Okay, so one day, I go online and do my daily surfing of the rv.net forums and notice that I have a private message. “What can this be?”, I ask myself and proceed to see who would wish to chat on a private level with me. Much to my (pleasant) surprise it was a message from the folks at rv.net asking if I might be interested in being a Blogger for them. After some consideration, I said “yes, I’m interested”. After a short wait of a few days, I receive another private message with instructions on submitting an entry for consideration. Now, I had to think of what I wanted to write about. It could be anything I wanted. Well, since I really enjoy the rv.net forums, I wrote a little humor piece called “The Acronym Story” which is a little nod and wink about some of the humor I get out of the forums. Specifically, the acronyms that people use in the forums. I honestly had to study these acronyms to understand what people were talking about when I first joined the forums. But, coming from a computer background, it all came easy to me. I will share that piece with you after a bit of an introduction.
(My wife, son and me….oh and our little puppy, Cassie!)
My name is David Kurtz and I live in a small town called Sandwich, Illinois about 60 miles west of Chicago. Our town’s claim to fame is the Sandwich Fair, the oldest fair in the state and the second largest next to the state fair. I have been RVing for a relatively short time. I am married to my wonderful wife of (almost) 25 years and we have a 17 year old son. Teens are great, aren’t they! Anyway, we bought our first travel trailer some time ago when we felt we wanted a piece of this action. It was a used travel trailer that needed some tender loving care. We bought it and went to drag it home behind my Bronco II. That was an adventure because I had never heard of a weight distribution hitch, let alone a brake controller and all the other things to consider when traveling with a large monster behind you. After a white knuckle drive home, we started cleaning and fixing up the trailer. My wife sewed some nice cushion covers and made some curtains for the unit. Then when it was all done – we sold it! Yep, that darned white knuckle drive took it out of us!
Move forward a few years to the spring of 2006, when we decided to have another look, but this time, we were going to get a new travel trailer. We finally decided on a Four Winds Express Lite 18b which is a 23 foot trailer. It was small enough to fit in smaller spaces without sacrificing comforts such as air conditioning, heat, microwave, etc. One of the other reasons we wanted a travel trailer is so that I could visit my parents in Kentucky without them making a big fuss for our visit since we carry our own hotel suite with us. It also doesn’t hurt for them to live within about 15 minutes of Kentucky Lakes!
Okay, so back to the Blog and the purpose of this Blog. After submitting my “Acronym Story”, I was selected for the Blog category of “The fun side of RV Modifications”. I do like being the class clown, but admittedly, it’s a bit more difficult to put humor in writing than just acting out! With that said, I really want you all to enjoy my Blog and hope that you can get a bit of a smile out of it. As for the Modification reference; that is something that interests me as well. So I will attempt to mix humor and my interest in modifications .
The following is my “Acronym Story” Please enjoy and see you next Sunday…….Happy Camping!
So, FWIW, I wanted to share a story. My DW and DS were going to a CG with our Dog. We connected the TT to the TV with our Reese HPDC setup and we were ready to go. As I was driving it occurred to me that at my day job, (I am a professional computer geek), that the problem I was having on the HP computer might have been a bad TCP/IP setting, maybe with DNS or WINS. I thought I was having a problem with the CPU or RAM, but now I believe it is the IP. Although, I may have even been having a problem with the USB controller. I knew the DVD ROM Drive is okay because I can put a DVD or CD in and it works just fine. Well, I pulled the TV into a WM and started the Generator and took some stuff out of the RF and nuked it and we ate. I pondered on my revelation of my work and why I couldn’t figure out the TCP/IP thing until now. I figured it had to be that since I have been in IT for some time now; in fact when I was in it in the early days, it was called IS, then GIS and now IT. Anyway, I digress…what was I saying….Oh yea….the HP problem. Now, I don’t want to confuse you when I say HP, because I don’t mean the Reese HPDC, I mean the HP as in the computer. So, after eating, we cleaned up and turned off the generator and we were on our way.
As I was driving, I started to get hungry. But what should I do? Ah-ha! There it is, a BK at the next exit. I will have to get a burger to hold me over. Well, I figured I should rest and so I took my BK burger and went into the TT to watch the TV. Now, don’t get confused! I don’t mean TV as in the thing that Is connected to the TT, but I mean the TV as in the one you watch. Well, I fell asleep and my DW was kind enough to let me sleep from the late PM to the early AM and we were off again! I forgot all about the HP problem, you know what I mean when I say HP, right? Anyway, there I am driving when all of a sudden something happened to my HPDC! The TT jumped, the TV (the one we watch) fell onto the floor and the TV (the one connected to the TT) lurched and we came to a quick stop. I got out and ran to see what happened with the HPDC and boy was I POed when I saw what had happened. You see, when I was connecting the TT to the TV, I had been carrying the HP (computer) and left it on the TT tongue. Well, that HP rode just above the HPDC all that way and I guess we hit a bump and it jammed down and sprung the WD bars and caused everything to jump. The HP was stuck right between the two HPDC’s and it was a mess! There was no way to fix that darned HP and so after getting the persuader out, I was able to get the HP out and put it in the TT. You know, as I type this I realize just how much BS I can make up, but it was fun to do just because I wanted to. Perhaps I will make some more of this story up to finish it. But, alas….I guess it will have to be TTFN!