Now the fun starts

[KCStudly]

Hang in there, mate. Hope yours is a mild case.

[MickinOz]

Thanks mate.
Woke yesterday with a nasty head cold, tested +ve.
Woke this morning with the nasty head cold with a side order of toothache and various parts of the ol' body aching.
Giving the paracetamol (tylenol) a hammering.
Its a waiting game now.

[KCStudly]

My biggest issues were coughing fits/loss of breath
and loss of appetite. I lost nearly a stone and a half (1 stone 6) in a weeks time.

Hang in there, brother.

[MickinOz]

Man I wish I could lose my appetite for a while. I'd say I should lose about 4 stone to be healthy weight.
No danger of it so far. Not helped by the missus making a big batch of her fabulous sausage rolls yesterday morning.
And caramel slice. And chocolate biscuits. Any wonder a bloke gets fat?

Had a bad day of incredibly stinging eyes.
Which made it pretty damned boring, couldn't read or watch TV as it was very painful to open my eyes.
Lying there with my eyes shut, I dozed all day. Now its 5 am Sunday and I've been wide awake for 2 hours.

Nevertheless, starting to feel a little better.
Soon the sun will rise on day 4 of my incarceration (State rules - positive test means you have to stay home for 7 days) and I have a feeling I shall rise, shower, shave, breakfast on the aforementioned sausage rolls, clean my teeth and spend the day on gentle meaningful productive pursuits like sorting out the tools, putting knobs on the sliding closet doors for the trailer, etc.
I've been fantasising about sneaking around to Mum's and grabbing the trailer, bringing it back here and moving the build along.
But its forecast to rain all day anyway.

My son's girl friend, an avowed anti-vaxxer, vegetarian, conspiracy theorist, and general picture of rude good health, has been testing every day and coming up clear.
Bloody annoying, that is.
We've had a few discussions about the wisdom of vaccination, but she has refrained (mostly) from saying I told you so.

I am still mostly pro-vax. They say you will probably still catch it but not so bad. And it hasn't been too bad, really. I suppose its too early to say, things could take a turn for the worse, but at this stage I'd just call it a bad cold.

Feeling very optimistic, which is good because 3 days ago I was crapping my pants.

[MickinOz]

Now the missus has tested positive this morning. Wonderful.

[JasenC]

Sorry to hear you got covid, I gave it to the wife 1st week of January. It just floored us, I was flat down and out for 12 days, took me another 8-10 weeks to completely kick that bug to the curb, fatigue, headaches and brain fog just kept hanging on.
Hope you both do better with it than we did.

[MickinOz]

AAANNNDDDD! Now the son who lives home with us has tested positive, too. That is the whole household.
Thumper the dog seems fine, if somewhat disgusted that no one is taking him for rides in the truck.

Spent some time on the phone to the Government this morning.
7 days after my positive test, if my symptoms are gone, I'm good to go.
Do not test again for 12 weeks. Assumption is that I'll be safe for that long.
Any positive tests in the next 12 weeks are likely to be my body shedding non-dangerous virus fragments from this infection, and no indication that I am infectious.
Seems commonsense to me.
Call ended with the lady telling me hw sorry she was that I am ill, and wishing me all the best.
I was left wondering whether I'd actually called the Government.
Since when did the Government actually care how I was feeling?

[MickinOz]

Friend tested positive today. She's an aged care worker who tests before work, etc.
So she's having a nice long rest.
The big worry is that her other half, a real good mate of mine, has staunchly refused to have the vaccines.

[JasenC]

I don't get the anti vaxxers. It's not like we all, in the US anyway, haven't had one or two vaccines in our life, like all those we got as kids, flue shots etc.

Other then this 3rd arm growing out of my left knee, I've had no issues with the covid vax.

[tony.latham]

a real good mate of mine, has staunchly refused to have the vaccines.

I come from a different generation, I suppose. I'm damn glad my parents made sure I got the polio vaccine.

Anywho, how are you doing?

Tony

[MickinOz]

I don't get the anti vaxxers. It's not like we all, in the US anyway, haven't had one or two vaccines in our life, like all those we got as kids, flue shots etc.

Other then this 3rd arm growing out of my left knee, I've had no issues with the covid vax.

Funny bastard.

I had few symptoms from the vaccines, too.
For the first two shots (AstraZeneca) I spent 24 hours feeling like I'd hit the bull bar of a triple road train.
Third shot was Pfizer, gave a me a sore arm and a slight temperature for 24 hours.
I took these to mean the shots had woken up my immune system and done what they were supposed to do.

a real good mate of mine, has staunchly refused to have the vaccines.

I come from a different generation, I suppose. I'm damn glad my parents made sure I got the polio vaccine.


Anywho, how are you doing?

Tony

He's my age, just retired, usually quite decisive and "if it's supposedly good, let's just get it."
But the media over here did a real hatchet job on the first available vaccine, AstraZeneca.
They played up the statistically low risk of blood clotting and really demonised it.
Which was a shame. It was being manufactured locally, was extremely cheap, and the actual health risks were reported at the time as being no worse than the other brands, which were only available at full commercial price. We lost a big opportunity to nail this thing early and cheaply because of it, I reckon.
Anyway, they managed to discourage a few people I know. Their dedication to sensationalism really hurt the country, to the point where I question their patriotism, the lefty shits.
I have a semi-scientific background, I like to think I can generally separate empirical data and fact from opinion, but even I hesitated before taking the plunge they did that good a job.
The alternative to letting the media get away with it is censorship and suppression of free speech (worse than now) so what ta do, eh?

Anyway, today I woke up feeling like I'd slipped back a bit, but got up and showered and dressed, went outside and washed a couple of varnish brushes.
Fair dinkum, if it wasn't for the rapid antigen test, I'd be saying "My winter cold was early this year, at least its pretty mild."
Feeling pretty good as I type, and wishing I could break isolation long enough to drive the 500 metres to Mum's place and bring back the TD for a little light construction work.
Our middle son's girlfriend, the only currently uncompromised member of our little social unit, dropped off some eggs and milk, so all is right with the world.
She's as right as rain, chirpy and smiling. And unvaccinated,

[MickinOz]

I have started doing a bit again.
A mate called today, he has a 55 AH VRLA battery that was swapped out of a backup installation on the routine maintenance schedule.
Cost = coffee and cake on delivery.

I figure it'll be just fine for a 12V system that consists of two reading lights, a cabin light, a galley light, all LED, and one 10 amp 12V outlet.
I'm going to make the system extremely simple. I will install an Anderson plug for charging, an isolator switch, and a single row of fuses.

I've been regularly using 12AH overnight in my camper, including charging the phone and falling asleep with the TV and fan going.
I have a fold out solar panel that would keep up with this easy, if I bothered.
Since I'm aiming this at people who might want to step up from sleeping on the ground, there's a good chance they'll already have a foldup solar setup, they are very very common over here. If not, I'll offer a fair deal on mine.

So, I've trimmed out the ceiling with some quarter round, covered the wiring with a little hollowed out block, installed the closet tracks and doors and cabin light, installed the seal on the doors, etc. The doors and track were machined from a packing crate my son was throwing out. I think a new fridge or oven door for the bakery department came in it.
Getting there.

Packing crate doors and tracks.JPG (44.26 KiB) Viewed 346 times

Plenty of foot room.JPG (54.33 KiB) Viewed 346 times

Seals installed.JPG (65.67 KiB) Viewed 346 times

[MickinOz]

Ceiling height works out the same as Ol #1.

Calling the ceiling ready to sand and seal.JPG (53.67 KiB) Viewed 343 times

[MickinOz]

Traded coffee, cake, and a lift to the shops for this today.
Was a bit wobbly taking the photo.
Its a Vision 6FM55-X VRLA UPS battery.
55AH at the 10 hour rate.
Should last an age supplying the less than 1 amp that my entire lighting system uses.
My other camper, with TV etc, uses 12 AH per night pretty consistently, so the size is good, I think.

It is used, swapped out on routine maintenance.
My flash whacko charger said it was at 84% when it got here, and nudged it up to 100%, charging 2 amps for 5 hours or so.
The missing 16% of 55 amp hours is about 8.8 AH, so requiring 10 AH to lift it to 100% and go into float mode seems perfect. (Though probably sheer fluke.)
Made in Vietnam. For some reason, that feels confidence inspiring.
I guess I've never had anything made in Vietnam that has let me down.

Battery.JPG (75.72 KiB) Viewed 296 times

[JasenC]

Nice score.