Daily Archives: January 12, 2011
It was the cat’s fault . . .
Well, it got down to about 30 degrees here at the rig last night, a little warmer than the 25 or so up in Houston. Being right on the water keeps us a little warmer.
Our friend Nick Russell had mentioned on his blog that he and Terri were thinking about leaving Bushnell, FL and heading west to find warmer weather. I commented that it won’t do any good since it was in the 20’s at night from Florida all the way out to El Paso, TX.
Then tonight I saw a news story online that over 70% of the US was covered in snow, and it was snowing 49 of 50 states, including HAWAII! Only Florida was snow-free.
About 10:30am a client called and said he had lost Internet to his computer last night and it still wasn’t working. He’d tried all the normal things like rebooting, etc., with no luck. He said his wife’s computer in her home office was working fine. I told him I’d be over a little later to check it out.
Then our son Chris called a little before 11 to lock in our dinner plans for tonight. We’re going to our favorite local Italian place, Mario’s Pizza, up in Seabrook.
After I got off the phone with Chris, I called my Doctor to schedule my yearly checkup for the last week in January. I also made an appointment for Jan since her old doctor had moved away, and she wasn’t enamored of his replacement in the group practice.
A couple of minutes after I got off the phone, I heard some indelicate words coming from bathroom. Turns out Jan had dropped one of her opal earrings down the lavatory drain. Telling her not to run the water, I got my strap wrench and took apart the upper and lower fittings and pulled the pipe down.
They don’t give you a lot of clearance, but after putting a bowl under the trap, I was able to splash enough water out to retrieve the earring.
When I started working, Mister was hanging right over my shoulder watching my every move. But he finally got bored and retired to the bedroom. Apparently he just couldn’t watch any more.
A little while later Jan and I headed up to Clear Lake to check out my client’s Internet problem and run some other errands. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out what happened. It turns out…
It was the cat’s fault.
This one to be specific. And no, this is not Mister. He does kind of look like him, but he only weighs about half of Mister’s 23 pounds.
He looks perfectly innocent, doesn’t he.
But apparently he walked across the power switch on a plug strip that powered a router that fed the Internet into his owner’s computer. At least he was the only one in the house who could fit behind the desk where the power strip was, so he gets the blame.
Leaving the cat to finish his nap, Jan and I headed over to Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription. Then next it was down the feeder to Baybrook Mall.
First Jan had a opal ring she wanted to get resized. You might have noticed a pattern here with Jan and opals. Opal is her birthstone and she’s really got a thing for them.
And this ring has a history.
It you watch the TV show ‘Pawn Stars’, about the pawn shop on the Strip in Las Vegas, you know where this ring came from.
Jan bought it last March when we were in Vegas with Nick and Terry Russell .
And if you watch the show, you’ll recognize Chumlee, one of the stars. He’s the one who sold it to her.
Next, we went next door to Sears where I was looking for an Sears Air Compressor like this one.
I wanted one that would handle both the toad tires, and our 22.5 coach tires that are inflated to 110#. No small order.
But according to several guys on the RV.net forums, this one will do the job. I’ll see when I try it out in a day or so.
Of course, I could use the air compressor built in to the coach, but that entails dragging out the hose and then cranking up the diesel. It’s a pain in the butt just to put a few pounds of air in a truck tire. So we’ll see how this one does.
Then we headed toward home, first stopping at the Kroger’s to get gas, and then Wal-Mart for more ‘stuff’.
One of the things I wanted to get was a new water filter, like this one.
I always start off the year’s travels with a new filter. I’ve also got one under the sink that feeds the drinking fountain and the ice maker, but I have to get it later at Home Depot.
We got back to the rig about 4pm with only about 45 minutes before we had to leave to meet Chris, Linda, and Piper at the Mario’s Pizza in Seabrook. While we were eating Nick called with another computer problem, but said to call him back after we got home.
Then our friend Maria called a few minutes later wanting to know if Jan wanted to go Bingo-ing tonight, but Jan begged off.
Boy, are we popular.
I called Nick back a little before 7 to try and get a handle on his problem. And Nick, being true to form, came up with a real doozy this time. I sometimes thinks he does it just to see if he can stump me.
Something weird is going on between his computer and his external hard drive that I’ve never heard of happening, and, on top of that, can’t figure out how it COULD happen. So more research is needed.
And on that note, more tomorrow…
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Thought for the Day:
Freedom is not free. A free society has no choice but to put up with a great deal of bizarre behavior.
adsf
