Ok, so I keep hearing about the situation in Iran and I have to observe something. If I were the leader of a regime that believed that I'd just demonstrated honesty and all that's right with democracy and the people started to rise up against me, I think I'd offer them a UN lead election to prove that it was indeed all above board.
So does threatening to shoot large numbers of your population and refusing to enter into any sort of disucssion declare innocence and justice? Somehow I think not.
Jun 24, 2009
Jun 14, 2009
A close thing
As recently noted, we have become the owners of a nice, near new caravan. That of course meant that we had to sell the tent trailer that we acquired last year, a process that I entered into with some trepidation. I mean who ever has a fun time selling things like cars and caravans?
We stuck signs on it, in the hope that someone might walk past, be pleasantly surprised and inspired and throw a wad of cash at us, but that didn’t seem to have much luck (well not in the first four days at least) and on Thursday, I managed to get around to snapping a couple of photos and posting a free ad on kijiji. It takes about 24 hours before its actually becomes visible to searchers so no one was going to see it until Friday night at best. To be honest, I never expected to hear from anyone as a result of that ad.
On Saturday morning the cell phone rang and It was indeed actually someone interested in coming to see the trailer, so I arranged for them to come after Emily’s soccer. That all went well and the couple departed promising that they’d have a chat and get back to us. Again, I wasn’t building up any hopes and didn’t expect to hear from them until today (Sunday). To my utter delight, they rang back a couple of hours later and decided to buy it from us and came around and put a nice cool grand deposit down until they can get to the bank on Monday.
Commence Euphoria.
Happy dances were done, champagne was put in the fridge … and then it hailed. Big Hail. Centimetre diameter hail stones pounding to the earth and of course all over the camper which we had up to show off.
Fortunately, no damage was done leaving me to wait until everything had dried out to put it down and pack it up for what is to hopefully be the final time. We were favoured with good enough weather to dry it out and so I went out to put it down.
I’d wound the handle perhaps 3 times when something went ‘twang’. I was concerned, but kept winding slowly. Things appeared to be ok, but as I continued, it seemed one corner was coming down quicker than the others. Not a good sign. Further investigation revealed that the cable on that side had gone slack. A very bad sign. And when I tried to wind it up again … only three corners went up. Oh shit.
I went inside at that point and told Caroline, “I think a cable has snapped.” So here I was, in mind of last year, when something went 'sproing' and it took 3 months and a lot of cash to get it repaired. And I had a thousand dollars cash, in my pocket, from the guy that wanted to buy it.
Commence Despair.
There wasn’t much I could do last night though and so rather than get worked up over something I had no control of, I had a couple of drinks, arranged for someone to come and help me raise the roof in the morning and slept on it.
Investigation this morning seemed to suggest that perhaps the cable wasn’t broken. The scary thing was that in order to see where I thought the problem was, cupboards were going to have to be removed fro, inside the camper. Four letter word time.
It was at that point, as we walked all around it time and again, peered underneath at cables and scratched at our heads, that Matt noticed that one cable had two clamps joining it and the other only had one. The cable had simply slipped through one clamp!
15 minutes later, the roof was winding up and down again.
Relief.
Waves and floods of relief. I clamped the lid down and hope to buggery I never; never never ever, have to put it up again. And I hope the new owners have better luck with it than I did.
There’s no winding on the new one! And for the record, a twang is a hell of a lot better than a sproing!
We stuck signs on it, in the hope that someone might walk past, be pleasantly surprised and inspired and throw a wad of cash at us, but that didn’t seem to have much luck (well not in the first four days at least) and on Thursday, I managed to get around to snapping a couple of photos and posting a free ad on kijiji. It takes about 24 hours before its actually becomes visible to searchers so no one was going to see it until Friday night at best. To be honest, I never expected to hear from anyone as a result of that ad.
On Saturday morning the cell phone rang and It was indeed actually someone interested in coming to see the trailer, so I arranged for them to come after Emily’s soccer. That all went well and the couple departed promising that they’d have a chat and get back to us. Again, I wasn’t building up any hopes and didn’t expect to hear from them until today (Sunday). To my utter delight, they rang back a couple of hours later and decided to buy it from us and came around and put a nice cool grand deposit down until they can get to the bank on Monday.
Commence Euphoria.
Happy dances were done, champagne was put in the fridge … and then it hailed. Big Hail. Centimetre diameter hail stones pounding to the earth and of course all over the camper which we had up to show off.
Fortunately, no damage was done leaving me to wait until everything had dried out to put it down and pack it up for what is to hopefully be the final time. We were favoured with good enough weather to dry it out and so I went out to put it down.
I’d wound the handle perhaps 3 times when something went ‘twang’. I was concerned, but kept winding slowly. Things appeared to be ok, but as I continued, it seemed one corner was coming down quicker than the others. Not a good sign. Further investigation revealed that the cable on that side had gone slack. A very bad sign. And when I tried to wind it up again … only three corners went up. Oh shit.
I went inside at that point and told Caroline, “I think a cable has snapped.” So here I was, in mind of last year, when something went 'sproing' and it took 3 months and a lot of cash to get it repaired. And I had a thousand dollars cash, in my pocket, from the guy that wanted to buy it.
Commence Despair.
There wasn’t much I could do last night though and so rather than get worked up over something I had no control of, I had a couple of drinks, arranged for someone to come and help me raise the roof in the morning and slept on it.
Investigation this morning seemed to suggest that perhaps the cable wasn’t broken. The scary thing was that in order to see where I thought the problem was, cupboards were going to have to be removed fro, inside the camper. Four letter word time.
It was at that point, as we walked all around it time and again, peered underneath at cables and scratched at our heads, that Matt noticed that one cable had two clamps joining it and the other only had one. The cable had simply slipped through one clamp!
15 minutes later, the roof was winding up and down again.
Relief.
Waves and floods of relief. I clamped the lid down and hope to buggery I never; never never ever, have to put it up again. And I hope the new owners have better luck with it than I did.
There’s no winding on the new one! And for the record, a twang is a hell of a lot better than a sproing!
Jun 8, 2009
Caravan
Ever since we’ve been in Canada, we’ve been astounded by the caravans that we see travelling down the highways. Even the smallest of them seem to put the Australian vans in mind of toys. The largest ones are quite simply ridiculous. Massive fifth wheel things that one could live in year round and they often have a boat or trailer full of quads off the back of that as well.
Early on I did some research as to the ability to bring a caravan back into Australia, but things seemed to be stymied by the fact that there was this insistence that the van have a door on the left hand side. Over here, they are all on the right. So we quickly ended import dreams and went down the path of the little tent trailer which served us well up until the point that I broke it last year.
That was all fixed though and as the sun came out (brief as it seems to have been) we started to plan this year’s trip. We’re going down to Yellowstone National Park in July along with some Aussie friends from over here. In the back of my mind though, I’ve always wanted to find that elusive van that might have a door on the ‘wrong side’.
When we drove down to Sunshine for our last ski of the year (in May) I finally saw one. To say the state of excitement was heightened, wouldn’t be doing my euphoric state justice. The fact that I saw two, from different manufacturers had me very very excited indeed. Of course when I arrived home and started researching, I could only remember one of the brands and that was the one whose website announced, “we’re getting out of travel trailers”. Bugger. I kept searching. Eventually I ended up back at the US Jayco site (here) and looking at the Jayfeather 213. It has this nifty little door on the left hand side, proposed as a bike storage. Well I don’t know about the bikes, but I can assure you, from everything that I’ve been able to work out, it meets the ‘get it into Australia’ requirement!
So we bought one.
Yep, a bit of looking, a bit of negotiating, some painful payment processing and shazzam … we have a 2007 model sitting in our driveway. On the other side from the tent trailer … which is now for sale.
Know anyone in remote Canada looking for a nifty camper trailer?
Early on I did some research as to the ability to bring a caravan back into Australia, but things seemed to be stymied by the fact that there was this insistence that the van have a door on the left hand side. Over here, they are all on the right. So we quickly ended import dreams and went down the path of the little tent trailer which served us well up until the point that I broke it last year.
That was all fixed though and as the sun came out (brief as it seems to have been) we started to plan this year’s trip. We’re going down to Yellowstone National Park in July along with some Aussie friends from over here. In the back of my mind though, I’ve always wanted to find that elusive van that might have a door on the ‘wrong side’.
When we drove down to Sunshine for our last ski of the year (in May) I finally saw one. To say the state of excitement was heightened, wouldn’t be doing my euphoric state justice. The fact that I saw two, from different manufacturers had me very very excited indeed. Of course when I arrived home and started researching, I could only remember one of the brands and that was the one whose website announced, “we’re getting out of travel trailers”. Bugger. I kept searching. Eventually I ended up back at the US Jayco site (here) and looking at the Jayfeather 213. It has this nifty little door on the left hand side, proposed as a bike storage. Well I don’t know about the bikes, but I can assure you, from everything that I’ve been able to work out, it meets the ‘get it into Australia’ requirement!
So we bought one.
Yep, a bit of looking, a bit of negotiating, some painful payment processing and shazzam … we have a 2007 model sitting in our driveway. On the other side from the tent trailer … which is now for sale.
Know anyone in remote Canada looking for a nifty camper trailer?
Found
The other day at work, I was sitting at the computer and happened to glance down. There was no particular reason for it, it was one of those thousands of tiny little motions that make up one’s day.
As I glanced down though, the pocket of my shirt happened to be open slightly. Just enough, in fact that I could see that there was something lurking at the bottom of it. Curious, I reached in to find out what it was and voila! One relocated wedding ring.
I have no idea why it ended up there, other than thinking that when I’d had it off I must have thought that would avoid me losing it. The fact that the shirt had been through the wash at least once and the ring was still there was quite simply amazing.
But all is well that ends well. I am, once again, branded :) claimed and loved.
As I glanced down though, the pocket of my shirt happened to be open slightly. Just enough, in fact that I could see that there was something lurking at the bottom of it. Curious, I reached in to find out what it was and voila! One relocated wedding ring.
I have no idea why it ended up there, other than thinking that when I’d had it off I must have thought that would avoid me losing it. The fact that the shirt had been through the wash at least once and the ring was still there was quite simply amazing.
But all is well that ends well. I am, once again, branded :) claimed and loved.
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