Monthly Archives: December 2020
More 2019 NYC . . .
Here’s a recap of the 3rd day of our New York City visit in December 2019
December 21, 2019
Frigid Fingers . . .
On our Saturday, December 7th, in New York, we spent the day riding buses. Gray Line buses like this one.
Thursday afternoon when first visited Times Square, we purchased a pair of 24 hour Gray Line bus passes from one of the many vendors on every corner.
They listed four Hop-On Hop-Off tour routes: Uptown, Downtown, Brooklyn, and a Night Tour. They also offered a Boat Tour, but since we had already visited Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in 2009, and we were doing a East River/Hudson River Night Time Dinner Cruise the next day, we didn’t plan on doing it.
We planned on taking all four trips, starting with the Downtown one that first left out at 9am, with buses every 30 minutes afterwards. And luckily the starting point was diagonally across the corner from our hotel, so very convenient. So after another run at hotel’s breakfast buffet, we were on the corner at 9am for the first bus, along with a lot of other people.
We actually didn’t plan on doing any hopping-on hopping-off. We just wanted to see the city, as much of it as we could. Unfortunately, we managed to chose the coldest day of our trip . . . to ride in an open-air double-decker bus.
The Downtown Tour was a pretty good overview of the city landmarks, taking in Times Square. Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, Financial District, Battery Park, and South Street Seaport.
In the low 30’s, plus of course the wind chill factor, I could only take a few photos before I lost feeling in my fingers, so all you get are these four.
One of our first stops was in, obviously, the Garment District.
We were kind of surprised to see Christmas trees being sold on the sidewalks, but they seem to sell everything else there, so why not?
I did get to play with the really nice zoom on my Panasonic FZ80 while we were passing the Empire State Building.
And that’s all the photos I got that day. With my gloves on I just couldn’t operate the camera.
Finishing up our first tour in about 2 hours, and ending up back in the Times Square area, Jan had been wanting some New York Clam Chowder, and Google said there was a place on the next block. But when we got there, they not longer served it. So we didn’t stay.
What we did do was to backtrack a block and have Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks at the Olive Garden we’d passed. Really good on a 35° day.
Back at the hotel we napped a little and then were back out at the bus stop for our Uptown Tour. It covered Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim and a lot more on the famous Museum Mile.
The Uptown Tour pretty much just segued into the Brooklyn Tour, which covered the Botanic Garden, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Antique Furniture District, Fulton Mall, The Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza, Cadman Plaza, The Brooklyn Public Library and much more.
Back at the hotel in the late afternoon, we crashed a bit, and then had a little supper at the dinner buffet, since we’d also had lunch. Then we just goofed off for a while until our 8pm Night Tour. It included a subset of the other 3 tours, like the Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Rockefeller Center, Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn, but at night.
Then it was back to the room, tired and happy, with Jan’s Fitbit saying we’d done over 5 miles today.
Thought for the Day:
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing plaids with stripes comes easy.
December 7, 2011
Spoonbills and Armadillo Balls . . .
I patiently waited (well, maybe not patiently, but I did wait) to hear back from AT&T Level II Tech Support this morning telling me they had fixed the problem with my client’s Internet service.
But the phone had been strangely quiet.
I guess it’s a good thing that my client’s left for San Diego for ten days this morning. I’ll start back tomorrow working on this.
About 1:30 I headed to another client’s house up near Beltway 8. He had two laptops that he wanted me to look at, but the first one was so messed up that I spent almost 3 hours just getting it straightened out. I had to fix a bad wireless mouse driver that was making it hard to do anything on the machine, and then a bad Java update that kept throwing up error messages every time you tried to pull up a webpage.
By the time I got that machine done, it was time to head home, so I’ll come back on Friday and finish up the other one.
Getting back to the rig, and as I pulled in, I saw this Great Egret and a Roseate Spoonbill in the shallows out in front of our site. The Spoonbill was just following along behind the Egret, stirring up the bottom with her wide bill and snacking on what she found.
Close up I was able to tell that this Spoonbill was not the one we had seen the other day. It was not near as pink.
That became obvious a little later as we were leaving the rig, and saw both Spoonbills out in front. Together, it was easy to tell them apart. The second one (the male?) was the much pinker one we saw the other day.
Heading out to dinner, Ken and Eileen, owners of the Rexhall Aerbus parked next door were with us. They own a goat/sheep ranch about 60 miles east of Cody, WY, and have been on the road for a month.
Real newbies!
We went to T-Bone Tom’s up in Kemah for dinner. Featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, this place is known for their steaks, BBQ, and of course, their Armadillo Eggs.
Armadillo Eggs are jalapenos, stuffed with BBQ, and then battered and fried. They end up the size of tennis balls, and are really delicious.
We really had a great time hearing all about their ranching experiences and how they decided to start RV’ing.
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Thought for the Day:
I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.
December 7, 2012
“Shark, Daddy. Shark!”
A little before 5 pm Jan and I headed over to Dickinson to have dinner at Monterey’s Little Mexico. Love their Chicken Tortilla Soup.
Then it was on down to Galveston to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Moody Gardens to take Landon through The Festival of Lights.
But since we had to go to the Aquarium building to pickup our tickets, we did a quick run-thru for Landon.
One of his favorites was the seals and sea lions, but the lighting was just too dark for any photos. But my favorite were these baby seahorses. This photo is a real close-up since in reality they’re only about a half inch long. Just amazing.
Landon also really enjoyed the tunnel through the shark tank. His head was just spinning around as he watched the big sharks swim overhead, as he pointed and said, “Shark, Daddy. Shark”.
Moody Garden’s Festival of Lights contains over one million lights and 100 animated scenes, complete with sound effects, and takes about an hour to walk through.
A lot of the fun was watching Landon as he ohh’ed and ahh’ed at everything. His head would keep moving back and forth like a bobblehead doll.
The big Christmas tree out over the lake was really something. A perfect end to the night.
Thought for the Day:
“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” — Paul Harvey
December 7, 2013
Foot Stomping and Doing Nothing . . .
Friday was basically a errand/client day with stops at Fry’s and several other places checking out laptops for a client, Then it was off to Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. I also checked what they had in the way of laptops, but didn’t see anything in my price range.
My next stop was a client’s office to take a look at a printer problem he was having, The culprit was a Canon Copier/Printer similar to this one.
This is a network printer that the client uses to print out 1000’s of pages for the catalogs he sends out to customers. The computer said the printer wasn’t online, but the printer said it was too online. So I went back to the computer and tried to set up another printer driver, but was not able to see the printer at the static IP address it was set to (192.168.1. 10).
Next up I checked the CAT5 cables connecting the printer and computer to the router. I knew the computer line was OK since it was able to the see the Internet. And the connection lights on both the printer and router ends were flashing away, a pretty good indication that that line was also good.
So it was back to the client to get some more info about when the problem occurred. After repeatedly pressing him on when/how it had quit working. He finally said “Oh, yeah. I switched our Internet service from the phone company to Comcast and they mentioned that they made some changes to the router.
Well, doh!
At this point, I was almost certain I knew what had happened. Comcast had probably changed the local private IP address from 192.168.X.X to the other main one 10.0.X.X. (There is a 3rd one, 172.16.X.X, but it’s not used very often).
And as it turns out, I was right. So rather than trying to change everything back on Comcast’s end, I just change the printer’s static IP address to 10.0.1.10, and then changed the IP address in the printer driver , and now everything worked.
So after fixing his problem I felt a little less guilty about picking up my check while I was there. My next stop, (after the bank to deposit the check) was our storeroom to drop off some stuff and pick up some stuff, mainly Jan’s bird feeder to put out in front of the rig.
Finally getting back to the rig about 4:30, I turned right around and Jan and I headed out about 5 to meet a couple of friends, Maria and Connie, at the Joe’s BBQ over in Alvin, TX for dinner. Then all of us headed over to the Alvin Opry for the Friday night show.
As usual, Gene Hofford, the owner (along with his wife, Sue) of the Alvin Opry opened the show with a rousing number.
Like many of the band and performers here, Gene had a number of hits back in the 60’s, including ‘Better Hang On Girl’ and ‘Surf Bunny’. Then after a number of local favorites, it was time for the feature, and who we especially came for, John Mark Davis.
John Mark is the full-blooded son of a chief of the Adai Caddo Indians of Louisiana, and has performed all over the country. He has opened for Mark Chestnutt and Tracy Byrd, and was offered a slot opening for Dwight Yoakum, but due to a prior obligation was unable to accept.
He was also twice an award winner in the Nashville’s Music City Song Fest, and really knows how to work a crowd and keep you entertained. He’s also know for his hilarious versions of Kaw-Liga, Running Bear, and Please Mr. Custer.
You can go here and download for free, or listen to one of John Mark’s songs oh his website.
So you can blame John Mark for us getting home late and you not getting a blog yesterday.
Today, Saturday, was pretty much a hang-around-the-rig day. I did spend some time pulling our winter coats out from the back of the truck, since it looks like we’re going to need them for a while. But other than that, we just goofed off all day.
BTW right now at 11:55pm Saturday night, it’s 29 degrees in Whitsett at our old gate. Really glad it’s our OLD gate, and not our present one. Feel sorry for Jim and Linda.
Thought for the Day:
To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. – Bernard M. Baruch
XXXX Spicy . . .
Jan was feeling back to normal this morning, her headache and sore throat completely gone.
So about 2pm we drove up to the Webster area to have lunch at our long-time (40+ years!) favorite King Food for Hot & Sour Soup and Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce with Jalapenos, XXXX Spicy.
Perfect for a cold (well, coolish) winter day. Then coming home we made an HEB stop for a few groceries, and a stop at Jack in the Box for a couple of Iced Pumpkin Spice Lattes.
A really nice day.
Thought for the Day:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.” – Groucho Marx
Another day in our NYC at Christmas Time trip last year.
December 6, 2019
New York, New York . . .
Today was our first full day in NYC after we got in yesterday morning. But before we headed out, first we checked out the hotel breakfast buffet. And we were happy to find that this was no ‘make your own waffle’, cold cereal, and stale muffins buffet, but a full-blown one with eggs, two kinds, bacon, sausage, basmati rice, as well as baked beans. And of course, all the fruit, cereals, etc.
There were also a lot of other ‘unusual’ breakfast dishes, or at least unusual to us. We did recognize the ‘baked beans’ as being an English breakfast dish, since we saw it on the menus in London. But we don’t know who was eating rice, at least for breakfast.
But the most confusing one was laid out with the oatmeal. They had all the standards, fruit, brown sugar, honey, etc., but strangely never any bananas. What they did have that was different was ‘peanut butter’. Not sure who normally eats that way, but since I really like peanut butter, I might try it sometime.
Leaving the hotel, we Ubered over to the first place Jan wanted see, and that was Rockefeller Center.
Our driver let us off pretty much right in front of the big tree, which even in the daytime is pretty impressive.
Walking over to the side we looked down on the famous ice rink.
I guess I was expecting something a little more grand, but it’s not nearly as big as the indoor rink where Landon plays hockey up in Sugarland.
Noticing a Lego store right next to the rink I took a look inside. Landon’s a big Lego fan so I thought I might find something for him for Christmas. But the only thing that really caught my eye was this Millennium Falcon.
At least until I saw this price.
I mean I love the kid and all, but I wouldn’t buy that for me, much less someone else.
Sorry, Landon.
Jan also wanted to look in the window to the Today Show set,
but unfortunately they were just doing camera setup shots, so Jan didn’t get to see her favorite, Hoda Kotb.
Exploring further, we walked around the corner and found the entrance to the Tonight Show,
and, although I didn’t get a photo, we also saw the Saturday Night Live entrance.
I enjoyed seeing all the many Art Deco ornamentations inset into the Rockefeller Center buildings.
Reminds me a lot of the decorations on the Empire State Building.
Finally, after several hours we headed back toward our hotel. But this time we just walked. I had noticed on Google Maps that we were actually only 5 or 6 blocks from our hotel. It took longer for our Uber because of the one-way streets. I think we were able to walk it quicker than we Ubered.
And cheaper, too.
Since it was about noon, we stopped off at a Times Square Hot Dog Stand for New York Dogs and Hot Pretzels.
And of course, ever my little law-breaker, after seeing this sign,
what does she do, but immediately feed the pigeons a piece of pretzel.
Who then proceeded to fight over it.
Later we checked out a few gift shops as we walked back to the hotel, and then took a nap in our room for a while.
Then about 6:30 we went back downstairs to have dinner at the hotel buffet. And once again ran in to the international cuisine offerings. Among other items we had our choice between Lamb Ragout and Fried Calamari. Not on our Favorites List.
We finally settled on hamburgers. Pretty good, actually.
Then we walked back over to the Rockefeller Center to check out the tree at night.
Really beautiful!
And of course, a lot of other Christmas on every corner.
Then it was back to the hotel to rest up, so we could do it all over again tomorrow.
Thought For The Day:
“The further a society drifts from the truth the more they will hate those who speak it.” George Orwell
December 6, 2011
Hawks and Buffets . . .
I kept my phone in the bedroom last night in case I got an early call from AT&T. As it was I got up at 9am to be ready when they called.
And they did call about 10:30. But instead of giving me the promised 1 hour heads up, I got 10 minutes. Typical of Ma Bell.
It took me about 25 minutes to get up to my client’s house, where I found the technician still outside at the circuit box checking things out. But after checking out the line, and replacing the DSL modem inside, we still could not get an Internet light.
So by 11:45 I was back on the phone with AT&T Tech Support trying to work out the problem. But after another hour on the phone, and running a lot more tests, on my end and theirs, she gave up and bumped us up to Level II Support. She said they would call me within an hour.
Since my client was leaving town tomorrow, and needed Internet access today, I took the hour to head back to the rig to get my Verizon Aircard and Cradlepoint router. Since I’ve recently been using the park WiFi with good success, I haven’t been using my Aircard.
So I used my Aircard to plug into their router and get all their machines and network printers back online. They were happy, and it took some pressure off me to this problem fixed immediately. They’ll be gone 10 days, so hopefully, AT&T will be able to figure it out by then.
Finally, about 3:45 I gave up on hearing back from AT&T within “one hour”, and headed back to the rig.
Jan had a fun day with her bird feeder. It seems like every bird in the area showed up.
A little bit of everything here.
But a little later, all the birds suddenly disappeared. And then she saw why.
Another feathered visitor was checking things out.
I guess this Coopers Hawk (I think?) thought this place was a bird buffet. But he doesn’t seem to have dined this time.
About 5pm Jan and I headed up to Nassau Bay to pick up our granddaughter Piper so she could accompany Jan and our friend Maria to play Bingo down in La Marque. Piper, Jan and I ate supper at Monterey’s Little Mexico before Maria picked them up about 6:45, and I headed back to the rig for a couple of hours.
Later I drove down to La Marque to pick them up about 10pm. No luck this time, although the lady next to them won the $750 jackpot, and our friend Maria won $200.
Maybe next time.
Thought for the Day:
Vene, Vidi, Vacuum.
I came, I saw, It sucked.
December 6, 2012
Sous-Vide and Cheesecake . . .
Jan and I headed out a little before 2 pm for couple of clients and dinner, with my first stop being at a client’s home office.
They’re out of town until the end of the year, but I do so much work for them, I have access to a key. The problem was that while I was on the road this past year, the two-line phone system I had installed several years ago, had gotten zapped somehow.
Apparently they tried to replace it themselves, but just managed to screw up their phone lines, so they disconnected everything and left it for me to sort.
Oh, and even better, they lost the manual. But lucky for me, they have this thing called the Internet that let’s me just download another one.
Then it was on to another client for a few minutes to straighten out a printing problem. Turns out that someone had been playing with the network settings on the computer and it couldn’t see the remote printer anymore. But it’s fixed now.
Leaving the client’s, Jan and I headed over to the Cheesecake Factory to meet our friend’s Bob and Maria, and Connie, and her mother. We had decided to eat early, about 4pm, because just a little later they were on a wait.
Along with the good meal, we had such a good time talking and reminiscing, that we spent about two hours there before we finally left. We also made plans to meet again at King Food in two weeks for another get-together. We’re looking forward to it.
Next up was a quick stop by Brandi’s to pick up the mail and some Amazon packages that had come in. Then it was right down the road to the Sam’s Club to pick up some vitamins. And then finally back to the rig for the night.
I came across something interesting the other day. It’s how to cook meat in a Beer Cooler. Of course, in the world of haute cuisine, it has to have a fancy name. And in this case, it’s called “Sous-Vide”. Which, I think is French for “Cooking in a Beer Cooler”, but I could be wrong about that. Apparently restaurants have been doing this for years using a specialized appliance that cost around $500.
Basically the idea is to immerse your meat, packaged in vacuum-sealed, or even ziplock,bags, in water held at the temperature you want meat to end up at.
For example, a rare steak should be cooked to an internal temperature of 125 degrees. So you immerse your steak in 130 degree water (to allow for a slight cool-down from adding the cold meat) and leave it in the closed cooler for about an hour.
Your meat will come up perfectly cooked, edge to edge, and moist and flavorful. And even better, because the meat cannot overcook, it can be held for several hours without losing quality or flavor. It’s for this that many high-end restaurants use their Sous-Vide cookers.
They can have five different ones, each set for the required temperatures for rare, medium rare, medium, etc. Steaks are held in the cookers all evening, perfectly cooked. As they’re needed, they’re pulled out of the cookers, thrown on a hot grill for 30 seconds on each side to char the outside, and off to your table it goes, perfectly done and delicious. According to the article, the process is also good for tenderizing tough cuts as well.
Vegetables also come out moist and flavorful, but since they require higher water temps and longer cooking times, you’ll probably need the real machine.
So if you’ve got a beer cooler and a steak, have at it. Just be sure to invite me over when dinner’s ready.
Thought for the Day:
Those of us who work for a living are almost outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
December 6, 2018
I Was Hoping For a Pirate Eye Patch . . .
We were up too early and out the door by 4:30, getting to the Bay Area Surgicenter for Jan’s cataract surgery by about 4:50, before the free valet service had started up, so we had to park in the next lot and walk over to the office.
And after being called into Pre-op about 6:15, she was being wheeled into the operating area by 6:45, and ready to go home by 7:30. She was still a little groggy, but ready to get out of there.
Besides all the after-care instructions, they also gave Jan a clear plastic shield to wear over her eye for the next three days while she’s asleep to be sure she doesn’t rub her eye.
Personally I was hoping for something like this.
But no such luck.
After a quick stop at my client’s to check out a problem, we made our planned breakfast stop at Snooze. While I got my usual Shrimp and Grits with a side of fruit, Jan got her favorite Avocado Toast. At least that’s what she thought she was getting.
But it turns out that Snooze does their version as a Benedict, with Hollandaise Sauce. Plus she asked for her eggs well-scrambled, but they came out much less then ‘well’, but more like ‘wet’. I told her to send it back, but just didn’t feel like it. So she just scraped off the eggs/sauce and ate it that way.
Coming home we made a Costco stop for gas, and it was a new first. It was the first time that we’ve gotten gas at Costco that it wasn’t cheaper than the last time. It was still $1.81, just like last week.
Getting home we both did the nap thing for a few hours. And since Jan kept her glasses on I didn’t worry about putting the shield over her eye.
Later, about 3pm, and Jan not being really happy with her breakfast, we drove over to the nearby Chili’s for linner/lupper, unusual for us since we usually only have one meal a day.
Jan had the Ribs and I had the Grilled Chicken Caribbean Salad, both really good.
Tomorrow Jan had her follow-up checkup on her surgery, and hopefully a schedule for her right eye. We had thought it might be next Thursday, the 13th, but it looks like it will actually be Thursday, the 20th instead. But we’ll see tomorrow.
Actually the 20th works best for us anyway, since my second of Photo Dynamic Therapy, i.e. setting my head on fire again, is already scheduled for the 13th.
But whenever her next surgery is, at least the eye patch is reversible.
Thought for the Day:
I seldom regret doing things, but I always regret getting caught.
