Thursday 4 Feb

Thursday 2/4

6.30 am The rain seems to have stopped. Cloudcroft up at 9000 ft was supposed to get a foot of snow. I wonder if I'm going to be able to motivate myself today to do some chores, you know, like spray the mud off the rig (wheel wells, tank handles, etc) so I can do a dump & flush, take a shower, go grocery shopping. Stuff like that.

One of the drawbacks to not stocking up is that when you're out, you're out, and now you must go to town. It's not that I don't have food; I do; it's just not the perishable stuff like bread and meat and salad. And I have a day's worth of coffee left.

So I guess I'm going to town. Sequence of events is to clean the rig so I can do the dump, then take a shower, then go to town, grocery shop, go to cafe for a meal and a few hours on the computer, then home.

Last big project on my list is to sort the bins on the back rack, one big and one small. I've discovered that there's room between the big bin and the rig for my chair (folded up in its carrying sleeve), which is great as I don't have to carry it inside anymore. Whoever put the big bin on the rack did it very oddly to my mind.

It's about 3ft wide x 2ft deep x 3ft tall (is that 18 cubic ft?). The bottom has been cut off and it's bolted onto wood pieces that are bolted to the rack itself, thus raising the bin so there's about 3 inches of open space at the bottom. Why was that done? Drainage? The lid fits tightly over the lip so it doesn't get wet inside, so that doesn't make sense. And the open space means that road dirt and wet can get inside! It makes it tricky to keep things from slithering out the bottom (like extension cords). Also, the hinged top doesn't open all the way as it hits the rig, so it has to be propped open somehow. Not a good design. It'd be better to have a lift-off lid -- at least you'd be able to get into the whole thing with both hands.

And then there's the little bin (sitting underneath where the license plate is) -- it's just a regular snap-lid bin like the ones I have inside. It has to be small so as not to obscure the license, and it has to be bungeed to the rack.

If they were going to the trouble of putting on a custom rack, why didn't they build a custom bin for it, instead of jerry-rigging these store-bought bins?

The rack makes backing up tricky, too, as it can't be seen in the mirrors, so it's easy to run into things. I think I'll put little bitty red plastic flags on the corners -- I should be able to see them fluttering.

Bitch bitch bitch.

7.30 am Clouds packed in, raining again.

Crossword clue: Ingenious

Answer: DAEDAL

Has anybody heard of this word? Is it related to Daedalus, the wax wings guy?

I was pleased with myself for knowing the answer to: PageMaker parent

Aldus (though I think few would connect it to the 16th(?) century Venetian printer)