Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

This morning I left work at 11 AM to drive to Redwood Shores for my semi-annual dental check-up. (No problems.) This gave me the opportunity to have lunch at my favorite taqueria: El Metate in Belmont. (Good burritos at a fair price, and really great tortilla chips and salsa.) From there it was on to Fremont, where I finally paid my mechanic for the work he did on the Astro back in June. (He only got around to calling me with the final bill — $1200! — last week.) Then I went by Suju's Coffee in Fremont to buy a couple of pounds of whole-bean Columbian from them. (I don't come down to the Bay Area that often anymore, so I need to stock up when I'm here. Suju's was across the street from where I used to live in Fremont, and I like their coffee.) Then I refilled the forward tank on the Rolling Stone at one of the less-expensive gas stations in south Fremont. I'd intended to spend the rest of the afternoon at my employer's Fremont warehouse, but I had an in-person meeting scheduled for 4:30 PM back over in Sunnyvale. I was dismayed to hear on the radio of an accident on westbound CA-237. Fortunately, it had mostly cleared by the time I got back over there, and I managed to make it back with less than 30 minutes to spare. Whew! And that was driving in "off peak" and "counter commute" directions.

I hope to be able to get away before Noon on Friday, if work permits. I've put in enough hours that I can do so, but it requires that the urgent stuff gets done. If I don't get away before Noon, it's almost inevitable that I won't get home that night and will be obliged to lay up somewhere along the way, thanks to the never-ending traffic in the Bay Area and Sacramento.

I haven't been in the Bay Area since June, and the Rolling Stone has mostly sat parked in front of the house since then, so it was a bit dusty. (Not as much as if it had been out to Burning Man, but still....) So this morning, Lisa and I first took it over to Flying J and filled the tanks, then took it to Hanneman's Car Wash and gave it a quick rinse. This afternoon, I loaded it up with my clothing for this coming week when I'll be working at the Bay Area office. Aside from my computers and toiletries (they go out tomorrow morning before I leave), I'm ready to go. I'm a little rusty at RV living now that I don't have to do it every other week or three, but it should be okay. I'm glad to see that the weather will be good, with likely comfortable evenings. Because I have to be up so early to stick to my 6-to-3 work schedule, getting to bed early each evening is very important to me.

Lisa and I worked on a household project that had been put off for lots of reasons, but today's weather was perfect for working around the property. I also cut a bunch of bushes back along the fence line, so I don't have to put up with them snatching at my hat every time I walk down our sidewalk.

Lisa is sorry I have to go away for a week, but she did say it's easier to do some of the cleaning she wants to do when I'm not underfoot.

After the SJ Giants game last night, I considered trying to drive part way home but decided to go to my usual location for the night and leave from there, mainly because I have not scouted out any locations between Sunnyvale and Yuba City where I can lay up for the night.

(Before any well-meaning person says, "Just part at any Wal-Mart," be aware that while many Wal-Mart locations (including Yuba City) are tolerant of overnight "dry camping" of RVs, not all of them are, and those in larger cities are much less likely to be tolerant of it. It's store by store. Tracy or Stockton would be convenient, but a cursory check of some resources shows that they're not friendly, either by store policy or local ordinances. I don't like being rousted. It's happened twice to me, and it's very unpleasant.)

Anyway, I woke up at 5 AM on my own, and did not rush getting up for a change. I stopped for breakfast in Tracy and continued up to Sacramento to visit my sister, then detoured to Yuba City to do errands for her there, then turned east for home. It was quite warm in the Sacramento Valley and didn't get comfortable until I was well into the Sierras. My MP3 player's mix of old time radio shows ran out, and so I stopped at the vista point on CA-20 to fire up my computer and pour more shows into the MP3 player. I also took the opportunity to open all of the doors and the roof vent to allow the Sierra breeze at 5000 feet to flush some of the valley heat out of the Rolling Stone.

To my annoyance, I discovered that for some reason the MP3s of Ray Gunn & Starburst are not compatible with this little slot-player. It's not the first time that I've found that not all MP3s are alike. I contributed toward the second series crowd-funding, but I still haven't listened to it.

I got home a bit after 5:30 PM and plan to fall into bed as soon as I can. It's another week of 6-to-3 days, with the added excitement of mixing more concrete in the afternoons now that winter appears to have finally left. Lisa said that there was still snow on the Pah-Rah Mountains this morning, but the afternoon, it was gone.

I got to sleep in a little bit on Saturday before heading over to the SFSFC board of directors meeting. After the meeting, I drove to Fremont to rendezvous with Lisa, who drove down from Fernley in the Astro. Thanks in part to some of the clocks in our house still being on standard time, Lisa got away from home later than she planned, which put us a bit behind schedule. After dropping the minivan with my mechanic, we got dinner and then set off for home in the Rolling Stone, with the usual stops at Lodi Junction to refuel and in Sacramento to visit my sister. We got home just before midnight. It was a 600 mile trip for Lisa.

Today got off to a good start with me parleying a win for the cost of my breakfast at the Wigwam Restaurant-Casino from a free-play coupon. There are things we have to do today, but none of them are terribly ambitious, which is good because neither of us feel that ambitious today.

We refueled the RV today. I wish we had done so when I got back a month ago — gas has gone up 30 cents/gallon since then. The batteries have been charged, and Lisa vacuumed this afternoon. Tomorrow morning, I get up at an absurdly early hour (compounded by the DST change tonight) and drive to the Bay Area for a week down there.

I'll be making fewer Bay Area trips thanks to recent changes at the Day Jobbe, but Lisa did say that it will be easier for her to do some work on the living room she wants to do with me gone for a week because she doesn't like disturbing my work area. If we ever get the upstairs office fully habitable, she'll get the living room back.

The storm that blew through starting yesterday managed to not do significant damage despite the high winds. (We do need to get the pole saw and go after a tree that is banging on the house in the wind, though.) Fernley had it easy by comparison. Lots of other places have been flooded. Interstate 80 was closed west of the CA-20 junction due to mudslides, forcing traffic into a long detour through Grass Valley.

The next two days are supposed to be clear. I hope Caltrans can get the roads back in repair because my plans are to go to the Bay Area this coming week, it having been two months since I last showed my face in my nominal office in Fremont. Looking at the long-range forecast, I have a feeling that it will be a two-week stint, assuming I can get through on Sunday, because I probably won't be able to come back the following weekend if the next set of storms materializes as predicted. But living out of the RV means I only have to replenish consumables, which is doable, and I generally carry a month's worth of my various medications with me for trip like this, so I should be okay. Assuming I go. I won't be able to make the call until Sunday morning, I expect.

Meanwhile, tomorrow we need to run into Reno if possible and restock the house, and get the Rolling Stone ready to roll again for the first time since early December. Among the important things is to make sure that propane furnace will light off properly. It did so when we tested it in January, but when it goes a long time between uses, air builds up in the lines and it can be reluctant to light off. While the Bay Area isn't anywhere near as frigid as Fernley, I do prefer to be able to light off the furnace when the alarm goes off and give it a few minutes to bring the inside of the RV up to a comfortable temperature before getting out from under the warm pile of blankets.

The decision to leave Saturday morning was the right one. Weather from Fernley to Colfax was fine and fair, and based on the updated weather forecast, I even had time to stop for breakfast at the Gold Ranch on the Nevada-California border. At Colfax, I stopped for coffee and could see the ominous clouds rolling overhead, and as I left Colfax, the heavens opened up and I was driving through nearly constant rain, sometimes very heavy, the rest of the day. However, rain I can handle (just slow down, to the dismay of the people who seem to think that rain is an excuse to speed up, but they're welcome to go around me), while snow (which resulted in chain controls being imposed not long after I passed through) is too much for me.

I stopped in Sacramento and visited my sister for a long time, with no time pressure. I'd hoped to make it to the Bay Area before dark, but it does appear that a whole lot of other people saw the same weather forecasts I did, and from Stockton to Fremont I was in nearly-continuous heavy going-home traffic. Still, I was nothing I couldn't handle.

This is my first stint in the Bay Area since the weather turned colder, and I made a typical-for-me mistake of forgetting to open the propane bottle on the RV before buttoning up for the night. The valve is outside. When driving, I keep the valve closed for safety, of course. It doesn't matter during the summer, but in the colder weather, it gets cold enough that I'd like to be able to turn on the RV's furnace for a few minutes in the morning. That's pointless when it only blows cold air. But unlike home, it's only cold, not freezing, and this morning, I simply slept in under the relatively warm blankets. Tomorrow, of course, it's back to work.

I'm getting increasingly nervous about the weather over Thanksgiving weekend. I need to take the Rolling Stone back to the Bay Area and work down there for two weeks, with my trip to SMOFCon sandwiched into the middle weekend. However, a series of storms are coming this way, and it could be snowing over Donner Summit every day of the holiday. At the moment, the best prospects may be for me to be able to get across mid-day Saturday, much as I hate having to leave early.

On the bright side, as long as I can squeeze into the Fremont/Centerville "train users" parking lot, I should be able to get back home by taking the train back to Nevada if I can get down there in the first place.

Lisa reminds me that there's a possibility that I might have to leave the RV in the Bay Area for quite a while when I take it down this time, so I should pack accordingly. She has vacuumed it out and made sure the propane furnace will light off, and the water tank (which is full of mostly RV anti-freeze solution) has enough for my sanitary needs, so I should be okay.

I got away from the office a bit later than expected yesterday, and I had a couple of errands to do before I could leave. First I refueled the Rolling Stone and confirmed that it's no longer throwing gasoline overboard. (9.8 mpg isn't great, but it's better than the 3 mpg that it was getting as it hemorrhaged fuel.) Then I went to my mechanic's shop and paid for the repairs. It cost about a week's salary (after withholding), but besides the actual value of the repair, I effectively got free parking for the Eurocon trip, which can be offset against that cost.

By the time I actually got going, it was too late, and I was trapped in slow-moving traffic from Fremont to Tracy to Stockton to Lodi Junction to Sacramento. There were spots where it lightened up at times, but much of the trip was in pretty congested traffic. I visited my sister at the nursing home in Sacramento after a stop at Fry's Electronics for a minor item that's tricky to get in Reno, then detoured to the Roseville Galleria Mall where there is a Lush store that stocks my after-shave ointment. (No Lush stores in Reno.)

By the time I got to Colfax, I was seriously dragging. Since I got back from Europe, I've been going to bed around 8 PM, and it was past that time already. So I stopped at the Gold Run rest area, buttoned up the RV, and called Lisa to tell her that I wouldn't be getting home tonight. She knew that was a possibility and endorsed the decision.

The rest area was full of big rigs parking overnight as their drivers got their mandated hours-of-service rest. When I woke up about 3 AM, a full-sized RV (not a little one like mine) was taking up a bunch of the parking spaces next to me. California allows up to eight hours parking in a rest area (unlike some states that have foolish short-term parking rules), and thus I was unconcerned about my sojourn at Gold Run.

About 3 AM I woke up initially, and after an attempt to go back to sleep that failed, I concluded that I might as well head home. I stopped in Truckee for coffee (Starbucks having just opened for the morning when I got there) and at Verdi for breakfast (taking my time lingering over breakfast so the sun wouldn't be directly in my eyes when I returned to the road.

( Greeted by a Flock of Quail )

I was still pretty worn out despite the five or so hours of sleep at Gold Run. Aside from a visit to Walgreen's to replace the blood glucose meter I lost at London St. Pancras and the grocery store for some immediate needs, I mostly took today off. I would have gone to bed when I got home, but I think that would have made things worse. However, I do expect to get to bed early again today. Although I had little problem making the time adjustment to Barcelona, my body clock on the return has stubbornly remained somewhere out over Northern Canada. It's vaguely helpful with my job given that I have to coordinate with people in the Central time zone, but I'm looking forward to getting back on Pacific time this coming week.

It is good to know, however, that laying up at Gold Run is a viable alternative plan for when I'm traveling between the Bay Area and home.

Yesterday was a very long day in many different ways. For most people in the USA, it was due to the national election results. For me it was because I spent most of it on an airplane returning from the UK after my trip to Eurocon.

( By Metro, Trains, Planes, and Automobiles )

After unloading my luggage and making out the bed in the RV, I called Lisa, who I'd briefly contacted when I got to SFO, to reassure her that I was okay, albeit running a couple of hours later than I wanted to be. Then, just short of 24 hours since I'd gotten up in London, I lay down and was asleep, I think, within seconds.