Monthly Archives: May 2016
Worse The Second Day . . .
Well, after a quiet morning, probably our last for a day or so, we headed out for Katy about 2:30, to pickup our grandson Landon so he can spend tonight with us in the ‘Truck House.” Unlike our last couple of trips south, this one was pretty smooth with no hangups or slowdowns.
We got to Brandi’s just about 4pm and Lowell had him all packed and ready to roll. Brandi was still at work, so Landon hugged Lowell and Miss Kitty, the dog., and we were on our way.
Going home, we took the new 99 Grand Parkway to avoid all the going-home traffic. And it really does. As soon as we got a mile or so off I-10 everyone was cruising at the 70 mph speed limit.
Well, no. Most everyone was doing 80 or above. This is like driving through west Texas, with absolutely nothing around you, just open countryside. So even through the route is further, and more expensive, than taking the Sam Houston Tollway, it’s certainly quicker durning rush hour.
And there are the six entertaining toll booth charges. Where in the heck do they come up with toll amounts like $1.03, or $1.11, or even $1.98?
When I set our Garmin GPS to take us back to Conroe, the online traffic info said we would have 45 minute delay, and would be home about 6:15. But taking the Parkway we were back at the rig by 5:30. Nice!
Not actually back at the rig though, because we made a dinner stop at where Landon wanted to eat, Taco Bell.
The last time we ate at one was during our two month blowout repair sabbatical out in Prescott, AZ last year. It’s strange because we always like it, but it never comes up when we talk about where we want to eat.
Getting back to the rig for real, Landon changed into his swimsuit and I dropped he and Jan off at the park pool for about an hour and a half or so, before picking them up a little after 8pm.
Getting home, we all snuggled down and watched the first episode of Star Wars, well, the fourth in the episode list, but the first one for us when we saw it in 1977. Landon had never seen it, and was looking forward to it.
Finishing up, apparently a Treadmill Faceplant Face looks much worse the second day.
Here”s the first day.
And here’s the second day.
At least he’s smiling now.
Thought for the Day:
When a woman says “What?”, it’s not because she didn’t hear what you said. It’s because she’s giving you a chance to change what you just said.
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Faceplant . . .
Yesterday while we were down in the Clear Lake area, I stopped by Fry’s Electronics to pick up a few things, one of which was a new video card for the new computer.
After trying a number of different non-effective fixes for my HDMI problem, I wanted to try one last thing. My old computer was set up with a 12ft. HDMI cable feeding video and audio to our 32” LCD TV at the front of the rig.
So if one of us wanted to show the other something on the computer, all we had to do was change the TV Input from HDMI1 to HDMI2 and there it is. And it still shows up on the computer monitor as well, which is fed by a DVI cable from the same video card.
But when I plugged the HDMI cable into the computer, it killed the monitor ourput, and nothing showed up on the TV either, neither video nor audio.
Now I knew the HDMI cable and the TV input were still good, since it still worked from my ASUS laptop. So my next step was to download the latest drivers from AMD Radeon. Then I deleted the old ones and installed the new ones.
And struck out again. Nothing changed.
So my last gasp was to just replace the video card and hope for the best. I once again deleted the old Radeon drivers, removed the old card, installed the new nVidia card, and turned it back on. I had deliberately bought a different brand card from the original one to be sure that there was no interference between the old ones and the new ones. The uninstall routines are bad about not deleting everything, sometimes causing some weird problems.
Of course when it came back up, with no drivers installed, it was in the blocky default 640 x 480 mode, or the Commodore 64 mode as we call it. I had already hooked up the HDMI cable and switched the TV over, but still had a black screen. But since the monitor was still working, maybe I was on the right path.
Putting the Driver Disk in the drive, I got the them installed and then did the mandatory reboot.
And, Voilà!, I had video on both the TV and the monitor. And sound too.
Now Jan can get back to streaming Big Love, so she’s happy.
We had planned to pick up Landon tomorrow afternoon at his home in Katy, and then bring him back here to Conroe to spend the night in the ‘Truck House’ as he calls it. There’s a lot of kids here on the weekend, and he can check out the playground and swim in the pool with the others.
But it may be on hold until next Friday, because Landon came down with a bad case of Treadmill Face.
He was upstairs playing and he decided try out the treadmill. He had been told a number of times to stay off, but I guess it was just too tempting.
So, turning it on, the result was a faceplant right to the mat. At least he didn’t lose another tooth.
Poor kid. But I bet he stays off the treadmill now.
And after hearing story, Jan and I couldn’t help but think of the Polar Bear on the Treadmill cartoon. Check it out.
Thought for the Day:
Life is not a Fairy Tale. If you lose your shoe at midnight, you’re drunk.
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