Daily Archives: December 28, 2020
Bundle Up!
I mentioned the other day that Jack in the Box was out of the Antenna Ball business.
Well, No.
Last week I stopped by the Santa Fe JITB for a couple of Cold Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and I was going through the Drive-Thru, I saw a sign saying I could get a free Ball with a Large Combo, or I could buy them for 99¢ each. So I got two.
The last two they had in stock, as it turned out. And rather than the usual holiday theme, they looked like this.
It will be interesting to see how long it last up there.
Jan and I are heading up to the Texas Hill Country on Thursday, first for an overnight stay in Fredericksburg, and then on over to Chris and Linda’s in Kingsland on Friday.
Brandi, Lowell, and Landon will also coming up then, and Miss Piper will be coming over from Austin, so we’ll all be together for once. Unfortunately the weather doesn’t look to be cooperating.
Thursday in Fredericksburg we’re looking at a HIGH of 39° and a LOW of 28. And even better, there’s a 60% chance of rain. COLD rain.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday over in Kingsland are a little bit better. Or at least there’s no rain in forecast. But we’re looking at temps in the low 50’s and high 20’s-low 30’s.
At least it’s supposed to be sunny!
From the Out of the Mouth of Babes Department:
While we were up at Brandi’s on Friday, I was showing Landon some photos of his mother when she was even younger than Landon is now.
And a couple of these had Jan in them also. Landon, looking back between the photos and Jan over on the sofa, said, “But Nana looks just the same now.”
So I whispered to him, “I think she has a picture in an attic somewhere.”
Thought For The Day:
December 28, 2010
Burnt Eagles and Tortilla Soup . . .
Since we’re just a little over month before we plan to leave here, it’s time to start going thru my to-do list for the RV.
One of the things I started today was removing the three damage wheel well flanges and replacing them with new ones, or at least new to me.
Here’s what one of the damaged ones looked like. Note the broken off white section to the right of the tire.
The flanges are held on by 9 steel rivets, and because they’re steel they’re pretty tough to drill out. In fact, I was only able to do two of them today because I ran both batteries down on my drill. I’ll have to finish the 3rd one tomorrow after I recharge.
At some point things are loose enough that I can just break off the flanges by hand.
The flanges that I’m installing came off this burnt-out American Eagle that we found at last November at Colaw RV Salvage in Carthage, MO. If I had bought these new from Fleetwood, they would have cost me over $500 each. This was because they would have had to pull the mold out of storage and make them from scratch.
But I got these for $100 each, much, much better. Of course they didn’t match our coach, so I knew I would have to get them repainted.
But that didn’t happen until this past August in Elkhart, IN when I had them painted by Michele Henry of Phoenix Commercial Paint when she did the damaged cargo bay doors. Michele did a great job on the doors and the flanges. If you want any paint work done on your coach, she’s the one to see.
I’ll bring the new ones over from the storeroom tomorrow, and hopefully, by then I will have found the hardware I need to remount them. I want to use stainless steel bolts and not rivets this time.
Jan said when she saw this burnt hulk that looked so much like our rig, it made her knees go weak. Based on the burn pattern and the hotspot, it looks like this started as a refrigerator fire. That’s one reason that I bought a refrigerator compartment fire extinguisher from Mac McCoy, the Fire Guy, as soon as I could.
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We left the rig a little about 5pm to meet Bob and Maria at Monterey’s Little Mexico before Jan and Maria headed out to play bingo. I can’t get enough of their Chicken Tortilla Soup. It’s great and I really miss it when we’re on the road.
After I left the restaurant, Bob and I went by Lowe’s before I dropped him off at his house. I was looking for some screws to mount the wheel well flanges, but they didn’t have what I needed.
Jan is really doing well at bingo and I think she’s getting hooked. She won a $100 a few weeks ago, and then last week she won $750.
But tonight she only won $125. Bummer!
No, not really. 
She’s worked her way up to playing 24 cards at a time. You can get cards in sheets of 9 or 12. She started out playing two 9’s, then a 12 and a 9, and then two 12’s. I told her she should add another 9, but she’s afraid she’ll lose track of the numbers and miss one.
More tomorrow…
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Thought for the Day:
The real reason you’re so jealous is that the voices talk only to me.
December 28, 2011
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together . . .
It was nice to wake up to another sunny day this morning after all the rain we’ve had lately. Especially today’s the day I’m going to reinstall our Splendide washer/dryer after the dryer fan repair.
By the time 1pm rolled around, I couldn’t put it off any longer. So I started outside by removing the dryer exhaust vent cover.
My big problem was how to hook up the exhaust hose to the back of the washer. The other hoses, hot and cold water inlets and water drain, and the power cord, were all long enough to be plugged in with the washer still out in the hallway. But the exhaust hose was not long enough to reach.
When I talked to American Coach Tech Service they suggested that I cut a hold in the bottom of the cabinet above the washer and reach down. But this seemed like a lot of work to me so I came up with another plan.
My plan was to tape together two yardsticks lengthwise and then run it in thru the outside vent. I would then insert the yardstick into the dryer vent outlet to keep things aligned as I pushed the washer into the cabinet.
Mister decided to help me by supervising from the top of the washer, but his 25 pounds just made it harder to move.
The string taped to the top of the washer is used to hold the drain hose up out of the way so it doesn’t get crimped as I push the washer in.
After getting the washer into position, Jan was able to help me tilt it up and get it started in the opening.
If I had it to do over, I would have sprayed lubricant on the base of the cabinet to make it easier to slide the washer into position.
But after a lot of pushing and shoving, I finally got it into place.
Then I went outside and, with the yardstick and a flashlight, I moved the end of the exhaust duct into position where it was seated in the dryer exhaust connector. Certainly a lot easier than cutting a hole in the cabinet above.
As Col. Hannibal Smith says, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
But before I put the doors back on and install the retaining strip, I wanted do a few wash loads to check everything out. And Jan immediately took me up on it and ran two loads through with no problems at all. Great!
I rested on my laurels for a few hours, and then a little before 5 pm, Jan and I headed up to Stomp’s Burger Joint in Bacliff to meet up with Jan and Dave Evans for dinner.
They’ve been reading our blog for a while and when they saw we were in the area, they wanted to get together. Turns out we have a lot in common, not just RV’ing.
Jan worked for the US Post Office for many years, and at one time delivered mail to our subdivision, but not to our street.
And her husband Dave is an instructor at Texas A&M’s Fire School, and probably taught my son sometime along the way when he was a fireman in Texas City, TX.
We really had a fun time getting to know Jan and Dave better, and hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with them again soon.
On a final note, I’m now pretty certain that it was the Garmin GPS FM Traffic Receiver/ Power Cord that ran my battery down Christmas morning since I’ve not had another problem with the battery.
Live and learn.
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Thought for the Day:
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
December 28, 2012
Maybe I should cut back on the Ghost Chilies a little bit . . .
Regular blog readers know how much I like hot, spicy foods, the hotter the better.
And so far I’ve never found anything too hot for me. A friend gave me some Ghost Chili salt a while back and I regularly use it to spice up my meals. Ghost Chili’s, also known as Naga Jolokia, were, until recently, the hottest chili pepper in the world. Now it’s number 3, behind the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chili and the Naga Viper.
But after reading this article, maybe I’ll rethink the heat.
The guy ate soup so hot it burned a hole in his stomach. WOW!
Lowell and Landon are up in Oklahoma visiting Lowell’s parents until this Sunday, and sent along these photos of Landon and his Grannie.
Brandi, who stayed here for work, is really missing them both, and Sunday can’t come quick enough.
I dropped Jan off at her hair place about 10am while I ran some errands. Between EPO – Electronics Part Outlet, a client’s and then Home Depot, I got back about 2 hours later, just as Jan came out. Nice timing.
After Jan was finished getting her hair done, we decided to have lunch at the new Jimmy Changa’s Mexican Restaurant. It just opened about a month ago and it seems like the parking lot is full whenever we go by. But we figured that on a Friday after 1:30 pm that we wouldn’t have a wait.
Wrong!
We ended up waiting almost 40 minutes to get a table. But it was certainly worth it.
We ate at the Jimmy Changa’s up in Pasadena last year and Jan loved their Beef Chili Rellenos, so she got it again and said it was as good as last time.
I was going to have a bowl of their Chicken Tortilla Soup and a Taco Salad. But luckily for me, the waitress warned me that their ‘bowl’ of soup was about the size of a serving bowl, not a regular bowl, and that I might not want to get that and a salad too. And she was right.
The big bowl of soup was plenty, and it was really, really good, too.
I also really liked the chandelier in the main dining room. It’s made up of individual lights, all different, and all very beautiful.
By the time we left the restaurant after 3pm, they were still on a wait. In fact they seem to be busier than when we arrived.
Than after making a couple of stops at client’s, I took Jan back by the place she got her nails done yesterday with Piper. Jan had smeared the polish on a couple of toes and wanted to get them touched up. Turns out that it only took about 10 minutes and they didn’t charge her. Nice!
Later in the evening I put 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the slow cooker to poach them so we can make up some soup. Boy, does it smell good in here.
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Thought for the Day:
“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical” – Thomas Jefferson writing to James Madison
December 28, 2013
Hot Dog!
I got tired of borrowing Jan’s Kindle Paperwhite every time I want to read at night, so I ordered one of my own last night. But I guess Amazon must have sold the heck out of Kindles for Christmas because, even with Amazon Prime, I not going to get mine until sometime after Jan. 6th.
Bummer. Guess it’s back to Jan’s for a while.
About 10 AM Jan and I headed out for our walk around the park, starting our coffee brewer going before we left. Getting back, Jan fed the birds and we (and Mister) sat outside and enjoy our coffee, our muffins, and our view of the bayou. Nice.
Later in the afternoon we did our first vacuum and seal with Jan’s new FoodSaver. She had stocked up on fresh cranberries and wanted to freeze some so she could use them later in the year when fresh ones weren’t available.
So we cut a slit in the original bags so the air could escape and then put the bags in FoodSaver bags and gave it a try. And it worked perfectly. The bags were sucked down to a hard lump, and should keep for a good while in the freezer.
Originally Jan and I had planned to stay around the rig all day, and then finish off the Turkey Leftovers we brought home from Luby’s on Christmas Day. But friends just had to go and tell me about how good the hot dogs were at Five Guys where they ate yesterday. So about 4 PM, I couldn’t stand it any more, so Jan and I headed over to the Victory Lakes area to have dinner at Five Guys.
They were right about the hot dogs (with bacon, cheese, mustard, relish, and onions), but they forgot to tell us not to get the large fries. They have three sizes: Little, Regular, and Large.
They really should be called Single, Family, and Mob. Since we were only getting one order to split between us, we figured we wanted the large order.
WRONG!
We pretty much got a grocery bag full of fries. More fries than we could eat. In fact, after we had eaten all we could hold, (and more) we had more fries left than we had eaten. In fact, I’d swear that we had more fries left than we started with originally. I think they were reproducing down there at the bottom of the bag. We couldn’t keep up.
We had so much left that Jan brought the bag full home to feed to the birds. I know seagulls like French fries. We’ll see about our other feathered visitors.
Tomorrow, Jan and our granddaughter Piper are going to have girl’s day out with lunch, a movie, and mani-pedi’s. Sounds like fun, and I’ll get some ME time.
Piper is going to pick Jan up here at the park in the morning, and I’ll meet up with them, along with Chris and Linda, for supper later in the evening.
Sounds like a nice day for everyone.
Thought for the Day:
Women Shop. Men Buy.
December 28, 2015
It’s Landon Time . . .
Jan and I headed out for Katy about 9:30 this morning, looking forward to our day with our grandson Landon, and his other grandparents, Lendel and Sonja. They head back to Pauls Valley, OK on We dnesday so we wanted to get together before they left.
Getting there about 11am and loading everyone in the car, our first stop was down in Richmond for lunch at Sandy McGee’s, where Jan and I ate a few weeks ago. We had taken Sonja and Lendel here on a previous visit and they were happy to go back once again.
And Landon was happy because he got a Chocolate Milkshake and a big plate of fruit salad.
While Lendel got the Southwest Chicken Salad, and Sonja got the Quiche, Jan and I stuck with our favorite Miller’s Choice,
1/2 a Turkey, Spinach, and Cheese Sandwich, a cup of their award-winning Broccoli Cheese Soup, and their cut-to-order fruit salad.
Jan and I have been eating at Sandy McGee’s since the 90’s and it’s never failed to please, so it’s always a favorite destination.
Leaving Richmond and Sandy McGee’s, we backtracked over to Katy Mills Mall for Landon’s playday. As usual his first stop was jumpstreet, an indoor trampoline park, with a little bit of everything. And one nice thing is that it has a number of different areas, separate by age group, so the smaller kids aren’t competing with the older ones. Landon was on the go for over an hour, until Jan and Sonja got tired just watching him.
And as before, it seems Landon had attracted his usual coterie of female admirers. Jan said that as he was leaving, one little girl looked over and said, “Byyee, Landon.”
Jan and I also laugh about what happened last year when we took him to school one morning while Lowell was at the office early, and Brandi was out of town on business. We walked Landon to his classroom, and just as we got in the door, three cute little girls came running over to him saying, “Hiiiiii Landon!”
Fathers, lock up your daughters!
Next up on Landon’s list was a ride on the electric animals, in the case, an electric cheetah.
Landon has always loved to ride these, but in the past they could only be ridden in a large, circular cordoned-off area. But now they can be ridden anywhere in the Mall, except into the stores.
I was really surprised at how fast these things are. Actually faster than you can comfortably walk. After a while, Landon grew frustrated that his cheetah wasn’t going as fast as it was a few minutes before. But then he turned around and saw that I was slowing it down by holding onto its tail.
“PaPa, let go!”
I’m also surprised that more people aren’t run down by these things at times. Landon did have one close call when he was zipping along, admiring his reflection in the window he was passing, and almost ran into a metal pillar.
Finally about 4pm, we were all pooped so we headed back to Landon’s house. Turns out that since we were going about 5 hours, both Lowell and Brandi called to see where we were, as we were on the way home. Then after getting our hugs from everyone, Jan and I headed back to Conroe about 4:30, but had a couple of stops in between.
First up was the Harbor Freight store right on the way. I wanted to pick up another of their Survival Knives while they’re still on sale.
I bought one the other day for the rig, and decided I wanted another one to keep it the truck. Besides having a compass, a fire starter, a sewing kit, and a fishing kit in the handle, it’s got that whole Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.” thing going on.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check that scene out here:
Leaving Harbor Freight, we were commenting on how we were going be in peak Houston going-home traffic as we were . . . well, going home. So we decided to while away some time with a steak, in particular, a Longhorn Steakhouse Steak.
And, boy, was this a good idea. The steaks were really good, very tender and flavorful, and perfectly cooked. I don’t think we’ve ever have a bad steak at Longhorn.
I had the Wedge Salad, with bacon, tomatoes, onions, and bleu cheese dressing.
Funny, but I’ve never been a big fan of bleu cheese dressing. I’m more of a Thousand Island guy. But for some reason I really like it on a wedge salad.
Not only was my steak delicious, but even the broccoli was cooked perfectly. Not overdone and mushy, but crisp and buttery, with lemon juice squirted on it
Most places don’t seem to take the time getting the sides right, but Longhorn sure did tonight.
Tomorrow we’ll try to walk if it’s not too cold and windy, but otherwise we’ll just hunker down here in the rig and enjoy.
Thought for the Day:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with the experiment, it’s wrong.” — Richard P. Feynman.
December 28, 2016
Sobbing and Clapping . . .
Well that didn’t last long.
At 7am this morning, about an hour after I got to sleep, Todd texted me that I was off my old gate tonight and then start another new gate tomorrow night. And by new I mean one I’ve never been to before, or even heard of, actually.
I was happy about this since the Internet is so crappy here. But disappointed for two reasons. One, I was hoping this was going to be somewhat permanent gate, and Two, because thinking this was a somewhat permanent gate, I left my wall clock and floor heater there, since I thought I would be back there tonight.
As I was trying to get back to sleep, it dawned on me that this might be a good time to make a quickie trip into San Antonio to see the new Star Wars movie and also have dinner. And when I called out to Jan to tell her, she was all giddy.
But when I got up about 1pm and started trying to make everything work, the 25 mile side trip to pick up my clock and heater, the Sam’s Club/ Wal-Mart shopping, the movie, and then dinner, it didn’t fit. So it looked like we have to try to make it all work on the fly.
And the first fly showed up as soon as we left my old gate after picking up my stuff. According my GPS, we would arrive at the movie 15 minutes after it started. OOPS!
So after running through plans B – K, I flipped the whole schedule upside down. We’d shop first, then movie, then eat.
I hope.
And because of all this rapid rescheduling, and not knowing when we were going to eat, and where, even, we didn’t call our friends, Jim and Peri Dean to meet us like we had hoped to. Sorry guys, we’ll catch you next time.
The other problem with the rescheduling on the movie was that we were no longer seeing the 3D version, just the standard one. But not really a problem.
But because we were pushing dinner back to the 8:30 to 9:00 pm time frame after the movie, Jan was going need to stop and get something to eat. Otherwise her blood sugar goes ‘wonky’ and she gets, well, let’s just call it ‘cranky’.
Yeah, let’s go with that.
And where better to relieve possible crankiness, but the Whataburger in Floresville, right on the way. So that we didn’t fill up, we just each got our usual Double Whataburger Jr., but nothing else. No fries, no drink.
With that problem out of the way, it was on to our Sam’s/Wal-Mart stop. I finally got a chance to check out the new San’s Club Scan & Go app on my phone. It both worked, and didn’t work, but I’ll follow up on this tomorrow.
Then it was on to the 5:40 showing of Rogue One – A Star Wars Story.
All I can say if you liked/loved the original 1977 Star Wars, you will LOVE this movie.
Rogue One is prequel to the very first one, and actually ends just minutes before the action began in the first movie. You could just bump the two films together and you’d think you were watching one lone movie.
I don’t want to give anything away, but the movie answers two main questions, as well as a number of others.
Did you ever wonder how Princess Leia got the Deathstar plans than she gave to R2D2 to get to Obi-Wan?
Did you ever wonder why this planet-size space station could be taken out by a single missile down a ventilation shaft?
This is the first movie in a long time that had people applauding loudly at the end. The last one I remember was Independence Day in 1996. There was also a lot of sobbing from the audience going on at the end.
Not me, of course. It’s just that I have allergies. That’s why I was tearing up.
Yeah, let’s go with that.
Besides the great storyline and the action, the most amazing thing about the movie were the digital characters.
Peter Crushing, who played Grand Mott Tarkin in the original movie, and who died in 1994, was resurrected digitally for this prequel. And you can not tell him from the live actors surrounding him. He just looks real. It’s uncanny.
There is one other major digital resurrection that I won’t give away, but if you were a real fan of the original, you will also recognize some of the X-Wing fighter pilots from the first movie, some digitally reproduced, some redone from unused scenes from the original one.
For us I think this is also the first movie in a long time that I could easily see again.
Note that if you’ve got young kids, this movie is darker than the first one. A lot of people that you want to live, die, so be prepared.
It’s getting late, so I’ll save save our last minute change of dinner plans and the great time we had, until tomorrow.
Thought for the Day:
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
December 28, 2017
Feeling Better . . .
I woke up feeling better this morning, but the symptoms were exactly the same as what was bothering me last Thursday before our Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.
I’ve done some Googling and I think I’ve got a line on what the problem is, but I’m still researching it.
Looks like winter is here for a while. It hasn’t got out of the 40’s for the last three days and by Monday it’s going to be in the 20’s. Of course It’s -37° in Minnesota, and it’s colder in New Hampshire than it is in Siberia or Antarctica. So I guess we’re lucky.
About 3pm Jan and I headed up I-45 and out I-10 to Columbus to meet up for dinner with our friends Chris and Charles Yust at Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant. They were passing through from Fort Myers, FL and eventually out to Quartzite, AZ later this month.
Everyone had something different tonight, with Jan having the Pollo Relleno, with a chicken breast stuffed with shrimp, tomatoes, cilantro, and onions, and topped with butter wine sauce made of mushrooms, tomatoes, jalapeños and onions
Jan said it was delicious and her new favorite.
I had the Fajitas Mexicanas, fajita Beef, topped with marinated sauce made with onions, tomatoes, jalapeño, cilantro, and mushrooms.
Really good but I think I like the Fajitas Poblanos better for next time.
As is usual with our Chris and Charles get-togethers lasted about 3 hours before we headed back to Santa Fe a little after 8pm, finally getting home about 10:15.
Going out to Columbus we made a pit stop at the Flying J in Brookshire and at the Buc-ee’s in Katy on our way home. I told Jan that when I was washing my hands in the Flying J restroom, I was moving my hands under the faucet, trying to get the water to turn on and mumbling how these things never work right.
Then I realized it was an old school faucet and actually had a handle. Oops!
The Headline of the Day: Holiday Family Dispute Ends With Ear Bitten Off.
Thought for the Day:
“Liberty can have nothing to fear from judges who apply the law. But liberty has everything to fear if judges try to legislate, too” – Alexander Hamilton
December 28, 2019
Well, That Was Weird . . .
Well, I fixed my PC to new TV problem this morning, and we used to stream an episode of Stumptown this evening.
And as happens quite often, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, When you eliminate all the usual suspects, it turns out to be something really weird.
First thing I did was get out my Hungarian ASUS laptop, and after booting it up, I plugged the HDMI cable into it and the other end into my desktop computer monitor. Then to get the monitor to switch over, I unplugged the DVI cable from the computer.
And now I had laptop video on my PC monitor. So then I unplugged the cable from my monitor and plugged it into the TV.
And now I had laptop video on the TV, so now I knew that part worked. And when I then plugged the laptop cable end into my PC, suddenly I now had PC video on the TV.
WTH? So why did it suddenly start working?
While I was contemplating this mystery, and noticing that I had not plugged the DVI cable back into the monitor, I plugged it back in and the video disappeared on the TV.
WTH?
But then it made sense. Going to my computer desktop, I right-clicked and selected Screen Resolution. And there was the problem.
For some reason my Display Settings had changed. Instead to being set to Multiple Monitors and Duplicate These Displays, it was set to Show Desktop Only On 1.
And correcting the settings fixed the problem.
But what I don’t understand, and so didn’t think to check, was how the settings got changed in the first place. They were correct just a couple of weeks ago with the old TV, and I’ve had no reason to fool with them since.
So who knows, but it’s working now.
As far as streaming from the PC, we’ve been trying to catch up on some of episodes of our favorite shows we missed recording while our rig was in the shop in Luling. So first we caught up on Evil this afternoon, since we didn’t need to stream any episodes to catch up with that one.
Then this evening it was on to Stumptown to stream the one episode we needed, and then it was on to the the last two episodes we had recorded.
Then in the next few days it’s on to Prodigal Son, where we’ve got one episode to stream, Emergence, two to stream, and Bull, with two episodes, also. Hopefully we’ll be all caught up by the time the new episodes start up in a couple of weeks.
I streamed these from the computer since I haven’t had a chance to peruse the TV’s 177 page manual to see if there’s a way to stream directly from the Internet rather than through the Hulu, Netflix, AppleTV, Prime, or other services shown on the SmartHub selections.
Thought For The Day:
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. […] the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” – Hubert H Humphrey
