Monthly Archives: December 2020
Gone With The Wind & Grimaldi’s. . .
Jan and I headed out for the afternoon about 1pm, stopping for lunch at Dickinson Seafood once again.
Blackened Catfish and Shrimp with Grilled Veggies, and a salad.
Delicious, and only $8.59 on the lunch menu. A great deal.
Then it was on up I-45 to the Home Depot for a storage bin and a 1/4” Push-On End Cap to seal off a leaking ice maker line that’s not used anymore.
Then after a quick WalMart stop, we headed back toward the rig, but couldn’t resist a Cowboy Coffee stop
for hot Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Perfect on a cold winter day.
Thought For The Day:
You can get more with a smile and a machine gun than you can with a smile alone. – Al Capone
More Wuhan Flu News
Ohio Will Stop Verifying Antigen Tests, Count Them All Positive
The most significant announcement was that beginning on Tuesday, December 8 the state will no longer trace people who test positive from antigen tests to confirm results.
Previously, ODH required Ohioans who returned positive results on antigen tests – fraught with accuracy concerns -to be up with to determine if they had either been in close contact with another COVID-positive person or had exhibited COVID symptoms before the test was counted.
So now in Ohio every case is a positive CoVid case.
First there’s this,
What’s more, when the infected person did not have symptoms such as cough, fever or shortness of breath, the transmission rate was just 0.7 percent.
So according to this study, it’s not really easy to pass the virus on to your wife, that you’re kissing, hugging, or doing other things with. or a close family member in the household.
But then there’s this.
A Biogen medical conference in late February led to between 205,000 to 300,000 COVID-19 infections from February to November of this year, according to a study in the peer-reviewed journal Science by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
By studying and tracing the genetic code of the virus, scientists determined up to 300,000 cases could be attributed to the conferences through November 1.
So exactly what went on at this conference?
Inquiring minds, and all that. Sounds like a lot more than just shaking hands.
And finally,
RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association rescind its statement calling for physicians to stop prescribing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine until sufficient evidence becomes available to conclusively illustrate that the harm associated with use outweighs benefit early in the disease course,” the memo reads.
So now that the election is over, HCQ is suddenly all OK.
Should we be surprised?
December 15, 2010
High Winds
Today started out with us trying to keep the coach tied to the ground, or at least it seemed that way. We had a 45-50 mph wind directly from the south. The only redeeming factor was the fact that it was hitting the coach head-on, and not from the side.
But that meant it was very hard to get the coach door open. I had to lean out and put all my weight to hold it open so Jan could get out. And then try not to let the door slam back on me.
Even the birds were hunkered down, and note the angle the bird feeder is hanging. One time I saw it almost horizontal.
Jan and I left the rig (or blew away from) about 1:15, first heading over to the Wendy’s in Dickinson for a lunch of Spicy Chicken Sandwiches. Then it was on up I-45 to Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription.
Next we went right next door to Wal-Mart for more ‘stuff’. Everyone needs more ‘stuff’ at Christmas time.
Leaving there we stopped off at Brandi’s to pick up some more packages that had come in.
Then, next it was Wells Fargo to get a problem fixed with my new VISA debit card. They messed up the setup and although it would work as a VISA card and as a debit card, it would not work as an ATM card.
Next on our list was a visit to the storeroom, and finally the PO to drop off the last of the Christmas cards.
A busy afternoon.
But finally it was close to 5pm and time to head over to Seabrook to Mario’s to meet Chris and Linda. An extra bonus was Miss Piper showing up with her friend Porter.
After dinner, we got back to the rig about 6:30, and the first thing I had to do was get the satellite dish re-aimed. The high winds had moved the entire mount even though it was staked to the ground. The winds have slacked off so hopefully it will
Thought for the Day:
Always trust in the five G’s: God, Gold, Guns, Grub, and the Government screwing up.
December 15, 2013
Jan’s Favorite Christmas Song . . .
Jan’s Favorite Christmas Song is ‘Mary, Did You Know” and she has just about every different version of it, but this version is her new favorite. Even better, the little girl’s name is Noelle. And her voice is amazing.
R.I.P. James (Butterbean) Carpenter
Joyce Carpenter let us know this morning that her husband, and our friend and long-time blog reader, ‘Butterbean’ Carpenter was killed in a car accident this past Wednesday, Dec. 11th. We had been corresponding with him for several years, and finally got to meet him and Joyce in February 2012 when we got together at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, TX.
Our daughter Brandi even designated him Landon’s “Honorary Uncle”.
He will be missed.
Jan’s been putting out feed for the birds and they finally found it, especially the Monk Parakeets.
She’s even putting out carrots for the bunny rabbit that shows up at night.
In other animal news, I was going to throw away the box my new printer came in, but Mister had another idea.
Apparently it’s his box now.
The tide was out today and that’s when all the seagulls show up to dine on the many tasty treats that are revealed.
Tomorrow’s going to be a movie day. We plan on having lunch at King Food and then catching the 1:30 showing of Ender’s Game. Then sometime in the next couple days we also plan to see Thor: The Dark World. Both of these have been out since the first part of November, while we were still on the gate, and we want to see them before they’re pushed out by the Christmas movies.
Today we spent a good while catching up on the new Fall shows we DVR’ed while we were still on the gate. So far we’ve caught up on Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Big Bang Theory, Two and A Half Men, and now we’re working on Agents of SHIELD. Next up are Nashville, Person of Interest, Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon A Time in Neverland, Castle, Mentalist, and Bones. Hopefully we’ll be caught by the time all the new episodes start back up.
Since I started out this blog with a song, I thought I end it with one too. This is Jase and Missy Robinson of the Duck Dynasty crew singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Missy has a great voice, and Jase is not too bad either.
Check it out.
Thought for the Day:
Why is it you can buy a Sunbeam 8-12 cup coffee maker for under $20.00, but one that only makes one cup at a time costs over $100.00?
December 15, 2014
“As God is My Witness . . .”
First up this morning, Donna Huffer and Bob Parker showed up for their goodbye hugs before they headed out for Rockport down south. Looks like we’ll catch up with them again in Tucson at the Escapade the first part of next March.
A little while after that, Jan and I left on our 85 mile Austin roadtrip about 10am, heading for the Gone With The Wind exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center located on the University of Texas campus. But our first stop was the big Buc-ee’s in Bastrop for breakfast kolaches, coffee, and a bathroom break. We got to the Harry Ransom Center a little before noon, and luckily found parking about a block away.
The exhibit which filled a number of rooms, and consisted mainly of photos, telegrams, and letters, to and from studio executives, actors, attorneys, and censors. You follow the story from the book’s publication in June of 1936 though the film’s debut in December 1939.
David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000, the most ever paid for film rights at that time, and spent the next 3 years trying to get the movie made. While he was trying to raise the money, he was also trying to find his ‘Scarlett’, which proved a much more daunting task than Selznick originally thought. Over 1400 actresses around the country were auditioned, both known and unknown. Some of the known were Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford, Susan Hayward, Lana Turner, Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins, and Katherine Hepburn. The problem with many of these established actresses was their age. Scarlett is 16 at the beginning of the movie and 28 at the end, and a lot of these women were in the 30’s, and would have a problem playing a 16 year old girl.
But in the end, it all came down to 4 finalists: Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivian Leigh. Paulette Goddard was actually Selznick’s first choice, but Goddard was pretty openly living with Charlie Chaplin at the time, and Selznick was afraid of the bad publicity.
As it turns out, the eventual choice, Vivian Leigh, was a dark horse, last minute candidate. Although Selznick had known about her for over a year, she was already signed to other projects and wasn’t available. Then in the last 48 hours, her other movie fell through, and she was available. So she got the role.
Strangely enough though, two complete unknowns were offered the part of Scarlett O’Hara earlier. Both girls, found in the auditions done around the country, turned the role down. One of them, Adele ‘Billie’ Longmire, from New Orleans, was offered the role in 1938, when she was 19. But her parents would not let her go to New York for a final screen-test and contract signing. Plus she objected to the long-term contract she was offered, as did the second girl.
Longmire went on to make a number of movies with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, a lot of TV from The Long Ranger to I Love Lucy, and was well-known enough at the time to have been profiled on This Is Your Life in 1953.
One funny thing about the casting of Vivian Leigh, was that a number of Southern groups and associations were insisting that a southern girl be cast as Scarlett. One organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was particularly insistent. But when Leigh, who was from England, was cast, they said that was OK, just as long as it wasn’t some ‘Yankee’.
Jan and I spent a lot of time reading through all the correspondence covering the walls, and two things stood out from this.
One was the fact that telegrams were apparently the email of the time. I counted as many as eight back-and-forth telegram conversations between Hollywood and New York in one day. Some of them less than one hour apart. This was when some guy on a bike would show up at your door with the telegram, you’d read it, write down your answer, and he would take it back to the office to be sent. And then the same on the other end.
Second was the content of some of the studio letters and telegrams. I’m sure you’ve read lately about the North Korean’s hacking Sony and releasing the the emails between studio executives, revealing the many ‘snarky’ conversations about actors, actresses, and other executives.
Well it was exactly the same back in the 1930’s. Actresses were called ‘mental midgets’, actors were ‘drunks’ and ‘lechers, and other executives were ‘liars’ and ‘adulterers’. And that was just the nice things they said.
People never change.
Another interesting part of the exhibit were the letters from the ‘Hays” board censors listing the things that should be taken out of the script. I had always heard there was a lot of controversy about the ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ line, but I did not find anything in the letters about that iconic line. Instead there were a number of complaints about the childbirth scenes and the wounded soldiers, but I was surprised to find out that the censors had a problem with Scarlett’s ‘As God is my witness’ line and wanted it taken out.. Obviously, they didn’t get their way.
The other part of the exhibit was a number of the actual dresses worn by Vivian Leigh in the movie.
Very elegant
This one was the dress that Scarlett wore for her first wedding at the age of 16.
I’m sorry, but this one is just ugly.
This one was a robe Scarlett wore while sitting out on the porch.
One thing unusual about this one was the colors. When looking at the dress on exhibit, you really can’t see much difference between the fur and the dress, just a little when the light is right. But the camera (no flash) sees the dark purple part of the robe completely different.
And, of course, no GWTW dress exhibit could be complete with the iconic ‘Curtains’ dress.
This dress, made by Scarlett and Mammy from the curtains left in Tara’s shambles, showcased Scarlett’s indomitable will as she wears it to plead with Rhett Butler for the $300 she needs to pay the taxes on Tara.
And, of course, you can’t talk about the GWTW ‘curtains’ dress without mentioning Carol Burnett’s version in ‘Went with the Wind’.
Carol thought it looked better with the curtain rod still attached.
_________________________________________________________________
Thought for the Day:
Five things you probably didn’t know about Gone with the Wind:
1. Scarlett was originally named ‘Pansy’.
2. Tara was originally called Fountenoy Hall.
3. Margaret Mitchell, GWTW’s author, was a cousin by marriage to ‘Doc’ Holiday, the gunslinger (and sometimes dentist).
4. The original title of GWTW was “Tomorrow is Another Day”, the last line of the book.
5. Margaret Mitchell was hit and killed by a drunk driver in Atlanta in 1949 as she crossed Peachtree Street.
December 15, 2018
OK, Who Squealed?
I spent some time this morning setting up a laptop for my client’s wife. Her old one, with a Pentium CPU and running Windows XP, is on its last legs. And I’m glad it’s finally dying since I’m getting tired trying to keep it running.
Jan and I headed out for lunch and more about 1:30. Originally we were going to have lunch at the Monterey’s Little Mexico up in Alvin, but right before we left Jan saw a TV ad for Pizza Hut. So that became our lunch destination. No, not Pizza Hut, but our all-time favorite pizza place, Gramaldi’s, and our local one at Baybrook Mall.
We first ate at a Gramaldi’s in 2009 when we were visiting New York City with our daughter Brandi, and our granddaughter Piper. We ate at both Gramaldi’s and Lombardi’s, the two places in NYC that claim to be the originators of pizza there in the first few years of the 1900’s. And we liked Gramaldi’s the best.
So we were very happy when we later found that Gramaldi’s had started to open locations around the country. And everyone we’ve tried around the country was just as good as the original.
One thing we learned early on at Gramaldi’s is that unless you have at least 6 people, never order the Large salad. Because the Small one will feed 4 people with a serving each, or two people with large servings.
This is how much is left in the serving bowl after we both had a serving. So we each had two. Unfortunately they don’t have a Tiny one. Small is the smallest they have.
For pizza we got a medium with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Italian Sausage, Meatballs, and Jalapenos, pretty much our standard order.
Really good as always, and we had some to bring home. Afterwards we made a quick walk up into Baybrook Mall proper so Jan could pick up a couple of gift things at that Bath & Body Works.
Then it was on back up the road to the Wal-Mart for some groceries and some gift cards, the penultimate of the Christmas presents. Next up was a stop at my client’s to pick up a couple of packages that had come in today, before a final stop at the League City Krogers for the absolutely final, the ultimate of the Christmas gift cards.
For some reason, WalMart does not sell Amazon gift cards. I mean, why wouldn’t they sell products encouraging you to buy stuff from their biggest competitor? But luckily Krogers does.
OK. Who squealed?
In last night’s blog I pointed out that it didn’t make a lot of sense that someone would go the trouble of getting a domain name and setting up a website area in order to sell their house, and then advertise it with a sign like this.
Well, this afternoon when we drove past, the sign was gone. But the website is still live with no indication that the place sold.
So I figure one of our readers called the phone number on the site and told the guy what I said. So, come on, fess up.
Who did it?
Thought for the Day:
Some days I may seem cool as a cucumber, but inside I’m like a squirrel in traffic.
A Full Deck . . .
I took a dive into Privacy.com this morning to give a try. For you latecomers, Privacy.com is a (free) service that allows you to create one-time credit cards, or cards lock to a particular account. You can also set weekly, monthly, yearly, or even overall total charges.
Starting out, I set up 5 cards for particular accounts, our two storage rooms, our EZ-Tag account, and our Acorn TV, and CBS All Access streaming services.
This took me about 10 minutes total. Then I went to each of the accounts and entered the card information and save it off.
Easy Pezy!
Then as a test, I created a one-time card and then immediately used it to buy something online. And it went through fine.
But when I tried to use that same number a few minutes later for another charge, it was declined. Just like it should be.
So far, I’m very impressed with Privacy.com, especially since I’m using the free. This one lets me create 12 cards, of any type, per month. Then for $10 per month I can create 36 cards per month, plus I get a 1% cashback refund on purchases
So far I’m very impressed. But I’ll keep you informed.
Last up, a Miss Piper update.
When I told you about her graduating from college tomorrow, I forgot to mentioned that she’s graduating from the University of Houston, and she has a 4.0 GPA.
Way to Go, Miss Piper!
Thought for the Day:
“Environmentalists changed the word “jungle” to “rain forest,” because no one would give them money to save a jungle.”
December 14, 2011
Washer Repair Day . . .
Today was the day.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. Or, at least Jan said I couldn’t.
It was time to tackle pulling the dryer out of its cabinet and checking out the dryer fan motor.
The first step was to remove the retaining strip at the base of the cabinet. It looked like this was the only thing holding the washer in place, and it was.
Kind of.
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After removing the strip I found the washer still wouldn’t come out because the screws on the door hinges protruded just enough to block it.
So, off with the doors.
Then after placing my furniture dolly underneath, I started inching the washer out.
Once the washer was out of the way, Mister had to immediately investigate things.
It was obvious that the cabinet was built around the washer since both the dryer vent hose and the water drain hose were too short to allow the washer to come all the way out, and in fact pulled loose before the washer was halfway out.
I’ll have to add extensions to both before I reinstall the washer.
Jan’s now got that island counter in the middle of the kitchen she’s always wanted, at least until I’m ready to reinstall the washer.
Luckily, only four screws and the top comes off. And even better, the fan motor is right at the top.
And here’s the alleged culprit.
Looking closely it was easy to see what had happened. The circle with the tabs on it is actually a cooling fan for the motor underneath it. The motor bearings had worn enough to let the shaft with the fan on it drop down and start rubbing against one of the motor’s electrical connectors. This caused the noise I first heard for a week or so before the motor finally died.
A blog reader, Tom Van de Bussche, had already clued me in on where to get a new motor, so I was on the phone to Westland Sales in Clackamas, OR to get one in the mail to me.
As it turns out, it will be shipped out from their Elkhart, IN location. Sure wish it had died a month or so ago, I could have picked one up while we were there.
Thought for the Day:
Bad decisions make good stories.
December 14, 2013
Blasphemy . . .
Brandi sent over t his latest video of Landon singing Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. Really Cute.
Landon Sings Rudolph
.
Landon’s black eye is due to a errant flying Lego at day care.
Also we got this photo of Jan’s nephew, Jason and his beautiful family.
From left to right, that’s Laura, Avery Jane, Ella, Annisten, and Jason.
We always enjoy seeing them when we visit Jan’s sister, Debbie, in Illinois.
About noon we headed out for the afternoon.. On the way we checked out the construction taking place on the new section of the RV park here.
Don’t know when the new area is supposed to be open, but the 90 new spaces are really needed, since the present 81 spaces stay pretty much full all the time.
Our first stop was our favorite burger place around here, Stomp’s Burger Joint. But I may have called down the anger of the burger gods. I didn’t get a hamburger, one that looks like this.
Instead I ordered a hot dog. But not just any hot dog.
This was a Drunken Dog. A spicy jalapeno hot dog soaked in beer for 24 hours, then battered and deep fried, and garnished with spicy mustard, sauerkraut, diced onions, crispy bacon bits, and shredded cheddar cheese.
Delicious, and well worth irritating the burger gods.
And of course we had to have a order of Stomp’s Half and Half, onion rings and fries.
After lunch our next stop was to drop off some Christmas cards at the PO before headed down to the Victory Lakes Wal-Mart, a different one than last night, since I wanted to get another printer to replace the bad one from yesterday.
And even better, the same printer was $10 cheaper at this Wal-Mart than last night.
After finishing at Wal-Mart and stopping by a nearby Hallmark store, I came across this conundrum
What to Do, What to Do.
Next, after a quick stop at a Family Dollar for some Christmas wrap, we headed up to SR96 to get coffee and muffins from Buc-ee’s.
While we were there I got this shot of a boat ready for tonight’s Clear Lake Christmas Boat Parade.
We went last year and had a great time with the fireworks and the many decorated boats, but tonight’s weather is supposed to be cold and rainy. So we’ll just have to enjoy some pics from last year.
Speaking of boats, there’s a boat yard near the RV park that we pass by quite often, and it’s interesting to watch the boats come in looking much the worse for wear, and then in a few weeks looking brand-spanking new.
So over the next few weeks I’ll try to document the changes.
Later in the evening I set up the new HP 2542 printer that I picked at Wal-Mart this afternoon and had no problems this time. So I’m now back in the printing business.
Thought for the Day:
“Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – George Washington
