Daily Archives: November 5, 2020
The Elusive Holy Grail . . .
First off, do any of our readers know anyone, or know anyone who knows anyone, or know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone . . . Ad infinitum, know anyone who is on, or is going on a expedition to Antarctica?
You see, it’s getting toward the end of the year and Google, who tracks these things, has told me that over the years I have had blog readers from every continent . . . except Antarctica.
So every year about this time I put out a call trying for the elusive holy grail of blogging. So any help would be appreciated.
Jan and I headed out about 11am for the 90 minute drive up to Conroe to make a lunch date with long-time friends, Debi and Ed Hurlburt, at a local favorite, El Bosque.
When we made the date, Ed warned us that the place had moved since we last ate there together. But the move was just from the west side of I-45 at 105 to the east side of I-45 at Davis St. So not a big difference for our trip.
Jan got her favorite El Presidente platter with Rock Shrimp, Chicken and Beef,
while I got the Fajita Diabla, with Beef and Chicken Fajitas, along with Grilled Shrimp and Mushrooms covered with a Bacon Chipotle Sauce.
Really delicious, with enough left over to bring home.
And after a great time with Debi and Ed, and an idea to meet up again in about a month, we made good enough time to get back to Santa Fe about 5 minutes before Cowboy Coffee closed at 6pm.
Really needed since we didn’t have coffee this morning.
Thought For The Day:
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
November 5, 2010
That’s Mr. Coffee to you !
Jan and I spent the morning enjoying the view and the nice weather. The rain has finally gone, but it’s still a little windy. But the front that brought the rain and wind is also bringing us some cooler weather finally.
It’s supposed to go down to 40 here tonight and only be 70 tomorrow. Right now at a little after 11pm it’s 50 here, 30 in Elkhart, IN, and 9 in Fairbanks, AK.
I think I like right where we are.
I made coffee this morning but it took forever. It’s been getting slower and slower, and boiling a lot of the water away. Normally this means it needs to be de-mineralized with CLR or vinegar, but I did that a couple of days ago and if anything, it’s worse now.
I think maybe the heating element is getting flakey. It seems to just start and stop brewing, so much so that it took almost 30 minutes to make 8 cups of coffee this morning. This Mr. Coffee is over 5 years old, so I think it’s time for a new one.
I headed out about 1pm to drop some papers off at a client, and then dropped our warm weather comforter off at the cleaners. We have a lightweight comforter and a heavier one, and we swap them out when the weather starts to get cooler. So now’s the time.
Heading back to the rig, I stopped by Fry’s Electronics to pick some things I saw in today’s sale paper. While I was there I decided to take a look at their coffee makers.
I found the updated model of the Mr. Coffee that we have now, and then checked the Internet to see how the prices compared. Everyone was within a buck or so, plus or minus, except for Costco who was about $5.00 cheaper, but they’re all the way across town. It would cost me more in gas than that. So we now have a bright shiny new Mr. Coffee, this time in black rather than white. Should be easier to keep clean.
About 5:30pm we headed up to Floyd’s Cajun Seafood in Webster to meet our friend’s Bob and Beth Young. We try to get together once a month or so while we’re in town.
Jan had a shrimp cocktail and the grilled catfish, while I had a bowl of red beans and rice, and a grilled boudin link. Bob and Beth had blackened and grilled fish, respectively, but I’ve forgotten what kind.
As usual we had a great time talking, and hopefully we’ll be able to do this several more times before we leave town.
More tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
People are like sheep and have two speeds: graze and stampede.
November 5, 2011
Happy Early Thanksgiving . . .
We got a really slow start this morning, For some reason, after I came to bed about 2, I had trouble falling asleep, and then when I finally did, I woke up with a headache about 5 am, took some aspirin, and then didn’t wake up again until 11:30. So I felt loggy all morning. You just can’t win.
A little before 3 pm I chopped up the onions so Jan could get started on her Broccoli-Cheese Casserole for the park Thanksgiving dinner tonight, Then she mixed all the ingredients up in the roasting pan and popped it into the convection oven for about 55 minutes so that it came out looking like this.
A little before 5 we loaded up and drove across the way to the Family Lodge where the dinner was being held. There were already a good many people there bringing in their covered dishes. I was actually kind of surprised to see this many people there, this late in the year.
This is just part of the spread set out on the tables.
A few minutes after 5 every one lined up for the feast. And between the dishes the attendees brought, and the meats and side dishes the park furnished, it was a real feast.
To Jan’s delight, they had real dressing, cornbread dressing, that is.
And as usual at these things, it got quiet as soon as everyone started eating.
We sat across from a local couple and their son, Bob, Dottie, and Brandon Hartman. They have a lot here at the park and keep an RV on it during the summer, but then store it away in the winter.
We had a good time getting to know them, and hopefully we’ll run into them next year.
About 6:30 Jan and I waddled back to the rig for the night. Well, we should have waddled all the way back, but really, we waddled out to the truck and drove back. Could have used the exercise.
Since we leave here Monday morning to start our trip back to Houston, I’ve been going over our route, and planning stops and visits along the way.
If we took the most direct way back, we’d have about 1150 miles to go, but of course we never take the most direct route. Where would be the fun in that?
Instead, it will take us about 1850 miles to get there. I mean, what’s a extra 700 miles? it’s only diesel, right?
Tomorrow will be our last full day here at Indian Lakes. So we’ll probably go into the Cincinnati area again for dinner and probably a little shopping. We’ll see.
Thought for the Day:
“We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.” – Georgi Arbatov, Soviet expert on the United States said this at the end of the Cold War.
November 5, 2013
She’s Done It Again!
or A Reprieve . . . Kind of.
Long-time blog readers will remember that I posted a couple of years ago that I knew a famous author.
And you’ve also probably heard of her. Here’s what I posted almost exactly two years ago.
Some of our blog readers may remember that when I was growing up in Gulf Shores, AL, my babysitter was Patsy Neal.
She was about 4 years older than me and her family and mine were good friends. They owned a small amusement park while my parents owned a motel on the beach.I had not seen Patsy since I was about 8 years old until Jan and I, and Jan’s mother went to see her at a book signing in Houston in 2005. Although we hadn’t seen each other for about 50 years, our parents had kept in touch until they died in the 1980’s and 1990’s, so Patsy and I were able to pick right up seemingly where we left off. I think we held up the book-signing line for about 15 minutes.
Oh, you probably know Patsy by her stage name – Fannie Flagg, author of “Fried Green Tomatoes” and a number of other best-selling novels, plus being an actress, screenwriter, and Academy Award Nominee.
Well, the reason for this post is that Fannie has a brand-new book out. It’s called “The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion”, and it’s really good. Here’s the review I posted on Amazon.
Fannie Flagg has done it again with another true-to-the-south, heartwarming story.
Always feeling like she never lived up to her mother’s expectations, probably because she was constantly reminded of that by her mother Lenore, and also worried that she might end up in a ‘home’ like her crazy aunt and uncle, Sarah Jane (Sookie) Poole discovers that her perceived humdrum life is a lot more interesting than she ever imagined.
Jumping back and forth between the small towns of Pulaski, Wisconsin and Point Clear, Alabama, “The All Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion” takes us on Sookie’s journey of enlightenment and fulfillment, chronicling the lives of two families, past and present, with a connection known only to one person.
From Fannie’s first book Coming Attractions/Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, through Fried Green Tomatoes, Standing in the Rainbow, and A Red Bird Christmas, “The All Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion” takes it place among her very best.
And this glowing review has nothing to do with the fact that Fannie used to be my babysitter growing up. “Hi, Patsy. It’s Greg from Gulf Shores”.
And you can get it here.
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion: A Novel
One thing I really like about Amazon is that when they say the book will be out on November 5th, they really mean it. At 5 minutes after midnight, November 5th, it’s on my Kindle. Neat!
So buy Fannie’s new book. You won’t be able to put it down.
As far as the reprieve, Jan was told this morning that we won’t be leaving the gate this weekend, but that we’ll probably be here until we were originally planning to leave on November 23rd. You know me, I’m happy not to miss out on that last two weeks of pay, but unfortunately, after the possibility came up, Jan was really looking forward to getting off the gate early
The flare stack really put on another show the other night, lighting up the whole area with a flickering orange glow. Enough so that I could feel the heat coming off of it.
And then in the morning, not to be outdone, the sunrise put on a pretty spectacular show too.
Sunrises are kind of novel for me here on the gate since it’s only been after Daylight Savings Time ended that I’m awake to see one. Normally I’m already in bed asleep by then.
And then a little later, without any rain in the area, we got a rainbow.
Several people has ask about the gate guard program that I wrote. It’s pretty much done and working great. And GGS said they didn’t care what I used to log people in, as long as they got logged in. But it’s kind of late in our stay to start using it now for logging, but it comes in really handy for tracking vehicles, since every vehicle tag number, company, and driver is in the database. So once we recognize a tag number, we can just flag them through without them having to stop.
Readers know how much I learn hot food, spicy hot, not just temperature hot. The hotter the better.
And now I have a new favorite hot seasoning. It’s called “The Hottest F****N’ (except it’s all spelled out) Seasoning.
The ingredients start off with Ground Red Pepper. Ok, not bad, but bring on the heat.
And they do. And it’s not any habanero ‘this’ or even Ghost Chili ‘that’. No, they go right for the jugular.
It’s just pure Oleoresin Capsicum. That’s the stuff that makes all the other stuff hot. And it really does the trick.
I think I’m in LOVE.
Thought for the Day:
Libertarians are such elitists. They think you know how to run your own life better than they do.
November 5, 2014
Make It Stop . . .
It’s been raining for two days now, never really heavy, just steady. And it’s not supposed to stop until around 6am tomorrow morning. And then just to top things off, this evening it started to get cold, down to the low 50’s.
What’s amazing is how big this storm line is, running down in Mexico all they was up to Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada.
As I mentioned yesterday, there’s no slope where we are, so the water (and mud) just puddled at our feet. I ask Jan to call the Company Man to see if they would drop off a load of pea gravel so I could spread it around under our canopy.
Well, my Sweetie done good! This is what I found when I came out to relieve her at 1pm.
They not only brought the gravel, they spread it all around for us too. Really nice.
Our frack has been down for two days now, due to interference with the drill rig. I mentioned this possible problem before when we had two fracks going at our other gate. Strangely the other two fracks were closer to the rig then this one, but this is the one having the problem.
When they shut down the frack, they sent out an email to all the trucking companies so that the dispatchers would halt the sand truck deliveries. But apparently a lot of guys didn’t get the word so they started piling up here in the staging yard.
There’s another row behind this one, and more parked around the sides, hoping I guess, that the frack would start back up some. But by the time I came back out at 11pm, there were only four left.
The restart date for the frack runs from ‘any minute now’ to Saturday, and times in between. So we’ll see how it goes.
Tomorrow morning I’ll make a run over to Bryan/College Station to pick up grocery/supplies, and also bring back lunch. I’ve also got to pick up the flasher control module that I ordered to fix my turn signals.
Well, right now it’s FedEx 1, UPS 0. Last week I ordered something from Amazon and FedEx delivered it right here to the gate. But this past Monday I ordered something else from Amazon that was shipped via UPS that was supposed to arrive today.
But according to the tracking info, it’s been sitting in Bryan/College Station since 5:45am this morning, and hasn’t moved. And I’ve got something else coming in today via UPS so we’ll see what happens.
Just given up on Frack Food.
__________________________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
Too Soggy to Think.
November 5, 2015
Hacking and Leaking . . .
I don’t even want to talk about the weather anymore. Either the weather or the weather forecasters can’t make up their minds. Actually I suspect a little of both.
I think I’ve solved my problem with people (well, bots) trying to hack into my blog. I bit the bullet and installed a CAPTCHA program on the login page. In case you haven’t come across it online, CAPTCHA is that program that shows you weird, twisted letters and numbers like this.
Hopefully you can figure out what the letters are and type them in better than a bot script can. At least it worked in my case.
I went from over 250 attempts a day to 3. That’s a big difference. And I’m not exactly sure where the 3 attempts came from, because it won’t show a ‘failed login attempt’ unless it gets pass the CAPTCHA program. So maybe this was an actual person trying to get in, or trying to see why his bot wasn’t getting anywhere. But’s it’s a big improvement.
‘Billy Claus’ dropped off our Amazon stuff yesterday, so it was almost like Christmas. Besides a couple of tools and stuff I needed, the main thing I got was nine more sets of the Super Bright LED Light Strips. It looks like they’ve actually come down a couple of dollars, since they’re now $5.99 a set.
This will give me enough to do all the rest of the fluorescent lights in the coach. I have two of the small fixtures in the bedroom and two more in the living room. That will take four sets, but since those are all working OK with the fluorescent tubes, I’ll wait a while on those.
The other 5 sets will be to finish up the big fixture in the kitchen where I was short one strip, and then remount the strips on the top of the fixture instead of the glass.
But even with only 7 strips it’s still brighter than the fluorescent tubes that they replaced.
Then I’ll do the other big fixture right next to it over the dining room table. That will leave me one strip left over for a spare, I guess.
Around 4pm this afternoon I went around back to check the level in the water tank and discovered that we had a diesel leak in the generator where the line comes out of the fuel filter. Not good.
So I put in a call to Todd, our GGS service guy, to let him know about the problem. He was supposed to be here tomorrow or Saturday anyway to top us off with diesel and change the oil, so maybe he could swing by a little early.
Turns out he was almost two hours away, so it was a little more than a ‘swing, but he got here pretty fast and fixed the problem. I assume it was just a loose fitting since I was asleep by the time he got here.
I’ve been having a lot of fun the last few days, doing something I haven’t had a chance to do in a while. No, not that.
What I’m talking about is ‘hacking code’. Specifically someone else’s code. As in the guy who designed the theme that I’m using on the new blog I debuting in the next few weeks. I’ll let you know more about that later.
But the code I’m ‘hacking’ is the style sheet, the ‘style.css’ file that pretty much determines the size, look, and feel of the theme. It looks like this.
#sidebar-secondary {
overflow: hidden;
float: right;
width: 220px;
margin-left: 15px;
}/* =HEADER
————————————————————– */#header {
height: 66px;
padding:22px 0;
}.logo {
float: left;
margin-left: 15px;
}.logo h1.site_title {
margin: 0;
padding:0;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
font-size:48px;
line-height: 40px;
font-weight: bold;
}.logo h1.site_title a, .logo h1.site_title a:hover {
color: #404040;
text-decoration: none;
}.logo h2.site_description {
margin: 0;
padding:0;
color: #4040FF;
/* =LAYOUT
————————-#A0C20B————————————- */
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
font-size:14px;
line-height: 14px;
}.header-right {
float: right;
margin-right: 15px;
}/* =MENUS
————————————————————– *//* Menu Primary
—————————-*/.menu-primary-container {
padding:0;
position:relative;
height: 34px;
background: url(images/menu-primary-bg.png) left top repeat-x;
This new theme is very similar to the one for this site. In fact it’s written by the same guy. And although it has some nice features, I didn’t like some of the layout, and the green and black color scheme just had to go. So my job is to comb through this code, figure out what’s doing what, and then change it to do what I want.
Sometimes it’s just trial and error. And a lot of error. You make a small change and then see what happens.
Oops. That’s bad.
But after a while you get a handle on how this guy does things, and figure out what you need to change.
Fun!
As I said, more about the new blog later. As a hint, it is related to this blog, but with a lot of new stuff. Stay tuned.
Tomorrow is Wal-Mart / Whataburger day, and I really hope my Whataburger experience is better this time. But I’m not holding out any real hope.
It is amazing what I’ll go through for a good burger, though.
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Thought for the Day:
It’s amazing how much ‘mature wisdom’ resembles being too tired. — Lazarus Long
November 5, 2016
Putting a Light on Things . . .
Today was my first morning to start out on a gate at 6:30am. Needless to say, I’m not a big fan.
One thing I do really like about SiteWatch gates is all the lights. With a light tower on the generator and another one on the shack, plus the other lights around roof edge, the entire area is lit up almost light daylight.
What this means operationally, is that I no longer need a high power flashlight to read the tags of incoming vehicles. And I don’t have to juggle the flashlight while I’m trying to write down the data on the log sheets.
Speaking of log sheets, I’m not a big fan of the ones we’re using here. I don’t know if they actually come from Marathon, or just what they want. to see.]
What’s with all the white space? They give you little tiny blocks to write down the time in and out, and the 4 digit tag numbers, which means it can be hard to read back later.
Make the forms bigger people!
I don’t yet know if this is going to be a long term gate for me, but if it turns out that way, the night shift guy and I want to switch shifts.
In thinking about it, it turns out to be really simple.
I work my day shift and then Bill works his night shift
Then Jan coms in and works 6 hours of my day shift and Bill’s wife works the remaining 6 hours of the day shift.
Then I come in on night shift.
Easy Pezy, and it keeps the money straight too.
Today was so overcast that I kept all the lights on until almost 8:30, but it finally burned off later.
Not too busy, though I did have one 12 vehicle convoy show up about 7:30. Otherwise I think I only did about 50 vehicles all day. So not bad at all.
Tomorrow’s day shift is my last scheduled one, until I hear more from Todd.
So we’ll see how it goes after that.
Thought for the Day:
Your reality is the only correct one. Everyone else is NUTS! – Scott Adams, Dilbert
November 5, 2017
Baby Steps . . .
Jan wanted to try out her new Instant Pot today, but decided to ease into it by first making a batch of her world-famous Chili using it in the slow cooker mode.
Rather than a list of ingredients, how about a photo?
Actually we ended up two more cans of beans after seeing the level in the pot. The cans in the photo pretty much filled up our 5 qt. Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker, but the 8 qt. IP had more room.
In getting this meal going I ran into a couple of problems (annoyances?) with the IP.
First off, in Slow Cooker mode anyway, you can’t change the cooking temperature, Less, Normal, More, while you’re actually cooking. You have to shut off the IP and then start all over again.
Nor can you change the cooking time, say to add a hour. Again you have to start over.
The other problem is with the cooking temperature itself. It’s too low on all three settings. After an hour on Low today, the chili wasn’t even warm, but it would have been in our old H-B Slow Cooker.
So next I rebooted the IP and set it for More. And after about three hours it was warm enough to eat. But after three hours in our old H-B it would be boiling. So I guess we’ll have to adjust our times and temps with the IP. Or just keep using the H-B for slow cooking, since Jan want’s to keep it anyway.
About 2pm Jan and I headed out to check out another couple of RV parks in the area, one new one to us, and one old favorite.
First up was Green Caye RV Park over in Dickinson, just north of FM517. We’ve never stayed here but it’s supposed to be pretty nice so we thought we’d check it out.
Turned out to be very nice, but kind of a weird layout, like a giant ‘T’, woven around the park models, apartments, and homes. When I saw the cost, $485 per month, I thought that was kind of high until I looked closer and found it also includes electric.
Pretty unusual for a monthly rate. And not a bad deal after all.
Then it on over to Galveston Bay RV Park, the park where we spent every winter from 2008 through 2013. Then it seem to be almost impossible to get a reservation, and we haven’t been back since. And that’s when we started spending the winter bouncing between the Lake Conroe TT and the Colorado River TT in Columbus, TX.
This was our site the first two years, Site 80.
But since then a new RV Park was built right next door, so this is the view now.
Not near as nice.
And this is site 75, where we stayed in 2011.
When we stayed here, we pulled in instead of backing in so we could have the bayou view out the windshield. Then we just hooked up to the pedestal underneath the rig.
And it looks like they’re getting ready to open a whole new area on the north side of the park.
Coming home we made a quick stop at the Kroger’s on Hwy 96 before heading back to the rig.
The Word of the Day is: Enjambment
Thought for the Day:
If the earth were really flat, cats would have pushed everything over the edge by now.
November 5, 2018
Potpourri & More . . .
I got a prelim version of my shipping program up and running today at work.
You enter the destination zip code and package weight, and It gives the rates for Priority Mail, Flat Rate Priority Mail, Regional Boxes, and Cubic Boxes.
And this can make a lot of difference in the shipping cost that you charge the customer, especially since, unlike many places, my client only charges the exact amount, with no ‘Shipping and Handling’ charges added.
For example, the cost of a 10# package shipped cross-country can range from $9.70 to $28.45, all with the same 3 day delivery time. A lot of difference.
Next I want to pull in the First Class rates, since that’s the way we ship a lot of small stuff. Then I’ll clean up the GUI (Graphical User Interface) so it looks pretty.
I’ve thought about trying in with the UPS system, but I don’t think it’s really necessary since we normally only use UPS for heavier shipments.
I’ve also been putting in a lot of time lately working with Zen Cart for a new client. I’m trying to get ZC to import a slightly off-beat version of SQL. It kind of works, but not consistently. I would think that there’s actually a glitch in the SQL file, but it doesn’t consistently fail at the same spot in the file. But I’ll get it figured out eventually.
Didn’t hear anything back on our truck. I told them to take their time since we had a rental car. Hope they didn’t take that too much to heart.
We’ve got a number of travel things coming up in the next week, and I’m not sure I want to trust the truck until I drive it for a few days. So we’ll probably keep the Malibu for a few extra days after this Thursday when we’re supposed to turn it back. Jan would also like us to take it in and have the inside cleaned out and detailed.
Of course this decision has nothing to do with the fact that I’m really enjoying driving it.
As I said yesterday, tomorrow we’ve got our ophthalmologist appointments. Besides getting some more info on the cataract in my left eye, I’m also hoping to get a full clearance on my nighttime vision problem diagnosis, since I can’t see any difference between my night vision in either eye when I cover one and then the other.
Of course, my optometrist said that’s just my ‘perception’. Isn’t that what vision is anyway?
I ordered Jan a set of Bluetooth Headphones like these that came in today.
This will let her listen to her programs on the TV without my having to hear them too. It can also connect to our Alexa, and has a built-in FM radio.
And if you Bluetooth it to your phone, you can also answer phone calls using the built-in microphone.
Oh, and you can just plug it in and use it as regular wired headphones.
Thought for the Day:
Yuor biran has teh alibtiy to mkae oderr out of caohs.
November 5, 2019
Time Compression . . .
Jan and I were just talking today and realized how much we have going on in the next few weeks. It’s like time is compression into shorter and shorter moments.
In a little over a week, on the 14th, we’re heading up to Kingsland for a big family get-together for the long weekend. So we’ve got a lot to do to get the rig ready to roll. Especially important since we haven’t taken a trip since last April when we went up to Kingsland right before our European jaunt.
The following Saturday, the 16th, Jan’s doing a local Home Tour with Jennifer, my client’s Office Manager. And then the next day, Sunday, she’ll going up to Katy to Landon-sit while he’s out of school for Thanksgiving. But she’ll stay over until the next Sunday, the 1st so she can dog-sit for Brandi while they’re up in Cleburne TX for Thanksgiving with some friends.
I’ll go up on Thursday so Jan and I can out to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner. After she comes home on Sunday, we’ll be leaving on Thursday for our long weekend up in New York for our Christmas trip.
This afternoon I tried to book our limo ride up to Hobby Airport and then our ride home. But when I tried to enter our Southwest flight info, it came back as invalid. So I called Action Limo and they also said our flight numbers didn’t come up.
And putting in a call to Chantelle Nugent, our favorite travel agent, and left her a message about the problem. She called back about 30 minutes later to confirm that sometime since the past August when we booked the trip, that SW had changed the flight numbers, and also the departure times. But only by a few minutes on the times.
Jan and I headed out about 1pm, first for brunch at Snooze, and then some errands. I wanted to sure that my laptop GPS was still functioning after the recent GPS day number problem. So I took my laptop with us, running in the backseat and tracking us.
I was concerned if my ancient Earthmate GPS module would still work.
And even though it was 12 years old, it worked fine.
I’ve had it since 2007 when we used it on our first RV trip in a CruiseAmerica Class C rental.
These 3 weeks out west, including attending one of the late-lamented Life On Wheels seminars in Tucson, are what told us that we wanted to full-time RV.
And about a year later we were on our way to Alaska in our American Eagle Class A and starting a new life.
Thought For The Day:
Dear Life,
When I said “Can this day get any worse?”, it was a rhetorical question, not a challenge.
