Tueday 7-25-23 Dancing, Project, New Product & More

 

Just having fun

We started the day working on the Minnie project. Larry installed the DC to DC charger under the dinette seat where I usually sit. Then he moved onto installing the solar generator box under the dinette. The box came with a strap and brackets to keep it in place. Using screws he attached the brackets to the floor, then he put the strap through the brackets and strapped down the box. It worked out great. During this process I held the table up so he could work under it. Our Minnie is very small so everything is a tight fit. Once he had everything hooked up and in place he started the Minnie and sure enough the battery box started charging at 20amps. Perfect.

Solar Generator Battery Box

 

The charger under the seat

Larry also experimented with the solar generator and our portable solar panels. Both sets are 120 watts and each of them was putting out about 90 watts, Larry was happy. However, he found the new set didn't work well in the shade, in fact they wouldn't produce at all if two of the panels had partial shade, even with a small amount of shade the numbers fell significantly. Our old panels work much better. We purchased the new one a couple of weeks ago so we decided to return it. 

We seldom return anything to Amazon but they have made the process very easy. Simply go to their website, select the item you want to return, choose the reason for the return, then a code is generated that you can print out, they also send the code to your email. You really don't have to print out the code, simply show it to the UPS Store folks via your phone, they will scan it in and normally in a few hours your refund is processed. Amazon doesn't actually refund money to your credit card, they put it in the form of a gift card on their system and as you purchase other items they deduct it from the balance. Works great for us.

I attended Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly A2 dance at 2:00 for an hour. We had a special guest at the dance, Dave Eno. Di called three tips, Terry called one tip and Dave called a tip. We had 15 participants at the dance. All three callers did a great job of calling and cueing us through the dance. I had a super time.

Dave Eno

After the dance we went to town. We stopped by the UPS Store to pickup a package that was waiting for us. It was a small inexpensive switch that Larry ordered from China. He was beginning to give up on receiving it, but he was glad it arrived. We also dropped off the solar panels to be returned to Amazon. Then we went to Walmart to pick up a few things. While there Larry bought oil and a filter for the Minnie. 

While we were walking around Larry spotted an end cap with boxes of Cracker Jacks, except it wasn't Cracker Jacks, it was Cracker Jill. the company is celebrating girls and women in sports. The box came with 28 bags of five different characters. I like Cracker Jacks. To control portions Larry and I normally split a bag of whatever snack we have. These will make a nice change.

  Cracker Jill characters

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event today was Event: Tri Peaks Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 19 minutes and 23 seconds, which put me in 11th place in my group. Then I moved onto playing Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds and Friends.

Today I only played the weekly pinball challenge Congo. I didn't get a new high score but I had fun trying.

In the evening we watched an episode of Poirot and an episode of The Librarians. Then I watched Casino Royale, which is a James Bond movie. Then I watched an episode of The X-Files. I ended up doing 18,000 steps, which put me in 3rd place in my group.