Grumpy Guy - Part Two

Wesley Chapel, Florida

We arrived back in the Tampa area early afternoon yesterday.  It was really, really hot.  In the summer, we travel with the generator and air conditioner on, but once we get to a site and ready to plug in, I turn them off while Al plugs in the EMS and coach.   It takes a few minutes for the Progressive Energy Management System to check the circuits and give you the okay,  then a little longer for the a/c to  start running again.

Al got the ok from the EMS and plugged in the coach.

I was inside with no air and patiently waiting for it to start.  The a/c never came on and it was getting really hot inside.   It's amazing how fast an Rv can heat up when it's over 90 degrees.    It's something I worry about in the hot months with the cats inside.  If a circuit should be tripped, or the power goes out while we're away, we may come home to some dead cats inside a very hot motor home.  Something to consider, even if it's not 90 degrees, Rv's heat up quickly in the sun.

Al checked the EMS box and it showed two fault codes.  One was high voltage and the other was for an open ground.

Remember, this is the same site we just left 3 weeks ago.  We certainly didn't expect to have a problem there.  Looking back, we did remember having brief power outages  since we moved to this site.  In the future, that will tell me we need to have the pedestal checked.

I called the office and they sent  handyman Herbie to come check it out.  I was outside when he came up and I greeted him.  No reply.  He fiddled with some other things for a few minutes before he finally walked back to our pedestal. He completely ignored me.   By this time Al was there and told him what the problem was.  Herbie immediately told us he hated those EMS boxes because they were "unreliable."   Okay.  We told him that this system had saved us before (at a state park) and that we wouldn't plug in unless it told us it was okay.  The next thing we knew, he was back in his golf cart and driving away.   Was he coming back?   We didn't have a clue.

A few minutes later he came back.  I asked him if he found the problem. He ignored me (or didn't hear me). I asked louder so that he surely could hear me.  I'm not sure if I had to ask again, but he finally told me he was changing out the box.    Now, how hard was that?  

All we needed to know was if we should continue to set up, or plan to move to another site.

It only took him a few minutes to change out the part.  Al was a little aggravated by this time, after also getting ignored, and decided to ask him if we had offended him in some way.  Herbie apologized and said he was real busy and didn't mean to be grouchy.   We certainly understood that he was working outside in this oppressive heat  and it would be easy to be irritable, but we needed to know if we would be moving to a new site or what.  

I guess it's the heat that's bringing out the bad tempers.


For all of you out there that don't use any kind of energy management system, this is a good example of what can happen.  We had a problem at a site that was only a few years old with all new equipment.  We had stayed there before.   I don't know what would have happened if we had plugged directly into the circuit, and I don't want to try.   These systems are not cheap. I believe ours is now $431.   We have the portable one and we prefer it because if we do get a bad pedestal, we can take the portable unit to another site to check before we go to the trouble of moving the coach.

Anyway.....just  my two cents.


After we got set up, we took the truck in to see about fixing the broken bolts on the bracket for our Blue Ox tow bar.   The guys there were extremely helpful (and not grouchy) and we made an appointment for next Tuesday.  Unfortunately, that was the soonest they could get us in.  Hopefully it won't be an expensive fix. Yeah, right.  :)


My other continuing problem is Live Writer.   I changed my Gmail password and ever since, I can't get LW to post to my blog.   when I try to publish it the Blogger Log In box says that "Windows Live Writer is unable to log into the remote server using the user name and password.  Please check that the information is correct and try again." 

I'm able to log into my blog, so I don't think it's a Blogger issue--is it?  or is it a Windows Live Writer issue? 

I was going to un-install Live Writer and re-install it but it's now bundled with Essentials and I was afraid I would cob up something else.

I Googled this and someone else was also having this problem.  In fact I cut and pasted it here because it's exactly what happened to me.  Unfortunately, that person didn't get any good answers, so I'm back to square one.  

In the meantime, I guess I'll have to continue to use Blogger to post, but it's definitely not my first choice.

We have some business to take care of here and Al has developed a tooth ache, so we will need to be here a little while.   We're anxious to get back up to the mountains and away from this oppressive heat.