Cubey’s Adventures in Living

I decided to try setting up the tent in the back yard today. Took me over an hour due to not being able to get it raised in the center. The instructions states it requires 2 people for assembly. A cardboard box placed inside of the tent raised the center enough that I was able to assemble it by myself. Thats what took up half of the hour, fighting with it unsuccessfully until I stuck the box in there. Only thing I didn’t assemble on it was the fly cover (for rain protection) and the stakes in the ground since I knew it was about to come back down anyway. The floor of it is pretty thin and cheap but thats nothing a tarp placed on the ground under the tent first cant fix. Maybe I’ll line the inside with a tarp as well to protect the floor.

Only real problem with it that I have found is the carrying bag. They must have literally vacuumed out the air from it to fit it into a cardboard box, and then they stuffed the cardboard box into the carrying case so there is no way you can ever put the tent back into that carrying case and be able to zip it shut. I will use the tent case for clothing or something else and get a large, used piece of luggage from a thrift store to store the tent in.

Last week I was out at Target just browsing to see if they had any good deals and I happened across several tents on clearance including an Eddie Bauer 14×10x7 2 Room Cabin Tent for $97.xx, originally priced $195.99 (Still full price online). I thought about it and realized I will need the extra space in addition to my 17 foot 1967 Shasta travel trailer. I have a spayed, indoor Jack Russell terrier who will be traveling with me. They are very hyper dogs that need room to move around. I figure this tent will be a great way for her to play and run without having to drag me around behind her on a leash. Of course I will remain inside with her so she doesn’t just tear her way out.

I figure it will be nice to have the extra space to spend daytime (or nightime!) in if I wish instead of the trailer. The tent will be for places I’m staying at longer term and that would allow a tent to be set up (most RVs won’t). I think it’ll be worth the cost and space it’ll take up in the van for what it will provide me with in extra enclosed, weatherproof space.

Also, I purchased a Coleman Hot Water On-Demand portable water heater on eBay a few days ago (it just arrived, I haven’t even cracked open the box yet!) with all the accessories except the $20~ish carrying case. It states for outdoor use only. The tent should be outdoor enough for it, being a huge 10×14x7 tent made for excellent airflow. The burner is completely enclosed in the unit so there are no external flames to worry about. Besides, it’s a 10×14x7 tent. It would have to be used in a very stupid fashion or function improperly to ever start a fire. Placed on a table it will be nice and safe to use in the tent.

Update: The water heater is actually the one branded as the Oster Hot Water on Demand Pet Washer although the box says Coleman Technology on it and is the same thing as the Coleman one except its blue instead of green and has all the accessories except the carry bag, unlike the Coleman one which sold all the accessories separately. For some reason Coleman’s site no longer offers it for sale. Maybe it was too good of a product. Often companies will sell too nice of a product and decide not to sell it anymore, perhaps due to selling the product to another company so the other company and keep it off the shelves.

I frequent the local Salvation Army thrift store and today I picked up an old little 1990 model Magnavox AC/DC TV. When I tested it at the store on the little built in antenna it displayed well. No problems that I could see. One neat thing about this small TV is it has a swivel base, in addition to it being AC/DC and having mono A/V inputs on such an old TV.

When I got it home and hooked it up to my NES via A/V inputs, I was horrified to find the upper left corner and top of the screen was showing the blue sky of SMB with a purple tint. I tried the degauss button on the back of th TV but it didn’t really ever fix it. Upon trying a large dual deck VCR which i placed on top of the TV, the metal bottom of the VCR suddenly corrected the screen!

I looked around and grabbed an old untested SCA SCSI hard drive and set it on the top of the TV and voila, it fixed the color problem! Any sort of large, thick metal object will do though a hard drive seems to work very well. Just have to duct tape it on and it should make a great little TV!

It takes a pretty sick mind to come up with something like this. Giant cockroach shaped candy! And if that isn’t bad enough slap the Harry Potter franchise on it and sell it to little kids!