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I always have a Backup Plan.

Here’s the question that I’ve put out on the Net:

Where is the fuse for the rear roof vent fan located in a 1999 American Eagle NS?

And here’s what I’ve found so far:

For a 1999 Fleetwood American Eagle NS, the fuse for the rear roof vent fan (bathroom or bedroom area) is located in the main 12-volt house fuse panel at the foot of the bed. [1, 2]

Where to Find It

1. Locate the Panel: Look at the base/foot of the bed box. You will see a metal or plastic access door near the floor. [1, 2, 3]

2. Open the Cover: Press or unlatch the door. You will find the 120-volt AC house breakers on the left and a row of 12-volt DC blade-style fuses on the right. [1]

3. Identify the Fuse: Check the diagram printed on the inside of the door panel. The roof vents are normally labeled under “Vents,” “Aux Fans,” or grouped with the “Bath” / “Bedroom” overhead lights. [1]

Troubleshooting Tips if it’s Still Not Working

If you pull the fuse and it looks fine, or if you change it and still don’t have power, check these common 1999 Eagle quirks:

• The Built-In Fan Fuse: Most Fantastic Vents or MaxxAir fans of this era have a small black screw-cap fuse holder built directly into the faceplate of the fan housing on the ceiling. Twist it counter-clockwise to check the glass cylinder fuse inside.

• The Top-of-Dash Panel: If your model has a modified layout and the circuit isn’t at the foot of the bed, the secondary 12V house fuses are under the lift-up dash panel right above the steering wheel. Unsnap the quarter-turn fasteners near the windshield to lift it. [1, 2]

• Wall Switch: Make sure the master wall switch near the bathroom door or vanity is turned ON; if the wall switch is off, the ceiling unit won’t receive power even with a good fuse.

As I said, I have a backup plan, and that is to run a 12 VDC wire up the wall from the bathroom light switch to connect directly to the fan.

I’ll cover it with a strip of wire conduit like this.

* * * * * * *

I’ve pretty much got our upcoming October Illinois/Alabama trip

We’ll leave on Wednesday, Oct. 14th, and be home Sunday, Nov. 1st.

* * * * * * *

With all the fuss about high temps, this is from today’s blog back in 2016.

Summer is Here in Texas!

Well, the high here today was 95°, with a 97 ° forecast for tomorrow. And then it’s 8 straight days of 99° or above.

More likely ‘above’, knowing Texas in the summertime.

So far this year, we’ve had one day at 93°, with most at 90-91°. In fact, we’ve got two days coming up next week in the high 80’s.

* * * * * * *

As I mentioned, a couple of days ago, I switched our FireStickTV from the park WiFi over to our new StarLink system, and the extra speed showed up pretty quickly.

Normally, when we were fast-forwarding through commercials, 15 seconds at a time, the mini display that shows where you are goes blank until the data catches. But that’s not a problem now.

But now the data flow is fast enough to keep up.

* * * * * * *

Tomorrow Jan’s got some lab work before seeing her oncologist next week. Just a yearly follow-up on her breast cancer back in 2014.

Her mammogram came back clean earlier this Spring.

Then it’s Snooze for lunch.

Thought For The Day:

Just to Clarify, As If It’s Not Already Obvious, I’m Built For Comfort, Not For Speed.

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2009 – Jamestown and Yorktown…and Yorktown

2011 – I’ve got Good News and Bad News

2017 – What A Difference 34? Years Makes

2021 – CrimeStoppers And Me

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

July 2, 2009

Jamestown and Yorktown…and Yorktown

Today was our last full day in Williamsburg, VA, and we wanted to tour the Jamestown Settlement of 1607, you know, Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, and all that.

And we also wanted to tour the Yorktown Battlefield, one of the last big battles of the Revolutionary War.

But first, we had to move our coach.

When we made our reservations, we knew we might have to move into an overflow site for our last day, since they were full. We were hoping they would have a cancellation so we wouldn’t have to move, but no such luck.

The overflow site had 30-amp power and water, but no sewer. No problem for just one day.

We moved with no problems, until I tried to plug into the power connection. As soon as my EMS (Electrical Management System) tried to put power to the coach, it shut down because the voltage dropped to 98 volts. I went to the office and told them about the problem, and they said they’d look at it while we were gone. So we headed out to the Jamestown Settlement about 10 miles down the road.

They have a very nice complex here, consisting of a museum/exhibit building,

A replica Powhatan Indian village,

Replicas of the 3 ships that the colonists used to come to Jamestown,

The “Susan Constant”

The “Godspeed” and the “Discovery”

and a replica of the settlement fort itself.

Jamestown Settlement

Jamestown Settlement Buildings

The biggest building in the place was the church, which was also the community meeting area.

Jamestown Church

I can only imagine that the pews were so hard and uncomfortable to keep you from falling asleep during the services.

Jamestown Church Pew

Jamestown Dedication

After lunch at the Red City Chinese Buffet, we headed out to the Yorktown Battlefield.

And then we discovered a slight problem. There are actually two Yorktowns.

One is called Yorktown Victory Center. This is the one that is advertised everywhere, and that we had bought tickets to when we bought our Williamsburg and Jamestown tickets.

But when we got to the area, we found that the actual Yorktown Battlefield was not the Victory Center, but was a National Park run by the National Park Service. And of course, had a separate admission fee.

But it was really worth it, walking the grounds, climbing the earthworks, and looking out over the actual battlefield.

Here, Washington, Lafayette, and the French Navy offshore surrounded the British Army under Gen. Cornwallis, and pounded them to pieces with cannons and mortars, and then attacked the British lines until Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000 troops on Oct. 19, 1781.

This was the last big battle of the Revolutionary War, although the War itself dragged on for another 2 years.

We did have an interesting talk from a guide about living and dying during the Revolutionary War. He talked about the clothing the soldiers wore, the food they ate, the weapons they used, and the medical care they got, but probably wished they hadn’t.

While we listened to the guide, a furry visitor came out of the bushes beside us. The large groundhog looked around and then started grazing on the grass. He didn’t seem too worried until about a dozen screaming kids went running for him, and then he skedaddled back into the thick bushes.

And finally, we drove the 7-mile loop that circles all the different positions and battle areas.

After this, we headed over to the Yorktown Victory Center, which turned out to be basically a museum complex about the Battle of Yorktown, but not really near the battleground.

They did have an interesting timeline display covering the lead-up to the Revolutionary War. The other thing they had was a replica of the town of Yorktown.

After we finished up at the 2nd Yorktown, we headed back to the coach, stopping off at Hooters for another hot wing fix.

Arriving back at the coach, we found we still had power problems. They apparently hadn’t sent anyone to look at the problem. After I talked with the office, they said they’d send someone.

In the meantime, I started to try to improvise something by pulling power through an extension cord from a nearby empty site.

But while I was doing that, I started up the generator to run the A/C’s because the coach was pretty hot. I hadn’t done it earlier because the people at the next site were in a tent, and my generator exhaust was pointed right into their tent. But they had gone out for the evening, so it was OK.

The first plug I tried wouldn’t work because it had a reversed hot/neutral, and my EMS wouldn’t accept it.

The 2nd plug I tried seemed to work for a few minutes, and then suddenly my EMS unit went ‘WHOOOMP”! and just died.

Great! Now I couldn’t get any power to the coach from the shore power.

And now the generator sounded different. In checking, I found that I had lost half the feed from the generator, so some outlets wouldn’t work, and only the front A/C was getting power. This just gets better and better!

I had heard there was a way to easily bypass the EMS, but I didn’t know how, and it was too late (10 pm) to call anyone. And of course, the neighbors next door showed up, so I had to shut down the generator.

So we would have to try to make it through the night using just the vent fans to keep us cool. Luckily, it was supposed to be fairly nice, so hopefully, it wouldn’t be a problem.

I still don’t know what happened to the EMS, but I’ll try to find out more tomorrow.

July 2, 2010

Wet, wet, wet…

Well, we really lucked out. When I went down to the park office this morning, they said that with all the rain we’ve had and are supposed to have, we didn’t have to stay on day-to-day, but could go ahead and sign up through next Wednesday. Yeah!

With the 4-5 inches of rain we’ve had the last few days, I’m really glad we’re parked on gravel, rather than grass or dirt. The way the ground is soaked, it might be fun trying to get out of here.

We had put out our ‘Honey Wagon’ placard on the windshield, so we were happy to see them show up early this morning. We’re allowed to run our grey water out on the ground, but our black tank was starting to get kind of full.

We picked up Gina about 1 pm and drove into San Marcos for lunch and shopping. Lunch was at Furr’s Buffet. Furr’s used to be a cafeteria, but is now a buffet, even though you still go through a line. You can go back through the line as many times as you want, though.

Next, we went to Sam’s Club for our prescriptions and some other stuff. Leaving there, I ran into Lowe’s to pick up a few more electrical box connectors,

Then it was on to Walmart for more shopping.

Coming back to Gina’s about 5:30 pm, we came across the large flock of turkeys we saw the other day. This cellphone photo isn’t the best, but it does show how large the flock is. I counted over 30 before they disappeared into the tall grass. There appeared to be 4 or 5 adults with the rest being young ones.

We finally got back to the rig about 6 and were done for the day.

July 2, 2011

I’ve got Good News and Bad News . . .

The operation was a success, but the patient died.

I related yesterday about my electrical problem. Everything was still pointing to my Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS).

Power in an RV can come from 3 different places: Shore Power, the onboard diesel generator, or the battery/inverter system.

The ATS is the unit that decides where the power is coming from, and then switches to that source to power things in the coach. The generator takes precedence. Even if we’re plugged into shore power, if the generator starts, the ATS will switch to it.

Research last night said the go-to guy on these units is Kevin Mallory with CruisingAmericaRV in Celina, OH. As it turns out, I know Kevin. We met at a Rally in Celina two years ago.

Called him and he answered on a 4th of July weekend Saturday. Great!

He led me through taking the unit apart and checking the 5 fuses down at the bottom of the unit.

Here’s the rat nest I was working in. The panel with all the relays is hinged on the left side and lifts up. The 5 fuses are underneath there.

But as I was threading my hand down through the cables, I noticed that one of the two 2″ x 2″ transformers on the circuit was sitting sideways, hanging off the edge of the board.

I picked it up, and it was loose. It was a fairly heavy transformer, only held on the board by the 4 small leads soldered to the board.

Bad design. Something this heavy should have been zip-tied to the board.

At this point, I didn’t bother checking the fuses.

Here’s the culprit.

Kevin had already told me that the only way to bypass the transfer switch to get power to the coach was to undo the shore power coming and the transfer switch output to the breaker panel and splice them together.

And that worked!

Now that we have power again, I’m probably going to rewire things using plugs and receptacles so that I can manually switch between shore power and generator when I need to, just by unplugging one cable and plugging in another.

So instead of having an ATS, I will have an MTS (Manual Transfer Switch).

Me!

That’s the Good News! We have power back.

The bad news is that now my Inverter has died. Since it’s part of the same unit as the ATS, I don’t know if it’s part of the same problem or what.

As I said yesterday, it’s always something.

Once again, kudos to Kevin Mallory of CruisingAmericaRV for helping me out on a Holiday Weekend.

July 2, 2013

Waiting for Godo . . . err, Pizza.

This morning started off with our usual coffee, but not much else. Neither of us was planning on catching any seminars this morning, so we just took it easy most of the morning.

About 1 pm, I took Jan over to the Crafts building for one of her classes while I came back to the rig to take a look at why our Starlight’s Smart Light RV Porch Light isn’t working. I know it’s not the bulb because the status lights aren’t blinking.

These Smart Lights are really nice. They replace the patio/porch lights on the side of your rig and are motion-sensitive and light-sensitive. You just leave it turned on, and if anyone comes near your rig, the light comes on. So if you are coming back to your rig after dark, as soon as you get close, the light comes on to show you the way. In the daytime, only the status lights blink.

So, getting my ladder out of the truck, I grabbed my multimeter and screwdriver, and climbed to pull the light off so I could check the voltage coming into the unit. And as it turned out, the 12-volt line was good. So the Smart Light was bad. This is unusual. I installed this one in 2010, and mine are 5 years old and working fine.

So I took it all the way off, cut the wires, and took the unit over to the rally vendor area to see what he wanted to do with it. And after we talked it over, he went down to the Coil and Wrap booth and got a new one for me to install.

The new ones are really nice, with a much brighter LED bulb and a more sensitive scan pattern. Getting back to the rig, it only took me about 15 minutes to get the new one installed and ready to go.

A little before 4 pm, I drove back over to the Cam-Plex to pick up Jan after her classes. While we were there, we talked to Chris and Charles Yust of C & C RV Insurance to set up a place and time for dinner tonight with us.

So, about 5:45, we all headed down to Old Chicago Pizza again. Since it was so good the other night, we wanted to try it again. And it was trying.

We all got there a little after 6, just in time to miss Happy Hour. We got seated in the outside patio area, placed our orders, and talked over the day while we waited for our food.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Our food finally showed up about 7:15, an hour and 15 minutes after we got there. It turned out that our order ticket and our food got separated in the kitchen, and we went hungry. But when it finally came, it was still good, and we did have a lot of good conversation while we were waiting.

Even better, the manager comped part of our checks. So it pretty much worked out OK.

July 2, 2014

Back Home . . .

As great as sleeping in late in our own bed for the first time in 5 days was, Jan still woke up with a migraine. Of course, taking her Sumatriptan dampens the migraine down fairly quickly, but she’ll still feel kind of washed out the rest of the day.

And then of course, there may be the 2nd and 3rd day rebound headaches. We’ll see how it goes.

In the latest example of extreme global warming, the high here in Elkhart today was 74 with an expected low tonight of 53, and tomorrow, 71/47. And that goes on for the next several days.

Because it was so nice, Mister spent most of the afternoon outside sleeping in one of our chairs. He’ll stay out for several hours and then come and bang on the screen door. When we let him in, he’ll visit the litter box, grab a snack and some water, and then bang on the screen to be let out again.

Smart Cat.

About 4:30, we headed out for one last visit to Flipping Cow, our new favorite burger place here in Elkhart.

I debated having the Hunka Hunka Burger Love this time. It has two Steakburger patties, peanut butter, jalapeno jelly, smoked bacon, and pepper jack cheese on a toasted pretzel bun, but I ended up going with the same one I got last time, the Stella Moo.

It has two steak burger patties topped with smoked beef brisket, jalapeno bacon, onion straws, pepper jack cheese, and Alehouse BBQ sauce on a toasted wheat brioche bun. Then I added tomatoes, jalapenos, spicy mayo, and sweet heat pickles, and this time I got the ‘Cow Chips’ instead of Fries.

It’s easy to see (and taste) why this burger was voted the best burger in Elkhart County and is one of two finalists for the best burger in the Michiana area. I know which one got my vote.

We had talked about making a DQ run after dinner, but we were too full of burgers, so we put it off for another time.

July 2, 2015

K-Cups and Colorado River

I think I’ve finally got a handle on the whole Arizona CCW thing. Looks like all I have to do is submit the paperwork with a photo, two fingerprint cards, a copy of my Utah CCW, and some money, and then just wait a while. Almost easy, Peazy.

Yesterday morning, when I was making coffee, I accidentally broke a chunk out of the bottom of the carafe of our Hamilton Beach Flexbrew coffee maker.

We got this 2 or 3 years ago when we needed a new coffee maker, and since we wanted to also try the whole K-Cup thing, this one seemed a good choice. But using it for the next several months confirmed what I had already thought.

At least as far as I’m concerned (Jan too, for that matter), it is impossible to make a good cup of coffee using a K-Cup. It’s always too bitter. I tried a bunch of different brands of coffee in the K-Cups, all with no luck. But it turns out it wasn’t just the K-Cups.

The Flexbrew has an option so that you can put your own coffee grounds in a K-Cup replacement so you can make a single cup of your own coffee. But what I found was that, using the same amount of coffee and water, if I used the K-Cup side, it was bitter and not very good.

But if I ran that same amount of coffee and water through the regular brewing mechanism, it came out tasting as good as usual. So for that reason, I haven’t even used the K-Cup side in over a year.

So after I cleaned up the glass, I checked Amazon to see how much a new carafe would cost. And it was about $30. Wow! So since we were going to Wal-Mart this afternoon, I thought I’d wait to see what they had.

And what I quickly found out is that I could buy a whole new coffee maker for a lot less than a new carafe. In fact, they had this Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Programmable, normally $28, for less than $20 on a 4th of July Rollback.

And this one also had the brew strength selector that we liked on the Flexbrew. So we came home with a new coffee maker that made us great coffee this morning.

It seems like I’m always being surprised by how Wal-Mart takes care of its customers. Back last Friday, when we got home from a Wal-Mart run, I found that we were missing a couple of items. Since they were the last two items rung up and they weren’t really big, I figured they were just left at the bottom of a bag and didn’t make it into our cart.

We didn’t get back to WM until yesterday, so I took the receipt to Customer Service to see if I could get my $9 back. When I told the guy what had happened, he turned around, grabbed a large file card box, and then, flipping through it, found a copy of my receipt.

When a customer leaves any items at the checkout, the receipt for them is turned over to Customer Service to wait for them to come back. When I asked, he did say that even without the receipt, they would refund the money, unless it was a big-screen TV or something. Nice service.

Later in the morning, I spent time on the phone making reservations for our next couple of weeks after we leave here this coming Monday. Our first night will be in Sun Valley, AZ, then 2 nights in Albuquerque and 2 nights in Amarillo, and then 4 nights in Pauls Valley, OK.

After that, we don’t have a hard date until August 14th at the Colorado River TT for Landon’s birthday, so the in-between time is still up in the air.

Wrapping up for today, my great-niece Stahlie has put up a new website for kids who don’t really like history. Called Adventurous History, it looks like she’s off to a great start with a very nice-looking site.

Besides being a real history buff, she’s also a great artist.

Keep checking back to her site as she adds new material.

July 2, 2016

Summer is Here in Texas!

Well, the high here today was 95°, with a 97 ° forecast for tomorrow. And then it’s 8 straight days of 99° or above.

More likely ‘above’, knowing Texas in the summertime.

One thing I’ve noticed here at the Colorado River TT this weekend is that it’s not nearly as full as I expected for a long holiday weekend. Of course, I haven’t checked down along the river, but up here at the top of the hill, it’s not nearly as busy as I’ve seen it on a normal weekend during the last couple of months.

Of course, since we’re usually not here during this part of the summer, I don’t know what’s actually normal for now anyway.

After yesterday’s post about the new The Momentum Machines Autonomous Grill Master that makes 400 burgers an hour, blog reader Richard Schell wondered if I thought this might be a solution to all my problems with our orders at the Whataburger up in Carthage while we were gate guarding last year.

I said it certainly came to mind, especially since we’ve had mistakes at both the Whataburger in Columbus and La Grange. At some point, you might begin to think that the common factor here might be us.

But when we’re in Conroe, we eat at Culver’s a lot, and they’ve never messed up our order. Not once. So it’s not us.

Landon and his family are up in OK spending the holiday weekend with Lowell’s parents, so Landon’s getting his fill of ‘Granny’ time, his name for Lowell’s mother. (Jan’s ‘Landon name’ is ‘Nana’)

So today, Landon and Granny got to spend some time together at Chuck E. Cheese.

Looks like fun.

July 2, 2017

What A Difference 34? Years Makes

Jan was still a little under the weather, so we bowed out on watching Landon play Hockey down in the Sugarland area, but we did get this photo of Landon and his cousin, Gwen.

Then, afterward, they saw the new Despicable Me 3 movie. Jan and I are hoping to see it soon, too.

Friday, when everyone went to San Antonio, they had a great time doing the Riverwalk and, of course, the Alamo.

Otherwise, we didn’t do much at all today, with Jan mostly reading while I worked on the new knife website.

It’s coming along, but slowly, due to the large number of PayPal cart buttons that have to be created and installed. Also, still waiting on some new photos and answers to some questions from the client.

Back around 1983 or so, Jan’s sister Debbie, her husband Jim, and the kids Jason, Tana, and Christina came down to visit us in Friendswood. While they were there, we got this photo of our kids and Debbie and Jim’s.

Left to right: Tana, Chris, Jason, Brandi, Christina

Well, a couple of days ago, the kids surprised us with this redo.

Especially funny is Tana with the same blank expression on her face.

Really neat, and a wonderful surprise.

Not sure about tomorrow yet. We may go into Katy to have breakfast with everyone before they head for home. But we’ll have to see how the timing works out.

July 2, 2018

Hotwiring . . .

I was up kind of early this morning, especially the morning after a long trip day, but I had a lot to do.

First up was a call to the Onan Tech Support guy to follow up with some more questions, only to find out that he was out all week for the 4th holiday. Bummer! But, Google being my friend, I found another Tech Support number and gave it a call

The new guy was a lot of help, answered all my questions, wasn’t talking on a crappy speakerphone that kept cutting in and out, and wasn’t nearly as curmudgeonly as the first guy.

He confirmed that I should be seeing 12VDC on the line coming from the controller box to the governor actuator, and that if I didn’t, it would keep the genset from starting and/or running.

So, getting off the phone, I went outside to unbutton the generator and find out what I had on that line. And it turned out to be no voltage at all.

Well, this brightened my day, since I thought I had a workaround for this possibility. One that might get me running. Since the actuator needed 12 volts, I’d just give it 12 volts directly.

So, using a couple of heavy-duty alligator clip leads, I hotwired it with 12 volts coming from the power connection on the back of the solenoid, and the other lead loose so I could touch it to ground to energize the actuator box.

And a trial run produced a loud ‘clunk’ from the box that I hadn’t been hearing on previous tests. Things were looking up.

But not for long. When I had Jan crank it over, nothing had changed. Just ru-ru-ru.

Oh well. It’s back to the drawing board, or the phone, as it were.

By now it was about 2 pm, so I got cleaned up, and Jan and I drove next door to visit my Aunt Janis, who owns this RV park, along with her son Wes

We were happy to hear that another of her sons, Jimmy and his wife Beth, were visiting from Florida.

I didn’t get a good photo of Beth. It came out too dark to use.

In one of those strange coincidences, we found out several years ago that Jimmy had gone to school in the 70’s with my client back in Houston. Small world.

Finally, about 5:30, we said our goodbyes and headed over to Huntsville to have dinner at Rosie’s Cantina, a place we always eat at at least once when we’re here.

We were kind of surprised to find the place so busy on a Monday night, but then realized this is essentially a holiday week with the 4th being on Wednesday.

I had the Beef Fajitas for One and had leftovers. Really good, with the meat tender and flavorful.

Jan had her usual Pollo Loco.

Also very good.

Tomorrow it’s back on the phone with Onan, and more relative visits.

July 2, 2019

So That’s What It Is . . .

Today would have been a good day to stay at home, since it poured down all night, and into this morning, and afternoon. But we needed groceries, and of course, wanted lunch at Snooze as usual.

Don’t know if a lot of people were taking this week off, but Snooze wasn’t nearly as busy as it is normal on a Tuesday, but the better for us. Snooze is one of those places that will text our cellphone when your table is ready, and I left my phone back at the rig.

And of course, Jan seldom carries her phone with her anyway.

When we had breakfast at Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Table, Jan got her usual Avocado Toast, but she was kind of disappointed in Magnolia Table’s version vs. the version she gets at Snooze.

Here’s Joanna’s version,

and here’s what she gets at Snooze.

And yes, at $9.50, Joanna’s is about $3 cheaper, but Jan thought it didn’t really measure up to their other dishes.

Next up was a quick stop by the office, and then across the street to the H.E.B for more of that delicious Lola Savannah Texas Pecan Coffee.

Then it was off to Wal-Mart for the majority of our groceries. I had hoped that the prescriptions I had put in to refill would be ready, but No.

Both Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club recently updated their apps, including their prescription renewals. But in doing so, they seemed to have really screwed up our accounts.

Jan and I had separate accounts with both stores, but now our accounts have been combined in some cases, and other past prescriptions no longer appear in our histories.

It worked fine before, so why do they keep having to ‘improve’ it?

Just leave well enough alone. Please.

Then our last stop was at Kroger’s for some of Jan’s favorite Sugar-Free Bread and Butter pickles.

And of course, once we were on our way home, it started pouring down once again. But luckily, by the time we got back to the rig, it had tapered off to a light drizzle.

So That’s What It Is.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been under the weather with a lot of back/leg pain. I had attributed it to lifting our truck’s wheel/tire combos back into place after doing the brake job on the front wheels a couple of weeks ago.

But the more I thought about it, I realized that I’ve actually had this same problem for years. And it’s probably due to one of my many misadventures during my wild and misspent youth.

And according to my ophthalmologist, that same misadventure is probably also behind the Fuch’s Dystrophy problem with my left eye.

But I was finally able to put a name to it. It sounded like Sciatica.

And looking over the 10 Symptoms of Sciatica online, I have approximately 8.5 of them. Luckily, I don’t suffer from #10, which is the complete loss of bladder and bowel control.

Jan’s also happy about this, too.

So now I’ll try to get an appointment with my doctor for next week.

July 2, 2021

Nobody . . .

I’ve now got a timeline laid out for our Rib Fiesta this weekend, starting Saturday with cutting up the rib racks into 4 rib sections, powdering them in the rub/brown sugar/salt mixture, placing them in vacuum bags, adding 3 drops of Wright’s Applewood Smoke, and then sealing them up.

Then I’ll marinate them in the fridge overnight before setting them up in the cooker Sunday afternoon for the 24-hour cooking cycle. To speed things up, I’ll start off using hot water from the faucet, which at 130° will give it a big jumpstart up to our 150° cooking temp, rather than starting at the normal 80°.

Then, about 30 minutes before the 24 hours are up on Monday afternoon, I’ll fire up our Weber out on the patio, and the ribs will go on the grill for basting with sauce for a final char.

Hopefully, they’ll look somewhat like this.

Going into work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker on a car talking about stopping crime. Which made me think about Crimestoppers.

Nowadays, they’re pretty much known for offering rewards for tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of criminals whose crimes are selected and highlighted on their online pages.

But back in the 1990-2000’s they were also known for the crime reenactments that were shown all over television. They used actors from local colleges and theater groups for the criminal stand-ins, but they finally shut this down due to a problem.

People would recognize the actors on the street and report THEM to the police, getting them arrested, not the real criminals.

But anyway, back in about 2003, I had left Tech Services at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) and was now Webmaster for the School of Business there. And somehow I got roped into doing one of these.

Hopefully, it wasn’t typecasting, but I was the guy picking up young girl hitchhikers, and then raping and killing them. My victim du jour was a cute redheaded student whom I had worked with on several projects before, so I knew her pretty well.

The premise was that I would be driving along and then pick her up. I then would reach over, lock the doors, put my hand on her leg, and say, “Nobody rides for free”. (And no, I didn’t write this script).

Then the camera would cut to her terrified face.

We ran over this a couple of times, working on camera angles, etc., before we did a take for real.

When we were rehearsing, I had always put my hand on her knee since she was wearing shorts. But when we did the take, and I put my hand on her knee, and before the camera cut to her leg, I guess she wanted to make things a little more realistic, so she reached down and slid my hand up her bare leg almost to her crotch.

Startled, but trying to keep going, I leaned over, and, in my best menacing voice, said my lines.

But it came out as, “Nobodwy Wides Fowr Fewre“, said in an Elmer Fudd squeak.

And the laughter went on for almost 10 minutes. Every time it tapered off, someone would look at my bright red face, and it would all start over again.

It wasn’t too long after this, and maybe because of this, that all these video reenactments went away.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get a copy of this, so I’m hoping it’s lost forever.

I mentioned a couple of months ago how the magnolia trees around here were blooming like crazy, more so than I remember in the past. And I wondered if the big freeze back in February had anything to do with it.

And now it seems that maybe the same thing is happening with the crepe myrtle around here.

Again, I don’t know if the freeze had anything to do with it, but I don’t remember them being like this before.

July 2, 2022

A Proud Nana and PaPa . . .

Brandi sent over the results of Landon’s 6th-grade STAAR (State of Texas Academic Readiness) testing for the Spring 2022 period.

In Reading, he scored an 1852 against a state average of 1589, rating him in the 99th Percentile and the Master Grade Level.

And in Math, he scored a 1772 against a state average of 1619, rating him in the 88th Percentile, and again at Master Grade Level.

Way to go, Landon!

About 1 pm, Jan and I headed over to Gator’s Bar & Grill for lunch once again. We were just here last Tuesday, when Jan fell in love with their new Keto Birria Cheesy Cheesy Cheesy Pizza.

So we were back here just four days later for more.

For me, I went back to a past favorite, the Blackened Chicken Sandwich with Bacon, PepperJack Cheese, and Texas Toothpicks.

And of course, their delicious Waffle Fries.

And unlike last time, we were both too full to split one of their Keto Blueberry Muffins.

Next up, I dropped Jan off to get her hair done, while I went by the local UPS store to send back the wrong window regulator that I got from Amazon the other day. And by coincidence, the right one was delivered this afternoon.

So hopefully later this weekend.

Then it was on over to HEB for this next week’s stuff.

Another day, another Amazon gadget.

Universal Sink Stopper

Came across this replacement sink stopper and ordered one for our bathroom sink. It replaces the regular insert and works a lot better. And it doesn’t leak down like the old one.

Though this is also posted below, I thought I put it up here too.

Back around 1983 or so, Jan’s sister Debbie, her husband Jim, and the kids Jason, Tana, and Christina came down to visit us in Friendswood. While they were there, we got this photo of our kids and Debbie and Jim’s.

Left to right: Tana, Chris, Jason, Brandi, Christina

Well, a couple of days ago the kids surprised us with this redo.

Especially funny is Tana with the same blank expression on her face.

Really neat, and a wonderful surprise.

July 2, 2023

Well, This IS Texas After All . . .

After a quick stop at the Alvin Home Depot for a couple of more bolts for my latest project, lunch today was at the Kelley’s Country Cookin’ right down the road. And we both went with something new this time.

Jan got the Sunday Special Texas-Sized Chicken Fried Chicken, along with Green Beans, Buttered Carrots, and Mashed Potatoes.

For my part, I stayed with the whole Chicken Fried concept, getting the Super Texas-Sized (yes, that’s the way it’s listed) Chicken Fried Steak, starting with a Salad,

and then the piece de resistance,

and a big plate of fries.

All Texas-Sized, of course.

Delicious, and I think we had more to take home than we ate here.

Next up was our usual Sunday HEB stop, but a different one this time, the one over in Friendswood for a change.

Then, coming home, I made a stop to cash in some small PowerBall and MegaMillions tickets to buy more.

As I had hoped, putting up the Reflectix on the windshield and side windows made a big difference, letting the A/C actually cycle on and off, even though the outside temp was in the mid-90s.

Finishing up, what would the 4th of July be without BBQ, so tomorrow we’re having lunch at the Rudy’s BBQ up in Webster, planning on getting enough extra to have plenty leftover for Tuesday, the actual 4th. That way, we won’t have to leave the rig at all and get out in all the holiday traffic.

July 2, 2024

A Trackball Mouse. . .

Today being a Stay-At-The-Rig day, I spent the morning assembling a new storage unit for Jan. It’s a CubiCubi 5-drawer dresser, and it will go between the refrigerator and the dining table. Up until recently, a chair was in that space, but the dresser is a perfect replacement.

A really nice unit.

And we had a couple of things come in from Amazon today.

First up was a trackball mouse.

Back in the day, Logitech made a great one, and I used one for a good while until it finally died. But when I went to buy another one, I found Logitech no longer made that model. And according to numerous reviews, the replacement was an unmitigated piece of C**P.

So, pulling the dead one out of my junk box, I was able to repair it enough to keep it limping around for another few years until its demise was permanent.

But now there’s this one.

Nulea Trackball Mouse

And according to the reviews, it’s a worthy replacement. And after using it for a few hours, I concur.

The other order was a repeat, these Rechargeable LED Flashlights.

We ordered a pair of these about 3 months ago and really liked them.

Though at $36 a pair, they’re a little expensive, they’re very bright, and the built-in rechargeable batteries last a lot longer than the standard ones. And when they start to run down, just plug them in.

A great buy.

The Great Wolf Lodge, being built up in Webster, has had its opening date repeatedly moved closer. Originally set to open in December 2024, it was later moved up to November, and then October, and on to September. Then a couple of months ago, Aug 29, leading into the Labor Day Weekend was the date.

And now it’s August 7th, with their Job Fair to hire 600+ people starting up on June 29th and ending on July 13.

Tomorrow we’re heading downtown about 10 am, first to have lunch at Katz’s Deli once again, and then it’s on down to the Medical Center area for Jan’s follow-up doctor’s appointment.

Then coming home, and not wanting to go out on Thursday, the 4th of July, we’re going to stop off at the Rudy’s BBQ up in Webster to bring on BBQ. After all, it’s not really the 4th without BBQ.

July 2, 2025

Very Pleased . . .

This past Monday, June 30th, we got our first full month’s electric bill since I installed our Sensi Smart Thermostats, and I was very pleased.

Our June 2025 bill was a little over $20 LESS than our June 2024 bill. And it’s even better when you take into consideration that electric rates are about 12% higher than last year. And, though it’s certainly possible that the temps this past June were significantly lower than last June, in looking back over the last 5 Junes, this is the first year that the bill has gone down.

And I’m hoping to see an even bigger drop next month since Jan and I installed the Reflectix on our rig windshield.

* * * * * * *

With this Thought For The Day from a few days back,

I added this:

And Then There’s That Whole Raiders Of The Lost Ark thing!

So, a number of our readers wanted to know what this was all about.

It’s actually from an episode of The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon shows his girlfriend Amy, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, his favorite movie that he thinks is perfect, for the first time.

She says it was good, but didn’t he see the fallacy?

When he asked what she meant, she said that Indiana Jones is irrelevant to the plot of the movie. With or without Indiana, the Nazi’s would still find the Ark, take it to the island, open it, and meet their fiery end.

Sheldon was devastated.

* * * * * * *

Tomorrow is our every other Thursday Hot Dog Day from the Doggone Crazy Food Truck over in Bacliff.

YUMM!

Remember, to access our blog links,
Right-Click on The Link and Select ‘Open in New Tab’

Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT . . .

Well, I’ve hit a snag finding the fuse that feeds our neat rear roof vent fan, i.e., I can’t find it.

Though it wasn’t listed on the fuse panel diagram, I was hoping it was maybe hidden under the blank 14 and 15 areas, which do have fuses in them.

But of course it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

So I went down the row and found every fuse good.

So now I’m kind of stumped.

I’ve put inquiries up on RV.net and IRV2 forums asking for help, but nothing so far.

Back when we were still traveling full-time, Fleetwood-American had a help line that I could call and pretty much get any technical question answered.

But, sadly, no more.

I even asked Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT, and though they all gave some helpful suggestions, nothing really helped.

* * * * * * *

I’ve finally got my new Galaxy S26 Ultra phone set up like I want. It took me a while to track down all the settings since a lot of them got moved around. But so far, I’m very impressed with it.

It’s noticeably faster, with much sharper photos due to the fact that the S26 has a 200MP camera vs 100MP on the S21, plus the S26 is much more light sensitive.

Nice!

Thought For The Day:

They call it a “selfie” because “narcissistic” is too hard to spell.

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2009 – George Washington, Benedict Arnold, And Colonial Williamsburg

2012 – A New Gate And A Camel

2013 – Almost Willie Nelson

2015 – More Sedona And New CCW Rules

2016 – BBQ And A Burger Making Machine

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

July 1, 2009

George Washington and Benedict Arnold…

Today, Jan and I visited Colonial Williamsburg, and although it was very interesting, it was also disappointing in a way.

Colonial Williamsburg street

A lot of the buildings are closed on different days, so it’s not possible to see everything on one visit. So, many buildings were closed to us today. Plus, only a few buildings are set up to be toured.

The best one we saw was the home of Peyton Reynolds. Peyton Reynolds was the first President of the Continental Congress, and the house dates from the 1720’s.

The interesting thing about this next picture is that the table is not fully set. According to our guide, the table would be set with 1 meat dish for each person. So, with a table set for six, there should be six meat dishes on the table, not just three.

And there should also be six ‘heavy’ desserts on the table. I’m not sure what constitutes a ‘heavy’ dessert.

Is it by ‘weight’, or how it sits in your stomach after you eat it?

Also interesting is the windmill. It’s known as a ‘single-post’ windmill, because the single-post pivot allows the windmill to be turned into the wind for better performance. This windmill was used as a grist mill to grind grain, and the blades would have been covered with cloth to catch the wind.

We also got to watch a trial reenactment at the Williamsburg Courthouse.

One interesting thing was that the audience got to participate as jurors, plaintiffs, and defendants.

I tried to get Jan to pose in the stocks, but I think she was afraid I wouldn’t let her out.

Also interesting was the Williamsburg Magazine and Armory surrounded by the barricade fence to help protect it from attack.

This building was where the militia’s guns and powder were stored in case of attack.

The Virginia Colony Governor’s House

The Bruton Parish Church was interesting, also. It is one of the oldest Episcopalian Churches in America, and services have been held here continuously since 1715.

You could also take rides in authentic-looking carriages.

There were also actors portraying famous and not-so-famous people. Here we have Benedict Arnold, pre-traitor.

Many people don’t realize Benedict Arnold was actually a Revolutionary War hero and won many battles for the Colonies before he went over to the Loyalist side. For what seemed to be political reasons, and perhaps jealousy, he was repeatedly passed over for promotion. This perceived injustice ate at him until he arranged to turn West Point over to the British. But his plan was discovered, and he barely escaped capture by George Washington.

And speaking of George Washington, he was there also, along with his aide de camp, the Marquis de Lafayette. One of the children present asked Washington if he was the President. He said he had no idea what that was, and it didn’t sound like something he’d want to do.

Most of the Colonial Williamsburg experience seems to consist of walking around, looking at the old buildings. I think Jan and I both were expecting more.

And when you consider that for the same price, we could have gone to Busch Gardens – Williamsburg, I mean, Colonial Williamsburg doesn’t even have any roller coasters to terrorize Jan on.

Bummer!!!

Tomorrow we’re going to see Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Battlefield.

Maybe they’ll have roller coasters.

July 1, 2010

Work, work, work…

Today we go on day-to-day here at Lake Pointe. This is a membership park, and members have priority, so since this is a holiday weekend, we’re in danger of being run off. They said to come to the office between 8:30 and 9:00 am and see if we could stay another day. And luck (and bad weather) was with us. We can stay another day.

We’ll have to see about tomorrow.

Before we left the park this morning, Jan went out to feed the deer, and the deer came from all over. Jan is very popular in the deer world.

We headed over to Gina’s about 1 pm, and I got back to work on the deck project. Despite the off-and-on heavy rains, I was able to get all of the wiring pulled between the electrical boxes.

Hopefully, my next step will be to wire up the light fixtures and switches, and hook the whole thing into the power. That’s if the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise. The way it’s been raining here, we’ll see.

About 5 pm, we drove over to Canyon Lake to have supper at Ninfa’s Tacos and Burgers. Then, after we dropped Gina off, we headed back home to the rig for the night.

July 1, 2011

It’s Always Something! . . .

It’s going to be a short blog today because I’m fighting an electrical problem.

We left Long Beach, WA about 9 am after taking on about 125 gallons of diesel. The 150-mile trip took us about 4 hours, which means we averaged about 37.5 mph, mostly because the curvy, hilly roads kept our speed down.

And also gave us one case of cat barf.

We got parked at the Elk’s Lodge in Bremerton, which has 30 amp and water with no problems. But the problem started when I hooked up my electric and tried to turn things on.

No power was getting to the coach, although my Progressive EMS (Electrical Management System) said the power coming in was good.

Next, I tried disconnecting shore power and starting up my generator. Still no power in the coach.

But the inverter running off the batteries worked fine. This leads me to think it’s the Automatic Transfer Switch that’s having trouble. But so far, I’ve found no documentation on the switch in my manual, and of course, this all occurred after everyone had left for the long 4th of July weekend, so there’s no one to call.

But we can use the inverter, and we have a heavy-duty battery charger to keep the batteries charged, so we can muddle through the weekend OK.

July 1, 2012

I’d Walk A Mile for A . . .

Don’t know what this guy was doing in a cow pasture. When I first saw him out of the corner of my eye, I thought he was a statue or something, but then he turned and looked at me. He did seem pretty content.

I saw him right down the road from our ‘maybe’ new rig site. I drove over Friday morning to check out the location to see what it looks like.

And this is it. Unfortunately, we’re back at the edge of the drill site again. The extension on the right is where we would be parked.

The location is part of a two-pad site, and there’s already another drill rig on the other pad to the left of this shot, just a couple of hundred yards away. Our pad is down a slight hill from the other rig.

The reason I said “our ‘maybe’ new rig site” is that there’s already a gate guard here at the main entrance to both pads.

That’s his RV behind the light tower on the left. And as it’s set up right now, he would have to respond to any vehicles that come into the area, even the ones coming down to our pad on the right in this photo. Our Company Man says they definitely want their own gate guard (us!), so I don’t know how they will divide it up. We’ll have to see. We may end up somewhere else.

Our Company Man also said they plan on starting to tear down here on Wednesday. Don’t know yet what time. So it’s all up in the air. As usual.

Under the heading of “What’s Wrong with this Picture”, here’s the temperature at 4:14 pm. Thursday afternoon here in South Texas.

And here’s the temperature in Elkhart, IN, during the same time period.

Normally, Jan and I have our big meal of the day at night, with usually just a snack for lunch. But Friday, coming back from looking over our ‘maybe’ new location, I stopped off at Linda’s Cafe in Charlotte for a couple of their Chicken Fried Steak dinners. Which, just as we had been told, were very, very good.

And of course, we then planned to just have a snack for supper. But look what showed up from the catering truck delivering food to the rig – two delicious Fried Catfish and Fried Shrimp & Hushpuppy dinners with Green Bean Casserole.

And it was fresh, hot, and really, really good.

Then today (Saturday), Jan made a delicious crockpot meal of Rum Chicken over white rice, along with 7-UP biscuits. In case you’re wondering, Rum Chicken is what you get when you make Bourbon Chicken and don’t have any Bourbon, so you use what you have.

The last two days have been really slow on the gate, with fewer than 40 vehicles each day. But it’s probably the calm before the storm. As they start to cap off the well, trucks with cement, sand, and water flood in, and trucks carrying drilling fluids, wastewater, and more head out. Last teardown we had almost 130 vehicles each day.

So busy days ahead.

July 1, 2013

Almost Willie . . .

In 2007, after Jan and I had decided to start full-time RV’ing, I got to thinking that since we had never RV’d before, maybe it would be a good idea if we gave it a try first. So we rented a CruiseAmerica 28ft Class C and spent three weeks wandering around the southwest. We obviously liked it because we’re now into our 6th year on the road.

One afternoon, we were parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Del Rio, TX, picking up some things before we headed on to the Seminole Canyon State Park. Parked near us was a big, older-looking bus with “Almost Willie” painted the full length of the bus. Suddenly, from around the other side came Willie Nelson. Or at least it sure looked like Willie.

People started coming over and getting their pictures taken with him, and he drew quite a crowd.

As it turned out, Almost Willie is a well-known Willie Nelson impersonator who is so good he’s often hired by Willie Nelson himself. And he’s been known to sign autographs at Willie’s concerts. And he is a popular entertainer at the many RV parks in the Texas Valley.

July 1, 2014

RV Sweet RV . . .

After the continental breakfast at the motel, I was at the windshield repair place at 8 am to hand over the gasket that Jan and I picked up from American Coach yesterday afternoon. Then I headed back to the motel for a few hours, since it was more comfortable there. About 11, we checked out from the motel, and Jan and I loaded up the truck with all our motel stuff and headed over to the repair shop to wait for our rig.

When we got there, they had the driver’s side glass installed and were working on the new glass on the passenger side.

While we were waiting, we read our Kindles in the nice air-conditioned truck, rather than staying inside the hot rig.

Mister, of course, had his own way of dealing with the wait.

Josh said that, unlike the generic gasket that was too loose, this one was very tight, and they had to really struggle to get the glass in, especially the second one. He said a couple of times they were afraid they were going to break it trying to get the gasket over the edge.

After that, we just had to wait a while for the urethane sealant to set up for a while before we finally headed back to our spot at the Elkhart Campground about 3:30.

So we went from this,

to this.

And in only FIVE Days.

After we got mostly set up, we headed out to Mancino’s Pizza for what is probably our last visit this year.

Tomorrow will definitely be a sleep-in morning after all these days of getting up at 7 am.

July 1, 2015

They Keep Changing The Rules . . .

Something I forgot to mention last night in my blog post about the Wyoming Division Model Railroad we visited yesterday. In Monday’s blog, I mentioned that according to the newspaper article I posted about the layout, it had 45,000 feet of HO track.

I thought that was an amazing amount of track, and once I saw the size of the building, big as it is, I knew that there was no way there was 45,000 feet of track here. When I mentioned this to Verryl Fosnight, the owner, he chuckled and said the writer of the article got a little carried away and added a zero.

He said they had about 4500 feet when the article was written, with about 5300 feet now. So, a little over a mile, instead of 9 miles. Certainly makes more sense.

Another thing we thought was neat was this bronze statue of Merlin in the parking lot of the shopping center in Sedona, where Szechuan Restaurant is located.

Not exactly how Merlin is normally pictured, but it’s interesting, nonetheless. The reason it’s there is that it’s really an advertisement for the sculptor who has a studio there.

Jan and I headed out about 1:30 this afternoon to have a last lunch at La Fonda, right down the road from the RV park. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Since they’re closed Sunday and Monday, and are closing early on Saturday, we probably won’t get a chance to get back before we leave on Monday.

After all, we do have other places we want to eat before we leave.

Because they keep changing the rules, leaving La Fonda, we headed over to a nearby gun store to see about getting an Arizona Concealed Carry Permit to replace my expiring Utah permit that I will not be able to renew.

Because they keep changing the rules.

Jan and I are South Dakota residents, and first got our South Dakota CCW’s back in 2008 on our way back from Alaska. And it was easy peasy.

We just walked across the street from our mail service, My Dakota Address, to the courthouse and filled out the one-page FBI background check form in the Sheriff’s Office. Then the next day we went back, and with the forms coming back clean, gave the Sheriff $10, and he gave us our temporary permits. About a week later, our permanent permits showed up in the mail. Like I said, Easy Peazy.

Then, in August 2010, while we were at a Rally, I took a class to get a Utah non-resident CCW given by a rally vendor. The only reason I did this was that I picked up about 5 additional states that I could carry concealed as we traveled around the country. I didn’t realize at the time how important this would become.

The SD CCW ran for 4 years, so when I went to renew it in 2012, I found the rules had changed. I was now told that to renew my CCW, I had to reside in the county for 30 days and then produce a rent receipt, utility bill, etc., to prove this.

The kicker is that even if we had been in SD, we couldn’t have fulfilled this requirement, because rural Lake County, SD has NO RV parks within the county. I guess we could park on the courthouse square and run an extension cord into the Sheriff’s Office, but I’m not sure that would work.

But, hey, I still have my Utah CCW, right?

But then they changed the rules.

A couple of days ago, I got my mail in from My Dakota Address and found a letter from the Utah Department of Public Safety telling me how to renew my Utah CCW that expires this coming August. It said I could renew my CCW online, and it would cost $15.75. OK, again, Easy Peazy. Until I read this little gotcha toward the bottom of the page.

It said that due to a recent rule change (see, there it is), if I reside in a state that has reciprocity with Utah, then I must have that state’s CCW before I can renew my Utah CCW. And SD and AZ do have reciprocity.

I believe this is called a Catch-22.

A friend suggested I see about getting an Arizona CCW since they no longer require a course or test of any sort. I had checked online and just got confused because in one place on the Arizona State Government site, it says they do require a test, and in another place, it says they don’t.

And stopping off at the gun store just made things worse. The guy there confirmed that no class or test was needed, but that they (the store) required people to take a ‘shooting’ class, and that the next one would be given on July 28th.

Well, that’s a lot of help! And I’m still not sure what the ‘store’ has to do with it.

So tomorrow I’m going to head over to the Sheriff’s Office to see if I can get things straightened out.

July 1, 2016

Legos and Catfish . . .

Around 2 pm this afternoon, I went down to the office to sign us up for our month stay here that starts this Sunday. So we’ll be here until the 31st of July when we head out for Gulf Shores, AL

While I was there, I ran into our friend Randy Lazarine, and we got to talking about Hinze’s BBQ. When I mentioned eating at the one in Sealy the other day, I also mentioned the one in Katy that closed years ago.

Turns out that Randy had some info about that. That location was in a really high-end area, and the owner had trouble finding people in the area to hire. And the ones he did hire didn’t really want to work.

He’d tell them to do something, like mop the floor or clean the bathrooms, and they’d just stare at him. I guess at home, they had people for that.

So I guess this is the industry’s answer to that problem and the $15 an hour minimum wage fight for fast food workers.

This is a machine-made-to-order burger.

The Momentum Machines Autonomous Grill Master

First shown in 2012, and then making 350 burgers an hour, all to order, it excited the industry. And now it’s going retail in San Francisco with the opening of a new restaurant there.

The latest model, costing $35,000 and fitting into a 4ft x 6ft area, now makes 400 burgers an hour (basically one every 9 seconds). And the ‘to order’ part is taken to a whole new level.

It grinds your meat when you place your order, and you can choose your favorite ratio of beef to pork to bison, or any other offered meats.

It toasts your buns, freshly slices your tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and pickles, and other things too. And then adds exactly the condiments you ordered.

It even wraps and bags your order.

And even better, it won’t spit on your burger. Although leaking 10W-40 might be a problem, I guess.

Wendy’s recently announced that they expect to have self-service ordering kiosks in all their stores by the end of next year. I guess this is just the next step.

Brandi, Lowell, and Landon left for OK this morning to spend the weekend with Lowell’s parents in Paul’s Valley. But they made a stopover in the area to let Landon check out the LEGO Discovery Center in the Dallas area.

The way Landon loves Legos, he surely had a blast.

Where we were on our way out to was Peters BBQ, so about 4:30, we drove up to Ellinger, about 9 miles north of here on US71. We were heading to Peters not to have the BBQ, but the Fried Catfish and Shrimp Buffet, which they have every Friday night.

The buffet was really good as always, but for other reasons, for me at least, the bloom is off the rose. Or at least it’s fading fast. It seems like every time we’ve gone recently, it costs more and more, and/or you get less and less.

When we first started going here a couple of years ago, the Friday Night Buffet included AYCE BBQ, as well as the catfish/shrimp part, and all the sides.

Originally, the full BBQ buffet was $11.95 with a senior discount of $10.95. And they also had a Colorado River TT $1 discount. But late last year, all at once, everything went away.

BBQ disappeared from the buffet, as well as any discounts. But the price of the non-BBQ buffet did drop to $8.95, so it wasn’t too bad. But then a month or so later, the price jumped to $9.95. And then tonight, since we last were here about a month ago, the price has jumped to $10.95.

Now, having been in the restaurant business a long time ago, I know about having to raise prices, but at the same time, Schobels Restaurant in Columbus still has their great Sunday morning breakfast buffet for $8.95, and it hasn’t gone up since we’ve been eating there.

And I don’t know if it’s directly related, but every other time we’ve gone there recently, by the time we left about 5:30 or so, the place was pretty much full, with a line at the order area. But not today. Now I guess it might be due to the holiday weekend, but I don’t know.

I guess we’ll see next time. Or not.

Since we’ve been talking about catfish, someone here at Colorado River TT hooked a big one today, and posted it on Facebook.

That’s a big cat.

July 1, 2017

260,000 . . .

Well, our babysitting job this morning was called on account of the fact that no one really wanted to go out and sightsee.

So Brandi called before we left to let us know that our previously scheduled 10 am arrival at her house could be pushed back to a 1’ish time frame. Great since the pain reliever that Jan had taken for her back pain last night, took care of her pain, but left her very nauseous today.

So the delay allowed her to get some extra rest before we headed into Brandi’s.

And as we did head to Katy this afternoon, we passed 260,000 miles on our 2004 Dodge Dakota truck. And then there’s the additional 80,000 miles it’s got on it chasing the RV around the country.

When we bought it in late 2007, it was specifically to tow. We spent several months prowling the used car lots looking for just the right truck. And when we found this one at a small family-owned lot in Pearland, it met all of our requirements, along with nice extras.

First and most important, it was 4WD and thus easily set to tow mode.

In fact, it only takes about 10 seconds. Just put the transmission into ‘N’, put your foot on the brake, and then press the little recessed ‘N’ button on the small 2WD/4WD/4WD-L panel using a ballpoint pen or something similar.

And with a click/clunk, you’re in tow mode. Then put the transmission in ‘P’ and you’re ready to roll. And roll is what will happen at this point if you’re not already hitched up or have the parking brake on, because the truck will just roll away. To exit tow mode, just reverse the procedure. Easy Peazy.

The second requirement was that Blue Ox had an easily installed baseplate, and so they did.

Everything else was just an extra perk.

1. It already had a nice camper shell.
2. It was a 4-door model.
3. It had a V-8 engine.
4. It was white in color (important in Texas).

According to CARFAX, our Dakota was originally owned by T-Mobile, and was a supervisor’s truck. As such, it had regular dealer maintenance and was in great shape. And it’s been a great vehicle for us too, he said, crossing his fingers.

Otherwise, today was fairly slow, with everyone just hanging around the house, watching TV while the kids swam at the pool. Then, later, Curtis grilled hot dogs and hamburgers on our Weber grill. Great times.

Jan and I headed home about 7:30 and noticed the US Rig Count had been updated to 940, an increase of 7 over last week’s 933. This was an increase of 6 over the previous week.

So, based on the fact that they gained 157 rigs in the 5 months since we left on our trip, they’re averaging a gain of about 7 per week, great news for this year’s gate guarding.

As far as tomorrow, we’re not sure yet.

July 1, 2018

Poison Spiders . . .

Jan and I were up at 6:15 and pulling out of our site at the Timber Trails RV Park by 7 am.

We were meeting Jan’s sister Debbie, her husband Jim, their daughter Tana, fiancé Curtis, and various and sundry kids, at the Denny’s in Vandalia. We had already scoped out a good parking spot for the rig the day before, since we were planning on already being hooked up.

And our luck held because someone wasn’t parked in our hoped-for spot. It can be difficult to find a place to park a 62+ feet vehicle that can’t really back up, so that you can get it in and out without too many problems. But this time it worked.

There have been times when we’ve parked the rig in the middle of a big parking lot with no one around for 100 feet on any side, and some a*****e will come along and deliberately park right in front of the rig, six inches off our bumper. Believe me, I have been severely tempted to just plow them out of the way, but I have resisted.

So far.

Non-RV’ers don’t realize how sharply a rig can actually turn since the front wheels are so far back from the front bumper. So far, I’ve always been able to back up the foot or so necessary to get clear without unhitching the toad.

In fact, in 11 years and over 84,000 miles, I’ve only had to unhitch twice to get out of a tight spot, and both of those times it was bad routing from our GPS. Word to the wise, don’t take Poison Spider Rd out of Casper, WY heading for the Oregon Trail turnoff.

“It’s A Trap!”

Of course, in hindsight, nothing good can be expected at the end of Poison Spider Rd. BTW Poison Spider Rd. passes right by Poison Spider High School.

No, I’m not making this up.

Anyway, we all had our usual great meal, got our hugs from everyone, and were on the road by 8:30, heading for Athens, AL, about 400 miles away. We’ll be here until Saturday, when we start back to Houston.

The reason we were again getting such an early start was that I still don’t have the generator working yet. I got it to start and then run for about 5 seconds, but then it dies. And before I could get any further with it. I had to button it all up so we could do family stuff and then be ready to leave this morning.

But we’ll be here in Athens until Saturday, so since we won’t have quite as much family stuff going on, I’m hoping to get a handle on it before we leave.

And except for being hot and sticky, it really was a pleasant 7-hour trip, even though it was about 3 hours longer than we normally like to do. The roads were pretty good, and only one construction slowdown that turned out to be for a non-existent problem, at least on Sunday when no one was working. But because they didn’t want to move the barrels out of the way, all traffic on I-57 was narrowed down to one lane for about 5 miles, putt-putting along at 20 mph, with no sign of any workers, construction equipment, or even any work being done and not finished. Just a long row of vehicles that started and stopped.

Jan drove again this trip, for about 90 minutes from right after we got on I-57 at Salem, to right before we turned off on I-24. She did fine, even though it was a little windy.

We pulled into our family’s Northgate RV Park about 3:45 and got unhitched, set up, and plugged in. Then, while the rig cooled down, we got in the truck and went to have dinner at Catfish Cabin, a local favorite of ours, and a tradition that we always eat here on our first night.

Their hushpuppies, salad dressings, cocktail and tartar sauce, and many other things are all made from scratch. And it shows. Or tastes, anyway.

Tomorrow I’ll be working on the generator, and we’ll start catching up with my relatives. Looking forward to it.

July 1, 2021

A Test Drive . . .

Ramping up to our debut sous vide cookoff, I decided to do a test drive this morning to check things out and be sure it was all working right.

I filled the Styrofoam cooler to the cooker water line and then plugged in the Inkbird cooker.

Though it has a control panel on the cooker itself, I used the phone app to set the desired temp to 150° and the cooking time to 24 hours, the settings I’ve decided to use for our ribs, and clicked the Start button.

Starting at about 81°, within a couple of minutes, it was at 89° and climbing.

It only took about 50 minutes to reach the 150° mark and start the 24-hour cooking cycle.

Since we were just leaving the rig when it hit 150, I let it run for about 45 minutes before I shut it off via the phone app, while we were eating lunch at the East Star Chinese Buffet up in Clear Lake. And within a few minutes, the temp had already started dropping.

And the food was just as delicious as always.

Next, after a quick stop by the office for some Amazon stuff, it was on to the nearby Kroger’s to pick up a prescription for Jan, our first refill since we joined Kroger’s Prescription Club. And where the previous one at Sam’s had been about $15, it was $6 today.

We had planned to make a Wal-Mart stop on the way home, but found what we needed at Kroger, so another stop eliminated.

Then, coming home, we made a stop at a local nursery along the I-45 feeder that we had noticed a while back that had a number of bright pink bird-looking objects, i.e., flamingos mixed in with the peacocks, roosters, windmills, etc.

So we took a quick look, and this guy came home with us.

A worthy addition to Jan’s Flamboyance.

July 1, 2022

A Nice, Long Weekend . . .

Since Monday’s the 4th of July Holiday, I don’t go back to work until next Wednesday.

Nice!

Busy day today, so I didn’t get a chance to clean up the Monet videos. So check back tomorrow.

Our new icemaker is still working great. Every 3 or 4 days, I dump 1.5 liters of water into the reservoir, press the button, and off it goes.

And after about 45 minutes, we have a full basket of ice cubes, and it shuts off.

So then I dump it into a ziplock bag, and the unit starts up again.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat, until the water runs out. This gives us a gallon bag full of ice.

I recently found another neat gadget on Amazon.

It’s great for working on things hands-free. And it’s very bright

So bright, in fact, that it’s hard to look directly at it. And it comes in 7 fashionable colors.

Rechargeable LED Headlamp

After my recent 6-month checkup after my Cervical Fusion, I decided to see about getting some physical therapy treatments before I commit to getting the Lumbar Fusion. Apparently, they’re pretty booked up because the first appointment I could get is July 12th.

I guess I’ll see how it works.

They’re still waiting on my Torque Converter bolts, so with the holiday, probably nothing until next Tuesday at the earliest.

Well, despite saying it would fit, Amazon sent me the wrong window regulator for our Dodge Dakota, so it’s going back tomorrow. And the new, hopefully correct one, should be in tomorrow.

Tomorrow we’re going back to Gator’s Bar & Grill since Jan’s jonsin’ for another of their Keto Cheezy Cheezy Cheezy Pizzas.

July 1, 2023

A Busy Week . . .

Lunch today was at Los Ramirez Mexican once again, and we both went with our favorites, Jan’s being the Pechuga Rellena, a Grilled Chicken Breast with Shrimp, all covered in Cheese,

and mine being their Beef Fajita Taco Salad.

Always delicious.

Afterward, we made a stop at the Lowe’s for some carriage bolts, and then on next door to Wal-Mart

This evening, about 7 pm, after the sun was behind the trees and the other rigs, Jan and I went outside to install the roll of Reflectix that we got from Amazon. The 4′ x 10′ roll completely covered the windshield area with a little leftover.

As I had hoped, we were able to just slide it up under the solar screens and secure it in place with a few judicious pieces of Gorilla Tape. We’ll see tomorrow if the A/C will actually shut off during the day.

Here’s hoping.

Jan and I have a busy week coming up, with the 4th, of course, and then Conroe with friends on Thursday, the Alvin Opry on Friday, a friend’s birthday party on Saturday, and Brandi, Lowell, and Landon on Sunday.

Whew!

July 1, 2024

Dolly Is A What?

Dolly Parton scheme giving children free books attacked as ‘white saviourism’

According to a paper by speech and language pathologist Jennifer Stone, from the University of North Carolina, Dolly Parton‘s philanthropy is “potentially dangerous” and smacks of “white saviourism”.

And what did Dolly do to rate this label? Well, almost 30 years ago, she started her Imagination Library program and since then has spent millions of dollars, her dollars, giving away free books to children all over the world.

Stone says . . .

…the award-winning scheme is racist by reinforcing notions of “white privilege and heteronormativity” and not representing enough cultural diversity, disability, trans and bisexual gender identities and non-traditional family structures.

Through its focus on “reading to succeed” and “perfecting parenting”, Parton’s Imagination Library scheme is “oppressive”, says Stone. Such themes subjugate children and “privilege a White, middle-class, cis-gendered, heteronormative, able-bodied norm,” it adds.

Who knew?

So, can we now assume that Jennifer Stone has set up her own multi-million dollar fund to distribute millions of books about “cultural diversity, disability, trans and bisexual gender identities, and non-traditional family structures.”

I’ve had my Samsung S21 Ultra phone for a little over 3 years, so I’ve been checking out new ones, specifically the S24 Ultra. But unlike my previous upgrade back in early 2021 from the S8+ to the S21, when I saw a lot of improvements, especially in the cameras, I don’t really see much to gain right now.

And this article just firms up my thoughts.

Your Galaxy S21 Ultra is still amazing, here are a few reasons why

So maybe I’ll wait for the S25 or S26?

There’s been a lot of talk in the news about the ‘heat dome’ over the U.S. and the ‘unprecedented’ temperatures.

But apparently there’s ‘unprecedented’ and ‘unprecedented’.

According to the BBC

BBC’s heatwave hysteria

IT’S summer, so surprise, surprise, some places are hot.

According to the BBC, the heatwave in Delhi last month was ‘unprecedented’. Well, at least since the previous one! Temperatures there, they say, topped 40C. May is traditionally the hottest month in India, and temperatures exceed 45 °C most years in Delhi. The record of 47.2C at the Indian Meteorological Department’s Base Station of Safdarjun was set in 1944, and clearly, daily temperatures are not increasing there.

The month of May as a whole was not unusually hot either. Again, temperatures for the month are not increasing, and the hottest May was in 1943.

A day later, the BBC claimed that a heatwave in Phoenix, Arizona, and the rest of the US Southwest had been made ’35 times more likely’ because of climate change. In fact, temperatures in Phoenix never got above 113°F, which is par for the course there at this time of year, and well below the June record of 122°F set in 1990.

On a personal note, our first summer here in Texas, after moving from Alabama to Houston in December 1978, we had 13 straight days of over 100-degree temperatures during the month of July. And we’ve never had anything close since then.

It’s summer, guys. It’s hot.

And here’s another update from NASA on the Starliner.

Technical failures leave Starliner crew ‘not stranded’ on ISS indefinitely

NASA says that the astronauts sent to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s malfunctioning Starliner spacecraft are “not stranded in space.” However, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams may be staying in orbit for a very long time.

Of course, the two big questions are: when will Starliner return to Earth, and is it a matter of when or if?

This brings up one of the unspoken possibilities if Starliner isn’t available for anything other than an emergency return. If Starliner is judged unusable in the end, that means another spacecraft will have to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth.

“Elon Musk, please pick up the nearest White Courtesy Phone.”

July 1, 2025

Noticeably Cooler . .

Jan and I were outside a little after 11:30 this morning to install the Reflectix Foil panels underneath our solar screens. And unlike a lot of these types of jobs, it went very smoothly, and we were done in less than 30 minutes.

All it took was to unlatch and lower the front panel and pull out the wipers, releasing the bottom opening of the solar screens. Then, after cutting a 4 ft. panel out of the roll, we just slid it up under the screens, depending on the weight of the solar screens and the wipers to hold the panels in place. And raising the front panel locked the bottom edge in place.

Unfortunately, no hornets were harmed in the installation of the Reflectix. They never showed up, although we had our spray readily at hand.

And when we came back inside, the front of the rig was noticeably cooler, and later, the front A/C was able to cycle on and off.

I’ve mentioned before about the synchronicity that shows up in our life. In this case, 3 years ago today, we were installing Reflectix under our solar screens.

* * * * * * *

Jan has been wanting to get back up to Pawhuska, OK, to see her good friend Ree Drummond once again.

We were last in Pawhuska back in June 2017, (You can read about it here), and this time Jan wanted to see the area decorated for Christmas this time.

We had wanted to stay at Ree’s Pioneer Woman Boarding House, but found its 8 rooms fully booked for December 2025, as well as December 2026, December 2027, and December 2028.

I know. I checked.

So we’re staying at The Mabelle, a very nice hotel about half a mile from Ree’s Mercantile.

We plan on leaving here Thursday, December 11th, overnight in Plano, which is about halfway, arriving in Pawhuska on Friday, December 12th. We’ll stay over the weekend, heading back on Monday, the 15th, with another overnight in Plano, and getting home on Tuesday, the 16th.