Experimenter's computer and holiday at the Lake...

We've had a mixed  bag of weather here in Lake Ozark for the Memorial Day holiday....  First it was sunny, as we arrived on Thursday....   But then it rained in the night...

I was trying to get the little Raspberry Pi experimenter's computer going Thursday night...  I had purchased that at Dayton last weekend, but never had enough energy to plug all the little pieces together..  Well they didn't have one of the pieces because they sold out...  A powered four port USB hub...

Before I left Kansas City, I drove to my local computer parts store and bought one...   But....... promptly when I hooked it up to the rest of the experimental pieces, it got too hot.....  Scratch one hub..  I was worried that it might have taken the rest out..

Maybe I should explain that Raspberry Pi is an educational organization over in the UK...  And this little credit card sized computer is designed to be cheap and teach about all things computer...

The little chip in the center is a cell phone computer on a chip and the other chip is 500 meg of memory...  The rest of the stuff is connectors to plug other peripherals into...  You know little minor details like a keyboard and a mouse  and little necessities like the HDMI port for a screen...

The USB hub connects to the USB port and breaks that out into 4 more ports...  I also bought a little memory stick sized gizzy that is the Wifi connection...  Well I didn't have a TV that small, so on Friday I was off to Jefferson City....

They had a little TV on sale that had the HDMI input...  at Best Buy...  And I picked up a more expensive hub, which didn't burn up...  And just like that I had a computer...  of course by the time you get all of these pieces and the TV, you could have purchased a tablet, or maybe two of them...

This thing runs Raspbian as an OS, which is a limited version of linux debian...  The programs are mounted on an SD card which plugs in on the bottom of the board...  The one I have has 8 gigs of memory which replaces the need for a hard drive...

I purchased the $20 book that has a lot of instructions on programming and such in Dayton...  This is very educational...  Folks are using these little boards for all kinds of dedicated computing tasks, but you can even browse the internet and do lots of regular tasks as well...

Enough of that, we were talking about Lake Ozark...  where Chris and Melissa came to be with me over the holiday...  And they have two daughters which keep me busy answering questions... Sunday turned out really sunny and nice...

But our dock was grungy...   So we took turns on the power washer and brushes cleaning up the pontoon boat and all the chairs...  The bugs think the place belongs to them, and aren't too happy when we try and take it back...

We rode way up into the North end of the Lake at dusk on Sunday night, and the kids are out with the grands as I write this right now...  We also had a bunch of weeds to go after to reclaim the yard, so this trip has been about work more than anything else..

This afternoon we will have to turn the lock and go back to KC...  After all tomorrow is Tuesday and that is motorcycle club lunch day....!!

Retired Rod

The drive home, am I tired yet?

Back from the big trip..... Or perhaps the trip of last week...  Well anyway I left the Ham Radio show on Saturday afternoon about 4 PM....  I got up and said see you guys next year and walked to the parking lot...

On the road, I drove back over to Indianapolis...  But I wasn't tired, so I caught the I 465 beltway around the South side to I 70...  That road goes back to Terre Haute were I stayed overnight on the way out...   But I wasn't tired.....

So onward to Illinois....  At Effingham I thought about getting a Motel, but didn't see a sign advertising a good rate....  That's all it would have taken, just a little lure to draw me in...  But I really wasn't tired yet...

So I drove on to St Louis...  By now it was becoming dark, and I thought I would catch a room on the West side of town...  I took the Northern bypass of I 270 to 370 and then back to I 70..  Stopped for some gas and my proverbial
Wendy's burger....

By then it was about 9:30 and I was starting to feel the fact that I had been up since 5:30...  Or 6:30 Eastern...  But I was using Central time since I hadn't changed my watch...

I had made it out past highway 61 where it goes North to Hanibal, and all things seemed fine...........  Until they went to heck all at once...

Somewhere West of Wright City the highway came to an immediate stop....   One of those where your mind doesn't compute that all those cars ahead aren't moving and you had better get on the brakes....  And the 4 way flashers so the guy behind doesn't plow into you either....

The nest six miles or so were driven at less than 5 miles per hour....  It took a little more than an hour and a half before we were moving again...   I was talking to my son Chris on the phone, and his wife Melissa looked on the internet, and the road was blocked all the way back into St Peters...

She looked at some tweets on Twitter, and they said a truck was on fire...  At Warrenton....  An when I finally passed the problem, it was quite the fire as the semi trailer was burned until there were holes in the sides of the vehicle...  They had disconnected the truck tractor and pulled it away with a wrecker, so it might have been singed but it wasn't gutted out...  Boy I'd bet that was one scared trucker...

The road surface was also burned and they had caution cones blocking the highway....  We were merged into one lane which was passing on the inside shoulder...  I'm sure that went on for hours....

While talking to Chris, I decided to go on to the Lake home in Lake Ozark...  That was better than trying to get a room at mid night... So I arrived there at 1:30 AM..  By then, I was really tired.... LOL

Shortly after turning South off of the interstate, a cop came charging after me from an overpass on US 54...  He tailed me for several miles, more than likely checking out the License Tag with his office...  I had the speed set exactly on 70, the posted speed limit...  It isn't good to have a little red car...  Ticket me red..

But I wasn't doing anything to give him reason to stop me, so eventually he made a U turn thru the center median...  He was driving one of those new Dodge Chargers that have the half covered headlights.....  And a lot of attitude too... Followed me for ten miles...

And just as I thought I had made it safe and sound in Lake Ozark, I picked up another gendarme...  On the North side of the Lake, I must have attracted this fellow too as he came off of a gravel road and up right behind me....  He followed me onto our lake access road..  I had to be careful to drive exactly 30 as our speed signs are popular to earn bucks for the library...

He followed me like a trailer, until I turned into my driveway..  I'm sure that folks come home from the bars at that time, and he was just assisting me....  Ya, right...

Well anyway I came on into KC on Sunday, and Biscuit was quite happy to see me...  Licking my face and nose when I went over to the grandkids house....

But 6 year old Delaney asked my if I was going to take Biscuit home with me, and began to cry when I explained that that answer was yes.....

Today was a yard mowing day, and all those other jobs that didn't get done last week....... Yuck..........!

Retired Rod

Cold Fest!

It was quite cold this morning as we left for the Hamfest....  I hung back about an hour but the other guys went out about 6:30...  They go so early because they need to lay out all their wares on the tables to be ready to sell before they open the main gates at 8...

When they left the hotel, it was 38 degrees with a light frost on the ground....  Here in Ohio, I haven't seen any field work that has been completed this spring...  But back in Iowa, much of the corn has already come up...  We don't really need this freezing stuff with the baby plants above the ground...

Then mid morning it began to rain... By then it was about 42 degrees, but still it was darned cold...  Many folks went inside the arena buildings and it was shoulder to shoulder in there....  We sat outside in our tent enclosure, drinking coffee...  Some of the guys went to seminar meetings in different parts of the buildings....

I'm not real sure where the day went, but I was all over the grounds looking at table after table of old electronics stuff...  I have way too much of that at home already, so I didn't buy much of anything...  But it is fun to stop and talk to all of the folks about the things on their tables...

We have sold or otherwise managed to unload more than half of the stuff that came here from home... But tomorrow, a lot of new to us stuff will find its way back into the trucks and trailers...

Let me tell a brief story about a fellow from New York that has had a spot across the aisle from us for years...  He drove over with his chevy suv, and got out leaving the back end of the vehicle open...  And as he was looking over our tables, one of our guys was busy loading table top Motorola radio chargers into the back of his car....  They are on almost everyone's tables as they are available in massive abundance...  So they are consequently virtually worthless....  Eventually he awoke to what was happening..... Challenging our guy Les as to what he was putting in his truck...  Laughter burst out for a long time... as he protested.....  We haven't seen him since last year, but that didn't matter... He's fair game..

So all those chargers are now over on his site, taking up space on his tables....  They'll end up in the trash barrel by Sunday...

And then again tonight as the day was ending, it began to rain again....  So we broke up our store tables and headed to the local Pizza shop..  Each of us in turn went to the counter and ordered a pizza for the center of the table...  Or a pitcher of beer or soda, until we were so stuffed we couldn't make it to the parking lot...

Tomorrow will be another hamfest day, with all the newcomers that couldn't come today because they had to work......  Fresh meat......!

Retired Rod

Hamvention Dayton

Tonight I am in Tipp City, Ohio...  This is about 10 miles North of the Dayton, Ohio metro area...  I am over here for my annual ham radio convention...  Well, it isn't mine....  its the largest radio convention in the USA... And I think in the world..  I have been coming here since the mid 1990s....

I did miss the year that we built the house in Arizona as we had to go out there for an open wall inspection that same week....

We have 9 men together here from the Iowa area and me from KC....  They came out yesterday, but I had to drive from KC alone, so I stayed last night in Terre Haute, Indiana...  Just a boring night in the hotel...  I am driving my hobby car which is a small sports car, so it was fun to make the trip...  But it rained most of the way..

I met with the guys for lunch at a museum that they were visiting, but I didn't buy a ticket since they were about to leave..  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum...  We have been there year after year, but I was quite happy to learn that they have put together a wing of one of the hangars for South East Asia. Viet Nam....

There were several displays that I saw this afternoon that I hadn't seen before...  Of course it would take about three days to go thru all the displays, and if you haven't been here to do that, I would really recommend that...

The first set up day at the show starts tomorrow, and we have a rain shelter that we will build tomorrow...  And most of the vendors go around and buy the best stuff off of each other before the show even begins...  So we have to be here for that tomorrow as well..

Since I came from KC, I have my own car so I will not have to stay at the Arena every moment like some of the other folks...  I'll be back in a couple of days to give you a recap of what is new and hot this year.....  Hopefully I won't get sucked into buying something I don't even know I want right now....  LOL

Retired Rod

The rest of the camping experience....

We awoke on Saturday to strong wind that was coming from the Lake....  Eisenhower State Park is on the North shore of Melvern Lake....  So the wind was out of the South coming directly across to our camp on the shore...

We had a pretty good day on Saturday, but mostly in the lea of our campers and inside our motorhome.... But about 6  PM all heck broke loose....

The TV screen turned Red and storms directly to our South were producing golf ball hail....   In addition the weather radio went off with its alarm....

So we ran around cleaning up and securing our respective camps as dark skies covered our camps....  It began to rain and the wind blew, but not very hard....  So we watched the computer screens to learn that the really bad cell was going off to our North toward Topeka....  It missed us...

The radar also showed a second storm coming from Wichita, so we scrubbed our plans to grill out and diverted to Buzzard's Pizza...  Buzzards is found in several of the small country towns in that region, and we find it quite good....

Of course it causes me great distress but that is much later at night....  And the second storm did come after midnight.  We had rain and wind but I was sleeping...  It wasn't bothering me too much...

It was the gusty wind that replaced the storm that awakened me at 4 AM....  It was flapping the slide toppers..  And I had a tree branch that was scraping on the ladder on the back of the coach....  It sounded like the proverbial fingernails on the blackboard.... Scree, screec, screech...   screeeeeeeeach...... Then silence for a while before it all started again...  We only had two channels on the TV, but I turned it on and up louder than the noise on the ladder...  But even then I didn't go back to sleep...

Biscuit was restless as well and jumped from the floor to the bed and back again..  And the pizza was now driving me nuts..  Alka Seltzer to the rescue. Eventually it was 8 AM..

When Biscuit went out for potty, the wind blew the door hard on its hinge..  The clouds were roaring past with the wind...  First overcast then sunny....  No breakfast outside today either...  So I started in packing up to leave...

The wind was nasty as I drove back to KC...  Pulling the Jeep, is heavier than the Honda CRV, and I was more all over the road..  So I took the back roads to Ottawa...  Then for a few miles on the Interstate but back off of it again at Gardner...

The rest of the afternoon was spent washing the RV and carrying things into the house....  I'm not sure why I did all that because it is supposed to rain most of this upcoming week....  But maybe it will be new dirt.......!  Ya, right...

Retired Rod

Camping? Emergencies..?

Just like Al up in Canada, my Freightliner shop along the interstate in Olathe, Ks is there for the truckers that break down on the road....  And they don't see us RVers as anything even worthy of requesting service...

The labor rate for trucks is $114.50 but if you have an RV.... suddenly it becomes $142.50 an hour....  Do you think they want to discourage us campers....??  At least that was what I was referred to...

So no my coach hadn't been worked upon even after being there a week and with the parts that came in in just a couple of days....  Not an emergency..

So I had to explain that it was mothers day and that we were going to the park, and I would be coming to get the rig  no matter what... Done or not....

See it was partly my fault, because I was nice, and said I didn't need the motorhome instantly the next day, and pitch a total *itch about it...  But those broken trucks... now they are real emergencies, you know...

So on Thursday I declared that I was now an Emergency....!  Still it was Friday noon...  And $1,250 later, for a $450 part from Freightliner, before I was out of there......

So I had to rush like crazy tossing stuff like food and toiletries and some of my clothes....  I am making a list right now to go into town and get the rest from Wal Mart...

We are in the State Park at Melvern Lake South of KC about 80 miles...  We had a campfire last night an I actually drank one beer....  Of course that is completely off the Doctor's list with my medications so I figured if I died in the middle of the night at least it wouldn't kill anyone else...

Its spring like out here in the state park with the trees leaving out and the wind off of the lake cool and fresh....  Its actually hot enough that I am running the AC....  Well sort of.. Only 1 AC..

I have 30 amps and water on a very un level camp site...  The front wheels are up on oodles of plastic ramps and even some wood planking..  And still the egg yoke ran all down to the corner of my plate with breakfast..

Retired Rod

Fatboy's Lunch...... LOL

We went for lunch up in Kearney, Missouri yesterday.... That is straight up I 35 thru downtown KC... By the time you get to Kearney you are well on your way into the country again.... It was about 50 miles up there...

Our fearless leader was taking pictures and managed to grab this one of me and some friends.... The goldwing is behind me with the yellow jacket over its windshield..

Here I am again in the dark shirt over in the corner... Head down working on a plate of wonderful lunch........  A big violation on diabetic eating.....!

This is a breaded pork tenderloin served hot beef style with mashed and a barrel full of chicken gravy..........  Makes me hungry all over again....

That makes riding 50 miles each way thru the heart of the city seem like a small price to pay....    Oh and it was the special of the day, so it was $6.49...  Ya gotta love Missouri....  Web site with all of the pictures... 

Be sure and see the pictures of the baby Budweiser Clydesdales and the Warm Springs barn down near the bottom of the Romeo web site....  There are hundreds of pictures linked on the above web site as they rode to all four corners of Missouri on a six day tour...  Then the Clydesdales on Sunday...

The rest of the time its work work work around here....  This morning it was the lawn again..... I just mowed it 6 days ago, but in the spring with rain all the time that's about how long you can go... Also we are to head back into a rainy period starting tomorrow morning....

If you don't time the mowings right, it will be too wet to mow for the rest of the week, and then when it dries out we'll be making hay again....

Retired Rod

Hiding at the Lake..

I didn't totally disappear, I am hiding out down at the Lake of the Ozarks...  I drove down here on Friday after spending most of the morning in the DMV...

Most of you have read my on going love for the Kansas DMV in Johnson county....  The office in Olathe is one of the worst offenders...  I only had to re license the utility trailer, but it comes due in February and I am in Arizona then....

So that causes me to resort to going in as the mail in time is expired....  Of course I had been putting this off because I knew how bad it always is...  And it didn't disappoint me this year either...  It was over a two hour wait..  When I checked in online they said 40 minutes so I messed around and went for a truck wash and errands....  But 40 minutes turned into an hour and 40 minutes...  For a $47 sticker to put on the license plate...

I then stopped by the Freightliner Shop to look into my worst fears....  As I mentioned before, my check engine light has come on intermittently giving an error for EGR valve....  I really don't care if I do a little polluting...  So I drive on....Its a diesel and has the fancy afterburner muffler, but that isn't enough...

And my worst fears have been realized... A new EGR valve is on order....  And will cost thousands to replace...  Rving has become a tad more expensive this month....

So hiding at the lake cabin seemed in order....  But then this place hasn't been used all winter, so today and several of the next few days will be spent in a domestic mode...  I'm still cleaning up after last Labor Day's holiday...  Normally we would have returned in September to catch up on house cleaning and the orderly closing of the cabin...  But with Loyce's unexpected passing, this place went to full stop..

I had to deal with the vacuum grave yard today..  It seems that every old or unused machine that we have had in the last 20 years has ended up down here.... And as I tried to resurrect  one of them into a working machine things went from bad to worse...  They were all worn out....  So a trip to Wal Mart was in order...

So Biscuit has another brand new Hoover upright machine of terror..  When I brought in the big box she came excitedly to see the new toy...  And it came out of the box in pieces, so she didn't recognize what it was right off....  But as I put on the handle and the cleaning canister, it became another noisy cleaning monster...  And no I didn't bring the Roomba down here...  We need serious cleaning, beyond Roomba's ability..  Biscuit hid in the bedroom for most of the afternoon to get away from the terror...

Maybe I can get started on the leaves outside tomorrow......  Oh Joy...

Retired Rod

Towing the Honda home....

When I arrived at the Wichita airport, I had thought about pulling the CRV with the Jeep for the entire day and had worked myself up into some worry that things wouldn't work out right.....

Why do we do that in our mind...?

Mainly what I was worried about was airport security...  Would they actually let me hook things together along the road way...?  There is a cell phone parking lot along the air freight building that is head in angled parking...

So as I arrived, I parked there and sat in the car for a while just to see if anyone was checking on things....   The sign clearly was marked no unattended vehicles...

No one seemed to pay any attention to me, and there were only a couple more folks in the lot...  So I abruptly got out of the Jeep and walked away...  It was only about a block over to the dead storage lot and I walked there quickly....

The lot has no attendant, only a machine that you put your parking card in an then your credit card....  If it doesn't go thru for some reason, the gate won't open...  But I got out without a hitch...

So then I parked the Honda next to the Jeep...  Still no one checking the lot for unattended vehicles...  Security did drive thru but went right past without even a look see....

Since they had just gone by, I jumped out and installed the tow bar from the Honda on the back of the Jeep...  Then I pulled the Jeep out crossways to the parking stalls...    It took me a couple of tries, but eventually the Honda was lined up and the pins were in the tow bar arms...  Still no security people...

After hooking up the safety cables and the light wires, I put the car in neutral and killed the engine... I always check for certain that the key lock  on the steering column is not locked and that the wheels are free to turn from side to side...

I have read stories about folks that have left their cars in gear, forcing the engine to run even though it isn't turned on....  Or dragging the steering around corners when the wheel is locked in the straight position...  Both of these mistakes are costly in repairs...

I had to pull the car thru the departure lane in front of the airport terminal because the short cut thru the parking lot was blocked off with construction... But this allowed me to watch the front tires as they turned to follow the Jeep...  You can't see that happening when its behind the motorhome...

I went directly thru downtown Wichita on US 54...  I was going slow trying to get the feel of this lash up....  It wasn't the best...

I got onto the turnpike for KC, but only drove the 40 mph minimum for a while as the wind was blowing me all over the place...  Eventually I settled on 55 with the cruise control...

The Honda weighs 3400 pounds, and the Jeep about 4200.... And the Jeep isn't enough heavier that it pulls the car very well...  And with the wind whipping the Honda around in 40 MPH gusts, I had my hands full...  It didn't make for a pleasant driving experience.... The Jeeps new pentistar engine had no trouble with power, and never slowed down any on the hills....

I had to be really careful not to fish tail the car as it would oscillate back and forth with the play in the tow bar...   With the motorhome the car has no choice but to follow, as it doesn't effect the steering of the motorhome...  But it did sway the back end of the Jeep...  It was a long 200 miles back to the house in Overland Park...

And as I arrived here, we were having a torrential rain squall.    We got an inch and a half of rain in less than half an hour...

Needless to say, I sat in somewhat of a stupor as I enjoyed my recliner for the rest of the evening........