Table Topics.....

As I was making my rounds Tuesday cruising along in my Yamaha golf cart feeling the crisp, cold 42 degree air slowly numb my face I thought how blessed I am to be in this place at this time.  You're thinking....wait, what?  This guy has spent over 4 years chasing t-shirt, shorts and flip flop weather and now he is saying he feels blessed to be in a place where watch caps, UnderArmor, jackets, and gloves are part of the daily attire?  It's hard to explain, but I just love this weather.....it feels more like fall than spring weather, and fall is my favorite season....in fact, rain is forecast for about 8 of the next 15 days.  I have always felt at home here, and now that we are in our 3rd year working at TVC we know our way around.....we have integrated ourselves into the local community......we have made friendships that will long endure past the summer of 2016.  We have a management team which is extremely supportive, and is getting things done.

So, what did Tuesday look like from my perspective?  As all our work days here begin we opened the office at 7:30 am.......I rode my Intense 5.5 down to the maintenance yard to pick up my cart, and to check on the golf cart in which I had installed 6 used batteries to replace the 6 DEAD batteries.  The charger indicated it was charged, and I was able to put it in 'gear' and back it up, and drive forward......a seeming success, right? Unfortunately the used batteries only provided enough power to move the cart about 1/8th of a mile before they died......sigh!  At least we know it was the batteries, and not anything else wrong with the cart.  We should have the new batteries in a few days.

I retrieved my golf cart and headed back to the office to get my reports and begin my rounds which went pretty quickly.  Then I headed over to our 'Ice House' which we had been venting out for the past 2 days prior to turning the refrigeration on for the summer.  As with other things the folks that worked here the last few years are no longer here and no one seemed to know how to turn it on......after about 10 minutes I found an electrical box with a lock on it which I opened to find the switch to turn everything on......by 2 pm it was down in the 30's inside.  

About mid morning Miguel (head ranger) joined me in the maintenance yard to begin assembling 40 new picnic tables....Gordy has been painting the wood before we put them together, and he can paint enough wood to assemble 6 picnic tables at a time, so it looks like it will take us about a week, or less to get them all assembled and distributed throughout the campground.  We've got our assembly process down to where it takes us less than 12 minutes to put one together using 27 carriage bolts to marry the metal legs and supports to the wood table tops and bench seats.....my Porter-Cable impact driver is really coming in handy.

We finished the last table about 1:30 giving me 30 minutes to do my final rounds, return my cart to the maintenance yard, and my radio to the office to be recharged before clocking out for the day.   I've only got 4.5 hours left before I reach my weekly 30 hour work limit, so I'll be off work Wednesday by noon.....YAY!

I arrived back at the coach fully intending to take a bike ride, but when I went out to check on my Cannondale Bad Boy hybrid I found that the rear hydraulic brake was not functioning properly.....by that I mean it would not stop the bike, so I proceeded to try and bleed the line, but it turned out....after about 15 minutes.....that the caliper had developed a terminal problem and needs to be replaced before I can ride the bike.  I found a couple of likely replacements on eBay, so I should have the replacement early next week.

Thanks for stopping by!