Good evening Steemies.
Today was a good day for me. I got a couple things done today, the most important of which was contacting the county where I got my marriage license (28 years ago) to retrieve a certified copy. I called the country clerk and she pulled up my records in no time. Now I just need to mail a seventeen dollar money order and a self addressed envelope to get the actual document in my hands. Then I submit it to the Social Security administration and that finalizes the paperwork so I can start getting my survivors benefits. I'll be heading to the post office in the morning to send the letter and to check my post office box. I haven't checked on it since before my birthday (Nov 24). I did toss out my PO box address on my Facebook feed around the middle of last month in case anybody wanted to send me a present. Maybe there'll be something there for me to pick up? If not, it certainly won't ruin my day.
It was a bit on the chilly side out here on the front range today but the cold was abated somewhat towards the middle of the day by the high mountain meadows sunshine, so I decided to work on reinstalling some of my original LED lights in Nellybelle. They are all 'ambient' type lights that I put in the first winter I was here to add some flair inside the van. I had removed them awhile back, when I was rearranging the van (again...never-ending). Before I got around to reinstalling them I purchased a fancy set of app-controlled Bluetooth full spectrum strips that run off a four channel controller. They are hooked directly to a small AGM battery bought specifically for the purpose that I charge as necessary.
Keeping the lighting on a separate battery limits my chances of killing off the van battery. I accidentally do that enough that I bought one of those tiny lithium jump starters last Xmas. In any event, I managed to get two pairs of my original LED's reinstalled. There's one more pair of ambient strips to reinstall and one strip of bright whites I'm hoping will suffice as studio lights inside the van when I'm doing YouTube videos.
I prefer doing my YouTube videos outside but wind noise is often difficult to deal with even on nice days and now that winter is upon me I'll be inside more than out. I'm glad to get all my lights back in place because I've had to shuffle that box full of lights and wires for way too many months now. When you live in a minivan CUBIC INCHES COUNT and that box of lights took up about as much space as a big box of saltine crackers. Getting rid of that box of LED lights almost offsets the space I lost buying the camp stove yesterday.
Besides going to the post office to send off that request for a copy of my marriage license I've also got plans to visit a friend who has put together the tubing and couplers necessary for me to run my Buddy Heater off a 20lb propane can. I don't relish the idea of having such an ungainly canister inside the van but it's a fraction of the cost of buying the one pound propane cans. Walmart sells a pair of those for about $6.25. Add tax and you're looking at 3.25/pound. I can get twenty pound cans of propane for under twenty bucks (swapping an empty one for a full one...I'll find an empty one somewhere....lol).
That's a huge savings in this cold climate. And as fate would have it, the guy who put the tubing/coupler set together for me also happens to work at one of the local cannabis dispensaries. It's a joy to visit him because he's always got several different 'product' samples to share. It's kinda like when I was selling electronics. Some of the vendors would do giveaways. Sell twenty of their VCR's and get one free. That kind of thing, except overlaid onto a retail cannabis setting. Tomorrow is gonna be ANOTHER great day.
Enjoy.
