Our RV Adventures

First up, I posted my screed on The 1960 World Series and the Electoral College and the one on Dilbert Predicts Trump’s Win on my Greg’s Musings page.

Check it out.

Several readers have recently asked about a couple of things that we use regularly and recommend.

The one I use most is one I mentioned the other day during my Splendide dryer repair. It’s the WORX Power Screwdriver

It comes with two different cartridges contain12 bits of various types and sizes. You can also use standard screwdriver bits and well as drill bits. But the thing I really like about it is the torque it can generate. You literally will not be able to hold on to it if the screw stops. So it can power through just about anything.

The next one is our Porter-Cable 150 PSI Air Compressor.

We bought ours in 2009 when it was being sold under the Sears name. I don’t use it as often as my WORX driver but it’s always worked when I needed it. Even more important it’s capable of airing up our rig tires to 105 psi quickly, and with no strain.

As it stands right now Jan and I plan on making the 160 mile trip back to our daughter Brandi’s for Thanksgiving. And somewhere along that trip over and back we’ll reach a milestone.

Our 2004 Dodge Dakota will reach 250,000 miles, that’s a quarter of a million miles!  We bought the Dakota the end of 2007 specially to tow behind our RV, and at time it had 104,000 miles on it. According to CarFax it had been a T-Mobile supervisor’s truck and already had the bed cover on it. With 4WD, it was towable 4-down and perfect for our needs.

And incredibly, it also has another 75,000+ miles being dragged around behind the rig that doesn’t register on the odometer.

Even better is how reliable it’s been. Over the years, we’ve had to replace the AC compressor, the radiator and a water pump. Right now I need to replace the AC evaporator fan which I’ll do when we get back to Houston.

I’ll also put on a new set of shocks at that time, the second new set since we brought the truck. And that’s about it. ]

A really good truck. But then I’ve always had good luck with Chrysler products.

Around 4pm Jan and I headed out to have dinner once again at Bella Sera, our 3rd visit. We’re gradually working our way through the menu, and so far it’s all good.

We both started with salads dressed with their delicious Ranch, which Jan and I agree is probably the best Ranch dressing we’ve ever had.

And because we both liked their Chicken Soup last time, so this time we split a bowl as an appetizer, Still very tasty.

For our entrees, Jan went with the Bella Sera Chicken, the same dish I had on our first visit.

With chicken, olives, capers, and sun-dried tomatoes in a white wine sauce over spaghetti, it’s a great treat.

I went with the Chicken Arribiatta, with chicken, red peppers, mushrooms, and onions in a marinara sauce, it was a spicy dish. Very good.

Then after a quick stop at Wal-Mart for a couple of ingredients for the Pasta e Fagioli soup Jan is making tomorrow, we were home for the night.

Thought for the Day:

“The story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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Or more Electoral College stuff.  Will it never end?

Last night’s short 11 hour turnaround shift was nice, but not really necessary.

I think I would have appreciated it more if it had been a really busy gate, but I only had two vehicles come in, both before 9pm, and about 10 vehicles left, all before 10pm. Then nothing the rest of the night.  Nice.

There is a cat who lives in this area, I think it’s a barn cat at the farmhouse about 100 yards away,  And once a night, like clockwork, she(he?) comes trotting up the road past the guard shack heading back toward the landowner’s farmhouse, and always with a mouthful of some squirming rodent. I’ve called to her a couple of times, and she’ll look over at me, but never even slows down. Must have kittens in the barn.

I noticed a couple of days ago that the passenger side high beam on our truck had gone out. So I ordered new ones from Amazon last night and they should be here Thursday.

For the last 10 years or so, before we started RV’ing in 2008, I’ve been using the Sylvania SilverStar Ultra halogen bulbs in the truck. They’re very bright, and they usually last a long time. In this case the last time I replaced one was almost 5 years ago. So I get my money’s worth.

Even though only one bulb is bad, these should always be replaced in pairs, mainly because of the way these bulbs age. If one goes, another one is probably not far behind. Although at $31 for the pair, they’re not cheap, but parsed out over 5 years, they’re a real bargain.

And really bright.

About 1:30 Jan and I headed out for lunch, and also to pick up our VISA bank cards that had finally come in. We needed to be at the bank in Karnes City before they closed at 3pm, but we still had time for lunch, so we decided to try TK’s Pizza and Burgers. With 5 Stars on 11 reviews on Yelp, we figured it was definitely worth a shot.

But we actually drove past the place, because there isn’t a big sign out front, only on the building, and the place really looks like a somewhat run-down bar from the outside.

But inside it’s very nice. And the food is very good.

Driving up, they were advertising a Lunch Buffet. My kind of place

At 1:30 we were toward the end of the buffet time, but everything was still hot and delicious. With two kinds of pizza, chicken fried steak, meatloaf, fried okra, pinto beans, and fried cabbage, it looked good. Oh, and cinnamon rolls for dessert.

I think this was the first time I’ve ever had fried cabbage, but I’ll have it again. It was really good.

The pizza was very good too, with a tasty crust. A lot of pizza crust is not very good by itself but needs sauce and cheese. TK’s crust stands on its own, almost like a chewy bread. Every thing was very well-seasoned, especially the meatloaf. The cook certainly knows his way around a spice rack.

Jan, on the other hand, was in a burger mood, so she went with their Cheddar Burger with Onion Rings.

After one bite, she said, “This burger’s delicious and there’s something different about it.” Turns out there was something different. The waiter said all the burgers are done outside on a grill/smoker. And it certainly shows.

And tastes.

We’ll go back.

Next we drove over to Karnes City to pick up our bank cards. Glad to finally be able to get some money out of our SiteWatch account.

On the way home we drove a detour out into the country to show Jan where my last gate was. Finally coming home we made a quick HEB stop for a few things.

Todd texted me about 6:30 with another gate job. Or actually the same gate I was at a week a while back at the end of October. The gate where the cow ran off with the sensor cone. But this time I’m on Day shift.

Semi-Bummer.

And now more Electoral College stuff.

I posted the article on Why the Polls Were So Wrong on my Greg’s Musings page. This is from my recent blog post, but with all the extraneous stuff filtered out. Take a look.

A few days ago I came across something that illustrates the comparison between the Electoral College and the Popular Vote.

During the 1960 World Series between the NY Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Yankees scored 55 runs to the Pirates’ 27 runs. In addition the Yankees hit .328 overall to the Pirates’ .256. So the Yankees obviously won the 1960 World Series, right?

Wrong!  The Pirates won 4 games to 3.

So the Yankees had a bigger run total (the Popular Vote) but the Pirates won the most games (the Electoral Vote)

The reason for the discrepancy was that in the 3 games the Yankees did win, they really ran up the score.

Game 2  16 to 3

Game 3  10 to 0

Game 6  12 to 0

while the Pirates won their 4 games by much closer scores.

Game 1    6 to 4

Game 4    3 to 2

Game 5    5 to 2

Game 7  10 to 9

In the recent election, Hillary Clinton really run up the popular vote in the two most populous states, California and New York, winning California 61.5% to 33%, and New York 58.8% to 31.5%.

These wins, totaling over 4.5 million votes extra votes for Clinton, add up to 4 times the present difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the popular vote.

The argument can also be made that running a campaign to win Electoral Votes is not the same as one to win the Popular Vote.

To win the Electoral Vote, you try to put together a group of states whose Electoral Votes totals 270 or more. You do not campaign in states where you think you have no chance. For Donald Trump that was New York and California. But you do campaign some in states where you’re sure you can win.

But you put most of your effort in states that people don’t think you can win, but your research shows you can.

That can win you the Presidency, but it won’t necessarily win you the Popular Vote.

On a closing note, those of you interested in the Persuasion Techniques used during the campaign, especially by Trump, might want to go back through Scott Adam’s Blog

Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is also a master hypnotist and studies persuasion and its influence on people and their emotions.

Because of his evaluation of Trump’s techniques, and he says they WERE techniques, a few weeks after Trump entered the primary race, and Adams had time to study Trump, he said that Trump would win the Republican Primary.

And after Trump wrapped up the nomination, Adams studied both Trump and Clinton on the campaign trail. And in September 2015 he predicted that Donald Trump would win the Presidency.

At the time his said the win would be by a huge landslide. He later tempered the ‘landslide’ part after some of the Trump ‘shenanigans’, but still said he would win. And his many blogs during the campaign showed you how Trump’s ‘outbursts’, were in fact planned ‘acts of persuasion’.

Whether you believe him or not, he does make a persuasive argument, and he was right about both the primary and the election.

Check him out.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” ― Mark Twain

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