Just need to vent...

Finally got to travel in our motorhome. Thursday night it rained and turned the free RV over night rest area into a swamp. Managed to get the motorhome out, travelled a further 120kms to a nice little town and $15 night for a powered site ... great, we'll stay for 3 nights, pay up the money ... it has rained every night and now we are once again parked in the middle of a lake ..... and the grey water pipe decided to spring a leak, under the motorhome, in the middle of the lake .... but the farmers are happy, so who am I to whinge ...... Just wanted to add a post on this thread really cause I feel much better now As long as it isn't raining tomorrow, I might not be so caring about the farmers getting their rain then

T1 Terry

 

Safe travels!

We got 12.25" of rain last month.
311.15mm to those living in underdeveloped regions.

I'm thinking that 11 inches of that was in the last 3 days of the month!!

That's rain for you.....

 

This helps. I've been looking at towing a small camper to 'rough it.' You've reminded me about the reality of camping was when I was much younger.

Bob Wilson

 

A movie to watch in your tv while it is raining

The Long Long Trailer

 

Presently staying at lake mary ronan state campground (also $15/nite) for a few days. hard to garner sympathy for our breakdowns - owning a motorhome.

We just lost side slideout power on the Sprinter. Dang control module - deeply burried behind unrelated items. Mounted upside down. Thankfully slide controller died after full inward travel. There IS a mechanical override - but ... not going to try to extend slide - only for it to NOT retract (boo hoo, poor us, stuck with a narrow motorhome isle). OH well.
.

 

I could see 'units of measurement conflicts' as rant vent appropriate here. Myanmar, Liberia and USA have stuck with inches as metrology marched on. Such brave.

I wrote a manuscript that referred to 1000 kilograms as a ton. Journal reviewer insisted on 'tonne'. Neither are official IUPAC terminology. The only technically correct choice is 'megagram' having even more letters and I think it sounds kinda hoity toity. So I changed each appearance to 'tonne' to the satisfaction of reviewer and thus editor.

==
It appears that 'clicks' has traction in military as a groovy sounding revision of kilometers. Maybe that can be the gateway drug.

 

"Groovy."

Going Old School. I like it.
Kris

 

I picked that one up mostly from a Vietnam Vet. While we were in Vietnam for a bicycle tour, his only return since his Marine days in the swamps there.

After more than 50 years, that term doesn't seem to being getting much traction. Though cycling, running, and some other activities do commonly use that measure under its standard name.

 

Interoperability is the phrase that pays.
We have to run and gun with our neighbors, and commonality of equipment and comms is core and key to successfully fighting in somebody else's back yard instead of YOURS.
Yeah.
I know.
We didn't win in Veet Nam but that's a different discussion.
Interoperability means everybody uses the same gear with the same spare parts, and talks on the same radio frequencies with the same key words and tricky phrases, and your ammo will work in my weapons.
After about 30 seconds in uniform you begin to realize that the big green machine doesn't do ANYTHING because it's cool.
They used 'click' for kilometer because it is fairly distinctive and monosyllabic, and it's unlikely to be mistaken for another word unless you're a political hack referring to a former US President.
It only sounds groovy because it is groovy.

Interoperability isn't perfect by any means.
In addition to being forced to use meters BOTH 'kilo' and 'mili' we got stuck with the 9x19mm 'parabellum' round for our defensive sidearms because those wimpy Europeans didn't like the adult cartridge that we used.
We got them back, though.
They got stuck with the 5.56x45mm NATO rifle round.

 

Inspection camera revealed a rubber duckling. Had to be the junior size to get in there. I'm going to try to find a claw tool on my rounds.

I already have the new strainer, hoping this one doesn't appeal to the cats.

The cats are easy to manage. The toddler isn't too bad. But when both forces combine? Ooof.

 

Speaking of word efficiency & 5.56 - there's another phrase, "recon".
As in, "would i rather carry 500 rounds (~16Lbs +mags) of 5.56? Or 500 rounds of 7.62 (~30Lbs +mags) on a 12 mile recon".
.

 

It wasn't about the weight.
It was about the BUCKS.

When I traded my submarine tennis shoes in for jungle boots I got a crash course on that subject, and what you're CARRYING depends on what you're doing, but if you're walking 12 miles in an expeditionary setting you're going to at least be part of a squad - the fundamental military maneuver unit.
About a dozen folks with an NCO for adult supervision (we used 10 but our fire teams were 3 instead of 4 and we were supposed to be in the rear guarding the gear.)
Squads usually have 1-2 medium machine guns - 7.62x51 back in the 'groovy-cool' days.
If you were competently led, the linked machine gun ammo would be distributed amongst the riflemen - and whaddyay know?
If they had weapons that used the same ammo, you could de-link the MG rounds and stuff them into those AR-10 mags.
Squads also employed 1 or 2 snipers (we call them Designated Marksmen in these modern times) they often used........a DMR chambered for that same cartridge.

Somebody must have thought that made pretty good sense.
The new stuff that they're developing will use a new and hideously expensive round (6.8x51mm) for BOTH the next gen M17 rifle and M250 light machine gun.
It's even called (among other things) a ' the 6.8x51 COMMON Cartridge.'

Prius Folks ought to dig it.
It's a ...um....'hybrid' round with both steel and brass cases

 

Little rubber ducks seem to be a Jeep thing.

 

I seem to recall my dear Dad said never to mix steel and brass?
Kris

 

ah yes .... reinventing the wheel - because everyone needs to take out body armor wearing grunts at half a click. Leave it to Sig. Just wondering how many db goes along with its 80K psi chamber pressure.

 

Somebody told me it's a 10 year old gag about toys on the dashboard being the only area of their lives where they had their ducks in a row.

 

I feel ya! Here, in Colorado, seems EVERYBODY south of us wants to come camping here so getting reservations requires making them about a 5-6 months prior so we've spent the entire time inside the camper because of rain, and even snow here!

But, still, the old saying is true, "The mountain is calling and I must go!"

FWIW, we have a 23-footer Forest River (Rockwood) Mini-Lite we tow all over the place with my 2014 Tundra.