Instead of blogging, I've been...

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I have lots of pictures backlogged because I got a new computer and then a new Treo and spent a lot of on-line time setting them up instead of messing with pictures.
And then, I haven't been anywhere. OK, I'm in a different supermarket each week, in a different town, but they are still supermarkets and supermarket parking lots. With gas as high as it had gotten, at 7 mpg I took to only driving when necessary. Then I got new coach batteries and necessary became less often. I can now park Sunday night, run the furnace in the morning and evening, and have batteries still reading "good" on Thursday. So I have been catching up on my reading and what not, but not doing bloggable things.

Now, thankfully, gas prices have dropped to levels I thought were only memories, RVers who sold their rigs because they couldn't afford to feed them are kicking themselves in the proverbial butt, and I am driving more and parking less. Last weekend, for instance, it was actually cheaper to drive up to Virginia and see my friends and my kitty cat and back to the same town in NC than it would have been to stay at a very inexpensive campground near there for the weekend. A month earlier it would have definitely been the other way around.

I don't know how long the gas prices will stay down but I'm sure enjoying it.

Desktop 4.* on Vista - YES!!!

Installing Palm Desktop 4.1.4 or 4.2 on Vista - I win!!!

OK, I have a shiny new Treo 755p. I take it out of the box and charge it the recommended 12 hours and prepare to install software. The included disc says Vista Users see website. I follow that link and it's the link that says on Vista you should install the new feature-deficient Access version of Palm Desktop. Now, I already know from my adventures when I got the Vista laptop that 4.1.4 runs fine on Vista once you get it to install. So I decide to ignore the instruction and pop the included disc into the CD tray. Install shield does its thing - and hangs up. Well, fooey. I reboot, realize the key last time was uninstall first, in spite of Palm's statement that you install over the previous. So I uninstall. In goes the disc again. Still no good. It just hangs up. I spent some time chatting with tech support and wound up downloading the Access version. It installed, but I hated it. Light blue on lighter blue, no options, no color-coded categories, and no birthdays in the desktop calendar. I don't know what else they left out.

I woke up with inspiration: Even though I uninstalled the 4.1.4 and the partial 4.2 before I installed Access's desktop, it still found parts of "a previous version". I figured out it probably dealt with them.

So - I booted up the computer and uninstalled Palm Desktop by Access in Control Panel uninstall programs. I rebooted the computer. I closed everything I could, windows sidebar and veriface and everything. Disconnected from the internet and closed my antivirus.
Put in the disc that came with my 755p and **WooHoo!!!** It installed fine. It runs fine. It installs programs and files to the handheld fine. And I'm not even running it in compatibility mode.

So if you miss your features, it is perfectly possible to run 4.1.4 or 4.2 on Vista. Just make sure the prior version is completely deleted and NOTHING, INCLUDING ANTIVIRUS, else is running after you reboot, and install the program.

If you like bullet lists, here you go:

What I did:
1. Uninstall Access desktop version
2. Reboot Computer
3. Turn off ALL running programs, disconnect from internet and close antivirus.
4. Insert installation disc that came with Treo 755p
5. Autorun. Uncheck download latest settings from internet (because you are off-line).

I want a Harley!

I want a Harley. Of course, my motorscooter is paid for, and it fits on the rack on the back of the motorhome, so I probably will not be getting a Harley any time soon. But that doesn't stop me wanting one.

I had the pleasure last week of visiting the Harley Davidson museum in Asheboro. They have a service shop and a diner (the menu has motorcycle-oriented names - for instance, Drinks are called "Fluids") downstairs. The museum itself is upstairs.

Note to Universal Beneficence: When I say I want a Harley, this bicycle is NOT what I mean. I had no idea H-D had made such. I'd have sure gotten one for my kid, though.

They had lots of vintage bikes, in and out of cases. The ones out of cases were of course much easier to photograph.



This is a price sheet for labor prices in a Harley shop of yesteryear. Oh, to pay these prices today! Right, Sue? Reboring and honing cylinders $5.00 each. Motor overhaul $55 or less.

This is an exact replica of the Captain America bike from Easy Rider.


This looks like a fun toy - biker leggos? The set will build 3 bikes.


Gear for yesterday's bikers.

An Eating Weekend

I got a new laptop! So instead of spending computer time posting blog, I've been spending computer time getting it set up and loaded with programs and what-not. Things that ran fine on XP are now running fine on VISTA but it took me a little figuring out on some of them. Even my Palm Desktop and Quick Install are running fine, in spite of all the statements on the internet that Quick Install won't run on VISTA.

Anyway, while I was doing all this, my motor home was taking me to Food Lions from South Carolina to Virginia and mostly in North Carolina, as usual. It's probably time I worked through the resulting photographs and told you about some of the cool things I did between work and work.

The quickest to post, and therefore the first: I went to the Roanoke Greek Festival at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Roanoke VA.

They had music and dancing and storytelling and stuff to buy pertaining to Greek culture, tours of the church (very interesting to me since one of my bestest friends is an Orthodox Christian). And they had food. OMG, did they have food. The Greeks know how to do food, and can slip calories into my diet like soldiers into Troy. I got a bit of everything and ate leftovers all week. It was absolutely wonderful.

It was an eating weekend: the night before, I'd gone with another friend to Nawab, an Indian restaurant - Indian as in India, not as in Native American. They know how to do food, too. I can't imagine why I'd never eaten any real Indian food before. I certainly will again at the earliest opportunity.

Traveling Companions, and Architecture

It's a small motorhome. If anyone lived in it with me I'd have to kill them ;)
Even my cat stays home in Virginia. But I do now have traveling companions. May I introduce: Strawberry, Chocolate Mint, and Stevia. The Strawberry, in its cute little pot, is because I am obsessed with having a pot of strawberries and have never managed to get them to be productive. The others are because it's nice to brew up a pot of oreo cookie tea. Stevia is a Very Sweet herb, used for sweetening stuff when you still want to be healthy. I talk more about that on my other blog, Sweet Enough Already



When we travel, they ride on the steps. When we stop, they come out and enjoy the sunlight while I work.



Or while I explore the back roads looking for what's cool wherever I am...



Riding around Harmony, NC I stopped to admire the architecture. This castle is on a back road near Van Hoy campground.



This is Pirates Landing Seafood Restaurant at exit 85 off I-77 in NC.



The Jolly Roger flies and pirates climb the rigging.



And when you leave, they tell you where to go ;)

Stuck in Park at the Park, or How To Un-stick a Parking Pawl

Last week I stopped to visit that same friend. Pulled into the campground and parked, put wood out and drove up on it. But I hadn't gone quite far enough onto the block and even though I had set the parking brake, when I released the regular brake the motorhome slipped backwards. My suspicions were immediately confirmed. I was stuck in park.

A parking pawl is inside the automatic transmission. It's the part that keeps the vehicle from rolling when you put it in park, and the part that makes it hard to get out of park when you park on an incline and don't set your emergency brake first. Busting my tranny is not high on my wish list, so I try to always set the emergency brake. This time it didn't help.

What do you do? I had lots of offers and suggestions, many of which involved gently pushing the motorhome forward. Right - forward, and up onto that block that was stuck under the rear wheel. And I have a motorcycle rack on the back of the motorhome.

What we actually did, once we found someone with a jack handle to fit them, is jack up the back end on the stabilizing jacks I never use. Enough to remove the leveling block. And then the vehicle shifted so nice and easy.

I wouldn't like to do that on a hill, but then it wouldn't have happened on a hill because I did set the parking brake.

My RV shop doesn't carry the kind of jack handle I need for those built-in stabilizing jacks, but now I'm determined to find one that does just in case.