Chalkie

2 hours ago, Kirk W said:

Some states have continued to teach cursive writing.

This is a good thing although it probably is ruining some college dean's plans of adding "Translation of pre-1960's Documents" to go along with "Basic Basket Weaving".

That is a headline from an article in the Daily Brief email I get from military.com. I don't think this is a political topic and hope it will not go in that direction.

The reason for doing this is to help in shortfalls of recruiting goals in the three major services (Army, Navy, Air Force). What seems dang near a lifetime ago I pulled a 4 year stint as a Navy Recruiter in Lincoln, NE. Even then meeting goals was tough although we mostly did overall nationally. We used to laugh, although it was true, that our hardest time was college football season. None of the young folks wanted to ship out when it might mean missing a Huskers game. At that time no aids of any sort were allowed in taking the ASVAB but having people pass the test wasn't nearly the issue that drug usage, mainly marijuana, or physical failures were. 

Calculators of some sort or another have become ubiquitous in today's everyday life with nearly everyone having a cell phone which has a calculator function. Heck, even my Samsung watch has that function. I know that calculator use has been relaxed in schools and even college entrance exams but I just can't decide if relaxing the standard for military entrance is a good idea or not. In the back of my mind I can think of situations where electronics might not work and there will be a need for even some rudimentary math.

My feeling is that this is a bad idea but I don't know, but what say you all?

Here is the full article Pentagon Set to Allow Calculator Use on Military Entrance Exam as Recruiting Slumps 

When our daughter moved to Texas they kept their house in Colorado and rented it out. The hired a property management company that ran background and credit checks on all prospective tenants. The company also made sure that renters kept the house in good condition and abided by the HOA requirements. They kept it for a number of years with no issues and finally sold it when the housing market got hot.

If were to rent a house I would take the same approach, use a professional to manage it for me.

16 hours ago, durangodon said:

I stayed in an RV Park in Texas which was infested with crazy ants.  Anything you put on the ground they would collect under.  They were terrible.  The park spent thousands of dollars getting rid of them, and they were back a year later.

https://www.holderspestsolutions.com/pest-library/ants/crazy-ants/

They invaded the RV once and had collected around the dog's water bowl, apparently the food next to it was of no interest. I have been combating them with Spectracide Home Barrier. So I found their new creative entry point and sprayed. I have added it to my weekly list of treatment points. Yes, weekly, even though according the Spectracide the treatment should last longer, the ants can't read. The RV park has offered treatment but whatever they are using smells bad and pets have to stay away from it for a week therefore we have opted out of their treatment.

1 hour ago, GlennWest said:

Got real dry here also. Fire ants got on my condensate water pan. They were thirsty. 

At least you have fire ants, here we have crazy ants (yes, that is a real thing) and they have driven out all fire ants.

On 7/30/2023 at 11:40 PM, Ray,IN said:

My desktop machine received a W10(dual-boot with Linux 19.2 Cinnamon) feature update for 22H2 Friday night, along with 3 more various updates.

Seems like Cinnamon gets updates every day./

Are you sure it was a feature update? I have not gotten a feature update since 10/28/2022. I do get monthly cumulative updates for 22H2 and NET framework and then the odd update for Office or a driver as well.

11 hours ago, jjwicklund said:

There is one problem with denying the right to vote, it's against the law at least for federal elections.  Motor voter law of 1993.  

While not SD domicile I honestly could care less about being involved in local voting issues, which I think is probably true of most full time RVers since nothing there generally affects us. We use our daughter's address in Texas for domicile and the only time I have voted on a local issue was a school district issue which would impact our daughter's pay as she works for the district and even in that election I left everything else blank as I simply did not know enough to make an informed vote. I have voted in all the federal elections though.

10 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

I agree. In a MH the hardest part would be installing the condensate drain. the air ductwork installed as you said would be a tremendous aid.

If an RV has a booth dinette, under a seat would be a great location for installation.

I was thinking in my fifth wheel right next the existing furnace. Since the ventilation and drainage are all on the bottom that would place it between the frame rails and close to wiring and the existing ductwork. In my RV that would also be the space where the central vac unit, that I never use, resides. So it could go away and the electrical feeding the vac could be used as it has its own breaker in the panel. The only two issues I see would be designing some sort of door or deflector to keep road stuff and splash out and finding someone to install it for me.

On 7/25/2023 at 3:59 PM, rvrev2 said:

I feel your pain.  On Sunday, July 16th, we got slammed by high winds and baseball size hail!  Lost nine windows on the north side of the house.  Will need to replace the roof, gutters, downspouts, metal siding, garage doors, and even the dining room carpet (broken glass). 

...

By the way, the RV FlexArmor roof held up great!

A few years ago, a friend of my son that lives in Security, CO, which is a few miles south of Derek, had hail that actually penetrated clear through the roof and let in enough water that it totally ruined the ceilings throughout the house. So, with hail that size, while quite damaging, I think you may have come out somewhat ahead. And you should send some pics to RV FlexArmor - maybe they will reward you somehow as that is quite the endorsement.

12 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

Here is another option: https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/products/pioneer-9-000-btu-under-bench-rv-heat-pump-air-conditioner?variant=39894059122730&currency=USD

I've no clue why they refer to it as a mini-split, it's an all in one cabinet unit.

 

This one looks very interesting to me since it could be tied to existing furnace ducts to supplement both heating and cooling.

I ran across this article in military.com and found it interesting. I also went ahead and got the book in Audible format. Perhaps others will find it interesting as well. 

Navy SEAL Turned Author Releases a Fictional Book About His Real Life in Real-World Intelligence

Quote

Mailing Address Line 1 and 2 "In Care Of": For line 1 enter applicant’s Street/RFD #, or P.O. Box or URB. For line 2, if you do not live at the address listed in this field, put the name of the person who lives at this address and mark it "In Care Of".

The passport renewal does NOT say that a PMB is not allowed, to the contrary it very specifically allows a PO Box. 

14 hours ago, Ray,IN said:

That is brand-new, I'm anxious to find out the details or how it all occurs. I wonder if Home Depot acts as a middleman or a remote outlet.  It will sure benefit those retires (me) who live over 100 miles from a military exchange.

I checked the price of an all-in-one washer dryer that we are considering for the RV and the discount was 11%, so slightly larger than the normal 10%. It also said "Free Delivery" and I would like to check what that includes. I did not add it to the shopping cart to see if it would be tax free although I would hope it would be if it was through the BX.

2 hours ago, Steven@146 said:

I do remember one time back in around 1978, the congress didn't pass the budget so the military wasn't going to get paid. The base we were on at the time said we could still buy groceries at the commissary just on our signature, just come back in when the budget passed and we got paid to settle up. No off base retail store would have done that. IIRC the gas station on base was going to do the same thing.

Back in those days we didn't have or use credit cards. I remember reading my social security statement back for those years and our annual gross income was like $7000. We lived on base and didn't get the housing subsidy. We couldn't afford much back then.

I remember that time. I was overseas and on a midwatch when the news hit. One person told the watch officer that he would not be there for the next watch if he didn't get paid. He was promptly reminded that there was nothing in the oath that said you were going to get paid. I was impressed with the wives in our neighborhood in housing that quickly organized pot luck dinners so to pool grocery resources. Fortunately, the situation in Congress resolved rather quickly. 

Amazon has them for less at $349 just FYI.

13 hours ago, Randyretired said:

 I don't know how to get a Colorado license without an address like is available in Texas. Colorado vehicle registration isn't cheap.

Registration in Colorado - ain't that the truth! Our RV in Colorado,  2016 Infinity 5er, was running me over $500/yr and the truck over $600. When we moved to Texas that became around $75 each. And no the Texas license was not hard to get. 

However, that is one reason a lot of folks choose South Dakota. No income taxes and no special driver license. I don't know the registration fees but I hear they are lower than Colorado but more than Texas.

18 hours ago, sandsys said:

Ugh! I'm glad you were not outside at the time!

Linda

Reminds me of a similar hail storm we had many years ago when we too lived in the Springs. My in-law's were visiting and this storm came down from the north. It honestly sounded like a tornado or multiple railroad engines as it approached from the sound it made on the roofs of the houses. My father-in-law wanted to go out and gather up some hailstones while they were "fresh". I warned him if he went out and got knocked cold he was there until the storm ended, so he threw a bucket over his head and went anyhow. /sigh/

Those Front Range hail storms were probably the worst weather events in my opinion. 

I talked to my son since he was out of town on July 4th and asked if he had damage, his response was no. It apparently was all in the more southern area where you live. 

I another note - your siding looks like it came through pretty well, at least as far as I can tell from the pics. What happened to the gutters on your shed was what I hated about it. 2 or 3 years in the Colorado sun made it brittle. 

3 hours ago, justRich said:

Unknown to me, is if you can import a KML/KMZ file into other mapping programs. . .
Best of luck to those who try, and if you can, describe it to the rest of us. (please)

While perhaps not your everyday mapping program KML/KMZ files can be imported to Google Earth. KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language and KMZ is the same but zipped. Supposedly they can be used for any internet based mapping system. 

OK then. If this pans out and is in line with the current costs of electric vehicles, I have to admit that I would likely be onboard.

Here in the north Austin area I use a tech that is not the cheapest, nor is he the most expensive, but his work and work ethic have me completely impressed. He charges $125 trip charge, and $150/hr labor. If he has to come back for some reason there is no trip charge and a couple times he has not even charged additional labor as he felt he should have solved an issue on the first trip. 

3 hours ago, justRich said:

Failure to keep up with technology may be part of the problem.
I see two retarded areas: 

1) Can't load photos larger 2.83 kB 
2) Forum isn't cell phone friendly

Digital storage is very, very cheap.
Failure to be cell phone friendly will choke a website

As the older tech users age out, potential new users will find their way on handheld devices.
Facts of life. . .

This! This right here. ^^^

I have 5 personal domains and aside from the cost of the domains themselves the plan I have offers up to 250,000 files with unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL, unlimited PostgreSQL, unlimited emails..... you can see a trend here with the unlimited stuff and I pay $115/year. The same company offers a commercial plan which offers a much higher file limit and is hosted on high capacity, super high speed servers for about $275/year. 

Invision Community which powers this site shows that they have cell phone friendly options. 

I see no excuse why this site can't be dragged into the 2020's to suit the capabilities and devices of all users.

1 hour ago, TXiceman said:

I used Streets and Trips for many years but could not get it to work when I replaced my laptop.  I made the transition to RV Trip Wizard and it has worked reasonably well.  But as time goes on, the product is suffering from "Bloatware".  People keep asking for things to be added in to make it not only a planning tool but a records tool as well.  I would love to see something closer to the original RV Trip Wizard and lose all the excess baggage.

Ken

While we may have differing definitions of "Bloatware" I do know that you can turn off or minimize pretty much any tool or feature that you do not want to use so that it can be used stripped down or full featured. 

While not completely straightforward you can also export the planned trip to a file for import into a Garmin GPS for those that like to use a GPS rather than the small screen on a phone.

I will have to give you an A+ for ingenuity. Our mattress does the same but it is a Sleep Number so I just let the air out and it scrunches up fine. I will have to mention your solution to friends that struggle though. 

So is this still operating on a gutted version of Android? That is my chief complaint with my current Fire Tablet.