Man In The Maze

by Rich Luhr, Editor of Airstream Life magazine

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It’s as easy as bungee jumping

Quiet blog?  Only above the surface.  Back here at Airstream Life World Headquarters, things have been pleasantly busy.

These days my work as Editor of Airstream Life has been almost a backdrop to putting together events.  Financially this makes no sense, as the magazine pays the bills and the events are more of a hobby business, but I can’t stop myself.  Either Brett or I will come up with an idea for “something cool” and then suddenly we are spending far too many hours to make it come off.  I think we are both just compulsive about building new things, and we enjoy that more than our day jobs.

Back in late October we flew out to Oregon to do a site visit to the Seven Feather Casino/Hotel/RV Resort, wondering if we could put on an event there.  (By the way, I think that I spent more nights in hotel rooms last year with Brett than I did with my wife, and that’s slightly disturbing.)  Once on-site, we found a charming and well designed campground and a staff of extremely nice people who convinced us that it was the place to go next, and that’s how Alumafandango Seven Feathers was born.  We announced it a few weeks ago, for August 6-11, 2013, and now we are hustling to get seminars, entertainers, and tours put together so that everyone who comes will have a great time.

But before we can pull that off, we need to get Alumapalooza 4 on track.  I got tired of some of the repeat seminars, so we’ve basically started over with a list of new ideas—which of course means a lot of work.  Only a few favorites will repeat, and they will all have interesting twists.  Alex & Charon are coming back but instead of vacuum-sealing Alex in a bag they are going to do something else horrible.  We’ll do the Backup Derby again but this year I think the windows of the tow vehicle will be blacked out.  We’ll have yoga again, but this time it will be in the nude.

Just kidding about that last item.

And before we can pull off Alumapalooza 4, we need to get past Alumafiesta in Tucson.  That’s coming up in two weeks.  Registration closes today, so soon I’ll be putting together all the attendee lists and various other things we need, and then Eleanor and I have to finalize our trailers.  Yes, I said “trailers” plural.  Because Brett & Lisa are flying in, we have to supply them with our 1968 Airstream Caravel for housing, completely furnished & equipped.  We have never loaned out this trailer before so it has meant a lot of extra prep work to turn it into a “rental”: lots of cleaning, re-packing, testing, and counting the silverware…  I may have to ask Brett for a security deposit.

Ah, kidding again.  I’ll just replace the silver with flatware from Home Goods.

Things have been complicated lately by two factors:  (1) This is the season for all good snowbirds to arrive in Tucson.  A few friends have popped by already, and in a week or so we will be inundated.  I wouldn’t dare complain about this, since we look forward to our friends coming to town, but it means that all our prep has to be done well in advance.  (2) It has been unbelievably cold (for Tucson) lately.  To put that into perspective, keep in mind that here we never have to winterize the trailers.  We just leave them parked and turn on the furnace for a night or two.

Since New Year’s Eve we’ve had at least five freezing nights and more are forecast through Thursday (then we get back to the normal stuff for this time of year, 68 by day and 45 by night).  Our propane ran low very quickly, so I popped an electric space heater in each trailer instead and went off to the local LP supplier to get four 30# LP tanks filled plus a 20# for the gas grill.  This is what we call “winter” in Tucson.

In the process I discovered that one of the propane “pigtails” on the Safari was leaking.  These are the flexible hoses that run from the propane tank to the regulator (see video explanation from last year).  They’re stupidly unreliable lately.  I don’t know if the quality of construction is dropping or I’m just buying the wrong brand, but lately it seems I can only get a year out of them before they start leaking at the crimped metal connections.  The current pair date from last summer.

I called Super Terry for a consultation on this, and he recommended going from 12″ to 15″ lines so that there’d be less stress on them.  I ordered four new ones (about $11 each), being quite sure not to get the same brand as before, and will just keep a pair in the Airstream from now on as spares, along with the wrenches needed to remove and install them, and my soapy-water spray bottle and plumber’s tape.  You know yours have gone bad when you smell gas around the propane bottles, and your furnace quits.  Usually this happens in the middle of the night.  Once you have the pigtails in hand they take only a few minutes to swap, but sometimes finding the right type and length is harder than you’d think, so I’d recommend everyone carry at least one spare with them.

I had a nice meeting with the people at Lazydays last week to finalize details about our event and the food & beverage.  They are really rolling out the red carpet for us, including an open bar & appetizers at our first Happy Hour, and generally first-class service all around.  I had a pre-event dream last night, which always happens to me a few weeks before we do an event, and for the first time it wasn’t a nightmare.

We must be getting better at this event business.  At least I should hope to have learned a few things, after all the ones we’ve done: Two Vintage Trailer Jams, two Modernism Weeks, three Alumapaloozas, one Alumafandango, and in 2013 three more events.  That’s eight behind us and three ahead, plus two on the drawing board.  I guess people are taking notice, because in the past month we’ve had two inquiries about running events for other people.  Probably only one of those will actually pan out.  It’s flattering to be asked in any case.  I don’t know if it makes business sense since (like bungee-jumpers) we are mostly in it for the thrill, but you never know where an opportunity might lead.  I’ve learned to check out every opportunity that pops up, as sometimes even things that look hopeless will take an unexpected turn for the better.  Except at a Bourbon Street bar, looking is usually free.

Give your Airstream some winter love

I know that most Airstream owners have put their trailers away for the winter, and perhaps are sighing as they see their beloved trailers slowly being covered in snow. A few are flipping the pages of Airstream Life and noticing the cozy Airstream on the cover parked in a Florida state park, or being tempted by the ad for Alumafiesta in Tucson.

But if you just can’t get away right now, at least you can do something for your Airstream to make it a better place to camp in next season. Even when our trailer is put to bed, I get into it as often as I can just to tweak little things, clean, or think about what improvements it needs.

In our first three years of owning the Safari, we had our share of mechanical problems, ranging from the little things like screws backing out, up to major problems like a wheel separating from the trailer. I gradually developed a toolkit and spare parts for fixing most of the problems that crop up on the road, and I recommend that you do the same. This is a good time of year to think about that, since you can share the list of tools and parts with people who want to get you Christmas presents —or take advantage of post-Christmas sales!

The tools you need depend on the jobs you are willing to take on. At a minimum, I suggest you carry parts and tools to:

  • change a tire
  • replace a fuse or light bulb
  • disconnect / re-connect the battery
  • clean up corrosion on metal
  • detect a gas leak and tighten a gas connection
  • replace a rivet
  • fix a 12 volt electrical connection
  • tighten a loose screw
  • test a power outlet
  • fix a water leak

You don’t need a ton of fancy tools to do those jobs. A cordless drill is very helpful and you probably already own that. The only other expensive tool you need is a good torque wrench (and a 6″ extension & socket), so you can be sure you’ve got the lug nuts tightened properly when you change a tire. The rest of the tools are pretty simple and not terribly expensive, even the rivet tool used to replace pop rivets. Screwdrivers (a single driver with a set of different bits is ideal for storage), an adjustable wrench or two, a little spray bottle for soapy water, some sandpaper, butt splices, an outlet tester or voltmeter, a wire cutter/stripper, a tire pressure gauge, assorted fuses, rivets, and bulbs. Some tapes (electrical and plumber’s), glue, a razor blade, a hammer, and zip-ties wouldn’t hurt.

If you travel for long periods then you’ll want more stuff. The trick is knowing when to stop packing tools. I’ve seen guys traveling with pickup trucks that were basically big rolling tool boxes. I used to ask, “Are you planning on rebuilding the trailer on the road?” but then a friend of mine actually did rebuild his trailer while courtesy-parking at a friend’s house. So it all depends on the state of your Airstream and how much you care to do yourself. I bring things like a tube of silicone caulk for periodic replacement in the shower and kitchen, and that’s only because we take the Airstream out for about five months each year. I’ll bring a relatively rarely-used tool or part if it’s light or small, but there’s a point at which I’m going to find a service center.

My personal goal is to be prepared for anything small that might seriously disrupt a trip, which is why I put emphasis on tires, fuses, gas leaks, electrical problems, and water leaks. It’s really annoying to be somewhere remote, like Big Bend National Park or the north rim of Grand Canyon, and find you have power problems because of a simple bad ground. Do you really want to hitch up and tow 70 miles to the local garage mechanic just to have him clean a contact with sandpaper that you could have done yourself in one minute? That’s the stuff I try to be prepared for.

After eight years or so, my tool kit has matured. It’s pretty solid, but it occurred to me that I still don’t have everything I should. Several times I’ve had to pull off onto the highway breakdown lane, with traffic whizzing by at 70 MPH, to check on a tire or investigate a strange noise. It can be a pretty frightening experience. I don’t have flares or orange cones, and during the day I don’t think flares really show anyway. You’re probably more likely to get whacked by a car while you’re setting them up.

So I’m going to pack a high visibility colored shirt, in green or orange, that I can throw over whatever I’m wearing when I have to get out and tend to something by the side of the road. You can get these at Home Depot, cheap, along with a lot of other safety equipment. I’ve heard that in Europe high-vis safety vests are being mandated in passenger cars and you can get a ticket for not having one (which I think is a bit of European safety ov erkill). But they’re still a good idea.

The other thing you can do this winter is check over your Airstream periodically. Two things kill Airstreams: accidents, and water. Water damage is insidious and usually slow, so it’s easy to catch if you just make a small effort. This time of year people put away their trailer for the winter not realizing there’s a slight leak, and in the spring they find a smelly, moldy, and water damaged mess. Believe me, a slowly-melting blanket of snow atop the roof will severely challenge the waterproofness of the seams and rivets, even those that didn’t leak in the last gentle rain. So it’s a good idea to get inside to check everywhere (especially inside closets and around the floor edge) for moisture. A flashlight and paper towel will help you find any wet spots.

We’re running a short article in the Spring 2013 issue of Airstream Life about all the things that have expiration dates in your trailer or motorhome. There’s quite a list: fire extinguisher, smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, propane detector, tires, water filter, First Aid kit, batteries, and propane tanks. If your trailer is over two years old at least some of these items are either expired or need new batteries, and if your trailer is over a decade old then it could need everything on this list replaced. This is why RV owners think 9V batteries are a good stocking stuffer. So go around your trailer and make notes of all the things that may have expired, or at least pack spare batteries and water filters for your upcoming trips.

Finally, I want to talk about the First Aid Kit. You probably don’t have one, because it didn’t come with your trailer. It is surprising to me that the RV safety code calls for installation of a fire extinguisher but not a First Aid Kit. This suggests that they are more worried about saving the RV than they are the people inside it. Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Let me tell you from personal experience, when you are traveling most urgent medical issues happen when you are miles away from health care, or on the Friday night of a long weekend in a small village like Jackson Center. I don’t know why. The point is, you need a First Aid Kit. You can buy these pre-made, or just build your own like we did. We went to Wal-Mart the day after Eleanor sliced her finger open with a kitchen knife, bought a zippered case, and filled it with goodies like bandages, tape, gauze, anti-bacterial, scissors, gloves, hydrogen peroxide, Benadryl, etc. We also got some advice from friends who were formerly nurses, EMTs or MDs about treatment methods and tricks. The next time we have a domestic injury while camped somewhere remote, we’ll be much more able to take care of it ourselves.

So, I’m sorry if you are stuck in the snow, or facing a long gray winter with no fun travel plans, but at least if that’s the case you can do a few things to make next year’s Airstreaming more fun and more safe. I sometimes recommend to people that they periodically go spend an afternoon in the trailer even if it is parked in storage or in your driveway. Plug it in, fire up the furnace, turn on the lights, put on some music and snacks. Make the place feel alive again. You can watch a football game on the TV, read a book, or just hang out for a while. With nowhere to go, you’ll have time to think about what you’d like to do next, and what you can do to improve the Airstream. Trust me, spending a little time with your Airstream will make you feel better, like a mini-vacation, and may well extend its life too.

Somewhere in this pile …

At one point we had thought we might be leaving for Colorado today … but it became very apparent last week that I had absolutely no chance of being ready to hit the road anytime soon.  Everything is happening at once, and I’m locked down in Tucson until I can get it under control.

For years I advocated how you can work from the road, and that’s still true.  In fact it’s even more true today than ever before, because the Internet-based software tools and connectivity options have improved dramatically.  But “from the road” doesn’t really mean from the road, it means “while parked somewhere in your RV.”

To really get serious work done, you have to stop driving, stop sightseeing, and just do the job.  The fantasy of working from your Airstream while the scent of pine trees wafts in your open window, and the Grand Canyon looms just a few feet away, is replaced by the reality that the best place to get work done is often an RV park in a city, with the doors & windows shut.  And if you’ve got to get somewhere in a hurry, it’s pretty hard to get much of anything done.  I’ve never mastered the technique of driving and typing on my laptop at the same time.

I realized that with all the things I need to get done, it was pointless to hitch up the trailer.  We’d just end up driving 300 or 400 miles and then sitting there while I pounded away at the laptop keys and raved about lousy Internet connections.  Eleanor and Emma would have to find something to do, perhaps not in an ideal location, and all told we’d probably be less productive than if we just stayed here a few more days.  So we are.

The Fall 2012 magazine got done last week, and is off to the printer, but that didn’t end my work on it.  A few other things have to be checked off the list before I can forget about it, such as cutting a postage check (a painful moment; postage is my second-highest expense), invoicing the advertisers, invoicing subscribers, updating the online store, updating the website, building the Online Edition, cutting mailing lists, and a few other jobs.  Most of that is now done.  I’m working on the Winter 2012 and Spring 2013 issues when I have time.  Fall should be in the mail by late next week.

We launched Alumafiesta last weekend and that is going well.  People are signing up quickly, which is great to see.  I think we’ve got a winner there.  I’m working on the schedule now and hope to have something to release in draft in about two weeks.

We’re going to have a Track A/B/C system for Alumafiesta.  Track A events will be “active”, meaning hiking, bicycling, and walking. Brett and I will lead most of these personally.  Track B events will be physically easier stuff, mostly museums (like Pima Air & Space) and parks (like Tohono Chul) with guided tours by docents and volunteers.  Track C will be “self guided” suggestions for each day, including driving tours, tourist attractions, and gem show venues.

This will all be in addition to the usual daily get-togethers, evening seminars, meals, and entertainment on-site.  I’m having fun picking out and researching the activities.  Today we are going out for lunch to see if a particular 4th Avenue restaurant will be suitable for an optional lunch get-together for our group, and this weekend we will go check out a park or two and inquire about guided tours.  In September or October, when the weather is cooler, I’ll ride some of the local bike paths to scout out a route we can do, with lunch stop built-in.

The Airstream renovation project is plodding along when I have time to think about it.  The upholstery shop came by for an interior tour, and their quote on re-doing the dinette came in at $1,728 (with new foam, and fabric assumed at $37/yd).  It turns out that the dinette will use about 14 yards of material, which is more than I had thought.  So upholstery is going to be a huge part of the budget. We will probably try to cut that by shopping fabrics carefully, and getting a competitive bid.  Tom M tipped us off to NewToto.com, where we can get Ultraleather at about $21 per yard.  That alone would save us $224.  But no question, it’s going to be tough staying inside of $6k for the whole project.  The Marmoleum floor is looking like about $900 for the material, and I haven’t yet got a quote on the installation.

Alumafandango is in the final stages, with far too much happening at the 11th hour, but the bulk of the details are now complete.  Over at Lakeside they’re racing to finish clearing up the site and installing the power system.  Of about 91 trailers slated to arrive (as of today), more than half need/want 30-amp power, which caught us by surprise.   The hot summer in Denver has really freaked people out.  So the local electrical shops are  being cleaned out of connection boxes by our electrical crew.  Brett & I bought the old power distribution system that was owned by the Vintage Trailer Jam partnership (2008-2009) and that’s being cannibalized to distribute power at Alumafandango too.

We had a serious monkey wrench tossed in the works a few weeks ago.  A micro-burst thunderstorm hit Lakeside Amusement Park and washed out our camping area.  An estimated 300 cubic yards of material was relocated from the main parking area, through our campsites, and into the lake.  It also washed out the track for the steam train that circles the lake.  Brett H of Timeless Travel Trailers led the heroic effort to recover the park as quickly as possible.  They’ve brought in several 4-yard front end loaders, various other machines, and 90 cubic yards of crushed concrete.  There was a lot of stored old park “stuff” that got flooded, and as a result over 30 dumpsters full of soggy material have been hauled away.

All in all this has turned out to be a good thing for us.  The campground will have little grass this year, but we will have a fresh new surface, graded with a swale to prevent future wash-outs.  A lot of eyesore debris is gone, many dead trees have been removed, and overall the camping area will be considerably nicer than it might have been.  Work is still ongoing and things are a bit messy at this point but it should be done well before the event starts on August 21. We’re in daily contact with our people at the park, and revising the parking map & schedule of events a couple of times a day just to keep up with all the new information.  I would rather this was all done months ago, but who can tell a thunderstorm when to hit?

And then there’s the “miscellaneous”. I’m supposed to be giving a presentation on “my favorite mobile apps and tools,” which I have yet to begin writing.  We’re still recruiting volunteers.  The t-shirts need to be shipped tomorrow.  We need to build the geocaches, confirm the ice cream vendor, publish the Survival Guide, pick up the awards, build a temporary dump station, finalize some catering details, order the volunteer shirts, …. At times it does seem endless.

So life is temporarily a little crazy.  We’re trying to do the work of two dozen people with a skeleton crew.  It’s all I can do to keep my desk functional. I have lists upon lists, just to keep all the ideas and tasks straight.  Somewhere in the pile of data that is my computer’s desktop I actually have a list of lists.  There are photos and maps, spreadsheets and layouts, online registration systems (two separate systems covering four events), custom reports, and all sorts of shared documents in the cloud.  If I lost my laptop this week I might as well just move to a country with no extradition treaty because there would be several dozen people looking to kill and/or sue me.  (Which reminds me, I need to do a hard drive backup today.)

This would be depressing except that I live for challenges like this.  Brett and I wouldn’t kill ourselves putting together these events if we didn’t really enjoy it.  The standard we set for ourselves is high, but when it comes together at the end and people say “You guys did a great job!”, it all seems worthwhile—and then we start planning for the next year.

In the meantime there are sacrifices, and the primary one right now is that we will not be able to get into the Airstream until at least sometime late next week.  I haven’t begun packing yet, although Eleanor has done much of the household stuff.  My packing should be simple, since I didn’t take much out of the trailer when we got home a few weeks ago.  I’ve got a small pile of clothes to add from the laundry and then my office stuff (laptop, cameras, etc).  Over the years I’ve gradually accumulated separate “Airstream clothes,” and “Airstream equipment,” so for example I don’t have to load in my flatbed scanner or printer because the Airstream has its own that never get unloaded.  This saves a lot of time. And that’s a good thing, because time is definitely something that is a bit scarce right now.

 

Life out of the box

We are out of the box at last! By that I mean that finally we have reached higher altitudes in the west and have escaped the muggy hot weather that has plagued us since we left New York state. After a final push from Palo Duro State Park, we have reached Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Salt Flat, TX and are comfortably parked at an elevation of 5,700 feet.

It’s beautiful here. The RV portion of the campground is nothing special (tenters get nice sites but RVs are laid out in an asphalt parking lot separated only by white painted lines), but you come here for the scenery that surrounds you. And that is spectacular: a 2/3 bowl formed by the mountains that this park is named for, and the remaining 1/3 a crystal clear view east to west Texas. It’s one of those places where you step out of the Airstream and realize that it’s not the campsite that’s important.

Our plan to arrive on Thursday worked perfectly. We pulled in around 6 p.m. (Mountain Time) to find the campground nearly empty. There is only one other RV in the parking lot. We had a beautiful and quiet night with the windows letting fresh air drifting in and the sound of crickets, instead of a night sealed up against oppressive air and the air conditioner whooshing constantly.

That’s the big change from being in “A/C weather” versus “camping weather.” Even our day off from driving (in Tulsa OK) was spent locked up inside the Airstream with the air conditioner struggling to hold back the outside, and so it didn’t feel very much like we were enjoying the great outdoors. At times like that, we’re not even close to “camping,” we’re just hiding inside a silver tube with the shades drawn, like recluses.

Now we have the ideal air around us, and the Airstream is set up the way it should be: windows wide open, screen door instead of solid aluminum door, a fan or two running, curtains open, solar panels supplying all the power we need instead of a 30-amp power cable connected to a pedestal. It’s a massive change in attitude, comfort, and spirit. With the windows and door open, the Airstream is in “social mode,” ready to receive visitors or let a child run and out with little discoveries of rocks and bird feathers from nearby.

So now you can see why I’m happy to be parked in an asphalt parking lot with no hookups. We will be here two or three nights, living off our supplies of water, propane, and a refrigerator stocked with Eleanor’s ingredients, which is certainly no hardship at all. I’d much rather be boondocking in the desert on a pleasant day like this, than in a full hookup campground somewhere with the air conditioner blasting away.

TBM stalled?

There are two reasons that I came back to Tucson for two weeks, while the rest of the Airstream’s crew is up in Vermont.  Reason #1:  I had a dentist appointment that just couldn’t wait, and couldn’t be done up in Vermont.  Reason #2:  I had an enormous backlog of work as a result of being on the road for a few weeks and being at Alumapalooza.

Now, I can get the work done fairly efficiently up in Vermont because we have friends who will lend me their home offices with fast Internet.  (It’s still not as efficient as being here, because if I’m home alone I’ll work longer hours.)  But the big requirement was the dental appointment; I just couldn’t skip that.

See, these days I’ve got braces on my teeth.  Yes, at age forty-something I went to the orthodontist to finally have my crazy bite and radically misaligned teeth straightened.  They were driving me bonkers whenever I tried to eat. Now both Emma and I have braces, a moment of shared father-daughter experience.  I can’t say that it has been especially bonding, but Emma has been helpful with tips, like how to eat popcorn.

I thought I was pretty old to get braces until I ran in our good friend Petey at Alumapalooza.  She said, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re doing that!  I was very happy that I had braces.”  Her teeth looked perfect.  I asked her, “When did you get braces?” and she replied, “When I was 70.”  So that put me in my place, and now I don’t feel particularly old to have tinsel teeth.

And I’ve been amazed that the things really work as well as advertised (see pics, I apologize to those of you who really didn’t want to see a closeup of my mouth).  Two months into it I’m already seeing quite an improvement.  22 months to go …

Having two members of the family in braces at the same time has been detrimental to our Airstreaming.  This is the first time in several years that E&E haven’t spent eight to twelve weeks in Vermont.  With our mutual dental appointments we just can’t stay away from home base for long, so I will be flying back up to Vermont on Monday and next week we will hitch up the Airstream and haul our traveling circus back the 2,700 miles to Tucson.  We’ll be here for the rest of the season, riding out the heat until it’s time to go to Colorado for Alumafandango.

The trip back from east coast to (nearly) west coast is a mammoth one.  When we were full-timing we would take about a month to go this far, but this time we have a mere twelve days.  That’s 225 miles per day on average, although realistically we’ll do a lot of 400-500 mile days and then stop for a couple to catch our breath.  I would really like to see a few things along the way.  It’s torture to just keep driving past interesting stops, and I’m not crazy about spending $750 in fuel just to see Interstate concrete roll by for 44 hours.  In the end our trip will probably come in at more like 3,000 miles because straight lines and Interstates are boring — and even that represents a serious effort at avoiding distractions.

I’ve discovered that two weeks as TBM doesn’t give me enough time to get into trouble, which is unfortunate.  The backlog of work was so massive that I’ve been locked to the laptop.  So my plans to do a follow-up Sonoran Hot Dog test, go tent camping, and take a roadtrip have all failed.  Instead, I’ve been working on Alumafandango (which is coming together nicely now), next year’s Alumapalooza, and of course that “other job” of publishing a magazine.  (The Fall 2012 issue is now in layout and will be distributed in early August.)

Plus, I’ve been working on two other projects.  One of them is a caravan, and the other is a third Aluma-event.  Brett & I have talked extensively about this and we know we can really only afford the time to do one or the other, and right now it’s not clear which we will pull off.  We are both approaching total saturation and after this we are either going to have to stop launching new projects, or get some help.  (I mean staff help, not psychiatric help, although we may need both.)

We’ll figure that out soon.  In the meantime, Alumafandango is occupying both our minds.  This summer’s heat meant that everyone is anxious about baking while they are in Denver, so we managed to work up twenty “30-amp” campsites (which allow you to run your air conditioner).  We announced them to the current registrants with an upgrade price of $125 and POOF! they were gone in 48 hours.  We now have a waiting list of people who are hoping we can get more, and that’s definitely something we are going to try to do.  So if you were staying away from Alumafandango because we didn’t have 30-amp, now you can go ahead and register and get on the wait list for delicious coolness.

TBM has been stalled this time by tedious practicalities, but I’ve got one weekend left before the TBM flag comes down.  I’ll ponder a few ideas for this weekend and try to get into something that will make you proud.