A Little Of This, A Little Of That

Just the usual summertime activities, keeping busy despite being “landlocked” at our South Carolina “Home”.  The good news is that may change soon.  Keep reading.

Our campground has a nice fishing pond.  Not that I’m an avid fisherman, by any means, but Andrew and Owie love to fish.  Since we’ve had very little (as in no) luck with fancy lures, bait fish and other flies, we decided to resort to the favorite age old bait…worms.

The worms worked extremely well, except for one small problem.  They didn’t attract any fish.  But man, did they ever attract turtles!

We tried moving away and around the pond in different spots, but to no avail.  The turtles were hungry, and the fish were not.  :c(

We had to give up, I didn’t want to have to try and remove a hook from a turtle.  We’ll try again another time.

Next we hopped in the car for a two day car trip to NJ.  It was for a couple of reasons.  One was to see Anabelle. It’s been a while since we were with her and it was time to visit again.

She is quite a bundle of energy, and she is so much fun to be with.  We’ll be staying here in NJ for about a week or so.

Another reason we came up was to use a special Father’s Day gift that Amanda and Corey got for me and my father.

Yep, tickets to a Yankee baseball game in the new Yankee Stadium. 

The last time I was at a Yankee game was over twenty years ago, and it was with my dad, Corey and my other son, Ryan.  It brought back memories.

The stadium is very nice, well laid out.

 

It took a while and some serious scanning to find our seats.

Thankfully, they have maps to find your way around!

There were some interesting items to view on the way to our seats.

A custom New York Yankees motorcycle.

Even the wheels had the Yankee emblem on them.  I guess you wouldn’t want to ride this bike in Boston…  :cO

Old time pictures of days gone by.

Other kinds of art.

We found our seats and watched the Yankees play the evil Minnesota Twins.

 

Sadly, our Yanks went down to defeat 10 to 4.  :c(

But we had the food stands to cheer us up, $6 hotdogs, $5 peanuts, $5 waters.  They have to pay those player’s multi million dollar salaries somehow!

A great day, despite the $13 toll on the George Washington Bridge and the $35 parking tab.  Since it seems we only do this every twenty years, it doesn’t seem too bad!  ;c)

Now for some really good news.  The VA “troubleshooter” that I met with has indeed performed a miracle and delivered as he promised.  The paperwork for my case has been located, brought to the top of the pile, and I now have two exam appointments scheduled for examinations on my service connected injuries, August 2 and 27. 

 

Once I have those exams completed, that will finish what I have to do and the VA will then look at the results and decide what, if any compensation I will be awarded.  Finally we’re almost out of the tunnel! 

Some days you strike out and some days you hit a home run.  We sure are happy it was our day to hit that homer!  :c)

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

Road Test

Actually, it’s a product test.

I’m always looking for a better mousetrap, or a new product that will work great and be easy to use.  I’ve seen the ads on TV for this product and it seemed a little too good to be true.  The Pocket Hose.

But it did seem to have some good points.  I looked at one at Walmart, and decided to try it.  Twenty bucks (plus tax) and I had a fifty foot hose in my hands.

I primarily bought the hose due to its light weight and fifty foot length.  I intend to use it when washing our Journey.  So today was the “acid test”

The hose is tucked tightly in plastic container.  (Sorry for the bad picture, don’t know why it is so foggy).

This is the hose removed from its container.

First the warning notice, including “Not for drinking”.

It expanded just like it was shown on TV.  It has a shut off ball valve at the end where you can put it into a nozzle.  The valve worked fine, but the fitting leaked where it screwed in to the nozzle.  I changed out the rubber washer in my nozzle, but it still leaked a little.  It wasn’t too bad because the leaking water kept me cool on a very hot day.

The hose is very light and easy to handle.  In fact, I was able to coil it up when I didn’t need the entire fifty foot length and it stayed nice and neat.

When I drained the hose, it did shrink back to a smaller size, but not quite the size they showed on TV.

I was able to gather it up and get it back in the original container.  That’s impressive, even if it didn’t look quite as neat as when I first opened the container.

I used the hose on the Journey, starting with the roof.  It’s been over a year since I washed the roof and it really needed attention.  I used to wash the roof at least two to three times a year when we had our house.  Since most campgrounds don’t allow washing RVs, the roof had to be postponed.  Fortunately, the campground here requires you to wash your rig twice a year, they have many long term RVs here.  Who am I not to take advantage of this requirement?

Up on the roof, I used Spic and Span.  It works really good on the little black spots and dirt that covers the roof.  (My roof is fiberglass).

For the real tough spots, I hit it with a little Awesome cleaner, available at most Dollar Stores for, what else?  A dollar.

The roof was really dirty.

You can see the difference with a little scrubbing.

An hour later the roof was…Spic and Span!

After lunch, I washed the rest of the Journey, now it’s looking good and I’m happy.

The Pocket Hose worked pretty good.  I liked that it was very light and easy to use.  It didn’t kink like many hoses do.  The inside diameter looks like it’s 3/8”, narrow.  Because of that, it didn’t have much volume, but it worked just fine for vehicle washing.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it.  It works as advertised and is lightweight, doesn’t kink and does shrink down to a small size for easy storage.  Aside from the leak at the one connecter, I didn’t find any serious downsides with it.  I think the leaking connector is probably just on my hose.  Again, it wasn’t a huge leak, so I’m not complaining.

As to how long it will last, if I get a year out if it, I’ll be happy.  The bigger question:  Would I buy it again?  For what I’ll use this hose for, the answer is YES.

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.

Guardedly Optimistic

As my dealings with the Veterans Administration (VA) continue, I think we may have actually moved my disability claim forward, thanks to a gentleman that works in the VA hospital.

My VA social worker recommended I contact this man.  He is a kind of “trouble shooter” that looks into claim problems, sorts through them, and recommends the best course of action.  If there is anything holding up the claim, like missing paperwork, etc., he’ll get that corrected.

The most encouraging part is he then is able to hand carry my claim through the VA system, locate the individual handling my paperwork and gently “push” my paperwork to the top of the pile of claims sitting on that someone’s desk.  Then he can monitor and follow up on everything.  Before you think this is cheating in the VA system, with the staggering amount of disability claims filed, older paperwork tends to get pushed towards the bottom as new claims arrive.  It just is the way the system tends to work.

Not that this will instantly move my claim forward, but it moves it into a faster track.  I should be notified in a couple of weeks that my claim has been received and then over the next few months, all the appointments necessary to examine my injuries should take place.

This is helpful, because it gives us an idea of how much longer we’ll be having to stay in South Carolina before we can hit the road and do some serious traveling.  Is this the light at the end of the tunnel we’ve been looking for?  We think so, because up to now, we weren’t even able to find the tunnel. ;c)

Had a follow up on my eye at the VA, and everything is looking good.  My vision in the eye is now 20/25 and the doc says it should hit 20/20 after my stiches are removed next week.  It was not a fun procedure, but I’m happy with the results.

We spent a quiet Independence Day at home in the Journey.  It has been raining on and off here, so we haven’t done anything exciting.  We did go over to our daughter’s house for an evening cook out and a backyard fireworks show.  Little Owie was so excited to have the fireworks that he was frustrated on it not getting dark soon enough to suit him.

Finally, the rain stopped and it got dark enough, so out went Owie and Andrew with daddy Brian to put on the show. 

First, there was the safety brief.  Even though the fireworks that Heather bought were not the kind that shoot up in the air, there was still the possibility of getting burned, so caution was important.  Plus, the boys were going to be the ones lighting off the fireworks under Brian’s careful supervision.

First Andrew lit one of the fuses.

Then Owie got his turn.

He done good!

We even had a Disney style display from a castle in the yard.

Lots of fun, the boys enjoyed putting on the show, we enjoyed watching, and best of all…no crowds!

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.