Food and other happenings

I have been trying to post for the last few days with no success.  Our internet access has been a little spotty again, I may have to upgrade to a directional antenna for the Wilson Cell Booster.  I have to say that I am more than impressed with its performance thus far considering the nearest sprint tower is about 30 miles away.

I mentioned in a previous post about the food being delivered to the site for the "frack" crew.  The meals we received were absolutely amazing. In addition to the bbq pork chops and chicken & sausage we were blessed with steak, meatloaf, hamburgers and crawfish ettoufle(sp).  That doesn't include the bbq sandwich that was given to me by one of the vendors.  While we only had catering in once a day there are gates that see them multiple times a day.  The amount of food contained in these meals was plentiful and quality was excellent.   I can't imagine what the guards that have catering come through more than once a day do with all that food.

I finally talked Toie into getting one of those "Magic Bullet" blenders that you see on tv.  Its great, its small size makes it a cinch to store and its power requirements are small at 250 watts so it can be easily run off of a 400 watt inverter.  While not suited for any "heavy" blending, it does exactly what they advertise.

We had a casualty yesterday when we had a dust devil collide with our easy-up that was next to the rv. Other than the easy up frame being destroyed and a small dent in the side of the rv there was no damage.  I did have to get up on the roof to disentangle a few extension cords that had wrapped themselves around the refridgerator vent.  Toie is much more upset over it than I am, my reasoning being that I would much prefer to have a 99 dollar easy up destroyed by the wind than a 500 dollar awning that would have caused some real damage had it flipped over the rv.

We have had temperatures in the triple digits over the past few days so I have been going inside at about 2pm and just listening for the bell until about 7:30 and then coming back outside to stay.  The evenings here are just wonderful, we have had a gentle breeze most evenings and it makes it so pleasant to just sit outside.

Yesterday during my shift and not long after the easy up was destroyed I had the pleasure of seeing the ugliest cow i have ever seen.  There is a pasture that is right behind the rv and  I  walked around to open the dump valve and was quite surprised to find some cattle so close to us.  I have seen them in the adjoining pastures but never behind the rv.

I'm gonna post this before I lose it again...


Have a GREAT day!!!!

Muy Caliente!

According to the evening news we hit 100 here in the Tilden area today. It was warm to say the least. I was lucky to see rabbits running across the road and early this morning I was treated to a serenade by the local coyote population. The "lake" out front is finally drying up and its less than a third the size it was when we got here. All in all a wonderful day.

We also had a few hiccups. Our generator shut itself down just as it was getting dark, luckily I had fired up the light plant so I didn't have to work in the dark to get the genset running again. I had Toie call our support guy and let him know what was going on as I was trying to figure out why it shut down. The positive battery terminal melted in half, there is even a little drop of lead on top of the battery. The positive cable was extremely hot, almost to hot to touch. The generator had shut itself off I thought because the battery had become disconnected. Boy was I wrong, when I touched the cable to the battery I got a nice arc out of it, which would have been great if I wanted to weld, but shouldn't have happened with the genset off (I had turned the switch to off). I grabbed a light and went to take a better look at things and discovered that the insulation on the cable had been worn through by the vibration of the generator while it ran. I got the positive cable removed/disconnected from where it had shorted. This looks to be a potential common problem with these generators seeing how they place the battery box and run the cables. I think my daughter had gotten into my toolbox before we left and acquired my electrical tape, so I had to improvise a bit. I took a piece of blue pex (crosslinked poly ethylene 1/2 inch water hose)a few inches long and sleeved the damaged part of the cable, using duck tape to secure it in place and then using a pair of vise-grips to hold the cable to the battery post. It worked and the besides a little belt squeal when first started, everything seemed to be running good.

We also discovered that our light tower seems to interfere with our internet. The lights must be giving off a little RFI.

Oh well,  you can't sweat the small stuff.  I only have  a few hours before Toie gets up and I want everything to be as trouble free as possible. 

Almost forgot.  The catering guys here are awesome. Last night it was barbecue pork chops, I wonder whats in store for us tonight?

(Btw.  It was chicken and sausage with green beans and mashed taters).