Daily Archives: June 6, 2020

YouTube TV . .

I was outside and under the rig by about 1:30 this afternoon, and it only took me about 45 minutes to get the filter off and then remove the 4 bolts that hold on the oil filter adapter. FWIW it sure seems like Dix Diesel Center in Luling, the last people to remove and replace the oil filter last November, tightened it down a lot more than the 3/4 turn after hand-tight specs.

And as before I dumped the oil out of the old filter and then screwed it back on the adapter. Then I hit it a few times with my rubber hammer to break the adapter loose from oil cooler itself.

As before, the gasket peeled cleanly off the oil cooler flange, but was firmly stuck to the adapter side. So I soaked it for an hour or so in that Permatex Gasket Remover to soften the gasket so I could then scrape it off with a plastic scraper. But by this time it was time to clean up so we could head out for dinner about 5pm.

I’ll try to finish it up tomorrow and then do the high-idle test.

As I mentioned the other day, I signed us up for the two week free trial of Youtube TV to see if it will be a valid replacement for our DirecTV satellite service.

It was pretty easy to set up and get started setting up shows that we want to record. For a while we’ll dual record on both YouTubeTV and DirecTV to see how it work out.

A second major COVID-19 study has been retracted; First the Lancet, now this time it was the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine. And though it didn’t have anything to do with HCQ, it was done using ‘data’ from the same company, Surgisphere, that supplied the ‘data’ for the Lancet’s HCQ-discrediting article.

A peer-reviewed Lancet study claimed that Surgisphere culled data from nearly 15,000 COVID-19 patients from 1,200 hospitals around the world.

But there is no evidence that it collected any data from anyone.

“An investigation by the Guardian UK can reveal the US-based company Surgisphere, whose handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model, has provided data for multiple studies on Covid-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology,”

The article that got yanked was another study, this one concerning COVID-19 and blood pressure drugs. And Harvard’s Mandeep Mehra, was the lead author of both studies. Coincidence?

So what else are they lying about?

 

Another in our Where We Were 9 Years Ago Today series.


June 6, 2011

Almost as Good as Bears . . .

This morning started off with a call from our daughter Brandi just checking in and talking about Landon’s latest antics.

About 10:30 we headed out on our Bear Hunting daytrip, but our first stop was for breakfast at the Hi-Lo Cafe where we ate dinner last night. Jan had eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits. I had Eggs Benedict with country fries, and it was more than I could eat.

Hi-Lo Breakfast

One thing we had noticed last night was this inscription on their coffee cups.

Al-Can Beginning

Now I would have sworn that Dawson Creek, BC, Canada thinks that they are the beginning of the AL-CAN highway. At least they thought so when we were there 3 years ago.

Dawson Creek BC

So this morning I thought to ask, and their answer kind of makes sense.

The cashier said that US 97 originates in Weed, CA and goes all the way up to Dawson Creek. And checking it out when we got home shows they’re right.

US 97 runs up to the Canada border at Oroville, WA and there becomes PH (Provincial Highway) 97 and, poof!, 1400 miles later you’re in Dawson Creek. And actually PH 97 runs all the way up to Watson Lake in the Yukon as the AL-CAN along with PH 1.

But when you get Dawson Creek, it’s still another 1500 miles to Fairbanks. A long trip.

For our bear hunt, we left Weed and headed south on I-5 to Mt. Shasta where we got on CA-89 and drove west.

All on a rumor.

A lady at the RV park that someone told her that someone had seen bears out around Dana, CA, so off we went.

Well, it was a beautiful drive.

Dana is about 50 miles away and about 10 miles before we got there we came down out of the mountains into a wide, flat valley that, although at about 3300 feet, looked like the Kansas prairie.

Fall Valley 1

Fall Valley 2

This beautiful little church is in the small community of Glenburn.

Glenburn Church

Fall Valley 3

Still bearless and heading home, we saw a sign for a Wildlife Viewing area in the Shasta National Forest so off we went. Most of the road was really good, but we kept going until we were on a road like this.

Bear Country

Still finding no bears we turned back to the campground we had passed and stopped to stretch our legs. Hearing running water Jan and I walked over to the river and found this beautiful falls.

Called Lower Falls, it has been fished since the early 1800’s. Salmon and trout run through here still today, and if it was the right time of the year there would be bears here.

A day late, a dollar short.

Lower Falls

I also did this short video.

Looking around we noticed that there were chipmunks everywhere, zipping around like hummingbirds. Of course Jan just had to feed them.

Who knew chipmunks like Rold Gold Pretzel’s?

Chipmunk 1

They had obviously been fed before because when people show up, they come running . . . or zipping, as it were.

Chipmunk 2

Jan said seeing all the chipmunks running around was almost as good as seeing bears.

Coming home we stopped off at the Dance Country RV Park in McCloud to check it out. And it’s a really nice park, well laid out with a lot of space.

Getting back to I-5 in Mt. Shasta, we decided to head about 35 miles north to Yreka, CA, and the nearest Wal-Mart. While we were there I stopped in at the Radio Shack, and then it was on to the Wal-Mart next door.

By the time we left the Wal-Mart it was after 4 pm so we decided to have dinner at Black Bear Diner before heading home so we could compare it with the Hi-Lo Diner.

And it was quickly obvious that these two places had the same origin. The menus, made up to look like newspapers, were almost identical, as was most of the menu items. And the food was just as good, too.

As we pulled in, we noticed an Ambassador Motorcoach towing an SUV on a trailer. Jan and I play a game in these cases and try to identify who in the restaurant are the RV’ers. But in this case it wasn’t hard. It turned out to be someone we knew, Ray Kannada, an old friend.

And he was also at the Lake Minden Thousand Trails in Nicolaus, CA about a week before we were there.

It’s really amazing sometime how small the RV world is.

Coming back to Weed, we had some really scenic views. Here’s another shot of Mt. Shasta still partially covered by clouds. Hopefully it will clear before we leave on Saturday.

Mt Shasta - Yreka

You could also see the clouds rolling into the valleys as the day

Fog in the Valley

You can also see the fog in how Black Butte looked yesterday,

Black Butte

And how it looked today. It’s hard to tell it’s even there.

Black Butte Clouds

We got home a little after 6 after a 200 mile trip and a lot of beautiful sights. Tomorrow will probably be a nice stay-at-home day.


Thought for the Day:

Remember, a big man with a big knife and a scowl isn’t nearly as scary as a little man with a big knife and a big grin.