Our RV Adventures

Thought for the Day:

Remember, every bad idea once seemed like a good idea to somebody.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

November 11, 2009

Smirnoff and SIX…

Sounds like a new drink, doesn’t it?

Today was a twofer. We saw Yakov Smirnoff at a 3 pm matinee, and then SIX, a singing group at 8 pm.

But first, we stopped off for lunch at Sadie’s Sideboard, a well-regarded buffet restaurant on the Branson Strip, and not too far from Yakov’s theater. The fried chicken was really good!

Yakov’s show was great! And as I expected, very pro-American.

What I didn’t expect, though, was how decidedly conservative some of his comments were. Having been born and lived in Russia until he was 26, he says, ” I know socialism when I see it, and I don’t like what I see”.

He also had a team of Russian folk dancers that were really good.

And the “Santa Claus and the Pirates” was cute, but corny. As Yakov said during the scene, “Maybe we should have hired real writers”.

And his President of the United States skit was pretty good, too. He took real questions from the audience and answered them both seriously and hilariously.

And everyone seems to enjoy his Secret Service detail.

And of course, the obligatory dancing toys Christmas skit.

It was a great show, and as good as we had heard. It was easy to see why Yakov has been filling an 1800-seat theater almost daily for the last 17 years.

What I didn’t know is that he is a well-recognized artist. His large mural painting “America’s Heart” has hung at Ground Zero in New York after 9/11.

And this one is called ‘God and Country”

Leaving the show, we decided to eat dinner at El Portal again, since we liked it so much last night.

A little before 7 pm, we drove over to the Hughes Bros. Theater to see SIX. We had never heard of them before, but we saw their billboards coming into Branson, and the ticket guy said it was one of the most popular. We only got tickets because of a cancellation.

SIX is a group of six brothers who have been performing since the late 70’s. They are the six oldest of ten boys and no girls. As they said, their parents really wanted a girl!!

The really neat thing is that they perform everything a cappella, but not without instruments. They make the instrument sounds, too.

They do drums, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, etc., and they are dead on. It’s really amazing.

And their harmony is fantastic. Check out their version of the Star-Spangled Banner on YouTube. And this one, too, is done a cappella.

And they do dead-on voice impersonations of Elvis, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra, etc..

They also did a great “Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons”.

And their tribute to their mother, who died of cancer in 1992, brought tears to everyone’s eyes.

If you’re in Branson, this is a show to see.

By the time we got home, it was almost 11 pm.

Tomorrow we’re going to take a road trip about 90 miles up the road to Colaw’s RV Salvage in Carthage, MO.

November 11, 2010

Birds and Books . . .

We started with more of the norm this morning, more rain, but at least it dried up long enough for Jan and me to get our walk in.

Coming back to the rig, we saw these two white pelicans swimming out in the bayou in front of our site. Jan collects pelican knick-knacks, and we have them all over the rig.

About 2 pm, Jan and I headed up to League City to have a late lunch at Cracker Barrel. Jan always likes to go on Thursday since it’s Turkey and Dressing day, and that’s Jan’s favorite.

After lunch, we headed up the Interstate a mile or so to Fry’s Electronics so I could return some software that I decided not to use. I looked around to find something to use my store credit on with no luck, but their new sale flyer comes out on Friday, so I’ll check the paper tomorrow.

Leaving Fry’s, we drove down the NASA Parkway to Half-Price Books so Jan could look for a book she wanted, but with no luck.

Leaving there, we drove back down toward Kemah and home. But on the way, I stopped off at Home Depot to check out some plastic sheets to make a new mount for our satellite dish, but they didn’t have what I wanted.

Braving the returning rain, we stopped off at Wal-Mart for a couple of things we forgot yesterday, and then it was finally time to head home.

Tomorrow, Jan’s going to spend the day with Brandi and Landon, while I’m going to work on our toilet seals.

More toilet news tomorrow…

November 11, 2011

It’s a Small World After All . . .

(Insert annoying theme song here.)

About noon, Jan and I headed over to Huntsville for some lunch at Rosie’s Mexican Cantina. We had first eaten here several years ago, and we always make sure to go back when we’re in the area. It’s that good.

After lunch, we made a quick stop at Sam’s Club for kitty litter and vitamins, and then it was back to Athens, where we found a note on the door telling us to come over to my Uncle Ed’s for dessert about 5:30.

We ended up going over earlier so I could see my cousin Anna Jean, who had dropped by for a few minutes.

And now back to the small world.

Our regular blog readers may remember the story of this picture. It was taken at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL, when we visited there in April of 2009. Jan and I were riding the ‘baby’ roller coaster in the kiddie area. Jan still swears it wasn’t the ‘baby’ coaster, but Busch Gardens disagrees and says it is, but it’s now called the Sand Serpent.

To quote:

Travel to Timbuktu, and you’ll find young kids’ favorite ride in the park, Sand Serpent, formerly Cheetah Chase.

This fun-filled family coaster zips, zooms, and climbs five stories into the air before bringing riders back down in a roar of laughter.

As you can see, one of us is having a ‘roar of laughter’, and one of us, not so much.

Anyway, when I first posted it here on our blog in 2009, it was apparently picked up by a reader and posted here on Awkward Family Photos.

Thanks a lot!

A few months later, we got an email from some friends back in Houston who told us our photo had gone viral. They said their son was in class the last day of school, and to kill time, the teacher had brought in his laptop and was showing the kids some of the photos on AFP.

Finally, the teacher said, “And this last one is my favorite”. Our photo popped up, and the class roared. Then, after a few moments, our friend’s son pointed at the screen and said, “Hey, I know those people.” And the class really broke up.

But wait, there’s more.

In November of 2009, we were back here in Athens on our way back to Texas, and visiting relatives. Coincidentally, my cousin Glee and her husband were up here visiting from Florida. Now, I hadn’t seen Glee since I was about 13, and I had never met her husband before, so we had a good time catching up on things.

Sitting around talking, it turned out that Glee and her husband lived in Tampa. So I then related the story and showed them the photo on my phone. I also mentioned that I had wanted to ride SheiKra, the big vertical dive coaster, and had convinced Jan to do it with me by not telling her that it was 200 feet high, and that at the end of the ride, it drops you straight down from that 200 feet at 70 mph.

Well, my devious plan was working until we took the train ride around the park right before riding the coaster. As we pulled into the station nearby, the conductor who had been narrating our trip said he had ridden SheiKra once, and he never would again. He said it scared him to death, and he almost wet his pants. Well, of course, that ended any chance of getting Jan on the ride.

Blabbermouth!

As I’m relating this story, Glee’s husband looked over and said, “At the end of the ride, did the conductor say, ‘If you enjoyed your train trip today, my name is Dave. Otherwise, it’s Mary”.

I said, “As a matter of fact, he did.” And then Glee’s husband Dave said, “That was me!”

You can start humming the ‘Small World’ theme here, because there’s still more to come.

On our visit here this time, my cousin Jimmy, who is visiting from Fort Myers with his wife Beth, and whom I also don’t think I’ve seen since we were kids, mentioned he was a Chiropractor there.

I then said that one of my clients, Dr. Heimlich, that I do the computer and website support for in Houston, was a Chiropractor.

Jimmy then said, “Well, I went to chiropractic school with a Myron Heimlich in Texas.”

OMG! Segue the Small World theme into the Twilight Zone theme.

I don’t know what it is about coming back to Athens, but strange things happen here.

Tomorrow, Jan and I are having lunch with two of my second cousins, Anna Jean and Marjorie. We got to see Anna Jean for a while this afternoon, but with both of them together, it should be a hoot.

November 11, 2012

B. D. I. F. D.

After coffee for breakfast and our leftover Sonny’s BBQ for lunch, Jan and I just enjoyed the day. Good coffee, good BBQ.

After lunch, I started looking at my Battery Control Center problem again. I printed out some schematics of the box, and with my voltmeter, I went outside and started tracing out the circuits. It took an hour or so, but I finally got it mapped out on paper, and I was starting to get a picture in my head, too.

Now for some studying and thinking about it.

About 1:30, I emailed our friends Jeannie and Eldy to see if they wanted to get together for dinner tonight. Thought we might go to DeSoto’s. We’ll see.

One thing I noticed while I was outside is that the wind is really picking up. We’ve got another front moving through, a cold one this time. Tonight’s low is supposed to be 63, and tomorrow’s is supposed to be 41, with a 70% chance of rain, and maybe even some flooding.

About 3:30 after some more time looking over the schematics, I suddenly had a B. D. I. F. D. moment.

Could it really be that simple? And if that is the cause of my BCC problem, then there’s something else I don’t understand about the system. Of course, that wouldn’t be the first time.

At the entrance to the coach, on the left-hand side, there is a control panel for inside/outside lights, the manual step control, and the chassis and coach master disconnect switches. The disconnect switches are right at floor level, and the indicators are hard to see without moving some stuff.

But when I checked, the indicator lights were not lit on either the chassis battery or the coach battery. Pressing the buttons turned the lights on, but did it fix the problem? My first check was to toggle the step switch and close the door.

Eureka! The step retracted!

Next, I went back to the BCC and checked for the missing voltages. And they were all there. I’m going to assume that the engine will now crank normally, too. So the BCC problem is fixed.

But now I have two new questions. How did both disconnect buttons get pushed? And more importantly, I thought that with both batteries disconnected, everything electrical on the coach would be shut down. Why did only the step and the ignition crank signal not work?

And a third question just occurred to me. Could this chassis battery disconnect have anything to do with my fuel problem up in Athens last week? Did something happen to the power feeding the fuel pumps or injection system?

Well, I guess it’s back on the phone with American Coach tomorrow. At least I’ll have a whole new set of questions.

BTW B. D. I. F. D. stands for Boy, Do I Feel Dumb.

About 4, I checked back in with Jeannie and Eldy to find out that they were out running around, so they hadn’t seen my email, and had already grabbed a bite to eat. So we’ll have to get together another time.

About 4:45, Jan and I headed into Gulf Shores proper to have dinner at DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen, another of our favorite must-eat-at-while-we’re-here restaurants.

Jan had the Fried Seafood Platter, and I had the Shrimp and Grits, with Fried Green Tomatoes and their wonderful Sweet Potato Casserole.

It’s all good every time we come here.

Before we sat down, I went to the restroom to wash my hands and found this sign over the lavatory where the mirror would normally be.

Glad they think so.

November 11, 2014

Go. See. St. Vincent!

Charlotte, our relief guard, showed up right on time, a little before noon. Jan had been on the gate since her usual time of 7 am, so while she was inside changing, I briefed Charlotte on the peculiarities of our gate (believe me, there are a lot: residents who will almost run you down, kids on horseback who delight in ringing the bell so they can gallop by as you come out to get their ‘tag’ numbers. 4 Wheelers that zip by at about 60mph, etc.)

So by about 12:15, we were on our way. But our first stop was only about 5 miles up the road in North Zulch to check out the diesel price and accessibility at one of the local gas stations, as I wanted to get diesel for the rig somewhere along the line on our way to Lake Conroe. It’s usually cheaper on the back roads as opposed to the Interstate.

We took our time making the 25-mile trip to Bryan/College Station, just enjoying each other’s company, not trying to talk over the generator 15 feet away and jumping up at the sound of the bell.

We had our usual leisurely breakfast at IHOP, spending almost an hour just talking and eating. By the time we had finished, we had decided that the movie we wanted to see was “St. Vincent”, with Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy (Molly on TV).

All I can say is –

Go. See. St. Vincent !

This is a great movie. Laughing out loud one minute, and tears rolling down your cheeks the next, it grabs you and never lets go.

I’ve always enjoyed Bill Murray ever since his SNL days, and his movies I’ve seen since then, also. But in looking over his filmography, the last one I saw of his was 1993’s “Groundhog Day”

Although not much of a departure from Murray’s serious roles for him, “St. Vincent” is a real change for Melissa McCarthy. Her role as Oliver’s mom really shows off her dramatic range. No “Molly”, “Identity Thief”, broad slapstick humor here.

But the real focus of the movie is the developing relationship between Murray’s character, Vincent, and McCarthy’s son, Oliver. And even the secondary roles are great, from Father Geraghty, the Catholic School teacher/priest, to Daka, Murray’s Russian pregnant stripper girlfriend. So –

Go. See. This. Movie.

I’ll finish up today or tomorrow because it’s 37 degrees here on the gate, and my fingers are freezing to the keyboard.

November 11, 2015

They’re Baack . . .

After a number of days of no attempts to break into this blog, last night I started getting a few failed logins. Nowhere near the number I was getting before I installed the CAPTCHA program, but a few anyway. And based on the fact that they are limited in number, using one of the correct login names, and getting past the CAPTCHA graphic, I suspect this is an actual person.

But why, I don’t know. If they were to get control of the blog somehow, I could almost instantly log in through GoDaddy and shut it down.

It’s a mystery.

Yesterday I started working through some things on my Leaving The Gate checklist. Although today made it up to 77 degrees, the rest of our time here looks to be in the 50’s and 60’s. So I went ahead and packed away the AC window unit we’ve had sitting here on the table. It was heaven-sent earlier this summer, but now we haven’t turned it on in over a week. So that’s one more thing checked off.

I also dumped the bottle of Diesel Kleen and 4oz of Biocide in the rig’s fuel tank, so any problems, i.e., algae growth, that might have already occurred will be taken care of by the time we leave here next weekend.

I did have a chance last night to revisit my Paracord shoelaces construction. I made a new, longer pair, 52″ this time, instead of 50, and, taking blog reader Lloyd Jackson’s suggestion, I covered the ends with heat shrink tubing instead of trying to melt them to stop them from fraying.

And as you can see, it worked great. Later, I’ll probably make another pair, in brown this time, since the boots are brown, but right now this is fine.

I’ll keep you updated on how they last.

I was hoping the forecast Thunderstorms would bypass us today, and they did for most of the time. But around 7 pm, unfortunately, on Jan’s shift, a long line passed over us, but fortunately in the narrow direction.

The storm was actually moving in two directions at once, with the line moving lengthwise from the southwest to the northeast. But at the same time, the entire line was moving sideways from the northwest to the southeast.

What you’re seeing is a couple of hours after it passed over our little blue dot. And it had a lot more red and orange in it then.

Jan said she thought about going inside a couple of times, but decided to ride it out. That’s my sweetie.

Wrapping up, long-time friend, client, and blog reader Tricia Hammack commented on yesterday’s Thought for the Day with a novel thought of her own, and in case you missed it in the comments, I thought I’d repost it here.
Here was last night’s Thought.

Never throw anything away.
Everything will have a use someway, somehow, someday.
But you won’t realize it until you throw it away.

Words to live by for me, as Jan will tell you.
But here’s what Tricia said.

“Regarding the idea of keeping everything, I pacify myself when I have to re-purchase something I threw away with the idea that the store has just been holding that item in storage for me. I owe them nothing for doing this service – unless I need that item. Then I just pay them the storage fee to get it out.”

A really great way of thinking about it.

But in my case, I’m cheap, and I figure why pay someone else to store all my stuff when I can store it myself for free.

Much to Jan’s despair, let me tell you.

November 11, 2016

Back To Work . . .

Jan and I have really been enjoying the cooler weather, with the door and windows open all day, and the AC’s not running.

For lunch, we decided on the Chicken Fried Steak Strips and Fried Catfish Buffet at Barth’s once again. Normally, we go around 1 pm or so, but today we got there around 11:30. They’re always busy, but today they were really busy at this time. So much so that we had trouble finding a parking space, and a table inside, for that matter.

But as usual, it was worth the effort.

Coming home, we stopped off at HEB for a few things, including a couple of their Pumpkin Pies. Regular readers know how much Jan likes anything pumpkin, so this time of the year, she’s in high cotton.

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up one of Wal-Mart’s Pumpkin Pies, and we were both pretty disappointed. The crust was kind of doughy, and the filling was pretty blah. Probably because the label said the first ingredient was WATER, with Pumpkin showing up second.

So when we were at HEB last week, we checked out their version and found Pumpkin came up first in line. And it certainly made a big difference in the taste.

So we were back for more.

Getting back home, I used my new jigsaw to cut down the 1/4 piece of plywood to fit on my dolly platform. With that done, I went in to dig out my WORX driver so I could screw the new board onto the others.

But the battery was too low, and I couldn’t at first find the charger. And by the time I did and I got it fully charged, it was really too late to go ahead and pull the washer out, since I didn’t want to leave it sitting in the middle of the kitchen overnight if I didn’t really have to.

So the repair is now pushed back to tomorrow.

Our water pressure has really slacked off in the last few days, so I figured it was time to replace our Camco filter element. And it definitely needed replacing.

The new one is bright white.

And after I swapped the cartridges out, the water pressure was back to normal.

Todd called this afternoon, and I’ve got another gate starting Sunday night. Well, actually, it’s the same gate I was on last week, but this time it’s on night shift, from 6:30 pm to 6:30 am. My favorite shift.

After a number of requests, I’ve posted yesterday’s Jan’s Chicken Vegetable Soup recipe under the Jan’s Favorite Recipes tab.

Give it a try.

It’s got a secret ingredient.

November 11, 2017

A Piece Of Cake . . .

After a really quiet, really nice morning, about 12:30, Jan and I headed up to the Clear Lake area for lunch, shopping, and package pickup.

Our first stop was at our long-time favorite, King Food.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been eating here since December 1978. In fact, it was December 18th. I remember the exact day because it’s where I ate lunch on my very first day at NASA.

I had been Chief Electronic Tech for Alabama and Georgia with Storer Cable in Montgomery, AL, since 1975. (Storer later became TCI, with part of it split off into Comcast.) But back in October, I had seen an ad in the Birmingham paper looking for technicians to work at Johnson Space Center on the Space Shuttle Project.

How could I resist that?

They flew me down to Houston in October and hired me on the spot, but I asked not to start until the 18th of December, the start of Chris and Brandi’s Christmas vacation from school (Chris was 10, Brandi was 5). So the moving van came on Thursday (NASA moved us. Nice!), I finished work at Storer Friday afternoon, and then we hit the road for Houston along with my parents, a caravan of 3 cars.

We spent the night in Meridian, MS, before getting into Houston around 8 pm Saturday night. Of course, now we needed to find a place to stay, and quickly, because the moving van with our furniture would be there Monday afternoon.

But luckily for Jan and me, we were used to coming into a strange town and getting set up ASAP. When we spent those years working for the DOD, we regularly moved to a new town and in one day had an apartment, and the utilities turned on. So Houston was a piece of cake.

So Monday morning I started work at JSC while Jan waited at the house for the movers. And when we all went out to lunch from work, King Food was where we went.

So we’ve been eating at King Food for 39 years next month, and as it happens, we’re on our 4th owner, though the present ones have been here the longest.

As far as lunch, we started with our usual Hot & Sour Soup, the best we’ve found anywhere in the country during our travels. But somehow I’ve never gotten a photo of a bowl, I guess because we’re always in a hurry to dig in.

After the soup, we both had our usual Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce and Jalapenos, XXXXX Spicy.

It really doesn’t get any better than this.

Next up, I made a drive-by to my client’s office, which also doubles as my Amazon package receiver. I had gotten texts that said that several had come in, so we stopped by to pick them up.

Then it was on over to Harbor Freight for a few things before going on up I-45 to Wal-Mart for a couple of prescriptions and some groceries.

One of the things that came in from Amazon was a new bottle of Biobor JF Diesel Fuel Biocide.

I use this to keep the algae from growing in our rig’s diesel tank when we’re parked for long periods in cold weather. We try to keep our diesel tank full during these times so that a cold snap doesn’t condense moisture in the tank, which leads to algae growth, which then clogs your engine fuel filters.

In the past, I’ve found Biobor in the Marine sections of sporting goods stores like Academy and Cabela’s, since it’s used in marine diesel engines as well. But lately, it seems they’ve stopped carrying it, which is strange since it’s actually made here in Houston.

Tomorrow, Jan and I are planning to see Blade Runner 2049 before it goes away. It’s only being shown in one theater in the south Houston area, and that’s the AMC 30 one up by the Sam Houston Tollway and I-45. So I wouldn’t be surprised to find it gone next weekend with all the new movies coming out.

November 11, 2018

We Really Lucked Up . . .

We were out the door and into a dreary 50° morning about 8:15, heading for the IHOP over in Kemah to meet our good friends, Barb and Tom.

The place was really crowded, and on a wait when we left, so since we had bogarted the table for almost two hours, I slipped our patient waitress an extra $20 when we left to make up for her lost tips.

Saying our goodbyes and leaving the IHOP, we headed back over to the Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of Jan’s prescriptions.

Coming down Bay Area Blvd, we noticed that Snooze, The AM Eatery, the new Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch place, had done a soft opening. So soft that they didn’t even put an OPEN sign or banner out.

The prescriptions were two different drops for before and after her upcoming cataract surgery on Dec. 6th. Why is it that these drops, $15 and $183, cost more than the cataract surgery itself? I can only hope that this covers both eyes, but for some reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t.

Then, as I’ve been doing lately, I asked if they had gotten any of the Shingrix Shingles vaccine in, and as it turns they got a box in last night. So we put our paperwork in and sat down to wait for the Pharmacist to stick us.

When I asked the cost, I was told $167 each, but we had GoodRx coupons out in the car for $155. So did I walk back all the way out to the car at the far end of the lot to save $24?

What do you think?

They didn’t seem to appreciate my humor (a lot of people don’t. Just ask Jan) when I suggested that I could just give us the shots to save time. I mean, I’ve given them to hundreds of dogs, cats, horses, and cows. Can’t be much different for people. Just grab’em by the scruff of the neck and . . .

Well, maybe not.

I spent the summer after 10th grade working as a Veterinary Assistant for a large and small animal practice. You haven’t lived until you’ve chased an angry bull around the pasture trying to give him a Brucellosis shot. Though it was more like, sometimes I chased him, sometimes he chased me.

And as I said, we really lucked out. A box of Shingrix contains 10 doses, so we got two of them. Now, if we can just manage to get our recommended second dose in the next 2 to 6 months.

Leaving Wal-Mart, we headed down the feeder to get some of the $1.99 gas from Costco. They’ve got 36 pumps, 6 rows with 6 pumps, 3 on each side, and the place was packed.

I did notice that they’ve started putting seals on the credit card slots.

Hopefully, this will deter scammers from installing their own readers on top of the real one.

Remember the good ole days when Cheerios were good for you?

Apparently, not so much now.

Several readers pointed out something that I missed in the Zombie commercial. They didn’t just re-edit it to not show the arm falling off. It’s a completely new ending, because the guy and the girl have switched sides.

And they didn’t just flip the video, because the statue is still on the left. Of course, it all may have been done deliberately to keep us talking about it. If so, it worked.

November 11, 2019

Almost Ready . . .

Today started off a little differently. Jan rode into work with me this morning, so she took care of some shopping as well as getting her toesies done. This way, we won’t have to take care of these tomorrow.

And in fact, she enjoyed being on her own so much, she said she’s going to do this about once a month in the future.

Our Kingsland trip prep is being complicated by the oncoming drop in temperature. Although it almost made it to 80 today, by 6 pm it was down to the mid-50’s and in the mid-40’s by 9 pm. And after an expected low of 35° tonight, we’re only looking at a high of 46° tomorrow.

So not very conducive to getting us ready to roll Thursday morning, so I won’t be able to finish up power washing the rig. So I’ll get all that stuff packed up and ready to go back to the storeroom. And while I’m there, I’ll pick up the BrakeBuddy for the trip.

I spent most of the day at work looking at converting a bunch of our machines from 110 volts to 220, so they will work overseas. Most of them are crystal-controlled, so the whole 50/60Hz shouldn’t matter.

(BTW, As I’m typing this, I’m thinking how long I’ve been doing this stuff, since when I started it was cps (cycles per second and not Hz. Then it was renamed in 1960.)

It looks like in some cases I’ll have enough room to just replace the transformer. In other cases, we may have to supply an external converter box. A lot of trouble, but this is a big potential order.

Coming home, we stopped off to have dinner at our local Black Bear Diner.

Delicious as always.

My new tag stickers came in on Saturday, so I got them stuck on this afternoon, so I’m done with this for another year.

First thing tomorrow, before we head out for lunch, et al., I’m going to crank up the rig and do a trial pull-in of the slide, just to be sure we don’t have any problems Thursday morning.

Really looking forward to the trip on Thursday.

November 11, 2020

Happy Veterans’ Day To All Our Veterans!

As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, both my father and mother were in the U.S. military during WW2. My father was in the Navy Shore Patrol, which was a perfect fit for him, since when he enlisted, he was a Birmingham, AL, police detective, while my mother was a Captain in the Army Nurse Corps.

I think this photo was taken when she was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC.

Later, she was Chief of Nursing at West Point, where this photo was taken.

She even has her own display area at the Alabama Veterans Museum in Athens, AL.

Those are patches she collected from the many wounded soldiers that passed through her wards. And that is one of her actual uniforms.

After driving our new baby into my client’s this morning, (with no tags still), I had hoped to get it insured and tagged this morning. But I ran into a problem.

My first task was to get it insured with National General, and that went very quickly. Then, as soon as they emailed me my proof of insurance, I was online to the South Dakota DMV, hoping to do as much as possible there. But it looked like I was going to have to talk to someone.

But that’s where the problem came in. Though I obviously knew it was Veterans’ Day today, for some reason I didn’t connect that with the fact that the South Dakota DMV wouldn’t be open today.

So I get to drive another day or so without any tags. As soon as I get it registered with the DMV, I can then download a temporary tag that I can print out and use until my real ones get here.

So maybe tomorrow.

November 11, 2021

Under The Knife

or Adventures in ACDF.

Our faithful readers may have noticed that for the last month or so, my blogs have been short, spotty, and even non-existent.

Well, there’s a reason for that.

About six weeks ago, I went to bed one night feeling fine, no problems that I knew of, and then woke up the next morning with a stiff, sore neck. And during the rest of the day, in fact, the next 24 hours or so, I pretty much became, I guess you could say, severely handicapped. And I have the newly-issued blue handicapped placard to show for it

I have difficulty walking. My legs are weak and rubbery, and I have no sense of balance, so I have to have some sort of support when I’m walking. And, unfortunately, my legs weren’t the only problem, actually.

The upper part of my body is worse. I’ve lost pretty much all feeling in my hands. I have no grip strength, and my arms won’t go up any higher than my shoulders. And this goes back to why the blogs have been so spotty, because I really can’t type anymore. I’ve gone from being a fairly accurate, fast touch-typist, to falling back on hunt and peck, which has degenerated into hit or miss, with emphasis on the ‘miss’.

I cannot feel if the keys have been pressed, I have to watch each key press, so each blog every night has been pretty much as far as stuff that I comment or say has been pretty much an exercise in futility.

To help write this, I’ve been using an Android app called Otter, which is a very good and free speech-to-text converter. It allows me to dictate my thoughts and export them as text files via email, which I then paste into the blog.

At this point, I’m using a walking stick, called that because I refuse to call it a cane yet.

It’s one of a set that Jan and I took to Europe back in 2019. And so that gives me enough support to kind of feeble-wobble along, as Jan calls it, from place to place as I do now.

I also purchased one of those rollators, i.e., wheeled walkers, that you can sit in when you need to. I bought that specifically for when we went to the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit last month. And it worked great.

And I had planned to use it at the Nutcracker Christmas Market today, as well. But Jan and Brandi cajoled, i.e., threatened me into not going, and just resting up for tomorrow. More about that in a minute.

But I will use it for our second Van Gogh exhibit on the 21^st of this month, if necessary.

Now to the cause of all this.

So after two sets of X-rays and MRIs on my cervical and lumbar areas, it shows severe deterioration at the C4-5, C5-6, and C6-7 areas of my neck, as well as the L4-5 and L5-S1 areas in my lower back.

In other words, it seems my spine has started to come apart at the top and the bottom.

Now, according to the radiologist’s report, some of the damage may be ‘congenital’, which to me means ‘from birth’. So it took 73 years to show up?

But when I asked my neurosurgeon about that, he said it really just meant ‘a long time ago’.

Now it’s true that in my ‘wild and crazy’ youth, in my ‘PJ’ era, (Pre-Jan. Somehow, ‘BJ’, Before Jan, just doesn’t work here.) I got, well, let’s just say, majorly banged up a couple of times. And when I explained those circumstances to my doctor, he agreed that they might be a contributing factor.

But that’s all under the bridge now.

However, the most important thing he said was that, due to the fast progression of the symptoms, I was at risk of becoming a paraplegic, or even a quadriplegic, if something wasn’t done pretty quickly.

Not words you want to hear, believe me. So I was happy to hear that my Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF) was being scheduled for the following Friday, November 5^th.

Breaking it down, Anterior means they get to your spine by going in through your neck under your chin. Cervical means in the neck area. Discectomy means removing a disc, and Fusion means fusing the vertebrae back together afterward.

Now, in hindsight, and after reading about the symptoms caused by disc deterioration, it seems that I’ve actually been experiencing some indications of the coming problem. But in my case, never having been 73 before, I attributed them to the fact that this was what being 73 was supposed to feel like.

My symptoms are caused by the deteriorating discs, the pads separating the vertebrae segments, coming apart, and bulging against the spinal cord that runs down the center of the spine. In addition, there may also be bone spurs involved, small bone growths also pressing against the spinal cord.

So the procedure will consist of cutting a hole in my neck, probably on the left side, to avoid the esophagus, and then scraping out the bad discs on the 3 levels, C4-5, C5-6, and C6-7, and removing any bone spurs they find.

After the missing discs are replaced with plastic carriers containing a slice of cadaver (so ‘dead people’) bone, I will be bolted back together, using a titanium strap and screws.

Titanium, because it is inert to the body, and doesn’t show up on airport scanners, though some people have said this was not so for them.

So instead of “I see dead people”, I guess it’s going to be, “I am dead people”.

The titanium strap is actually only there to hold everything together until the cadaver bone and my vertebrae grow together and fuse into one solid piece. To facilitate this, I will use a bone growth stimulator on my neck for 30 minutes several times a day for a couple of weeks or so.

And I will have to wear one of those hard plastic cervical collars for two weeks afterward, which means I won’t be able to drive during that time. So Jan will take over driving duties for a while.

As I said, under the circumstances, I was happy to hear that my surgery was scheduled for the following Friday, the 5^th of November. But that was not to be.

At the Pre-Op conference on the Thursday before, it was suddenly discovered that . . . Oops, my surgery had not been scheduled at all. And that there were no openings until the following Friday, the 12^th. In other words, tomorrow.

Major finger-pointing between the doctor’s office and the hospital going on.

I’m not a happy camper, believe me. Especially since my symptoms have been progressively worsening during the ‘lost’ week. And the longer things go on, the more possible it is that some of the nerve damage might be permanent.

So tomorrow’s the big day, and I was supposed to be at the hospital at 6 am, but I just got a call a few minutes ago, pushing it back to 5:30 am.

Well, I wanted it as soon as possible, so I guess I can’t complain.

What’s funny is that though Jan is allowed to visit me during visiting hours, she’s not even allowed to wait ANYWHERE in the hospital during the operation, except the parking lot. So she’ll come home and wait for me to call when I’m out of recovery and in my room, I’ll call her to come up. And even though I had to have a CoVid test to be operated on, Jan doesn’t need one to visit me.

Though this is nominally a one-day outpatient operation, my neurosurgeon wants to keep me overnight to monitor changes in my nerve symptoms. So though my 3-hour procedure should be over before noon tomorrow, I won’t get released until sometime Saturday.

Finally, I can’t say enough about my beautiful wife and how supportive she’s been in all this. I know it’s probably trite, but she has been my rock. I don’t know how I could have gotten through this as well as I have without her help.

Sweetie, I love you so much!

Depending on how I feel, I’ll try to post an update tomorrow; otherwise, I’ve got a revisit to a past favorite scheduled to post.

Happy Veterans’ Day To All Our Veterans!

As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, both my father and mother were in the U.S. military during WW2. My father was in the Navy Shore Patrol, which was a perfect fit for him, since when he enlisted, he was a Birmingham, AL police detective, while my mother was a Captain in the Army Nurse Corps.

Based on the trees in the background, I think this photo was taken when she was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC.

Later, she was Chief of Nursing at West Point, where this photo was taken.

She even has her own display area at the Alabama Veterans Museum in Athens, AL.

Those are patches she collected from the many wounded soldiers that passed through her wards. And that is one of her actual uniforms.

In addition, Jan’s father was in the Army during WWII and then later joined the Air Force, retiring as a Senior Master Sergeant.

We owe them our freedom and salute them all.

November 11, 2023

Happy Veterans’ Day To All Our Veterans!

Lunch today was at Snooze for breakfast, with Jan getting her usual Bravocado Toast,

while I got the Shrimp & Grits once again.

Shrimp & Grits obviously is just Shrimp and Grits.

Duh, right?

But what makes the difference is the seasonings. And Snooze has it down perfectly.

I don’t know what’s in the trimmings around the dish, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.

Next up was a stop by the dry cleaners to pick up the coat we dropped off last week, and then it was on over to the Clear Lake Kroger’s to pick up some prescriptions for Jan. Then it was back down to our area to try something new. And ‘try’ turned out to be the operative word.

We had read on Facebook about a new Dutch Bros. Coffee opening up in the League City area, and someone was raving about their Caramel Pumpkin Brûlée coffee.

Well, anything with ‘Pumpkin’ in it caught Jan’s attention. But when we tried a location that was on our way home, we found it wasn’t open yet. It looked like it was all ready to go with the equipment inside and the lights on. So we’ll try again tomorrow.

Our last stop was at our local Wal-Mart for our weekly stuff and then home after a really nice day.

A few blogs back, I mentioned how Golden Corral is branching out with two new non-buffet restaurants, and how Denny’s actually owns El Pollo Loco and several other chains.

And now it seems that Denny’s is also coming up with a new concept: a drive-thru version of their regular one located out in California. Supposedly, it will have a limited menu (obviously), and they don’t say if it will spread outside of CA.

Drive-thru Pancakes. Yay!

First up –

Happy Veteran’s Day To All Our Veterans!

As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, both my father and mother were in the U.S. military during WW2. My father was in the Navy Shore Patrol, which was a perfect fit for him, since when he enlisted, he was a Birmingham, AL, police detective, while my mother was a Captain in the Army Nurse Corps.

Based on the trees in the background, I think this photo was taken when she was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC.

Later, she was Chief of Nursing at West Point, where this photo was taken.

She even has her own display area at the Alabama Veterans Museum in Athens, AL.

Those are patches she collected from the many wounded soldiers that passed through her wards. And, yes, that is one of her actual uniforms.

My Uncle Theo Calvin was awarded the French Legion of Honor by 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.

He fought in the North African Campaign, landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and then, as a Staff Sergeant, started out with Patton’s Third Army when it became operational in August 1944. Staying with the 3rd all the way to the end of the war, he was awarded the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and was one of a select few to receive the French Legion of Honor medal, awarded by France for conspicuous honor fighting during that campaign.

In addition, Jan’s father landed on Utah Beach. Jan said that her father always said that he worked in a hangar during the war. She didn’t know any different until she read his obituary. Turns out he fought his way across Europe much like my uncle did. And like my uncle, he didn’t like to talk about it.

After leaving the Army at the end of the war, he later reenlisted in what was by now the US Air Force, and went career, retiring in 1966 as a Senior Master Sergeant, the year before I first met Jan.

* * * * * * *

Lunch today was at Adriatic Cafe once again, and it seems that we have a new regular server, Paige, who has waited on us twice before. So we asked for her today.

And she remembered how we ordered our drinks, and what we wanted to eat.

She’s a keeper!

* * * * * * *

But before we got to Adriatic, we made a stop right across the street at the Take 5 Oil Change location, where I got the Jeep’s oil changed before our AL/FL trip.

After I checked the oil level this past weekend, I wanted to add a quart, but found I couldn’t get the large filler cap off. So rather than dig out my extra-large water pump pliers, I decided to stop off at Take 5 and let them deal with it. After all, they caused the problem.

When the tech came out to our Jeep and I explained the problem, he kind of smirked and asked me to pop the hood. He wasn’t smirking a few seconds later when he slinked back to the garage and came back out with a big pair of pliers to get the cap loose.

I feel vindicated.

* * * * * * *

In other Jeep news, yesterday marked 5 years since we bought it from good friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt. At that time, it had a little over 129,000 miles on it. And now it’s got a little over 199,000. So 70,000 miles in 5 years.

That’s a number of trips back to AL, Branson, Fredericksburg, Kingsland, Cuero, Conroe, and Katy.

Still going strong.

* * * * * * *

When I got to work yesterday morning, I noticed the air smelled like wood burning and meat cooking, and wondered why someone would be BBQing around here.

Turns out that Molly’s Pub, on the other end of our block, had gone up in flames during the early morning.

It’s a pile of rubble now. Glad it didn’t spread.

* * * * * * *

I’ve mentioned before how much I like the Popeye’s Last Dab Ranch that was associated with the Smokin’ Rojo Chicken Sandwich.

Though the sandwich is still around (I got one for dinner yesterday), they ran out of the Ranch even before we left on vacation. So I thought I’d check the Net to see if anyone else was selling it.

And I found it on eBay. Five cups for only $35.99 plus $2.99 shipping.

That’s almost $8 per cup for something that was only 25¢ for extras.

I don’t like it that much.

* * * * * * *

Wrapping up, I’m curious if anyone else got their Social Security check a day early this month.

Don’t know if it had anything to the shutdown, or the upcoming holiday, but my check that would normally show up on the 2nd Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, got deposited last night instead.

Anyone else?

Thought For The Day:

Winning an argument is not always a victory. Especially if your wife is involved.

Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2009 – Spiders and Snakes…that’s not what it takes

2015  – The Siren Call

2016 – Not A Surprise

2017 – The Gales of November

2020 – Bringing Our New Baby Home

2023 – The Legend Lives On

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

November 10, 2009

Spiders and Snakes…that’s not what it takes…

Today we headed out about 11 am to try and get tickets for the shows we wanted to see while we’re in Branson. Yesterday, while we were eating at Famous Dave’s BBQ at Branson Landing, we saw a store that sold discount tickets, so we decided to start there.

We knew we wanted to see Jim Stafford, and probably wanted to see Yakov Smirnoff. After that, we weren’t sure.

We ended up with tickets Jim Stafford‘s 3 pm show today, Yakov Smirnoff‘s 3 pm tomorrow, and the 8 pm show tomorrow for a group called SIX. We were lucky to get the SIX so quickly, because this show stays sold out.

After getting our tickets, we walked down the boulevard looking for a place to eat lunch. Branson Landing is a new shopping area that has over 100 shops, 10 restaurants, and 2 hotels, and includes a water, light, and fire show on the river.

We just wanted a light lunch, so we found a wine shop that also served soups and sandwiches. Jan and I split a turkey panini, and each had a bowl of soup.

After lunch, we walked around the Landing for a while and then headed out to drive around. I wanted to be sure I knew where the theaters were located.

We took MO-76, also known as “The Strip” where most of the shows are located. The guy who sold us our tickets said that while we were at the Jim Stafford Theater, we should pick up our tickets for the SIX show tomorrow night. He said the box office would get very crowded if we waited till the last minute.

The Jim Stafford Show was great! We’ve liked his music for a long time, and it was our first time to see him in person.

The show stars Jim,

his band,

a couple of Russian ballet dancers/ Russian folk dancers,

his 12-year-old daughter, GG (Georgia Garland), who plays piano,

his 16-year-old son, who plays piano and fiddle,

And his wife, Ann, who also performs.

GG also plays the harp and dances.

Her mother, Ann, also plays the glockenspiel.

The first half of the show was Jim’s songs, jokes, and stories, and the second half was a Christmas show. He also did a number of instrumentals on the guitar and the harmonica. Many people don’t realize that Jim Stafford is considered one of the finest guitar pickers in the world, and his performance showed it.

I also liked the fact that, as you can tell from the pictures above, there is no problem with taking photos during the show.

After the 2-hour show, we stopped for supper at El Portal, a Mexican restaurant we had heard about, and it turned out to be really good.

We got home about 6 and got settled in. We’re really looking forward to our two shows tomorrow.

November 10, 2010

Boats and Bentley . . .

First off, you’re probably reading this on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11th, even though this post is dated Nov. 10th.

So I wanted to thank all veterans for your service to our country.

Thanks!

Today, the 10th, is another anniversary as well. 35 years ago, the ore freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald broke in two and sank about 17 miles off Whitehorse Bay in Lake Superior. All 29 men aboard were lost, and no bodies were ever recovered.

Over 700 feet long, the Fitzgerald was merely another one of almost 6000 wrecks and 25,000 casualties on the Great Lakes since 1878. In fact, the SS Carl D. Bradley went down in November 1958 with the loss of 33 men, 4 more than the Fitzgerald. At 639 feet long, the Bradley, like the Fitzgerald, was the biggest ship on the lake at the time of the sinking.

The difference was that Gordon Lightfoot didn’t write a hit song about the SS Carl Bradley. Released in 1976, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, written, composed, and sung by Lightfoot, ingrained the story of the Fitzgerald’s sinking in the American consciousness. This song, with its haunting melody and lyrics, is hard to forget, but in case you have forgotten, you can listen again here.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

We woke up this morning to heavy rain, which, except for brief periods of a little sun, continued pretty much all day.

Unfortunately, this meant we still have some water coming in around the slide, since I haven’t been able to look at the problem since it rained heavily a couple of days ago.

But despite the leak, it was nice to just sit around the rig, listening to the rain on the roof and drinking a mug of hot coffee.

About 1 pm, during a break in the rain, I went out to dump the tanks. A couple of days ago, the black tank was getting full, so I closed off the grey tank to be sure I’d have plenty of dump water to flush.

But it was not to be, at least at first. When I pulled the black tank valve, I got a mini fountain of poo water about halfway down the length of the sewer hose. I quickly slammed the valve closed and took a look.

My hose had cracked between the coils in about 6 places. It was fine about 10 days ago, the last time I dumped. My first thought is that the yard people got it with their string trimmers, but I don’t know.

Luckily, I had another length of hose so I could still finish the dump. The only thing I could do about the spill, since it was in deep grass, was to squirt Dawn over the area and then hose it down good.

About 2 pm, we headed up to Seabrook to have a late lunch at Hooter’s. After we had ordered our wings, we noticed they had a new hotter sauce called “XXX”, so we asked for a small bowl to try it out.

We had ordered our wings with “Bentley” sauce, which is the hottest one on the menu. They have another one, “Elvis,” that’s off the menu, but available if you know to ask for it.

We both like the “XXX”, which is supposed to be even hotter than “Elvis”, and we’ll probably get our wings that way next time.

While we were at Hooter’s, one of my clients called with a printer problem. Their UPS printer had stopped printing out the reports, though it still would print shipping labels. I told him I’d be by after lunch and got back to my hot wings.

After Hooter’s, and fixing the client’s problem, we headed over to Wal-Mart for some shopping, including a new length of sewer hose.

It was clear when we went into Wal-Mart, but it was pouring down rain when we came out. Thus, we decided to skip our next stop at Kroger’s and just head on home.

That’s about it for today.

November 10, 2011

Sweet Home Alabama . . .

Since we had another 300-mile trip today, we wanted to get an earlier-than-usual start at 9, so I was up a little before 6:30 (this is getting to be a really bad habit) to get things started.

After I got the coffee started, I went outside (it was 35 degrees!), stowed away the satellite dish and cables, and plugged in the engine block heater, then it was back inside to thaw out my frozen hands. I thought about warming them up by holding them to Jan’s feet, thus waking her up, but on second thought, I decided I wanted to live another day.

I hadn’t hooked up the toad last night because it would have stuck out in the street since our site was just long enough for the rig.

But after coffee and a breakfast sandwich, I went back outside to hook up and also add some air to a couple of tires. Also, by this time, Jan had had her shower, so I disconnected and stowed away the water and sewer hoses.

After letting in the awnings, we were ready to go outside, except for disconnecting shore power.

And so, a couple of minutes after 9, we were on our way. We had a brief bobble coming through Somerset, KY, and getting on the Cumberland Pkwy when we found that they had torn up the old road and built a completely new interchange without telling Margaret, our GPS program. She was just positive we were driving off the ends of the earth and should turn around and go back.

But we soldiered on, and about 100 miles later, we met up with I-65 and headed south. Then, just south of Bowling Green, KY, we stopped for diesel at a Flying J.

Pulling into the RV diesel pumps, I was happy to see a sticker on the pump saying that if you used a MasterCard, you could pump $100 in one transaction, and if you used a Visa Card, you could pump up to $495 in one transaction.

Great! No more having to go inside and stand in line. So I used my Visa Card, and my Flying J RV card, and started the pump.

Which almost immediately stopped at $75. Huh?

So it was off inside, where I stood in line, and when I asked about the $495 sticker, the young woman (blonde) said, ‘Oh, we don’t know anything about those stickers, or who put them there. People just keep asking us. But all the pumps stop at $75, no matter what card you use.”

Later checking on the Pilot-Flying J website, it also says you can pump $495 on a Visa Card.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

We pulled into Northgate RV Travel Park, just off I-65 north of Athens, AL, about 2:30. The park is owned by my uncle and his son, so it makes it very convenient when visiting all my relatives here.

We’ll be here for 3 nights before heading down to Gulf Shores on Sunday, and hopefully we’ll be able to get together with everyone while we’re here.

November 10, 2012

There’s a New Champion, or It’s a Two’fer . . .

About 11:30, we headed out for Pensacola, about 30 miles away. We always try to visit here whenever we’re in the area, and we always eat at Sonny’s BBQ, which is where we ended up for lunch about 12:15.

Along with Famous Dave’s BBQ, Sonny’s is pretty much our favorite BBQ chain. And the reason is that, unlike many BBQ places, Sonny’s has sliced pork, as well as pulled pork.

Growing up in Alabama, BBQ was pork, and usually sliced. And if it wasn’t sliced, it was chopped, not pulled. Pulled pork was mostly found in the Carolinas and northern Georgia. But in the last 30-40 years, pulled pork seems to have migrated south, and now it’s getting harder to find sliced pork, especially in north Alabama.

And sliced pork is pretty much unknown out in Texas. When we first moved out there in 1978, when I tried to order sliced pork, I often got ham.

Well, I guess it is sliced, and it is pork.

But it’s not ‘sliced pork’, OK?

After a great meal at Sonny’s, we drove over to near downtown to visit Artesana, a high-end gift shop we’ve been visiting since the mid-70’s.

We first visited it when we came down from Montgomery for a kid-less weekend in Gulf Shores at the family beach house. Jan had asked a friend for a nice shop to visit that you wouldn’t want to take kids.

And Artesana certainly filled that bill. It’s a really fun place to just wander through, and Jan always finds something she just has to have.

Our next stop was about 6 miles away at the Rave 18 movie theater to see Cloud Atlas, the Tom Hanks/Halle Berry movie. It was an interesting movie, but I think I’d have to see it a couple of more times to really figure it out.

Taking place in 6 different time periods, ranging from 1849 to 2321, the movie covers 6 different interrelated, interwoven stories. Here’s how it’s described.

An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present, and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution,

Jan and I both agreed that Cloud Atlas is our new champion movie that asks the question, “What the heck was that all about”? To give you an idea, the previous champion was “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I was intrigued enough by the movie that I think I’m going to get a copy of the book that came out in 2004.

If you like movies that make you think, you might want to give this one a try.

Since this movie was almost 3 hours long, it was dark when we got out and time for supper.

And being in a Two’fer mood, it was back to Sonny’s BBQ once more, although this time we just had sliced pork sandwiches instead of dinners.

It was about 7:30 by the time we got home, and very windy. It looks like we’ve got a front coming through that will bring us some rain and bad weather.

November 10, 2013

Counting Down the Days . . .

Jan and I wanted to thank her father, my father and mother, and all the other veterans for their service to our country on this day of remembrance. We can’t thank them enough.

Well, we’re into our last two weeks on this gate, and it still looks like we’ll be able to finish out our time here.

Things have really slowed down with only 30-40 vehicles through the gate each day. But we’re getting a lot of different crews through who stay a few days and then move on. Not exactly sure what the problem is on our frack site, but they still haven’t gone back into production yet, so I guess whatever it is, they still don’t have it fixed.

There are new pads going in just north and south of us, so things are still booming around here. Plus, at night, when you look around, you can see lit-up drill rigs in every direction. I can count more than a dozen, and a bunch of flare stacks too.

As an interesting update, I added a list of oilfield jobs and what they pay to the Gate Guard Info tab. Although the pay rates are really specific to North Dakota, they’re not much different here.

We’ve got a cold snap coming up in the middle of the week, with a low Tuesday night of 41 degrees. Then on Wednesday, the high/low is 59 and 35 degrees. BRRR!

But this time I’m ready. Actually, the only part of me that gets really cold are my hands. The gloves I have (and I’ve got several different pairs) just don’t cut for spending hours outside.

So I ordered these from Amazon.

Thinsulate Battery Heated Gloves

I also found a really good deal on this WORX Power Screwdriver. Top-rated by Popular Science and listed for $50, Amazon had it for $37.

WORX Power Screw Driver

My Coleman model is about 6 years old, and the batteries no longer hold a charge very long. And a replacement battery costs as much as this new WORX model. So it’s a win/win.

Two weeks from today, we’ll be back at our Houston area home, Galveston Bay RV Park, and we’re really looking forward to it. Even the sunrises/sunsets are great.

Here’s a photo posted on Facebook recently by the park manager, Lauralee.

And here are a couple of mine.

We can’t wait to get back.

Wrapping up, here’s another photo of our son-in-law Lowell’s sister’s daughter’s daughter, Zoe. A real red-haired cutie.

November 10, 2014

Wrapping Up Soon . . .

The last of the frack equipment pulled out today, but was quickly replaced by more of the flow-back stuff, as well as additional workers. In addition, our drilling rig is starting to finish up and getting ready to shut down, with a lot of trucks coming in and going out as a part of that. So it ended up being a pretty busy day with almost 10 pages of vehicles logged in.

My missing Amazon package finally showed up this morning, but only because I called their distribution center in Bryan a little after 7 am. When I gave the guy the tracking number, he said, “Yeah, it’s here. You want us to send it back to Amazon?”

Me: “No, I’d like you to deliver it to me like you did my other package last week.”

UPS Guy: “Well, I guess I can pull it off the shelf and send it out today if you want.”

Me: “Yes, I want.”

UPS Guy: “OK. Bye.”

After that, I was really surprised it actually showed up today at all.

Tomorrow, Jan and I are taking a few hours off to spend the day over in Bryan/College Station, with our friend Charlotte taking care of our gate for us. Since we don’t have a lot of other stuff to do, we may try to take in a movie, but we haven’t decided what we want to see. But we’re leaning toward either “St. Vincent”, with Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy (Molly), or “Big Hero 6”, an animated movie. We saw a preview of this at our last movie, and it looked good. As a matter of fact, many of our favorite recent movies have been animated, especially the two Despicable Me movies.

And one of our all-time favorite movies from 2005 is an animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood called “Hoodwinked”.Done in Rashomon style, it tells and retells the story several times from the viewpoint of each of the major characters, all having wildly different views of the same events. Really good and worth seeing.

Brandi texted over the latest Landonism this evening. She was fixing dinner, apparently not fast enough for Landon, and he wanted to know where his dinner was. Brandi told him it would be a few minutes, whereupon Landon said, “I want it now!”

Brandi told him he needed to learn to be patient, and Landon replied, “My patience went on vacation!” Out of the mouths . . .

After several nice days of low 70’s in the daytime and 50-60’s at night, it’s getting ready to get cold . . . and colder. After a high forecast of 61 tomorrow (Tuesday), we’re supposed to get 6 days of highs in the low 50’s, and lows in the low 30’s. Then Sunday, we’re looking at a high of 55 and a low of 28 degrees, in what would be our first below-freezing night on the gate. But we won’t be here to enjoy it.

Normally, we leave the gate each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and head down to Galveston Bay RV Resort for the winter. But this year’s a little different, so we’re going to leave a week early, on Sunday the 16th instead of the 23rd.

Jan has been having some bad side effects from the Tamoxifen that she’s taking as part of her post-breast cancer regimen, and she wants to see her doctor next week, so it’ll just be easier to take care of after leaving the gate.

Since our site at Galveston Bay is not ready yet, and may not be for a while due to construction delays on the new area of the park, we’re going to head down to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails for six days before heading over to the Escapee’s RV park in Livingston to stay with Chris and Charles Yust on their lot for few days. After that, we’ll have to see how things work out.

November 10, 2015

The Siren Call . . .

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee.”

Today, November 10th, marks the 40th Anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior.

After her launch in 1958, at 728ft (some articles say 729ft), she was the largest freighter on the Lakes, and is still the largest to have ever gone down there.

Sunk during a gale carrying 75mph gusts and 35ft waves, she was in communication with a nearby ship only minutes before she disappeared from radar a little after 7 pm.

Ironically, as the song says, “The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put fifteen more miles behind ‘er.” And at her top speed, that would have only been another hour.

There were no survivors from her crew of 29, who ranged in age from a 22-year-old deckhand to the 63-year-old captain.

Her wreckage was discovered a few days later by the Coast Guard, and later surveys found her broken into two pieces, lying in a little over 500ft of water, her bow standing upright in the mud.

Despite numerous dives, surveys, and commissions over years, there is still no definite finding to the cause of her sinking. But structural failure during the storm, possibly due to problems with her original design, seems to be the leading suspect.

Gordon Lightfoot, reading this article in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks later,

“According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee ‘never gives up her dead.’” – Great Lakes: The Cruelest Month, James R. Gaines with Jon Lowell in Detroit, ©1975 Newsweek Magazine

decided to write a song about the wreck to honor the ship and the crew who lost their lives that night.

In 2010, based on new findings about the wreck, Lightfoot changed the lyrics in one line of the song, at least in his live performances.

“At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,”
became
“At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said,”

Yeah, it doesn’t seem to scan right to me, either.

He said that he always felt bad about that line because he was afraid that it put the blame for the sinking on crew members who had not fastened the hatches down correctly.

And this was thought to be a real possibility at the time, but recent findings have pretty much eliminated this as a cause.

Jan and I visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Bay in July of 2013, and you can check that out here.

https://ourrvadventures.com/2013/07/240-miles-today-and-still-mooseless/

Although focusing on the Edmund Fitzgerald, it also details the many wrecks on Lake Superior going back hundreds of years. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The smell of pizza must have been in the air, wafting on the breeze, because about 11:30, I headed into Carthage so we could try out the new Little Caesars Pizza.

We got the Ultimate Supreme (is there a penultimate, or antepenultimate Supreme?), which had Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, Green Peppers, and Onions. We dropped the Green Peppers because Jan’s allergic, and added Bacon. Hmmm, Bacon!

This is the first time we’ve ever had Little Caesars, and it turned out to be pretty good. Not Grimaldi’s Pizzeria good, of course, but then what is?

All the ingredients tasted fresh, the cheese was good (the box says it’s 100% Mozzarella and Muenster), and the sauce was good, not too sweet like some. The crust was a little thicker than we really like, but still had a good taste and ‘bite’.

They only have one size, 14 inches, but it was big enough that we’ll get another meal out of it. Not bad for an $8 pizza, not bad at all.

Today was another nice day, but tomorrow the rain is supposed to return. But then it looks like Thursday is supposed to be nice again. But we know how that goes.

November 10, 2016

Not A Surprise . . .

Jan whipped up a delicious batch of her famous Chicken Vegetable Soup in the crockpot today.

And I had to smell it cooking all day long. That was just cruel.

The weather was really nice today. We had the door and the windows open. And that, with the fans going, meant the A/C’s never turned on.

The park owner’s son came by late this afternoon and helped me move a picnic table from across the road over to our site. This will make it a lot easier to cut down the piece of 1/4″ plywood for the dolly platform. So hopefully tomorrow I’ll be ready to pull the Splendide out and take a look at the dryer problem.

As I said, if I’m lucky, it will be a blown thermal fuse and I’ll be ready to put it back in the cabinet in 10 or 15 minutes. Hopefully.

Jan’s soup was delicious, as usual, perfectly seasoned, with lots of great veggies.

I had two bowls! And there’s still plenty left.

Now I’m about to step in it, or as Jan says, “ride that ragged edge.”

I’ve always been crazy about math, pretty much any math, but especially odds, statistics, and sampling. So during election cycles, I’m in hog heaven.

I saw a lot of references to people being ‘surprised’ at the recent election results. And if you only paid attention to the major news outlets, you certainly were.

On Monday night the –

NBC/WSJ poll showed Clinton up by 4 points.

NBC/Survey Monkey poll showed Clinton up by 6 points.

Bloomberg poll showed Clinton up by 3 points.

Fox News poll showed Clinton up by 4 points.

CBS News poll showed Clinton up by 4 points.

LA Times poll showed Clinton winning the election with 352 electoral votes.

So where did it all go wrong?

The main reason is over-sampling, with a modicum of over-confidence, and maybe a dash of wishful thinking.

Polling companies don’t just go out and ask 1000 people who they’re going to vote for. That would be too easy. And probably not as quite as accurate.

So instead of just asking 1000 random people, they are selected by ‘weighting’, i.e., filtering for age, sex, income, race, etc. And it’s not always 1000 people. It may be as many as 2000 and as few as 800.

But one of the biggest determiners of polling results comes from three things. Whether the person is listed as a voter, a registered voter, or a likely voter. Each level of voter is more accurate, but more expensive to find.

A voter’s choice of candidates is not as accurate as a registered voter’s, which is not as accurate as a likely voter’s.

So why don’t all the polling companies use only likely voters and be done with it?

One word. Money.

Every year it costs more and more to select the pollee’s that meet all the needed categories. And the biggest reason for that problem is cell phones.

Twenty years everybody had a landline, and the vast majority were in the phone book. So it was quick and easy to reach them and filter for your requirements. But now landlines are on the wane, along with phonebooks. Instead, everyone has a cellphone and screens their calls. In our case, if a call doesn’t come up in my Contacts, I don’t answer it. If they want me, they need to leave a voicemail.

So the polling companies have to go through many more people before they find their sample.

So where does ‘over-sampling’ come into all this? Glad you asked.

The other category they track is whether or not the person is a declared Democrat, Republican, or Independent. And because Democrats traditionally vote in higher percentages than Republicans, the polling companies include more Democrats than Republicans in their sample.

How many, you might ask? Aye, there’s the rub.

Obviously, the more Democrats in your sample, the further ahead the Democrat candidate will seem. And there’s no standard amount of extra Democrats. Each polling company has its own ideas about turnout, and that varies from election year to election year.

So if a polling company has reason to want one candidate to appear to be ahead of another, they just add more of that candidate’s voters to their numbers. Supposedly, some companies were polling Democrats +20 over Republicans.

But there were a few polls that turned out to be very accurate this year. The main one was the Dornsife/USC/LA Times Daybreak poll.

Note that this poll shows Trump ahead since the middle of September, except for a few days on and off in October. And a number of other ‘outlier’ polls showed similar results.

So how can you find out whether or not they’re sampling voters, registered voters, or likely voters? Or how much they’re over- or under-sampling one party or the other?

Well, it’s all there, buried in the fine print, the pages and pages of details that accompany the poll information. But you’ve really got to like math to dig it out.

But if you want the most accurate polls, check with the campaigns themselves. They do their own internal polling, trying to be as accurate as possible, with no fudging, hedging, or fibbing.

And this is why the Trump campaign seemed to be more and more confident in the last week before the election.

And why at the same time, the Clinton campaign, which as of Oct. 31st had a fireworks show scheduled for 9:30 pm election eve on a barge in New York Harbor, abruptly canceled the show the morning of Thursday, Nov. 3rd.

So what did they know, and when did they know it?

But don’t think all these wrong polls are anything new. In the days before the election in 1980, some polls showed Carter ahead of Reagan by as many as 8 points.

Reagan won by 10 points.

November 10, 2017

The Gales of November . . .

Come Calling.

First off, I want to thank everyone for their kind thoughts about the death of my Uncle Ed this past Wednesday. One thing I forgot to mention is that Uncle Ed and his wife Janis, were instrumental in Jan and me first getting together in 1967.

My Uncle Ed had a large veterinary practice in Sanford, FL, at the time, and when my mother mentioned to Janis that I was thinking about coming down to FL to find a job for the summer, Janis invited me to stay with them. And later, after I had been there for about a week, I saw an ad in the Florida Today newspaper looking for someone to do the animal show at the Florida Wonderland amusement park over in Titusville, where, as I’ve mentioned before, Jan was working as a Saloon Girl in the Miss Kitty’s Pleasure Palace & Soft Drink Saloon.

And so it all began.

I never got around in last night’s blog to talking about our get-together with Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper.

We ended up at Whiskey Cake, a restaurant located in the new area of Baybrook Mall Complex.

We started off with an order of their Goat Cheese Fondue,

with olive oil, Greek olives, roasted tomatoes, fresh herbs, and grilled sourdough bread.

Jan had the Crispy Fried Chicken Salad, with spinach, gem lettuce, Vermont White Cheddar Cheese, spiced pecans, apples, red grapes, and buttermilk-Greek yogurt vinaigrette.

For my part, I had the Wood Grilled Pork Brisket Steak, with Poblano White Cheddar Grits, and topped with a local peach and tomatillo salsa.

Finishing up, we had to end it with Jan and me sharing an order of their namesake Whiskey Cake.

A toffee torte with a bourbon anglaise, spiced pecans, and fresh whipped cream.

Really good, and probably the best part of the meal, even though it was all good.

My new Camco LED Bulb came in today, so we now have good light in the bathroom again.

And for those of you watching Young Sheldon and wondering about his father’s heart attack in last night’s episode, according to the timeline given on Big Bang, his father doesn’t die for another 5 years.

Wrapping up, today, November 10, 1975, is when the gales of November came calling and took the Edmund Fitzgerald, as well as 29 crewmembers, to the bottom of Lake Superior, 530 feet down. In 1995, a dive team brought up the Fitzgerald’s bell, which now resides in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI, where we visited in July 2013.

And of course, the whole incident led to one of the most haunting songs ever written, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.

November 10, 2018

There’s A War Going On . . .

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. And a month later, it gave birth to one of the most haunting songs ever written.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called ‘gitche gumee’
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy

For a little more about this, check out our visit to the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, near where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.

After a nice, quiet morning, Jan and I left the rig a little before 12:30 on our way up to King Food in Webster to meet up with long-time friends Bob and Maria. And when I say ‘long-time’, I mean the mid-80’s when Bob and I were both into Commodore Amiga computers.

We had a great time spending the next couple of hours catching up. We had a lot to talk about since we haven’t gotten together since last December. Too long.

After saying our goodbyes, our next stop was the nearby Wal-Mart for some things. We must never have enough things since we keep buying more.

Then it was right next door to Sam’s to pick up some prescriptions. These were the renewals that our Dr. sent over to Wal-Mart by mistake, and then I had to transfer them over to Sam’s.

When I got there and asked how much the 4 (for 90 days each) were and they said $137. I said that’s too high. Turns out that once again, they had lost the fact that I have a PLUS membership on my account. And when they repriced them accordingly, the cost was now $60.69. Much better.

This afternoon, as we passed the Wal-Mart in Victory Lakes, I noticed that regular gas had fallen to $2.22. This is a drop of 10 cents in the last week. Nice, but it still doesn’t match the $2.17 I paid at the new Webster Costco last week.

But as we were leaving the Sam’s Club today, they were now down to $1.99 for regular. Even Nicer!

And the new Costco was the same $1.99. I have a feeling that we might have a gas war going on, spurred on by Costco.

I was reading recently that they’re known for keeping their gas prices really, really low, even to the point of losing money on each gallon, because it draws people in.

Works for me.

This was our second visit to Costco, and our first time to really take a good look around. We had gotten a sale flyer in the mail last week and wanted to check out a few things.

The first thing we did was to try and sign up for Costco’s discount drug program. Turns out we couldn’t because it is only available to people with health insurance prescription programs, not Medicare.

Score 1 for Wal-Mart/Sam’s.

As we wandered through the food area, Jan was horrified.

She likes octopuses, but not like this.

But more like this.

And she also likes chickens, but it’s apparently OK for them to be like this.

This is one of Costco’s famous $4.99 Rotisserie Chickens. Looks and smells delicious. When we got home, Jan immediately ripped it to shreds for soup later in the week.

I guess better the chicken than the octopus.

And since we’re looking at high temps in the 40’s next week, and low temps in the low 30’s, we decided to take advantage of another good sale.

This Lasko Ceramic Heater.

It has a remote control, it oscillates side to side, and the front louvers move up and down also. And maybe even better, it has a removable filter. A great deal for only $47.

I did bring home the security bit set to get our old Lasko heater apart and see if I can fix it, but with the really cold temps coming on, I didn’t want to be left ‘out in the cold’ in case I didn’t get to it, or couldn’t fix it.

We also have a couple of small Sunbeam heaters as backups, but they’re in the back of the Dakota at the transmission repair place.

Tomorrow we’ve got an early morning (8:45 am) breakfast get-together with friends Tom and Barb over at the IHOP in Seabrook. It tells you how good friends they are since there aren’t many we’d get up this early for.

November 10, 2019

Getting Ready To Roll . . .

Today I got outside early, well, at noon, but early for me, to start doing the prep work for our RV trip to Kingsland this coming Thursday for a family get-together. When you’ve been parked for about six months like we have, it seems like a lot of stuff just accumulates around the rig.

My first job was to take down our OTA Digital Antenna that we use for picking up the many local channels.

But really, all I had to do was cut a bunch of heavy-duty tie-wraps and lower it down. Then I removed the antenna head, folded it up, and stowed it away. I’m just going to leave the pole lying next to the patio while we’re gone.

Then I pulled out my Craftsman (now Porter-Cable) Air Compressor and topped off all my tires, rig, and truck. All of them were down by about the same amount, most likely due to the cooler temps since I last topped them off.

When I replaced our rig tires back in 2015 after our blowout (due to road debris), I once again went with truck tires, not ‘RV’ tires. When we bought the rig at the end of 2007, I had the tires replaced before we even picked it up.

At that time, I went with Sumitomo tires, another ‘truck’ type tire. And they lasted us for 8 years with no problems. I was planning to replace them when we got home later that year, but since I had to replace one, I decided to go ahead and replace all 6 while I was at it.

And once again, I went with ‘truck’ tires, but since Sumitomo’s weren’t available without ordering them, I went with Hercules Ironman I-601 tires, which they did have in stock. And one reason for this is that while we gate-guarded over the years, I saw a lot of oil field trucks using them. So I figured if they’re good enough for the oil field, they should be good enough for us.

We did manage to finish up our Christmas decorating, at least inside. And we went all out this year.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

November 10, 2020

Bringing Our New Baby Home . . .

Yesterday’s blog title teased,

A New Addition To Our Family?

Well, today was the day, so we drove up to Conroe to pick up our new baby.

She’s a bouncy 2003 Jeep Liberty Sport 4×4 with only 129,369 miles on her.

And, though she’s a year older than our 2004 Dodge Dakota, she only has a little over 40% of the 307,500 miles on our Dakota. So, as I said, she’s just a baby in comparison.

Even better, she’s all set up with a Blue Ox baseplate for towing, wired up for our BrakeBuddy braking system, and can be easily towed 4 Down.

And even better than that, we bought her from our good friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt.

We made the deal last Thursday when we got together at El Bosque up there in Conroe, and then drove back up there today to pick her up. So we met up about noon at another long-time favorite of ours, China Delight.

Jan had the Chicken Volcano,

which, as I’ve mentioned before, is sorely lacking in the whole ‘volcano’ thing. Not only is it not hot at all, but even those little red peppers have no heat whatsoever.

For my part, I went with the Triple Delight, a stir-fry of Fresh Shrimp, Chicken, and Beef, along with mushrooms, carrots, and onions. Really good, especially when liberally sprinkled with my Carolina Reaper/Ghost Chili Pepper flakes.

Then, after a great meal, we followed Ed and Debi over to their RV lot right off Lake Conroe in Willis to pick up our new baby.

We headed home about 3 pm with Jan driving the Jeep and me following in the Dakota. No problems, except for the fact that we hit a lot of the going-home traffic, finally getting back to the rig a little before 5 pm.

Jan had been worried about driving a new vehicle through downtown Houston traffic, but she did great with nary a bobble.

And no, we’re not getting rid of the Dakota, so we’re now a 3-vehicle family.

November 10, 2022

The Nutcracker Market . . .

Or as I call it, ‘Jingle Bell Hell’

Jan and I were on our way this morning, about 10 am, for our Christmas Adventure, with our first stop at Katz’s Deli up in the Montrose area. It’s kind of a tradition for us to eat lunch here before the Nutcracker Market.

Jan got the Open-Face Tuna Melt with their home-made Kettle Chips.

The chips are hand-sliced and cooked to order, and are delicious. But I’m not sure why an ‘Open-Face’ sandwich still has a top bun.

I can’t come to Katz’s without getting one of their Ruebens. Also with the Kettle Chips.

This is the Skinny version, which I got.

This is the Klassic one.

And the biggest one, the New York, is twice as big as the Klassic.

Yikes!

They also give out complimentary plates of their Cole Slaw and Kosher Pickles, but we skip the pickles since they come with our sandwiches. But the Cole Slaw is delicious.

And we always get dessert to go. Jan gets a Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaron,

while I always get one of their famous Black & White Cookies, both to take home.

Next, we were on our way to the NRG Center for our Christmas Overload. And despite my using the official map of the NRG area, the first two supposedly-open entrances were not. But we finally got parked about 1 pm

And it should tell you how busy it was, since even with Handicapped Parking, it was over 200 yards to the entrance into the Market.

The place has seven rows, each about 200 yards long, chock-full of anything and everything you might want for Christmas or Christmas-adjacent. Jan got a number of Christmas gifts for people on her list, and a couple of very beautiful rings for herself.

Finally, by about 4, we were both pooped, and headed back to the car. But this time we took a pedicab to get there. And even with the Houston going-home traffic and a stop at Cowboy Coffee for Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Jan’s Cold-Blended, and mine Hot, we were home by 5:30 pm.

And we were pooped.

November 10, 2023

The Legend Lives On . . .

From the Chippewa on down.

I spent most of the day fighting with the Federal Tax people. I was trying to pay my client’s quarterly Federal taxes, Social Security, and Medicare, but in their infinite wisdom, the government decided to completely change everything on the online payment form login. And a lot of that didn’t work all that well.

But finally, I muddled my way to get it to work. You think they’d want to make it easy to give them money.

Today, November 10th, marks the 48th Anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior.

After her launch in 1958, at 728ft (some articles say 729ft), she was the largest freighter on the Lakes, and is still the largest to have ever gone down there.

Sunk during a gale carrying 75mph gusts and 35ft waves, she was in communication with a nearby ship only minutes before she disappeared from radar a little after 7 pm.

Ironically, as the song says, “The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put fifteen more miles behind ‘er.” And at her top speed, that would have only been another hour.

There were no survivors from her crew of 29, who ranged in age from a 22-year-old deckhand to the 63-year-old captain.

Her wreckage was discovered a few days later by the Coast Guard, and later surveys found her broken into two pieces, lying in a little over 500ft of water, her bow standing upright in the mud.

Despite numerous dives, surveys, and commissions over the years, there is still no definite finding as to the cause of her sinking. But structural failure during the storm, possibly due to problems with her original design, seems to be the leading suspect.

Gordon Lightfoot, reading this article in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks later,

“According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee ‘never gives up her dead.’” – Great Lakes: The Cruelest Month, James R. Gaines with Jon Lowell in Detroit, ©1975 Newsweek Magazine

decided to write a song about the wreck to honor the ship and the crew who lost their lives that night.

In 2010, based on new findings about the wreck, Lightfoot changed the lyrics in one line of the song, at least in his live performances.

“At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,”
became
“At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said,”

Yeah, it doesn’t seem to scan right to me, either.

He said that he always felt bad about that line because he was afraid that it put the blame for the sinking on crew members who had not fastened the hatches down correctly.

And this was thought to be a real possibility at the time, but recent findings have pretty much eliminated this as a cause.

The last verse of the song goes like this:

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald

On May 2, 2023, the day after Gordon Lightfoot’s death, the church’s bell tolled 30 times, once for each of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s 29 crew members and once in memory of Gordon Lightfoot.

November 10, 2024

Up Close And Shiny . . .

Lunch today was at Kelley’s once again, with Jan getting one of the Sunday specials, the Grilled Catfish with Carrots, Green Beans, and Cole Slaw.

I got my usual Country Fried Chicken Breast, with Carrots, Green Beans, and Cornbread Dressing.

It seems like it gets bigger every time. At some point, I’m going to need a bigger plate.

The bowl at the top left is the white gravy for the Chicken Breast.

And I had more than half left over to bring home.

And even better, these meals, with 3 sides, are only $11.99.

Nice!

* * * * * * *

I miss ashtrays.

It seems we always end up with a pile of trash. Straw wrappers, squeezed lemons, butter packets, those little tabs that wrap the silverware, and sweetener packets. It’s a mess.

At least with an ashtray, you had a place to park it all.

* * * * * * *

Up close and shiny!

Leaving HEB, I found this Tesla CyberTruck parked right across from us

The phrase, “So Ugly It’s Cute!” comes to mind.

* * * * * * *

Sometime later this week, probably Friday, we’re going to take a trip down to Galveston to check out the location of Cruise Terminal 10, where we’ll embark on our 9-Day Western Caribbean Cruise aboard RCL’s Jewel Of The Seas, starting December 7th.

We’ve heard and watched a number of ‘horror’ stories about the traffic along Harborside Dr. on Cruise Days. Some have said it took them 2 to 3 hours to get through the traffic and park.

But looking at the map, it looks like Terminal 10 is down at the far end all by itself. So I want to scout out the best route to get there.

Oh, and of course, lunch at Sunflower Cafe will be involved.

From The Chippewa On Down . . .