Good evening. Five days to Christmas. Christmas Eve is Thursday. Tonight is 26 degrees and clear, which is cooler then recent evenings. Tonight is expected to drop down another degree or two. It being partly clear for the first time in a while, it’s allowed the temperatures to drop a bit. That said, more clouds will approach by morning, and tomorrow will be a cloudy but mild day, around 45 degrees. All week is expected to be mild, but cloudy and somewhat rainy at times. Sunrise tomorrow at 7:21 AM, or at least daylight.
I always try to post a brief weather forecast before I start every blog post in earnest, because it gets me reading the weather and being knowledgeable before I plan my day. To a certain extent, this replaces the automatic weather updates of the old blog on social media, but I also like to be in the loop on weather conditions and understand as much meteorology as possible. Weather effects my mood, and certainly my days in many ways. It’s interesting to pull up an archived blog post and see what weather was like in context of the blog post.
It was a pretty good weekend. I got a lot done. The Save the Pine Bush hike was just me and Grace but we got to explore some land in the Pine Bush that was in the process of being developed. I asked for Grace to give me a ride there, because I didn’t think my truck would start again after Friday. Developers and greedy local politicians always want to develop more land, in hope that they’ll get more tax revenue, similar how drug addicts inject more heroin in hopes that this will be the high that truly makes them more satisfied. It’s pretty disgusting.
After getting the battery charged at Advanced Auto, I reinstalled it. It works great, but I certainly was very cautious on Saturday, with fears of getting stranded. But I finally understand why I got stranded last week at home, with a dead battery. I left the inverter on all week, and that dropped the voltage very low on the accessory battery. The starting battery was weak after many short trips, that left neither the the starting the battery or accessory battery well charged. Until this weekend, the deep cycle battery is normally connected to the starting battery via the battery isolator relay, which is activated when the engine idle sensor fuse is hot. This meant as soon as I turned the key to on or start, the deep cycle battery would be connected. A very low deep cycle battery plus a somewhat weak starting battery, plus a vapor lock from low fuel, meant I couldn’t start the truck, even by jump starting it. The fully-charged starting battery, with the fuse removed heading over to the deep-cycle started easily the half a dozen times I started it up running around
I bought a battery charger from Advanced Auto but it didn’t work well. I kept clicking off. I now wonder if I could have accidentally reversed the polarity on the battery, but I don’t think so, as neither the deep cycle or the starting battery was charging well on the charger. The battery is a bit confusing on polarity as the terminals aren’t well marked. But I still think it was defective. I went back to Advanced Auto on Saturday, hoping to get an exchange, but they gave me a full refund. I super satisfied about that, as I don’t really need to a battery charger, even though it would be handy tool to have in the future – but I really hadn’t budgeted the $75 it cost with taxes for the fast charger / jump starter. They had a $45 model, but I wanted the jump start capacity, so I could use it for the purpose in my driveway, hooked to the alternating current at home. Some point in the future, when I actually need a battery charger, I think I will buy a better one then the low-quality Advanced Auto generic brand.
Got a haircut. Between camping, hunting, hiking, and not having a car last weekend, I got really shaggy. Now I look much more professional, and I don’t have all the gray hair showing.
Installed and mounted a new lighted switch in the cab of my truck, next to the CB radio that allows me to disconnect the starting battery from the deep-cycle battery when the truck is running. This allows the deep-cycle not to be optionally not connected when starting, which means much easier starts in cold weather. It can also remain disconnected when I’m making short trips around town, which allows the alternator to focus on charging solely the starting battery – reducing the load on the alternator and keeping the starting battery from donating charge to a potentially quite low deep cycle battery. When both batteries are connected via the switch, the lighted switch glows a bright red. I don’t have to manually disconnect the starting and accessory battery when the ignition is off – this happens automatically, as the isolator relay is excited by the power from the fuse tap on the engine idle sensor fuse. All parts except crimp connectors were spare parts I had around the house from previous projects. Seems to work well, with easy starts and healthy battery voltages, despite the cold.
Rewired the CB radio to connect directly to the power line on the inverter. Previously the CB radio was powered through the solar controller, but sometimes the solar controller would get in the wrong mode and shut off. The solar controller automatically shuts off in some modes after dark, and in other modes cuts things off when the voltage gets too high or too low. Other times the solar controller, with it’s screw connectors, would get loosened up on bumpy roads. This better connection should mean less static on the CB radio and more reliability. I do lose automatic low-voltage CB radio turn-off, but I’m usually pretty good at remembering to shut off the radio before I park the truck. The deep-cycle battery is pretty robust, and I think the CB radio will shut-off automatically when the voltage drops below a certain point.
Pulled the 12-volt and USB outlet I installed in my truck under the rear seat when I changed the CB radio wiring. On Christmas Eve, if the weather is nice, I will install it in the cab of my truck, near the front seat, powered by the accessory battery. I will need to solder this connection, but that’s fine, as I also need to solder in the line that provides the ground for the lighted switch on the CB line. I usually prefer crimp-connectors to solder connections for automotive wiring, as a safety matter, but the way these are wired, only solder will work. That’s fine, they are inside, low-amperage wires, not exposed to the elements.
Cleaned out the cab of my truck. Washed my truck. Got tons of mud off it. Didn’t really shine up the body, but I don’t care, I just wanted to get rid of the mud and clean our the drains over the wheel wells to retard rust. Fortunately, we haven’t had much road salt applied locally because the winter has been so warm.
Cleaned up my kitchen, using vinegar to clean the outside of the stove, which like much of my apartment, has mildew problems. The vinegar, being acidic, helped clean up the corroded steel in parts and get everything fairly clean. Not as good as the bleach-based mildew remover, but applying bleach to an already rusting stove would have the same impact as spraying an old car with road salt. Trying to do a little cleaning every day, to make my apartment a little nicer. I still want to buy a house, but I think at this point, I am going to wait another year until 2017, and evaluate things to decide if I really want to be stuck in the Albany-area for another ten years. Owning a house when I travel for work and fun is difficult.
Did my evening walk. Cool but pretty nice. Cops were conferencing by the Bethlehem High School.
Went to Walmart early this morning and bought the last adapter I needed to hook the large propane cylinder to my new propane lantern. Also more lighter fluid and other camping supplies. I am hoping to use the lantern when I go camping this weekend. That said, camping is dependent on the weather. It looks like it will be snow-free in much of Eastern NY, but I’m not excited about the possibility of camping in rainy, 45 degree weather on Christmas, when I can be in the comfort of home.
Continuing to read Hiawatha Bray’s “You Are Here”, a book about the history of place-finding using GPS and all previous technologies. This is a very interesting book, one of the most interesting books I’ve gotten out of the library in a long time.
Went to Mom and Dad’s Christmas Tree Decorating party today. They served a delicious lunch.
Other things happened this weekend, including more map making. But all and all, despite being a busy weekend, it was a good and productive weekend. I’m tired, and I’m off to bed. Fifteen thousand, twenty words is a lot for a blog post.