Peace at Camp

my room :)

Well it's Thursday, and I've almost survived a week of Christian Family Camp. Ahhh yes; Christianity. The anvil that has worn down a million hammers. The boys are sleeping in the lodge behind. I have the VW executive suite. I am enjoying the whole affair, especially the morning teaching sessions. A nice unplugging from my normal routines...

Camping Hedonism

12 volt chiller

Here's a silly gadget, but it's great for super-cooling a root beer while at camp.

The 12 Volt side of life

My list of 12 volt gizmos and appliances seemingly has no end; fridge, warmer oven, coffee pot, coffee cup, mini cup cooler/warmer, kettle. Then of course there's all the smaller things, like AA battery chargers, cell phone chargers, Ipod / USB chargers, and on it goes. I have more than one of those 2 and 3 outlet "adapters", but yesterday, I fell for an interesting one at Princess Auto. This one has a couple of nice qualities. First off, it has a power switch so you can turn it off when needed but still leave things plugged in to it. It also mounts with two screws. The distance between these screws matches a plate in my van that some previous owner installed to cover a hack job hole in the dash. This thing will be great for smaller draw items. I'm not diggin' the chrome though...

Pickled...

I stole this from an old friend's Facebook album (hope that's ok Brian). It's from a store window somewhere in St. John's...made me laugh...

...of course a little searching and I found the place using Google's streetview...


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Boss's spot

I stole my boss's parking spot this morning. I was in early enough to get a choice spot, but he's away so by parking there, his spot won't be wasted all day. Need more justification? He's making me go to some "meeting" on his behalf, so there :)

New Deck

nice new deck and upper patio door to start the summer. Crafted under the guidance of my brother-in-law Garry :) Construction photos HERE.

More VW Seating...

VW Campers are somewhat rare on the rusty Atlantic coast. Even more elusive is the $800 dealer-supplied 5th seat option. It's a single bucket seat mounted on a metal box, with locking storage underneath. A little over two years ago, I saw one for sale on Kijiji and since it matched my interior and was in perfect shape, I snatched it up. The guy wanted $100 for it, and he threw in a new front bumper along with some more bits and pieces. A little later, another one appeared, and I contacted the seller, but did not bother getting it. Fast forward 2 years to this week. Given my dissatisfaction with the blue behemoth, I dug out the old email, and contacted him again, just in case. To my delight, he still had it, and this one was brand new, and never used. So yes, I now have two. I may remove the seat portions and swap them with the aging 300,000km front seats that I have. Here's what I'm talking about:

By removing the armrests from one of them, I can shoe-horn them both into the van. These seats came with no headrest, but I scrounged up the "holes" and a headrest and added one to the first seat. Both slide in and out quite easily, and have a lap belt. The fun never ends :)