician to do this.)

Remove the over head cabinet that blocks the upper 1/4th of our windows, and putting a cabinet in the center floor area with 4 large sliding baskets, that will take everything food wise we keep in the overhead now. The office related crap in the overhead can go over the drivers. (Which we hardly use at all currently.)

And of course, insulate the entire slide out properly, with the best insulation we can find and as much of it as we can stuff in there. And remove the tile floor with insulated thick carpet.

And pretty much do the same thing with the kitchen are and bathroom. Just not all at once. We are thinking this can be done over the next 1-3 years. It all depends on time, money, knowledge, stress levels etc. But once we start to work on a section, it will need to be done ASAP. So this will take careful, well thought out, advanced planning.

 

 

 

 

 

We are so screwed…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just updating

We are set to leave Fort Flagler at the end of April which is just 4 weeks or so away, which seems odd, it still is like we just arrived.

We went to Everett yesterday to visit our friends, and had a great time as always. The weather could have been warmer, but other then that it was great. We took the Pt Towsend ferry and drove to the Southern end  of the island to ferry to Mukilteo. We wanted to see what to expect for the Summer.

On the way home we drove down to the Edmonds/Kingston ferry which was about $0.35 cheaper then the other 2 ferries combined and made the trip home about 15 mins shorter. Not much to matter regarding which we way we go. Of course in a month we will be just 1 ferry away.

Last week was pretty crappy regarding the weather, we had winds over 35+mph so the RV was rocking back and forth. So far this week it looks like it will be decent.