Monthly Archives: December 2020
Masks Now, Masks Forever?
Jan has been feeling a little under the weather since last night, with a bad headache and a sore throat, and wasn’t feeling much better today. So we just stayed at home until about 3 pm when I picked up a Take Out order from Jason’s Deli.
Jan got a Broccoli-Cheese soup and a Quarter Roasted Turkey Muffuletta, while I got a Southwest Chicken Chili and a Nutty Mixed-Up Salad with Grilled Chicken, Fruit, Green, Blue Cheese Crumbles, and Jalapeno Ranch Dressing.
And with today’s cold, overcast weather, the hot soup really hit the spot.
Hopefully she’ll feel better tomorrow.
A recent New York Times survey of 700 epidemiologists shows a lot of variation in their beliefs about the virus, including a large number who think we’ll never really get back to normal, well, 2019 normal, anyway.
“I expect that wearing a mask will become part of my daily life, moving forward, even after a vaccine is deployed,” said Amy Hobbs, a research associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Karin Michels, professor of epidemiology at U.C.L.A., said it would probably be many years until it was safe enough to “return to approximately the lifestyle we had.” She said, “We have to settle to live with the virus.”
“I expect that wearing a mask will become part of my daily life, moving forward, even after a vaccine is deployed,” said Amy Hobbs, a research associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that it will ever go back to our previous ‘normal,’ but I do think that new preventive measures that we’ve had to adopt, like masks, will feel normal in time. In that sense, I’m optimistic that life will settle into a new kind of normal.”
“It is normal now; similar to 2019, never again.”
And this MSN article worries about the vaccine’s side effects being so severe as to take healthcare workers out of service right when they’re needed most.
Vaccines’ Side Effects Risk Sidelining Health Workers While Cases Surge
Well, certainly makes me wan to be at the front of the line for the shot, or shots, as they’re saying now. Or maybe just a like a ‘yearly’ flu shot now.
And now it seems that just because you get the ‘vaccine’ doesn’t necessary mean you won’t be able to transmit the virus to someone else.
Pfizer chairman: We’re not sure if someone can transmit virus after vaccination
It just gets better and better.
This blog recounts the first day of our Christmas-time visit to New York City last December.
December 5, 2019
A New York State of Mind . . .
The day couldn’t not have gone more perfect.
We were up at 3am, our car service guy showed up about 4:15, and we were on our way up to Hobby Airport by about 4:30. Right on schedule. And I didn’t forget my camera or laptop this time.
We got dropped off at the Southwest entrance a little after 5am, and we tagged and checked in our 3 suitcases a few minutes later.
On our way to our gate (why is it that it always seems like our gate is #36, out of 1 to 36.), we were offered a chance to sign up for the CLEAR program, in which, once you’re registered, means you bypass the normal check-in line and pretty much just get waved through. And even better, it was free.
The only real problem was trying to get a good scan of my fingerprints. Due to a lot of scar tissue due to some burns, I don’t really have much in the way of valid fingerprints. The last time this caused me a problem was when I was fingerprinted for our gate guarding security licenses.
And before that, my numerous security clearances for the DOD and NASA. You would think by now that I would be in the system enough that they would know me. I mean surely my scar tissue is pretty distinct.
But luckily for me there was the option of a Biometric Iris Scan, which did work.
One thing nice about this flight is that, unlike our recent European flights, we could check in 2 bags each, not just one. So we had no carrying-on stuff, other than Jan’s large purse and my laptop bag.
One thing nice about this flight is that, unlike our recent European flights, we could check in 2 bags each, not just one. So we had no carrying-on stuff, other than Jan’s large purse and my laptop bag.
The only problem was that our online check-in got screwed up and we ended up boarding in the last group. So by that time there were only center seats left so we couldn’t sit together. But it was a nice smooth flight and we actually got in at 10:50am (9:50CT), 5 minutes early.
Probably because we were doing almost 600 mph.
This was from a phone app called Speedometer.
We had to wait about 15 minutes for our luggage, and while we were doing that, an enterprising Skycap came by and asked us where we were going. I told him that we were going to get a taxi or Uber to a hotel near Times Square.
Now there were signs all over the baggage area that due to the ongoing construction of a new terminal at LaGuardia, you had to take a shuttle bus to a place about 15 minutes away where you could then get a taxi or an Uber. When I mentioned this to him, he said this was not necessary and he could take care of this for us.
Kind of wary of the City Slicker swindling the Country Rubes, I asked how much this would cost and he said he just worked for tips. And since he had his own luggage cart, I didn’t have to rent one for $6, so I told him OK.
So he grabbed our 3 suitcases when they came around the carousel and off we went. Jan, of course, was somewhat suspicious.(make that VERY suspicious) but gamely followed along, knowing at any minute we were going to be ravaged and pillaged.
After about a block we turned a corner and there was a long line of people waiting for one of shuttle buses. Positioned around were electronic signs saying the wait for a taxi or Uber at the other end of the shuttle ride was 55 minutes. And based on the length of the line on this end, it was going to be at least 30 minutes here.
Resigning ourselves to the wait, we started to get in the long line, but he shook his head and motioned us to follow him. And since he was leaving with our luggage, we decided to tag along.
He led us around the outside wall of the covered shuttle waiting area, past several policemen, who nodded to him (made us feel better), and then across the street. There, behind a police barricade, was a line of Yellow Cabs being waved forward, one by one, by another police officer.
Our Skycap put our luggage in the trunk, I tipped him (WELL!) , and we were on our way, less than 10 minutes after we got our luggage.
And less than an hour later he was letting us off at the Hotel Riu Plaza-Times Square, about a block and a half off Times Square. And even better, our Uber ride was listed on the app as being about $80, but our taxi ride was only about $60.
Very, very nice.
Checking in, we were told our room was ready, and we ended up with a very nice room on the 25th floor, with an open balcony that we can walk out on, with a great view.
Even better, though we knew our room came with a full breakfast buffet, we were happily surprised that it also came with their full dinner buffet. Which is advertised as being $35 per person if you had to pay for it.
Neat!
Then it was, of course, time for a nap.
About 3pm we made the 2 block walk over to Times Square to check things out, and then headed over to Junior’s Restaurant, just about a half block off Time Square
Jan got their version of the her fav Wedge Salad,
while I got their 10 oz. Steakburger,
which we then split with each other.
This was to leave us room to Jan’s Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake
and my Carrot Cake Cheesecake.
And of course you can’t have Junior’s World-Famous Cheesecake without a nice hot Cappuccino to go along with it. Complete with Rock Candy stirrer.
Especially when it’s 39 degrees outside.
We ate at Junior’s several times when we were here in 2009 and really loved it, so it had to be our first place to eat when we got here again.
By the time we finished it was getting dark here (about 4:30 here in the ET) so we walked back out to Times Square to check out the lights.
One big change we noticed since we were here in 2009 was that Broadway is now open to traffic.
But when we were here in 2009, Broadway was closed to traffic for many blocks in each direction, as you can see here.
One thing new was that every surface is a TV screen, sides of buildings, doorways, and even bus stop enclosures.
It was a little warmer then, since we were here in August. It was about 36 degrees when we sat out for a while this evening.
And of course we had to take the obligatory Times Square selfie.
Getting back to the hotel after about ten minute walk, we checked out the view from the 25th floor at the end of the hallway.
That’s our balcony and room behind the railing on the left.
Thought For The Day:
The Four Stages of Life –
1. You Believe In Santa Claus
2, You Don’t Believe in Santa Claus
3. You ARE Santa Claus.
4. You Look Like Santa Claus
HO! HO! HO!
December 5, 2012
Ducks and a Dynasty . . .
Today was another nice, quiet stay-at-home day. It was overcast and never got out of the 60’s. Just perfect for sitting back with a large mug of hot coffee and enjoying life.
Later in the morning Jan went out to feed the birds, and it’s amazing how quickly the word gets out. Within just a few minutes the ducks show up in a line from their pond about 100 yards. They can’t see the feeder from the pond so the only thing I can figure is that they post a lookout to keep an eye on things. But show up they do.
Pretty soon the feeder area is swarming with birds, and a lot of squawking, chirping, and tweeting commences.
About 6pm Jan and I headed out to meet Chris, Linda, and Piper at the Mario’s Flying Pizza up in Seabrook, one of our regular dining spots.
After a good meal, Jan and I followed them home so I could get their Epson printer installed on their new laptop.
While there I got shot of our beautiful granddaughter Piper. I fondly remember the good ole days when she would pose at the drop of a hat. Now she grew up and got shy.
I guess I’ll just have to repost this photo from a couple of years ago.
When we got home we found that Lowell had sent over a photo of Landon’s visit with Santa Claus.
From the look on his face, I think Santa just told him he’s on Santa’s Naughty List.
While we were up in Marble Falls over Thanksgiving, we stumbled upon Duck Dynasty, a reality program showing on the A&E cable channel, when they were running a show marathon.
It’s the story of the Robertson family, living in Monroe, Louisiana, who, 40 years ago, started a company called Duck Commander, and became millionaires making and selling duck calls.
Yes, duck calls!
The show is hilarious, and these guys who look like rejects from a ZZ Top look-a-like contest, make the show. Although it’s called a Reality Show, the family refers to it as “guided reality”. Every show had a theme and ends with a life lesson, usually centered on the family.
It’s funny, and well worth watching.
But wait, there’s more.
Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the family, and the one who started the company, has another side. He’s a graduate of Louisiana Tech University, and actually has a Masters of Education degree.
And while he was at Louisiana Tech, he played football. And as the 1st string starting quarterback, he was very good. So good in fact that he had an offer from the Washington Redskins.
Even his 2nd string quarterback said Phil had the best arm he’d ever seen. He also said he knew Phil really liked to hunt because he would show at practice with squirrel tails hanging out of his jacket and covered in duck feathers. But since he was obviously a very good shot, no one complained.
But with a year of eligibility remaining Phil decided that as much as he loved football, he loved hunting better. So he gave up football to have more time for hunting, and a few years later started Duck Commander.
And the rest is history.
Oh yeah. The 2nd string quarterback who said Phil Robertson had the best arm he’d ever seen, and who didn’t get much playing time until Phil quit football … that would be Terry Bradshaw, top draft pick in 1970, who played 14 seasons with the Pittsburg Steelers, won 4 Super Bowls, and a spot in the Hall of Fame.
That Terry Bradshaw.
Thought for the Day:
“Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred.” – Jacques Barzun
Naked At Hooters, Again . . .
On the way home today, I stopped off at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to pick up a new gas cap for our Jeep. I’ve been getting an occasional (every 4 or 5 days, or so) Check Engine Light and when I checked the code with my phone I got a P0442 error code. This translates to a small leak in the Evaporator Emission Control System.
And the most obvious fault is a loose or faulty gas cap. So after I retightened the cap several times and the error came back, so I got a new cap this afternoon and then cleared the code, again with my phone.
And now we wait.
As to how I read and clear engine codes using my phone, I use this OBDII Bluetooth adapter,
OBD2 Bluetooth Diagnostic Scan Tool, Mini OBDII Scanner-Check Engine Light Code Reader
And even better the adapter is only about $12. Much cheaper and more versatile than a standard code reader.
It plugs into the OBDII Diagnostic Port under your dash. Then you just use the free Torque Android app to interrogate your engine computer and display a lot of details with screens like this.
And for only $4.95 you can upgrade to the Torque Pro version which gives you a lot more options, including CO2 emissions and Horsepower/Torque readings.
Check it out!
December 4, 2010
Linden Trees and Light Shows . . .
This morning got off to an early start when Jan and I left the lake house about 9:15 to drive back down to Fischer to pick up our friend Gina so she could meet up with everyone in Fredericksburg for lunch and get in some Landon time.
We got to Gina’s about 10:30, and then turned right around and headed for Fredericksburg, a little over an hour away.
When we got to Der Lindenbaum, our favorite German restaurant, the rest of the family was waiting at a table for us. We had a great meal of Weinerschnitzel, Jaeger Schnitzel, Bratwurst, German potato salad, sauerkraut, and their fantastic red cabbage.
It seems like we sat around talking all afternoon, but by 1:30 we were back on the road after a great meal. After dropping Gina off, I got back to the lake house about 4:30 just in time for a nap with my head on Jan’s lap. Just heavenly.
We thought we were going to see the Christmas Boat Parade on the lake along with some fireworks, but no lights, no boat, no fireworks. Apparently we were told the wrong date.
About 6 pm we headed out for dinner at Highlander Inn, a really good local buffet restaurant. Then after the meal, we walked next door to see Burnet’s Christmas Lights along Hamilton Creek. And this time Landon stayed awake and was fascinated by all the lights.
We got back to the house about 7:30 and settled in for the night.
Once again Chris and Piper played HALO on the Xbox for a while and then we watched our favorite Christmas movie “A Christmas Story”.
“Ralphie, you’ll shoot your eye out with that thing”
Tomorrow will end our short vacation here in the Texas Hill Country, and we’ll head back to Houston about 10 am or so, probably stopping off for lunch at Rudy’s Country BBQ in Austin on the way.
So more tomorrow from Dickinson Bayou.
Thought for the Day:’
Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.
December 4, 2012
Naked at Hooters . . .
For the first time since we got back to Houston, I did pretty much nothing today. No clients, no errands, no nothing. Just goofing off all day.
We did get a lot of rain off and on during the day which, along with the overcast skies, kept the temperature down which was nice.
Finally about 4:30 we headed up to the Hooters in Seabrook for supper. And luckily for me, it was Sexy Santa Tuesday, so the scenery was even better than normal. Gives a whole new meaning to who’s naughty or nice.
I always order my Hooters’ wings “naked”, which means there is no breading on the wings. Not only do I like the resulting crispy skin better, it saves a lot on calories. In this case, 10 “naked” wings have 660 calories, while regular wings have 1750 calories. A big difference!
I also order “all drums” instead of a mixture of drums and flappers. I just like them better.
Whenever we eat at Hooters I always remember my first visit to one. Somewhere around 2003, while I was working in Tech Support at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, we were eating at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood one night with Chris, Linda, and Piper. Piper, who was about 10 at the time, was eating onion rings, and holding one up, said, “These are good, but not as good as the ones at Hooters.”
Well, that brought the conversation to a grinding halt. What was our 10 year old granddaughter doing at Hooters? Turns out that she and her father sometimes had lunch there. She also said they had really good chicken wings.
Now we had never been there, so about a week later we all met at Hooters for dinner. I was surprised to see how many other families were there with kids too. In fact they had a whole line of high chairs stacked in the corner.
We’d been there about 15 minutes when from across the dining room I hear “Greg!”, and then a few seconds later I was getting a big hug and a big kiss on the top of my bald head from a Hooters girl. Of course Jan was very interested in this, and I could feel the cold wind coming my way from her direction.
But before I could really react, the girl said, “Cindy, come here! It’s Greg”. And soon I was getting another hug and kiss. By now it was getting down right frigid.
So I figured my marriage was probably over. But then I finally figured out who the two young ladies were.
It was Jennifer, and of course, Cindy, both students at the university where I worked. Jennifer was finishing up her Masters Degree in Business, and a few weeks before she had come to me one night (I normally worked the night shift there) with a defective ZIP disk.
With tears in her eyes she told me it held the only final copy of her masters thesis that had to be handed in a couple of days from now. From her description, I told her it sounded like her disk was suffering from the infamous “Click of Death”, and said that I had a ZIP drive that I had modified that might be able to read her disk. I told her that I would have to take it home, and that she should check back with me the next night.
Luckily, I was able to recover the data and transfer it to a CD for more permanent storage. That got me a big hug and a tearful thank you from her the next night.
Cindy, on the other hand, was getting ready to take her CPA exam, and the hard drive in her Toshiba laptop had died, taking all of her study materials with it. And when her friend Jennifer heard about Cindy’s problem, she sent her to me.
I asked her the name of the folders she needed recovered and took the laptop home with me. I was able to recover the data from her dead drive by using the old “freezer” trick. This is where you place the bad drive in the freezer for about an hour and then plug it into the computer as a slave drive, and then power up.
If you’re lucky you will be able to get data off the drive until it warms up. After that, it’s rinse and repeat, until you’ve got everything you need. And luckily for Cindy, it worked this time too.
As the girts explained this to Jan, I could detect a distinct warming in the atmosphere.
Luckily for me.
So remember the next time you’re at Hooters, your “dumb blonde” waitress may be better educated than you.
But Jan still got some revenge. After we left Hooters, we stopped off at Kroger’s for a few things. As we were walking around the store, I noticed people looking at me and smiling.
Figuring it probably wasn’t my good looks and sparkling personality, I checked my zipper. By then I noticed that Jan had a sly smile too. Finally she told me to go to the restroom and check the mirror.
And there on the top of my gleaming, bald head was the reminder of my Hooters’ hello – two large, bright-red lipstick prints.
Thought for the Day:
“Every nation has the government that it deserves.” – Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821)
December 4, 2017
It’s Probably Eyetalian . . .
Work today was pretty slow with nothing much going on, so I just took care of a few loose ends, and printed up some new ‘FRAGILE’ labels for our shipments.
Or you may pronounce it ‘FRA JIL E’. It’s probably Eyetalian.
I did discover a problem this weekend that could have been catastrophic under the right (or wrong) circumstances. We were set up to use iDrive’s Linux Server Backup Service on our webserver Or at least I thought we were.
When I finally got a replacement password from iDrive this weekend, I logged in and found that our service had lapsed 3 weeks ago, due to non-payment. The credit card on file with them had expired and they had been sending notices to the previous IT guy’s email account, which I still don’t have access to. (or ‘to which I still don’t have access’, in case you’re one of those dangling prep people)
So I went ahead and paid the bill, $374.62, for 2.5TB of backup storage to get things going again. Glad I caught it before things went south.
Jan and I finally got through all the slides, ending up with about 180 slides to possibly have digitized. We’ll make another pass to look at them again before we make a final decision.
Some of the slides are from a family vacation we took out west the summer of 1964 when I was 15. One thing that was hard to believe were photos of us driving on four lane freeways in LA with only 3 cars ahead of us.
Another that was amazing was the fact that the adult General Admission to Disneyland was $1.60. No, that’s no a typo. Or for $4.95 you could get a 15 ride ticket book, that included your General Admission. Oh, and parking was a quarter.
The other thing is the fact that we visited places I don’t remember visiting, Virginia City, NV for one. We were going through the slides and suddenly a slide showing this building popped up.
I thought I remembered it from Virginia City when Jan and I visited there in 2013. And I was right. It’s the Fourth Ward School. Then a little later we came across a ‘Welcome to Virginia City‘ sign. So I guess we were there and I just forgot it.
Finally, presaging last weeks, The Big Bank Theory, a guy in Wales threw away an old laptop HD in 2013, forgetting that it contained 7,500 Bitcoins, worth about $4 million at that time. He had mined them in 2009, saving the HD when he trashed the laptop, figuring the Bitcoin price would rise. But then over the years he forgot about it and the HD got trashed as well.
Now it’s worth $108 million. Ouch
The Headline of the Day: Drunk monkey crashes boat party, downs bottle of vodka and makes underwater scuba escape.
Thought for the Day:
“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!”
