Winding Down . . .

We’re down to our last four days on the gate before we leave this coming Wednesday. And as of tonight the gate is pretty dead, with only 4 vehicles and 16 out. And hopefully it will stay that way until we leave.



Jan and I went out for lunch today, for our last meal at Maya’s Mexican Restaurant, our favorite Mexican both here and in Kenedy/Karnes City. And once again we had the Sizzling Fajitas Regias, a combo of Beef, Chicken, and Grilled Sausage, along with the onions and the large grilled jalapenos.

Maya's Sizzling Fajitas

And it was so ‘sizzling’ that I had to wait for some of the smoke to clear before I could get a good photo. One place we’re going to miss.

The other one will be La Bella Tavola, the local Italian place that we like so much. And we definitely will eat here one more time before we leave too.

The Hack Attack is back.

Or at least it was yesterday. In the space of a little over 3 hours I had over 1000 attempts to break into the blog. I don’t know what they’re looking to do, but they sure want to do it bad.

There is a large oil facility right across the street from us, up on a hill. And there is a guard trailer there, the size of a small camper, but obviously a company deal. And several times a night the guard apparently comes outside to smoke his pipe.

And I’m pretty sure he’s smoking Borkum Riff, a bourbon whiskey-flavored pipe tobacco (Hey, two vices in one) that I smoked more than 50 years ago.

It’s amazing how even scents can bring back memories.



Our good friend and fellow name dropper, Nick Russell, jumped in with his comment on the Six Degrees of Separation thing. Here’s his list.

Well, let’s see, while I was stationed at West Point I was on an honor guard detail for Mamie Eisenhower and met her, as well as VP Spiro Agnew, and crossed paths with a number of high ranking officers while there.

In my newspaper career I met and interviewed a lot of celebrities and famous people, including actors Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, Forest Tucker,  and Brooke Shields,  country music stars the Bellamy Brothers, Willie Nelson, Dan Seals, Don Williams, Michal Martin Murphy, Tom T Hall, Eddie Rabbit, Tanya Tucker, and Johnny Cash.

I also met President Ford and interviewed John McCain and General Chuck Yeager.

So how far does that reach out?

Not bad!

He did admit though that my Adolf Hitler with a BN of 2 was hard to match.

So I will see his ‘Johnny Cash’ and raise him Chet Adkins, Floyd Cramer and Gene Watson, all of whom I met when our band was playing in Nashville clubs when I was going to Vanderbilt.

And turning over my hole cards, I have Dung Chow Ping, the then-Chinese Premier, AND Barbi Benton, pretty much the ‘Queen’ of the Playboy Playmates. I met both of them when they were being given tours at Johnson Space Center when I was there.

I still have an autographed picture of Barbi somewhere. I think Jan hid it.



And I won’t even mention, as blog reader and friend Tricia said, Katherine Ross’ hair dryer.

And, oh yeah, Sean Connery. Did I mentioned Sean Connery?


Thought for the Day:

Ouch!

Actual obituary from the family of a Galveston residence who died recently. Although the sentence structure is a little jumbled, you can tell it’s from the heart.

Leslie Ray ‘Popeye’ Charping was born in Galveston on November 20, 1942 and passed away January 30, 2017, which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved. Leslie battled cancer in his latter years and lost his battle, ultimately due to being the horses ass he was known for. He leaves behind two relieved children: a son Leslie Roy Charping and daughter Sheila Smith, along with six grandchildren and countless other victims, including an ex-wife, relatives, friends, neighbors, doctors, nurses and random strangers.

At a young age, Leslie quickly became a model example of bad parenting combined with mental illness and a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive. Leslie enlisted in the Navy, but not so much in a brave & patriotic way but more as a part of a plea deal to escape sentencing on criminal charges. While enlisted, Leslie was the Navy boxing champion and went on to sufficiently embarrass his family and country by spending the remainder of his service in the Balboa Mental Health Hospital receiving much needed mental healthcare services.

Leslie was surprisingly intelligent, however he lacked ambition and motivation to do anything more than being reckless, wasteful, squandering the family savings and fantasizing about get rich quick schemes. Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets, and fishing, which he was less skilled with than the previously mentioned. Leslies’ life served no other obvious purpose, he did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick whited (sic) sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days.

With Leslie’s passing he will be missed only for what he never did; being a loving husband, father and good friend.  No services will be held, there will be no prayers for eternal peace and no apologizes to the family he tortured.  Leslie’s remains will be cremated and kept in the barn until “Ray”, the family donkey’s wood shavings run out.  Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.

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