Ouch … the amber fog light in our 1982 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel shatter a couple weeks ago and I’ve been searching to find a Bosch replacement ever since. While looking on ebay, I was surprised not to be able to find a decent one for under $35 … that is a lot to spend for a used fog light! I finally decided that driving this autumn with out a bulb was not a good idea, so I coughed up $38.45 for a used bulb, but it wasn’t easy.
After doing a little maintenance and replacing the front tires on the John Deere 330 last month, I finally finished the simple 10K generator setup and wired up a new longer power-to-house cable. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to come up with a mount that makes it easy enough from my wife to connect the generator head to the John Deere and then to the house, but it is still relatively easy (she could probably do it … but wouldn’t like doing it).
Setting it up is a matter of a single tensioner "thumb screw" that I ground in order to align the generator head and the single heavy Kevlar 5/8" x 43" belt. So far in testing it for a few hours, it runs the house without a problem (minus AC, electric range, dryer, etc), … and uses 1/2 gallon of diesel per hour running at mid-throttle –required RPMs for 120 VAC and 240 VAC. I suspect my calculations on burn rate could be off slightly, but have erred on the conservative side (planning for 5 gallons of diesel every 10-12 hours).
The Republican establishment has moved a bit closer to full fledged panic after a video of their candidate for president was dug up from a "hot-mic" Donald Trump celebrity appearance 11 years ago. It offered an audio picture of what most knew about the man who swaggered his way through the Republican primaries. His vulgarity and juvenile delinquent (my term) locker room talk is no surprise and fits his "can’t touch me" Billionaire grandiose narcissism, but hearing it on audio is still disturbing. It is totally degrading to women and makes me uncomfortable as a Christian, a husband and father, who chooses not to swear or use vulgarity — it is therefore hard for me to stomach that he’s "MY" political party’s candidate for president. This is bottom of the barrel filth and doesn’t help the GOP which is already polling poorly with the female demographic (thanks to Trump).
To his credit (cough, cough), Donald Trump did apologize (something rare for him) … and makes most of his supporters squirm as they try to defend everything positive in the platform. At this point, the Trump campaign is starting to sink the entire GOP ship … House of Representatives and all (something not even imagined a few weeks ago).
I feel for the country and the direction we are headed and am thinking to myself: "How ironic, the one area conservatives always had over liberals was they stood up for values and morality — now it has been torched by this ego driven, unethical businessman who now has only one thing going for him … the fact that GOP policies are better for the country than those of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. That said, I’m having an increasingly harder time of even convincing myself to support my party’s candidate."
Personally speaking (and assume I’m not alone), I wish Trump would drop off the ticket because I would be far more comfortably supporting and voting for Gov Mike Pence.
The Giffords are part of a growing, but little-known community of people called cruisers. (A 2011 survey placed the global total number of cruising boats at 10,000.) “Cruising requires that you learn to live without structure. And some people are really afraid of that.”
While many cruisers are couples or individuals who have given up the rat race to live a life-long dream, some are families who spend months, even years at sea or living on a boat in distant lands. “It’s about the absolute sense of freedom. You get to explore the world and bring your home along with you,” says Lin Pardey, an author and 45-year veteran of the cruising lifestyle who, with her husband Larry, literally wrote the book on it. “But cruising requires that you learn to live without structure. And some people are really afraid of that.”
Archiving another project idea for living on the hook (someday) yet still having hot water for dishes, cleaning and SHOWERS (a freshwater shower is a luxury for most sailboats).
Ouch … the amber fog light in our 1982 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel shatter a couple weeks ago and I’ve been searching to find a Bosch replacement ever since. While looking on ebay, I was surprised not to be able to find a decent one for under $35 … that is a lot to spend for a used fog light! I finally decided that driving this autumn with out a bulb was not a good idea, so I coughed up $38.45 for a used bulb, but it wasn’t easy.
