The Adventures of T&A

Let’s start off with the big news. Our house is for sale!

Our home should hit the multiple listings Monday, September 19th with pix soon to be added to our listing. It has been a very long and torturous road, mostly for Teresa. She has worked her arse off for the past 3-4 months since she quit her job. She has painted, mowed and managed our contract painters and floor refinishers. She has freecycled tons of stuff (keeping it out of landfills) while craigslisting anything of significant value. She has and reorganized and decorated the entire house. She has done such an outstanding job, that our realtor did not have a single thing left for her to do! I love my wife. Way to go Teresa!

We didn’t get to this point without some heartache though. Our floor refinishing project turned into quite the debacle. We have a pretty unique floors in our home; they are made of 8×1 soft pine planks with a dark stain and some pretty hefty nails show through. Being soft pine, they dent quite readily. They kind have that old saloon look. So while these sub-contractors were sanding, Teresa and I were amazed to see tons of sparks flying from the sander when the sander hit these nails. Turns out, they were supposed to have sunk the nails prior to sanding, and by sanding over the nails, they destroyed their sander and our floors. We didn’t realize they had destroyed our floors until they put stain down. Dark streaks were evident where the big sander had been used on half of our floor. The contractor did come by and make things right. The “subs” had to re-sand an entire section of our floor. Due to vacation plans, this ended up extending the project out to two weeks. During all of this, we are living in our fourth bedroom downstairs, and our dog is being boarded. It was not a pleasant experience. To make matters worse, we came to discover a few days later, that the sub-contractors had used our freshly painted handrail on our front porch as a notepad. Anyhow, in the end, our contractor ended up doing everything he could to make things right, but he needs to keep a better eye on his subs!

Teresa has picked up our repaired Jason truck cap today. Hopefully, that will be the LAST time we need to have that thing repaired.

On a sad note, Teresa mother recently passed away. She was really the last of Teresa’s parent’s generation to pass away. It has been pretty tough on Teresa and the family. Teresa has agreed to take on the role of “archiver” and has started scanning tons and tons of old photographs. I’ve added Gallery 2.0 to koransky.com here to provide a public place to store the pix.

Our next step is to take Simon down to Florida to stay with the cousin doggies. We will dearly miss him. He’s been a “good” doggie recently… I sometimes wonder if he knows what is coming. He will be treated well in Florida though.

Finally, we just wait for a buyer. I’ll then give my official notice after the inspection.

We are almost there. Teresa has finished up all of the important interior projects. We are having the floors redone the week of Aug 29th. I think we both finally feel comfortable setting a date for putting the house on the market: September 7th at the latest! It’s a bit later than I hoped, but hopefully not too late to attract some buyers before we get into Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Unfortunately, on the equipment side of things, we’ve been having some problems with our Jason Truck Cap.

Namely: (1) the carpet is detaching from the fiberglass shell, (2) shell frame bows out preventing a good seal when back window is closed, (3) worst of all, the cab facing window is leaking when underway. Our dealer will be sending the cap back to Jason for repairs. We’ve had this less than a year. I probably should have bought an ARE… oh well.

Now my work starts in earnest on the blogging website. Teresa designed a layout a little while back, and I’ll be playing with mojoPortal to see if I can build something that resembles her layout. Hopefully, I can build something fancy on mojoPortal that will allow it to display maps, etc… hopefully my next entry will be in mojoPortal!

We are almost there. Teresa has finished up all of the important interior projects. We are having the floors redone the week of Aug 29th. I think we both finally feel comfortable setting a date for putting the house on the market: September 7th at the latest! It’s a bit later than I hoped, but hopefully not too late to attract some buyers before we get into Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Unfortunately, on the equipment side of things, we’ve been having some problems with our Jason Truck Cap.

Namely: (1) the carpet is detaching from the fiberglass shell, (2) shell frame bows out preventing a good seal when back window is closed, (3) worst of all, the cab facing window is leaking when underway. Our dealer will be sending the cap back to Jason for repairs. We’ve had this less than a year. I probably should have bought an ARE… oh well.

Now my work starts in earnest on the blogging website. Teresa designed a layout a little while back, and I’ll be playing with mojoPortal to see if I can build something that resembles her layout. Hopefully, I can build something fancy on mojoPortal that will allow it to display maps, etc… hopefully my next entry will be in mojoPortal!

Between my last set of lengthy automotive travels and this upcoming trip, I have owned two pop-up truck campers. The first camper was a Sunlite Skyhawk SB… quite nice… it had an auxiliary battery, propane system, a fridge, fan, heater, etc… It insulated you quite a bit from the great outdoors (which was a disappointment actually) and it weighed a ton (IE it did not perform very well off-road.) I really did like the fan however… it was a godsend on a warm evening. More on that later. Anyhow, we sold the Sunlite and purchased an Aliner Truck Cabin which proceeded to fall apart on us. The saga was so horrendous, I devoted a whole web page to it here. So now we are back to some basics here… a simple truck cap, a home made sleeping platform, and some ingenuity.

Because both Teresa and I really enjoyed the fan in our Sunlite, I decided to try to make something work in our new truck. I would need to be able to run a fan all night long to stay comfortable in warm climates and that would require some power. Of course, because I’m such a geek, I also plan on bringing a couple of different electronic items with me including a laptop, an external USB hard drive, a digital camera or two and a printer. So I’ve got to figure out a decent 12v/120v electrical system for our rig.

Let me note that in my past travels, I’ve had some electrical problems. I traced my problems down to a couple of things:

• You really need to use a high quality deep cycle battery if you want to get any life out of your auxiliary battery. (One of the batteries in my old rig leaked acid all over the place and destroyed some carpet… Ick!)
• Battery isolators do not do a very good job at keeping your auxiliary battery charged, and they can overcharge your battery.

I was determined not to have these problems again. So I consulted with an expert. My friend had worked on hybrid cars in the past so had a good bit of experience with batteries. She recommended that I get a battery charger and run it through a second inverter. I spoke with other friends who suggested a secondary alternator, but that presented more of a mechanical challenge than I was willing to deal with. Here is what I came up with (I’m not an electronics engineer so bear with my horrendous drawing and the misspellings.)



The Vector 700 watt inverter (VEC062) is directly wired into the main battery and I have a Vector 35 amp smart battery charger (VEC1092A) running off of the 700 watt inverter. I can use this setup to charge my main battery. For my auxiliary system, I ordered a high powered 70 amp SPDT relay… it actually shipped from India! Apparently, a 70 amp relay is pretty darn rare. This relay automatically switches power from the alternator/main battery (when the key is in the ignition) to the auxiliary battery (when the ignition is off). My 350 watt inverter (VEC061) plugs into the relay so it has power full time from the highest capacity power source. I purchased an Optima Yellow Top 55 amp/hour deep cycle battery for the auxiliary battery.

I also built an electronics tower to hold all this stuff. Here are some pics of what it may look like when completed.

 

Any electronics engineer would have cringed when they heard what I did next. I drilled a hole in the truck’s firewall and ran a wire through it from the main battery. Basically, I had a wire, going through the firewall, without a grommet OR a fuse. I could have totally destroyed my car’s main battery if that wire touched ground (IE any part of the car frame). Oops! Anyhow, I did eventually get the grommet and an 80 amp fuse. And yes, my main battery still works.

Anyhow, tonight I’ve actually got the tower completely wired up and ready to rock. I have the wires in their proper places in the truck, I’ve done some continuity testing on the tower of power, and I have verified the relay is working as it should. I’ve hooked the aux battery to the tower and verified that all the things that should be getting power are, and things that should NOT be getting power are not. So tomorrow, I will wire the “tower of power” to the auxiliary battery and the truck. If no wires melt and no batteries blow up, we should be in good shape!



Note the all important empty beer glass on the table.

Well, after further discussions with our realtor, it turns out that we are going to have to get our floors refinished. That will add another week or two to our time frame. The good news? This may give us some time to get Simon down to Florida and settled with the cousin dogs.

It’s been a little while since our last update. The house is indeed getting ready for sale. We’ve had it painted, fixed up our upstairs and kitchen, and now only have the downstairs to go. Teresa has made a few trips to take some boxes over to storage, do a little bit of painting, and we should be ready to put it on the market.

We took a little vacation June 18-28. It started off with some time in Florida for a B&B Seminar… on Amelia Island / Fernandina Beach, FL. The seminar was fascinating and really opened our eyes to what kind of day-to-day work is required for running a B&B. We also learned a good bit about how the lodging world works in general, and even how a “public” business like a B&B can be made to be successful. It was a great seminar that I would recommend to anyone who is considering opening a bed and breakfast. At the very end of the class, I thought that we could definitely make a go at running a bed and breakfast. But along the drive home, Teresa and I had a pretty long discussion and decided that the main reasons we were considering a B&B (more time with each other, less stress, etc..) were not part of the reality of running a B&B. We have not, however, ruled out a small supplemental B&B business or “home stay” (which is similar to the European B&B, renting out a room for a night or two every now and then).

After the seminar we headed back to Atlanta and flew out to Colorado to hang out in Edwards for a few days, where my parents bought a house. A much needed break from all the housework for Teresa and work-work for me.

On a side note, I have released OpenGPS.NET, destined to be a part of my web-blog project.

Well, Teresa is out of work and is starting her “new job” today. She’ll start getting the house in decent enough shape to put it on the market. We had a slight delay because we had to take a quick trip down to Florida (4/29 – 5/4) because Teresa’s Grandmother, Momo, passed away at age 96. She was healthy through age 95. An amazing woman whose generosity has inspired us.

Here’s some stuff we have been listening to by the Blue Man Group that also inspires us:

Blue Man Group – The Current
from The Complex

Going down,
Down where my breath is the only sound
Going down

Going down,
Going down,
Don’t look for me now, all day long,
I’m underground

And I’ve been thinking about the future
I’ve been waiting for the day
Let the current carry me,
far away
Let the current carry me away.

Current flows,
but I don’t know where it goes
I don’t care,
I just get it there
Took this job,
cause I needed one
Now its seven years,
since I’ve seen the sun,
All day long I’m underground

And I’ve been thinking about the future
I’ve been waiting for the day
Let the current carry me, far away
Let the current carry me away

Now been thinking about the future,
I hope some day I’ll get away
but the current keeps bringing me,
back around,
seems the only place for me is,
underground.
So tomorrow when the sun comes up,
I’ll be going down, going down.
Going down.

Blue Man Group – Up To The Roof
from The Complex

All I see is not for me.
What I want you have not got.
Tried to use things you sold me, no matter what the cost
Tried to go the way you told me, but each time, I got lost
The stairs didn’t lead me anywhere!

I’m taking the fire escape up to the roof.
Don’t care if it’s not the way you find the truth.
Time to make this right: to rise above.

This room and all of you
Who say I should do like you would
Tried to live the life you sold me, no matter what the cost.
Tried to walk the way you told me, but each time I got lost
The stairs didn’t lead me anywhere!

I’m taking the fire escape up to the roof.
Don’t care if it’s not the way you find the truth
And when I get up that high, I don’t know what I’ll find
But I’d rather look at the sky than wonder why I let you take my time
Time to make this right: to rise above.

I’m taking the fire escape up to the roof.
Don’t care if it’s not the way you find the truth
And when I get up that high, I don’t know what I’ll find
But I’d rather look at the sky than wonder why I let you take my time.

Time to make this right: to rise above…

Along those lines, Teresa also got a heartwarming comment from someone she worked with. It went something like this:

It’s nice to see that there are still people in this world willing to do something as crazy as quitting their job to take a year off and experience life.

I still claim, anyone can do this, especially those of us without kids. You simply live below your means, save religiously, and do it!

We have made the first big step towards making our dream a reality. Teresa has given her one month notice at work. She will work to the end of April and then she’ll help concentrate on getting our home ready to be sold.