Our RV Adventures

You know you’re in Texas when it’s 45 degrees and you’re running the heaters on one day, and it’s 70 degrees with the AC going on the next day.

It’s never boring

Jan and I headed out for lunch at Barth’s about 12:30, not wanting to miss their Turkey & Dressing and Fried Chicken.

In fact not wanting to waste plate space on the creamed red potatoes and veggies, Turkey & Dressing and Fried Chicken was all I got.

And it turns out that we just missed fellow gate guard, JW Wilks, who apparently arrived about 5 minutes after we left. We’ll try to meet up next time.

Then it was on up to Wal-Mart for some baking stuff for Jan’s Christmas Cookie Bake-off. We also picked up a boy’s toy and a girl’s toy that we dropped off at the Toys for Tots booth outside the exit.

Coming home, we just goofed off and napped during the afternoon.

I did get a text from Todd, our SiteWatch supervisor, changing my work schedule tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 5:30pm – 5:30am to 5:00pm – 5:00am. Not a problem for me.

Seen Around the Web:

I’ve talked several times before about the future of 3D printing. And it’s amazing what they’re doing with them. Whether it’s astronauts printing repair parts on the International Space Station, Jay Leno printing new parts for his collection of antique cars, doctors printing new body parts, or even builders constructing entire houses, there’s always something new coming out.

Now it’s 3D Printing in Molten Glass.

Now they can make things from glass that can’t be made any other way.

Ever wonder about those expensive vehicle inspections that a lot of you go through every year? Wonder if they really do any good?

Well according to this GAO (Government Accounting Office) report no one really knows, but probably not. And the 15 states, including Texas, that still have the inspections, spend $100’s of millions a year for what seems to be no discernable benefit. Apparently that’s why a number of states over the last few years have dropped their inspections, and now Texas is thinking about it.

Tomorrow, it’s back to work.

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Well, it looks like our cold snap is over for a few days, but there’s another one following on behind in another week or so.

Luckily for us it never got quite as cold as they forecasted. But there’s always next time I guess.

Todd texted us this afternoon with another 3 days of gate work, this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and even better, it’s night shift from 17:30 to 05:30. Nice!

And lucky for me, the night temps are supposed to only be in the low 60’s for then.

There’s probably a rule somewhere that you’re not allowed to have Turkey & Dressing twice in one week. But officially tomorrow is the start of a new week, so tomorrow it’s back to Barth’s Restaurant for their Sunday lunch buffet. And then probably a Wal-Mart/HEB run.

I posted yesterday’s Cranberry Orange Nut Bread under the Jan’s Favorite Recipes tab.

Check it out if you didn’t get it yesterday. Really delicious.

For dinner tonight we finished up the last of Jan’s Chicken Vegetable Soup that she made up a couple of days ago in our slow cooker.

Just wish we had a larger slow cooker so she could make more at one time. But unfortunately a larger model is too high and won’t fit in our cabinet.

On a completely different subject, I sure we’ve all been seeing the commercials for Harvoni, the new Hep C cure. I saw a mention on another blog on how expensive it was. So curious, I checked on GoodRx site to see what kind of expensive we were talking about. And all I can say is WOW!

Depending on what different strain of HEP C you’ve have, and how chronic the infection is, you will need treatments ranging from 8 to 12 weeks, so 2 to 3 months. And according to GoodRx,, a one month treatment costs in the neighborhood of $32,000. That’s a very expensive neighborhood.

So now this is where we all yell and scream about Big Pharma and the high cost of prescription drugs. But wait, there’s more.

1. Presently it takes ~12 years for a new drug to be approved for marketing after it is patented.

2. According to Forbes, the average cost of getting a new drug to market is ~$5 billion.

3. Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is approved. So that means that only 1 drug in 5000 actually make money for the company. Not very good odds.

4. But the real kicker is our patent system. Presently the Patent Office allows a time period of 20 years from patenting to expiration for a new drug. So this means that the drug company only has about 8 years to make back their $5 billion cost of developing the drug.

Then they have to make enough money to cover the partial development and testing of the other 4999 drugs that didn’t make it through the approval process.

So now they’ve covered their costs, but there’s still something missing – Profit.. Profit to keep the company in business, profit for the shareholders, etc.

So it looks like to me that the first (and very easy thing) to do to cut the cost of prescription drugs would be to make the 20 year patent time only start when the drug gets final approval and can go on sale. This would more than double the time for the drug development cost to be amortized, and reduce the price they need to charge for each dose.

Makes sense to me.

Thought for the Day:

“I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.” ― Mae West

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