Paul Alton MBA

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December 2023 Update

Year In Review

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wishing you all the best for 2024

2023 was a good year for us. We hope it was for you, too.

We began the year with January in Harlingen, Texas helping at Way of the Cross, a former SOWER project that still has needs. At the end of January Paul went with Way of the Cross to Nicaragua, helping with some solar lighting and a few other things. In February our granddaughter, Sasha, joined us in South Texas for a while.

In March we returned to Canada and dug our way into our home for April, before going to work near Edmonton in May. That turnaround ramped up and went full bore through June and into July. Back home for a while in July we prepped to go to Brazil and Argentina in August, where between time in Rio and Buenos Aires we visited Iguasu Falls in both countries.

September and October, Paul worked near Edmonton at another turnaround. When that was done we spent some time getting ready for winter back home followed by a brief trip to BC. In November we returned home, finalized our winter preparations and headed south to Harlingen and Way of the Cross.  


December 2023

December is still a work in progress, as is this page. Expect delays. Well, not on the month, but my write-ups and pictures about it. Months haven’t slowed down for years. They just keep getting faster and faster until they blur together.


Volunteer Activities

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December started on a Friday. It was also our first day this winter helping at Way of the Cross in Harlingen. They have two drive through food bank days per week, Wednesday, and Friday. Juanita helps with those and in the warehouse getting ready for them.

Stuff gets donated to the ministry. Most gets given away. Some is used in the ministry or gets sold to support the ministry outreach. I mostly work with Byron, my usual work partner here. He does what ever is needed in terms of facility repairs or prepping stuff that comes in so that it can be used or sold.

The first item I helped with was a Miller Big Blue welder from the 1990’s. It is driven by a lovely little Duetz diesel engine. The engine didn’t crank over when it came into the ministry. Byron troubleshot that problem. Somebody had put a new starter on it with the incorrect toothed gear. After swapping out the gear the engine started right up. That must be the problem! Nope. It only sparked a bit with a welding rod and the outlet from the generator circuit was similarly limp. There, but only just there for both welding and service outlet. Shoulda been my first clue but I’m getting weeks ahead of that story.

Byron did some work on it, then he had to be away for a while. Other fingers got into the machine. And that’s in the last month. Who knows what various fingers have done in the last thirty years. There’s a good circuit drawing on the side panel. I took a picture and started studying. I perused welding forums on Friday and off and on during the weekend. I’ve never worked on a welding machine before, but the electrical principles are not that different than other equipment I have worked on.

On the following Monday I went to start up the welding machine and held the switch in the start position too long. Oops. I blew up the starter. I watch Byron take off the starter. I take it to the starter repair shop. I expect them to declare it dead and gone forever but they tag it with my phone numer and say they will call me when it is ready.

On Tuesday, Byron and a couple of others go to Oklahoma pick up a truck somebody donated. I’m on my own for a few days. I study the welding machine a bit more and do some lighting and hydraulic repairs on a forklift. Byron had taken the hose reel apart and ordered the parts. The seals arrived so I installed them. It was like being a first-year apprentice again.

On Friday I went to the starter shop to see why they hadn’t called. The starter was dead and gone forever. They sold me a new one and made sure it had the correct toothed gear. I watched Byron install it. We fired the machine up and tried a few things which didn’t change things a bit.

I did more study over the weekend. The next week we tried more things. We cleaned the slip rings and I took measurements both running and stopped. A long, detailed letter to Miller tech support resulted in an obvious possible cause which we had eliminated. We dove deeper and found a reversed bridge connection from some fingers probably long ago. Not the problem. Probably would take a bit of the edge off the welding side at peak setting but not kneecap the output.

Finally, we tested a component that would have been near the top of my list when I was doing electronic repairs in my prime. It was one of the few things that would affect both welder and generator output. We tested the diode between the battery and the excitation circuit. It was shorted. That held the excitation voltage at 14 volts. We took the diode out of the circuit and the machine worked once the excitation voltage wasn’t suppressed. Bittersweet victory. Satisfaction at finding the problem. Frustration at taking weeks to do it. A new diode assembly was ordered and installed the following week and the machine can be cleaned up ready for sale.

Another thing that has been donated to the ministry is a SWAT truck from a city in Tennessee. It had been used as a mobile command center. It is a massive box truck retrofitted for the purpose. The truck is already tall. During the retrofit they added two air conditioning units to the roof. That made it taller. Taller than the structure somebody tried to drive under. This damaged the ceiling and the integrity of the water seal on the roof. The truck suffered from significant water damage. They started repairs but bailed when they realized it would not be economic. It ended here as a donation with the “T” whited out. It reads “Chattanooga SWA” on the box now. Once stripped and repaneled inside it will make a great box truck.

Byron removed the 15KW generator from under the truck. Somebody built a frame. We painted the frame and installed a muffler on the motor. Then we reinstalled the bumper and started gutting the interior of the box.

On the last Friday before Christmas. Juanita helped in food line, especially sorting vegetables. I marked stud locations while Byron and his visiting brother John went to Home Depot for lumber, OSB and plywood. When they came back, they pounded down nails on the old studs while I cut lumber to support the former AC bays on the roof. The original convertors cut the ribs to accommodate the AC and used the ceiling rafters to support the units. Trauma and rot destroyed the old rafters.

Next week the ministry will hold no food bank drive through. It will concentrate on the Big Feed, an event over the border in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. About a hundred volunteers will come down to the valley and cross over the border to help. Our travel insurance limits our travel to Tamaulipas. We will stay on the US side of the border.  Juanita will help with meals for the volunteers. I will help with that a bit and putter on the SWA truck a few hours a day.


Leisure Activities

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We have been coming to the Rio Grande Valley most years since 2005. We have seen all the attractions we wanted to. Many more than once. Still, it is pleasant to be near the ocean and to get outside in the warm weather to get our steps in and have indoor choices for when the weather is unpleasant. There’s not much spectacular to write about.

On the first weekend we drove up valley to Costco in McAllen. The interchange around Pharr is even more of a mess than last winter. Whole ramps have gone away and traffic is funneled into narrow spaces between jersey barriers. Ugly. The normal exit to Costco is gone but we figured it out. After shopping we headed home and tried to get back on the freeway as we listened to the last of an engrossing audio book we started listening to on our trip south. Might have done better if we were paying more attention to navigating. Shortly after I commented that the area around the freeway didn’t look normal and we must be on the old military highway, we passed a sign saying we were on our way to Falfurrias and San Antonio! Oops. We are going north not east!

With no data on our Canadian phone we dig out the 2015 road atlas from behind the seat. I turn the car around and we head south looking for the next crossroad to get our bearings. It is the road to Raymondville. Nice drive to Raymondville over a new to us highway. Had only been on this highway several miles to the west of Raymondville to pick up a donated fifth wheel about ten years ago. I later towed it to Corpus Christi to be used there. Somebody towed it back and used it here for a few years. In two weeks it’s going to Mexico to be used by missionaries there.

The one time so far, we got to the beach on South Padre Island the wind was brutal. Juanita did a quick walk to the water and returned to the car to read while I got in an hour walking into and then pushed back by the wind. I was glad to be wearing my Chemco Nomex hoody jacket. I saw fewer than ten people on a normally packed beach.

We have been to the RGV outlet mall, the dying local Harlingen mall and the bustling mall in Brownsville to get in steps. Costco and Sam’s Club work as well.

The most ambitious walk was on Sunday the 17th when we drove to SpaceX parked our car and walked to the mouth of the Rio Grande River. We chatted with the Border Patrol person watching the people in Mexico across the river standing on Playa Bagdad in front of the Faro Bagdad lighthouse. The walk back to the car seemed a lot longer than the walk to the river. 16,000 steps. Needed a Robax. 10,000 steps through the day doesn’t prepare you for a 16,000 continuous slog.


Chapel Messages

We are honoured most days to listen to Oscar Brooks. I’ll add some links below. Maybe even some commentary. I usually start taking notes, but it’s hard to keep up especially when I get distracted and start listening to what he’s saying. 😉


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