It was great having my son Travis and his wife Geli here for a few days visiting us. We had a wonderful time showing them around the area and just hanging out here at the house spending time together. They left yesterday morning, headed back to their home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and we look forward to seeing them again when we go through that area or when they come back down for another visit.
After the kids left I spent about three hours catching up on email and answering questions from readers that came in during the last couple of days. One was from somebody saying that they have faithfully entered our weekly free drawings for over two years now and have never had their name drawn, and wanting to know how they could increase their chances of winning.
You can’t. Every Sunday night I enter the number of entries into Random.org and the website selects the winning number. So it is totally at random. All I can say is, keep trying. Like the folks of the lottery always say, you can’t win if you don’t play.
While on the subject of the drawings, I’m not sure why people enter after the drawing is already over and the winner has been announced, but every week I get three or four entries between the time we name the winner for the previous week and announce the next contest. All they are doing is wasting their time and making extra work for me, because I have to go in and delete the entry. You can’t enter the drawing until Thursday when a new one starts, and if you enter after the winner is drawn on Sunday evening, it’s an invalid entry and just gets deleted.
Another email I got yesterday was from somebody who told me she had dropped her week old iPhone down their motorhome’s toilet as she flushed it, wanting to know how they could retrieve it and if I thought it would still work, since the black tank was “pretty full.” My first reaction was that even if I could retrieve it, I darned sure wouldn’t want to use it! And since that was the only reaction I could come up with, that’s what I told her.
I was reminded of the time when I managed to drop my Army-issued .45 semi-automatic pistol down into the outhouse on the rifle range at West Point. The Army frowns on soldiers losing their weapons, and I told a fellow NCO what I had done and asked for his advice. He told me that rank does have certain privileges and that’s why the Army gave us privates. Then he grabbed one of the deadwood GIs who was always looking for a way to avoid work, handed him a coat hanger, and told him to retrieve the pistol and clean it up. I felt sorry for the poor guy, but I’ve got to be honest and say I didn’t stop him. Once the gun was well cleaned, I put in a paper bag, took it back to the arms room and said it wasn’t functioning properly, and traded it in for another one. Yeah, I’m that kind of guy.
I have an appointment with my new primary care provider at the Daytona Beach VA Medical Clinic tomorrow, and assuming she doesn’t want me to have any tests scheduled or follow-up appointments, we will move the motorhome from the storage lot back to our house and start getting it cleaned up and loaded so we can hit the road. If all goes well, in a week or so the wheels will be rolling once again. While I will admit that we are both a little bit reluctant to leave our comfy little home here in Florida, we are also looking forward to seeing family and friends again and having some new adventures.
Thought For The Day – In reality we only ever experience the present moment, everything else is either a memory or an expectation. Live for the moment.
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Nick Russell
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This may be a dumb question but I’ll ask anyway, when you give away a book like number three in a series, is that also a stand alone book or do I need the first two to enjoy the third?
My concern would be is that phone going to cause problems in the holding tank when trying to empty it ?? If it got flat aginst the drain hole it could be a BIG problem — how would one go about getting it out of there ???
When we first bought a “part-time” home in Tucson (after full-timing for a good number of years), we little realized how difficult it was going to be to load and unload at the beginning and the end of our transition periods. I left as much as possible in the rig … duplicating my favorite kitchen appliances and having separate linens, dishes, pots & Pans, utensils, etc. All we needed do at the end was to load clothes, perishables and computers. But … age & gravity take their toll and we only lasted 3 years as part time travelers. Now, we have a MUCH smaller rig for short trips and have embraced our comfy home and amenities and rejoice in the proximity of the airport!! Time marches on ……
Sally, all of my books can be read as stand alones with their own story to tell, but throughout the series the characters evolve and (hopefully) grow based upon their experiences in earlier books in the series.
Belva, we had a similar problem when the round plastic disk left over from when they cut the drain hole was not removed upon installation and managed to wedge itself in the opening. We used a holding tank flush adapter from Amazon (here is a link to it http://amzn.to/2r7O7N8) to force water from the outside in and knock it out of the way. RV techs say this happens often. I guess once the tank is completely drained and flushed one might be able to retrieve it with some sort of long flexible grabber like this tool on Amazon http://amzn.to/2qwMNFb
Carol, I suspect that is true for most folks who come off the road. Time will tell in our case.