Poll

You will notice a new "Poll" box to the right. I am having a discussion on another venue on health insurance costs in the USA. If you live in the USA, please take a second and let me know. I understand my question leaves a lot out of the equation (like age, prior conditions, etc). As always, comments are welcome and appreciated. Thanks.

This subject is generating a lot of interest very quickly! Click on the comments to see what people have to say. To see the results of the poll you have to click on the "Show Results" button.

From the comments coming in, it seems I should have put in higher numbers!

A Beautiful Day - At Last

Today is beautiful and sunny! It is 59F outside so Norma has all the doors and windows open. I went shopping for a couple of things while she washed the floor and I was able to just wear jeans and a t-shirt. There is a pot luck tonight where they have the big screen showing the Super Bowl.

I was having trouble with the 89 Honda refusing to start when my neighbor came over to look. He is retired from Caterpillar and was quick to diagnose the problem (or at least one of the problems). The ignition wires were dirty and oily and had never been changed  in 260,000 KM. I went downtown, bought new cables for $24 and installed them. It started right up and ran smoothly. I hope the problem is fixed! The car is very old and not worth putting much money into but I have to keep it running at least until we get home.

My Solar

This post is for reader Bill in Nebraska. He asked about our solar and since today was the day to open up the battery compartment and water the batteries, I thought it would be a good time to snap some photos.

The rooftop panel is a single 125 watt unit. This is about the minimum unless you just want to keep your battery(s) topped off without much being drawn out. We can boondock with this panel as long as we watch our power consumption. We can watch both TV’s and power the Starchoice for several hours at night and as long as there is at least a bright sky the next day, the batteries will recover. More importantly, we can leave the motorhome parked for several days without hookups and the solar will power the controls for the fridge and keep it running on propane as well as keeping the batteries charged.

The rooftop panel is wired down the fridge vent with #10 wire to the Solar Charge Controller and then to the two 6 volt golf cart batteries under the stairs. If I ever add a second panel, I will upgrade to #6 wire. I then ran #6 wire to a 400 watt inverter mounted near the TV area. This inverter runs the TV, TV speaker system, Starchoice, both laptops and the cell phone and camera battery chargers with power to spare. We have another 200 watt inverter in the bedroom for that TV and Starchoice receiver.

Cajun RV Park, Biloxi, MS

We are across from the beach here in Biloxi. The Quality Inn that was across the street was washed away by Katrina and never rebuilt. All that is across the street now is a gas station.


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1,649,267,441,664 Bytes

That's 1.5 Terabytes! That is the size of the Seagate external hard drive I bought a couple of days ago at Walmart for $70. I forgot to bring my old external drive with me and have been paranoid about losing my photos from the trip. I was going to buy a smaller one (both physically and capacity wise) but this monster was only $10 more.

It came with free backup software so I backed up both computers onto it as well as copying all my photos. I have not even dented it's full capacity.

I bought a 1 terabyte drive three years ago and paid almost $200 for it. Some things are coming down in price! I can remember a few years ago when the 1 Gigabyte drives came out. "Who would need all that capacity"?, I thought. Well, I soon bought one and watched it slowly fill up. This new one has the storage of a whole wall full (1,500) of those tiny Gigabyte units.

Cold Times In The South

As much as I complain about the weather here in Biloxi, others are getting it worse. Here are conditions in places where other friends are right now.

Rod from Campbell River, BC had his water hose freeze in Yuma, AZ.

The Bayfield Bunch are thawing out plumbing in –2F (-18C) near Benson, AZ.

The Radio Girl and her “Fella” are “cuddling” in 17F (-8C) nights near Tucson, AZ

Wandering Willie is reportedly frozen solid in Columbus, New Mexico.

Eve and Steve are freezing at 20F (-7C) in Port Aransas, TX.

Alistair and Mary are shivering at 23F (-5C) in the Rio Grande Valley, TX’

Chris and Juan in Monterrey, Mexico are also experiencing 20F (-7C).

On the other hand,

Les, aka “Mexico Kid” has been tanning in the sun in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Jonna and Mimi are enjoying 88F (31C) (Jonna would like it warmer) in Merida, Mexico.

John Calypso says “Great weather down here in Puerto Escondido amigo (same as last year and the year before, and...)

Would someone please remind me why we decided to stay in the USA this year?

Right now it is 39F (4C) and raining here in Biloxi, Mississippi. This temperature seems to be similar to our next stop in Mobile, Alabama so we may move there after our week is up here on Monday. Norma is feeling a little better so we might actually be able to see some of Biloxi in the next couple of days.

Use The Power Button, Stupid!

Like most RV’s ours has a Winegard Sensar “Batwing” TV antenna (first photo). Mine worked fairly well (I thought) for the past two years and when the USA switched to digital TV signals I added the Winegard Wingman (second photo) to convert the antenna to digital. I was now sometimes able to pick up a few HD channels off air while we boondock in Walmarts. I was happy…. I thought I was state of the art!

Last night I was reading Escapees.com, one of my RV forums, when I came on a discussion on these antennas. Someone was complaining that he was getting no signal from his while his neighbors were getting several channels. He wondered what could be wrong.

One of the other posters asked him if there could be something wrong with his Antenna power supply or if the switch was turned on. Huh??? Switch? What switch? I am supposed to know about antennas but I never heard of powered antennas. I thought they were just like the old rabbit ears, passive devices.

I climbed up behind the TV and sure enough, there on the wall was a little power button. I raised the antenna and scanned for digital channels. There were none. I pushed the button, a little green light came on and I scanned again. This time I got eight channels, all clear as a bell.

This is going to make the whole boondocking experience a lot more fun. The antenna has to be turned to face the transmitters but there are a few sites on the Internet to help you do this from whatever location you are at. I guess am still in danger of skidding off the learning curve!

Hunkered Down In Biloxi

A quick glance at the weather map will show you what we are facing here in Biloxi.  In a word, it is COLD! The only good night was the first night we arrived and sat outside with our next door neighbors. I did not even need a jacket until about 9:00. That all changed quickly. Since then we have had scattered rainstorms, thunder and lightening, wind and even hail.

Norma came down with a sore throat and sinus cold  on day two. The sore throat repaired itself but the stuffed sinus and cough has remained.

We went for a drive yesterday, found a bakery and scouted out some of the casinos for a possible visit and then came back home. We are running our two electric heaters pretty steady and staying inside. We booked for three days which is up today and we have not seen anything of the area. I will wander over and pay for the rest of the week. It is supposed to warm up by the weekend.

So far temperatures have been below average for our whole trip!

More On Lower Ninth Ward

Just a couple more thoughts on the Lower Ninth Ward damage. All of the houses were old and not very well maintained, they did not stand a chance against the storm surge. To compound the problem, many of the houses had been informally "inherited" from parents and grandparents with the name on the title never being changed. The long dead ancestors were the legal owners. They had no mortgages so therefore no automatic or mandatory insurance. Any funds that were paid out by the government or by the few insurance claims could only be paid to the legal owners who were long since dead. A catch 22 situation with the current "owners" out of luck.

This financial situation added to the disgraceful actions of the Army Corps Of Engineers in the building of the flood walls created a disaster waiting to happen. The fly-by-night lowest bidders who built the walls with substandard materials and building practices were the final straw. The walls failed the first time they were tested.

When I was searching the Internet for information on the LNW I found this information:

If you are living in New Orleans you may notice that people don't much like the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The flooding in the City of New Orleans (except for New Orleans East) was caused by breaches in flood walls for canals. The flood wall for the Industrial Canal was built in the middle 1960s and it failed basically because it was not constructed to withstand a Katrina (built on the cheap). The flood walls that breached and flooded the rest of the City were built in the 1990s. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), designed, built, and was responsible for the major maintenance of all the flood walls that breached.

For years the USACE told us (residents of New Orleans) the flood walls were fine. It was a lie (lie = saying something you know is false for the purpose of deceiving someone). After Katrina, the USACE tried to pass blame for the failures onto anyone and everyone they could.

Court hearings in 2007/2008 discovered the USACE knew all the flood walls were poorly built and lied about it, but agency officials took the position they built the best floodwalls they could with the money budgeted by Congress. The result was a federal court ruling stating the USACE was responsible for the failures. However, the USACE - as a federal agency – has immunity for most actions & decisions.

Court hearings in 2009 discovered the USACE diverted funding from the 1990s flood walls in New Orleans to the “Big Dig” commuter tunnel in Boston. They did that because Massachusetts is an “important” state while Louisiana is a “flyover” state.

Their decision(s) killed 1500 people and resulted in more than $100 Billion in damage to the City of New Orleans.

The USACE and its officials still have immunity.

Tornado Watch

We are in Biloxi, Mississippi where they have just issued a Tornado Watch! There is thunder and lightening right on top of us. I know that because the lightening flash and thunder are simultaneous. The noise of the rain hitting the roof completely drowns out the TV. The warnings on the TV say this will go on at least two more hours. No sightseeing today!