Stress and Mess

Whew! these were some rough days, those last couple days! but thank god they are behind. Lots and lots of computer time, phone hours and some stinky mess that caused us to literally puke!

Work round the clock

Thursday, January 28, 2010 – It is morning. Early morning. Very early morning. No, actually I think is is night, coz it’s still dark outside. I am getting up in weird hours lately. Any other day at this time I would debate if I need to turn left or right…
I am trying to catch up with this project I have, and it doesn’t work that well. One problems leads to another, and it just doesn’t flow the way I want. You know the feeling, don’t you?
By 8:00AM I am right awake, after few hours of work, having my daily conference call. It was hard without high speed internet, as most of our calls are accompanied by a WebEx session (that means that we all share the same screen on a computer that sits somewhere in Europe).

Northern winds

It was a cold morning and rainy outside. not fun to get the RV ready to go. All the campground is one big paddle from the rain that did not stop all night. My fingers are ice and actually hurting from being so cold.  That brings me to back my happy MN days. the air is so cold in MN that if you pee outside you make an arch, as it freezes before it touches the ground. When you walk outside, you can not bend your knee too much, so that the jeans won’t break. Well – it wasn’t that cold, but enough to bring up those memories.
We finished packing up and unhook the RV as fast as we could. I stopped on the way out at the office and paid for the night. This is the first time we actually paid for metered electricity, and this is not so cheap. It is about $4 a day (Electric heater was on).

Going nowhere

We did not even know where we are going, we just drove. That happens to us a lot. not because we think it is fun going no where, it is just us. Leaving the moment. it happen too many times that we planned ahead just to change it, and made reservation just to cancel them. We looked up some campgrounds on the way, on the Passport America website. We stopped at a campground near Las Cruces, but when we pulled to the site, we found that they did not have Internet, and I HAD to have internet. Back to the road again,
We thought it would be best to go to the American campground just by Camping World. Although it is just a parking lot, and they charge you $25 a night, they had good internet and in the morning we don’t need to drive far. We are right there.

Why Fi

We arrived the campground early afternoon, and checked in. We got a site just by the WiFi antenna, but the site host told us that the Internet is acting up because of the weather. I don’t understand how come, and why the Internet should act up in the rain. What, the bits get wet? The waves get rusty?
The rain did not stop for a second, and we had to hook up again in the rain. We ran away from the harsh winter, but it is cold here too. Is it only this year? Is it just where we are? or maybe simply there is no place in the whole great United Stated of America where the weather is half way decent in January?
The internet didn’t work. Strong WiFi signal, connecting to the WiFi without a problem, but no Internet. I am not moving again! I guess the Internet is really acting up, throwing a temper tantrum.

Holy Crap!

When we opened the door to get into the RV, we found that Moe crapped in the RV and puked all over. That was disgusting, and he left a great ugly stain in the carpet. This is the second time that Moe is crapping in the RV this last week, he has never done that before. I am not sure if after he has done it the first time, he thinks now it is a bathroom, because I have some disagreement on that point, and I am not going to give up here.
We pick up the ‘gift’ and start scrubbing the carpet with Resolve and cleaning powder and water with dish soap and some secret formula of detergents.  When it looked clean again, and smelled good, Moe came over, made some weird sounds and Blaaah – puked all over the carpet. But this time that was enough to cover half the RV.
It reminds me of a story of two people riding the train, sitting one against the other. One of the guys spit to the other guy’s face a perfect dot at the exact edge of his nose. He then raise is hand to a handshake and says – Hi, I am Joe, world champion in spitting.
This other guy doesn’t think twice, pull his nose, fills his mouth with disgusting mucus and spits all over the other guy’s face, covers it completely. He shake his hand and says: Hi Joe, I am mike, an amateur.
Now get this – the carpet is full of puke, but it looks and smells like sh_t – very very very bad. Patti could not hold it, ran to the bathroom and joined Moe’s ritual, and puked. I gagged trying to hold it as much as I can, covering it with paper towels and trying to avoid the site of what otherwise smells bad enough. 2 rolls of paper towel. 1.5 bottles of 409, couple of Resolve and probably 2 hours of scrubbing. Pouring water with soap, soaking it with detergents. that was bad bad bad.

Done Cleaning? Back to work!

We didn’t feel like cooking (no wonder) and drove to Flying J on hwy 10 just on the border with NM. The have a nice buffet and we enjoyed some time off and rest. On the way I stopped at Camping World and verified that my part was there. It just arrived. How lucky!

Friday, January 29, 2010 – What else? Came back to the RV and worked through the rainy night. Did not get my problem solved yet. Sent an email to a colleague in Europe asking him to call me at any time to try and get the issue resolved. And he did. At 4:00AM !!
Our appointment at Camping World was at 8:30AM but get this – I didn’t get off the phone until 10:30 – that is six and a half (6.5) hours of talk. and  - we did not resolve the issue. Not yet.

See the light, but not the end

The rain was gone and the winds calmed down. We took the RV to Camping World, and Lindsey, my secret lover (so secret that she even doesn’t know that) took care of us and got the RV in right away. We sat in the nice waiting room and … you know what (hint: work related activity). In 3 hours the RV was back out and ready to go. Patti chose an RV park in Deming (not Dream Catcher) and after another stop at flying-J for gas and lunch we were on the road again.
I am exhausted. Need some sleep and time off from the phone, and the project. We arrived to El Rancho Lobo RV park at about 3:00 PM, got situated, and hooked up. We opened all three slide out. Smooth! wow so much room!

Took a shower (Oh I needed this one) and sat down to write this blog that turned out to be way longer that what I thought. It is only couple days with nothing much happening. I guess much enough to fill all this page.
Hope it wasn’t too boring :)
We are going to rest here couple days, maybe look around, and continue back west. Maybe we will meet Al and Kelly again, maybe Donna and Stu, maybe someone else, or maybe no one. Hope to have more exciting storied to tell next time, but work is just part of our life.