Daily Archives: November 28, 2020
Garbage and Gumbo . . .
Jan and I headed out about 12:20, with our first stop a few spaces down in the park to the dumpster to get rid of a week’s worth of garbage, plus the Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving box and some other odds and ends. Our park dumpster is normally emptied on Thursday, which of course didn’t happen due to Thanksgiving.
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but last weekend someone apparently emptied out an RV, throwing away a lot of stuff, including a table, some chairs, a big flat screen, etc., which pretty much filled up the bin, leaving no room for everyone else’s regular garbage. But the garbage truck did show up yesterday which meant we could get rid of our two large bag’s worth.
Then it was on up to Webster to have lunch at long-time favorite Floyd’s Cajun Seafood. While we both got Side Salads,
Jan got her Blackened Catfish and Grilled Veggies.
And as always, I got a bowl of Shrimp Gumbo.
With all the shrimp crammed in here, it’s amazing that there’s any room for the roux.
Just as delicious as always, and Nathan, our waiter, was great too.
After a great meal, I dropped Jan off at her nail place to get her toes prettied up while I made a stop at my client’s to set up some new backup routines.
Then coming home about 3:30, we stopped off at Cowboy Coffee for a large hot Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Latte for Jan, and a large cold Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Latte for me.
That’s when I was asked “Blended or On The Rocks?”
OK, “On The Rocks” I understand, but what’s Blended?
Well, apparently they grind up your ‘Rocks’ until it’s a Smoothie.
Ok, but is Grande the big one, or is it Tall?
If so, why is a Tall so small
And what’s a Venti?
And now there’s a Trenta. What’s up with that?
Finishing up, an very interesting study popped up the other day, and then very quickly disappeared. But of course, nothing ever completely disappears from the Internet.
Note that there’s very little variation in death rate among the different age groups over the last seven months. From the article
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.
Boiling all this down, the study of the CDC data shows that across all age groups, the overall U.S. death rate has not changed during the pandemic. While more people are dying from the flu, less people are dying from heart disease, cancer, other respiratory diseases, etc.
In other words, so either the China Virus is killing susceptible people that would have died from something else anyway.
Or many of the Virus ‘victims’ are actually dying from something else. Like ‘heart disease, cancer, other respiratory diseases, etc.’\
Take your pick.
Thought for the Day:
I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. – Robert Heinlein
November 28, 2011
Early to bed, . . .
Jan woke up about 4:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep so she came out to the living room to read for a while and was still out there when the sun came up, so she went outside and got these great photos.
This is a close-up shot of some of the refineries and chemical plants down in Texas City.
After the sunrise photos Jan went back to sleep for a while before I got up at 10, and then about 11 we headed up to Clear Lake for lunch and some errands.
Our first stop was the park office so I could pay for our site for the first month. We had to wait to see where we ended up before they knew how much to charge us. But no one was in the office so we’ll try later.
Our lunch stop was at King Food, pretty much our all-time favorite Chinese place. And apparently it’s not just our opinion.
By a mystery diner visit, they were recently selected as one of the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the US.
After our favorite Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, Extra Extra Extra Spicy with added Jalapenos, our next stop was our storeroom.
We wanted to pick up Jan’s bird feeder and check out our Christmas decoration situation. It’s amazing how much stuff we still have in storage. Of course a lot of it is our son and his families’, so it’s not all my fault.
Next stop was to drop Jan off a at nail place to get her toesies done while I headed over to a client’s office. Looks like it’s about time to upgrade his computers, since they’re 3 years old and starting to have problems.
Picking up Jan and heading toward home, we stopped off at Buc-ee’s for coffee/cappuccinos and then Wal-Mart for some Christmas lights to wrap around the wicker ball we bought yesterday. I got two sets but it may take another set to completely cover the ball.
Coming back to the park I made another run past the office, once again with no luck. I don’t think they want my money.
Back at the rig, I set up the bird feeder and Jan filled it up with birdseed, and also threw out some old bread for the seagulls.
Later, a little before 5 we headed out for supper at the Monterey’s Little Mexico over in Dickinson. On the way out of the park, I tried the office again and lucked out this time. I’m now paid up until the 20th of December. For some reason I had to pay a $100 deposit. Don’t know why, I’ve never had to before.
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Thought for the Day:
“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
November 28, 2014
Unto the 3rd Generation . . .
With Jan house/dog sitting down in Friendswood, I’ve been working on some projects around the rig. But the main one remains undone. Now that I have the time, and the under faucet socket,
I wanted to finally replace the bathroom faucet, but although I had the faucet, the instructions, and all the necessary tools, the one thing missing is the packet with the hardware and the gasket. It should have been right there where I left it, but it has apparently wandered off and gotten lost. Hopefully it will find its way home soon.
While I was looking for the faucet stuff, I came across my two previous phones before I got my Galaxy S5 this past June.
Based on the progression of these 3 generations, my next phone is going to be the size of my Galaxy Tab 4 tablet. I’m gonna need bigger pockets.
I’ve been wanting to get back into doing some programming, so I bought one of these
Arduino Arduino Uno Ultimate Starter Kit + LCD Module
The Arduino is a complete computer on a small board about 2” x 3”. You plug it into your PC, write your program, and then download it into the Arduino, where the program runs independently on its own power. The kit I ordered comes with a lot of different LED’s, relays, servos, and pushbuttons, and a series of projects to get you started.
You can use the Arduino to control devices around you, even through Wi-Fi. I have several things around the rig that I want to computerize. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll head back down to Friendswood to get Jan, do some shopping, and have dinner with our friends, Bob and Maria. Looking forward to it.
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Thought for the Day:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; these are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. – Donald Rumsfeld
Or as Yogi Berra once put it: “You can observe a lot just by looking.”
November 28, 2016
Oopsie . . .
This morning start off on a bad note and then got worse. But only for a while.
For some reason I woke up at 4am, apparently not remembering that I didn’t need to actually get up until 4:30. Then to top it all off, I went to the WRONG gate.
When I got the text from Todd about today’s gate, I saw the gate name Davila 5 and the time 5:30p and figured I knew where it was. I had been to Davila 3,4,5 three different times so I figured this was the one Todd was talking about so I didn’t look carefully at the directions. I should have.
So I ended up at the wrong gate and it took me about 30 minutes to get it all straightened out and get to the right gate. I’m still not sure how there can be a Davila 3,4,5 AND a Davila 5,6,7, miles apart.
And I guess it wasn’t just me since late this afternoon someone showed up at my gate looking for the other Davila, so now I don’t feel so bad.
The gate itself was very slow, with only 6 vehicles in and out all day. Nice and quiet.
Changing gears, Jan’s gotten the Genealogy bug again and we’ve been working through the labyrinth that is Family Search, the LDS free online family tree program. A lot of it is already done and on paper so it’s just a matter of entering it in.
Jan’s family on her mother’s side goes back to the late 1500’s with the Morgan family of Virginia. At one time the Morgan’s owned most of Virginia and what is now West Virginia. In fact Morgantown WV is named for her family.
On my side, my mother was a member of both the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and the UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy) so she has our lines going back to the Revolution and beyond, including a lot from early Virginia. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Jan and I are actually related back there somewhere.
That might explain a lot.
And on my father’s side, his mother, Sarah Anne Parr, was born in England. We’ve got that line pretty much traced back, with only a few gaps, to Catherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. Not from Henry, of course. He and Catherine never had any children.
And not only that, but Catherine’s father, Sir Thomas Parr, was a direct descendent of King Edward the III, I guess I do have a little royalty in my blood.
Wrapping up, tomorrow and Wednesday I’m on another gate, and I definitely know where this one is.
I hope.
Thought for the Day:
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” ― Niels Bohr
