Our RV Adventures

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The only thing we’ve got going this week is my 3-month follow-up appointment with Dr. Wang, my neurosurgeon. Hopefully, I’ll be cleared from my remaining restrictions.

Call It Ishmael’s . . .

Well, that stirred up a hornet’s nest. The most emails/comments I’ve gotten in a while.

Ishmael’s, our new coffee shop idea, was a not-so-veiled, (well, maybe too-veiled, in hindsight) swipe at Starbucks. And all of this refers back to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, or The Whale, which is the full title of the book.

When the founders of a new Seattle coffee company were trying to come up with a name, they harkened back to the cities’ whaling past, with the first suggestion being “Pequod’s”, the name of Captain Ahab’s sailing ship. But then someone said it sounded like they were selling ‘pee’.

Then for a while, it was Starbo, the name of a Washington state mining camp, which then morphed into Starbuck(s), the steadfast First Mate of Captain Ahab, who opposed Arab’s obsession with killing the whale.

But for me, the most famous character in the book, besides the whale I guess, was Ishmael. I mean, he’s right there in the very first sentence of the book, one of the two most famous opening lines in literature*

“Call me Ishmael”.

Ishmael, being the only survivor, and the narrator of the story.

Hence our coffee shop named, “Ishmael’s”.

Take that Starbucks.

*The other most famous opening sentence is from “A Tale Of Two Cities”.

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times”.

As you’ll see below in the Retro-Blogs.™ today is our 15th Anniversary living in our RV, which Jan immediately named, “Beauty”.

And 15 years later, it’s still our home.

Tomorrow looks to be lunch at Armadilleaux Cafe, a local Santa Fe place, where we ate a couple of years ago and really liked it, but somehow never went back. But Jan read that they have Clam Chowder on Tuesdays.

Thought For The Day:

Think the recent tornados are because of ‘climate change’?

According  to the U.S. Weather Service:

And how about this from a recent New York Times article.

Every article on the effects of climate change should also note that China today emits more carbon than the United States, Europe, and India – combined. China’s carbon emissions are so huge that the country has now produced more carbon in the last few decades than Europe has since the start of the Industrial Revolution. And China last year built more coal plants than in any prior year. All efforts outside China to slow climate change are just virtue signaling.

Of course, those really, really tall walls around China will keep all that nasty pollution over there, right?

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

January 6, 2011

Happy 3rd Anniversary . . .

Today is our “Beauty’s” 3rd anniversary. Three years ago today we picked her up at Roman Holiday Motorhomes in New Braunfels, TX.

Then, one month later, on February 6th, 2008 Jan and I began our full-time life on the road.  And if we stick to our plan this year, we will hit the road again this coming Feb. 6th.

A little synchronicity at work.

But this morning I left the the rig a little before 11 am heading back to the same client I was at yesterday. But today was already scheduled before yesterday’s emergency laptop repair visit.

Leaving the rig I noticed we’re finally getting street lights here in the park. They’ve been installing the forms and rebar to pour concrete for the pedestals. And they’ve already finished some of them.

Jan and I both have mixed feelings about the street lights. The darkness is kinda nice and the lack of light lets us see the stars better. Oh well.

Finishing up at the client’s about 2:30 I next drove over to Brock’s Car Care to see about getting my front brakes fixed. A few days ago I started hearing grinding from my front right brake. Since it hasn’t been that long since I had the brakes done, I suspect that I may have a stuck caliper that caused the brakes to not release completely after braking and then grinding the pads and rotor down.

They said they could get me in tomorrow with no problems, so I told them I’d drop it off either this evening, or the first thing tomorrow morning.

I got back to the rig about 3:30 just to turn right around and leave about 4 pm.

Jan and I were heading up to League City to the Cracker Barrel. It’s Thursday so it’s Turkey and Dressing Day there, Jan’s favorite.

And even better, we got to eat for free.

As I mentioned back on December 23rd, we stopped by Cracker Barrel to pick up a take-out order of Turkey and Dressing so Jan could have ‘leftovers’, since we were eating out on Christmas Day.

But then the day after Christmas, when Jan went to have her meal for supper, she found that not only did she not get any cranberry sauce, but that her Turkey and Dressing lacked any dressing.

Sacrilege!

So to avenge Jan’s slight, I emailed the Cracker Barrel home office, and lo and behold, a few days later, I got a call from the manager. And after another few days, we received a coupon in the mail for two free meals. So Jan finally got her dressing and all’s right with the world.

After we left Cracker Barrel I called our son-in-law Lowell to see if he was home yet. Luckily he was, so we drove by the house to borrow his truck so we’d have a vehicle to drive tomorrow while my truck is in the shop. Especially since Jan has a dentist’s appointment tomorrow morning.

This way we were able to go ahead and drop off my truck at Brock’s tonight so they can get started on it the first thing after they open at 7 am.

And, of course, while we were at Brandi’s Jan and I also got in a little Landon time since Lowell had already picked him up from daycare.

We got home about 6:30 after a busy day. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back on rig stuff tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see.

January 6, 2012

Wipers and Doors . . .

I spent this morning working on a few things around the rig, starting with installing those expensive Rain-x windshield wipers I just bought. It only took a few minutes, and even on a dry windshield, they were nice and quiet. I only did the truck today. I do the ones on the rig later.

My next chore was a big one. I was going to take my truck driver’s door panel off and see what I need to do to fix my broken power window. The window motor still works and the window moves freely up and down in the track, so I figure the motor and the window are no longer connected together.

Removing the door panel wasn’t as difficult as some I’ve done. Five screws, and after disconnecting the two electrical plugs, just lift it off. The only real problem was disconnecting the two control rods that connect the inside door handle to the door lock.

The next thing I did was lay out the screws on a table in the pattern they came off the door and take a photo. This makes it easy to remember which screw goes where when I put it back together.

Getting the trim panel off and setting it aside, I peeled the plastic weather shield back to try and get a look at what’s going on inside the door.

I plugged the window/door lock control panel back in so I could run the window motor.

I used a suction cup to hold the window in position so it wouldn’t fall down into the door frame.

In trying to see how the window mechanism worked, I found a cable hanging down loose inside the door. A little Google research told me that these Dodge Dakota windows use a motor-driven cable to move the window up and down, and they sometimes break loose. Some people have had luck reconnecting the cable, while others say it quickly breaks again and they end up replacing the window regulator anyway.

I’m going to go ahead and pull the motor/regulator unit out and take a look at it. It’ll got to come out either way. A new unit from the dealer lists for $331.00 with installation extra. I found one on Amazon, a brand-new, OEM part for $59.00.

I love Amazon.

I ran out of time today so if the weather holds out tomorrow, I’ll pull the unit out then.

I stuck the weather shield back on the door and just left the window control panel hanging. To open the door I have to pull on one of the control rods, but it works for now.

Jan and I headed out on some errands about 3pm. First up was dropping her off at a laundromat in Friendswood so she could do some heavy rugs and blankets that won’t fit in our rig washer. While she was doing that I ran some errands and then stopped by Brandi’s and talked with our son-in-law Lowell for a while.

By the time Jan was finished up, it was time for supper, so since King Food was nearby, we couldn’t resist. And of course, more great leftovers.

After supper we stopped off at Brandi’s again to pick up some packages that had come in, before heading over to Kroger’s for a few groceries.

Then it was finally home for the night after a busy day.

January 6, 2013

Not Much Today . . .

Jan and I decided on an early breakfast this morning so we headed up to the IHOP in Kemah. You have to pick your time going there on Sunday otherwise you can have a long wait, but we lucked out and got seated immediately.

Afterwards we make another futile attempt to buy deer corn at the Home Depot right next door.

Later in the afternoon I felt a nap coming on, so I was able to put those two hours to good use.

That was about it for today. We had the usual sun, clouds, rain, & wind types of weather today so it was nice to just stay home.

January 6, 2014

I Depend On The Kindness Of Strangers . . .

I’m sure you’ve been seeing the PSA’s on TV and ads in the magazines saying that everyone should be getting a flu shot right now, especially due to the H1N1 (Swine) flu that’s also going around.

When Jan was working at the hospital, she was required to get a flu shot every year, whether she wanted to or not. On the other hand, I haven’t gotten a flu shot since 1964 when I was in military school and didn’t have a choice.

During my Junior year, we were lined up and given a flu shot. I made it back to my dorm room just before I started throwing up. And I was sick for several days.

The next year I tried to tell the doctor at the school clinic that I had been told to never have a flu shot again by my doctor at home because of my severe reaction to the shot.  But the doctor didn’t believe me, and the Commandant said I could either take the shot, or starting walking PT’s until I did.

PT’s, or Penalty Tours, consisted of walking around the Quadrangle with a pack filled with 60# of sand while carrying an ‘03 Springfield rifle which weighed another 9# or so.

So I took the shot.

Getting out of the hospital 10 days later, I was told I didn’t have to take the shot next year. Well, thanks a lot.

So now, like Blanche DuBois, I depend on the kindness of strangers. I figure if everyone else gets their flu shots like good little girls and boys, then I won’t have to. There will be no one for me to catch it from. Works for me.

I’m sure many of you out there remember The Great Swine Flu Pandemic of 1976? The one that the government said would be so devastating that they rushed an untested vaccine into production and use, resulting in dozens dead and hundreds reporting serious side effects like blindness and paralysis?

No, thank you.

And now we have dozens of people contracting narcolepsy after receiving the most recent flu vaccine.

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/01/06/report-girl-falls-asleep-up-to-30-times-a-day-after-getting-flu-shot/

And to answer your next question, yes, I have had the flu a couple of times since then. But that just means that you aren’t doing your part. So everyone get on the stick out there.

Well, after a high today of 38 degrees and 29 last night, we’re looking for 25° tonight.. I pulled a second electric heater out of the basement, that along with the heated mattress pad on our bed, keeps us warm and toasty.

If it gets down in the ‘teens’, I have a small cube heater like this that I put down in our water bay.

With the heater plugged into this Inline Thermostat, we’ve been good down to 6 degrees (Garrison, MT in 2008).

The thermostat turns anything plugged into it on at 35 degrees and off at 45 degrees. Works like a champ.

January 6, 2015

Just Damn!

With the sunshine today, Mister found himself a nice spot on the dashboard to soak it up after all the cool, wet days during the last week or so.

Never seen him with three legs together like this, but he seemed comfortable.

About 2pm I went outside to do some maintenance on the truck. Besides checking the oil, coolant, etc., I wanted to do some rechecking on my AC problem.

Regular blog readers may remember that back this past August, the AC in our truck died while we were visiting relatives in north Alabama. I first put my gauges on the Freon line and found the pressures were fine. Next I unhooked the connector that feeds power to the AC clutch to check it.

The AC clutch is what you hear making that ‘CLUNK’ when you turn your AC on. The clutch pulls in and starts the AC compressor turning, cooling the vehicle. First up, with the engine running and the AC turned on,  I checked for 12 volts at the connector coming from the dashboard. And finding the 12 volts told me that part of the circuit was working.

Then setting my meter to Ohms, I checked the resistance of the clutch coil, and found the coil open, showing no resistance. Which meant that the problem with the AC was the clutch. With the coil open, the clutch would not pull in, and the compressor would not turn.

So now I had to decide if I was going to replace the clutch, which I could do myself, or replace the compressor, which I could do, but not longer have the vacuum pump and other equipment necessary to recover the Freon and then replace it after the new compressor is installed.

A new coil is about $125, while having a new compressor installed would run $600-700. The other thing to consider is the fact the original compressor (and the truck) are 10 years old. So do I want to spend $125 on a 10 year old compressor that might completely die next month?

So with all that on my mind, and while I had the hood open, I decided to check the coil once again. And lo and behold, this time the ohmmeter showed 80 ohms, not open as before.

WTH

Then as I moved the connector a little, the ohmmeter suddenly showed open. And pulling a little bit on the wires coming from the connector showed me the problem.

The insulation was cut, and by moving the wire around I could tell it was broken inside the insulation as well.

Could it really be this simple?

Twisting the wires around a bit got it in position where it seemed to be connected. So I started up the engine and turned on the AC.

And heard a ‘CLUNK’ as the compressor started turning. Getting a thermometer from the rig, I placed it in front of the vent and watched the temp. Within about 5 minutes it had pulled the temperature down from about 65 degrees coming out of the vent to about 44 degrees, a typical 20-degree differential. And this while it was 63 degrees outside.

Well, that will teach me to always investigate a little further on a problem. If I had done so, we could have avoided all those hot trips in the truck during August and September.

Just damn.

After we get to Colorado River, I’ll splice the wire to fix the problem. It’s always nice to save several hundred dollars or more when you can.

About 4:15 we headed out to dinner with our friend Randy. I had helped Randy rewire his electrical system a couple of weeks ago while we were both at the Colorado River Thousand Trails, and since I wouldn’t let him pay me, he insisted on taking us out to dinner. So we were off to the Buffalo Wild Wings right down the Interstate.

Randy had never been to one, but it turns out he likes stuff hot like we do, so he fit right in  And today was 60 cent wing Tuesday so that was even better.

Leaving the restaurant we stopped off at Sam’s Club to pick up Jan’s prescription that wasn’t ready yesterday. Then last up was a stop off at the Post Office to mail a letter before heading home.

We plan on leaving for Colorado River TT about 11am tomorrow. But first we’re going to have breakfast right down the road at the Cracker Barrel before coming back to head for Columbus.

January 6, 2016

Wednesday Roadtrip . . .

I was up at 8 am, way too early for me, and then about 9, Jan and I headed out for our day down in the Clear Lake area, missing out on walking, but since it was completely overcast, cold, and rainy, that was probably a washout anyway. Hopefully tomorrow will be lucky.

We made a fuel up/potty stop at the Flying J in Brookshire where I had planned to get a coffee/cappuccino combo for the road. But it looks like Flying J has screwed up their cappuccino selection.

I first noticed this a few weeks ago when we stopped at the Pilot/Flying J on I-45 north of Houston. They have two cappuccino machines, each with six spigots. In the past they’ve had a choice of probably 8 to 10 different flavors, like Hazelnut, French Vanilla, English Toffee, Pumpkin Spice, Mocha, Cinnamon Vanilla Nut, etc., I.e. fairly decent coffee/cappuccino flavors.

But now, at both Flying J’s, eight of the flavors are variations of French Vanilla, French Vanilla, Sugar-Free French Vanilla, Mocha French Vanilla, French Vanilla Alert (extra caffeine), etc.

The remaining 4 flavors were Hot Cocoa, Mexican Chocolate, Winter Dark Chocolate, and Raspberry Truffle (?).

Not exactly my favorite flavors of coffee. So until things change, no more coffee at Flying J for me.

Getting into Webster, we met our son Chris and his wife Linda a little after 11 at our favorite local Chinese place, King Food. It’s so good we’ve been eating here since 1978, almost 35 years. In fact we’re on our fourth owner.

Jan and I had our usual Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce with jalapenos, Extra, extra spicy.

With Hot & Sour Soup, Fried Rice, and an Egg Roll, it’s a great meal, just perfect for a cold, rainy day.

Finishing up, Jan and I headed off to get our haircuts, with me first dropping Jan off at the Friendswood SuperCuts, while I drove back down to Lou’s Barbershop where I’ve been going for almost 20 years, so long that I don’t even have to tell them how I want it cut.. Sheldon would say it’s because they have my haircut records.

Picking up Jan, I made a stop at O’Reilly Auto Parts to get a new gas cap for our Dodge Dakota. The old one gives me a Check Engine code every second or third tank of gas from removing and replacing it when I fill up. This should fix the problem. I hope.

Next stop was a nearby dry cleaners to drop off our summer quilt to have it cleaned. We have a lighter quilt that we use during the summer, and a heavier, winter one for the . . . well, the winter. So when we get back to Houston every fall, we drop it off at the cleaners, and switch over to our winter one that we left at our son Chris’. Then a week or so before we head out for the year, we swap back again, leaving the now-cleaned winter one again with Chris.

After a client stop for a while, we drove over to the nearby Harris County Public Library so Jan could get a library card, not to check out any paper books, but so she check out Kindle books online. That way she won’t have to pay the high prices for mainstream publisher books, but can just check them out online.

By now it was after 3pm, and rather than hang around to have supper down here, we decided to head back toward home to get ahead of all the going home traffic on the Katy Freeway.

Along the way, we thought we’d stop off for dinner at the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria in the Katy area. Grimaldi’s has become our favorite pizza place, especially since they’ve spread out across the country.

When we first ate at one in 2009, it was at the original (and only) one, located in Brooklyn, NY under the Brooklyn Bridge (DUMBO) area.

Heading home, we made a pit stop at the Sealy Oasis, a new large convenience store about 15 miles out of Columbus, before getting back to the rig a little after 7pm.

Another nice day and good times.

Our granddaughter Piper is on a ski trip with some girlfriends in Breckenridge, CO this week, and sent back this photo.

That’s Piper on the left. Looks cold.

January 6, 2017

A Three Heater . . .

And One Cat Night.

It finally struggled up to 35° today after a low last night of 33. Big difference.

Our low for tonight has been downgraded to 24° with 25 tomorrow night so later in the afternoon I topped off our fresh water tank and then disconnected both ends of the shore hose and let it drain. So we’re all set for the next couple of days.

Glad we’re not on a gate tonight, though with the shacks it wouldn’t be too bad. Back in 2014 we were on a frack gate over in Whitsett. And one night in November a couple of weeks before we left, it was 26° and sleeting, and I had icicles hanging off the edge of the canopy. Never again.

Of course from up in Paul’s Valley, OK, about 50 miles south of Oklahoma City, our son-in-law Lowell’s mother Sonja sent us these photos today.

Sonja said it was 16 degrees today with a wind chill of 5 degrees. Then after 4 inches of snow, it is supposed to be 10 degrees tonight with a wind chill of –5. Just glad it’s not us.

For breakfast this morning we had a couple of the tacos I picked up on my way home from my gate the other morning.

During our first week here back in Oct. Jan and I stopped off at the Stripes/Valero Truck Stop coming home one morning from our gate. We found they had a 24 hour Taco/Burrito Shop so we each got a couple of breakfast tacos to bring home. Since they were so good, it was worth doing again.

This afternoon I took my anemometer outside and found the wind speed here at the park to be about 25 mph, so with the 33°, that gives a wind chill of 20°. No wonder it felt so freaking cold wind we left the rig about 4pm.

We’ve always heard about how good the burgers were at Barth’s, even seeing people ordering them when we’re there for the lunch time buffets. So if they’re better than the buffet, they must be good. And they certainly were.

Jan got the Cheeseburger and I got the Bacon Cheeseburger.

These are huge burgers, with 6” buns and a hand-formed patty sized to match. And they were really good. The thin edges were crispy-charred and just perfect. A really delicious burger. It’s easy to see why they’re so popular.

We’ll use all 3 of our heaters tonight, the Lasko Ceramic Tower,

and two of these smaller Sunbeam units.

Normally one of the Sunbeam’s stays in the truck for use on cold nights on the gate. The rooftop heaters don’t always work too well in some of the shacks so I always have a backup plan.

Always have a Backup Plan.

For everything.

January 6, 2018

Repositioning Exercises . . .

Jan’s doing great, slowly getting her strength back. It’s just going to take time for her to get back to 100%.

We pretty much just laid around the rig today and never even went outside. I tried to get up the gumption to go outside and do the awnings, but no luck. I’ll try again tomorrow, I guess.

My BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo) that first hit me a few weeks ago seems to be slowly fading. Every reoccurrence has been less in intensity, and due to Jan’s illness I never got a chance to start the Canalith Repositioning Exercises to combat it.

The last time I noticed anything was a small swirl when I got out of bed a couple of days ago and that was it. So as it stands right now I’m not going to worry about it unless it comes back.

January 6, 2020

It’s A Keeper . . .

Whenever we buy something new I always make a habit of keeping the boxes for a few days. And how long I keep the box is directly related to the cost of the item. The more expensive the item, the longer I keep the box.

So I just got rid of the box that our new Samsung TV came in, that I purchase the middle of December. And I also just got rid of Jan’s 2 Christmas gifts, which were cheaper.

One of the two you’ve all ready heard about, her Ninja Foodie Digital Air Fryer, which she loves.

The second one, that I haven’t mentioned yet, was this Sowtech Rechargeable Cordless Vacuum. So yes, I bought my wife appliances for Christmas. But in my defense, it’s what she wanted, and what she asked for.

She had been wanting a new one, and saw this one being used at our local Black Bear Diner. What really impressed both of us was how much the BBD people liked it. Much better than the expensive Dyson that they also had.

They said the Dyson was always breaking and needing new parts. And considering the Sowtech was only about $70, about 25% of what a Dyson cost., Jan’s very happy.

Happy Wife, Happy Life. Even if it’s about appliances.

I have been downloading about 5GB of Garmin map data all evening. A couple of weeks ago, my Garmin GPS lost all the detailed maps, and was just showing a few main roads like 1-45 and Hwy 6.

After I fooled around with it for a while I discovered that the 16GB MicroSD in the unit had died. Or at least I couldn’t read or write to it when I pulled it out of the GPS and plugged it into my computer. So I ordered a new one from Amazon that came in today.

At least now the GPS recognizes that it has a good SD card, so it’s downloading the new maps. I guess I’ll see when it gets done.

I also got a new oil filter for the rig in today, so later this week I’ll crawl back under the rig and pull the old filter and the adapter, and try again.

January 6, 2021

Our Lucky 13th . . .

Yesterday I signed us up for both Disney+ and Discovery+, and got a 6 month free trial. It turns out that if you have any Unlimited phone plan with Verizon, you can get these 6 month free trials for both Disney and Discovery, as well as a couple of other streaming services.

Just log into your Verizon account and click on Add-Ons.

It looks like the check’s in the mail, again.

According to the IRS website found here,

https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof-wmsp/notice

our $600 stimulus checks went in the mail today. Of course, this IS the IRS so you never can tell.

January 6, 2022

Sittin’ Pretty . . .

Jim of Jim’s RV Service showed up a little after 10am, and along with his helper had the chair and the base out in about 30 minutes, leaving this.

Even nicer, Jim hauled off the old chair, as well as our old Attwood water heater that I haven’t had a chance to throw away before my recent unpleasantness.

Then after a little cleanup, I put down the chair mat we had already ordered, and rolled my Respawn Gaming Chair into place.

I also installed another of the Lumbar Support Cushions that we had previously installed in the Jeep.

All very comfortable!

A little later Jan and I drove into League City to have lunch at Cracker Barrel, today in particular because it was Thursday. And Thursday at Cracker Barrel means Turkey and Dressing. And Jan loves Turkey and Dressing.

But not being as big a fan of T&D as Jan, I had breakfast, in this case their Double Meat Breakfast.

After lunch we decided to check out the new HEB up at I-45 and El Dorado. It opened on December 29th, but we decided to let things calm down before we visited. It was busy, but not too bad.

It’s basically a bigger version of the one over on SH96, and very nice.

January 6, 2023

An Anniversary . . .

Our 15th, actually.

No, not that one.

15 years ago today, in 2008, we picked up ‘Beauty’, our 1999 American Eagle motor coach, and began our full-time lifestyle. And a month later, on February 6th, we headed to Alaska, by way of Tucson, Yuma, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, Billings, Coeur d’Alene, & Bellingham.

I mean, why go the the direct route when you can just take the long-way-around scenic route?

And it’s been a fun ride ever since.

As I said before, tomorrow Jan and I are heading up to Katy to our daughter Brandi’s so we can have lunch with them, and I can install some upgrades on Landon’s Ender 3D printer.

Really looking forward to it.

January 6, 2024

Still . . .

Jan was still not feeling 100% today so I headed out about 1:30 to do our weekly WalMart shopping, and also bring back dinner.

And dinner was Popeye’s Chicken Sandwiches.

A Spicy Chicken Sandwich for Jan and a Spicy Blackened Bacon & Cheese Chicken Sandwich for me.

Very good.

As I was leaving the rig, I checked out one of the new pads right across from our rig. And I’m still wondering how rigs are going to get up onto the pads.

Right now the only thing that makes sense is that they’re going to raise the road to match. But where does that leave us?

I guess we’ll see down the road.

Don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Depends on how Jan feels.

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Lunch today was at Kelley’s Country Cooking, with Jan getting the Turkey & Dressing and me getting the Country Fried Chicken Breast.

Delicious as always, and plenty to bring home.

Then it was HEB, gas, and then home.

A nice day.

* * * * *

Don’t Try This At Home!

Came across this article/video the other day about a professional high-diver who works for RCL Cruise Lines, specially the Oasis-Class ships like Harmony Of The Seas.

Check out the link above for the video.

A professional high diver named Ginni Van Katwijk gave her 84.9 thousand Instagram followers a taste of what it’s like to jump from a 55-foot diving board into a pool onboard Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas.

Even the bravest of guests would not be allowed to try this stunt for themselves – with Van Katwijk only permitted because she is a trained professional working with Royal Caribbean.

In addition to serving several contracts with the Miami-based cruise line, she has competed in high diving around the world – including as part of the prestigious and highly competitive Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.

It’s amazing how small a large pool can look from up that high.

I’ve jumped from that high, or a little higher actually, but it was into the Gulf of Mexico, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to miss the water.

* * * * *

Jan really likes the coffee flavors I keep coming up with. For example, today’s cafe du jour started with a pot of Moose Munch’s Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter coffee, and then I grated a couple of frozen Reese’s Pieces into the cup before I added the hot coffee. After adding a dash of Sweet & Creamy Cold Foam, I heated it up in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Finished off with a spurt of Whipped Cream, Jan said it was FANTASTIC!

And a couple of days ago, I started with a pot of Trader Joe’s Chocolate Hazelnut brew, added a couple of tablespoons of Hazelnut Creamer, and then grated in some of the Honduran chocolate that we brought back from our cruise.

Then I topped it off with a squirt of Caramel Macchiato Cold Foam.

Jan says we should open our own coffee shop, and I told her I already have a name for it.

We’ll call it Ishmael’s.

Thought For The Day:

Sometimes my problem is that I have really fantastic, but really, really bad ideas.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

January 5, 2011

Laptops and Live Writer . . .

My day started early with a 9:30 panic call from a client who was leaving at 1 pm for a business meeting out of the country and both of her laptops were messed up. She was hoping I could get one of them working before she left.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute.

It took about 3 hours of going thru the system before I finally got one of them working and she left for her meeting a happy camper. The 2nd laptop will have to go back to the dealer since the hard drive is dead and it’s still under warranty.

I finally got home about 3:00 pm and tried to get some more stuff done on the rig. I did manage to get the drain plug loose on the water heater, but since I didn’t have time to shut and drain the hot water I left it at that until tomorrow.

After a nice nap, Jan and I headed out about 5:30 to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Texas Tea Room up in Friendswood, a place Jan and Piper checked out a week or so ago and really liked. Unlike most tea rooms they were also open from 5pm – 9pm Monday thru Friday. But we found out tonight that this is the last week they will be open at night. Apparently they just didn’t get enough business then.

Too Bad. We really like the place and it’s easier for us to go at night.

On a disappointing note, I’m sorry to report that I did not win the $355 Million Mega-Millions prize last night. Two tickets, one sold in Washington and one in Idaho, split the prize.

Bummer! I would have been happy with even a 3-way split.

That’s about it for today.

January 5, 2012

Spoonbills and RAM Sticks . . .

The tide was out this morning so I got some more bird shots right out in front of the rig. I also saw our Roseate Spoonbills, but they flew off before I could get the camera.

I’m always amazed at the wildlife we see in this area.

On another note, I decided to try a better antenna for the Wi-Fi here in the park. The USB Wi-Fi adapter that I use for my desktop in the rig just has one of those 5” stubby antennas, and I wanted to see if I could increase the 2 bars of signal I normally get.

So I picked up one of these Hawking HiGain Wi-Fi Antenna at Fry’s. It’s a little over 12 inches tall and comes with wall mounts if you need them. In my case I just hang it from my crankup TV antenna handle and connect it to my USB card using the supplied 5 ft. cable.

Since this antenna is very directional I wanted to have some way to aim it easily. With a little Googling I found inSSIDer, a free program that does it all.

The instantaneous graph at the bottom lets me turn the Wi-Fi antenna for the strongest signal.

And it does make a difference. I went from two bars to four bars, and occasionally, five bars on my signals. Between the new antenna and the free software, I may now be able to use the Wi-Fi signal at more parks when my Verizon Air Card is marginal.

The program also shows me the type of encryption used and the max speed of each Access Point, and even the manufacturer of the hardware. A really useful program.

Today was busy but not complicated. Leaving the rig about noon, I only went three places. My first stop was Fry’s Electronics to exchange the 4 – 2 GB RAM sticks for 2 – 4 GB sticks to finish upgrading the client’s two new computers.

Then it was on to the client’s office where I installed the new RAM, and then started setting up and configuring the second computer. I’ll probably come back this weekend and install the computers and the new wireless router and get them online.

My last stop was the client’s house where I’ve been fighting the AT&T problem. As I wrote yesterday, AT&T made the Static to Dynamic IP switchover yesterday, so all I had to do was set up their new wireless router and check everything out. I also installed a number of Microsoft updates that were needed, and after one last check, I headed home.

Jan had said we were going to have the leftover fajita beef nachos from Tuesday night at Monterey’s Little Mexico, so I decided we needed some Chicken Tortilla Soup and Queso & Chips to go with it. So I called ahead to Monterey’s and had it ready for me to pick up as I went by.

It made for a very delicious supper.

January 5, 2013

An Honor Delayed . . .

My great-niece Stahlie Calvin posted this news on Facebook.

My Uncle Theo Calvin is being awarded the French Legion of Honor from the Consul General of France. He’s also received several awards that were lost in the shuffle after the war.

The Legion of Honor is France’s most distinguished decoration and is bestowed for acts of bravery during the fight for the liberation of France during World War II.

Theo landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, and fought his way across France.

Here he is with my Aunt Virginia in the summer of 1949 in front of their house in Athens, AL.

Oh, and that’s me he’s holding.

And here he is in 2006.

The Consul General is presenting the award to three other veterans at the same time. You can read more about it here.

http://athensplus.com/VeteransReceiveLegionofHonorAward2012.htm

* * * * *

Jan and I headed out for an early lunch. We figured if we got there early enough we could beat the crowd at Jimmy Changa’s, the new Mexican restaurant we ate at a week or so ago. And we were right. We got there about 11:30 and got seated right away, but by the time we left about an hour later they were on a 45 minute wait.

Jan had the Ground Beef Taco Salad and I had the Mexican Caldo Soup again. Jan said the Taco Salad was delicious, the ground beef very well seasoned.

Leaving the restaurant, we checked out several feed stores and hardware stores in the area looking for deer corn. Jan uses the deer corn to feed the many ducks in the area. But deer season has ended since we last bought any, and so it’s getting hard to find. We’ve got a couple of more places to check before we give up.

Our last stop was at our son Chris’ to see if I could fix a couple of problems with his and Linda’s laptop. Turned out deleting and reloading the printer driver fixed the problem.

We finally got home about 4:30 after another nice, but cold, wet day. And it looks the same for the next several days.

January 5, 2014

A Little Less Blah . . .

but still not back to normal.

But at least I didn’t have to get up at 9:30 this morning.

But we did head out about noon for lunch and some errands. Our first stop was at Jason’s Deli where Jan got her Ham Muffuletta with a cup of Broccoli-Cheese soup, and I got a bowl of Chicken Chili and a side salad. Pretty much the usual for both of us.

Then it was on to the same client I tried to catch yesterday, with pretty much the same result. Called his cell but didn’t get an answer.

Then it was on to Wal-Mart for some things. One of the ‘things’ we were looking for was Hot Chocolate K-Cups for our new Hamilton Beach 2-Way Brewer.

Hamilton Beach 49980A 2-Way Single Serve Brewer and Coffee Maker

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people must have gotten K-Cup brewers for Christmas because no matter where we go, we find the K-Cup coffee selection to be really picked over. At the same time the regular coffee section was well-stocked.

And we still didn’t find any Hot Chocolate K-Cups either.

After another unanswered call to my client, we finally headed home, getting back about 3 PM.  The first thing I did then was to disconnect and drain our shore water line, because we’re looking at 28° tonight and 26° tomorrow night. And having been burned once before in our early RV’ing days, I also disconnected our inline water filter and brought it inside. Once before when I didn’t do this, I found it’s very difficult to actually drain all the water out of one of these filters, and when I left it outside in 20 degree weather it split wide open. So now it comes inside, and we’ll just stay on rig water until Wednesday or Thursday when things warm up.

One thing that was interesting this morning was to watch the front come through. At 10 AM the outside temp here at the rig was 66 degrees. 40 minutes later it was 50 degrees. That’s a fast drop.

January 5, 2015

84 cents a gallon . . .

First up this morning, I called Moen to order a new hose for my Renzo model kitchen faucet.

And as reader Ray McElhenry reminded me, with Moen’s lifetime warranty, they’re sending one out to me one free, and that includes shipping. Nice.

About 2:15 we headed out for the afternoon. Our first stop was the Home Depot about 5 miles down the road. Since I was getting the replacement hose from Moen, I don’t need the ‘Not So’ Universal, ‘Doesn’t’ Fit All Brands replacement hose any more and want to get my $27 back.

Then it was on to the Fry’s Electronics for a few things and also to check out possible new computers for a client. And of course it’s always fun to just walk around the place.

Then we headed back up to The Woodlands to have dinner at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. We got there a few minutes after 4pm, which was perfect. Between 3 and 4pm, Grimaldi’s re-stokes their coal-fired pizza oven, so no pizzas until they’re done.

We had our usual order of a Small Salad which we split.

In fact it would easily feed 4 people,

And we had the large pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, jalapenos, Italian sausage and meatballs.

By getting the large one, we have half of it left over to take home for later.

After a great meal, it was back up to Conroe for stops at Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart for a few things. Jan had planned to pick up a prescription at Sam’s, but it wasn’t ready because they didn’t have enough pills to fill it, so we’ll pick it up tomorrow afternoon.

Then it was on across the Interstate for the pleasant task of getting gas at the Kroger’s. And I say ‘pleasant’ because it cost me only 84.9 cents a gallon. That’s got to be pleasant.

Of course, that was because I’m still getting the $1 a gallon discount from our gift card purchase before Christmas. But even without the $1 discount, $1.849 is nothing to laugh at.

Tomorrow we’ll start wrapping up our two week stay here and get ready to move back to the Colorado River Thousand Trails on Wednesday.

January 5, 2016

Well, It’s Official . . .

I found out last night that Jan and I will be giving our Gate Guarding seminar at the upcoming 56th Escapees Escapade, July 24th – 29th, in Essex Junction, Vermont.

We first gave this seminar, “Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit”, at the 55th Escapade last March in Tucson, AZ, and with another episode of gate guarding under our belt, we’ve got even more good info to pass on.

See You There!

Jan and I headed out for our walk this morning a little after 11, and with the sunshine, 50° temps, and just a little wind, it was about perfect walking weather. The only problem is that we know too many people here. So, between meeting up with Jim and Claudia Horak, Dave and Janice Evans, and Ed and Debi Hurlburt, our minutes/mile rating on Runkeeper was pretty useless.

But we had a great time catching up with everyone, and even better, extended our walk to 1.21 miles, our longest yet. Hopefully in the next few weeks we’ll get back up to 2 miles, where we were a while back.

About 2:30 Jan and I made a trip into Columbus to pick up a few things. I needed a few things from the hardware store, Jan wanted some things from Brookshire Bros. and I wanted to pick up some lottery tickets for the $145 Million Mega Millions drawing tonight and the $450 Million Powerball drawing tomorrow night.

You can’t win if you don’t play.

But before we left the park, we stopped off to say ‘Hi’ to Gordon Pendergast and his wife Merlyn. They’re parked in their 5th wheel up on the ‘A’ loop, but they’re leaving Thursday so we’ll have to catch them back at Lake Conroe for dinner.

Passing the Colorado County Oil Co-op, I saw diesel for $1.85 a gallon, the lowest I’ve seen so far. I’ll probably fill up the next time we’re back over here, and if I’m lucky, it’ll be even cheaper then.

For dinner tonight we were going to finish off the last of the Christmas dinner leftovers, but since they were getting kind of skimpy, Jan wanted to bulk it up with some mashed potatoes, so we decided to try the Ore-Ida Steam n Mash Potatoes.

They turned out to be very easy, and very good. Not just some powder stuff, but these are actual chunks of Russet potatoes that you just steam in the bag in your microwave. Cook for 6 minutes, let them rest for 2 minutes, and pour into a bowl. Then mash and mix with 2/3 cup of milk and 2 Tbsp. of butter. Then serve and eat.

And we both thought these were really good, probably as good as any mashed potatoes we’ve had. Recommended.

I got an email today from Spartan Chassis announcing their new Spartan Mobile App called Spartan Connected Care. Available for both Android and Apple, it will give you diagnostic codes specific to your make, model and year, maintenance schedules, service locations, pre-trip inspection lists, shows & rallies where Spartan reps will be attending, and more. So check it out.

If you have a Freightliner chassis, they have something similar called Freightliner 24/7 Direct.

Tomorrow we’re driving down to the Clear Lake area to spend the day taking care of some errands, and catching up with some friends. Looking forward to it.

January 5, 2017

When I Said I Wanted Some Winter Weather . . .

I didn’t mean like this.

Today the high temp was 68° with a low scheduled tonight of 33. Then tomorrow’s high is 34° with a low of 25.

I do not like the direction this is going.

Jan and I had originally planned to take in a movie as part as our San Antonio day trip today, but that didn’t happen. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night due to the fact that I’m normally working when I was trying to sleep.

So we dropped the early morning start and left the rig about 2pm with our first stop at Lone Star Real Estate to pick up two days work of Amazon deliveries. Then it was on to the Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart in the City Base area of San Antonio for some shopping.

Finishing up there we met our long-time friends Jim and Peri Dean at La Fonda on Main for dinner.

Besides Magic Time Machine, La Fonda on Main is our other go-to place in San Antonio, and it’s another place we been eating since the 1980’s. And the place itself has been open since the 1930’s hosting such notables as Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, Yul Brynner, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and of course, us.

Between the four of us, we all went for something a little different.

Jim went in the fish direction with their Salmon selection,

while Peri went for the vegetarian course with the Sweet Potato Enchiladas.

Jan got her go-to dish, the Chile Relleno,

while I had my usual beef selection with the Carne Asada.

Once again Jan and I only ate about half of our entrees, with the rest to take home. This left us with enough room for Jan and me to share our usual Tres Leches.

But this time we got an upgrade with their new special, Chocolate Tres Leches. And following our lead, Jim and Peri split one too.

Even better.

After spending another hour talking, and then saying our good-byes, and making a pit-stop at the Valero in Floresville, we got home about 8pm.

Passing through Floresville even as full as we were, we drooled as we passed the Whataburger there. This again brought our question about why Kenedy/Karnes City doesn’t have a Whataburger of our own.

At first we wondered if the population was too small, but the K/KC has a combined population of about 6300, plus all the surrounding countryside. This is only about 100 people less than Floresville.

Plus with all the oil stuff going on around here, they’re losing a lot of money from the oil workers. Oil guys loved Whataburger, and some of them eat there every day when they can. And when we’ve been on gates with one nearby, the guys would regularly bring back burgers for Jan and me.

When we stopped to pick up our packages at the real estate office, I asked Nancy Christian, the owner (and the owner of our RV Park) why K/KC doesn’t have a Whataburger. She said, “Because they’re stupid.”

She said that a while back she and her husband had been at the one in Floresville and saw what were obviously some big-wig corporate types visiting the location. So her husband went over and talked to them about it, and was told it sounded interesting and that they’d look into it. But nothing so far. But even then we certainly won’t get one in the next 5 or 6 weeks that we’ll be here. Bummer!

WE WANT OUR WHATABURGER!

January 5, 2018

Settling In Back Home . . .

Jan really relished her first night back in her own bed. She’s getting around better and better all the time.

But her favorite thing was to be able to take a shower again, the first one since Monday morning before she got sick.

About 12:30 Jan got a call from Clear Lake Regional Hospital asking about her recent stay, and also giving her the login info for MyHealthOne, the hospital website area that shows all of the tests done and the results, procedures done, and diagnoses.

Really helpful for Jan since she likes to document everything. We also got the phone number of her urologist so she can set up her appointments for next Wednesday and Friday.

About 4pmwe headed out for dinner at Phở 20 and then HEB for some supplies.

This visit to Phở 20 we both went for something a little different. Or course we did start out with our favorite House Crunch Salads.

Then, both wanting soup of some kind, we got the White Meat Chicken Phở with added veggies.

Normally their Phở comes with the broth, the slices of white meat chicken, and rice vermicelli noodles. Then there’s the garnish on the side.

This gives you jalapenos, cilantro, Thai basil, bean sprouts, and a squeeze of lime juice. All great additions.

After tonight this Phở has become my new favorite dish here. Well, along with the House Crunch Salad, or course. I’ve always liked soups, Hot & Sour at King Food, Chicken Tortilla Soup at Monterey’s, etc., so this is a great addition to my choices.

One thing kind of interesting about Jan’s stay was the nurse anesthesiologist who came by on Tuesday to put a stent in for the anesthesia for Jan’s procedure the next day.

Just talking, she asked if we were from around here. And when I told her that we had a house here, but that we were really full time RV’ers. She turned around with a big smile and gave me a fist bump, saying, “So are we.”

Turns out she’s a contract nurse. She and her husband are semi-snowbirds, spending summers in the New England area and winters down south. But pretty every season is spent in a different area of the country. Then wherever they are, she has no problem getting a job at a local hospital.

Neat!

Looks like the weather this weekend will be nice enough for me to reinstall my rear awning and then take down the big one on the passenger side to take over to Sundowner and pick up the other rear one,

January 5, 2019

Needless To Say . . .

They’re Still Working On It.

Since the last few days had been sunny enough to dry out the Christmas decorations, I took them down this morning so we could take them over to the storage room this afternoon on our way over to the Denny’s for breakfast.

Then it was on to WalMart before coming home.

On the Godaddy front, I’m trying to get the blog moved to a new server. I should know more tomorrow.

Stay Tuned.

January 5, 2020

Beware The Caps Lock Key . . .

Jan and I had a nice quite day at the rig, not doing much of anything. Very nice.

About 4pm we headed over to Dickinson to have dinner once again at Los Ramirez Mexican Restaurant. And I think we’re just about at the point where we can just sit down and say, “The Usual”, since we always get the same thing.

Jan gets her Pechuga Rellena,

but without the rice.

So that leaves her with Shrimp, and Broccoli. covered with a large Chicken Breast topped with Melted Cheese. And it’s not just a few shrimp hiding out under there, but an entire school.

I of course got my usual Beef Fajita Taco Salad.

For some reason though they look at me funny since I don’t eat the taco shell, just the good stuff inside. I think the shell has about as many calories in it as all the goodies inside.

Then after dinner we drove over to Nassau Bay to check in on a friend of ours who was having printer problems. And of course as it often happens, it all worked fine while I was there.

This has happened often enough over the years that I’ve often thought about having some of those life-size cut-outs made of me, glaring. Then I can rent them out to clients to stand next to their computer so I can intimidate it into correct operation.

Three times in the last few weeks I’ve had clients called me with login problems. And in two of the three cases it was because they had accidentally pressed the Cap Lock key without realizing it. So they were typing in their password incorrectly without knowing it.

This is why I really don’t like password fields that don’t allow you to either show the password, or at least have the Eyeball in the field so you can double-check it.

In the third case, they had a flakey key on their keyboard which they didn’t notice. If you ever suddenly have a problem logging into something, go to Notepad or some other text editor to be sure that what you think you’re typing is what you’re actually typing.

January 5, 2021

Back In The Groove . . .

Although we had a great time this past weekend, it was great to be back home and back in the groove.

Our new (to us) Jeep Liberty performed flawlessly, with the only problem being the missing Cruise Control. There isn’t one.

Apparently for some reason, a lot of Jeep Liberty’s are ordered without Cruise Control. Some many in fact that there are aftermarket kits available to retrofit it, kits that look just like the factory version. So I’m looking into that.

One reason is to help keep my speed down. When we were coming back down US290 where the speed limit is 75mph, that’s when I really missed it. I would have just set it for 79 or so, and cruised along.

Otherwise you find yourself pacing a car out in front of you, holding a safe distance behind. But here in Texas that can be a little dicey. At one point I had been following a big red diesel dually pickup for about 20 miles, when I looked down and found I was doing 91mph!

I really need a Cruise Control!

I’ve had several purchase inquiries about the Wind Chimes that our son Chris makes, both the smaller one he made for Jan,

or the much bigger one he made for himself.

This one gongs like Big Ben.

Jan and I headed out this afternoon with our first stop at the Three Acres Food Truck Park, and the New England Lobster Truck, for Clam Chowder, Deep Fried Nutella Sandwiches (they were out of the PB&J’s), and an order of Fried Mushrooms. Delicious as always.

Then it was on up to the office to pick up some Amazon orders that came, and then on over to WalMart for a few things, including a couple of these nice Adirondack chairs to put out on our patio to listen to Jan’s new Wind Chimes.

Really nice chairs, and only $30. Very nice.

January 5, 2022

Another Data Point . . .

Looks like our RV handyman will be here about 10 tomorrow morning to pull out our captain’s chair. He thinks it should only take a hour or so. It’ll be good to get done with this.

* * * * *

I guess my first question would be, WHY?

Scientists Train Goldfish To Drive On Land In Tiny Cars

Could your next Uber driver be of the fishy persuasion?

January 5, 2023

And We’ve Got Leftovers . . .

We were out the door this morning by about 10am, heading up to Conroe to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt at Vernon’s Kuntry Katfish for our monthly get-together.

One thing nice about Vernon’s is that they bring you out a plate of Hushpuppies and Pickled Green Tomatoes first thing, kind of their version of Chips and Salsa, I guess.

Jan and I both got pretty much versions of the same thing, the Seafood Platter,

with Katfish (of course), Shrimp, Oysters, Scallops, and a Crab, along with Cole Slaw, Pinto Beans, and Fries.

Delicious, and we had leftovers!

Saturday we’re heading up to Brandi’s in Katy so I do some updates to Landon’s Ender 3D printer.

I’m constantly amazed at some of the things that other people are printing on this printer

Really Neat!

January 5, 2024

Under The Weather . . .

Both of us.

A couple of days ago Jan developed a nagging cough, along with a bit of runny nose, coupled with a general ‘blah’ feeling.

For my part, I woke up in the middle of the night with another attack of BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo). I rolled over and suddenly felt like I was on a wild carnival ride. And when I tried to get up about 8am, I had to hold up to things to keep from falling over. So I went back to bed, only getting up around 10 to call into work.

But by this evening Jan’s cough had pretty much disappeared and I could walk without bouncing off the walls. So tomorrow looks to be better.

Besides my vertigo, the other interesting thing that happened last night, or this morning, really, was a really heavy thunderstorm that rolled through about 4am, ending up giving us over 1.1” of rain. Doesn’t seem to have hurt the new concrete pads.

As far as tomorrow, we’ll see how it goes.

* * * * *

News You Can Can’t Use:

There are 340 canine stylists in Hollywood.