Our RV Adventures

Jan and I met up with my client and his wife at the Luby’s Cafeteria in Webster about 2:30, our first time at a Luby’s in years, and that was at the one over by NASA that’s now closed.

Our meal, especially the veggies, was pretty good, but probably not go-back-again good. Cheddar’s is better, and cheaper, actually. But we did have a really good time with Myron and Cindy, and hope to do it again soon, maybe on a regular basis.

Then it was on back down to the HEB in our area for a few things, and then home for the day.

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Where Did It Go?

A Miracle! Only 23 Americans Tested Positive for Flu Last Week Compared to 14,657 Cases Reported Last Year at Same Time

During the second week in January, 23 people tested positive for the flu in the United States.

More than 14,657 tested positive for the flu during the same time last year, before the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

“It’s crazy,” Lynnette Brammer, who leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Domestic Influenza Surveillance team, told The Washington Post. “This is my 30th flu season. I never would have expected to see flu activity this low.”

In yesterday’s blog, Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun . . . I mentioned about how Dr. Fauci says that we should all be wearing two masks instead of just one.

But another infectious disease expert, Dr. Michael Osterholm, ironically Fauci’s replacement on President Biden’s team, disagrees.

In an interview this week, Osterholm said Fauci’s recommendation to wear two masks at once to stop viral infections made no epidemiological sense.

“Masks, as they’re defined, work in two ways,” Osterholm said:

The first is in regards to how that masks fits. How well does it fit around you? It’s like swimming goggles. They don’t usually leak through the lenses they leak through the seal around your eyes or face.

N95 respirators, which are worn by relatively few people compared to cheap cloth masks, are designed to filter out viruses through a “very tight face fit” combined with “electrostatically charged” filter material that traps viruses even as the “pore size lets air travel through easily,” he said.

Doubling up masks – even N95s – defeats the purpose of their design by redirecting air to “blow in and out along the sides” instead of through the material, according to Osterholm: “Double masking could be a detriment to your protection.”

And From A Doctor on Twitter:

Masks – it’s binary:

If you don’t have COVID – it’s theatre, can’t stop spread.

If you do have COVID – your body has decided it needs to expel it from your body to survive. You say “No, body! I prefer to breathe it back in over & over, maximizing my chances of lung infection.”

And anyway, here’s a Danish study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,

“Researchers in Denmark reported on Wednesday that surgical masks did not protect the wearers against infection with the coronavirus in a large randomized clinical trial,” the New York Times reports.

The study is perhaps the best scientific evidence to date on the efficacy of masks.

To conduct the study, which ran from early April to early June, scientists at the University of Copenhagen recruited more than 6,000 participants who had tested negative for COVID-19 immediately prior to the experiment.

“Our study gives an indication of how much you gain from wearing a mask,” Bundgaard said. “Not a lot.”

And even the esteemed Dr. Fauci seems to go and forth on this. He noted back in March on 60 Minutes. “When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet. But it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is, and often there are unintended consequences; people keep fiddling with the mask and touching their face.”

So if one mask won’t work, then two won’t work better?

And now it’s off to the camps.

Calgary police take travelling woman into mandatory isolation, but refuse to tell family where she is

Trudeau announced Friday morning all returning travellers into the country must go to a government isolation centre where another COVID-19 test will be taken. If a passenger tests negative, they will be allowed to return home for a strictly-enforced another 11 days. Those testing positive will be taken to another government facility for the rest of their 14-day quarantine.

And it will cost you about $2000 for your stay in this ‘isolation facility’.

When the pastor’s wife arrived at the airport she was immediately taken into custody and transported to a location unknown to her husband, where she will be held for between 11 and 14 days. Again, at her expense.

The real kicker to all this is that she had taken a CoVid test earlier that morning that was negative, but the Gesto . . . er, authorities refused to recognize it, and hauled her off anyway.

But’s what’s really strange is how they jumped the gun. As I said, Trudeau didn’t announce the new rules until late Friday morning. But the woman was arrested early Thursday evening.

Her husband said that if she had known about the new rules, she would have just stayed where she was.

And here’s a story about another abduction.

Red Deer mother in tears as son taken to undisclosed isolation centre

Coming soon to an American city near you?

What I wonder is if they’re also locking up the air crews that fly the planes in? They’ll run out of crews pretty soon if that happens.

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Thought for the Day:

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” – Mark Twain

 

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January 31, 2011

So foggy even buzzards won’t fly . . .

9 Days and Counting . . .

We woke up this morning to such a solid blanket of fog that we could hardly see the bayou in front of us. We left the rig about 9:15, stopping by the park dumpster to drop off some garbage and do a little shopping while we were there. You remember Dumpster Shopping, don’t you?

Found this really nice painting that may end up in our granddaughter’s room,

and this nice hanging plant that we decided to leave for another shopper.

Heading down FM 517, we passed the vulture roosting area, only to find that the weather was so socked in that even they weren’t flying. They were just sitting around on buildings and signs in the area. Must be a real help to have vultures perched on the roof of your restaurant.

We got to the storeroom a little before 10, picked up the rental truck, got my mother’s washer and dryer loaded up and were ready to roll. I couldn’t find a place to take them, so I just put them out on the street before the trash pickup today.

And according to our daughter, everything was gone this evening when they got home. Gone is gone.

We were running short on time to get the rent truck back, so we immediately headed down to League City, stopping off at the Raceway to top off the diesel tank, and getting the truck back with about 20 minutes to spare.

Next up was lunch at King Food for a big bowl of Hot and Sour Soup, certainly the weather for it. We’re really going miss this place when we hit the road. Along with several others, as far as that goes.

Then we stopped off at a client’s to drop off about 4000 address labels for his next mail-out.

After that we went by HEB to stock up on some of their coffees to take on our travels this year.

Next was Office Depot to pick up some ballpoint pens, and a large file box to hold some of my mother’s papers that we kept out of the storeroom.

About 2pm we met Chris and Linda at the storeroom to finish transferring the last of my mother’s stuff into our other storeroom.

Finally we were heading home with only two more stops.

The first was Kroger’s for Lotto tickets and then Starbuck’s Cinnamon Dolce Lattes from Starbucks.

A few minutes after we got home, Eldy and Jeannie showed up so I took over a bottle of Joint Juice for Jeannie to try,

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Thought for the Day:

The trouble ain’t too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right. – Mark Twain

 

 

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January 31, 2014

Floored . . .

Well, the floor project is officially under way.

Before Chris got here, I had cleaned everything out and unbolted the chairs from their pedestals. The flooring on the left side of the screen is a test piece I laid down to see how it would look.

The first thing we did was pull the chairs and put them outside, where Mister decided he was going to spend the day camped out in one of them.

We then started going over the floor inch by inch, pulling up any of the missed staples that originally held down the carpet, and pounding out any bumps.

Chris also did a really good job getting the rest of the carpet out from under the steering wheel and cleaning that area up.

At this point I realized I must have had a brain fa . . . eh, fade. I sure seem to remember pulling up the pedestals last time to get the carpet out from under them. But it quickly became obvious that they didn’t come up. In fact I even called American Coach to be sure.

I had thought that the pedestals were held done by lag bolts into the plywood flooring.  But as it turned out, they’re held down by large bolts with nuts underneath the chassis, that can’t be reached. Oh, well.

Next I started patching the bolt hole depressions with Plastic Wood. These are the bolts that hold the plywood subflooring to the chassis.

Once we got all the prep work done, we knocked off for the day. We’ll start fresh tomorrow laying down the flooring and cutting around the obstacles with a jigsaw.

With a little luck we’ll be able to finish up then.

Stay tuned. More to come.

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Thought for the Day:

If everywhere you go there’s a problem, guess what?

 

 

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January 31, 2016

RV Checklists . . .

Since I did absolutely nothing yesterday to prep for our travel today, Jan and I were up about 6:45am to a start on things, especially since we planned to head out about 8 to have breakfast at the Conroe Cracker Barrel.

I normally start marking things off on my checklist the night before we travel. But because we spent the afternoon having fun (and dinner) with Janice and Dave Evans, and it was dark by the time we got home, I got nothing done.

But after 8 years of RV’ing, we’ve pretty much got it down to a science, so in about an hour, everything was done, except to crank up, unhook power, bring in the slide, and roll.

Getting to CB only a little after 8am means no wait, unlike showing up later in the morning or early afternoon. And since we’re not in any real hurry, we had a nice, leisurely breakfast, getting back to the rig about 9:30. And after wrapping things up, we pulled out of the site. with Jan following me in the truck down to the Activity Center where we hitched up and headed out.

When we came back from Cracker Barrel, the weather was sunny, but I noticed while I was hooking up the toad, that it was changing. Clouds were rolling in and the temperature was dropping. And we encountered the change out on the Interstate too.

The winds really kicked up with enough strength to make it an interesting drive, to say the least. This was not a very relaxing trip at all.

About 30 miles down I-45, we stopped at the Pilot/Flying J, to take on some diesel. Unlike the other one on our route, out in Brookshire, this one has 6 straight-in RV pumps, and an easy out when you’re done. And since I was using the Pilot RV Plus Card, I got my usual 8 cents a gallon discount off the cash price. But there was a problem.

The first pump I tried was running at about 30 seconds per gallon, meaning that 120 gallons would take me about an hour. After reporting the problem inside (probably a clogged filter at the pump), I switched over to the pump on the driver’s side, and finished the fill-up from there. This one was doing a gallon in less than 5 seconds.

Back on the road, we finished up our wind-blown trip and pulled into the Colorado River Thousand Trails about 1:30pm. And although we’re in a different site from the last time we were neighbors, we ended up right next door to our friends, Vance and Bonnie Clegg.

For dinner tonight we finished up the remainder of last week’s chili, putting it over rice with cheese and tortilla chips. Really good.

I mentioned earlier about using a checklist. In fact I’ve use a program, an Android app, called RV Checklist for years. A free app, it comes with a number of pre-done rv-related checklists, including an RV Departure checklist, an RV Arrival and Setup checklist, and a Camping Preparation list

The Departure one looks like this.

But you can also make your own personalized ones, which is what I did. And it looks like this.

And when I check an item off, it turns green like this.

Over the course of a number of travel days, I wrote down every step needed for Jan and I to get ready to roll, most of mine outside, and all of Jan’s inside. The list has saved my rear a couple of times, usually because I was interrupted in the middle of things when someone came over to talk.

We also have one labeled RV 2 Motel Checklist, that was honed in 2012 when we stayed in a motel while our rig was in the shop in Las Cruces, NM. Every time we found something we’d forgotten and had to go back to the rig, it got added to the list.

And over the years we added and deleted other stuff to make it work for us.

Finishing up, in yesterday’s blog I was talking about how the Potatoe Patch’s ‘Throw’d Rolls’ aren’t as big or thrown as far as Lambert’s. Well, as it turns out, one of our readers, Joan Scott, left a comment that might explain the reason behind that difference.

Joan said she used to be the Insurance Underwriter for Lambert’s and that they have seen a fair share of lawsuits from their ‘throwed rolls’. It’s really hard to believe that someone could be injured by a soft, fluffy yeast roll.

A few years back, I think it was the Sikeston, MO Lambert’s location, I saw a roll come arcing overhead, right through the hands of the father, and hit a young boy in a highchair right in the face with a soft ‘plop’. The kid who also had his hands up trying to catch it, just laughed and picked up the roll from his tray and started eating it.

I think some people just want to sue.

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Thought for the Day:

“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” – George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788

 

 

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January 31, 2017

Counting The Days . . .

Today was Jan’s first day on a gate in a week or so. As it stands right now she’ll work today, Tuesday, and tomorrow, all on day shift.

But since I’m on night shift, that means that we’ve got to trade the truck back and forth. So when Jan came in this morning at 5:30am, I took the truck back home, until I came in at 5:30pm. Then Jan went home.

But what this all boils down to is that if Jan doesn’t work Thursday then she still has to come back to the gate and pick me up at 5:30am. Poor baby.

Tomorrow while I’m home during the day, I’m going to see if I’m stuck or not.

When we first got here a week and a half ago, I recounted how the owner of the first RV park we tried got mad because we left ruts in his grass sites. Well the park where we ended up also has grass sites, and since the ground was wet after all the rain we’ve had, we’ve sunk in some.

So tomorrow I’m going to put some large mats down in front of the rear duals and see if I can pull forward onto them. If so I should be OK until we leave on the 15th, even if we get more rain. If not, I’ll have to rethink the whole thing.

Of course it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve parked somewhere and then found ourselves stuck due to heavy rains before we left.

Back in 2008 we were at the fairgrounds in Sioux Falls, SD, and while it was dry when we got there, it rained for the last four days flooding the RV area. After trying to get unstuck myself I finally had to call our roadside assistance service to get me out. They send out a winch truck who was able to pull me forward about 30 feet until I was on the road. A real mess.

Two weeks from today is our last day on the gate. Then we’ll leave Cuero and make the 85 mile trip over to the Colorado River Thousand Trails in Columbus for two weeks so we can get our doctor stuff out of the way.

It’s going to be a busy time until we head west.

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Thought for the Day:

Search engines can only access .03% of the Internet. So where the heck is the rest of it hiding, and what are they doing out there that they don’t want us to know about?

 

 

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January 31, 2020

Sweet AND Spicy . . .

Since I worked yesterday, I was off today, a 3 day weekend. I went in yesterday because my client wasn’t going to be in at all and didn’t want to leave the office manager alone all day.

I spent this morning making the hotel reservations for our upcoming Alabama trip. Necessary because we’ll be driving the truck rather than our oil-leaking rig. In addition I also canceled our RV Park reservations for that trip.

Although back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, I used to drive straight through to Birmingham every month to visit my mother, we’ll take things a little slower this time and spend the night in Slidell LA along the way. Actually both ways, going and coming back.

Since we liked our stay at the La Quinta in Luling back last November, I found a good deal on one there. As I mentioned in the blog at the time, I found out that, although I thought I got a good rate through Expedia, I found that when I re-upped for more days, the in-house rate was $10 cheaper. And several readers told me that they often found the same thing.

So I checked online first and then called the La Quinta directly. But this time the Expedia rate was about $8 cheaper than the in-house one. And I did ask for the best rate.

And I found the same thing with our Extended Stay Hotel in Montgomery and our Day’s Inn in Athens. I didn’t yet make our coming home reservation since that date is not nailed down yet.

About 1:30 we headed up to Webster with our first stop at Snooze for lunch. We were interested to find that they had new menus, and a few new dishes. But the one that caught my eye was their Bacon But Different.

It’s an order of their Tender Belly Bacon that’s rubbed with brown sugar, cayenne, chili flakes and drizzled with black pepper maple syrup.

Sweet AND Spicy, and really delicious, and I’ll definitely have it again.

After our Snooze, I dropped Jan off to get her toesies done while I drove on over to the Ace Hardware in Friendswood. My computer chip key for our 2004 Dodge Dakota is showing its age. And its circuitry.

The rubber coating covering the parts on the key fob was beginning to wear off, exposing a corner of the circuit board. So I figured it was time for a new one.

I checked with both O’Reilly’s and AutoZone and they both said I had to go to the dealer. But when I checked with the local Dodge dealer I was quoted $245 for a new key.

Ouch!

But I remembered from a year or so ago that Ace Hardware advertised that they could duplicate computer keys, so off I went.

And once I got there I was testing my new key in about 15 minutes. And even better it was only $80. A nice savings.

And they said all Ace Hardware’s around the country should be able to do this.

Tomorrow night we’re heading up to Pearland for Tony Booth’s Birthday Bash, an annual Country Music Get-Together with a lot of old friends.

Really looking forward to it. And because it goes so late there’ll probably be little or no blog tomorrow night.

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Thought For The Day:

Have you ever wondered if the dollar bills in your purse or wallet were once in a male stripper’s thong?

I bet you’re wondering now.

Have a nice day!

This afternoon Jan and I decided to check out the latest Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch place here in our area – Eggcellence.

The one we went to is across from Baybrook Mall and has been there for a while. But there’s another coming in right down the Interstate in the old Steak and Shake location. And when I asked if this one was going to close when the other one opened, they said No.

The main reason we came today is because Jan saw they had a Greek Omelet, one of Jan’ favorites. And she said it was delicious.

Jan said we’re coming back just for this alone.

I had the Texas Sampler with two eggs, bacon,ham,and sausage, with fruit instead of  hash browns. Also really,really good.

And we both had a large glass of their Squeezed To Order Orange Juice. Really good, and really expensive, at $6 a glass. So probably a one-time thing.

We decided that Eggcellence will replace the Toasted Yolk Café in our dining repertoire. We’ve tried it a couple of times without being especially impressed.

Long live the new King.

After our meal we headed over to the nearby UPS store to drop off our DirecTV DVR to be returned. And it went just as they said.

I gave them the unit, my DTV account number, and my last name, they printed me out a receipt, and I was done.

Nice.

Looks like we’re getting an Amazon Delivery Station right down the Interstate from us. Delivery stations are different from warehouses, in that orders are sent from the big warehouses to local stations where they’re then put on the delivery vans for the ‘last mile’ delivery as they call it.

One thing this means is that we should be able to get more ‘order by 9am’, same day deliveries. Neat!

Miss Karma is just about back to normal but she’s still not very happy about the ‘whole syringe squirting antibiotic in her mouth’ thing. I told her it’s for her own good, but I don’t think she’s buying it.

Somehow I forgot two of most well-known Geographical Diseases from yesterday’s list. And those are the Asian Flu from 1957, and the Hong Kong Flu.

Adjusted for population increases, together they killed almost 350,000 Americans.

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Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun . . .

Fauci says two masks are better than one!

So maybe three or four would be even better?

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Thought For The Day:

”If you throw me to the wolves, I’ll come back leading the pack”. – Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist.

  

 

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January 30, 2011

Croissants and Armadillo Eggs . . .

Hot coffee and warm, flakey croissants started off this morning.

The croissants were from the gift we got from Brandi and Lowell at Christmas, a box of Williams-Sonoma Croissants.

These croissants are fantastic, so good, in fact, that they’re on the list of Oprah’s Favorites.

They come out looking like this, but they start as little frozen logs. There were two types in our box, plain and chocolate-filled. And both are delicious.

They’re shipped overnight, frozen in a Styrofoam container. You let them thaw out and rise for 9 hours and then pop them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or 13 minutes in our convection oven. They come out crispy, flakey, and fantastic.

After finally getting moving, we left the rig about noon heading back to the storeroom we’re trying to empty out.

We spent the afternoon going thru the last of my mother’s boxes of papers and photos, bringing back a lot memories at the same time. As we sorted thru things, we placed the stuff we wanted to save in plastic tubs for storage.

Between the consignment shop and Goodwill, we got rid of the last of the furniture yesterday. Then tomorrow we’ll take the washer and dryer to a used appliance store to get rid of them, and we’ll be finished, except for putting the plastic storage tubs in our other storeroom.

Finishing up about 3:30 pm we headed back to the rig, stopping off at Wal-Mart for supplies.

We got home a little before 5, just in time to get ready to go out for dinner with Eldy Tompkins and Jeannie Sparks. They’re parked two spaces down from us, and ended up here at Galveston Bay RV Park after reading about the park on our blog when they were selling the line of Tastefully Simple products at a rally. We bought several of the dip mixes, and really liked them.

We had decided on T-Bone Tom’s, a local steakhouse restaurant that has been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We ate there several times years ago and never really cared for their BBQ. But after watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, we found out they’re really known for their steaks, homemade sausage, and their Armadillo Eggs.

Armadillo Eggs are about the size of a tennis ball, and are made by hollowing out a jalapeno, stuffing it full of sliced BBQ brisket, rolling it in two kinds of flour, and then breading it in panko crumbs. They are then deep-fried to order, and they are delicious!

For our entrée, we all had steaks. I had the rib-eye, Jan had the sirloin, Eldy had the T-Bone, and I’m not sure what Jeannie had. But we all thought they were great. Then even though we were all stuffed, we couldn’t resist their desserts. Jeannie and Eldy split the Strawberry Daiquiri Cheesecake, and Jan and I split the Homemade Bread Pudding. But by the time the dessert came, Jan decided she was just too full, so I had some and then we brought the rest home.

We had a great time talking and getting to know each other. We sat there talking for about two hours, and hope to be able to do it again before we leave. If not, we’ll be seeing them in Yuma, AZ in March.

On another note, we’ve got some really cold temperatures coming in the next several days.

Tonight and tomorrow night the temperature is in the high 50’s / low 60’s. Then Tuesday night the low is supposed to be 27 degrees. And the next 3 nights are supposed to be in the high 20’s too.

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Thought for the Day:

“Except For Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, WAR has Never Solved Anything.”

 

 

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January 30, 2012

Hats and Hooter’s . . .

The Latest Landon Pics!

He’s really proud of his new hat.

This morning started early. Instead of just getting up about 10, I was up, coffeed, and out the door by then.

I had spent the weekend cleaning up a mailing list and printing out thousands  of labels so my client could get them on the flyers and out the door by this coming Wednesday.

I also wanted to get back on updating and moving his UPS shipping program to a new computer.

But this was not to be. Exporting the database out to a file was no problem, but when I went to install the new 2012 version of the UPS Shipping program, I found out the 450 MB file I had spent an hour downloading a week ago, was glitched and would not execute. Bummer!

Don’t know what the problem was, because it seemed to download OK.

I think I’ll go over to another client’s office tomorrow and re-download it there. They’ve got a 6 Mbps line while this client only has a 1.5 Mbps one.

I’ve also got a new computer to install in the graphics department where they do the paper catalogs. But I have to wait for the lady to pull everything she wants to keep off the old one.

During this time I was also on the phone with RV Mobile Lube setting up an appointment for a tech to come out next Wednesday and service our rig. They were last here two years ago, and it’s about that time again.

They handle rigs in the Houston, Dallas, and Texas Hill Country area, and come to your site in a big step van and change your engine oil, transmission oil, and all filters, and hit any chassis lube points. And they do the same for your Onan generator.

I had them used the Transynd synthetic transmission fluid last time and will do it again. Although it adds about $170 to the cost, after it’s done twice, it reinstates some of Allison’s warranty coverage, and I won’t have to have it serviced again for 75,000 miles, about 8 years for us.

Another nice thing is that they keep your service records online so you can keep track of your service intervals. (You can click this shot to enlarge it.)

They should be here about 8 am, and based on last time, it takes a couple of hours.

I got back to the rig about 5pm, and then Jan and I headed up to Seabrook to have dinner at the Hooter’s there. It was time for our hot wing fix and this is the place for it.

But, on a more disturbing note, I’m afraid Hooter’s may be going upscale. They now have a podium just inside the entrance, and one of the young ladies seats you at your table and gives you the menus. What are things coming to?

I don’t know about you, but upscale service is NOT what I come to Hooter’s for!

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Thought for the Day;

It said “Insert CD 3…” but only 2 will fit in the drive. What do I do now?

 

 

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January 30, 2013

Cartoons and Artwork . . .

We didn’t do much today. Just hunkered down and hoped we wouldn’t blow away.

Due to the cold front coming through, yesterday’s high was 74, today’s was 58, we had high winds most of the day. At one point, the Weather Channel said the wind was blowing at 25 mph, with gusts to 40. Talk about Rock N Roll. And it’s supposed to go down to the mid-30’s tonight.

Our friend Gina posted this cartoon on Facebook that tells the story about Weather in Texas.

 

Worked on a few projects, mostly today. Printed out 1200 address labels for a client, and decided that I want to redo the tie-downs for the strings at the bottom of the Day/Night Shades. This is because this is where at least two of my shade’s strings were broken. It looks like that over time the strings are rubbed in two.

But the good news is that it looks like I may not have to completely restring the last two shades because the strings just broke at the tie-downs. I’ll fool with it tomorrow.

The new Denso 26” wiper blades I ordered Monday from Amazon came in at Brandi’s today, so I’ll pick them up tomorrow and get them installed. I’ll probably use Rain-X wipers on the toad again. Those, along with using Rain-X Wiper Fluid, seem to do a good job of keeping the windshield clean and non-squeaky.

My very talented great-niece Stahlie posted some of her recent artwork today.

Although it looks like it might be done in oils, it’s actually done on the computer using Autodesk Sketchbook.

A commenter ask if it was done in watercolors. Stahlie said “No, she doesn’t do watercolors because they don’t have an “Undo” button.”

I like the way she thinks.

For dinner we finished off the homemade Chicken Vegetable Soup from a couple of days ago. Still very good.

Tomorrow night we’re getting together with Lillis and Dick Palmer again for dinner at King Food.

Then on Friday night, it’s probably our last visit to the Alvin Opry.

Busy, busy, busy!

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Thought for the Day:

Some people are like Slinkies. Good for nothing, but they do make you smile when you push them down the stairs.

 

 

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January 30, 2014

Getting in on the ground floor . . .

Jan and I spent the morning going through stuff so we could get everything out of the front of the rig so Chris and I can start putting down the new flooring tomorrow morning. And as many readers have requested, I will be posting before, during, and after photos.

About 3 PM Jan and I headed out for our daughter Brandi’s up in Katy. Jan will be staying there for several days while our son Chris and I do the floor. On our way we stopped off at Sam’s Club to pick up a couple of prescriptions.

I was kind of worried about the traffic on the way, but it seemed we were able to stay just ahead of it all the way there. And we timed it perfectly, getting there just a minute before Lowell and Landon showed up.

Brandi showed up about 30 minutes later bearing dinner from a local Mexican grilled marinated chicken place. We’ve had this once before, and it’s really good, especially the spicy tomatillo sauce. Very good.

Landon has his own iPad and spends a lot time learning and playing on it.

I said my goodbyes a little before 7 finally getting back to the rig a little after 8 PM. I spend the rest of the evening getting things ready for tomorrow.

More from the floor tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

Want to have a little fun?

Rename your WiFi hotspot to “FBI Surveillance Van #7”.

 

 

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January 30, 2015

Under Pressure . . .

Jan set out some croissants last night to thaw and rise for this morning. So about 11 we headed next door to Nick and Terry’s rig with warm Williams-Sonoma Chocolate Croissants and hot coffee, and spent the next couple of hours catching up on things, along with a lot of laughing.

Later in the afternoon, I finally unboxed and assembled my new Karcher Pressure Washer that I bought myself right before Christmas.

I really like the one Charles Yust has, and decided that I needed one too. Wal-Mart had this one on sale right before Christmas for $89.95, marked down from $129.95, a real deal.

It has a tank that can hold detergent or car wax, so I might try it with vinegar to get more of the drilling mud off the rig roof. I also want to see how it will work on my the rig’s wheels. So depending on what the weather does tomorrow morning, I may give it a try on the rig or toad. It’s supposed to rain some tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes.

About 4:15 we all headed down to Peter’s BBQ to check out their Friday Night BBQ Buffet again. As usual it was delicious. I mean, how can all the BBQ, sides, and desserts you can eat, be anything but?

There were also a number of other RV’ers there that we chatted with for a few minutes. We had invited our friend Randy to go with us, but he was already getting together with his family.

Tomorrow we’re going into Brandi’s in Katy before we all have dinner at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro.

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Thought for the Day:

The longer I live the less I care about what everyone else think.

 

 

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January 30, 2016

Do I Smell Brownies?

Although Jan was back to normal this morning, we decided no to walk today, and just start fresh Monday morning over at the Colorado River Thousand Trails in Columbus. And since we leave for Columbus tomorrow morning, Sunday’s out too.

In addition, we were also going over to Janice and Dave Evans about 1pm. Janice wanted me to take a look at some computer problems she was having. Things like, strange popups and messages, changing homepages, and slow-downs.

I started out by running the free version of SuperAntiSpyware which found a number of browser add-ons that were probably causing the ‘Search’ popups and other stuff. Then as a double-check, I also ran the free Malwarebytes AntiMalware to catch anything that the first one missed.

Then it was on to CCleaner and Glary Utilities to clean out the ‘gunk’ in the registry and other areas to speed things up. When that was all wrapped up, we all piled into Janice and Dave’s SUV and headed down to the Potatoe Patch restaurant in the FM-1960 area for linner.

Based on what we heard, and what we read on the Net, it’s kind of a Lambert’s Throwed Rolls clone.

And it is, to a point. At least it’s kind of a mini, scaled-down version.

Rather than the four ‘endless’ pass-around’s at Lambert’s – onion fried potatoes, fried okra, macaroni & tomatoes, and black-eyed peas, here you get a single large serving of fried okra and fried green tomatoes.

But these are both very, very good, especially the fried green tomatoes. Unlike any we’ve had before, these are very thinly sliced and almost crispy fried like potato chips, but not too crunchy. Really just perfect.

My Jan had the Chicken Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Mac N Cheese,

 

while I had the Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Corn on the Cob.

 

Dave’s Jan had the same Chicken Fried Chicken, but with Sweet Potatoes and Cole Slaw, while Dave went with the Beef Liver and Onions with Mashed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach.

They did have ‘throwed rolls’, but following the scaled-down Lambert’s theme, they’re a little smaller, and they don’t throw them near as far.

Unlike Lambert’s large softball-sized ones, PP’s are about the size of a hardball. But they’re both soft and puffy yeast rolls, and taste pretty much the same, and that’s very good.

But they do kind of wimp out on the whole ‘roll throwing’ thing.

Rather than an overhand throw of 50 feet from one end of  the dining room to the other like I’ve seen at Lambert’s, here it’s more of an underhand toss from 10 – 15 feet away.

But I guess if you call yourself the ‘Home of the throw’d rolls’ as PP does, you’ve gotta get’em at least a little airborne to use the phrase.

One thing that might be influencing the whole underhand, overhand thing is the fact that the ceilings at Lambert’s are more than twice as high as the ones at PP’s, so it’s hard to get a good high arc on the long distance ones here.

I did try to get the roll guy to throw me one from about 30 feet away, but he wimped out and walked a lot closer before he would toss me one.

But all in all, it was very good food, and we’ll definitely go back, hopefully soon.

Friend and blog reader Jim Hamm sent over this article about medical marijuana being a big help treating migraines, in some cases dropping the frequency from more than 10 per month to less than 5 a month.

http://www.livescience.com/53461-medical-marijuana-reduces-migraine-frequency.html?cmpid=NL_Health_weekly_2016-01-24

Do I smell brownies in my future?

Tomorrow we’ll head for Columbus and the Colorado River TT about 10am for the next two weeks. And as has been our routine lately, we’ll have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Conroe before we leave here. We’ll be ready to roll before we go eat, and only have to bring in the slide, unhook shore power, and then crank up and go when we get back.

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Thought for the Day:

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.

 

 

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January 30, 2017

The Vicissitudes . . .

Of Texas weather.

Two nights ago it got down to 31 degrees here at the gate. There was enough moisture in the air that the shack railings were covered in a thin layer of ice. And when I went to leave for home about 5:15am I found a heavy layer of hard ice on the truck windshield. Heavy enough that I actually had to scrape it off with an ice scraper.

And why do I have an ice scraper? Well, our late friend Gina Ellis gave me one years ago. After being a paramedic, an EMT, and a police sergeant, she ended up as a Fraud Investigator for American National Insurance, headquartered in Galveston, TX.

Now why an insurance company in Galveston would be giving out logo-branded ice scrapers, I don’t know. But it’s certainly come in handy over the years.

But never in south Texas before.

Then yesterday and today it hit 80 degrees.

For lunch today we had our leftovers from our visit to Maya Mexican Restaurant a few days ago. Jan had the Chicken Plobano and I had the Verde Chicken Enchiladas. Still delicious.

Then for dessert we sampled some of Jan’s latest batch of chili. She did it a little different this time so we were both anxious to try some.

Normally she’ll get 5 pounds of ground beef and cook it up with some onions in the electric skillet outside on the picnic table so it smell up and grease up the rig. Then we vacuum-seal it and freeze it until it’s needed.

But this time we got a pound of extra-lean ground beef (only 7% fat) and put it straight in the crockpot with some fresh chopped onions. After letting it cook and brown some, she then added her regular chili ingredients. And it turned out to be a really great batch, very hot and spicy.

Jan brought me into work this afternoon, so she can come back in tomorrow morning to work the day shift here at the gate. Then I’ll go home and come back at 5:30 to let her go home. Then we’ll do the same thing on Wednesday.

Karma was really enjoying the warm sun this afternoon. She spent most of the time sound asleep in the living room window.

Catnapping, I guess.

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Thought for the Day:

95% of the spiders in your house have never been outside.

Don’t you feel better now.

 

 

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January 30, 2018

Big Winner . . .

First thing this morning I went outside to take a look at a truck problem For the last few weeks, my oil pressure gauge has been going wacky.

At least I assume it’s the gauge/oil pressure sender unit since I can drive for long distances with the gauge setting on zero. So unless I have a ‘magic’ engine that can run for hours with no oil pressure, then it’s either the sensor or the wiring.

I’m eliminating the gauge itself since when it drops to zero, I also get a CHECK GAGE light, which means the light is also getting bad info.

But today I was trying to check the easiest possible problem – a dirty/intermittent wiring harness connector. The sensor/connector is located on the lower driver’s side of the engine right about the oil filter. I don’t have any ramps or jacks, but I was hoping I could get under the truck to unplug the connector and spray it with Strike-Hold.

But I couldn’t get far enough underneath to reach the plug. In the past I’ve driven the truck up on a curb to raise one side enough to get underneath. But no curbs here at the park. I’ll have to check with our son Chris to see if I can run by and have him take a shot at it. Plus he has jacks and ramps.

If have to replace the sensor it gets a little more complicated. Since the sensor is sticking into the oil itself, you’ve got to be REALLY fast removing the old one and replacing it with the new one.

Otherwise you need to drain the oil first. So it would be nice to have cleaning the connector fix the problem.

After calling to be sure she was working today, about 12:30 we headed up to Pasadena to see our friend Julie and have lunch at the Monterey’s Little Mexico where she works.

We’ve known Julie for years, when she worked at the Monterey’s down here in Dickinson. But that location was taken out by Hurricane Harvey, and won’t reopen until sometime in March. Hopefully.

Right before we got on I-45 we made a stop at the HEB to get gas. I’m not sure what’s going on in the oil market, but gas had jumped another 10 cents a gallon since yesterday.

And to think it was just $1.93 right before Christmas.

Of course I never go to Monterey’s that I don’t get their fantastic Chicken Tortilla Soup, and so I did this time. Jan however went a little different, getting their Chicken Ixtapa, a grilled chicken breast  with sautéed veggies and charro beans.

Saying our goodbyes and coming back home we made a atop at the HEB again, this time for a few things, and to check my lottery ticket. But as I looked around I didn’t see the Lotto machine. Turns out that HEB is out of the lottery business, and has removed the machines.

So where was I supposed to cash in my Big Winner $2 ticket?

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The Headline of the Day: Woman denied emotional support peacock on United Airlines flight

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Thought for the Day:

Drill for oil?’ You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” – Driller who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

 

 

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January 30, 2020

If Goofy Is A Dog, What Is Pluto?

I’m sure most of you heard about the big explosion at the factory here in Houston last Friday morning. Occurring at about 4:15am, it unfortunately killed two employees who had come in early to use the exercise facilities. It was very lucky that the blast didn’t happen a couple of hours later, because then the entire workforce would have been on site.

The strength of the blast totaled almost 50 homes, and damaged almost 300 more, with debris found over a mile away. And the sound of the explosion was heard much further away.

Our daughter Brandi was awake at the time and heard the blast. And she lives almost 15 miles from the site. She said all the dogs even started barking at the same time too.

But wait, there’s more.

Brandi works as Inside Broker for CRC Insurance, the largest commercial insurance and reinsurance company in the country. And as it turns out, her company is the brokerage for both Watson Grinding and Manufacturing and Watson Valve Services. The two companies are (or were) located side by side, and are under the same corporation, but are actually separate companies with separate insurance policies.

At this time authorities are still not sure which company’s building caused the blast.

And on another strange coincidence, Brandi’s husband Lowell, who is a Shipping Booker for AAACooper Transportation, said that both these two companies are customers and he calls on them regularly.

I mentioned the other day about a free streaming service called Pluto TV. There are native apps for it both on our Samsung TV and my new Amazon Firestick 4K unit, or you can just go to PlutoTV.com on your computer.

One thing I noticed on Pluto TV is how sharp the old programs are. We were watching one of the classic TV channels that was showing Dennis The Menace. It was crystal-clear sharp, like it had been filmed yesterday, but in B&W.

And the other thing was that it was still funny. Probably a lot funnier than today’s shows will be in 60 years.

Finally, another good source for streaming cable channels is USGOTV. Pretty much every thing is available on here, from A&E to WeTV. And more.

Check it out.

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Thought For The Day:

I really do try to see the best in people. But seriously, some of you are making it really,  really hard.

 

 

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