Casita Battery Wiring Project

The wires that connect the "house" battery to our Casita are not very flexible. Removing the battery from its compartment causes the wires to bend and start breaking. We decided to replace the wires with more flexible "boat" wiring. This is made of many, many strands and flexes very nicely. Since a complete rewiring job wasn't something we wanted to tackle we simply cut off the last couple of feet of the old wires and connected the new wiring to it. The total cost of the project was exactly $20.00. Here's some photos from the project:

	One of the original wires showing that about half of its strands have broken over time. If enough strands break it could potentially cause a fire!
	The original wiring bundle pulled out of the battery compartment.
	It's a good idea to keep wiring as short as possible. Here are the original wires cut off and ready to be stripped for attaching to the butt connectors.
	Butt connectors attached to the original wires. The white tags are labels saying "TO POS" or "TO NEG" indicating where they go. You don't want to get them mixed up!
	New wires connected to the old wires. Everything is tie wrapped to keep the original wires from flexing (the tie wrap tails haven't been cut off yet in this picture.) All connections have heat shrink over them. All wires are clearly labeled and the wire that goes to the positive terminal has been wrapped with red electrical tape to avoid any confusion.
	The completed project. We also added a piece of blue webbing material to make pulling out the battery easier.

Repeat Hike, Repeat Snake

Yesterday we went hiking with Ross's sister Lee at Usery Park. Lee did the Merkle Trail while we did the Merkle/Vista Trail. While driving out of the park Ross spotted a snake along side of the road. It turned out to be a bullsnake that posed for a couple of pictures before scooting off into the brush.

	Karen climbing up a steep section of the Vista Trail.
	Bullsnake on the side of the road.
	Closeup of the bullsnake heading off into the brush showing its beautiful markings.

Brown Bag Lunch Programs

While we're sure they've been going on for some time now we just recently discovered the "brown bag lunch programs" at Usery Park. They're one hour long talks on a variety of subjects presented by Ranger B. Our first question at the first one we attended was "why are you called Ranger B?" We had imagined that, maybe, he had succeeded "Ranger A" and would be followed by "Ranger C" but in reality both his first and last names begin with the letter "B," hence the name. He's an excellent presenter and makes the talks very interesting. So far we've attended 3 talks; "All About Desert Edibles," "All About Rattlesnakes" and "All About Saguaros." Many more are scheduled and we'll try to attend as many as possible.

Ranger B during a recent "All About Saguaros" talk.

Our Work Is Done

Spring Training 2009 for us is now over. Things were a little slower this year than last year due to the economy so we weren't scheduled to work the last 2 games of the season. But our employer, Aramark, wanted to make sure we would be around to attend the employee party after the last game so they got us tickets to that last game! And not just any old tickets but pretty prime seats! We were thrilled and had a great time watching the game. Unfortunately the Texas Rangers beat the LA Angels 5-4 but it was a good game. The party afterwards was a lot of fun. The only bad part was saying goodbye to all the new friends we made working this season. Most of the kitchen staff we worked with won't be back next year but hopefully we'll see them sometime, somewhere down the road.

We had a really good time working this season. We already signed up to work at next year's spring training.

	Karen cooking hotdogs. Yummy!
	Concession Stand #3 kitchen staff. From left to right, Vicki (stand lead), Sharon (runner), Howard (runner), Karen (cook), Ross (cook) and Gary (head cook). Best team ever!
	View from our seats during the last game of spring training 2009. Great seats!

New Socks

Ross's hiking socks had worn out. Not just frayed, you could see through them at the pressure points! So it was off to REI for a new pair. (Yes, we could have used plain old cotton socks but experience has taught us that anything other than real hiking socks are a recipe for blisters.) The most affordable were the REI brand at $10.50. But we went during the 20% off any item sale. And we used our REI "dividend" to get the cost down to $3.50. That made our day!

The new socks. No forgetting they're from REI! The white rolled up parts are the liner socks. If you're really interested in the details of hiking socks then e-mail us and we'll educate you. :-)

2 Days - Same Hiking Trail

For the last 2 days we've started out with good intentions of doing a long hike. Both days saw us getting to Usery Park MUCH later than we had planned causing us to do our standard short hike on the Merkle/Vista Trail. Yesterday we did the hike in "reverse" by starting on the Vista Trail, going up and over the hills and then returning on the flat Merkle Trail. We were treated to some wildlife on our climb up the first hill. A snake sitting in the middle of the trail scooted off before we got any good closeup pictures. We're not sure what kind of snake but it wasn't a rattler. Immediately after that we came across a chuckwalla. Not a creature you're likely to see in the "cute and cuddly" section of the zoo! On the hike today, going out on the Merkle Trail and then up and over on the Vista Trail, we only saw small lizards and, of course, the bees flying in and out of the hive at the top of the trail. One of the joys of hiking is that you can hike the same trail over and over and, if you keep your eyes open, see something new every time.

	Snake on the Vista Trail.
	Chuckwalla. This one was about 8" long.
	Ocotillo in bloom.
	Closeup of ocotillo flowers.
	A red barrel cactus in a group of chollas.
	View from near the top of the Vista Trail. Guess which way Phoenix is.

Another Snakey Hike

Today we went hiking at Usery Park on the west side of the Pass Mountain Trail. Hoping for a repeat of the rattlesnake sightings, Ross has been carrying his Canon XTi DSLR camera on our last couple of hikes. Today it paid off when Karen spotted a snake just leaving the trail. It turned out to be a beautiful bullsnake. This one was about 4' long. Bullsnakes are non-poisonous but can imitate rattlesnakes when feeling threatened. This one didn't do anything but pose for a few pictures and then slither away.

	Body of the bullsnake showing the beautiful markings.
	Head of the bullsnake. This picture shows how well they can blend into the landscape.
	A Cholla with dropped pieces around its base. These are the things that latch onto you and never want to let go.
	Karen on the Pass Mountain Trail. Note the yellow flowers.

HDR Photography

My friend Don Stedman introduced me to HDR (high dynamic range) photography. It's a method of handling photographs with different exposure elements. For example, you might have a scene where a regular photo would have part of the picture exposed correctly but another part would be over or under exposed. In HDR photography you take multiple (3 in my case) exposures of the same scene. One is normally exposed, one is under exposed and the last over exposed. Using HDR software you combine the 3 to produce a photograph that has all parts correctly exposed. The results can be quite striking! Below is a somewhat less than dramatic example but it does show how HDR photography works.

Ross

	Scene normally exposed.
	Scene under exposed.
	Scene over exposed.
	Output of combined photography from HDR software.

Snake!

We were hiking in Usery Park last week with Ross's sister Lee who was in town for a visit. Karen spotted a rattlesnake crossing the trail in front of us! This was the first rattlesnake we've ever seen here in Arizona. A couple of days later we were hiking in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Lee had turned back early so we were alone on the trail. Ross was behind Karen when he spotted a rattlesnake crossing the trail only about 20' ahead of us! He shouted "stop, stop, stop" and Karen stopped in time. The snake was moving fairly slowly most likely because it had just "woken up" from hibernating. The snake must not have felt threatened because it never shook it's rattle. Ross got a few pictures of it with a spare point and shoot camera he carries in his pack. Unfortunately he didn't have his DSLR camera with him. He didn't get any closer than about 10' from the snake. This snake, a western diamondback rattlesnake, was about 3' long.

	The snake crossing the trail.
	Closeup of the snake with it's head raised from about 10' away. That was more than close enough!

And Now For Something Completely Different

We like trying new things in life and recently we felt it was time for something new! Friends here at Sun Life told us about working at the concession stands at a local stadium during spring training. As baseball fans know Phoenix is the home of the "Cactus League" with over a dozen teams doing their spring training here. Our friends work at the Tempe Diablo Stadium where the LA Angels train so we applied for jobs there. We were accepted and went through the training. In order to work as "food handlers" we had to take a test and get licensed to work in food services in Maricopa County. We both studied the test material and passed the test on the first try. These are short term jobs as spring training only runs a little over one month. We have now worked at 3 of the games. Both of us were assigned to be cooks. We make hot dogs, french fries, corn dogs, pretzels and nachos. It's a hectic but fun job!

	Tempe Diablo Stadium.
	Karen in the kitchen at Concession Stand #3, our workplace at the stadium. We are 2 of the 3 cooks in the stand.
	Gary, the head cook in our concession stand. Besides being a great guy he taught us everything we know. Thanks Gary!
	Vicki, our stand leader. She and her husband Ed are the friends who told us about these jobs. Ed is in charge of several stands. Yes, we do have friends in high places.
	French fries cooking. Healthy? No. Tasty? You bet!

Tennis Tournament

Today was the Cal-Am tennis tournament. Unlike the poker tournament (see prior posting) there was no qualifying. Anyone who plays tennis was welcome to attend. This was a real low key event. The only scoring was on games (no sets) and they even said that you could switch partners if the teams weren't even. This was a just for fun tournament. Like the poker tournament Cal-Am provided a nice breakfast and lunch free for all players. We both had a lot of fun and we were successful in not embarrassing ourselves too much on the court.

Karen on the court at the Cal-Am tennis tournament.

Poker Tournament

We play Texas hold em poker twice a week here at Sun Life. A couple weeks ago they held a playoff to determine who would represent Sun Life in the Cal-Am tournament. Cal-Am owns several parks in the Phoenix area and each park got to send 8 players to the tournament. Luck was with us on the qualifying night and we both made the top 8. The tournament was held on February 20 at the Canyon Vista park. Cal-Am put on a nice tournament providing free breakfast and lunch to all the players. Ross went out early but Karen hung in there and made it to the final table. All 7 players at the final table got nice shirts. The top 3 players received prize money but unfortunately Karen went out 4th. She was the top player from Sun Life. Everyone had a great time!

The final table at the Cal-Am Texas hold em tournament. Karen is to the right of the lady in pink at the table wearing her winner's shirt.

Today's Hike

There was rain in the forecast for today so we decided to do a quick hike and hopefully not get caught in it. We hiked the Merkle/Vista Trail and stayed dry. The rain earlier had cleared the air so the views were pretty good from the top of the hill.

	The Superstition Mountains in the distance.
	Something we don't see very often here in the Valley of the Sun - clouds!
	The ocotillos have started getting leaves and will soon be in bloom. We'll make sure to get pictures when they do.

s/v Attitudes Original Blog

When we were traveling around in our sailboat, Attitudes, and then in our first RV we created a site at geocities to track our adventure. We didn't know it at the time but we had created an early blog although we don't think the term existed then. Ross spent several hours this evening posting a copy of that original blog to a blogspot blog. The problem with geocities is that they limit bandwidth so you could only look at a few pages before they cut you off. Now it can be viewed whenever desired. We hope you get a chance to look at it if you haven't seen it before, and if you have then we hope you enjoy it again!

Original s/v Attitudes blog

Minute Clinic

Last week Karen came down with a sinus infection. She's had a lot of them over the years so she knew exactly what it was. All she needed was a prescription for some antibiotics. Rather than try to get in to see her doctor, and pay several hundred dollars for that privilege, we decided to try the Minute Clinic at CVS. It was only $59 to see a nurse practitioner and get the prescription. All in all a good value, the only problem was that we were there for 2 1/2 hours! "Several Hour Clinic" would have been a more honest name. Ross waited outside (how long can you look around in a CVS?) and read. When sitting on the concrete got too cold he stood. At one point he was leaning against a trash can when a guy who had just left CVS came up to him and asked "how are you doing?" Ross replied "Fine" and then the guy told said "there's a half-way house near here where you can get a bed and they can fix you up with a job." Apparently he thought Ross was homeless! Too funny! The really funny part was that he was playing with his iPhone when the guy approached him. Guess lots of homeless people have iPhones.

"You're Sick...We're Quick!" Not this time you weren't!

End Of An Era

The problems of the US auto industry have trickled down to us. Last week I found out that Visteon was not renewing my contract. For the past almost 8 years I've provided Unix, web and programming support to the Utica Plant remotely. Before that I worked there on site for several years. It's pretty amazing to recall all the different locations from which I have worked. Literally coast to coast to coast and even offshore of some of those coasts on our sailboats. I've connected using telephone lines, cell phones, DSL, cable modems, wifi and wireless broadband cards. I've done my work while sitting in our boat's cockpit, at picnic tables in RV parks and in hotel rooms all around the country and even traveling down the highway at 60+ mph. It's been a real "trip" :) I'm sad that it's over but all good things must eventually come to an end. And I've always kept in mind that my original agreement to provide remote support was supposed to only last for 9 months. That stretched into almost 8 years so I can't complain!

Ross

Today's Hike

We've had some really great weather here in Mesa the last few days, sunny and low to mid 70's. Today we went to Usery Park and hiked the Cat Peaks/Pass Trail. This trail is a loop about 3 miles long that's fairly flat with several wash crossings and one short but steep section to the top of the pass. We can tell that the desert is getting ready to bloom. The ocotillos have leaves on them and the ground is covered with small green plants that look like grass. We'll make sure to get out and take some pictures when the bloom begins and post them. The trail was crowded today. Of course on this trail that means we saw about a dozen other hikers, 3 mountain bikers and 6 people on horseback. A regular traffic jam it was ;)

Karen and an ocotillo. You can see people on horseback rounding a bend behind her. Click here to read about the ocotillo.

New Hike

Today we did a new hike in a new area. In the city of Scottsdale is the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. There are several trails in the Preserve with the longest almost 5 miles each way. We parked at the Lost Dog Wash Access Area and hiked up the Lost Dog Wash Trail to the intersection with the Ringtail Trail. From there we hiked up to the Lost Dog Overlook. In all the hike was about 3 miles with about 300' of elevation gain. Next time there we'll probably try one of the more aggressive trails.

	Karen leaving the Lost Dog Overlook and continuing a short way up the Ringtail Trail.
	Teddy Bear or Jumping Cholla. You don't want to mess with any cactus but these are particularly nasty! Ross knows this from a couple of too-close encounters over the years. Click here to read about Teddy Bear Cholla.

Apple Does It Again!

Another success (in my humble opinion) for Apple! On Saturday I finally got around to updating the firmware on my iPhone. OK, the upgrade came out several months ago - I've been busy. Besides taking a LONG time, almost 1 1/2 hours, the upgrade went smoothly. After the phone rebooted I had a new icon - the App Store. This is an online store where you can buy applications for the iPhone. They have tons of games and applications that you can download instantly to your iPhone. And many of the applications are free! I've downloaded several free applications and actually paid for 2 others - 99 cents each. The variety of offerings is impressive! Strangely, given this universe of offerings, currently the most popular application is one called iFart which is described as "The world's most popular digital fart machine!" That aside, the App Store makes the arguably best smart phone even better!

Ross

Disclaimer: I don't get anything for saying nice things about Apple and their products :)

Movie Theater

Good and bad news to report. Our favorite movie theater, the Super Saver Cinemas at the Superstition Springs mall, is gone! Their listings quit showing up online a couple of days ago and when we called their phone number it just rang and rang. Yesterday we went to the mall to see what was going on. The marquee was empty and there was a "thanks for the business but we're gone" sign hanging in the box office window. It was our favorite because they only charged $2.00 general admission with $1.50 Tuesdays. Yes, they showed second run movies but we've gotten used to waiting to see most movies. $4 to see a movie second run is much more attractive to us than $14 for a first run movie... in most cases.

Now the good news. We found another second run movie theater in Tempe (that didn't take very long, did it?) It's more expensive ($3.00 general admission and $2.00 Tuesdays) and it's almost a 20 minute drive but the seats are MUCH more comfortable! To say the seats at the Super Saver were "uncomfortable" is being very charitable! A good imitation of a medieval torture device is a better description.

Our sadly departed former favorite movie theater.