Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Lisa put up the mast and wiring for the amateur radio antenna yesterday.

( Mount Up )

After completing this work, she returned the travel trailer the 2.4 m back to where it normally sits and unhitched the Big Orange Van so that she could close the gate. We'll go looking for a new fuel transfer valve soon, but my days right now are overloaded, as one of my co-workers is on vacation and the rest of us are having to work extra hours to try and keep up.

Added: The cross-posting to LJ started working again with this post. Wonder how long it will last?

Lisa has been spending the last couple of days working on getting the Big Orange Van moving again. On Tuesday, she was able to pump enough fuel into the carburetor that it actually belched back to life, but we couldn't take it anywhere because one of the tires had gone flat. On Wednesday, we took it to Big O in Sparks to have it repaired, leaving it with them while we went to Winco to get groceries. After we got home and put the groceries away, Lisa put the tire back on, restarted the van, and for the first time in more than two years, drove it on a public road. It was only a couple hundred meters up and down the street, but its moving again.

Backing back into the driveway, she saw that there was a fuel leak, so (with me handing her tools and fetching parts) she replaced a couple of fuel lines. The cracked rubber hose was very obvious, and was part of the problem she'd been having getting the van restarted, as she says the line would have been sucking a lot of air. Fortunately, the siphon she used to pump gas into the carburetor has lots of extra hose so we didn't have to go buy more hose. Unfortunately, while working on this, she determined that the fuel transfer valve isn't working, so only one of the two tanks is actually feeding the engine. The switch works (she tested that), but the valve itself probably needs to be replaced.

Also needing fixing is a leak in the power steering system, but she says she has a pretty good idea how to fix that, and in the very short term for the short hostling moves, she can just put more fluid into the system. We should be able to get a new fuel transfer valve either locally in Fernley or at worst by going to Summit Auto Parts in Sparks. (Having one of the national distribution centers of a major auto parts company only 25 miles away is quite handy at times.) And even without the transfer valve, fuel is flowing from the one tank, so she can move the van around as needed.

So everyone is happy except the bunny that had dug a scrape under the van and was sheltering from the midday sun under the van. Lisa's work means all the rabbit's work has been torn up. Also, the wasps that had built a couple of nests in the driver's side door hinge are probably not too happy either after Lisa destroyed their nests. I have no sympathy for the wasps.

Last week Lisa discovered that one of the tires on the Big Orange Van was flat. She put on the spare and took the van to Hanneman's down the way to get the tire patched. Turns out that the sidewall had failed, which is not repairable. On Monday, we called Big O Tires in Sparks (these were Big O tires) and, as Lisa expected, they had to special-order the huge tires the van uses, and they said to come in on Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, I got work cleared sufficiently to leave a little after 3 and we drove into Sparks. Pulling in to Big O, we discovered that another tire had gone flat, with the same sidewall failure. Big O only had the one special-order tire, which they used to replace the one that had just failed. They ordered another tire and said we could get it on Wednesday. Alas, neither tire was under warranty. The pair turned out to be from 2006 and were installed in Oregon. The two other tires we had put on in 2011 here in Sparks shortly after moving here are still okay. I paid for both tires ($515 for the pair!) and we decided to make the best of things by doing our in-town grocery shopping. Including stopping to have dinner at the Atlantis (where for a change my keno ticket showed a profit, winning $8) and at the Sparks Nugget to make dinner reservations on for Thursday (our belated wedding anniversary) and using the $5 slot credit I'd earned there (which won $6.60 in actual cash), we were pretty late getting home.

This afternoon, we did another trip to Sparks to get the other tire. A fairly decent rain storm was passing through, so Lisa just had them replace the bad tire (which had been hanging on the spare tire bracket) and put it back on the bracket. She'll deal with getting the tires back the way she wants them herself on a dryer day.

Trips of this sort are non trivial. The Big Orange Van gets worse mileage than the Rolling Stone, and the larger of its two fuel tanks isn't working, which severely limits its range. It takes about $20 in fuel to do a round trip from Fernley to Reno/Sparks, and last night we had to refuel in Reno to have enough gas to get home. It probably has a range of less than 120 miles right now.

It's possible that the Big Orange Van has been sitting still too much. Lisa says she'll need to try and use it at least once a week or so, probably for short trips such as to the grocery store in Fernley, to keep it exercised. This is easier in the winter when the lack of air conditioning is not a factor; besides, those big tires make it very sure-footed in bad weather.

Today was our final morning in Spokane. After breakfast, we packed out of the room and left for the first stage of our four-day/three-night trip back to Fernley.

( Final View from a Hotel Window )

We set out eastbound on I-90, made a fuel stop just over the border near Coeur d'Alene, and turned south on US-95 for Moscow, where a U-Haul trailer reservation awaited.

( Collecting the Video Game )

With the game console secure (and the now-loaded U-Haul trailer riding somewhat better), we once again turned south. We stopped at Moscow one more time to pick up some groceries including lunchmeat to go with the loaf of bread we'd carried with us all the way from Fernley without actually using. An hour or so later, we were in Lewiston and the Holiday Inn Express. To our great relief, we found that they have designated long vehicle/trailer parking, which was very convenient. Even better, I hit the jackpot with a room upgrade.

( Luxury in Lewiston )

Thanks to getting the minivan back this morning, I was actually able to get down to BayCon today. However, because I also needed to get an oil change, by the time I got there, the only panel I really was deeply interested in attending (discussing the current Hugo Controversy) was mostly ending. I spent most of the day behind the Sasquan table, although I did get an opportunity to walk through the Art Show and buy books in the Dealer's Room. I also had my blood pressure riled up mightily by a puppy apologist who has bought completely into the story that the Hugo Awards for the past decade have been dominated by a secret slate of works decreed by Tor Book and voted upon by the large number of Tor employees who have all been funded and ordered to vote by the Sekrit Slate. Still, aside from that one person, who proves that not all Puppies are short-term, never-been-part-of-Worldcon-fandom fans, it was a pretty good day. I want to thank all of the people who have been following my writing here and elsewhere and who have come by to say nice things about the work I've been doing. It's reassuring, really.

There wasn't a lot I wanted to do in evening programming, and I'm too stressed and tired to do the evening parties (and the party floor at BayCon has been pretty dire ever since they moved to the Santa Clara property anyway), so I decided to head back to the hotel in Newark and eat the last of my groceries here for dinner, and maybe turn in early. I won't be going back to BayCon tomorrow, but will instead head home by way of Sacramento and visiting my sister.

One minor worry: while driving into the parking garage in Santa Clara, the Service Engine Soon light briefly flashed on. It hasn't come back on, but I'm still concerned. The van needs to be ready for a long road trip.

When I got back to the hotel, I had a message from Lisa, who went to the Nevada State Railroad Museum for the official roll-out of the restored locomotive Glenbrook. She had a great time and I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. Can't be in two places at once, however.

I was too tired after getting back from last night's BASFA meeting to fire up the computer and post anything, but there wasn't much to say from me anyway. I got down to the Bay Area on Sunday night, and Sunday morning nursed my minivan to my mechanic's shop and walked over to Enterprise rent-a-car, collected my rental, and drove to my dentist for a periodic cleaning and check-up. My dentist recommends that the next time I'm in his office (November), we also replace two very old fillings on one side of my mouth, then do the other two old fillings on the other side the following spring. This preventive maintenance seems like a good idea and also fits within the annual dental benefits on my healthcare coverage.

Because I didn't drive the RV, I'm staying in a (cheap by Bay Area standards) motel not too far from my office. Nevertheless, this will be a very expensive week. How expensive overall depends on what my mechanic finds wrong with the Astro.

On Saturday, Lisa tackled replacing the heater core on the Big Orange Van, which had rusted out.

( This Didn't Go Well )

Not long after Lisa de-kitted and we put away the tools, it became clear that her ankle was in much worse shape than we originally expected. It's not broken, but it's a bad sprain. She's wrapped it and is trying to keep it elevated. I eventually found the crutches we have in the house, and she's hobbling around on them when she needs to get around. This isn't the first time she's injured that ankle, and she reckons she'll be off her feet for around a week.

This afternoon while Lisa and I were walking around Detcon 1, I got a phone call from my regular mechanic in Fremont with the diagnosis on the engine problem with the Astro. We went in worrying that it might be a valve problem or a clogged fuel injector, the word was much better news: One of the spark plug wires had come off. This is of course an easy fix. (It's harder on the Astro than some vehicles because you have to pull off the "dog house" cover inside the van to get at the spark plugs.) My mechanic will store my van on his back lot until the day we come back to the Bay Area; we'll pick it up late when we get back; then we'll come back that next afternoon to pay for it and retrieve the spare set of keys I left with it. We definitely dodged a mechanical bullet this time.

I was up at 5 AM to work on Day Jobbe stuff so I could turn things in before most of my co-workers were at their desks this morning on account of having to take Lisa to the TMJ specialist in Reno for a too-early-for-Lisa appointment. They spent several hours working on the treatment plan and taking molds for permanent appliances that should slowly push her jaw back to where it belongs, which should un-pinch the nerve that appears to be causing her tinnitus. This is not cheap work. We made the initial four-figure payment on the Phase I treatment plan. Some of it might be covered by insurance eventually, but we have to pay up front. On the bright side, the frequent-flyer miles on my United card should put me over the top for a free ticket for the UK for Worldcon, assuming there are any seats left by the time the points hit my account, which may not be until the end of May.

The work with the TMJ doctor went rather long; so long that I ended up missing a meeting for Day Jobbe, but it seems to be okay. When we got free from the doctor, we went to the Atlantis, where I had a 2-for-1 breakfast-or-lunch buffet coupon for which today was the last day. Lunch is much cheaper than dinner, even without the coupon, and I found myself eating about the same things I get when we come for dinner. (Dealing with cracking crab and lobster, which is on the dinner buffet sometimes, is more work than I enjoy.) Even better: on the way out, I thought to ask, and the bottle of hand sanitizer (that I bought in Brighton at WFC last year; I'd been refilling it from the home supply as needed) that I'd left behind last week when we ate there was in the drawer under the greeter's desk. I'm glad to have that back, for minor sentimental reasons.

More good news: After lunch, we checked with the auto-air shop, and the vehicle had been repaired and was ready. That was very welcome news because it meant we could go collect it (the shop is at the same exit from US-395/I-580 you take to get to the Atlantis/Convention Center complex) today instead of having to make yet another trip to Reno tomorrow. We convoyed back home (the AC works just fine now), I got back on the computer, and Lisa went to lie down for a while.

The only bad news today: too many carbs from the buffet. My blood sugar shot up over 200 and proceeded to go up for the next several hours, even after a dose of Metaformin and walking to the post office and back. As I write this, a bit more than four hours after eating, it has finally come back down below where it was an hour after eating (now 223 mg/dl). More walking required. I would rather lie down and rest, but until it has come back below 180 on the way back toward normal, I have to exercise to get it moving in the right direction.

When I stopped at Lodi Junction on Saturday morning to get fuel, I didn't get a full tank of gas because the new high speed pumps are so high speed that they kept kicking off on me even when I tried to fill the tank slowly. I forgot about this until much later.

( The Sparks Nugget is changing, not necessarily for the better in our opinion )

As we neared Fernley, I finally noticed that the gas gauge on the minivan was on E. If I'd been able to get a full tank at Lodi Junction, or if we hadn't gone to Yuba City yesterday, or if I hadn't had a full load of heavy boxes, it wouldn't have been as much of an issue. I hoped that we'd be able to make it home, but as the van started to climb the final hill before Exit 46, it sputtered and died. At Lisa's instruction, I put the van in neutral to coast as far as I could, and she rushed ahead to go home and get the 2-gallon gas can in the garage. It turns out that I had enough momentum to crest the hill and therefore started rolling down the exit, and indeed it's not impossible that I might have had just enough to make it all the way to the pumps at the Pilot station; however, a big rig came bearing down on me as I made the turn from the off-ramp, and it is enough of a slight slope up and into the Pilot that I didn't want to risk getting stalled in the access road and tying up all traffic, so I pulled onto the dirt shoulder right in front of the station and let the big rig by.

A few minutes later, Lisa arrived and we put enough gas in the van to get me the few meters to the pumps. (We refueled Lisa's pickup and refilled the gas can as well.) If one did have to run out of gas, there were far worse places to have done so.

Now I'm home again but only for this week, as I'm in a series of home-and-away weeks for personal schedule reasons. The more I do this, the less I like doing only one-week stints.