1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Hollywood Sign

Hollywood Sign

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Warnings Of Doom . . .

Well, the bright, sunny day got away from me, so I never got outside to play with my cellphone camera’s Eclipse Filter. But Thursday still looks good. Other than that, it’s overcast and cloudy as far as the eye can see. Or at least until Saturday, which is as far out as the forecast runs.

Instead, I spent most of the morning fighting a problem configuring the company website for an upcoming national sale. I’m beginning to think that the problem is actually on GoDaddy’s end, with them changing something on their server. Probably an update of some sort.

And you all know how much I hate updates, right?

A number of Texas counties are declaring State of Emergencies for the Eclipse timeframe, and are warning off all the possible problems, including massive traffic jams, running out of food, etc. It’s like it’s Y2K all over again.

Travis, Kerr, Bell, and Burnet are just a few of them.

It would be kind of funny, if due to all the warnings of doom, nobody shows up, and it’s just me and Jan up in Killeen.

We’re heading into a busy few weeks, starting with our Alvin Opry Group at our local Saltgrass Steakhouse for the second month in a row, followed by the Easter Weekend

Then, of course, we’ve got our Total Eclipse outing over April 7-9 before the April Alvin Opry on Friday. Then the Grand 1894 Opera House on Saturday.

We have been going there for probably 20-30 years, seeing everything from all of the Tuna Texas shows to the Smothers Brothers, Bob Newhart, and many others, including most recently, Yakov Smirnoff.

This time it’s going to be Bernadette Peters.

We have seen her on TV and in movies, but this will be our first time to see her in person.

We’ll probably have dinner at Saltgrass beforehand as usual. Really looking forward to it.


Thought For The Day:

Looks like it’s been a lot hotter in the past.

15,000 Year Climate Temps

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


March 26, 2009

Rain, wind, and storms…

We’re in our 2nd day of rain, wind, and storms so there’s not much going on. There was a tornado about 10 miles up the road in Lillian, but we were OK here.

We had the breakfast buffet again at Hazel’s down the road.  Always a good meal.

A little before 2pm, a park guy came by saying they thought we were leaving yesterday and we hadn’t paid for anymore.

After Jan woke me up from my nap (I’m retired, remember) I headed down to the campground office to figure out what happened. I had gone down on Monday (the day before we were supposed to leave) and extended for another week.  So what happened?

Well, what happened was that I had extended and paid for a week, but on the computer they only had me down for extending a DAY.  Oh, well.

Surf Flags

I did find some more info on the surf flags.

Right now, we have a red flag and a purple flag. The purple flag normally means jellyfish or Portuguese man-of-war.

Gulf Shores shuts down swimming on their public beach at one red flag, but the state beaches do it at two red flags.

Although the surf was rougher than the other day, we would have still been swimming/surfing in it.

Surf's Up!

Surf’s Up!

Hopefully better weather tomorrow, but not likely.

We’ll see.


March 26, 2010

My Vegas Gun Moll…

Today Jan got to check off another item on her Bucket List.

About 10:30am we headed over to The Gun Store so Jan could try her hand at firing a fully automatic weapon. In this case, a Thompson Submachine Gun.

Thompson

They had pretty much everything available, from Uzi’s to AK47’s to MAC 10’s. But I thought she might appreciate firing a good ole Prohibition Era “Tommy Gun”

Although used by the US military until the early 70’s, it gained its fame as the weapon of choice of people like Bonnie and Clyde, and Machine Gun Kelly during the 1930’s.

Here she is getting instructions on how the gun works.

Gun 1

Then it’s “rock and roll” time.

She had her choice of targets, so she picked Osama bin Laden.

Gun 2

And here she is posing with her ‘Kill”.  Although it’s hard to see here, after she got used to the way the Thompson climbs as it’s fired, she put a lot of rounds dead center.

Gun 3

This is going to be a short post tonight.

We’ve got to get up early tomorrow. We’re driving about 50 miles south of here to Searchlight, NV to attend a Tea Party Rally.

Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Victoria Jackson, Joe the Plumber, and many others are supposed to be there.

Searchlight only has about 700 residents, but they’re expecting between 5000-10000 people, so it may be a real mess.

We’ll see.


March 26, 2012

Stuck in Las Cruces – Still

To recap: Yesterday as we turned off on Exit 135 into Las Cruces, NM, my engine sputtered a few times and then quit. We were just cresting the top of a hill that precedes a long sweeping curve down into Las Cruces. Although it was fun steering the coach without power steering, we were able to coast a little over 3 miles before being stopped by a red light. At that point, I was able to pull off onto a side street that had a wide shoulder that kept us out of traffic.

Thinking that I might be out of diesel, I unhooked the toad, grabbed my 5 gallon can from the bay, and drove right down the road to a Fina station, and by making two trips, got 10 gallons of diesel into the tank.

I then spent the next 30 minutes running through the re-prime procedure, but with no luck. So it was on the phone to CoachNet. They made some calls, and then told me they’d have a wrecker out in about 45 minutes who would tow us to the repair lot. Though being Sunday, no one would be there until Monday morning. And after telling me it would be 45 minutes, the wrecker showed up in only 30 minutes. Great service from CoachNet.

Well, after a somewhat fitful night sleeping in the lot outside Rush Truck Center here in Las Cruces, I checked in with the shop when they opened at 8am. I was still under the assumption that I might be out of diesel, despite the fact that my Silverleaf computer dashboard said I still had 35 gallons in my tank, plus the 10 gallons I had added.

After getting my data, a tech showed up about an hour later and tried to get the engine started. By pre-filling the Lift Pump Filter, and using a small amount of ether, the engine started up after about 10 seconds of cranking.

YEAH!

The engine ran about 3 minutes and then quit.

BOO!

Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

A second attempt did exactly the same thing.

BOO! HISS!

The tech then started checking some things, and pulling the engine oil dipstick, discovered coolant in the oil.

RUH-ROH!

Not Good.

The next step was for them to tow the rig into their shop lot using a forklift. The facility manager Clayton said it could be something as simple as a water pump or cooler gasket, (BUCKS) but it could also be a blown head gasket or a warped head. (BIG BUCKS).

But it could also be a cracked block. (REALLY, REALLY BIG BUCKS)

OUCH!

Clayton said he wanted to let the Cummins rep look at it first, hopefully later in the afternoon. Since we couldn’t stay in the rig, Jan and I packed us and our two cats off to a nearby La Quinta (They take pets).

After lunch and a nice nap in the room, we drove over to the shop about 4:30 to check in. Unfortunately, the Cummins guy still hadn’t shown up, so we’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow to find out what’s what.

Stay tuned.


March 26, 2013

Old Friends and Goodbyes . . .

A little after 10am, Chris and Charles Yust headed out this morning, on their way to Waco, TX for another rally. Through their C & C Marketing and Insurance, they sell GMAC Insurance for RV’s and autos, as well as Good Sam products, such as Extended Service Plans, Roadside Assistance, and their new product TravelAssist.

We buy our insurance from them. You should too. (How’s that, Chris?)

About 10:30 Jan and I drove over to Poco & Mom’s to meet our friends Al & Adrienne for brunch.

Pocos And Moms

A small family restaurant, it only has 12 tables and if you don’t get there early, you will have a wait. But it’s worth it because they can perform culinary magic with Hatch Green Chilies.

After a delicious meal and a lot of conversation, Jan and I drove over to a nearby Bookman’s used bookstore. If you’re familiar with Half-Price Books in Texas, this is the Arizona clone. Then it was on down the road to a Chase Bank to get a replacement checkbook cover, and since we didn’t have coffee this morning, we stopped off at Starbuck’s for our Cinnamon Dolce Latte fix. Then home for the day.

Several blog readers have asked about the Taillight Test Box that I’ve mentioned lately.

Taillight Test Box

It looks like this.

It’s built in a 98 cent Wal-Mart 3×5 file box, and that box, and one of the 3 switches are all I had to buy. That was because I wanted a center-off SPDT switch so I could switch the turn signals off.

The black and red cables are connected to the vehicle battery. The other cable connects to the vehicle lights.

The left switch turns the unit on and off. The center switch turns the taillights on and off, and the right switch turns the left or right turn signals on and off.

Besides the interconnecting wiring, the only parts inside the box are a 5amp inline fuse and a 2 prong turn signal flasher.

And because I never throw anything away, I think my total cost was about $4. If you have any questions, leave me a comment.


March 26, 2014

An Asian Two’fer, for real this time . . .

Jan and I left the rig this morning about 9:45, heading down south to the Clear Lake area. Jan had one last doctor’s appointment to take care of, and I had some shopping to do.

But first, it was lunch at King Food. We had intended to eat there last week, but at the last minute, Jan changed her mind and we ended up at Twin Peaks. But today there was no last-minute change. And it was as delicious as usual. We’re really going to miss this place when we leave the area.

I dropped Jan off at the doctor’s and then headed down the road to spend some time perusing the aisles of the newly-opened Harbor Freight Tools, one of the places, that along with Fry’s Electronics, I can spend a lot of time just wandering up and down the rows.

And of course, I found a few things I just had to have.

Next up, I stopped off to get the truck washed. And of course, within 15 minutes of that, it started to rain.

Then I drove over to Wal-Mart for a few things, then I stopped by an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for a couple of light bulbs.

By now it was time to pick up Jan and head back up to the Katy area. We were hoping to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, but Brandi was still under the weather coming off her flu, so we just got together with Lowell and Landon. We all met right down the road from their house at our new favorite Vietnamese place, Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro. And as usual, it was really, really good.

Little V’s is a family-owned place that really goes all out. Everything’s just a little different, and much better. They even make all their own sauces from scratch. And even their Spring Rolls are different. Rather than using the thicker, sticky, translucent wrapper, they use one that’s thinner and not as chewy. And they’re made fresh to order.

Even more, they’re so dedicated to their food, that a different family member sleeps in the restaurant every night so that at 2am they can start making the stock used in their Pho dishes.

After getting our Landon and Lowell hugs, and after a quick stop for a going-home cappuccino, we got back to the rig a little after 7pm.

We’ve got more bad weather on the way so we’ll see how things go tomorrow.


March 26, 2015

First Coat . . .

I did get the first coat on the rig done early this afternoon, and it looks really good. In fact Chris did such a good that so far I haven’t found any places that really need to be sanded or smoothed.

Rig Paint 1

Rig Paint 2

Rig Paint 3

Rig Paint 4

Since this is enamel I can only do about 1 coat a day, but in a good light it’s already pretty glossy.

Rig Paint 5

Tomorrow I’ll take off the license plate and do the center section. It wasn’t damaged or repaired, but it should match.

I was a little disappointed in the resulting color, which is called Smoke Gray, and looks a lot lighter on the can. Of course, it may get lighter as it dries, but right now it looks more like Battleship Gray. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do another coat tomorrow.

About 4pm we headed out for dinner and some shopping. Our dinner destination was a place we discovered yesterday on our way to Wal-Mart / Sam’s Club near SanTan Village.

We passed a place called Joe’s Farm Grill that looked interesting, and was very busy to boot. Then this morning, I checked them out online. Turns out that Joe’s Farm Grill is a Triple-D winner, I.e. a Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives place, and their menu looked delicious.

From things like Grill Salmon, Ahi Tuna, and Fresh Beet Salad, to pizza, hot dogs, and burgers, Joe’s pretty much has it all. Their logo is “Common Food Done Uncommonly Well”, and that certainly describes their food.

Joe's Family Grill 1

Jan and I have both been jonsin’ for hot dogs recently and Joe’s seemed like the place to fill that void.

Jan had the regular hot dog basket, with an all-beef dog, onions, and farm-made relish, along with Garlic Fries.

Joe's Family Grill 2

I had Mix-n-Match, with a Carolina Dog, with Pulled Pork BBQ, coleslaw, and BBQ sauce, and a Sonoran Dog, wrapped in bacon and topped with farm beans, two cheeses, sour cream, and jalapenos, as well as an order of their Triple-D rated Onion Rings.

Joe's Family Grill 3

We also got an order of their Fried Green Beans for both of us to share.

Joe's Family Grill 4

It was easy to tell we loved this place, Jan and I got really quiet, with a lot of lip-smacking, but very little talking going on.

Joe’s is part of a real family farm that provides much of the stuff they serve, with the rest locally sourced as much as possible. The restaurant, built around the old family home, looks like an indoor fast-food place,

Joe's Family Grill 5

but the food certainly doesn’t taste that way. This is a great place to eat, so check it out. You can see their menu here. Joe’s Menu

Our next stop was the nearby Sam’s Club. We were there to pick up a prescription that wasn’t ready yesterday because they were out.

Then it was on to Fry’s Electronics. I wanted a new HD for a computer I’m building up.  I got a 3TB HD on sale for cheaper than what the 2TB from the same company costs. Nice.


March 26, 2016

OPA !

We didn’t walk today, our last day here at Lake Conroe for the next two weeks, since we’ll be doing another Wal-Mart walkabout this afternoon, and that’s always good for at least a mile, or even more.

So after coffee and breakfast, I went outside to do my normal Saturday prep to travel tomorrow morning. Normally I would have closed our gray valve a couple of days ago, but with all our recent coming and going, I forgot.

So today I just closed the valves and put away the water and sewer hoses without dumping the tanks. Back inside I squirted a large dose of Dawn into the toilet, along with a cup of Calgon Water Softener and a cup of powdered laundry detergent. The black tank is about 90% full, so all this will get to slosh around in the tank until we get to Colorado River, for just a general cleaning.

This is not really to clean the tank level sensors since we don’t use them. We can go 14 days on our black tank with no problem, so I normally just dump it right before we move. And we can go longer – our record is actually 19 days, but the tank was filled to the tippy-top by then. Not a good thing.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be up about 6:30, and then finish up everything else outside, except for power, I.e., satellite, awnings, folding step, etc. Then around 8 Jan and I will head down to the Cracker Barrel for our traditional Sunday Travel Day Breakfast.

Back at the rig, I’ll crank up the diesel, raise the levelers and stow the pads, bring in the slide, and disconnect shore power. By this time the coach will be up on the airbags, and we’ll be ready to roll. And it looks to be cool enough so we can be comfortable with just the fans.

This afternoon, about 3pm, we drove into Conroe to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. We saw the first one years ago, and really liked it, and this one was just as good or better. All of the original cast are back, including some you probably thought were dead since the original film in 2002.

Both this movie and the original one were produced by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Rita and John Stamos have cameo roles in this one.

And a couple of things I was surprised to learn, is that the original movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is listed as the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time. And based on a percentage of return – it cost $6 million and made $369 million, it is the second most profitable movie of all time, bettered only by Paranormal Activity.

Who Knew?


March 26, 2017

Shrimp Boats A Coming . . .

Today was a stay-at-home, catch-up-on-some-repairs kind of day. And part of it was just goofing off. Very nice.

One thing I did was to replace the wire on the back of a picture that a friend painted of one of my family’s shrimp boats, one of seven we had at one time back in the early 60’s.

Shrimp Boat Picture

Then I replaced the rig door’s gas spring and mounting bracket.

Rig Door Air Spring Anchor

A while back the bracket broke off and took the gas spring mounting end with it. I was able to quickly get at new spring, but it took a while to track down a new bracket. American Coach couldn’t help because in their parts list, the bracket was part of the door and they didn’t stock parts for it.

New Air Spring

But while I was looking for something else on Amazon, I stumbled across a replacement bracket. And of course, as usual, I ordered two.

Again on the Amazon front, I had an order that was supposed to be delivered by the Post Office today, but a little after noon I received a text message saying that the package could not be delivered due to a faulty address.

Now I had had two packages delivered here on Friday and Saturday so I knew Amazon had the correct address. So I assumed the PO had screwed up somehow. But this time it turned out to be Amazon’s fault.

After talking to both Amazon and the PO, I found out that the address on the package was incomplete. Instead of

Greg White
c/o Santa Fe RV Park
1800 N. Ironwood Dr.
Apache Junction, AZ  85120-1912

All it had was

c/o Santa Fe RV Park
1800 N. Ironwood Dr.
Apache Junction, AZ  85120-1912
Apparently, the PO couldn’t just go ahead and just deliver it to the RV park and let us sort it out. So I’ve got to call tomorrow and see if I can pick it up at the PO.

David, a blog reader, had this question about our use of Passport America as we travel around the country. Here’s what he said.

You seem to use PA frequently when you guys are moving around.
I have found that many parks place “harsh” limits on the usage of PA.  along with some pretty run-down parks.  What’s your take on this?

Here was my reply.

David,

We use PA all the time, and have since we started RV’ing in 2007.

If we’re going to an area/park that we haven’t used before, I first check the park out on RVParkReviews.com. This lets me weed out any questionable parks.

It’s worked well so far.

All the parks have different PA rules. Some parks only let you stay a day or two, or three. Some a week, or some will let you stay an unlimited time.

This park, Santa Fe RV Park, a very nice park, lets you stay 14 days, saving us $280 for the two weeks.

PA is $45/year.

So three nights at $15 instead of $30 a night pays for a year’s membership in PA.

Normally this only takes us a couple of weeks each year.

Hope this helps.

We consider PA one of our best values, and it saves us hundreds of dollars or more every year.


March 26, 2018

A Big Step Closer . . .

My day started with an early call from Brock’s Car Care, telling me that as soon as they started up my truck, the oil pressure came right up normally.

BUT . . . they said they could hear a little rod knock and lifter noise for a few seconds before it smoothed right out, indicating that the engine had run for a short while without oil pressure. So they were able to see the problem. and they’re sure that no lasting damage was done to the engine during this episode.

Because it’s seemingly intermittent, they first suspected that with the high mileage on the truck (277,000+), some carbon/crud buildup in the oil pan had broken loose (maybe when the driveshaft broke off) and is occasionally clogging the oil pickup tube in the pan. Which explains why it didn’t show up during the previous repair, then did for me, and then didn’t this morning.

So they’re first going to drop the oil pan and see what’s going on. Hopefully cleaning all the gunk out will correct the problem. If not, the only thing really left is to go in and replace the oil pump.

More $$$$

But still cheaper than a new truck.

One last thing to note is that this looks to have nothing to do with my ‘oil pressure’ problem a couple of months ago. Then the engine never actually lost oil pressure, since I could drive for an hour or more with no problems. And replacing the oil filter fixed the sensor problem.

Hopefully, I’ll have the truck back tomorrow or Wednesday.

On the upside, I did make a big jump forward at work today. I finally found where the previous IT guy hid the SQL databases used by the websites, and now have control of them. I can now copy them/back them up . . . and when I’m ready, move them online to Godaddy.

And going through a desk drawer, I also found where the previous IT guy hid his marijuana bong and Zig Zag rolling papers. Which probably explains why the webserver he set up is so squirrely.

Getting home about 4:15, we headed back out to have dinner at the nearby Pho 20. As on previous visits, we went to our favorites. Jan got her House Crunch Salad with their delicious Miso Dressing, as well as an order of Shrimp Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce.

I got the big bowl of the While Meat Chicken Pho with Mixed Veggies. And the Mixed Veggies pretty much covered the gambit, with Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Mushrooms, Spinach, Snow Peas, Onions, and Cucumbers.

Pho 20 Chicken Veggie Pho

This, along with the usual Pho garnish plate with Bean Spouts, Thai Basil, Cilantro, and Jalapeno’s, makes for a full bowl of Pho.

One thing that Sherry, the Pho 20 owner, is known for is giving us samples of new dishes and other gifts. And tonight’s was a bowl of her new Hot & Sour Soup that’s going on the menu.

Pho 20 Hot & Sour Soup

Just as delicious as everything else.


March 26, 2019

It’s Weird . . .

Today was originally going to be our visit to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, along with lunch at Katz’s Deli and a stop-off at the iBurn store for the latest in HOT stuff. But, like this past Sunday’s rig test drive, it all got pushed back a week, to next Tuesday.

We spent the morning going over things we want to get for the trip. One thing especially I’m looking at are SIM cards for our phones while we’re over there, for voice, text, and data.

There are a lot of choices, but one common theme is that all the ones I’ve found so far require the phone to be unlocked. And apparently, some Verizon phones and plans are unlocked, or can be unlocked, and some can’t. So I’ll have to check with the Verizon store and see.

We also checked out the websites for the hotels we’ll be staying at in Paris and London. Both seem to be pretty central to the city centers.

Here’s our room at the Hotel Eden Opera in Paris.

Hotel Eden Opera

And here’s our room at the Lancaster Gate Hotel in London.

Lancaster Gate Hotel Double Room

Both seem really nice.

Of course, our real rooms could be in the back of the building, down a long, dark hallway, overlooking the stinky dumpster in the alley below. You never can tell.

Jan and I headed out about 1pm, first for lunch/breakfast at Snooze AM, and then some WalMart/Sam’s Club shopping. Jan did get her pneumonia shot while we were at WM, which means that now I don’t have to worry about catching it from her.

As I’ve said before, except for my recent Shingrix Shingles shot, I don’t get vaccinations. The last time I got one, a flu shot in 1966, it put me in a coma for 4 days, and in the hospital for 2 weeks. And the doctor said I might not survive another one.

The one the year before just made me sick as a dog for 4 or 5 days

Now, yeah, I know vaccines have changed since then, and that was the flu one, and this is for pneumonia, but why take the chance?

So I just depend on the kindness of strangers. If everyone else gets all their shots like they’re supposed to, then there will be no one for me to catch anything from.

At least that’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it.

Several readers have asked about my diet plan that I’ve used to lose 70 pounds in the last year or so, so I’m putting together a blog post about it. However I’m not sure it will be much help to anyone, since according to Jan, it’s “weird”.

Hey, it may be weird, but it works. For me.


March 26, 2020

A Good Report!

and We Scored!

Jan had her yearly mammogram this morning and everything came back fine. So of course we’re really happy about that. Jan really likes this place because she always knows the result before she leaves.

Then while Jan was getting that done, I headed over the WalMart, getting there about 7:30. I was surprised to find them handing out toilet paper, with your choice of two brands, and of course, one to a customer. In addition, they also had plenty of fresh eggs.

I was also looking for Paper Towels, but no luck on those, but they did have the Kleenex Jan wanted. So all in all, a successful trip.

Picking up Jan, and getting her great news, we decided to make a stop at the nearby Costco for a couple of other things Jan was looking for. Driving in, I noticed that their gas had dropped to $1.49/gal.

Good for us, bad for the oil ‘bidness’

We got there about 9am, and seeing people wheeling out carts with toilet paper and paper towels, we figured we were on the right path. So we were able to score a package of Paper Towels. Even better, we got a 6 tube pack of Lysol wipes. So our stop here was successful, too.

And as we were checking out, they announced that they were now out of TP and PT, so we really lucked out, I guess.

However, the problem was that when you buy Paper Towels from Costco, you get a 12 pack that takes up the entire backseat of the truck.

Somebody at Costco has a real sense of humor, as seen in this photo I found online.

Costco Jewelry Toilet Paper Display

And it looks like those of you who have squirreled away years of toilet paper, sanitizer, etc. (none of our readers, I’m sure) might be getting their comeuppance, since I saw this sign at Costco today.

Costco No Returns

Since we left the rig about 6:45 this morning, it was too early for coffee, but I set it up before we left, and then used my Switchbot phone app to start it brewing as we headed home.

Jan had one last doctor’s appointment this afternoon, with her oncologist pretty much to just go over her mammogram results, really just a formality since the news was so good this morning.

And in fact, it was apparently so much a ‘formality’ for the office, that they called and wanted to do the appointment online, using a phone app called VSee Clinic. And the call consisted pretty much of the doctor saying the mammogram showed no problems, which of course Jan already knew. And it did save us a trip back up to Webster this afternoon.

But we did head back out anyway a little after 4pm, first for a stop at our storage room to drop off our 2-year supply of Paper Towels and Lysol Wipes. Then we phoned in a food order to Los Ramirez Mexican to pick up on our way home. I also had them add 4 $25 gift cards to our order, to help them out as much as possible. We want them to stay around.

Day 4 in Homeschooling at the Morrison household seems to be a bit rocky.

First thing this morning:

If quarantine doesn’t end soon he’s getting shipped off to boarding school.

Then later.

Lowell bought some mini Twix bars yesterday and Landon kept sneaking them, so today I hid them and Lowell ratted me out and Landon says to me “bruh…just keep the food where it is”.

He’s now contemplating his sarcasm in time out.

Then our son Chris suggested.

Military School!


March 26, 2021

A Non-Stop Friday . . .

At least at work.

Today was one of those days at work when I walked in the door at 10:30 and I was already way behind. But I actually like it like that.

It seems like you just sit down, and then you look up and it’s time to go home.

I was able to get our new CubiCubi Dresser Storage Tower put together pretty quickly last night. The instructions were pretty decent for a change, but they really weren’t needed anyway.

Kitchen Cart - New

And even though we had measured where it would fit, it somehow seemed smaller than in the online photos. Of course, doesn’t everything. LOL

Now to decide what to stow away in it.


March 26, 2022

We Have A Date . . .

First up, I want to thank everyone for their concern about my BPPV attack. It faded as the day went on, and was gone by this morning, just as it the past.

I went out early this morning to try and remove my shore water inlet check valve. It turned out to be both harder and easier than I had expected, mainly because my fingers don’t quite have the strength that they did back in 2013 when I last replaced this.

RV Water Inlet Check Valve

I got the old one out and the new one in, but I couldn’t get it tightened down without a Crescent wrench. However, it was about time for us to head out for lunch/errands so I’ll finish it up this afternoon.

Lunch today was the Pho Barr up in Webster once again. And now we have a date.

The new Pho Barr down in our area is supposed to open next Saturday, April 2nd.  So I guess we’ll see next weekend.

After finishing up our shopping errands and we were back home I used a Crescent wrench to tighten down the fittings on the new inlet/check valve. And now it looks like that problem is fixed. There are no leaks, shore water now goes in, and no water comes out when there’s nothing hooked up to it. So the check valve part is working. I’ll finish mounting it tomorrow.

I said ‘that problem’ was fixed because I have another one that I found when I was working on this one.

Water Tank Ball Valve

This is the ball valve that diverts shore water into our 100-gallon fresh water tank to fill it up. When the handle is straight up, like in the photo, shore water works as usual. But when the valve is turned down to the left, water is sent to the tank. However now when the valve is in the tank fill position, a stream of water, kind of like what comes out of a squirt gun, comes out the back of the valve.

The exact replacement, is now only sold in Europe, but I found one on Amazon (of course) that should work, and will be here on Monday.

It’s always something.


March 26, 2023

My Blue (Bonnet) Heaven . . .

After a great breakfast with everyone at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house, we all got our hugs, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways. Brandi, Lowell, and Landon back to Katy, Piper and Derek back to Taylor, Chris and Linda back home, and Jan and I headed back to Santa Fe. Texas, that is.

We had a great time, great food, great fun, and we’re already talking about when to do it again. I’ll spend the next couple of days catching back up with all the good times.

On our way, we did make a quick stop at Jan’s favorite Pottery Ranch in Marble Falls. And the first thing she saw as we got parked was this guy.

Pottery Ranch Big Flamingo

I told her that if it would fit in the Corolla, she could have it. Well, at least until I saw this.

Pottery Ranch Big Flamingo Price

Yikes!

Well, maybe not.

But she did find some other (smaller, cheaper) things she wanted.

Back on the road home, we came across this field of Bluebonnets and an old, abandoned stone house.

BlueBonnet Field & House Marble Falls

Really neat.

BlueBonnet Field Marble Falls

As is this Bluebonnet close-up.

 

 

 

 

4 Minutes 17 Seconds . . .

The nice book that came with my phone camera Eclipse Filter lists cities and times for the eclipse, and one of them is Killeen.

Eclipse Starts at 12:19 pm

Total Eclipse Starts at 1:36 pm

Total Eclipse Ends at 1:41 pm

Eclipse Ends at 2:59 pm

And the Totality will last for 4 minutes 17 seconds, which according to the chart, will be one of the longest totalities in the country by about 10 seconds.

A lot of people, including us, I guess, are worrying about what the weather’s going to be for the Eclipse.

Well, according to this long-range weather forecast, it looks pretty good for us.

Early forecasting for the total solar eclipse shows a higher probability of a mostly clear sky across parts of the path of totality in Texas, Arkansas and parts of New York and Maine.

Two weeks ahead of the eclipse, the FOX Forecast Center has high confidence that San Antonio, Dallas, Little Rock, and Paducah are less likely to have heavy cloud cover on April 8th.

Fingers crossed.

One of our blog readers mentioned about the temperature drop during the Eclipse.  I hadn’t thought about it, but it turns out it is a thing.

Looks like we can expect an 8-10 degree drop during the totality.


Thought for the Day:

Sometimes you just have to tell yourself that it’s not worth the jail time. But sometimes, it’s awfully close.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


March 25, 2009

Damn the torpedoes…

Well, our road trip went off yesterday, but not quite as planned.

The idea was to head down to Fort Morgan, catch the ferry over to Dauphin Island and then visit Bellingrath Gardens.  But as we started the 22 mile trip to the ferry, we saw a sign saying the ferry was closed.

I found the number and called to double-check. The lady said the ferry was broke (yes, that’s the way she said it), but they hoped to have it going by 2pm. So we decided to run our trip in reverse. Luckily, we didn’t have to make the 44 mile round trip.

We headed up to Foley and then west on Hwy 98 through Magnolia Springs, Point Clear, Fairhope, Daphne, and Spanish Fort before hitting I-10 into Mobile. This is the way we used to travel to Mobile when I was a kid, since the Interstate didn’t exist.  It’s a very beautiful, scenic drive.

Before heading to Bellingrath Gardens after we got to Mobile, we checked out a Spartan/Cummins dealership looking for parts for my A/C problem I mentioned earlier. No luck, but I did get some good information that helped out.

Heading out, we stopped for lunch at Dreamland BBQ mainly because it smelled so good as we drove by.

Well, you know what they say, Smells can be deceiving, or something like that. I had heard how good this place was for years, and they had all sorts of awards on the walls for “Best BBQ in the South” and other stuff, but not in my book.

Jan’s ribs weren’t bad, but not great either. I ordered the Pork Plate, but I’m not sure what I got.

In the south, pork is normally sliced or chopped. If it doesn’t say ‘chopped’, it’s sliced. Yes, in north Alabama, and up into the Carolina’s, they have “pulled pork”, but it’s labeled too.

What I got was a plate of pork ‘chunks’, or something, covered in a thin sauce. In fact it looked more like ‘Carne Guisada’, or ‘Beef Stew’ with no vegetables.

The sides of potato salad and Cole Slaw were just so-so. Two other chains, Sonny’s BBQ and Famous Dave’s are much, much better.

Not recommended!

We then headed south toward Bellingrath Gardens. The Bellingrath estate was built in the early 1900’s and the family were major Coke distributors… Coca-Cola, that is. Apparently, the wife kept buying and buying plants until she just ran out of room. The place is just one big garden.

I’m just going to post some pictures of the place and let y’all enjoy.

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After enjoying the Gardens, we headed down to the Ferry.  I called ahead to confirm that, yes, they had fixed the ‘broke’ ferry and were on schedule for a 5pm departure. We got there a little after 4 so we had a short wait that we spent talking to the couple in the car next to us that was pulling a small camper. Turns out they were heading to the Gulf State Park where we are, so we gave them directions.

The ferry wasn’t full so loading didn’t take long, but there was about a 15kt wind, 3ft waves, and white caps. And the ride was pretty rough. The ferry was sometimes rolling and porpoising at the same time.

I was worried about Jan when she said she didn’t have her seasickness bracelets with her.  Jan can be very prone to seasickness. She once got seasick while we were eating at a restaurant built over a lake.

Sea-Band Bracelets

Sea-Band Bracelets

But luckily, before we took our Alaska cruise in 1998, she heard about the Sea-Band bracelets, and for her, they really work. There was one point on our cruise where people were bouncing off the walls of the hallway going to and from their rooms, but Jan never had a problem.

The bracelets apparently work on an acupuncture principle, but only if she doesn’t leave them in the coach.

Luckily, she didn’t have a problem, though. I did see a few people who were decidedly pale and hovering near the railing, but I thought it better not to mention it.

Actually what I think saved her was the fact that with the motion of the ferry, she was so worried about it sinking, she forgot to be seasick.

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As we pulled out we passed Fort Gaines at the tip of Dauphin Island. Fort Gaines was one of the two forts guarding Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Fort Gaines

Apparently it was so windy that some seagulls decided not to fly.  They just hitched a ride on the raised loading ramp all the way over.

Hitch-hiking Seagulls

Fort Morgan, named for Gen. Daniel Morgan, a hero of the Revolutionary War, and an ancestor of Jan’s (her mother was a Morgan) was the 2nd fort that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Fort Morgan

The Battle of Mobile Bay in August of 1864 gave birth to the famous phrase uttered by Admiral David Farragut, “Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead”. Torpedoes then being what we now call mines, had been spread out across the entrance to the Bay to keep the Union Navy out.

Ironically, almost immediately after Adm. Farragut gave this order, his supposedly unsinkable ironclad, the USS Tecumseh, struck a mine and sank in 3 minutes taking most of its 100 plus crew to the bottom with it.

Wouldn’t you think people would learn not to label something “unsinkable”?

The Union did finally prevail and the Confederacy lost its last port on the Gulf, New Orleans having fallen a year earlier.

That’s your history lesson for today. Read the next 3 chapters and we’ll have a short quiz on Monday. Study hard!


March 25, 2010

Toilet Flowers and Hot Wings…

I’ve decided to make our new toilet into a flower pot.  Because, so far, I haven’t been able to get it installed due to the fact that the new toilet has a different base than the old one. I know I’ll get it fixed eventually, but in the meantime, it sure looks pretty.

ToiletFlowers

About 12:30pm we drove over to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.

I had the Mango Habanero wings – sweet and spicy!,  Jan had the Hot wings.

Really Good!

Then it was over to Outpost PC to purchase some remote control switch units to control our door locks.

After that, we headed over to the Atomic Testing Museum.

AtomicTestingMuseumSign

This museum is actually part of the Smithsonian and has an amazing amount of artifacts detailing the Atomic Age.

The Atomic Age began at 5:29;54 on July 16, 1945 when a plutonium bomb, nicknamed ‘Gadget”, was detonated at Trinity Site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico. The flash was seen 250 miles away and the heat produced was four times hotter than the sun.

One of the displays showed many of the products that traded on the atomic age theme.

AtomicEnergyStuff

Everything from Atomic Fire Ball jawbreakers to Atomic Cocktails to Atomic Hot Sauce traded on the Atomic name.

AtomicEnergyLab

They even had an Atomic Energy Lab, from Gilbert, maker of the Erector Set.  I actually had one of these. Maybe this explains why I still glow in the dark.

Next was a collection of Geiger counters.

Geiger Counter1

Since I was a ham radio operator and worked with Civil Defense, I was issued one of these.

Geiger Counter2

The first H-Bomb was detonated in 1952 on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.

FirstHBombSign

FirstHBomb

Earlier bomb tests, starting in 1946 on Bikini Atoll, also in the Pacific, gave the bikini swimsuit its name.

This atomic artillery shell gives you some idea of how small an atomic bomb can be.

Atomic Artillery

Next was the Genie Air-to-Air Atomic Missile. Jan’s father worked on this one when he was in the Air Force.

GenieSign

Genie Missile

This B61 bomb was designed in 1963 and is still the United States primary nuclear weapon.

B61

Lastly, there is this display of a piece of the Berlin Wall that marked the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

BerlinWall

The museum gives real insight into what went on during the period from 1945 to 1992 when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ended nuclear testing by the major powers.

Leaving the museum I went up the road to Lowes for some more toilet parts. I’m going to whip this thing yet.

A while later, after it got dark we drove over to see the light show on Fremont St., but found a special event going on, with a large crowd. We’ll try again later.

So it was off to IHOP for supper. By the time we got home, it was almost 10pm.

It’s been a long day, but a lot of fun.


March 25, 2011

A Two’fer . . .

Jan and I slept until about 9 am this morning, another semi-early wakeup call, but well worth it.

We had two good things waiting for us – Our friends Al & Adrienne were coming over at 10. A real ‘Twofer’

And since it looks like we’ll be leaving here Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to try to have supper together Monday night.

Al & Adrienne had an appointment so they left around 11:30, but Jan and I stayed talking until almost 1 pm.

Then later while Jan was napping, I drove over to the Fairground’s office to see if there was any way to get mail on Saturday. The answer was ‘NO’. Apparently, the Post Office doesn’t deliver mail to the fairgrounds on Saturday.

Coming back to the rig, I checked to see if I could just pick up the letter at the PO, but found out it was closed on Saturday.

About 5:30 we headed into Tucson before ending up at Golden Corral for supper.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and replace my black tank valve. Hopefully it won’t be too messy. We’ll see.

More tomorrow  . . .


March 25, 2012

Stuck in Las Cruces . . .

Engine quit coming into Las Cruces this afternoon.

Got towed in by CoachNet to repair shop.

Will know more tomorrow.

Stay tuned.


March 25, 2013

A Problem Solved–Maybe . . .

I have always had on and off problems with the circuitry feeding the taillight signals from the rig to our truck. They would work for months, then stop working and then start again. So now I think I’ve found the problem, though I won’t be absolutely sure until I finish rewiring things.

What I discovered is that my coach has had two taillight converters wired in series since we bought the coach in 2008. One of them was the one out in the open, the one I’ve replaced several times over the last 5 years, trying to eliminate this intermittent problem once and for all.

But in tracing out the wiring harness, looking for any problems, I followed it back under a ledge on the rear bumper . . . and there I found another ratty, beaten-up taillight converter.

We are our rig’s 3rd owner and I guess the first owner installed the hidden one, then the second owner, not seeing one, installed another one.

As I said I won’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet this is the problem, and that taking it out of the circuit will fix things. We’ll see.

About 1:30 Jan and I made a Wal-Mart run to the SuperCenter over on Valencia, much nicer than the one toward downtown. Then getting back to the fairgrounds, we came across a lady walking her pet, Rex on a leash.

What was unusual is that Rex is a ferret.

Rex The Ferret

A very cute ferret that Jan didn’t want to give back to the lady.

We had a number of ferrets as pets over the years when Chris and Brandi were younger, and always enjoyed them. They eat dry cat food and can be easily trained to use a litter box, and really make good pets.

I hope this doesn’t put any ideas into Jan’s head.

About 4:30 Chris and Charles Yust picked us up and we headed up the road and back to Luckie’s Thai for some more of their delicious Asian cuisine and good conversation. A lot of conversation, in fact. I think we were there for almost 3 hours, but we had a great time.

Chris and Charles leave for Waco tomorrow morning, but hopefully we’ll catch them at a rally somewhere along the road later this year.


March 25, 2014

Up on the Roof !

(Cue the Drifters)

Today was a work-around-the-rig day. First I touched up some caulking in the shower to patch a small leak. Then it was up on the roof.

Today was the day to replace the fan and fan motor in our front Fantastic Vent fan.

Roof Vent Repair 1

First I removed the MaxxAir Vent Cover and then the retaining bracket that controls the lid cover. That gave me access to the fan motor itself.

Roof Vent Repair 2

I was able to use my WORX Power Screw Driver for all this, and it really comes in handy. It has a revolving cylinder holding a number of different types and sizes of bits. So I don’t have to bring as many tools up on the roof.

WORX Screwdriver 2

Taking out the four screws holding the fan motor in place, and after clipping the wires, I removed the old fan unit and set it aside.

Roof Vent Repair 3

The new fan came with crimp spade connectors, so I installed one set on the cut-off ends on the fan chassis.

Roof Vent Repair 4

Note that I used real ‘crimpers’. Some people try to use pliers or diagonal cutters (back when I started in electronics, we called them ‘dykes’. I don’t think we can do that anymore.), but you will never get a good connection that way.

Roof Vent Repair Crimpers

So here’s the finished install with the excess wire tied out of the way.

Roof Vent Repair 5

And here it is all buttoned up and ready to go.

Roof Vent Repair 6

When I was putting the MaxxAir cover back on, I noticed a crack in it. Some of these plastics don’t take to glue very well, so I’ll use a piece of Eternabond to seal it up.

Roof Vent Repair 8

Another plastic that is not easily patched are these RV engine coolant tanks made from polypropylene. A new tank costs from $100 to $600! , depending on your rig. A new one for my rig was $130

So I decided to try Eternabond. Wal-Mart sells these packages that are perfect for small repairs.

Eternabond

And it worked great. Five years later and still no leaks.

Coolant Tank Enterabond Repair

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll install the new dome lift motor on the other vent fan.

Later I met our next site neighbors, Roy and Vicky Hall, who turned out to be gate guards who worked for Gate Guard Services just like us, and we know a lot of the same people. Small world.

About 4pm Jan and I headed up to Peters’ BBQ in Ellinger for dinner. Along the way, I stopped to get some photos of the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes.

Colorado River Bluebonnets 1

Colorado River Bluebonnets 2

Colorado River Bluebonnets 3

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Colorado River Bluebonnets 5

Colorado River Bluebonnets 4

Colorado River Bluebonnets 6

Colorado River Bluebonnets 7

Colorado River Bluebonnets 8

Hopefully, all the rain we’ve had this year will mean a good year for wildflowers.

We really enjoy Peters’ BBQ and try to eat here a couple of times whenever we’re in the area.

Peter's BBQ

Peter's BBQ 1

Besides the delicious BBQ, one of the things we really liked is their ‘sides’ available on a buffet table. Everything is really good.

Peters BBQ Sides 1

Peters BBQ Sides 2

And they’ve also got really good desserts, including Banana Pudding, Jell-O, Chocolate Pudding, Peach Cobbler, and a soft serve ice cream machine.

Really great!

Coming back from Peters’ we came over a hill and found this herd of bison.

Colorado River Bison 1

Colorado River Bison 2

We’ve driven this road many times and have never seen them before. You never know what’s over the next hill here in Texas.

And speaking of that, coming over the hill coming back into the park, we found a herd of deer blocking our path.

The rest quickly moved off the roadway.

Colorado River Deer 1

Colorado River Deer 2

Colorado River Deer 3

Colorado River Deer 4

Tomorrow we’re heading back down to Clear Lake for some things, and of course, lunch at King Food.


March 25, 2015

No, not today, either . . .

But I’ll paint tomorrow for sure.

Maybe.

I spent the morning making some phone calls and working on some client stuff and then a little before 2pm Jan and I headed over to the SanTan area for a Wal-Mart / Sam’s Club run. When we were almost there, our friend Chris Yust called and said a customer had called her to say that the website I do for Chris, www.candcrvinsurance.com was down. So as soon as we were parked, I checked for myself, and yes, it was down.

One of the strange things was the way it was down. There was no error message, no Page Not Found, nothing. It just sat there and whirled. That meant it was at least seeing something there, otherwise there would be a Page Not Found, or Website Not Found.

I put in a call to GoDaddy, and after telling them my problem, the young lady went off for a few minutes and came back to tell me the problem was with my site. She said the ‘index.shtml’ file (the first page of most websites) was invalid because it was named ‘.shtml’ instead of ‘.html’.

I can only guess she hasn’t been in this business very long because ‘.shtml’ is a perfectly valid extension that indicates that a Server Side Include is being used on the page. In this case it’s used to automatically update the ‘Last Date Modified date at the bottom of the page.

Figuring it was hopeless to pursue this further while we were on the road, I took a further look at things when we got home. The first time I did just to double-check was to replace the ‘index.shtml’ file with a plain-jane ‘index.html’ that did nothing except display the words Test Page. Can’t get much simpler.

And as I expected, that didn’t fix the problem, so I was back on the phone. But since I was getting into the busy part of their support day, I was number 15 in the queue. So I decided to take it up again after supper.

Jan wanted some Hot and Sour Soup for her cold, so about 4:45 we headed over to the #1 Eastern Chinese Buffett a couple of exits west on Signal Butte. We’ve eaten here a number of times, including last Thursday, our first day in town, and it’s always great.

Besides the Hot and Sour Soup, I’m crazy about their boiled shrimp, fresh and crisp when you bite into them, not mushy like it is when they’ve been frozen.

Getting home it was back on the phone, and this time I was only number 3 in the queue. As I was waiting, I tried a number of other things, the first one being to check my other sites on this same server. And it turns out they were down too. Hmmmm!

But this site, OurRVAdventures.com, was still up. Not unusual, since this is a WordPress site, and although it’s in my GoDaddy account, it’s hosted on a different server.

I next checked my sites that, although the domain names are with GoDaddy, they’re hosted with a different company, Superb.net. And they were all working fine. So it’s not a domain name problem, it’s a problem on my shared server.

I won’t bore you with any more details, but after an hour and 30 minutes of checking everything, the GoDaddy rep and I could not figure it out. We could see the problem, we just couldn’t see what was causing the problem.

So at that point, it was boosted up to Level 3 support, and I got off the phone. I set my computer to keep trying the site, and about 30 minutes everything started working again.

I got an email from them saying it was working, but no hint as to the problem, so I’ll be back on the phone tomorrow to find out what the problem was.


March 25, 2016

Bingo and Bazinga . . .

Jan and I were on the road for the Clear Lake area about 8:15, allowing 2 hours for the 1 hour and 10 minute trip for Jan’s 10:15 doctor appointment.. Well, 1 hour and 10 minutes with no traffic slowdowns.

That’s why I always allow 2 hours. And there’s been a couple of trips where we used almost all of the two hours.

But today was very different, I guess due to Good Friday. We not only didn’t need the two hours, we actually picked up 5 minutes, and made the trip in an hour and 5 minutes.

A New Record!

But the appointment was kind of a letdown because it turned out to just be a blood draw for another test that Jan probably doesn’t need. Both her GP and her Oncologist alerted on the fact that her blood calcium was slightly too high, 10.8 rather than a max of 10.5. So both doctors have been running extra tests looking for the cause, with no luck so far.

The level was fine last year, so Jan and I wondered what changed. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that last year she started taking the Viactiv Calcium Chews, which of course may have added to the problem. But thinking further, Jan realized that one other major change had occurred.

In August 2014, after having a very bad reaction to the Tamoxifen that she was taking as a follow-up treatment for her breast cancer in January 2014, she had to switch to something else. By August she felt she was crawling out of her skin. So the doctor switched her over to Anastrozole. And for the last 18 months she’s had no problems. Maybe this was also a change.

So I Googled “Anastrozole and high blood calcium” . . .  and BINGO!

Three papers on the NIH government website connecting Anastrozole and high blood calcium, including one that details taking a female breast cancer survivor off and back on Anastrozole, and the calcium levels followed.

In Jan’s case, her calcium level is less than 3% above normal, and it may just be that stopping the calcium chews will get it back under control.

We’ll see.

Leaving the doctor’s, we drove over to the Friendswood Supercuts so Jan could get her hair done, and I guess because of Good Friday, she had a much longer wait than usual.

And then it was off to our favorite King Food for lunch. We had checked in with Chris, Linda, and Piper to see if they could join us. But Piper was still asleep since she had a 12 hour shift in the UTMB ER, starting at 7pm, and Chris and Linda were on the way to Galveston, taking some stuff down to Piper’s new apartment.

We both had our usual Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce with Jalapenos, our go-to dish for years

King Food 2_thumb[1]

And of course, I load mine up with hot pepper flakes as usual.

After we finished I dropped Jan off at Chris’ while I checked in on a couple of clients. The first one was pretty straightforward, just going over a possible upcoming project. But the second one was a little more interesting.

They had a number of small problems,  but the main one was that the three laptops had trouble consistently connecting wirelessly to their HP printer. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t

So first off I looked at the printer, printing out the Wireless Configuration Page so I could check all the settings. I found that the printer was on the house DSL Wi-Fi network, which was correct.

Then noting the printer’s IP address and host name, I checked out the printer driver settings on one of the laptops, which also were correct. But the driver showed the printer off-line and would not print.

So after futzing around for a little bit, I checked the Wi-Fi connection on the laptop itself.

And BAZINGA!

The laptop was on some other Wi-Fi network, not the house one. At first, I thought they were hooked up to a neighbor’s network,  but the connection was passworded, so how did they get their neighbor’s password?

Then the client realized that the Wi-Fi name was the one for her husband’s Mi-Fi which was on the other side of the room. Checking it out, I found that the Mi-Fi was actually attached to the laptop via USB cable,  but the Wi-Fi was turned on anyway.

Then with a little more questioning, I found out there were THREE Mi-Fi’s in the household, sometimes on, sometimes not. So sometimes the three laptops were connected to the household DSL, and sometimes they were connected with one of the various Mi-Fi’s at random.

Putting the client’s laptop back on the home network, I again tried to print, but with no luck. So I killed the printer driver and then re-installed it.

And now it worked.

After telling the client that if they wanted to print, they had to be connected to the house DSL, I finished up by fixing some of her Windows 10 upgrade teething problems, and then I was on my way to meet Jan and Chris at the Webster Hooter’s

Jan and I both agreed that Hooter’s seems to have wimped out on their hot sauces, at least the ones we usually order. In the past ‘911’ was their hottest ‘on-the-menu’ sauce, with ‘Elvis’ available ‘off-the-menu. And ‘911’ was the equivalent of the hottest of the Buffalo Wild Wings’ sauces.

But having just had BBW a couple of nights ago, the comparison is nowhere near the same. Now that may be because ‘911’ is no longer their hottest, but 3th behind ‘Spicy Garlic’ and ‘If You Dare’. Maybe they downrated it.

So I guess next time at Hooter’s we’re just going to have to take the ‘Dare’.

Heading home we found more traffic, probably due to a wreck at 59 and I-45, but it was mostly smooth sailing. We did make a “drank too much Iced Tea at Hooter’s” stop at the north Houston Flying J, and then at the Wal-Mart before getting back home to a lonely, needy cat.


March 25, 2019

It Looked Bigger On The Website . . .

The carry-on suitcases we ordered for our cruise came in late Friday evening but I didn’t bring them home until this afternoon.

Cruise Suitcases Orange

Cruise Suitcases Green

And I must say they certainly looked bigger online than in person. I’m pretty sure I cannot get a month’s worth of stuff in these. And I KNOW Jan can’t. So we’ll almost certainly be taking one or two checked bags along as well as our carry-on’s.


March 25, 2020

And Now For Something Completely Different …

Landon’s in his 3rd day of Homeschooling, and of course, what’s school without a PE class?

Landon's Homeschooling PE

Landon said he could get used to this.

I’ll bet he could.

I mentioned a few months back about my favorite book series, Bob’s Saucer Repair.

Bob's Saucer Repair

This is what I wrote back in September.

Basically, a guy comes home and finds a beautiful alien girl trying to repair her flying saucer in his garage. With a lot of interesting ideas and funny situations, it’s a really fun read. Just gloss over the fact that alien flying saucers use antifreeze for coolant as well as hydraulic fluid.

But a lot of twists and turns keep it very interesting. Even Jan loves them.

A Great Deal at $2.99, or free under Kindle Unlimited.

Jan and I just finished Book 8 in the series and the books have gotten better and better. Though there’s still a lot of humor, the stories have become a little darker, with more action, and a lot of great storylines.

Even more recommended than before!

And in other book news, Robert Heinlein has a brand new book out, in both Kindle and Hardcover.

Heinlein - Pursuit of Pankera

Yes, I know he’s been dead for over 30 years, but this new book, The Pursuit of the Pankera, was written in the 1980’s and parallels The Number of The Beast. In fact the first third of both books is the same, but then the stories diverge in a parallel, but different, direction. That’s why the subtitle of both is A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes.

The Pursuit of the Pankera was known as a large number of fragments, plus Heinlein’s handwritten notes. But when someone started piecing the fragments and notes together, they found they had the entire book. So every word is Heinlein’s, with no ghostwriter filler.

After starting Pursuit, it was so good it made me go back and buy The Number of the Beast to read it again too.

And even better, both books are only $6.99, much better than the $14.99 usually charged for mainstream publisher novels.

Wrapping up, I saw a headline today that Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of about 60 restaurant chains, like Landry’s, Saltgrass, Claim Jumpers, and many others, in addition to the Houston Rockets Basketball Team, had laid off 40,000 of his employees today, about 70% of his workforce.

When I mentioned this to Jan, I think she was somewhat disparaging of him doing that. He’s a Billionaire, after all. That is until I ran the numbers for her.

Let’s say the average hourly rate for the 40,000 employees is $20 per hour. Remember this covers management as well as line employees.

$20 x 40 hours per week = $800 a week average paycheck.

But when you now multiply that by 40,000, it comes out to $32 million dollars A WEEK. And then you’ve got payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and additional benefits too.

He may be a billionaire, but I’ll bet he doesn’t have $64 million in cash lying around to shell out every two-week pay period for very long.

Jan was a lot more understanding when I laid it out this way.


March 25, 2021

Blood And Bones . . .

Jan and I left the rig around 1pm, first for lunch at Dickinson Seafood. We both get the lunch special of Blackened Catfish and Shrimp, Grilled Veggies, and a salad.

Dickinson Seafood Catfish 20201020

Really good, and at only $8.59 for the lunch special, it’s a great deal too.

Then it was right back down the street to our storage room to drop off our old disassembled kitchen cart.

Kitchen Cart - Old

We got it back in 2012 for Jan to roll out into the kitchen area when she was doing a lot of cooking, like for holidays and such. But because it had to be strapped down tightly when we traveled, and it didn’t get used as much as we thought. The extended top folds down, and it normally rode behind my computer chair, but it mostly ended up as just a place to stack things.

So we’ve been looking for something to replace it, and we came up with this CubiCubi Dresser Storage Tower.

Kitchen Cart - New

It was supposed to come in tomorrow, so we wanted to get the old one out of the way ahead of time. And it was good that we got a head start, since while we were at lunch, I got an email saying it was out for delivery, and then a few minutes later I got another one saying it had been delivered up at the office.

So as soon we dropped the old one off at the storeroom we headed up to Webster to pick up the new one.

I’ll try to get it assembled as soon as I can.

A couple of days ago Jan found something on Facebook she just had to have. It’s from a site called Hanson’s Anatomy.

Hanson's 1

Hanson's 2

Katy Hanson is a very talented artist, and found herself doodling during lectures while she was in medical school, and then began using the doodles to construct study guides for her own use. And gradually it evolved into a full set covering the entire human body, and all its many processes.

The hardcover print version is $79.99, but the E-book version is only $29.99, so I downloaded it for Jan, the entire 337 MB file. Jan’s crazy about it.


March 25, 2022

Under The Weather . . .

With my new shore water inlet coming in this morning, and my new hose splitter coming in this afternoon, I had planned to get them both installed after I came home from work today. But life intervened.

Or at least a bout of BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) did.

So not only didn’t I work on my plumbing problem today, I didn’t go in to work at the office either.

Wasn’t sure I could drive in a straight line.

So hopefully tomorrow. But we’ll see.

Besides that tomorrow we’ve got a bunch of errands on our list, starting with a quick stop at Home Depot, and then on up to Pho Barr for lunch.

And then it’s a swing by the office to pick up some paperwork, before WalMart, Sam’s, and then Costco on the way home.

Busy, busy, busy.

Not much else today, since I mostly slept, the only time my head wasn’t spinning.


March 25, 2023

Family And Firepits . . .

Since we were busy all day and once again didn’t back to the hotel until late, it’s more mostly Retro-Blogs. But I will catch up with all the fun once we get back home.

Firepit Family

But we did finish up the day with a nice time around the firepit in the backyard.