That would be cool, but I'm not in the same league. Hell, I'm not on the same planet.Originally Posted by NEPAKevin
I think the late Ansel Adams would have approved.
Grand Tetons and the Snake River (1942)
That would be cool, but I'm not in the same league. Hell, I'm not on the same planet.I think the late Ansel Adams would have approved.
Grand Tetons and the Snake River (1942)
Arrived safely in Portland OR this afternoon:
Just a short trip down I5, maybe 65 miles. We hardly got the truck warmed up.
We stayed here last year, it's a good park just off 99 in Tualatin. We'll be here a week, seeing family and doing the USPSA match Saturday.
I have an oil and fuel filter change interval coming up, and there is a good Ram dealer here I've used before. So I might do that this week also.
My Amazon orders from Prime Day were waiting for us. Got a new Sabre Red Flip Top Pepper Spray, and replaced my lost ProTac Streamlight with a similar model:
I also received my ShurFlo 4008 water pump, which I have to install some time. Oddly, we had no blow-past last three days. Maybe something got dislodged in the pump membrane. Or the water pressure at Silver Lake was not high. Anyway, I have a spare pump if the other fails permanently.
Going to char some critter tonight, I reckon. I put a nice La Crema white in the fridge to cool down. I know, I should have red wine with steak but hey it's 81F out.
So, this afternoon, we're leaving the Post Office in Tualatin OR after mailing a magazine I sold.
I start to back out, and my wife notices some weird black smoke coming up and out of a building across the street.
The smoke starts getting you know, pretty thick, and very black, so I say Holy Cow that might be a structure fire of some kind!
I park up, and dial Portland 911. The convo goes like this:
Me: Hi, I'd like to report a structure fire at so and so Highway.
Operator: Ok, what's the address?
Me: Uh, I can see several building numbers, but I think it's near xyz,
I can still see the smoke..no wait, now I just see heat coming out of the building, the smoke has pretty much gone...
Operator: Ah, ok sir, one sec.
(Keyboard tapping)
Ok, that address is actually a...Crematorium. They may have just been, uh...taking care of something.
Me: Oh. OH! Well, uh, sorry.
Operator: No problem sir, thanks for the call anyway.
Kinda a weird experience.
Been keeping busy running errands and catching up on a few things. Hair cuts, dog wash, Posting some items, Whole Foods; stuff like that.
Today I got the truck serviced in Wilsonville. $299 for oil and filter change, both fuel filters changed, and a tire rotation.
I got a stainless steel furnace vent cover and put it on today. Keeps the mud daubers from building nests in the flue (seriously, they like Propane, apparently) and provides a guard against burning (the furnace vent gets pretty hot).
Since I get the 'how do you get Internet' question a lot, I thought you might want to see some representative Campground WiFi usage.
Turns out my WRT54G with dd-wrt firmware records usage by day for each month:
So it's about 32G, or a Gb a day. This is for: 2 iPhones, 3 tablets, a laptop, a TV, a BluRay player, and a satellite receiver.
(I run two routers, #1 faces 'the camp' and acts as a repeater for the other. #2 acts as my local device Access Point, and gets its IP via a short 12" LAN cable from router 1. Since all my devices connect to #2, all my internal network traffic (casting movies from the laptop to the TV, printing a file from the laptop, etc.) runs on it.)
Some additional info:
Campground connections range from awful (less than 1 Mbps) to excellent (10+ Mbps). The highest speed I recorded from Speedtest.net was on a DSL line at 85 Mbps. The best WiFi I've seen was perhaps 15 Mbps. Camps aren't thrilled with video streaming; we respect that and try and keep bandwidth usage to a minimum.
Typically a decent connection during the day degrades at 5PM as the full timers get off work. This lasts through the evening.
Personally, I use both a firewall/SPI and MAC address filtering. Campground encryption ranges from none, to WPA with TKIP to WPA2 Personal/AES.
A typical connection signal to noise ratio is anywhere from 10 to 40dB. I have the ability with the dd-wrt firmware to vary power from 1 to 251 mW. I run this though an external amplifier and 7 dB dipole annular antenna, which helps a lot. Increasing power does not give increased SNR, but it does help me 'see' Access Points which are farther away.
Hope this helps with understanding what WiFi is like on the road these days.
Last edited by RJ; 07-19-2017 at 08:28 PM.
Quick planning update:
September when we get back from AK, we're going to head East out of WA over to see Mt Rushmore, Deadwood, and Devil's Tower.
Then South through Colorado, possibly to Raton NM (but not ABQ). Then generally to Texas with a possible return to Grapevine.
We did commit to make reservations to see Wurst Fest in New Braunfels TX, so we reserved Lockhart State Park 1-8 Nov. Following that we'll swing through San Antonio TX 8-13 November.
From then we'll likely head East to NC to visit family in Jacksonville, before making our way back to Tampa, more or less 1 Dec.
As they say, details to follow.
Last edited by RJ; 07-22-2017 at 11:26 PM.
I'll be passing thru Raton/Trinidad going out to CB CO in mid-Sept., then a week later the same w/ the MetroMess (DFW area) on the front/back end, will be waiting for those pesky details Rich.Quick planning update:
September when we get back from AK, we're going to head East out of WA over to see Mt Rushmore, Deadwood, and Devil's Tower.
Then South through Colorado, possibly to Raton NM (but not ABQ). Then generally to Texas with a possible return to Grapevine.
We did commit to make reservations to see Wurst Fest in New Braunfels TX, so we reserved Lockhart State Park 1-8 Nov. Following that we'll swing through San Antonio TX 8-13 November.
From then we'll likely head East to NC to visit family in Jacksonville, before making our way back to Tampa, more or less 1 Dec.
As they say, details to follow.
Last edited by OldRunner/CSAT Neighbor; 07-22-2017 at 11:37 PM.
Let me know when you head east to Jacksonville and I'll get you out to the local range I'm on if you want to do some shooting. I live in New Bern (35 minutes from Jacksonville).
Shoot more, post less...
Will do. Probably things will firm up after mid Aug as we decide on the return leg.
Definitely.
I took a Basic Keelboat course in Oriental once, and a spent a couple great weeks wreck diving out of Moorehead City.
It's quite possible we'll be in the Jacksonville area for a week or so visiting family. Probably won't be able to nail things down schedule wise until end of October ish. I don't see us going farther North at that point, and our spot back in Clearwater FL starts 1 Dec.
Fb: I'll just go ahead and post this right here
(Hope this works)
Last edited by David S.; 07-23-2017 at 05:42 PM.
David S.
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