Still on the Edge in Sumas

A friend's dog died yesterday. I think these days pets take on an added meaning for a lot of people, particularly in the gay community when traditional offspring are the exception. I suppose when gay civil rights finally makes its way into the limelight and the public decides that gay people deserve to take children for granted every bit as much most straight people do, well, pets will still be as integral to our lives as say, birth control is to rich hets. Is that harsh? Maybe, particularly when you consider this is about Wizard, a very gentle, geriatric greyhound. They adopted him from Greyhound Pets International, which I think is about as cool as cool gets. What a lovely dog. I will miss him.

Our own Sadie May lies reposed in her usual "dead dog" position on the warm carpet on this warm day in April. Meanwhile, temps in Boston Bar reached 80F already this past week. Lucky for me it was only in the 60's and 70's as I worked on the bus this weekend. I replaced the bladder that moves the stop sign (that has been repainted, "GROW"). I added some more 110v electrical recepticals. I strung wires for the backup camera and video monitor (it'll reside on a bracket over the driver's left shoulder, so that when you look in the mirror you see a mirror image of the view out the back. The bracket itself came out of the junk I'd saved before the back-hoe came through in 2002. I installed my shiny new inverter to get 110v power out of 12v batteries. How neato is that? I also added a 200 amp fuse to the "house batteries" which I hope never blows. The worst case scenario for this "Catastorphe Fuse" is a dead short between the live wire and the bus frame, possible, though hopefully not likely, as the hot (positive) wire is routed through holes drilled through the (negative) bus frame. Of course I did what I could to wrap the wires in garden hose, so now vibration needs to wear a hole through that, in addition to the regular wire insulation.

No photos this time. What do you expect, a picture of an outlet, or a fuse? Sorry...better maybe to describe anyway. When I'm incredibly famous I'm sure this'll make for an excellent published excerpt. Hardy Harr.

The floor of the bus is plywood, so I didn't bother with the garden hose thang there. Those holes are only a little bigger than the diameter of the cable. I do need to go back and squirt in a little caulk, just for good measure.

When I installed the first outlet of the day, true to my type, I assumed without thinking about it that I'd already measured the length of 3x12 cable needed to reach the circuit breaker. No such luck. I'd shorted myself about 4 feet. Silly me. What I did was install an out let box at the point where the cable ran out, which is right beside the electrican panel/control box. Its good, since the control panel/box is at the rear of the bux, and I didn't have a 110v outlet back there anyway. Well I do now. Next weekend is Ravenna Ravine in Seattle, and right after that is the Rad Fey swim meet, so I won't be able to add on the 12v ciruits until the weekend of the 14th or so. Already can't wait.