Daily Archives: December 16, 2014
Road Trip Wrap Up . . .
Finishing up yesterday’s road trip.
Before we left the Gone With The Wind exhibit, I discovered a rare treat in a side alcove, an original Gutenberg Bible.
Printed in 1454 or 1455, this two volume set is one of only 48 still-existing sets, and one of only 5 sets in the United States.
I was interested to learn that the red highlights were actually put in by hand, by a person called a ‘rubricator’. Gutenberg had originally tried to print each page twice, once for the red ink parts,and then for the black text. But he was never really able to perfect it, probably because of the difficulty of keeping the pages aligned.
So instead, he printed the pages in black, leaving empty areas to be filled in by hand by the ‘rubricator’, usually a priest or a monk especially hired for the task,
It was really amazing to look at these volumes on the other side of the glass case and know they were printed more than 550 years ago and handled by Johannes Gutenberg himself.
We left the GTTW exhibit and drove about 15 minutes to have lunch at Trudy’s Texas Star.
We used to eat here every time we came up to Austin to visit our daughter Brandi when she was in college here, and always really enjoyed it.
But it’s been a long time since we’ve been back, so we wanted to try it again while we’re in town. And we weren’t disappointed.
I had the Migas and Beef Fajitas
and Jan had the Beef Chile Rellenos
Jan said these were the best rellenos she’s ever eaten, beating out the previous #1, Esther’s in Placentia, CA who are renowned in California for their rellenos.
My Migas were delicious, but the Beef Fajitas were fantastic, probably the best I ever had. It seemed like that after they were cooked normally, they were coated in a rub of some sort and then put on the grill for a short time. This gave them a slight charred crust on them, making them really great.
Also really good were the Borracho Beans, cooked with bacon and onions. as well as the perfectly seasoned rice. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back soon.
Heading toward home after our great meal, we made a stop by a local Christmas Store so Jan could look for some Christmas lights she wanted and then it was back on the road home. After making a quick pitstop at Buc-ee’s, we got back to the rig a little after 6pm, another fun, but busy day.
Getting home I found a spray bottle of De-Solv-It Contractor’s Solvent sitting on the rig step.
I figured it was either left by Christmas Elves, or maybe my friend Tom Christian who thought it might remove the drill mud from the roof of our rig. And according to the label, it should remove just about anything. In fact the label warns you to test the surface you’re using it on to be sure it doesn’t dissolve it too. According to the website, it cleans stained concrete, removes silicone, caulk, putty nails, floor adhesive, water seal, wet paint (won’t harm dry paint), oil, roofing tar, wax, diesel soot, pine sap and resin, and more from virtually any surface! And apparently, according to one commenter, it will even take the skunk smell off of dogs. Who knew?
So later in the afternoon, I got the ladder out and gave it a try on the top of the front cap. But unfortunately it didn’t really touch it. I could see a slight darkening on the towel I was using, but I couldn’t see any change in the roof surface. But later I did try it on the diesel soot on the rig’s chrome exhaust pipe and it cleaned it right up.
So it’s back to the drawing board on the drill mud.
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Thought for the Day:
Merry Christmas from the Enterprise!
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