Friday, January 22, 2010

Building an Ark

I’m quoting a Boomer Bulletin Board posting that John Black made last night, because it is so cute and really describes what we are going through here in Quartzsite, Arizona.

“Hi to everyone in Boomerville.
A note for an add on for tomorrows activity schedule. Those of us that survive till tomorrow morning please gather at the fire circle after the morning rowing exercise to use the remainder of the firewood to build an ARK. Anyone with building plans for a dessert version of an Ark will get preferential window seats when we get it completed. I know we can have it done by time for Happy Hour because Boomers can do anything we put our minds to, unless of course we forget during the building process and end up with another dessert bar. :-)
Seriously, button down the hatches and good luck to all of us. What a story we will be able to share with friends/grandkids about surviving the great dessert storm of 2010.”

Well said, John, really well written!!!!!!!

It was a wild, wild ride inside the rig with the storm we experienced. CIMG3511Here is a couple of photos I took from the inside of the rig looking out. You could barely see the rigs across from us.  One of the Boomers had a wind meter and he said we had wind gust of 73-80 MPH last night.  I ran out of wine and brandy trying to soothe my nerves.

 

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This is to show you the puddles and lines of water carving trenches across the desert behind the rig.

The boys went out for donuts this morning; those Quartzsite donuts are so good! The washes were NOT filled with water, but Jim said they were very eroded. All the activities have been cancelled for today as there may still be some bad weather coming out way. 

While we were weathering the storm we watched Speed Channel show of the Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction.  It was fun to see all the beautiful cars we remember from our youth.  Joel and Barbara came over to see if I could fix this computer as he had a bad virus.  Well, it took me from noon yesterday to 11:30 am this morning, but I finally was able to get all the Trojan viruses, etc out of his computer, but only because I made umpteen phone calls to my computer guru, Lory, back in Colorado!!!  She is amazing and walked me through all the steps – a couple of times, actually.

CIMG3516Here I am this morning working on Joel’s, Barbara’s and our computer – is this still “multi-tasking” or is it “triple-tasking”?

Lory turned me on to a new software (iobit 360) that really does a great job on spyware, malware, and finding deep viruses that normal anti-virus doesn’t even find and another application (Advance System Care) that cleans, configures, and optimizes your computer.  They can get both programs from c/Net at www.download.com  Both Joel’s and Barbara’s computers had updated AVG anti-virus on them, but on Joel’s a virus got through.  So I changed them both over to using Avast Anti-Virus instead.

Yes, it was kind of fun to be working on computers again, but that was my “previous life” and it does take a long time to search out and get rid of viruses. But it kept my mind occupied while the storm raged outside and quelled my fears that we were going to tip over.

We’re checking the weather alerts closely, so we will be OK.  Remember, you are loved!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

RV Day/Night Shades

We lucked out and got a hold of a good RV day/night shade repair person here in Quartzsite.  CIMG3509Rich and Chris Ryan came out and fixed two of our four foot and one five foot shades for $120.  It only took them about an hour - believe it or not.  They did a beautiful job taking down the valances and side things.  Then they took the shades outside and restrung them with parachute nylon cord right on the bed of their truck.

 

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Lesle had two of her shades done and a couple of other rvers got their shades restrung also.  Boy, do the shades move up and down easier now!  What a difference.   We did learn, though, that you are suppose to move the day shade first and then the night shade, and not move them both together as I have been doing.

CIMG3506We also got to see one of our camphost yesterday.  Phil Argus came and spent the night with us here and then left this morning. Phil work at Park Creek last year and this summer will be an Area Manager in California.  He is a great person and we enjoyed working with him. We wish him well in his next assignment.

Last night we experienced the worse wind storm ever.  It rivaled the wind storm we experienced with Mike and Sandy Bubar at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument near Flagstaff, AZ back in the spring of 2008. Tonight it is going to be a bit mild, but tomorrow and Friday we are suppose to be hammered hard with wind and rain.  They said to expect wind gusts of 50-60 MPH.  So we are picking up all the outside stuff and parking the truck to help buffer the winds.  got hot dogs and beer OK salsa and brandy and we’ll be all set.

We met with the reps from amazon.com to hear what they are proposing for next year’s peak season – being that they are not using temp agencies any more and are hiring us directly from now on.  We’ll write about that tomorrow.

Remember, you are loved!