Thursday, June 24, 2010

A day in MY life:

As a follow on to Kristi’s documented day, thought I would list one up.  Not that this is typical, but perhaps will become so.

4:27am – Awoke, as many Men my age seem to do, for an early morning trip to the Head.  Back to bed after.

8:32am – Awake again, this time a bit rested.  Got up and flipped on the hot water heater.  Batteries were well charged, and we wanted a REAL shower this morning.

8:44am – Back into bed, groped my Wife, then we read some while the water heated.

9:20am Showers

9:30ish -  Made coffee in our Italian style Espresso maker (and Bea, it is Stainless Steel, not the Aluminum that is ‘for the tourists’ J )  using fresh beans from Spella Café here in Portland, also a micro-roaster.   Very very nice.

10:00 – Fired up the Generator, the Kubota EA-300 / Alternator one.  (Have made some progress on it, will post more in a future entry)

10:20 – Helped a friend diagnose a Bilge Pump issue with his boat.  Pump would not turn off, not even when the fuse was removed!   à Turned out to be two issues:  1) Bilge pump switch had failed  - common, and 2) Someone has installed a phantom power source to the pump – bypassing the fuse and ‘control’ panel.  Maybe also common on older boats, but interesting to hunt down.

11ish – Brunch à Strawberries, and avocados .  Love the Fruit and Veggies showing up in the markets now.  Also added protein with a tuna pita pocket sandwich.

More reading of ‘Hawaii’ by James Michener

1pm – Turned off the generator and was picked up by someone else I am helping.  We drove over to my Son’s house to collect an oscilloscope and then to the problem boat.  Issue à Interaction between generator and inverter/charger – inverter shuts down after about 30 seconds of charging on Generator but is OK on shore power.  Verified waveform of generator looks acceptable, and neither leg of the generator is showing signs of compromised windings.  Inverter is a good old Heart and should not have issues.  But as Xantrex will not do any support, diagnostics, nor repair now, he will be replacing it with a Magnum.  A company that will support their products.

5ish pm:  All done, got him some new shore power cords that were showing signs of heat stress and stopped by a local café on the water for a couple of beers.

6-7ish back at the boat.  Dave and Patti had stopped by to say Hi, was good visiting with them.

8:30ish:  Kristi and I went to Harborside for their Happy Hour.  $3 cheese burgers and fries!  VERY good!

10ish walked around a bit, noted three more boats coming in to the bowl here and dropping anchor.  (Turns out one of them was the guy who purchased the Minto dinghy from us a while ago.  So, will have to watch in torment as he enjoys this wonderful small rowing dinghy throughout the Blues Fest – Oh Well)

11pm – Into bed.   End of an enjoyable day that was a surprise for as:  A nice sunny warm day.  Was supposed to be overcast, and raining.  Oh Well, no reason to listen to weather folks, they are getting it about 10% correct these days. . .






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