Our RV Adventures

We got more rain last night, and more is scheduled for today, so it was too wet to sit outside again with our coffee.

But Jan made up for it by putting out a couple of the fantastic Williams-Sonoma Frozen Chocolate Croissants that our daughter Brandi gave us for Christmas. They are shipped to you frozen in dry ice and come 2 dozen to a box.

All you have to do is just set them out overnight to thaw and rise, pop them in the oven at 375° for 12 minutes and you’re good to go.

Delicious.

About 2pm, Nick and Terry Russell  headed up to Michigan to visit relatives for a few days, so things should really quieten down here at the park. At least for me, anyway.

About 3pm Jan and I headed over to Mishawaka for some shopping and dinner. We did hit some rain on the way but it had cleared up by the time we got there.

Our first stop was at the Sam’s Club to pick up our prescriptions and a few other things. I mentioned last month that when I renewed my membership on the 15th I had upgraded from the standard membership to the PLUS version. The reason I did this was that I found out PLUS members had a additional list of drugs that we can get cheaper, besides the $4 ones.

The drug in question was the Lipitor generic that Jan is taking. Previously we had been paying $93 for a 3 month supply. But this time with my new PLUS membership, I paid $35.61 for a 3 month supply.

So, instead of paying $125 for all our drugs, we paid $69, a savings of $56.

And since the cost of upgrading to the PLUS membership is $55 a year, we’re already $1 ahead, with 9 months to go. So the upgrade will save us almost $170 for the year.

NICE!

Leaving Sam’s we drove over to Outback Steakhouse to have dinner. Outback has always been one of our favorite steak places, especially since it’s not near as loud as Texas Roadhouse. You can actually have a conversation using your inside voice. Well, at least as much of an inside voice as I have.

As usual, Outback didn’t disappoint. My ribeye was delicious. Better than the one I had at Texas Roadhouse last week, and a couple of bucks cheaper too. Plus we always like Outback’s salads.

Leaving Outback after a good meal, we headed back to Wal-Mart for groceries. The Wal-Mart and Sam’s are side by side, but since we were getting some cold stuff, we didn’t want it all sitting in the hot car while we ate.

Tomorrow looks to be a movie two-fer, probably Maleficent and The Edge of Tomorrow.
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Thought for the Day:

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." – Robert Heinlein

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Your entire life is in the Cloud and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Recently Nick Russell told me about a new service that lets anyone accept credit cards. It’s called Flint and unlike its competitors, it doesn’t require any type of reader, like Square, Intuit, and Android does.

In Flint’s case, you just take a photo of the credit card with your smartphone, like you do when using one of those online check deposit services with your bank.

So now you don’t have to wait until you receive your reader, you can sign up and be taking credit cards in just a few minutes.

But the one thing all these services have in common is the signup procedure. Specifically the verification process that confirms you’re who you say you are, and have legal access to the bank account that you want the funds deposited into.

One of the ways they do this is to ask you questions that only you should be able to answer. But how far they go, and the stuff they can dig out of your past is amazing . . . and scary!

In my case, for Square and now Flint, they ask you a series of three questions. For me, they went like this.

1. With Which Name Are You Associated?

a) Julian
b) Jesse
c) James
d) None of the Above

In my case, the answer to this one was d) None of the Above

2. In Which City is E. Center St ?

a) Belden
b) Cameron
c) Madison
d) None of the Above

In my case, the answer to this one is c) Madison.
E. Center St is the address of MyDakotaAddress, our mail forwarding service in Madison, SD.

3. Which Street Have You Lived On?

a) Lubich Dr.
b) Matterhorn St.
c) Huntington Ct.

In my case, the answer to this one is b) Matterhorn St.

This one is the kicker. Matterhorn St. is the address of a rental house where we lived in Montgomery AL in 1975.

We lived for a while right before we bought our first house in a nearby area.

So, as I said above: Your entire life is in the Cloud and there’s nothing you can do about it.

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As far as today, Phyllis Schell came by for a while to ask some questions about a router problem she was having, and as is usual with RV’ers, we ended talking about restaurants and food.

She told us about a BBQ place in South Bend called aptly enough, Pit’s. She said it’s pretty good, and she and Dick liked the sauce, so much in fact that they bought some. She said she’d send Dick over later with a sample and she did. But we haven’t had a chance to try it yet.

Jan and I pretty much goofed off the rest of day until about 4pm when we headed out with Nick and Terry to have dinner at El Maguey Mexican Restaurant, our favorite local Mexican place, and once again, they didn’t disappoint.

After we got back someone from a Good Sam group in the park came by to invite us to a wienie roast at the Activity Center tomorrow evening at 5pm. Sounds like fun, but we don’t know how our schedule will work out, since tomorrow we’ll make a run over to Mishawaka and pick up our prescriptions at Sam’s and do some other shopping.

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Thought for the Day:

Being born in Alabama, I was 15 before I knew “Damn” and “Yankee” were two separate words.

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