The interesting part of building the camper is pretty much over. Thanks for following along but camper news will gradually fade from here on in as the solar panels take over. Don’t worry, the camper will return when new adventures begin. I also have to weatherproof the whole contraption, another step I know nothing about. But that doesn’t mean I’m too old to learn. Here is me applying nail polish to my scooter add-on clock to seal out moisture after replacing the coin cell. Yes, this is permanent, at least until I break the seal in the future.
At the bakery, Dee-dee arrived early. She has not seen me for over a month and could not tell what was different. So much for women asking me if I notice anything. The bakery is now serving lunch in those hollowed out breads, I’ll see if I can get you a photo. Not that I could ever have something like that again and it looks so delicious. As you know it was ordinary food in ordinary quantities that was my undoing. This morning I barely passed the 1/3 mark of my diet goal.
Breakfast for me? Ten-calorie vanilla cookies and a ration of three every 24 hours. That’s on my diet, now entering day 41. From the library I learned vanilla, not chocolate, is the world’s favorite flavor. It seems chocolate is too expensive and difficult to make for most people and vanilla is now grown everywhere from Mexico to Madagascar. Did you know it comes from Mexico, is tasteless when picked, and is a type of orchid? For trivia, some people can’t stand the taste of Alka-Seltzer, so they add vanilla flavoring. Real vanilla is getting expensive as it is made by simmering the seed pods in sugar and alcohol. I think. It used to be so cheap I added it to my laundry back in college.
Hey all you retired people who saved up your whole lives instead of learning how to augment your income in unconventional ways: here is something that could save your bacon. Ikea’s House-in-a-Box. All your hard work did was disqualify you from all the government’s pet welfare programs, so get ready to move into your 188 square feet with 4 other people. You were too cool to oppose welfare for illegals, single mothers, and ethnics back when you had a job and were riding high. Now it’s payback time. And that goes double from me because when I protested welfare for the able-bodied, you made derogatory statements about my “attitude”. Well, now you can eat your “proper” thinking and tell us how it tastes.
I stayed up late watching some documentaries. I’ve never understood the significance of Manchuria to the Japanese. It is a huge part of their economy. Most sources tell you how the US submarines sunk all the Jap oil tankers from the southern islands. Few tell us there were huge synthetic oil plants in Manchuria. These could not be reached even by forward US bomber bases on Okinawa. I discovered it was the Soviet attack that put these out of action.
I again saw the photos of Jap cities after the nuclear bombs, and those photos are misleading. The biggest inaccuracy are the ones that show the concrete frame of the telephone exchange. The impression is that all the other concrete buildings around it were flattened and it was the only remnant. Wrong, it was the only concrete building in the city and it was obviously not flattened although it was at ground zero. Atomic bombs are not the end-all weapon of Cold War repute.
My research was not the big bombs, but the role played by the destruction of Manchuria by the Soviets in the surrender of Japan. Turns out there is a considerable school of thought that this was the real reason the Japanese gave up. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not industrial areas vital to the war, as was Manchuria. Has the US military been feeding us a line of nonsense about the importance of their strategy? They did most of the hard fighting, but was it, as we’ve been told so often, what brought about the surrender? Hmmmm.
I’m checking the undercoat to make certain it does not flake after a week in the hot sun. It seems perfect and you can see the quality of four coats of the paint. This wood has to last longer than me. The mounting hole, seen here, will be sealed after the bolt is tightened. This protection for the wood is in addition to the weatherproofing of the camper shell itself, meaning there will be two layers between water and wood at every stage of construction.
The following people should not post homemade or how-to videos on youTube:
I. Dorks with terrible English or Australian accents.
II. Cheap bastards who can’t afford a lapel mic.
III. Idiots who hold the camera in one hand.
IV. Morons who don’t know what a wind screen is.
V. Any prick who starts by saying “Hi guyzzzzz”.
VI. Old mumbling men with indistinct voices.
VII. Stunned apes who think they can ad lib.
VIII. Losers who say “um” even once.
IX. Housewives trying to sound authorative.
X. Zeros who play terrible music tracks.
XI. Deadbeats obviously on drugs who ramble on.
XII. Bastards who crank up the background past -89db, or worse, are so stupid they don't even know that's what they are doing.
XIII. Peckerheads to read a script but obviously don't know how to read. If you can't pronounce "phlogiston", please, go away and don't return. You are in the wrong blog.
The worst thing a person can be in this life is boring. I think a lot of the worst videos are made by people who think because they were born, they are just as good as anyone else, despite all evidence to the contrary. Their numbers are legion. To paraphrase the World’s Most Interesting Man, “There is a time and a place for Hindu Rap and New Age Disco. The time is never. I’ll let you figure out the place by yourself.” Ah, self-test. Do you have what it takes to be boring? Did I just say something about the most interesting man in the world? If you said yes, ouch. I did not say it backwards like most people do.
Here’s three rejects who managed to screw up with almost every item in the list.
Shazizz
Aussie
Mmmfffmff?
Last, this is post 3,000 of 3,650. That’s an estimate, the number that my blog host reports. When the blogs were first begun, they were written one week at a time, which translates into seven blogs when it finally gets published. When I say 3,650, I meant blogs as published on-line. I had no experience at this either, so you can see the evolution of my style. How is my readership? Climbing steadily. My average days are now 68% of my peaks six months ago, so as long as that trend continues, I’ll keep going. The blog is the only thing I expect to outlast me even by ten years.
Ten years? Yes, and that is wishfully based on the rumor that people who are supposed to provide Internet service took it upon themselves to keep file copies of everything. That's saying I didn't do anything to make them last more than ten years, the professional snoops took care of it for me. I would otherwise have directed resources to backing up these files. But why bother, there is plenty here for the droves of amateur analysists to draw wrong conclusions on for decades, maybe centuries. Look what they did with Thoreau, and he as some kind of crazy hermit. I never did cut that hit record or write a book that sold or invent anything I could take to the patent office. So let Google keep this blog permanent for their own purposes and claim it is a favor.
ADDENDUM
For those who might want to try working with motorcycle electronics, consider what I encountered. The Honda batteries as made today must always carry a charge of at least 9.7 volts or they will go dead and cannot be recharged. No, putting that China Powder in the cells and resealing them will not work, neither will an expensive recharger of any model. Then, at the upper limit, you have 13.7 volts, identical to a car battery. That is what a Honda battery requires off the alternator to keep itself recharged and this is the reading you get on your altimeter when the motor is running.
You cannot go over the 13.7 volts to charge or you will shortly hear the acid boiling, which also wrecks your battery. The normal charge on the Honda 12 volt battery can be as high as 12.4 – 13.1 volts, but once the starter motor is cranked, this quickly drops to 10.1 volts. That’s why you get three tries and then require a boost. The battery needs the full 13.7 volts to recharge as you drive, but unfortunately, the simple extra current required by the sidecar brake and signal lamps is too much.
That’s because lamps cause a stead drain on the battery even when driving at high speed. By day’s end, the Honda will barely start. The battery recovers when parked overnight but doing this requires battery replacement every few months. I can’t get a steady reading, but with the minimum legal lights on and traveling 55 mph and the alternator supplying the full 13.7 volts, the drain on the battery is around a half volt on the downside. It is slowly discharging. And, it is a $90 battery, so experimenting with $120 solar panels doesn’t seem all that expensive now.
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