CradlePoint: 2 Minutes and We’re Up

Saturday, 11 February

No kidding!  That’s about how long it took us to set up a wi-fi network using our Millenicom aircard and the CradlePoint CBR400 compact broadband router Mui ordered from B&H last week.  (Our timing was good; the price has gone up $30+ since we placed the order.)

Now Mui and I can share the 20GB data package our Millenicom aircard offers.

We did the initial network set up at home after turning off our existing wireless network.  The Quick Start Guide was right on the money, and soon we were both connected and surfing away at speeds equal to that of our home network.  Adding my iMac, which is in the office upstairs, was just as easy and did not impact network performance at all.

Since we bought the CradlePoint to use in the Phaeton, our next step was to go to the storage lot and test everything there.  Piece of cake.  Thanks to the work we’d done at home to set up the network, the laptops connected instantaneously.

Happy campers computing away on the new network!

We have our phone service through Vonage and plan to keep it when we’re on the road.  So our next step will be to connect the base phone to the router to see how it works out.  Also, the CradlePoint will boost any campground wi-fi connections that are available; one more thing to test … maybe when we go on our spring outing in April.

Stormy Weather

Friday, 10 February

Storms … bad weather days … the nemesis of every RVer.  If we pay attention to weather forecasts, we can avoid the worst.  If we have enough warning, we can move out of the way if we happen to be in the path of a storm.  That’s the beauty of having a home on wheels.

But what about those sudden-onset storms that show up when least expected?  Like the one that hit last spring while we were in the Outer Banks.  We monitored the radar on our computer — luckily we had an internet connection; we spoke with the staff at the campground office to confirm that they were monitoring the imminent storm as well; and we were prepared to move to a cinderblock structure should the sirens go off.  In the end, the storm passed to our west and north, and we just bore the brunt of some wind and rain.  Those in mainland North Carolina and nearby states were not so lucky.

Being forewarned is being forearmed.  So, a few weeks ago we ordered a Midland WR300 digital weather/all hazards alert radio.  I won’t go into the features since the website (linked above) lists them all.  (We bought it on Amazon for less than the stated price on the website.)  Mui got the strobe light as well since I sleep with ear plugs.

We set up the radio at the condo and dialed in the appropriate county code.  Now we wait.  Don’t get me wrong.  We’re not wishing for a storm or anything; that’s the last thing we want.  But if the radio doesn’t go off with an alert, how do we know it’s working?  That’s the dilemma!

The Sewer Hose Has a Home

Monday, 6 February

Actually, the hose has had a custom-built home for a while, but I neglected to write a post at the time.

We were storing the sewer hose in a clear plastic bin with a lid, but it took up too much room in the basement.  Before that, we kept the hose in a trash bag in the sewer connection bay, but that was before Mickey’s cousins stopped by for an uninvited visit and built a home inside the hose.  Needless to say, they were evicted — home and all.

We looked at the usual storage options — you know the tubes sold at places like Camping World.  We even bought one and brought it back to the Phaeton only to find that we’d have to remove the collar from the hose if we wanted it to fit inside the tube.  Back to Camping World the tube went.

After surfing the web for ideas, I suggested to Mui that he build his own hose housing from a vinyl fence post sleeve.  After thinking about it, off he went to Home Depot to get a 4” x 4” x 8’ sleeve, a couple of end caps, a few shims to slightly elevate the sleeve, and some mounting brackets to keep it all in place.

A bit of sawing to shorten the sleeve; a bit of drilling to put ventilation holes in the end caps; a bit of screwdriver action to mount it all in place … et voilà — for a fraction of the cost of one of those tube things, we have something that meets our needs and fits nicely along one side of the small basement compartment adjacent to the sewer hook-up bay.  (The compartment in question is marked with blue lines in the photo to the right.)

I wasn’t with Mui when he went out to the coach to build the sewer hose housing, so I’m afraid the documentation of the project is a bit on the ‘lean’ side.

We saved money and the sewer hose is happy with its custom housing.

It’s good that Mui’s such a handyman!  I see many more Phaeton projects in his future :-)

Blast from the Past: I Didn’t Just Cross-Stitch

Saturday, 4 February

My ‘craftiness’ hasn’t been limited to just cross-stitch projects.

I’ve sewn a few things — never got good at it; probably because I didn’t much care for sewing.  And still don’t.  Ask me to hem something and you might as well ask me to jump in a lake somewhere!

I’ve done quite a bit of knitting — one of my first projects was an evening gala outfit consisting of a halter top and a floor-length tube skirt in a fancy pattern (I’ll have to see if I can dig up a photo); I also made the usual scarves, shawls, and throws.  I still knit on occasion; mostly when mom is visiting and we can share the hobby.

I tried my hand at crocheting — I still use the spider web shawl I made in the 1970s; I also made an afghan or two, and a granny-square footstool for my father.  I gave up crocheting as I found it to be too repetitive.

When we were living in Salt Lake City in the 1980s, I gave ceramics a whirl.  Now, don’t get the idea that I threw pottery or anything.  Nope, the wheel was not for me.  I simply painted and decorated unfinished forms at a local studio; the firing of the finished product was included in the price of the item.  Boy did I make a lot of things — for us and as gifts for others.  What few I kept are already packed up for storage, but I found a few photos from way back (mostly of the gift items I made).

Left: nursery Lamp; gift when my brother’s first son was born.
right: gift for my brother; he was interested in native american culture.

Gift for Mui; for his basement office
(sadly this was broken in the move from Utah to Virginia.)

Gifts and a few items for us.
I made the chicken (or is it a duck) for mom’s kitchen (yes, it traveled to Turkey).  the nativity in the bottom corner was for one of my aunts; the orange cornucopia was for another aunt.  the three other items were for us; some fell victim to accidental breakage while others found good homes elsewhere when we moved from Utah to Virginia.

Award winning ceramics projects.
the wreath decorated our home for many years; the color in the bottom photo is truer than the one above that shows the wreath decorated with dried baby’s breath.  (I wish I had a close up of this one; the detail was amazing.)  The deer sat by our fireplace for many-a-Christmas before one of them broke at the neck.  The Christmas candy dish was a gift; as was the Halloween spook light.

  I wonder what other treasures the photo-scanning project is going to uncover :-)

Pat on the Back

Thursday, 2 February

I'm not one to pat myself on the back — normally.

This recognition, received a few weeks ago, was for a project I completed at the end of 2011 to replace a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) application we were using for tracking business development opportunities with a custom application using Microsoft SharePoint. It meant teaching myself the basics of SharePoint before I could even begin the first baby steps of development (with some support from our IT geeks). Now that it is launched, the new application is being used company-wide. I have to admit ... I'm proud of myself for this accomplishment.