Daily Archives: October 8, 2020
It’s Delta’s Fault . . .
Well, Hurricane Delta’s associated rains showed up a day early, and put a damper on my under the rig work, so that’s on for Saturday now.
Our grandson Landon is a really good artist and was asked to submit a possible cover for this year’s yearbook with a theme of “Mission Epic”.
Here’s his entry:
And Yes, that’s a dachshund in the spacesuit, because Creech the Dachshund is the school mascot for Creech Elementary Comets.
I’m always amazed to look at the small details he puts into his drawings. And how good his lettering is. Hard to believe he’s only 10.
But, unfortunately, he came in 2nd in the contest, so his drawing will be on the back cover instead of the front.
The winner better be a budding Rembrandt, if he beat Landon’s drawing.
For dinner this afternoon it was another visit to Dickinson Seafood, starting with their really good salad,
and then moving on to the Blackened Catfish with Grilled Veggies.
Thought For The Day:
I think we can figure out what this guy thinks about the whole mask thing.
October 8, 2009
Lost in the Fifties, again…
The morning before we left Celina, OH, we went back to “Lost in the Fifties”, a restaurant in nearby St. Mary’s
But as I mentioned, this place also has a great 50’s memorabilia museum, with a lot of stuff that you don’t expect to find in a small town.
Like…
This was Elvis’ leathers and motorcycle used in his film “Roustabout”, filmed in 1964. This brought back memories since I had a Honda Superhawk just like this.
And…
This was one of the outfits that Elvis wore during his very last tour in June of 1977.
And here is the outfit that he wore for one of his album covers.
And this is the album cover.
And here is one of Elvis’ 3 pink Cadillac’s.
According to the placard, this was the 2nd one he bought. The first one was a 1954 model. Then he bought this one in 1955. But after driving it for a while he discovered it didn’t have air conditioning, so he traded it back to the dealer for one that did have AC.
The 3rd one is the one that’s on display at Graceland.
The only thing I can figure out is that he bought this one in the winter, and then didn’t try the AC until spring.
Here’s one of Elvis’ Army uniforms, complete with his Army Commendation Award papers and his promotion to Sergeant paperwork.
In another one of those Six Degrees things, one of my uncles was in the same tank crew as Elvis while stationed in Germany.
And the museum has other celebrity outfits too.
Here’s James Dean’s jacket from “Rebel Without A Cause”.
And here’s an outfit worn by Dale Evans.
And they even have their own Elvis.
This is Elvis Aaron Presley, Jr. And if you check out his link, you’ll find that he has been acknowledged as the son of Elvis Presley, both in Elvis’s will and a DNA test.
He’s performed all over the country, including Vegas. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see him though.
The museum has a number of exhibits, but I’ve just given you the highlights, but it’s a big place and very interesting to browse thru.
Thought For The Day:
If one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison.
October 8, 2010
Landon Time . . .
Today was another easy day, but kind of long.
About 10:15 am we left the coach and headed up to the Clear Lake area, first for lunch at King Food, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and then I dropped Jan off at Brandi’s so Jan could get some Landon time and Brandi could get some rest. We also took Brandi her favorite Spicy Shredded Beef with Won Ton Soup from King Food.
After dropping Jan off I headed back over to my client in Pearland, and then was back to pick her up about 4:30 pm. Leaving Brandi’s, we stopped by Sam’s Club and CVS before meeting Bob and Beth Young for dinner at Genghis Grill, a great local Mongolian BBQ place.
Then it was home by about 8 pm. Tomorrow we’ll meet some friends for breakfast at IHOP about 11 am, and then go over to their house so I can work on a computer problem.
Sorry for the boring day, but people whine and moan if I don’t post something.
Thought for the Day:
Please let me know if anything I say offends you, since I may wish to offend you again in the future.
October 8, 2014
One Drill Rig, 3 Fracs, One Workover Rig . . .
And a partridge in a pear tree.
We were kind of expecting a real jump in vehicle count today, based on our experience with last year’s frac gate, but we ended up with only 175 compared to yesterday’s 168 count.
But I do wish they would stop ganging up on us. As I mentioned the other day, I think a bunch of trucks gather up the road some place and then all head in at the same time. And I think that they call ahead to their friends inside and coordinate so that they all head out at the same time.
This is the only thing I figure out. Because I will sit here for 20 minutes and see nobody, and then suddenly I’ve got 8 trucks lined up trying to come in, and 6 more trying to go out. And they’re all bottlenecked right in front of me.
What I really want is one of those traffic light setups you see used during road construction where they’ve got a one lane bridge or something, and the lights just alternate, letting a few cars through at a time. That would solve a lot of my problems.
It’s probably not going to happen though, and for the same reason.
They did skid our rig over to the 3rd hole yesterday, and are now back drilling. Maybe that’s why they (and we) got the catered meal last night.
Which we had one of tonight and it was really good.
Dog came by to visit again today.
And unfortunately for Dog, Mister was outside with Jan. Apparently Dog likes cats and came over to Mister to say ‘Hi’. And Mister said ‘Hi’ back with a paw full of claws to Dog’s nose.
Jan said Dog looked like his feelings were hurt more than anything else.
Well, that’s the latest schedule; a drill rig here in front of us, a workover rig on one pad in back, two fracs starting up on two other pads, and a 3rd frac starting up RSN (Real Soon Now).
Don’t know where the partridge comes in though.
Thought For The Day:
Now a year older, I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.
October 8, 2015
A Night on the Town . . .
It only took two hours.
Carthage, TX is a small town. What can I say.
Well, we found out this morning that we’re not going to be moving to the new frack site right up the road, but they want us to stay here and work the cleanup and completion. And from what we’ve been told, that should take us close to our target leave date of the 22nd of November.
We hope. We’ll see.
One thing that’s really nice about staying is that we get to stay. We don’t have to pack up and move. And none of the 3 possible sites I checked out are as nice as where we are now.
Things have really quieted down here, with most of the frack equipment moved up the road to the new pad. We only had 72 vehicles in today, as opposed to our usual 120 – 130.
And along with everything else, we also lost our trash trailer to the new frack. But it shouldn’t be a problem, since I’ll just drop it off on my way to town for groceries. And if not, there’s always the dumpster at Whataburger.
Since everything was so slow, and really shuts down around 6pm, Jan and I headed in to Carthage for dinner. We’d already cleared it with Jamie, our GGS supervisor, and told the company guys we’d be gone for a couple of hours, so no problem.
Since we’d had such a great meal last time, we thought we’d revisit the Longhorn Grill again. And I was in luck, because as it turned out, Thursday night is Prime Rib Dinner night. Jan, however, wasn’t quite as thrilled because she doesn’t really care for Prime Rib. Her loss, and more for me.
We both ordered salads, remembering how good they were last time, probably because of their homemade dressings.
And also because there’s not a shred of iceberg lettuce in it.
While Jan went with the same 9oz Sirloin with loaded baked potato that she got last time, I tried the Prime Rib.
And was not disappointed. As I said last time, someone here knows how to cook meat. It was charred on the outside edges, and medium-rare to rare on the inside, perfect for Prime Rib.
And it was big enough that I only ate half, so we had some to take home for steak sandwiches another time. And the reason I only ate half was that my dinner came with a slice of their delicious homemade Strawberry Cheesecake. I would have gotten a picture but it disappeared too fast. Maybe next time.
We were back at the rig by 7:30 after a really good time. It was nice to just be able to sit and talk without any interruptions. Jan started her shift while I slept for a few hours before I relieved her at 11pm. Back to work.
Ran out of time tonight, so tomorrow night I’ll get back to my adventures trying to purchase a TT Zone Pass.
Finishing up for tonight though, check out this 50 lane traffic jam in China as apparently everyone in the country tries to come home after a holiday weekend.
And you thought Houston traffic was bad.
______________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
“In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” – Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821
October 8, 2016
Microwaves and Microswitches . . .
After putting the new site online last night, I spent this morning picking at it some more, changing a few colors here and repositioning a couple of things there.
Today I added a Favicon to the site, and then configured the Mobile version that shows up on your phone.
Favicons are those little pictures you see on the tabs in your browser.
You only have a 16 x 16 pixel area to work with, so it can be hard to get a good representation. I started out using the entire Texas Flag Sunglasses Logo,
but it was so small it was just a red, white and blue blob. So I switched to just using the left lens and that seem to work a lot better.
Later in the afternoon I removed the control panel from the microwave oven to take a look at the intermittent heating problem we’ve been having the last month or so
I suspected a microswitch problem, but I didn’t see any sign of that. In fact it looked like the problem might be due to a broken flange on the control panel itself. So I cut out a new retaining bracket from a piece of heavy plastic and used it to lock down the panel a lot tighter.
Since the problem only happens intermittently, we’ll just have to see if it reoccurs or not.
With the new TV season ramping up, Jan and I watched another new show a couple of nights ago, and like Timeless, the new one we watched last week, this one, called Frequency, is kind about time travel also. Or at least time travel by radio.
A police officer finds that she can communicate with her father over his ham radio, an undercover police officer who died 20 years ago, killed under circumstances that made it look like he was on the take.
His daughter gives him info that allows him to survive and clear himself. But like in Timeless, changing the past even slightly can have unintended consequences in the present.
Tomorrow, who knows. But I imagine we’ll find something to do.
Thought for the Day:
“My advice to you is get married: If you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.” — Socrates
October 8, 2017
Now This Is Just Ridiculous . . .
Today was another of those nice never-left-the-rig days. Jan mostly read while I worked on cleaning up a client/friend’s laptop. Originally I worked on the laptop a year or so ago when it belonged to another client/friend who gave it to this other client/friend. So now I’m cleaning it all out and getting it set up for its new owner.
A couple of days ago we did something we’ve never done before.
We turned down a gate. And a very nice gate from the description we got.
When we contacted Todd, our Sitewatch supervisor from last/this year back in August, he said things were slow right then, but he expected things to pick up around the first of the year. So we rearranged our schedule for this winter, planning to not gate guard until after Christmas.
Plus I wanted to get my Clear Lake client back on the straight and narrow before we head out.
As it was, the gate sounded perfectly, with a steady 3 or 4 months on tap, just perfect for us. Hopefully something like it will be available when we’re available.
Our friend’s Debi and Ed Hurlburt are parked right by the electrical panel that took out the power here in the ‘G’ section of the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails.
Ed passed on this info about what’s going on with it.
That panel was running on a 400 amp meter, and with all the new 50 amp rigs it just couldn’t hold up and it melted the meter. They ran a second panel which will run off a second meter, but Entergy won’t will not bring the new meter out until Monday morning, at which time they will inspect it. You would think that with the revenue TT brings them they could have sent a man out Saturday to plug in a new meter.
This is getting ridiculous. My Verizon date usage reset today at midnight, so I was back to full 4G speeds again, but apparently for only about 19 hours. At 18:47 this evening I got an email from Verizon saying that I had used 13.5 GB on my 15 GB. Then at 19:06, 19 minutes later I got another email saying I had used all of my 15 GB for this month, all in just 19 hours.
That’s 750 MB per hour!
Guess I’ll be on the phone to Verizon tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Word of the Day is: Distractile
Thought for the Day:
“I have more guns than I need, but not as many as I want.” – Former Texas Senator Phil Gramm
October 8, 2018
Eye Of The Storm . . .
For everyone who’s emailed or commented on our proximity to Hurricane Michael, No, we’re not heading into the eye of the storm.
Right now, at about 7pm Monday the storm is just off the west coast of Cuba, and by tomorrow afternoon, when we’ll be parked at the Seasons in the Sun RV Park in Mims, FL, just north of Titusville, the storm will just be about the same latitude as Miami.
So we’ll probably get some rain on the way, and after we’re there, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
We pulled out of our site at the Escapees Park about 9, got hitched up, and were on the way by about 9:15. Rather than back track up SR59 to I-10, we cut out across the countryside to hook up with US90E and then on to I-10 north of Pensacola.
Then it was a 170 mile run to Quincy, FL where we stopped for the night at Beaver Lake RV Park, a small Passport America park, for $23 a night.
It’s pretty much just wide-open grass-covered field with full hookups. But it’s nice and level, with a lot of room between the sites so we could maneuver without unhitching.
Strangely though, there’s no lake nearby, and thus, no beavers.
But the Marathon station where we checked in out front has a diesel pump we can get to without unhitching. Especially nice since we stayed home tonight and finished off our leftover Lambert’s Throwed Roll’s Hamburger Steaks.
Still delicious.
Since we’ve got a 320 mile trip tomorrow, we want to get an early start, probably around 8am. Though it’s more to be sure we’re ahead of any incoming weather, it’s also cooler.
However, as we traveled today I noted that with the windows open and the vents fans running, we wouldn’t have been any more comfortable with the AC’s. Hope it holds.
Landon, et al. have been really enjoying their new pool.
Chris and Linda came down from Kingsland, and Miss Piper came up from Clear Lake to also enjoy the pool this weekend.
Looks like fun.
Thought for the Day:
“Never say you’re sorry. It’s a sign of weakness.” – Jethro Gibbs
October 8, 2019
From Florida To The Arctic Circle . . .
Jan’s kind of under the weather today, and nothing much else happened, so I thought I’d repost this blog from 10 years ago that spans from Florida to the Arctic Circle.
Re-Posted from May 31, 2009
Today we headed out about 9:30 am to have the breakfast buffet at Whistle Junction. Then it was off to Jungle Adventures Nature Park, about 15 miles west of Titusville, on the way to Orlando.
We haven’t been here since 1997, and we’re looking forward to going back.
Jungle Adventures Nature Park
A Sweet Mouthful !!
They have a lot of animals here – Florida panthers, deer, coatamundis, lemurs, bears, spiders, lizards, scorpions, turtles, tortoises, and of course, hundreds of alligators, crocodiles, and caymans.
Is It Dinner Time Yet?
Just a Big Putty Tat!
The trainer said he had raised this panther since he was about 3 weeks old. The cat came up and started rubbing his head all over the trainer, marking him as his property.
Duckweed-covered Gator
Feeding Time
Feeding Time Too
They sell you hotdogs to feed the baby gators. I just want to be sure they can tell the difference between the hot dogs and fingers.
Hot Dogs or Fingers!
Jan makes a new friend.
It’s hard to say who’s scaring who here.
Who’s scaring who here?
Jan wouldn’t hold this one!
A Real Handful!
We headed back to the coach about 2:30 pm after a great time.
A complete change of subject here. Jan and I are big Ice Road Truckers fans. That’s the show on the History Channel that depicts the truck drivers driving supplies into northern Canada mining camps and oil exploration sites on ice roads that only exist in the winter time.
During the rest of the year, the road isn’t there. It’s open water!
Anyway, on tonight’s 3rd season premiere episode, we were surprised to see that instead of running in Canada this year, they’re running the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks, AK to Prudhoe Bay.
We’ve been on this road. Or at least part of it. We took a tour that takes you from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle, a trip of almost 200 miles. But this is not your average 200 mile trip.
Because of the bad roads and the hilly, curvy terrain, it takes about 16 hours roundtrip. You leave at 6:30 am and return around 10:30 pm.
You stop for lunch going up and dinner coming back at the same place, the Yukon River Camp at the Yukon River Crossing.
Yukon River Camp
Yukon River Crossing
Surprising the food was very, very good. They bring a chef up from the Lower 48 every year to work the season.
The Dalton Highway was built to support the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the pipeline parallels the highway for a good part of the way.
Yukon Pipeline
They have a marker at the Arctic Circle to get your picture taken.
The Arctic Circle
This is Jan and I with our granddaughter Piper when she came up to visit us in Fairbanks in July 2008.
At least when we did this trip it was in the summer, and not in January.
Anyway, the show is bringing back a lot of great memories.
Thought for the Day:
Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice in your head at the end of the day saying, “Hey, is there room in there for one more?”
