What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

This week I had planned to do some routine maintenance to my RV. I needed to de-winterize it and sanitize the fresh water system. I also wanted to put two more covers over the fresh air vents on the roof. In the picture above I circle the covers. There are actually a total of four of these on the roof although you can only see three in the picture.

I brought the RV from the lot to the house on Tuesday and for the last two days have been doing maintenance and other chores. Everything went so well that I decided to start another pretty big DYI project on the outside of the coach. If you will look at the picture at the top of the post you can see an arrow pointed to the blue lines on the side of the coach body. These lines are actually decals and not paint. The coach is 17 years old and these decals are starting to curl off of the body and they look a little ratty up close.

I have read of people removing these decals using a hair dryer and some adhesive remover so I decided to give it a try. Everything I read about the process says that you should try on an inconspicuous place first just to see how it does...with the reasoning that if it doesn't go well you haven't messed up the look too bad.

I chose a spot on the rear passenger side that was a little hidden by the awning arms. It wasn't easy but it wasn't too bad and I reasoned that with a lot of time I could do a pretty decent job. The vinyl "stripes" came off pretty easily but left the dried adhesive below it, stuck to the wall of the RV. I used a little Goof Off to soften the aged adhesive and then rubbed it off with a rag....that was in the test area. After I decided to go ahead and started on a part that was clearly visible things started to get ugly.

The graphics still came off pretty easily but the dried adhesive got harder and harder to remove. When the Goof Off became ineffective I tried gasoline. That didn't work so I tried some 3M adhesive remover. That worked a little better but still not good enough to allow me to get much of anything done. I then tried some laquer thinner that worked ok but it also started to take the paint off of the RV! In the picture to the right you can see the colored line which are the untouched areas. The gray lines are areas in which the decal has been removed. The gray matter is the adhesive that held the decal to the body. The area shown in the picture above took me all day to do. That's all day as in eight hours!

About this time I began to get that sinking feeling. My brain started offering up every curse word it had ever stored...including some that I had not thought about or used since I left Uncle Sam's services over 35 years ago. It was back to the drawing board and try to figure out a good exit strategy.

In desperation I called a body shop that I had talked to a few months ago about repainting the entire coach. I never went through with that plan because my first born is married and living away from home now so I couldn't sell her to finance the project. Anyway, the body shop said that they had an industrial strength adhesive remover that didn't hurt the paint under the decals and that "might" work. This morning I put the RV back in the lot and headed some 20 miles north to the body shop to buy a sample of this miracle substance. While I was there the owner also showed me a plastic razor blade which he said could be used to help scrape off the adhesive without damaging the body paint. Whodathunk....plastic razor blades?

So, as of right now I have a little hope that I can pull this rabbit out of the hat. I won't try the new adhesive remover until early next week when I bring the RV back to the house to start preparing for the chicken dance trip on the18th.

All of you readers....think good thoughts. Do a few ohmmms for me. I'll need all the help I can get.

Thanks for visiting.

A Miss is as Good as a Mile

This old saying can be traced back to the 1600's. It means it doesn't matter how close the miss is, a miss is a miss and it may as well be a mile. In the present case the miss was about 50 miles according to the weather gurus.

It's bright and sunny this morning with maybe...maybe an inch of snow on the ground. Yesterday was nasty, windy and it spit snow all day but the 12" of snow we were supposed to get was nowhere to be seen. The road condition report however made it clear that people just to the east of us weren't so lucky...

EB I-70 is closed Aurora to the Kansas border,WB I-70 is closed from Kansas to Limon US 85 is closed from Ault to the Wyo. state line, CO 71 is closed between Limon and Brush, I-76 is closed in both directions from Ft. Morgan to the state line, and I-25 Wellington to Wyo. state line closed Northbound due to adverse weather.

It really didn't matter to me, I was inside the local big box store distributing samples of Orowheat English Muffins. It's a fun job, giving stuff away and talking with people. It's also interesting to see what people have in their shopping carts. The hard part of the gig is just standing in one place for five hours. It would be a lot easier if I could walk around but I can't. I have to stand behind the small display table for the entire time except for one 15 minute break. Today I'll be at a different store distributing samples of Fiber One Chewy Bars.

I'm not sure what's on the calendar for next week...haven't planned that far yet. I feel the urge to do some more photography so maybe I'll visit one of the local State Parks? Stay tuned.

Thanks for visiting.

Chef His-Self

So this was the weekend I did product demonstrations at the local big box store. The deal was that I was to do two different demonstrations, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Demonstrate is a misnomer. Prepare and hand out samples is the more accurate description.

The product on Saturday was Sutton & Dodge (Hormel) Pot Roast in a bag....lightly seasoned, pre-cooked. All you have to do is heat and eat. The bag contained a 5 pound piece of beef and it was selling on sale for $11.99/lb. That means the 5 lb. bag retailed for right on $60. $12/lb. for a piece of meat is a little...no a lot more than I normally would consider spending so I was interested to see how other people perceived the product.

Before distributing the samples I had to heat a piece of meat in a microwave and then cut it into sample size servings. Heating the meat caused a very nice aroma to surround my little work area and it really attracted people. I had tasted the product before I started handing samples out and I will admit it was very tasty. That's what most of the customers said too.

Once most of the people learned the price they walked on but many didn't bat an eye and picked up a bag. I sold all of the product the store had on hand except for one bag and I had a great time doing it.

When I first started my real work career 36 years ago I was a sales representative and sold commercial and industrial products to building contractors. I did ok at it but was never really comfortable in a sales job because the pressure never quit. You could have a record month/year but then the next month/year you started from zero and the pressure was on again. In this little hobby/job there is no pressure. The task is to give out samples and if someone buys the product that's an added bonus. That made it a fun thing for me.

Sunday the product was BOOST Juices. I have to tell you that I don't really "get" that product. I is a natural juice made of some exotic fruits that is supposed to work magic for your body. The "Inner" formula said it was supposed to make all of your organs function better....It tasted like watered down prune juice to me.

I didn't have the aroma going for me on Sunday and traffic was very light. The goal was to hand out 400 samples and I handed out maybe 70. You win some you lose some! While it was boring not being actively engaged with customers I still had a good time people watching and studying what people were buying.

All in all I had a good time and will probably do some more of this. This will have to wait a few weeks though because the great Tucson Road Trip starts this coming Sunday. This week will be busy getting ready. In addition to getting everything packed I have to reinstall the two coach batteries I use as back up power in the RV. When I know I'm not going to use the RV for several weeks I take them out of the coach and keep them in my basement hooked up to a trickle charger. I also need to clean the gas burner and flue for the RV refrigerator. It's been acting up on the last several trips and normally requires cleaning every couple of months. This is the kind of work I really enjoy....getting ready for a road trip.

Thanks for visiting.

Just One Step Away From A WalMart Greeter

Before I retired my colleagues at work asked me what I would do when I retired. Would I get a consulting job in my old industry? My stock reply was that 35 years of working in the same industry was all I cared to do. If I wanted to do anything like work again, a WalMart greeter was about as stressful as I wanted to get.

I have been retired for a little over one year now. During that time I have seen a lot of new places and done a lot of new things. I have not had the time nor felt the need to consider working. I do however scan the part time job listings on Craigslist just for fun.

A month or so ago I saw an ad that peaked my curiosity. It was for a "demonstrator" at local big box stores. You know what that is... You've seen lots of them in Target, Walmart and your grocery store. Those are the folks behind the card table giving away samples of food.

It turns out that this interested me in several ways. First of all, the weather is not good enough to allow me to go on frequent RV trips locally so my weekends are free. Secondly, the job description indicates that you are a "contractor" for the demonstration company. You get to pick the demonstrations you want to do. There is no pressure to have a regular schedule. The demonstrations are 5 hours long and the pay is $10/hr.

So, for $50 a day I would get to give away someone else's stuff and I only have to do it when I want. That sounded like something I would like to give a whirl so I submitted an "application". Now I wasn't about to do work to get a job so my application said that I was retired and intelligent enough to have had a career in industry for 35 years and I was looking for "pin money" and that was it. No fancy resume.

I'm not sure if I'm exactly the kind of person they were looking for or they were really hard up but they signed me up and I will do my first two demos this weekend. I had been offered several more demos in coming weeks but I told them I wanted to do just the two to begin with to see if it was a "fit" for me. The $100 I get for working this weekend will buy several tanks of gas for the RV on my trip in two weeks so I'm into this thing for now.

This is the type of work that can be fun....I don't need to do it and if I don't like doing it, I'm gone. Too bad my career wasn't that easy!

Thanks for visiting.