Monthly Archives: November 2020
Bringing Our New Baby Home . . .
Yesterday’s blog title teased,
A New Addition To Our Family?
Well, today was the day, so we drove up to Conroe to pick up our new baby.
She’s a bouncy 2003 Jeep Liberty Sport 4×4 with only 129,369 miles on her.
And, though she’s a year older than our 2004 Dodge Dakota, she only has a little over 40% of the 307,500 miles on our Dakota. So, as I said, she’s just a baby in comparison.
Even better she’s all set up with a Blue Ox baseplate for towing, wired up for our BrakeBuddy braking system, and can be easily towed 4 Down.
And even better than that, we bought her from our good friend’s Debi and Ed Hurlburt.
We made the deal last Thursday when we got together at El Bosque up there in Conroe and then drove back up there today to pick her up. So we met up about noon at another long-time favorite of ours, China Delight.
Jan had the Chicken Volcano,
which as I’ve mentioned before, is sorely lacking in the whole ‘volcano’ thing. Not only is it not hot at all, even those little red peppers have not heat whatsoever.
For my part, I went with the Triple Delight, a stir-fry of Fresh Shrimp, Chicken, and Beef, along with mushrooms, carrots, and onions. Really good, especially when liberally sprinkled with my Carolina Reaper/Ghost Chili Pepper flakes.
Then after a great meal, we followed Ed and Debi over to their RV lot right off Lake Conroe in Willis to pick up our new baby.
We headed home about 3pm with Jan driving the Jeep and me following in the Dakota. No problems, except for the fact that we hit a lot of the going-home traffic, finally getting back to the rig a little before 5pm.
Jan had been worried about driving a new vehicle through downtown Houston traffic, but she did great with nary a bobble.
And no, we’re not getting rid of the Dakota, so we’re now a 3 vehicle family.
Due to today’s date, you’re going see a lot of blog stuff today about the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Now try to get that tune out of your head.
Fun In Branson
November 10, 2009
Spiders and Snakes…that’s not what it takes…
Today we headed out about 11am to try and get tickets for the shows we wanted to see while we’re in Branson. Yesterday while we were eating at Famous Dave’s BBQ at Branson Landing, we saw a store that sold discount tickets, so we decided to start there.
We knew we wanted to see Jim Stafford, and probably wanted to see Yakov Smirnoff. After that we weren’t sure.
We ended up with tickets Jim Stafford’s 3pm show today, Yakov Smirnoff ’s 3pm tomorrow, and the 8pm show tomorrow for a group called SIX. We were lucky to get the SIX so quickly, because this show stays sold out.
After getting our tickets, we walked down the boulevard looking for a place to eat lunch. Branson Landing is a new shopping area that has over a 100 shops, 10 restaurants, and 2 hotels, and includes a water, light, and fire show on the river.
We just wanted a light lunch so we found a wine shop that also served soups and sandwiches. Jan and I split a turkey panini, and each had a bowl of soup.
After lunch we walked around the Landing for a while and then headed out to drive around. I wanted to be sure I knew where the theaters were located.
We took MO-76 also know as “The Strip” where most of shows are located. The guy that sold us our tickets said while we were at the Jim Stafford Theater, we should pick up our tickets for the SIX show tomorrow night. He said the box office would get very crowded if we waited till the last minute.
The Jim Stafford Show was great! We’ve liked his music for a long time, and it was our first time to see him in person.
The show stars Jim,
his band,
a couple of Russian ballet dancers/ Russian folk dancers,
his 12 year old daughter, GG (Georgia Garland) who plays piano,
his 16 year old son who plays piano and fiddle,
And his wife Ann, who also performs.
GG also plays the harp and dances.
Her mother, Ann, also plays the glockenspiel.
The first half of the show was Jim’s songs, jokes, and stories, and the second half was a Christmas show. He also did a number of instrumentals on the guitar and the harmonica. Many people don’t realize that Jim Stafford is considered one of the finest guitar pickers in the world, and his performance showed it.
I also liked the fact, that as you can tell from the pictures above, there is no problem with taking photos during the show.
After the 2 hour show we stopped for supper at El Portal, a Mexican restaurant we had heard about and it turned out to be really good.
We got home about 6 and got settled in. We’re really looking forward to our two shows tomorrow.
Thought For The Day:
A gun is like a parachute.
If you NEED one and don’t have one…
You are likely to never need one again.
November 10, 2010
Boats and Bentley . . .
Today, the 10th, is another anniversary as well. 35 years ago the ore freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald broke in two and sunk about 17 miles off Whitehorse Bay in Lake Superior. All 29 men aboard were lost and no bodies were ever recovered.
Over 700 feet long, the Fitzgerald was merely another one of almost 6000 wrecks and 25,000 casualties on the Great Lakes since 1878. In fact the SS Carl D. Bradley went down in November 1958 with the loss of 33 men, 4 more than the Fitzgerald. At 639 feet long the Bradley, like the Fitzgerald, was the biggest ship on the lake at the time of the sinking.
The difference was that Gordon Lightfoot didn’t write a hit song about the SS Carl Bradley. Released in 1976, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, written, composed, and sung by Lightfoot, engrained the story of the Fitzgerald’s sinking in the American consciousness. This song, with its haunting melody and lyrics, is hard to forget, but in case you have, you can listen again here.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
We woke up this morning to heavy rain, that except for brief periods of a little sun, continued pretty much all day.
Unfortunately this meant we still have some water coming in around the slide, since I haven’t been able to look at the problem since it rained heavily a couple of days ago.
But, despite the leak, it was nice to just sit around the rig, listening to the rain on the roof and drinking a mug of hot coffee.
About 1 pm during a break in the rain I went out to dump the tanks. A couple of days ago the black tank was getting full, so I closed off the grey tank to be sure I’d have plenty of dump water to flush.
But it was not to be, at least at first. When I pulled the black tank valve I got a mini fountain of poo water about halfway down the length of sewer hose. I quickly slammed the valve closed and took a look.
My hose had cracked between the coils in about 6 places. It was fine about 10 days ago, the last time I dumped. My first thought is that the yard people got it with their string trimmers, but I don’t know.
Luckily I had another length of hose so I could still finish the dump. The only thing I could do about the spill, since it was in deep grass, was to squirt Dawn over the area and then hose it down good.
About 2 pm we headed up to Seabrook to have a late lunch at Hooter’s. After we had ordered our wings, we noticed they have a new hotter sauce called “XXX”, so we asked for a small bowl to try it out.
We had ordered our wings with “Bentley” sauce which is the hottest one on the menu. They have another one, “Elvis” that’s off the menu, but available if you know to ask for it.
We both like the “XXX”, which is supposed to be even hotter than “Elvis”, and we’ll probably get our wings that way next time.
While we were at Hooter’s, one of my clients called with a printer problem. Their UPS printer had stopped printing out the reports, though it still would print shipping labels. I told him I’d be by after lunch and got back to my hot wings.
After Hooter’s, and fixing the client’s problem, we headed over to Wal-Mart for some shopping, including a new length of sewer hose.
It was clear when we went in Wal-Mart, but it was pouring down rain when we came out. Thus we decided to skip our next stop at Kroger’s and just head on home.
That’s about it for today.
Thought for the Day:
Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.
November 10, 2011
Sweet Home Alabama . . .
Since we had another 300 mile trip today, we wanted to get an earlier than usual start at 9, so I was up at a little before 6:30 (this is getting to be a really bad habit.) to get things started.
After I got the coffee started, I went outside (it was 35 degrees!), stowed away the satellite dish and cables, and plugged in the engine block heater, then it was back inside to thaw out my frozen hands. I thought about warming them up by holding them to Jan’s feet, thus waking her up, but on second thought, I decided I wanted to live another day.
I hadn’t hooked up the toad last night because it would have stuck out in the street since our site was just long enough for the rig.
But after coffee and a breakfast sandwich, I went back outside to hook up and also add some air to a couple of tires. Also by this time Jan had had her shower so I disconnected and stowed away the water and sewer hoses.
After letting in the awnings, we were ready to go outside, except for disconnecting shore power.
And so, a couple of minutes after 9 we were on our way. We had a brief bobble coming through Somerset, KY and getting on the Cumberland Pkwy when we found that they had torn up the old road and built a completely new interchange without telling Margaret, our GPS program. She was just positive we were driving off the ends of the earth and should turn around and go back.
But we soldiered on, and about 100 miles later we met up with I-65 and headed south. Then just south of Bowling Green, KY we stopped for diesel at a Flying J.
Pulling into the RV diesel pumps I was happy to see a sticker on the pump saying that if you used a MasterCard you could pump $100 in one transaction, and if you used a Visa Card you could pump up to $495 in one transaction.
Great! No more having to go inside and stand in line. So I used my Visa Card, and my Flying J RV card, and started the pump.
Which almost immediately stopped at $75. Huh?
So it was off inside, where I stood in line, and when I asked about the $495 sticker, the young woman (blonde) said, ‘Oh, we don’t know anything about those stickers, or who put them there. People just keep asking us. But all the pumps stop at $75 no matter what card you use.”
Later checking on the Pilot-Flying J website, it also says you can pump $495 on a Visa Card.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
We pulled into Northgate RV Travel Park, just off I-65 north of Athens, AL about 2:30. The park is owned by my uncle and his son, so it makes it very convenient when visiting all my relatives here.
We’ll be here for 3 nights before heading down to Gulf Shores on Sunday, and hopefully we’ll be able to get together with everyone while we’re here.
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Thought for the Day:
“It is as absurd to say that a man can’t love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.” – Honoré de Balzac
Fun In Gulf Shores
November 10, 2012
There’s a New Champion, or It’s a Two’fer . . .
About 11:30 we headed out for Pensacola about 30 miles away. We always try to visit here when ever we’re in the area, and we always eat at Sonny’s BBQ, which is where we ended up for lunch about 12:15.
Along with Famous Dave’s BBQ, Sonny’s is pretty much our favorite BBQ chain. And the reason is that unlike many BBQ places, Sonny’s has sliced pork, as well as pulled pork.
Growing up in Alabama, BBQ was pork, and usually sliced. And if it wasn’t sliced, it was chopped, not pulled. Pulled pork was mostly found in the Carolinas and northern Georgia. But in the last 30-40 years pulled pork seems to have migrated south, and now it’s getting harder to find sliced pork, especially in north Alabama.
And sliced pork is pretty much unknown out in Texas. When we first moved out there in 1978 when I tried to order sliced pork, I often got ham.
Well, I guess it is sliced, and it is pork.
But it’s not ‘sliced pork’, OK.
After a great meal at Sonny’s, we drove over to near downtown to visit Artesana, a high-end gift shop we’ve been visiting since the mid-70’s.
We first visited it when we came down from Montgomery for a kidless weekend in Gulf Shores at the family beach house. Jan had asked a friend for a nice shop to visit that you wouldn’t want to take kids.
And Artesana certainly filled that bill. It’s a really fun place to just wander through, and Jan always finds something she just has to have.
Our next stop was about 6 miles away at the Rave 18 movie theater to see Cloud Atlas, the Tom Hanks/Halle Berry movie. It was an interesting movie, but I think I’d have to see it a couple of more times to really figure it out.
Taking place in 6 different time periods, ranging from 1849 to 2321, the movie covers 6 different interrelated, interwoven stories. Here’s how it’s described.
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution,
Jan and I both agreed that Cloud Atlas is our new champion movie that asks the question, “What the heck was that all about”?”. To give you an idea, the previous champion was “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I was intrigued enough by the movie that I think I’m going to get a copy of the book that came out in 2004.
If you like movies that make you think, you might want to give this one a try.
Since this movie was almost 3 hours long, it was dark when we got out and time for supper.
And being in a Two’fer mood, it was back to Sonny’s BBQ once more, although this time we just had sliced pork sandwiches instead of dinners.
It was about 7:30 by the time we got home, and very windy. It looks like we’ve got a front coming though that will bring us some rain and bad weather.
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Thought for the Day:
Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.
Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be.
Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.
Almost Done On This Gate
November 10, 2013
Counting Down the Days . . .
Well, we’re into our last two weeks on this gate, and it still looks like we’ll be able to finish out our time here.
Things have really slowed down with only 30-40 vehicles through the gate each day. But we’re getting a lot of different crews through who stay a few days and then move on. Not exactly sure what the problem is on our frack site, but they still haven’t gone back into production yet, so I guess what ever it is, they still don’t have it fixed.
There are new pads going in just north and south of us, so things are still booming around here. Plus at night when you look around you can lit-up rigs in every direction. I can count more than a dozen, and a bunch of flare stacks too.
As an interesting update, I added a list of oilfield jobs and what they pay to the Gate Guard Info tab. Although the pay rates are really specific to North Dakota, they’re not much different here.
We’ve got a cold snap coming up the middle of the week, with a low Tuesday night of 41 degrees. Then on Wednesday the high / low is 59 and 35 degrees. BRRR!
But this time I’m ready. Actually the only part of me that gets really cold are my hands. The gloves I have (and I’ve got several different pairs) just don’t cut for spending hours outside.
So I ordered these from Amazon.
Thinsulate Battery Heated Gloves
I also found a really good deal on this WORX Power Screwdriver. Top-rated by Popular Science and listing for $50, Amazon had it for $37.
My Coleman model is about 6 years old and the batteries no longer hold a charge very long. And a replacement battery cost as much as this new WORX model. So it’s a win/win.
Two weeks from today we’ll be back at our Houston area home, Galveston Bay RV Park , and we’re really looking forward to it. Even the sunrise/sunsets are great.
Here’s a photo posted on Facebook recently by the park manager, LauraLee.
And here’s a couple of mine.
We can’t wait to get back.
Wrapping up, here’s another photo of our son-in-law Lowell’s sister’s daughter’s daughter, Zoe. A real red-haired cutie.
Thought for the Day:
“Access to power must be confined to men who are not in love with it.” – Plato, The Republic
Almost Done On The Gate
November 10, 2014
Wrapping Up Soon . . .
The last of the frack equipment pulled out today, but was quickly replaced by more of the flow-back stuff, as well as additional workers. In addition, our drilling rig is starting to finish up and getting ready to shut down with a lot of trucks coming in and going out as a part of that. So it ended up being a pretty busy day with almost 10 pages of vehicles logged in.
My missing Amazon package finally showed up this morning, but only because I called their distribution center in Bryan a little after 7am. When I gave the guy the tracking number, he said, “Yeah, it’s here. You want us to send it back to Amazon?”
Me: “No, I’d like you to deliver it to me like you did my other package last week.”
UPS Guy: “Well, I guess I can pull it off the shelf and send it out today if you want.”
Me: “Yes, I want.”
UPS Guy: “OK. Bye.”
After that I was really surprised it actually showed up today at all.
Tomorrow Jan and I are taking a few hours off to spend the day over in Bryan/College Station, with our friend Charlotte taking care of our gate for us. Since we don’t have a lot of other stuff to do, we may try to take in a movie, but haven’t decided what we want to see. But we’re leaning toward either “St. Vincent”, with Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy (Molly), or “Big Hero 6”, an animated movie. We saw a preview of this at our last movie and it looked good. As a matter of fact, many of our favorite recent movies have been animated, especially the two Despicable Me movies.
And one of our all-time favorite movies from 2005 is an animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood called “Hoodwinked”. Done in Rashomon style, it tells and retells the story several times from the viewpoint of each of the major characters, all having wildly different views of the same events. Really good and worth seeing.
Brandi texted over the latest Landonism this evening. She was fixing dinner, apparently not fast enough for Landon, and he wanted to know where his dinner was. Brandi told him it would be a few minutes, whereupon Landon said, “I want it now!”
Brandi told him he needed to learn to be patient, and Landon replied, “My patience went on vacation!”
Out of the mouths . . .
After several nice days of low 70’s in the daytime and 50-60’s at night, it’s getting ready to get cold . . . and colder. After a high forecast of 61 tomorrow (Tuesday) we’re supposed to get 6 days of highs in the low 50’s, and lows in the low 30’s. Then Sunday we’re looking at a high of 55 and a low of 28 degrees, in what would be our first below-freezing night on the gate. But we won’ be here to enjoy it.
Normally we leave the gate each year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and head down to Galveston Bay RV Resort for the winter. But this year’s a little different, so we’re going to leave a week early, on Sunday the 16th instead of the 23rd.
Jan has been having some bad side effects from the Tamoxifen that she’s taking as part of her post-breast cancer regime, and she wants to see her doctor next week, so it’ll just be easier to take care of that after leaving the gate.
Since our site at Galveston Bay is not ready yet, and may not be for a while due to construction delays on the new area of the park, we’re going to head down to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails for six days before heading over to the Escapee’s RV park in Livingston to stay with Chris and Charles Yust on their lot for few days. After that we’ll have to see how things work out.
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Thought for the Day:
A man in a movie theater notices a sweat bee sitting next to him.
“Are you a sweat bee?” asked the man, surprised.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here at the movies?”
The sweat bee answers, “Well, I liked the book.”
Almost Done On This Gate
November 10, 2015
The Siren Call . . .
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called “Gitche Gumee.”
Today, November 10th, marks the 40th Anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior.
After her launch in 1958, at 728ft (some articles say 729ft) she was the largest freighter on the Lakes, and is still the largest to have ever gone down there.
Sunk during a gale carrying 75mph gusts and 35ft waves, she was in communication with a nearby ship only minutes before she disappeared from radar a little after 7pm.
Ironically as the song says “The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put fifteen more miles behind ‘er.” And at her top speed that would have only been another hour.
There were no survivors from her crew of 29, who ranged in age from a 22 year old deckhand to the 63 year old captain.
Her wreckage was discovered a few days later by the Coast Guard, and later surveys found her broken in two pieces, lying in a little over 500ft of water, her bow standing upright in the mud.
Despite numerous dives, surveys, and commissions over years, there is still no definite finding to the cause of her sinking. But structural failure during the storm, possibly due to problems with her original design, seems to be the leading suspect.
Gordon Lightfoot, reading this article in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks later,
“According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee ‘never gives up her dead.’” — Great Lakes: The Cruelest Month, James R. Gaines with Jon Lowell in Detroit, ©1975 Newsweek Magazine
decided to write a song about the wreck to honor the ship and the crew who lost their lives that night.
In 2010, based on new findings about the wreck, Lightfoot changed the lyrics in one line of the song, at least in his live performances.
“At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,”
became
”At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said,”
Yeah, it doesn’t seem to scan right to me, either.
He said that he always felt bad about that line because he was afraid that it put the blame for the sinking on crew members who had not fastened the hatches down correctly.
And this was thought to be a real possibility at the time, but recent findings had pretty much eliminated this as a cause.
Jan and I visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on Whitefish Bay in July of 2013 and you can check that out here.
https://ourrvadventures.com/2013/07/240-miles-today-and-still-mooseless/
Although focusing on the Edmund Fitzgerald, it also details the many wrecks on Lake Superior going back hundreds of years. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area.
The smell of pizza must have been in the air, wafting on the breeze, because about 11:30 I headed into Carthage so we could try out the new Little Caesar’s Pizza.
We got the Ultimate Supreme (is there a penultimate, or antepenultimate Supreme?) which had Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, Green Peppers, and Onions. We dropped the Green Peppers because Jan’s allergic, and added Bacon. Hmmm, Bacon!
This is the first time we’ve ever had Little Caesar’s, and it turned out to be pretty good. Not Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, of course, but then what is.
All the ingredients tasted fresh, the cheese was good (the box says it’s 100% Mozzarella and Muenster) and the sauce was good, not too sweet like some. The crust was a little thicker than we really like, but still had a good taste and ‘bite’.
They only have one size, 14 inches, but it was big enough that we’ll get another meal out of it. Not bad for an $8 pizza, not bad at all.
Today was another nice day, but tomorrow the rain is supposed to return. But then it looks like Thursday is suppose to be nice again. But we know how that goes.
Thought for the Day:
“At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason.”
November 10, 2017
The Gales of November . . .
Come Calling.
First off, I want to thank everyone for their kind thoughts about the death of my Uncle Ed this past Wednesday. One thing I forgot to mention is that Uncle Ed and his wife Janis were instrumental in Jan and I first getting together in 1967.
Ed had a large veterinary practice in Sanford, FL at the time, and when my mother mentioned to Janis that I was thinking about coming down to FL to find a job for the summer, Janis invited me to stay with them. And later, after I had been there for about a week, I saw an ad in the Florida Today newspaper looking for someone to do the animal show at the Florida Wonderland amusement park over in Titusville, where, as I’ve mentioned before, Jan was working as a Saloon Girl in the Miss Kitty’s Pleasure Palace & Soft Drink Saloon.
And so it all began.
I never got around in last night’s blog to talking about our get-together with Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper.
We ended up at Whiskey Cake, a restaurant located in the new area of Baybrook Mall Complex.
We started off with an order of their Goat Cheese Fondue,
with olive oil, Greek olives, roasted tomatoes, fresh herbs, and grilled sourdough bread.
Jan had the Crispy Fried Chicken Salad, with spinach, gem lettuce, Vermont White Cheddar Cheese, spiced pecans, apples, red grapes, and buttermilk-Greek yogurt vinaigrette
For my part, I had the Wood Grilled Pork Brisket Steak, with Poblano White Cheddar Grits, and topped with a local peach and tomatillo salsa.
Finishing up, we had end it with Jan and I sharing an order of their namesake Whiskey Cake.
A toffee torte with a bourbon anglaise, spiced pecans, and fresh whipped cream.
Really good, and probably the best part of the meal, even though it was all good.
My new Camco LED Bulb came in today to we now have good light in the bathroom again.
And for those of you watching Young Sheldon and wondering about his father’s heart attack in last night’s episode, according to the timeline given on Big Bang, his father doesn’t die for another 5 years.
Wrapping up, today, November 10, 1975, is when the gales of November came calling and took the Edmund Fitzgerald, as well as 29 crewmembers, to the bottom of Lake Superior, 530 feet down. In 1995 a dive team brought up the Fitzgerald’s bell which now resides in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, MI, where we visited in July 2013.
And of course the whole incident led to one of the most haunting songs ever written, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.
The Word of the Day is: Apodictic
Thought for the Day:
“The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.” – Robert A. Heinlein
November 10, 2018
There’s A War Going On . . .
Today is the 43rd anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. And a month later it gave birth to one of the most haunting songs ever written.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called ‘gitche gumee’
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
For a little more about this, check out our visit to the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, near where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.
After a nice quiet morning Jan and I left the rig a little before 12:30 on our way up to King Food in Webster to meet up with long-time friend’s Bob and Maria. And when I say ‘long-time’, I mean the mid-80’s when Bob and I were both into Commodore Amiga computers.
We had a great time spending the next couple of hours catching up. We had a lot to talk about since we haven’t gotten together since last December. Too long.
After saying our goodbyes, our next stop was the nearby WalMart for some things. We must never have enough things since we keep buying more.
Then it was right next door to Sam’s to pick some prescriptions. These were the renewals that our Dr. sent over to WalMart by mistake, and then I had to transfer them over to Sam’s.
When I got there and asked how much the 4 (for 90 days each) were and they said $137. I said that’s too high. Turns out that once again they had lost the fact that I have a PLUS membership on my account. And when they repriced them accordingly, the cost was now $60.69. Much better.
This afternoon as we passed the WalMart in Victory Lakes, I noticed that regular gas had fallen to $2.22. This is a drop of 10 cents in the last week. Nice, but it still doesn’t match the $2.17 I paid at the new Webster Costco last week.
But as we were leaving the Sam’s Club today, they were now down to $1.99 for regular. Even Nicer!
And the new Costco was the same $1.99. I have a feeling that we might a gas war going on, spurred on by Costco.
I was reading recently that they’re known for keeping their gas prices really, really low, event to the point of losing money on each gallon, because it draws people in.
Works for me.
This was our second visit to Costco, and our first time to really take a good look around. We had gotten a sale flyer in the mail last week and wanted to check out a few things.
The first thing we did was to try and sign up for Costco’s discount drug program. Turns out we couldn’t because it only is available to people with health insurance prescription programs, not Medicare.
Score 1 for WalMart/Sam’s.
As we wandered through the food area, Jan was horrified.
She likes octopuses, but not like this.
But more like this.
And she also likes chickens, but it’s apparently OK for them to be like this.
This is one of Costco’s famous $4.99 Rotisserie Chickens. Looks and smells delicious. When we got home, Jan immediately ripped it to shreds for soup later in the week.
I guess, better the chicken than the octopus.
And since we’re looking at high temps in the 40’s next week, and low temps in the low 30’s we decided to take advantage of another good sale.
This Lasko Ceramic Heater.
It has a remote control, it oscillates side to side, and the front louvers move up and down also. And maybe even better it has a removable filter. A great deal for only $47.
I did bring home the security bit set to get our old Lasko heater apart and see if I can fix it, but with the really cold temps coming on, I didn’t want to be left ‘out in the cold’ in case I didn’t get to it, or couldn’t fix it.
We also have a couple of small Sunbeam heaters as backups, but they’re in the back of the Dakota at the transmission repair place.
Tomorrow we’ve got an early morning (8:45am) breakfast get-together with friend’s Tom and Barb over at the IHOP in Seabrook. It tells you how good a friends they are since there’s not many we’d get up this early for.
Thought for the Day:
The Indians had bad immigration laws.
Of course, so did the Stone-Age hunters from Europe, who were here 10,000 years BEFORE the Indians ever arrived from Asia.
What goes around, comes around.
November 10, 2019
Getting Ready To Roll . . .
Today I got outside early, well, at noon, but early for me, to start doing the prep work for our RV trip to Kingsland this coming Thursday for a family get-together. When you’ve been parked for about six months like we have, it seems like a lot of stuff just accumulates around the rig.
My first job was to take down our OTA Digital Antenna that we use for picking up the many local channels.
But really, all I had to do was cut a bunch of heavy-duty tie-wraps and lower it down. Then I removed the antenna head, folded it up and stowed it away. I’m just going to leave the pole laying next to the patio while we’re gone.
Then I pulled out my Craftsman (now Porter-Cable) Air Compressor and topped off all my tires, rig and truck. All of them were down by above same among, most likely due to the cooler temps since I last topped them off.
When I replaced our rig tires back in 2015 after our blowout (due to road debris), I once again when with truck tires, not ‘RV’ tires. When we bought the rig the end of 2007 I had the tires replaced before we even picked it up.
At that time I went with Sumitomo tires, another ‘truck’ type tire. And they lasted us for 8 years with no problems. I was planning to replace them when we got home later that year, but since I had to replace one, I decided to go ahead and replace all 6 while I was at it.
And I once again I went with ‘truck’ tires, but since Sumitomo’s weren’t available without ordering them, I went with Hercules Ironman I-601 tires which they did have in stock. And one reason for this is that while we gate guarded over the years, I saw a lot of oil field trucks using them. So I figured if they’re good enough for the oil field they should be good enough for us.
We did manage to finish up our Christmas decorating, at least inside. And we went all out this year.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Thought For The Day:
My very first mistake in life was believing that life was fair.
A New Addition To Our Family?
First off, thanks for all of your kind comments about last night’s blog where I laid out the timeline on how the whole post-election process actually works. I appreciate it.
Well, it looks like come December 31st it will be adios DirecTV. That’s when our suspension period runs out and then we’ll drop it completely.
Jan and I are both very happy with our replacement service, streaming through YouTubeTV and other services. We’ve got unlimited DVR recording limits, and could actually be recording dozens of shows at one time.
And even better, it’s less than half the price of DTV.
Between our home and then the RV we’ve had DirecTV since 1998 when I installed our first dish. Then I installed one for a friend, and then another one, and suddenly I had a profitable side gig installing their systems.
And since I got my start installing the big Scientific-Atlanta 10m (33 feet) satellite dishes that had to be lifted into place with a crane, like this one,
the 18” DirecTV ones were a piece of cake.
But it dried up in a couple of years because DirecTV was getting so many complaints from their storefront dealers being undercut by us freelancers that they started only selling wholesale to the storefront operations.
But it was fun while it lasted.
Thought For The Day:
It is an intelligent man that is aware of his own ignorance.
November 9, 2011
Harland and Sonny . . .
About noon, Jan and I headed out for the real reason we came this way on our trip back to Texas. We wanted to visit Visone Auto Mart, an RV Surplus/Junkyard.
I thought I might check and see if they had any Source Manager / Source Manager II inverters for a good price that would fit in my American Eagle.
I had called about a week ago and was told they had several of both units in stock. However when we got there I was told that they didn’t have any.
Well, they had one, but it was burnt and half-melted. And since it was pouring down rain when we got there, we didn’t take time to walk around through the many crashed and burnt-out rigs.
By then it was getting close to 1:30 so we make the drive further south into Corbin, KY, the birth place of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
But our destination for lunch wasn’t KFC, but probably our favorite BBQ chain, Sonny’s BBQ. It was as delicious as always, and with each of us getting one of their big plates, we had enough to take home for supper.
Hmmmmm! Good!
Leaving Sonny’s we drove on into Corbin to visit the first Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Harland Sanders opened his first restaurant here as part of a gas station in 1930. By 1937 the restaurant had expanded to 142 seats and was listed in Duncan Hines “Adventures in Good Eating” guide book.
Today the building is still a KFC, and also a museum.
Although Colonel Sanders sold the company in 1964, he stayed on as company spokesman until his death from leukemia in 1980.
In the spring of 1967, I worked at the first Kentucky Fried Chicken that was opening in Athens, AL. At that time, the Colonel still visited every new store that opened and I got to meet him, and have my picture taken with him.
On our way home we made a quick Wal-Mart stop before heading back to the rig.
Tomorrow we have a 300 mile run to Athens, AL where we’ll stay for 3 days to visit relatives before we head down to Gulf Shores, AL for a few days.
And it sounds like we’re staying right ahead of the snow. The Louisville, KY radio stations are talking about snow in the next couple of days.
So we’re headin’ south.
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Thought for the Day:
“Remember, if you’re in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”
November 9, 2012
Two More Days . . .
Jan was on the 3rd day wind-down from a migraine so we just took it easy again today. She napped and read a little and I did some computer stuff.
I did come across a couple of neat Android apps. Actually both do the same thing. One is called Bathroom Finder and the other is called SitOrSquat.
Both show you where the nearest public restroom is. And if you know of one that isn’t in their database you can add it. You can also sort for things like Baby Changing Tables, etc.
SitOrSquat is sponsored by Charmin, so I guess they kind of have a vested interest in the whole thing. Check’em out. You never know when you might need it.
We have Direct TV in our coach with the East Coast/West Coast Network Stations, and I’ve noticed that lately we’ve started getting targeted commercials on some of the cable channels like TLC, H2, TNT, etc.
By targeted, I mean commercials that are local to our DirecTV billing address, in our case the Houston area. We’ve seen commercials for Houston car dealers, Houston restaurants, Galveston attractions, etc. And I’ve never seen any for businesses in other areas. Just the normal national ones. They’re getting so specific I expect them to call me by name any day now.
After lunch I started looking at another rig problem. When we got ready to leave for Gulf Shores the other day I discovered that my step will not retract. It doesn’t even try.
I discovered the problem right before we left when I went back outside after I had started the engine. I noticed that when I shut the door, the step didn’t retract.
If the engine is running and the door is closed, the step should retract. And then it should extend when the door is opened. Without the engine running it can be manually controlled by a switch by the door.
The step mechanism is pretty quiet and it’s hard to hear it run from inside with the engine running, so I wasn’t exactly sure when it started acting up.
So I downloaded the Kwikee Step manual from online, and after reading it over, went outside with my meter to take some voltages. Sliding under the rig, I found that there wasn’t really a problem with the step itself. There was no 12V coming to it.
Going to my coach manuals I found there are two fuses that feed power to the step mechanism, and they’re located in . . . the Battery Control Center. The Battery Control Center that I’m already having problems with. Checking the fuses I found they weren’t blown, there was just no voltage going to the fuses. Part of the buss inside the BCC was dead.
And now I knew when the step started acting up. It died when the BCC started acting up Wednesday night/Thursday morning, Oct 31st/Nov 1st. while we were parked at the Cane 9 Creek RV Park in Heflin, AL.
I know when it died because it was all working when we parked. I shut the engine off while I was registering and it started back up fine. And the step came out. Then there was some confusion about which site we were going to, and after parking the first time, I cranked up and moved again. So it work then. And after I finally parked, the step came out.
And it was still working at that point, otherwise the step wouldn’t have extended. This means that the BCC died sometime during the night, since when I turned the key the next morning it didn’t work. And I didn’t notice that the step wasn’t working then.
So it seems I don’t have two problems, just one – the BCC.
Monday I’ll give the tech that American Coach recommended a call and see what he thinks. I may end up not doing anything with it until we get back to Houston. I will however do some temporary wiring so I can retract and extend the step until then.
Since Jan was now feeling a lot better, she decided she wanted some charred red meat, so we drove up to the mall on the north side of the canal to have dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.
I think I’ve pretty much decided that this is my favorite chain steakhouse, better than Outback or Texas Roadhouse. More consistently a better piece of meat, and they always manage to sear it so that the edges are burnt crispy-crunchy.
Jan had the Flat Iron Steak and I had the Bone-In Outlaw Ribeye. Both really, really good.
BTW, why is it OK to gnaw on the bones when you’re eating ribs, fried chicken, or chicken wings, but people look at you funny when you pick up your steak bone and get the last of the meat off.
I didn’t do it, but I sure wanted to. But then Jan would have given me “The Look”. And every married guy knows what “The Look” means.
After that great meal we drove across the parking lot to Books-A-Million. Didn’t find any books, but I did see this shirt.
The “Two More Days” in this blog title refers to how many actual travel days we have left for this year. A week from tomorrow we will head for Galveston Bay RV Park with a stopover in Breaux Bridge, LA for the night.
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Thought for the Day:
Government Health Care:
The efficiency of the DMV –
The customer service of the Post Office –
And the compassion of the IRS.
What could be better?
November 9, 2014
I’m Wildly Popular . . .
At least with Hackers in Eastern Europe!
Our frack has pretty much wrapped up with the last of the equipment going out this afternoon. At the same time, the flow-back equipment was coming in, which made for some interesting standoffs in traffic.
Flow-back is basically the removal of fracking fluids, mostly water, from a well after it has been fracked, and prior to being put into production. Because this fluid all has to be trucked out by tanker, this means we’re still doing 7-8 log pages a day, i.e 180 vehicles in, and of course, out.
Here is a short article about a Flow-Back Supervisor.
Several readers had asked about our ‘Alaska’ coats that we wear at night when it’s 30-40 degrees here on the gate. Here’s what ours looks like.
I forgot to mention the other day that, in addition to being water-proof, fleece-lined, insulated, and hooded, it’s also reversible, and the hood zips off. And they’re machine washable too.
As it turns out, they’re available on Amazon, and for less than the price of $35 we paid 6 years ago.
Scuba Dive Flag Adult Reversible Fleece / Water Resistant Jacket
Although this has the scuba dive flag on it, it’s exactly the same jacket, and very warm. Just tell everyone you’re a diver, and talk about your latest trip to Cozumel.
I’m apparently very popular with Eastern European hackers. At least that’s the only reason I can figure for the fact that they keep trying to break into this blog site.
I get these warning emails 10-15 times a day.
2 failed login attempts (1 lockout(s)) from IP: 196.37.52.130
Last user attempted: admin
IP was blocked for 240 minutes
When they get two of these from same IP address, they’re then locked out for 48 hours. In this case, they’re not even using the right user name. And my password is just 15 characters of random garbage, i.e. f$B(*^Dg24, so they’re never going to guess it. But they’re using 100’s of different IP address so they can keep trying.
What I can’t figure out is why they want into the blog. It’s not like I have any credit card number s or anything. So what do they want?
I’ve become convinced that there’s some kind of ‘Bee Dispatch System’. Or maybe an ‘Insect Dispatch’ one in general. I first became convinced of this on a gate a couple of years ago when we had an infestation of flies for a couple of weeks.
For the last few days, we’ve had a couple of ‘sweat bees’ flying around here, getting in our face, and just being a general annoyance. In fact it was a sweat bee that I bit into in my drink the other day.
So what I want to know is why, like today, that we can have two sweat bees flying around all afternoon. Just two. Then, finally, I manage to kill them both. And believe me, sweat bees aren’t easy to kill, Unlike flies, sweat bees don’t land very often, and if they do, not for long. So you mostly have to swat them out of the air, like hitting a zig-zagging tennis ball. So finally I kill them both . . . and 10 minutes later I’ve got two more.
Where did they come from? How did they know there was an opening for two sweat bees, a vacancy, so to speak?
I spent the rest of the afternoon killing two sweat bees at a time, until finally, the last time, only one showed up. And after him, no more.
I guess I had exhausted the sweat bee supply. Or maybe no more bees would take the assignment from Bee Dispatch.
“OK, all you bees listen up. We’ve got an opening in sector K4 for two sweat bees. No bumbles or honeys needed. Numbers 4,124,243 and 4,124, 244, we need you to move out immediately.”
“Geez, Sarge, that’s the 4th ‘opening’ today. That’s a suicide mission. Can’t you get somebody else? Me and 4,124, 244 here, ‘Bob’ as I call him, we’re the last of our family.
“What can I say? It’s been a rough week. No more excuses. Move out.”
“But Sarge, Bob here has a wife and kids.”
“Whatta mean? You’re a drone. You can’t have kids. Actually, not sure if you can have a wife either.”
“It’s a common-bee marriage, and anyway, we’re thinking of adopting. Got our eyes, all 10 of them, on a nice little worker bee.”
“Shut up and move it. And remember the hive motto. ‘Come back with your wings, or on them.
I’m sorry. It’s lonely at night on the gate.
________________________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
November 9, 2015
It’s Amazing I’m Still Alive . . .
Well, unlike recent days, we couldn’t have had a much nicer day. Sunny, with a high of 70, and down into the low 50’s at night. Just about perfect gate weather. But unfortunately we supposedly have some more rain moving in on Wednesday. But then after that it looks to be back to nice for a few days.
I’m just really hoping for nice weather weekend after next when we’ll start breaking down our little encampment here. Not to mention any problems we might have getting the rig off the grass/dirt and back on the road.
I’ve made a list up of things that need to be done before we leave and portioned it out over the last week so I don’t forget something and leave a bunch of stuff to the last minute.
The vehicle count here on the gate has dropped back a little during the last few days. A week ago we were getting about 60 vehicles a day in through the gate, but since then it seems to have settled to a steady 35 to 40. Very nice.
We have the same six guys, three on each 12 hour shift, and then the rest are the tankers hauling out the flowback water. The crew shift changes around 4:15, with three coming in, and the other three going home. But the tankers don’t really have a schedule. We may have four coming one right after the other, and then leave pretty much together 30 or so minutes later. So I guess there must be multiple valves, (spigots? teats?) for them to all hook up and fill together.
After those four leave, it may be 45 minutes before we get another one, just one, and then 30 minutes later, another one. So we never know how many or when.
But you know for sure you’ll get a tanker come in when you go inside to go the bathroom.
I got my replacement transfer switch on its way today. Hopefully it will be here by Friday. They were nice enough to send me the new one with just a credit card number, and then I’ll send the bad one back. That way we’ll only be without shore power for 15 minutes or so while I swap them out.
Then while we’re still off shore power I’ll crank up the generator and be sure it switches over like it’s supposed to, since that was the original problem of only switching over to the generator if we were still hooked up to shore power.
After a blog post a couple of days ago talking about some project or other, or several, I was working on, blog reader Jan Mains left me a comment wondering if my brain ever shuts down, even when I’m sleeping.
In fact, No.
Here’s what I told her.
Jan,
No, I don’t think part of it ever sleeps. In fact I’ve come up with some great ideas while I was sleeping. But I usually forget to write down the building instructions immediately after I wake up, and it all ends up lost in the very dark mists of my mind.
Very, very dark mists.
But so far I’ve invented the following in my sleep:
A way to generate unlimited free power using a gallon of seawater, a banana, and two ‘D’ batteries.
A time machine using a Commodore 64, a blue shower curtain, and a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine.
An interstellar warp drive using a ’54 Buick Roadmaster, a 5 gallon bucket, and a German Shepherd.
Oh, and the shower curtain has to be blue. Any other color and it won’t work.
You might think I’m kidding about these, but I can see them functioning in my mind like I’m watching them on TV. I just can’t quite remember how to build them.
Supposedly Nikolai Tesla could design entire inventions completely in his head, testing and refining them until they worked perfectly. And then when he built them, they worked perfectly in real life too.
Me, not so much.
One idea I did write down is a do-it-yourself key-making machine (© 2012 Greg White,™, ®, Pat. Not Pending), that will duplicate any key of almost any type, does not need 100’s of different key blanks, and lets you put any pattern or design on the head, or bow, of the key (that’s the part you hold).
You can have this idea for free, as long as I get a 10 cents a key royalty on every one made in every machine. Go for it. It really won’t be that hard to build. Mostly off-the-shelf parts.
But as far as everything else goes, I do find that if I’m stuck on a problem, I just put it aside for an hour, a day, or a week, and usually a solution will come bubbling to the top.
But I’ve been inventing, designing, or building things as long as I can remember. As a kid, I invented some very useful things, only to find out that someone else had beat me to it.
Sometime in the early 50’s when I was six or so, and we were living on the beach at Gulf Shores, AL, we got our first television set. We would have gotten one earlier, but there were no TV stations in the area. But finally two stations, WALA and WKRG, went on the air in Mobile, AL (and why the heck I remember those call signs, I have no idea). Since they were about 50 miles away we had a tall, directional antenna to pick them up.
Then a little later, WEAR went on the air in Pensacola, FL. It was a little closer, but directly opposite the Mobile stations. So if we wanted to watch Ch. 3 in Pensacola, my father would have to go outside and turn the antenna around.
I began to wonder why you couldn’t hook up a electric motor to turn the antenna pole instead of doing it by hand. Now the only electric motor I had access to was the one that came with my A.C. Gilbert Erector Set, the big one that had everything in it, enough stuff that I think I could have built another Eiffel Tower if I tried. And if I knew what the Eiffel Tower was when I was six.
Besides all the gears and stuff, the set came with four large metal wheels that you could use to make motorized trucks and stuff. Using those, all the other gears in the set, and as I remember, a belt and pulley from an old Coca Cola drink case compressor, I finally managed to get that Erector Set motor to turn the antenna pole.
The only problem was that the motor had to be so geared down that it took around an hour and a half to turn the antenna 180 degrees. Not very useful.
But I was very proud of what I had done, and was getting ready to show it to my father when a problem arose. My father later said he knew something was up when I came running wild-eyed into the motel office, grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and ran back out the door. At this point, he of course was right behind me.
The problem was that this small electric motor was not really designed to run for 90 minutes, non-stop, under an extremely heavy load.
And it had burst into flames.
While I was trying to get the extinguisher to work, my father, seeing what was happening, just reached over and unplugged the motor from the extension cord. He said I had tears in my eyes as I watched my prized motor melt down into slag.
When I told him what I was trying to do, he just smiled and said, “Come on. Get in the car.” An hour or so later, we were in Mobile buying an antenna rotor system. That’s when I found out someone had already invented it before me.
Oh, and on the way home we stopped at Sears and I got a brand-new Erector Set motor.
So as you can see, I got an early start in all this. But it was only the beginning.
Maybe sometime I’ll tell you the whole story about how when I was 13, a friend of mine and I got a beat-up wooden fishing boat, an old 36hp VW engine, and a 4ft aircraft propeller we bought at an Army Surplus store, and made our own airboat. Or tried to.
Unfortunately the boat wasn’t quite up to the strain, the transom broke off from the weight of the engine while we were out on the Bon Secour River, and for a few seconds it looked like we were either going to be decapitated, or run through a very large blender.
Or there’s that cold Tuesday afternoon in November, when I fired up my newly-upgraded, high-powered laser, using a very large bank of capacitors, two xenon flash tubes, and a ruby laser rod. Here’s a basic diagram.
I had noticed when I was charging up the capacitor bank that the lights in the dorm were really dimming down, so I was using a light bulb as a shunt to slow the charge rate so I didn’t blow a fuse. But my first shot was so successful that I impatiently bypassed the shunt to speed up the charging for the next shot.
In hindsight, this was a mistake. But hey, I had just turned 17. Who has patience at 17?
When I fired off the laser the second time, the pulse of the capacitor bank’s output partially fed back into the AC power supplying the two adjacent dorms and took out the transformer on the pole outside the dorm, causing it to shut down in a shower of sparks.
This then overloaded the already marginal electrical system feeding the 60 year old campus, blacking out everything a few second later. And apparently this led to sporadic outages around town for the next few hours.
While I was trying to figure out how I was going to talk my way out of this one, a friend came running into my room with the big news on his transistor radio.
Now most people seem to think that an overloaded relay on a main power line in upstate New York caused the Great Northeast Blackout of November 9th, 1965, but a lot of people in Columbia, TN think differently.
See, and you just thought I was weird.
Now you know for sure.
________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
Never throw anything away.
Everything will have a use someway, somehow, someday.
But you won’t realize it until you throw it away.
November 9, 2016
Flashburger . . .
The weather has finally cooled, hopefully to stay, at least for this winter. Today’s high was only 72 degrees with a heavy overcast and spritzing rain, and with 54 degrees scheduled for tonight. Very Nice.
One of the first things I did this afternoon was to dig out the spare Thermal Over-Heat fuse for my Splendide washer/dryer. I ordered two fuses back in 2013 so I would have a spare one.in case it happened again. And luckily it was right where I thought it was.
I just hope it’s that easy.
Jan and I headed out about 2pm to have lunch and do some shopping. Our lunch stop was Flashburger, a place we’ve heard about, but not yet visited. But based on what we’ve heard, we were looking forward to it.
And we were not disappointed. We now have a new favorite burger place in Kenedy, edging out RJ’s, our previous #1. And Flashburger ranks right up there in our top 5 or so burgers ever.
Jan got their Regular Burger with Cheddar Cheese, Sautéed Mushrooms, Grilled Onions, Tomatoes, Mustard and Ketchup.
I went with the El Jefe, one of their Magnificent 7pre-configured burgers. It comes with Two Patties, Bacon, Cheddar Cheese, A Fried Egg, Lettuce, and their Flash sauce, kind of a spicy Thousand Island.
I added Tomatoes, Onions, and Mayo. And it looked like this.
We also shared an order of their Bacon Pesto Parmesan Fries.
The burgers were perfect, with hand-formed patties, grilled until the edges are slightly crunchy. The buns are buttered and also grilled until the insides are toasty, and crispy. Not only is this delicious but it means that even though it’s a large burger, it holds together as you eat it, and doesn’t fall apart along the way.
The only thing Jan missed from RJ’s Burgers was the Fried Onion Rings that she usually gets. But she said the Fries and Burgers were delicious enough to bring Flashburger out on top.
We’ll definitely go back.
Our next stop was at the Hardware Store/Lumberyard right down the road. I wanted to get a 2’ x 2’ piece of 1/4” plywood to stack on top of the dolly platform that I used to pull out the washer and move it into the kitchen.
It needs to be slightly taller to make it a little easier to push the washer back in the cabinet. But the 2’ x 2’ piece needs to be cut down some more, and this place doesn’t do customer cuts, So I had been looking at jigsaws on Amazon, but thought I’d take a look at them while I was here.
And I found this Black & Decker Jigsaw for $2 cheaper than on Amazon so it came home with me too.
Now all I need is to get a picnic table on our site so I can work there.
Our final stop was the local Dollar General. Not very tidy with a lot of stuff thrown on the floor and around on the shelves.
Hopefully we’ll hear from Todd tomorrow about a gate.
Thought for the Day:
Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself. – Napoleon
November 9, 2017
It Wasn’t My Fault, Really!
I just got word this afternoon that my uncle, Dr. Edward Calvin, died yesterday evening at the Alabama State Veteran’s Home in Huntsville. He was 89 years old.
We had just seen him this past summer and it was obvious he was going downhill, but it’s always a shock anyway. He will be missed.
I titled yesterday’s blog, “They’re Baacckk!” and then forgot to tell you what was back.
Yesterday morning our AWOL Facebook emoticons suddenly reappeared. They just were back. At least until the next time they disappear.
I got an email a couple of days ago from Amazon telling me about their new Amazon Key service, which would let Amazon package deliverers drop off your orders right inside your front door, instead of on your doorstep where they can ‘walk’ off.
Although it sounds like a great idea, the Internet was abuzz about all the possible problems.
“Why would I ever let anyone in my house when I’m not there.”
“Why just anyone could come in my house.”
Of course I’m old enough to the remember leaving the back door unlocked so the milkman could put the dairy products in the fridge.
And how many times have you left the door unlocked so the AC repair guy could get in during the day. Or gave him a key that you hope didn’t get duplicated. Well, Amazon Key solves all those problems and more.
It consists of a video/audio camera that lets you see and talk to who’s at your front door. Then if you’re satisfied, you can remotely unlock the door and let them in. So the housekeeper, repairman, dog walker, etc., can gain entrance with your permission. Again without passing out keys hither and yon, or leaving in under the mat or in the flower pot.
And just so someone can’t dress up in a brown uniform and pretend to deliver a package to get in your house, you get an email the morning of a delivery, and another one when he’s at the door. He then has to use his Amazon handheld scanner to unlock your door using a one-time code.
I don’t know, but it sounds pretty safe and convenient to me.
Again on the Amazon front, I just got in this new toy.
6 port 12amp USB Charging Station
With two phones, three Kindles, and a Galaxy Tab, we’re always looking for a outlet to plug in a charger cord, so this will be a big help.
With 6 ports and a full 2 amps on each port, it’s a fast charge on everything.
Fifty two years ago today, a number of people thought I caused the Great Northeast Blackout. But it wasn’t my fault, I swear, Well, maybe.
In 1965 I was 17 and a senior at Columbia Military Academy (CMA) in Columbia, TN. And for the Science Fair that year I had built a High Power Laser system
CMA was established in 1905, and most of the buildings, including my dorm, were built in the later 30’s, And the building wiring reflected that age.
I built up my laser using a Neodymium-Ruby laser rod,
a spiral xenon flash tube, and a large high voltage power supply.
My power supply was about the size of a small suitcase and had 12 of these 1000mf capacitors like this supply.
I knew I was going to have a problem the very first time I turned it on and started charging up the caps for the first test. The wiring in the old building literally ‘moaned’. So I knew that this wasn’t going to work, and so I built up shunts for the power supply to slow the charge rate and reduce the power.
I had been working on it for a week or so without a lot of visible results. It would flash and fire, but that’s about it. You couldn’t see the beam unless you had smoke in the path, and we weren’t allowed to smoke in the dorm. I was able to pop balloons with it, but that wasn’t very impressive, at least to the other cadets.
Back then, lasers like mine were rated in ‘Gillettes’, as in how many Gillette razor blades would it burn through. In my case, at this point, the answer was none. I could only make a slight dimple in one blade.
So finally one Tuesday afternoon, after taking a lot of ragging, I decided to go for a full power test. But as a concession to the building wiring, I just removed one shunt and change the value of the other one to allow for a full charge, but over a longer period of time, in this cast, about three hours.
So when the meter showed a full charge, I was ready to go. But here’s where I made a mistake. I forgot to unplug the power supply from the wall outlet.
The problem with this is that when a capacitor setup like mine is discharged, it can send a back EMF voltage out through the input, i.e into the building wiring.
As I slammed the knife switch closed, there was a blinding flash, a loud ‘WHOOMP!’, and a shower of sparks at the target, looking something like this.
And suddenly in my room, before filled with noisy cadets, it got very quiet . . . and dark. The power was off in the building. And I quickly discovered that one of the two transformers that fed the entire school had blown, so I had knocked out power to half the campus.
Rut Roh!
As my roommate and I were hurriedly dismantling and packing away the laser system, and wondering how we were going to get out of this one (Ah, needless to say this wasn’t my first . . . indiscretion, let’s call it.), a cadet from across the hall came running in with his transistor radio and said, “Hell, White, you’re really in trouble now. You knocked out power all up and down the East Coast.”
Rut Roh!
So that’s what happened to me November 9, 1965. Jan was then an Air Force brat at Westover AFB in MA. She said they all thought it was either Russians or the Martians.”
Now the authorities will try to tell you that it was the failure of a 230 kilovolt power line near Ontario, Canada that failed and cascaded down south. But now you know the real story.
Oh, and the answer is 5.
My one and only full power test burned through 5 Gillette razor blades and dimpled a sixth.
The Word of the Day is: Arete
Thought for the Day:
“Eastasia has always been at war with Oceania.” – George Orwell
November 9, 2018
Guess It Was Just Too Gross . . .
Jan and I spent about an hour this morning entering all her medical history in her “Medical Passport” for her upcoming cataract surgery on Dec. 6th, with the right eye about a week later. What I don’t understand is why we keep having to enter the same info over and over for every different doctor and procedure.
They all ask for pretty much the same info, though sometimes in a different order or format. So you would think that they could work out a standard form that could be populated as needed from an encrypted database kept on your own computer.
In fact that’s what I thought was supposed to be part of the ObamaCare’s Medical Electronic Records section, but I guess not.
I spent the day at work split between trying to track down a bug in my Shipping Program, repairing a couple of machines that had come in yesterday, and adding a bunch of new products to our website/paper catalog.
The bug was that when you enter a shipment weight less than 10 pounds it would not print out the regular Priority Mail cost. But all the other prices were fine, and at weights greater than 10 pounds, everything worked fine.
Took me a little bit of debugging to figure out that the problem was when I was converting a string value (the package weight) to a numeric value for the zone chart lookup.
When I talked to them, Snider was trying to finish up our Dodge Dakota this afternoon, but I told them that we wouldn’t be able to pick it up until Tuesday afternoon anyway, so don’t stay late working on it.
For dinner tonight we finished off the last of the big batch of Chicken Veggie Soup that Jan made up on Wednesday.
Next up for the upcoming cold weather, 38° later this week, is either Chili or Chicken Tortilla Soup. All delicious.
Tomorrow we’re getting together with long-time friend’s Bob and Maria for lunch at our favorite King Food.
Really looking forward to it.
Thought for the Day:
You’ve probably seen the ‘Zombie In Love’ commercial running for the new LG V40 ThinQ Cellphone and its versatile camera.
But have you noticed that the original version, where the guy zombie’s arm falls off, had disappeared from the TV? Here’s what it looked like.
Now they cut the spot right before it happens. Check it out.
Guess it was just too gross and they got some complaints.
