Our RV Adventures

Happy New Year to all our Family and Friends!

I was up about 1:30 pm today and got coffee started while we tried to decide where we were going to eat for our New Year’s Eve Celebration.

We finally decided on Gratton’s Cajun Kitchen out on US80 coming into Karnes City. We hadn’t been there yet, but the Yelp reviews were excellent and food pictures looked delicious. But when I double-checked the hours I saw they closed at 3 pm on Saturdays. So we dressed quickly and headed out the door.

But as we drove out toward Karnes City we began to get a bad feeling. Almost every place was closed. Only Bella Sera and Flashburger were open.

We had thought we might use Partner’s BBQ in KC as our backup place, but as we passed it, it too was closed.

And so was Gratton’s when we finally got there. So it was back to Bella Sera and their great pizza, so not all bad.

Even better, when got there we found our next-door neighbors and fellow gate guards, Bill and Meredith just getting ready to order. Turns out they had been planning to have dinner at Partner’s BBQ, and also ended up at Bella Sera.

Fun people, great time, good food. Not much more to say.

While I was there my friend Nick Russell called to say that his latest book in the Big Lake series, Big Lake Celebration,

should be going live soon. And a little bit later it was live online.

I’ve already got my copy. Get yours at the link above before they’re all gone.

Guess I have to apologize to the Russians over ‘hacking’ my dashcam.

I kind of have an idea what’s happening with it. I’ve noticed over the last month or so that as I’m driving along, the dashcam screen will pop on.

Now, it’s set so that when you first turn the ignition on, it starts recording with the screen staying for 3 minutes. Then the screen goes off so it’s not distracting, but the unit keeps recording.

I wondered if the screen coming back on had anything to do with my problem. In troubleshooting equipment, if you have one weird thing happen, and then another weird thing happens, more than likely the two weird things are connected.

So as I left the gate this morning I waited for the screen to pop back and then noted the time. Later this afternoon I looked at the dashcam video and sure enough there was no video recorded after the screen popped back on. This explains why the video started up again as we were leaving the movie Wednesday night. When the unit is turned off and then back on, the whole cycle starts over again.

So now I just need to figure what’s causing the problem to happen to start with.

Also I said yesterday that the 3 minute video files from the dashcam are 50 MB. But when I checked I saw they’re more like 120 MB. The file sizes get big quickly with HD video.

As far as the Unexpected Gate, I got a call from Todd about 10 minutes after 5 pm this afternoon, just a little while after we got back home from Bella Sera.
Todd: “Uh, why aren’t on your gate?”

Me: “Because you texted me last night telling me I was off tonight and then moved me to another gate tomorrow night.”

Todd: Oh Crap!

Me: “You know, just like I worked for two nights at the other gate, then you gave me a night off, and then moved me here.”

Todd: Oh Crap!

Me: “If you need me to, I can be out there in about 20 minutes, no problem.”

Todd: “I’ll call you back and let you know.”

And he did.

And so now I’m back on the gate, which is completely dead, with no vehicles expected all weekend. Fine by me.

One thing I did do before I left the rig for the gate is I grabbed my AirCard’s external antenna. It’s a flat plate about the size of your hand and has no powered amplification.

But it does make a difference.

I was hoping it would make my 3G data signal a little better here on this gate. As I mentioned, I have no phone service here, but just OK data through my Aircard. But it does slow down and just stop sometimes.

It plugs directly into my AirCard and I just hang it out the window.

And it definitely makes a difference here. And since I had pretty much the same problem at the other gate, I’ll take it with me there too.

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Tonight will be my 2nd night here at this new gate. Last night I texted Todd to ask if this new one was a TFN (Till Further Notice) gate or a one night stand. He texted me back, “TFN”.

Of course the gate I was on Monday and Tuesday was also TFN, and it only lasted two days. So we’ll see after tonight I guess.

One thing this two day (so far) gate has in common with the last two day gate is that the cell service just plain sucks. Sucks, as in just plain doesn’t work. Text is OK, and both the 3G on my AirCard and 4G on my S5 phone are usable. But I can’t make or receive phone calls at all here.

At the other gate I couldn’t make a phone call from inside the shack (it has sheet steel walls) but I could go outside and get a connection. But here, nothing.

If I had my ladder here I guess I could climb up on the roof and hold my phone up in air like Robin Williams in ‘RV’. But then with my luck trucks would start rolling in.

But I was confused at first when I got to this new gate and had the same problems as before. The two gates are off different roads heading out in different directions from Kenedy. But when you look on a map the gates are only about 5 miles apart as the buzzard flies. (why is it always crows. give some other animal a chance.) So we’re probablystill on the same tower.

Another thing different about this is that when you make a call, all you get is silence. No ringing, no noise. And then after about 15 seconds it just disconnects. And it’s the same on incoming calls too. Nick said that when he tried to call me yesterday, it was just dead silence on his end, no ringing, and never went to voice mail.

Hopefully they’ll get it fixed soon, or I’ll get a new gate, with the ‘new gate’ probably the most likely.

I had hoped to have some dashcam footage for you from our trip to San Antonio this past Wednesday. As we were coming north on US 281 approaching the Alamodome and the Tower of the Americas, I was in the second from the right lane. A lady in an SUV in the far right lane was slowly passing me (I was doing the speed limit). When she got where her rear door was about even with my front bumper, she just started coming over.

Now it wasn’t like her lane was ending or it was a Exit Only, she apparently just wanted to be where I was. I couldn’t move over because I had someone coming up on my left, so I slowed down slightly and leaned on the horn, really wishing that I had the rig’s air horns onboard.

She never even flinched, never jerked the wheel, or even looked around. She just kept coming.

Finally I had to stand on the brakes for a couple of seconds to let her in front of me. She was so close that I could see nothing lower than the bottom of her rear window, probably only a inch or so separation.

Yikes!

But when I eagerly checked my dashcam footage the next day, it wasn’t there. Or that time period wasn’t, anyway.

My dashcam is set to record in 3 minute seamless segments. If you make the segments longer, you can end up with files sizes are just too big to handle for editing. As it is a 3 minute segment of HD video is about 50 MB.

So the last segment I had was us getting back onto 281 about 16:30, maybe 8-10 minutes before the incident. Then it picks up about 20:20 just as we’re leaving the movie theater. And looking at the file timestamps, there are no other files missing.

So the only thing I can figure out is . . . that I’ve been hacked . . . by the Russians, of course. Who else could it be?

So who can I expel?

I figure that I wasn’t supposed to see the lady in the SUV, who’s actually a top secret Russian spy. So they had to erase all evidence of her existence, including my dashcam.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Otherwise I have no idea why those, and only those, particular files vanished.

On another note, one thing I’ve noticed at the last two theaters we’ve been in San Antonio is that the individual theaters in the complex no longer tell you what’s showing inside. They just have the theater number that corresponds to the number on your ticket.

I guess this is to keep kids from buying a ticket for ‘Finding Nemo’ and then sneaking into an R-rated movies, and to keep people from migrating from movie to movie. Otherwise they could get accidently stuck in ‘Sponge Bob Squarepants’.

That movie was so bad that all three of us fell asleep, me, Jan, AND Landon.

On the Food Front, Jan made up a big batch of her super hot & spicy chili this past Monday, but with everything going on, today was the first chance to try it. And believe me, it aged well.

It’s always a good sign if my nose starts running and the top of my head starts sweating. And this was a VERY good batch.

Yesterday we had our Magic Time Machine leftovers as steak sandwiches using the bread they give us with the meal, as well as the rest of our baked potato that Jan fleshes out with more sour cream and fixing’s.

Just about as good as the original.

Brandi sent over this pic of Landon on Christmas morning.

He looks like he could be one of Santa’s elves himself.

FLASH UPDATE:

It’s official. Now we know that TFN apparently means TWO days. Todd just texted me that I’m off tomorrow and then Sunday back at the same gate I was at the first two days this week. The ‘other’ gate with the bad cell service.

And the rattlesnakes.

yay.

So it looks like Jan and I will now get to do all our wild partying on New Year’s Eve.

Thought for the Day:

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