The last week was a bit of a whirlwind. We were able to close escrow on the sale of Ken’s house without having to drive up I-15 to Riverside County – thanks to the concept of electronic signatures and a service called DocuSign.

Once the funds were transferred into the trust account, I made a distribution to beneficiaries. This involved running around to three different banks to distribute the funds with the least cost. I only had to wire money to one account. Wire transfers cost $35 per transaction. By using free cashier check service, I was able to directly deposit into two other bank accounts that have branches here in San Diego.

I’ve held back funds in the trust account to cover any bills that may still be outstanding – things like ambulance transfer costs, medical, and personal income taxes for 2019 on behalf of Ken. Overall, my duties as Successor Trustee progressed quickly and relatively smoothly. I’ll be glad when we can wrap things up and close the trust in four or five months.

Wednesday morning, Donna had her alarm set for 5am. I could hear rain drops on the roof of our coach once I was awake. She was planning to call Lyft for a ride to the airport, but I drove her there and dropped her off around 5:45 am for a flight to Albany, New York. She was heading to Bennington, Vermont for a surprise visit with her parents. The occasion was her mom’s 80th birthday. I would be on my own for the next five days.

On the way back from the airport, I hit the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box. I don’t think I’ve been to a Jack-in-the-Box in thirty years or more. I went for a breakfast burrito and was surprised by the size of the thing. It had egg, sausage, potato and cheese and was over 1,000 calories! Yikes, I can’t make a habit of eating like that!

I played pickleball at Ocean Beach Recreation Center (OBRC) and hopefully worked some of those calories off. It continued to rain throughout the day and all day Thursday as well. That left me shut in for a couple of days. I had an idea for a Christmas present for Donna, but I had to do some research. The rainy days gave me plenty of time to search the Internet.

Donna has been really diligent at practicing the clarinet. She played the instrument in her junior high school days and picked it back up in July. I’m amazed at how well she can play it. Clarinet is not an easy instrument to play. There are tone holes, keys and levers that require an number of different finger positions to create notes in different registers. I think I read there are 24 tone holes altogether on the instrument.

Donna’s clarinet is a used student model she picked up when we were visiting my daughter, Alana, in Arlington, Washington. Donna has an ambitious goal of playing in the Viewpoint Golf & RV Resort band when we get to Mesa, Arizona next month. I have no doubt about her reaching this goal.

I didn’t know anything about clarinets. I know from my experience with guitars that the step from a beginner instrument to a more advanced, higher quality piece can be a vast improvement. For example, going from a $400 electric guitar made in Asia to a $2,000 Gibson is a huge leap in playability, tone and overall quality. I decided to research clarinets and see if there is a similar step in quality of the instrument.

Over a few days I learned more about clarinets than I ever thought I would. Indeed, the step from a student model to an intermediate level clarinet is a big difference. Once you reach this level though, the next level of instruments follow the law of diminishing returns. For example, going from a $400-$500 student model to an intermediate model of around $2,000 makes a very noticeable difference in the quality and playability of the instrument. But, unless you’re a professional musician, going from a $2,000 clarinet to a $4,000 clarinet doesn’t make that same jump in quality. It’s more subtle and probably only a pro would be able to pick out the nuances that make a clarinet cost $4,000 or more.

The thing is, buying a musical instrument can be a very personal decision. What speaks to one person may not be the same for someone else. So picking out a clarinet to buy for Donna was a bit of a conundrum. I finally decided on a few models and concentrated my research on those. I read opinions on musician forums and reviews. I watched countless YouTube videos. Then I bit the bullet and placed an order. The deal is this though, that meant I had to reveal her Christmas present early as returning a musical instrument is a time-sensitive issue. You can only test drive it for a week or so or most shops won’t accept a return unless there is some kind of defect.

The rain moved east by Friday and we had a sunny day. I took advantage of the weather and got Midget-San out of the trailer for some exercise. I drove to OBRC for more pickleball. I loaded it back in the trailer when I came home. It was a good thing I did as rain started again in the evening and rained off and on all weekend.

I picked Donna up at the airport Sunday around 5:30pm. After we settled in back at Mission Bay RV Resort, I told her about the clarinet. I told her it would most likely arrive on Monday and she should try it out. If she didn’t like for any reason, we could exchange it and my feelings wouldn’t be hurt. It seems like I always have reason for an early Christmas present reveal over the past few years.

The clarinet, which is a Leblanc Serenade model made of African blackwood (Granadilla) with silver plated keys came on Monday afternoon. It’s a real beauty.

One of the cool things about a clarinet is the compact storage – just right for someone living in 300 square feet. The instrument breaks down into five component parts and is easily stored or transported. There’s a break-in process recommended for wood clarinets and Donna’s already on it. It should be fully broken in and ready for long session use by the time we get to Viewpoint in Mesa, Arizona.

Another item I received was an air filter element for our coach. I prefer the Fleetguard brand of filters for the Cummin ISL diesel engine and that’s what I got. Air filters are a tricky item to set a preventive maintenance schedule for. Much depends on the conditions it is operated in. High exposure to dusty conditions mean more frequent replacement while more “normal” driving conditions can extend the life of an air filter. Changing it too often is not recommended as the air filter element gains efficiency once it traps a certain level of particulates. Most diesel-powered coaches have an air restriction gauge for the intake that would reveal an air filter that’s becoming clogged.

Some people think these gauges are worthless while most air filter manufacturers will tell you they’re the best way to know the air filter condition – they say it’s impossible to tell the actual condition of an air filter just by visual inspection. Judging by the restriction indicated on our gauge we didn’t need an air filter element yet. But, there’s also a time factor to consider. Over time, the element (paper in our case) can weaken and eventually break down. It only takes about a tablespoon of dust to completely ruin an expensive diesel engine. I’ve also heard of a case where a paper element disintegrated and pieces entered the combustion chamber with catastrophic results.

So, I’ve arbitrarily set a two-year air filter change interval as long as the restriction gauge shows the air filter is still good. In other words, if the restriction gauge showed excessive restriction before two years, I would change it sooner. But if the restriction gauge remains in the acceptable range, two years is the maximum time. Our filter was last changed in October 2017. We haven’t run the engine since we arrived here in late September, so I’m at the two-year interval although this is December.

It’s importatnt to keep things clean when you change the air filter element – it’s doesn’t take much dirt to ruin an engine.

The Fleetguard filter comes with a new rubber sealing washer for the wing nut securing the filter. I always renew this washer to avoid having a leaky seal that could allow dirt to enter. It’s also important to tighten the wing nut sufficiently to compress the seal on the backside of the air filter element sealing it to the housing.

The last step was to note the date of the filter replacement – I use a strip of duct tape and a marker.

Today it’s partly cloudy but there’s no rain in the forecast. The rest of the week should be dry, but it’s cooler with the temperature only reaching the low to mid 60s. It’s December, so I can’t complain about cooler temperatures!

*Just so you know, if you use this  link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!