We work for a gate guard company that pays extremely well but they also put up with no whining and expect you to step up and do what you can to take the burden away from them.  I fueled the generator/light tower with fuel and filled up several 5 gallon cans before hitching it up to the big ass Suburban and moving it to the new location.  That is just the way it is. I was pleasantly surprised 2 days later when we found out they were sending us a 300 gallon stationary tank to replace the four 50 gallon drums I had been using previously.  Everything comes with a cost however and my jubilation was tempered somewhat in the following days.

Oil patch diesel is notoriously dirty.  It is full of water and impurities and we have both heard it over and over and experienced it first hand.  That is the main reason I keep a supply of fuel filters on hand at ALL times.  The heat of the summer is no time to be messin’ with a cranky generator and doubly so now that we have moved into the Princess Place with NO backup genset.   Once the fuel guy set the tank I told him I wanted to fuel the generator just to make sure everything worked correctly.  I had no sooner replaced the nozzle in the holder after filling the generator tank when the little Isuzu motor started coughing and spitting volumes of white smoke.  WTF????  The fuel guy made a beeline for his truck and retrieved his clipboard with the invoice on it for me to sign.  About that time, the generator gave a last gasp and quit.

Setting up the fuel tank

Fuel Guy:  ‘Sign this ticket for me and I will get on my way.’

Me: ‘NO WAY!   Obviously, we just pumped some filthy ass fuel into my generator and screwed it up.  That ticket will get signed when my generator is running again.’

He didn’t like that and I know he was not the one responsible for the dirty fuel but being in the wrong place at the wrong time was not my problem.  He jumped in and helped me change the fuel filter and we both crossed our fingers that the problem would be solved.  After quite a bit of cranking and cussing and sweating in the 100 degree heat, the Isuzu finally fired up and I signed his ticket.  The fuel is horrifically filthy and I have been changing the fuel filter about every 75-100 hours.  They come off the engine half full of water and bad ol’ drugs.  Our Boss Lady called the fuel company to complain as  every fuel filter I put on is a $10 bill.  She requested them to come by and put a second fuel filter on the tank and hopefully clean up the fuel before I pumped it into the generator.  We will see how they respond to that.

The other thing going on is water.  We had an Aquasun water filter on the Old Girl that included an ultraviolet sterilization module.  Unlike most of the other gate guards we drink the water that our service guy delivers to us.   Call us crazy I guess.  We tried the store water route and did OK up until the point we got to a location outside Muenster, TX up in the Barnett Shale that did not have a self-service water station anywhere in town.  The gallon jugs proliferated like you cannot even imagine. I am not a greenie by any means but 30 gallon trash bags stuffed with empty gallon jugs is just wasteful and a big hassle to boot!   Miss Kathy and I suck down an average of 2.5 gallons of good water each day.  If she is cooking up one of her tasty suppers that usage goes up.   Before I left the Old Girl I filled up about 30 gallons of potable water using the Reliance Aqua-Tainer (Note to self:  Use a bungee cord to strap the empty Aqua-Tainers to the trailer tongue or you will be hunting them across the field when the wind kicks up.) and it is a good thing I did.  BTW, I have the Aqua-Tainers in 7 gallon and 2.5 gallon size.  The 2.5 gallon is handy to set on the counter or in the ‘fridge.   They are the best potable water containers I have come across.  Each one comes with a hideaway dispensing spigot.

Replacing the factory water pump on the Princess Palace.

The water pump on the Princess Palace is right underneath the kitchen sink.  I had no trouble locating it right off because it beats like a jackhammer in a steel garbage can. It was a cheapie 2.8gpm Shur-Flo demand pump for RVs.   Just so’s you know, a cheap demand pump like this one is on or off-period.  I had an  Aquatec ES Variable Speed Water Pump laying around and it wasn’t much of a decision to yank that Shur-Flo out and replace it with the Aquajet.  The 3.5gpm Aquajet is more substantial on all accounts and it is American made.  It is also what they call a variable speed demand pump.  It is a pricey rascal but once again I take what Miss K says to heart:  ‘Buy the best. Buy it once.’    The difference in operation was incredible!  Just  a hum emanates from underneath the kitchen sink– it is blissful! 

A couple of pieces of advice if you are dealing with a noisy water pump.

• The pump must be mounted securely. Most pumps have 4 rubber feet.  Make sure there are screws in each foot and they are just snugged down.  Let the rubber feet do their job!
• The pump must be mounted to something that is steady.  A thin piece of plywood or sheet metal will resonate like all get out!
• Make sure the intake and outlet is not rigid PEX pipe.  Get a flexible supply line at least a foot long and preferably 2′ long for both sides of the pump.
• An old rubber mouse pad mounted underneath the pump will do wonders for vibration.
• If your problem is not the water pump itself but the rigid PEX pipes resonating, get some of that foam pipe insulation sleeve and slide it over the reverberating pipe.

Meanwhile, the Aquasun filter is laying in a box, ready for installation in the Princess Palace when I can get around to it.

End Note:  Somebody to Love You by Delbert McClinton from the One of the Fortunate Few.  ‘You need good tires on your car and a good place to eat barbecue…… You need a BIG stick to keep the wolf away.’   Damn right–what Delbert said.   This cat bone’d up on the Zune this morning first off.   God, I love life!

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The Princess Palace at work

Back in the shiny shoe days,  I was prone to excess.  Formal dining rooms, topiaries, stylish dogs with painted toenails–you know, upper middle class badges and trappings.   The last stick house I owned had a walk in closet that had a chandelier and a phone jack in the wall — it was huge; probably 200 square feet.  For a closet- 200 square feet.  What was I thinking?

The reason I bring this up was I talked to my Mom on Mother’s Day and she wanted me to send her pictures of the new (to us) Puma 30RKSS  aka the Princess Palace.  Truth be known, she worried about us banging around the Oil Patch in the Old Girl.  It was streaked with dust, paint faded and dowdy.  It was old and to get some things to work you had to hold your mouth like this or hit it right there.  So she worried about us like Mom’s do.    I sent her the pics and she emailed me back and she said the Princess Place looks BIG!  Comparatively speaking it is big.  All 300 square feet of it.  I didn’t point out to my Mom that her bedroom was bigger than our entire RV.  No need to worry her with unnecessary minutiae.

Miss K and Me and Tuco the Dog are settling into the Princess Palace quite nicely — thank you very much.  The little blue globe thingy at the top left of the page says 204,xxx visits as I write this entry.  Visits–not pageviews;  I think that is a pretty substantial number of visitors.  I just wish I could remember when I put that counter on here.  Maybe about a year ago?  At any rate, there are a bunch of folks who have visited here.   After the Big Hail, I had to ask my friends for some help and a couple hundred of you responded.   Without your help, the Princess Palace most likely would be sitting in a driveway somewhere with someone else’s things in the cabinets.  We are settling into the new digs really well.  Miss K built her nest on the couch, Tuco the Dog has her spot on the floor rug where the AC hits her just right and I have settled into my customary spot at the dinette.  Miss K is still reveling in all the cabinet space and her Wondrous Kitchen.    I am struggling with some logistic issues myself.

A  motor coach like the Old Girl has outside baggage compartments like you will not find on a travel trailer or fifth wheel and I am struggling with all the stuff I tote around with us.  Granted, I don’t have to carry diesel oil and fan belts and filters and such like I used to but I still have too much stuff.  Some of it is going in the DTB, some of it gets set out beside the driveway with a FREE sign on it,  some of it gets throwed out and some of it is in the back of the big ass Suburban waiting to find a home.   I am so OCD when it comes to this kind of thing.   Visualize a supermarket.   You don’t look for feminine products in the aisle where the peanut butter is.

The Old Girl ended up being pretty cluttered.  Every square inch of space was used for something.   We had gotten to the point that if we bought something new something old had to leave to make space.    It was almost impossible to clean the inside of the Old Girl with that much stuff hanging around.  That became all too apparent when we started stripping her down.  How did  dog hair get back here????  We are bound and determined not to stack up the inside of the Princess Palace in such a fashion.   I have a plethora of bowling equipment that has to go somewhere.   I have 5 different hitch combos for the receiver on the big ass Suburban that weigh heavy.  Tools, electrical components and adapters, AC filters, water filters, hoses, blocks of wood, propane tanks, GO bags, food stashes  – the list seems endless.  I reckon I will figure it out in a week or so.

New caulk for the shower

Once the Old Girl is cleaned out and gone down the road to RV heaven I have some changes to make on the Princess Palace.  I have already had to re-caulk a leaky shower. That job couldn’t wait.  I MUST get a Progressive Industries EMSHW30C Surge Protector installed ASAP!  Running naked straight off the generator like we are is bad juju and gives me nightmares. I have to figure out how to get some more electricity in here as well.  Miss Kathy’s Keurig is up to its’ old tricks.  One of the first things I learned about the Palace was the location of the breaker box.  I have to clean up the installation of the Wilson SOHO amp. Coax snaking across the floor and a wireless router hung from a cabinet pull with a bread tie just ain’t gonna cut it.   The water pump on the Palace is driving me crazy. It pumps water just fine but it sounds like a jackhammer running inside a metal garbage can.

….. and that is just the list so far.  Looks like me and Tuco the Dog have got quite a bit of piddling to do in the future.

End Note:  Rio Grande by Dave Alvin from the Eleven Eleven cd.   New. Live. Good.

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Don’t try to explain yourself to stupid people. You’re not the Jackass Whisperer.

Sunrise in the Oil Patch

I  long back for the days when all I had to worry about was the Gate.  Get up and do my time.  A little bit of piddling here and there to keep everything up to snuff but no real hair on fire scurrying about.  I actually remember spacing tasks out so I would have something to do during the long hours that comprise a gate guard’s life.

Ah well,  nothing ever stays the same and in reality that is a good thing.  I don’t want to turn into an old mossy backed curmudgeon for sure.  Things got upside down starting with the dust up with Miss K back in February and then we moved on to the Big Hail Easter Sunday that really sent me reeling.  I had always thought I would put the Old Girl out to pasture in a few years.  Put her on a little piece of land, plant the jacks down solid and take the keys out of the ignition for the last time and there she would be.   She would have been a great ‘guest’ house for overnight stays and a wonderful place for the grandkids to hang.  Never would I have guessed she would have ended up life setting in the South Texas pucker brush waiting for the wreckerman to come and tow her off to the salvage yard.

2010 34′ Puma 30 RKSS floor plan

I picked up the 2010 34′ Puma 30RKSS at PPL Motorhomes in New Braunfels last Saturday.  Most of you folks have heard about PPL and the way they sell huge volumes of used recreational vehicles on consignment.   After dealing with them on the Puma aka the Princess Palace I have to say they know their business.  The deal was handled professionally and with a minimum of hassle.  Most of the angst and ensuing problems were self inflicted.  I showed up to pickup the Princess Palace with little more than a 2 5/16 ball on the receiver hitch of the big ass Suburban and a few dollars in my pocket.  I knew damned well I needed a weight distribution anti-sway hitch and rear view mirror  extensions to make the 150 mile trip back to Los Angeles, TX with the Palace in tow.  I worried through several near sleepless nights that when the Suburban was hitched to the Palace that the weight would squat it down with the front wheels barely touching pavement.  I worried something would queer the deal and I would leave PPL’s lot with no trailer.  I worried about the aging transmission on the Suburban holding up for the trip back.  Hell, I worried about it all but when you ain’t got the money you make do with what you got or you do without.

Most of my fears were unfounded.  PPL received the cash transfer to buy the trailer and all of my paperwork was in order.  I hooked up and yeah, the 7500lb trailer squatted the Suburban down on the rear wheels like a sumbitch but it looked doable.  I pulled out on I35 South and figured at that point it was do or die.  I couldn’t see real good behind me but I could see a little.  The trailer wanted to wag the dog with the Suburban and after 10 miles of varying speed up and down I settled into some two handed white knuckle driving to get through downtown San Antone.  57mph seemed to be the sweet spot. I have always bragged that the 2500 4X4 8.1 liter big block Suburban could pull anything you could get hooked up to the receiver hitch.  I am even more of a believer now.  I got 13.2mpg going to pick up the Palace with a tailwind.  The return trip mpg was 6.2 with the Palace in tow.

Sunrise in the Oil Patch 2

I have been quite vocal over the years about what I thought was the best set up for gate guarding in South Texas.  I espouse the virtues of a used bumper pull trailer over a fifth wheel because they are more a value per foot than the 5ers.  Fifth wheels ALWAYS bring a premium price several thousand dollars north of a comparable travel trailer.   Then you have to have a big assed truck to pull the fifth wheel.   Carpeted floors have no place in the Oil Patch.   They will turn into a gritty matted mess in short order unless you stay after ‘em every minute.  You need a decent sized kitchen if either gate guard partner enjoys cooking.  A good home cooked meal is a welcome diversion to the 24/7 unbending boredom. Sleeping quarters need to be separated from the living quarters and bathroom area as much as possible. Somebody is going to be in bed 14-18 hrs a day EVERY day.   Nothing is worse than getting the stinkeye from your partner when they wake up because you disturbed their rest bailin’ out the door or using the bathroom.  The Princess Palace comes damned close to meeting al the criteria.  The only carpet is in the bedroom and the slide out.  It has a wondrous kitchen and I have already been the recipient of quite a few treats that were produced in that area.   The sleeping area is as well removed from the other areas of the trailer as you are going to find in any floor plan.    There are some things I do NOT like.  Part of them are the difference between the old school RVs and the newer recreational vehicles. Some corners were cut and it is all too obvious.  There is no excuse for a late model trailer such as this to have 30amp service.  It should be 50amp hands down.  It only has one vent which is in the bathroom.  Minimum on any RV should be 3 roof vents — one in the bedroom, one in the bath area and one in the living area or kitchen.  Inside storage is phenomenal on the new trailer.  Outside storage is abysmal but on par with any other travel trailer or fifth wheel. It only has one rooftop AC unit –albeit a 15k btu-  and that is going to be a problem come High Summer down south here.

Keep your eyes on the ass of that sheep in front of you. It’ll be the only way to know which way the herd is moving.
At least until the Border Collies show up.

One last thing before I check out on this Mother’s Day Sunday 2013. Miss K and I have been working double duty this past week to set up a new abode and transfer everything from the Old Girl to the Princess Palace. I worked 20hrs yesterday because a week of very minimal internet and phone service just plain ol’ sucks. It was my goal yesterday to get the Wilson booster  up and running. I got that done because I want to call my Mom today.

Sunrise on the new Puma

Now, if you are enjoying all the warm fuzzies and stuff from today’s post, stop reading right now and click my Amazon Link to go do some shopping. After all that is how I keep the blog running and the forums open.  I am going to un-apologetically  blister some ass in the next section of today’s post.

If you check the date on the Wilson booster link above you might notice it was written 4 years and one month ago — and it is NOT the first blog entry. The first entry dates back to February 2009. I have been writing the blog for awhile now– ups and downs and arounds. I shared it all; hoping it might be interesting or save somebody some pain by learning from my mistakes.

4 years plus of doing the same same –telling it like it is and speaking my mind.  Since February, the two of us have been the recipients of some unwelcome public ridicule mostly by folks who were too chicken shit to actually even let me know what their real name is.  Now you might say throwing it all out in public like I do opens me up to the ridicule and criticism and I would agree unequivocally.   I take all you ridiculing criticizing sumbitches to task now because you waited till a man was down to come out of the shadows and kick him in the nut sack.  With two exceptions, the nay sayers were unkown to me— those that even had the nerve to identify themselves that is.  Most preferred to hide behind the anonymity of the internet like the spineless cowards they are.  If you choose to criticize –  DO IT RIGHT.  Take the High Road and try to stick to known facts.  Leave hurtful conjecture and painful unfounded ridicule alone — it has no place in communication between two adult parties.

Contrary to information posted elsewhere I am not a sad old drunkard taking money from blue haired AARPs who can ill afford it.  Every nickel collected from the PayPal Donate button went toward the purchase of the Princess Palace.  Even when the cupboard got bare and the Suburban needed a fill-up that money  was untouchable.  I twisted no arms and kept the money for the donated purpose.  I even put up with a credit card chargeback  for a substantial donation because they said the use of the card was unauthorized which I know to be a lie.  Did you know if someone does a credit card chargeback on a PayPal donation that you are liable for a chargeback fee of $20 on TOP of the donation being removed?  I do now.  That little transaction saw the donation removed from my balance PLUS they took another $20 out.  Fine folks, huh?

Contrary to information posted by good folks here and there  Miss Kathy is not a money grubbing run around harlot who absconded into the night with my money.  She had to leave so she could come back.  It was what it was and I do not fault her in any way.  She just had more backbone than I did; more strength when it came down to the hard times.  I am ashamed I did not man up and address the problems before  it got to that point.

Had I to do it over again I would never, ever  consider asking for donations.  It empowered some small minded idiots and they felt it gave them some sort of say so in how I was living my life.  Nothing could be farther removed from the truth.  I entertain counsel from friends and weight it with credence.   Lightweight, unfounded, mean spirited drive bys are just meant to cut to the bone with a maximum hurt factor.  Go elsewhere you bastards.

Miss Kathy is the woman I have been looking for my whole life.  Regular readers know I do not hold that as a close secret.  My  love for her is not a passing whim nor is the trust lightly placed.

The part that really chaps my ass is some of the folks that I have pissed off are going to continue reading the blog and the forums.  They are going to read this blog and tomorrow’s and next week’s.   They will log in to the forums and read the messages there. Why do they do this if my life is so despicable?  Are they the same ones that watch NASCAR for the wrecks?

Ah well, life comes with thorns.  It is what it is and that is all I will ever say about this.

End Note:  That All You Got by Steve Earle from The Low Highway.     New Steve Earle goodness.

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