Daily Archives: October 16, 2018
Starry, Starry Night . . .
We were off to Nick and Terry’s about 10:30, earlier than normal, because this was going to be a roadtrip day.
But first Nick and I spent some time trying out a couple of cellphone boosters to try and get a better signal at his house. He’s located in kind of a dead area, especially for Verizon, even though there are a couple of Verizon towers only a few miles away. Plus a metal roof and siding doesn’t help things either.
The first one we tried, an older Wilson trucker’s unit, is so old that it’s only 3G, not 4G. The second one, a new WeBoost unit, (the new name of Wilson) that’s really made for RV use.
Hooking it up temporarily showed an increase in signal bars, so tomorrow we’ll try to mount the outside antenna up on the tower to see how it helps.
About 1pm we all headed out for Mt. Dora, FL, about 75 miles away. Jan wanted to check off another item on her bucket list.
She’s been wanting to see the Starry Night house, i.e. The Van Gogh house, there. (Hey, what can I say? She’s checked off so many things over the years, it’s getting to be a short list).
Initially the owners painted just the wall in front of the house with a replica of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to please and ‘soothe’ their 25 year old autistic son. The city of Mt. Dora immediately tried to force them to paint over the wall, fining them $100 a day until it was done.
Told that the wall had to match the rest of the house, the owner’s took them at their word . . . and painted the rest of the house to match the wall.
At various times the city tried to label the house a ‘sign’ and then also ‘graffiti’. After winning a couple of initial court tussles, the Pacific Legal Foundation stepped in on the side of the owner’s, citing Free Speech rights, and the dominos started falling.
And by the time the last one ‘plopped’ the city was out almost $60,000 in legal fees, and paid the owner’s $15,000.
Oh, and also cancelled the $10,000 of $100 daily fees, too.
So now the house is all Van Gogh all the time.
Jan and I, both Van Gogh fans, think it’s really neat.
I wonder how our RV would look painted like that?
After hitting a couple of antique mall/stores, where Jan added to her cloud of octopuses with a couple of new additions, it was on back over to Sanford where we had dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse there.
Nick and I both had the 12 oz. Ribeye, mine with Broccoli,
and his with French Fries.
Jan had her fav New York Strip and Terry went with the Tuna.
Then we all got to watch Nick eat dessert.
I had mentioned to Nick during the meal that it was our treat since it was his birthday yesterday, and Farrah, our waitress, apparently overheard, so the birthday boy got a unexpected treat. And he didn’t share, either.
Tomorrow will be mostly a stay-at-home day. But not our home, Nick and Terry’s, where we’ll work on some more projects before going out to eat.
Thought for the Day:
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers. – Socrates
jkgjk
