Monthly Archives: May 2020
Odds Are . . .
For the first time since March 15, Jan and I had Iced Tea today, along with a Wedge Salad,
a Ribeye Steak for me,
and a Center-Cut Filet for Jan.
Sorry, no photo.
We got to the Webster Saltgrass about 3pm and were seated within about 5 minutes, just as soon as another party left.
The manager said they’re seating only 15 of their 50 tables. In our case there was nobody near us at all.
The little cards on the tables say that they are Reserved For Social Distancing. In fact the nearest occupied table from us was about 30 feet away off to the left in this photo. And the menus are all paper and are thrown away after you order.
A few waiters were wearing masks, ours was, but most weren’t. And no customers, of course. Kind of hard to eat with a mask on, without ever touching it, like all the ‘experts’ say it you shouldn’t do.
Our steaks were really great, with Jan saying it was the best one she’d ever had. Of course, that could be because it’s been almost two months since we’ve had steak at all.
After a leisurely, delicious meal, we headed back down to the League City WalMart for a few things. Masks usage was hit or miss as before, with not even all the WM employees wearing them, and was about as busy as a normal Saturday afternoon.
Odds Are:
The odds are . . . you’re not going to get the Wuhanic Plague (my new favorite).
Based strictly on the raw numbers, 335,000,000 million people in the U.S., and about 1,200,000 cases so far, or about 1 in 280 chance of catching it.
You’re more likely to be shot and killed by someone than you have in catching the Kung Flu.
And you have about a 1 in 5000 chance of actually dying from it. But more than 1/3 of the country’s deaths are in New York, and almost half of those were in nursing homes.
So if you’re not in a New York nursing home, you’ve got about a 1 in 11,000 chance of dying from the WuFlu.
You’ve got a better chance of dying from a accidental shooting.
Worried about that lately?
And you’re 10 times more likely to die by drowning, 8 times more likely to die in a fire, and 4 times more likely to choke on food. So do you wear a Mae West vest, carry a fire extinguisher, and hand out Heimlich Maneuver instructions where ever you go?
Me neither.
g
One Year Ago Today: We were in Vienna, Austria
You Probably Shouldn’t Order The Cheesecake…
Vienna 5/2/2019
We docked in Vienna about 6pm last night, so we were all ready to go this morning for our 4 hour excursion of Panoramic Vienna starting at 9am.
Our bus dropped us off in front of the Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien, or the Vienna Art History Museum. All of these excursions are guided by locals, and we have radio headsets that allow us to hear him with no problems.
I wish we’d had more time to just wander from room to room, taking in all the fabulous artwork.
But we had to move on, next to the Hofburg Palace, winter residence to the Hapsburgs, the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 to 1740.
But the Hofburg Palace has another claim to fame. It’s also the home of the world-famous Spanish Riding School and the Lipizzaner Stallions.
And below is either one very long horse or two regular ones.
Next up on our tour was St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which is right downtown. Built in the Baroque style (yes, sadly enough, we can now tell you the difference between Gothic, Renaissance, Romanesque and Baroque architecture, and expound on the cultural differences that gave rise to each style) and consecrated in 1733, it replaced a series of churches on this location that have been built here since the Early Middle Ages, including one dedicated by Charlemagne around 800 A.D.
The main part of our tour finished up in front to the main square and the beautiful St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Built in a combination of Gothic and Romanesque styles (see I told you we knew the difference), it was constructed over a period of 200 years, starting around 1150 A.D.
And like other places, there are indications of religious buildings here since Early Roman times. Once they find a place they like, they don’t let go of it.
It’s really hard to imagine that they were building structures like this almost 1000 years ago. Personally I think Ancient Aliens are involved.
Since we now had some free time before the bus picked us, we decided to check out some of the Viennese specialties – pastries, of course. And coffee.
Several people had recommend Aida’s, right across the square from St. Stephen’s, so we thought we give it a try. And since they’ve been right here on this same corner since 1903, they must be doing something right.
We had so many choices it was hard to decide, but we finally went with a Cremeschnitte,
and the Viennese specialty, Sacher Torte. Probably the most famous of Viennese pastries, it’s made with Chocolate Sponge Cake, Apricot Jam Filling, and Dark Chocolate Icing, along with a serving of unsweetened Whipped Cream.
Delicious.
Of course it wouldn’t be complete with a cup of Viennese coffee, in this case a Mélange,
made with an espresso shot served in a large coffee cup topped with steamed milk and milk foam. Very strong and very good.
Looking through the multi-page menu, I came across this ad for their cheesecake.
At least I think that’s what they’re advertising. They certainly don’t have any ads using scantily-clad young women.
Getting back to the ship and grabbing a quick bite for lunch, we went forward to sit out on the Aquavit Terrace that overhangs the bow of the ship,
giving us a view like this.
Dinner is served at 7pm, with only one ‘seating’, and no assigned tables. We’ve accumulated a group of 6 or 7 couples that we all kind of rotate through. And a pretty diverse group it is.
Starting on the left, Rob and Marie are from Perth, Australia, Jim and Deborah are from San Francisco, Larry and Ardis are from Illinois, and of course Jan is from wherever we’re parked.
Jan and I both had the Caesar Salad, (lucky me, I got her anchovies since she doesn’t like them),
and the Stir-Fried Beef Tenderloin with rice.
For dessert, Jan got the Raspberry Sorbet,
while I got the Chocolate Bombe.
Sometimes these desserts are almost too pretty to eat. But just almost.
A few notes to wrap up.
Smoking here is about 20 years behind the US. It seems like about 50% of the people smoke, though many businesses are no smoking.
So far I’ve not had any trouble using my debit/credit cards over here, whether for purchases or getting Forints or Euros from an ATM. Hope it holds true the rest of the trip.
I’ve only had one small emergency at work, that luckily I was able to fix remotely. Our online website order processing system decided to lock everyone out, but I always have a backdoor to get in and reset all the passwords. Crossing my fingers that that is the only problem I have in the next few weeks.
It takes me about 90 minutes to upload a blog post due to all the photos and the slow connection. And it’s not helped by the fact that every time we go through a lock, our satellite data connection is lost and the signal drops out.
So I have to keep trying until it all makes it through.
Thought For The Day:
No one is allowed to drive again until we have 14 consecutive days without a fatal accident. Then we’ll begin to phase in driving privileges for certain classes of people, but they can only drive at half the posted speed limit.
g
Well, It’s Started . . .
On the way into work this morning it was obvious that many restaurants had been anticipating May 1st, Opening Day. “Opening Day’, as in we can finally go out to eat again, for the first time since March 15.
Talk about withdrawal!
And it was easy to see that some restaurants were more prepared than others. Places like Slim Chickens, Jimmy Changa’s, Twin Peaks, Saltgrass (Yah!) and Cracker Barrel all had big banners out front, celebrating with ‘We’re Back!’, ‘We’re Open!’, and ‘Now Open!’. Obviously they had had these printed up ahead of time. And since all of these places had a lot of cars in the parking lot, I would imagine more places will be opening ASAP.
As far as I know, the only restrictions for right now is that the restaurant can only seat 25% of their allowed capacity, which I assume is what the fire marshal rates the place for.
Looks like starting June 1st, we’re going to lose our Distant Network Service on DirecTV. The DNS gives us all the East Coast and West Coast Network Stations, no matter where we are in the country, a great service when we’re traveling.
When we’re in Texas pretty much anywhere, we get the local stations here on the Houston spotlight. But of course if we’re traveling outside the state we can call and change to those local stations, but it’s hit or miss on how difficult it is. I’ve actually talked to Customer Service people who told me that it’s impossible to have DirecTV in our RV, and that I must be lying to them.
And of course we would have to change any scheduled shows that we wanted to record. So DNS made that a lot easy.
Some people have received emails/postcards saying that DNS was going away, though we haven’t received any notice yet.
But now, after 22+ years it may just be time to say goodbye to DirecTV. We’ll see.
Here’s another article concerning the benefits of Vitamin D in the WuFlu fight.
Early articles like this are why Jan and I bumped up our D3 intake to 10,000 i.u. per day.
And here’s an article about how HCQ assisted in saving a 3 week infant right here in Houston.
Well, I’m go to try it one time.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with my trials and tribulation with the oil leak on our RV’s Cummins 350 ISC engine. Jan suggested I give it one more try before taking the rig up to the Cummins dealer in north Houston.
I know it has something to do with the gasket between the oil cooler and the filter adapter head, the part that the oil filter screws into.
Every time I have removed the head and replaced the gasket, the leak gets better or worse, but never goes away completely.
However the thing that has always bothered me is the torque specs for the 4 bolts that mount the hub to the oil cooler flange. The spec’d 211 in. pounds = 17+ foot pounds, which just doesn’t seem tight enough. And just to be sure it wasn’t my torque wrench I borrowed another one to double check, but no change.
So I’ve ordered another gasket and I’m going to give it a try again, but this time maybe take it up to 30 foot pounds in small increments and see how it feels.
And yes, I’ve talked to the online Cummins Techs, but all they’ll do is just quote me the manual. And this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve found mistakes in the manuals. I have tried to talk to the Service Manager at Cummins in Houston, but no one will ever call me back.
So, one more time.
Thought For The Day:
WuFlu is starting to feel like the Check Engine light on your car. At first it freaks you out, but after a few weeks, you’re like ‘Look, I gotta go to work.’
fff
