Our RV Adventures

Not much going on today.

I would say it was cold and dreary. At least it looked that way. Or at least it looked like it should be. But it turned to be warm and dreary, with a temperature of about 73°.

Around 2 we headed up to Webster to have lunch at Cheddars once again, with our usual delicious meal.

Then we drove around for a bit before heading back down to Santa Fe and home. But of course we had to make a stop at Cowboy Coffee, but not for coffee. We each got a Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate to take home.

I mentioned the other day that Murdoch Mysteries is coming back for a 14th season starting February 20th. And while we were waiting for it we started watching the series over from the beginning.

We’re now up to Season 4, but then this week we started rewatching Season 13 again so we wouldn’t get confused when we start watching 14.

And even now, watching the old ones, we sometimes can get lost about what season we’re on, and who’s done what to who.

Also happy to see that Prodigal Son has started up again.

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Thought For The Day:

Don’t try to understand women. Women understand women, and they hate each other.

 

 

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January 21, 2011

Anyone Else Dumpster Shop?

Am I the only one that likes ‘dumpster shopping’? (Dumpster diving sounds so uncouth.)

Jan thinks it’s hilarious (and a little strange) that I always look in the dumpster before I throw our trash bag in. You would be surprised what I find in there.

I’m still wearing a pair of Crocs that I found in a dumpster in Fairbanks, AK. They still had the tags on them. And I found a brand-new pair of men’s New Balance shoes, also still with the tags.

I also once found a beautiful 7-1/2 artificial Christmas tree complete with lights and still in the box. My mother used it for several years before she died. (Of course, I never told her where I got it.)

I’ve noticed I especially find good stuff in RV Park dumpsters. It seems like when an RV’er is tired on carry something around that he doesn’t need anymore, and he can’t find anyone who wants it, he just dumps perfectly good stuff. I’ve found good extension cords, computer cables, a box of DVD blanks, and a brand-new water hose still wrapped in plastic.

So the next time you’re dumping the trash, stick your head in there first. You might be surprised what you find.

Today started out when we left the coach about 10:30am for lunch at our new favorite, the Texas Tea Room. They have really great soup and sandwiches, and a special treat, saltine crackers that have been prepared and marinated like Chex Mix. Hmmm Good!

Next it was off to Wal-Mart for what seems like one of our almost daily trips there.

Then, despite Jan mentally trying to slow down the passage of time, we drove over to the Medical Center area for her 1pm dental appointment. Poor thing!

While Jan was undergoing dental torture (her words) I ran errands, first stopping at Home Depot, looking for some new water hose quick disconnects.

Then it was on to Sam’s Club for Kitty Litter and Joint Juice. They were out of Joint Juice, but I did pick up a bouquet of flowers for Jan.

Next, since I was in the area I drove over to Brandi’s to check the mail.

By this time, it was time to head back to the dentist office to pick up Jan. She said it wasn’t too bad and so we headed home.

Now if we’re lucky, we’ll catch another cancellation and get to leave by our original scheduled date of Feb 6th. Fingers crossed!

A little before we headed over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup. Jan’s mouth was still a little sore, so she decided soup was just the thing to hit the spot.

Our daughter Brandi while we were eating to catch Jan up on Landon’s recent antics. He’s apparently a real favorite at the daycare and they get upset when Lowell comes by to pick him up early. They don’t won’t to let him go.

I mean, how could you not love a face like this?

Coming home, Jan wanted to stop at DQ for a hot fudge sundae to sooth her sore mouth. At least that was her story, and she was sticking to it.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow it’s Road Trip time.

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Thought for the Day:

“If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem!”

 

 

 

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January 21, 2012

Landon and the Ostrich . . .

Brandi sent over some photos of Landon playing with the horsey we got him for Christmas. She says he gets on and off of it all by himself now.

He’s such a cutie!

Jan and I left the rig about 2pm on our way up to Brandi’s, with a quick stop at O’Reilly Auto Parts for some electrical connectors.

Then, after playing with Landon for a few minutes, Brandi, Lowell, Jan and I headed up to The Woodlands about 3pm. They wanted to show us around the Woodlands Mall and take us to the Kirby’s Steakhouse for dinner.

And when I tell you this is a high-end steakhouse, how many places do you know that have Ostrich,

or a $120 Wagyu Beef steak on the menu?

 

From the Fried Asparagus appetizer, to the fabulous steaks, and the Lobster Risotto, Garlic Mash Potatoes, and Sautéed Mushrooms sides, finishing up with Crème Brule with fresh berries, this was a meal to remember.

And somewhere there in the middle, we killed off a delicious bottle of Moscato d’Asti. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

 

Even the bathrooms are high class.

 

Afterwards we walked off dinner, sightseeing around the Woodlands Mall Outdoor Courtyard.

 

The place even has a Tiffany’s. Lucky for Lowell and I it closed about 5 minutes before we got there.

Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

Unfortunately a few minutes later, Brandi and Jan came across a Baby Gap store, and about $150 later, we were again on our way. But I guess it was still better than Tiffany’s.

After a wonderful evening, we headed home, finally getting back to the rig a little before 10.

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Thought for the Day:

“The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a software patch and a user with an idea.”

  

  

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January 21, 2013

Another Problem Fixed, almost . . .

Well, the problems diagnosed and the part ordered anyway.

Jan and I walked this morning and along the way ran into to Dick and Lillis, our dinner partners from last night on their way to do laundry. Looking forward to dinner together next week at King Food.

Afterwards we sat outside with our coffee and just enjoyed the nice weather. After the two weeks of rain we had, the sunny weather is really nice.

A little later I started working on another coach problem. Regular readers might remember that as we were in Louisiana coming back to Texas in November we lost the air in our rear airbags. Made for a bumpy ride home, believe me.

After talking with Spartan a while back I was pretty sure there was a problem with the proportioning valve that divides air between the front and rear bags to help keep the coach as level as possible.

And since my front bags were working fine, the valve was my first stop. And crawling under the rig (well, more like wiggling. I had borrowed my son’s mechanic’s creeper, but the combination of the creeper and me just wouldn’t fit. So wiggling it was.), this is what I found.

The rod that connects the proportioning valve to the chassis had broken loose and was hanging free.

You can see here where the rod had broken loose.

And this rubber bracket was where it broke loose from.

My call to Spartan led me to a great new website – RV Chassis Parts.

They carry parts for all the major RV chassis manufacturers, and products from all of these companies and more.

I was quickly able to find my part and order it online.

And it cost me a whole $1.63 . . . so I ordered two, so I’ll have a spare.

And even better, about a hour later I got an email telling me my parts had already shipped. Great service.

Next up before we leave here in February is to get my leaky rear wheel seal fixed.

 

Our niece-in-law? Laura Robinson posted some great pics of our great-nieces, Avery Jane, Ella, and new addition Annisten. A beautiful trio of girls.

 

Around 4:30 I fixed dinner for us, homemade taco salads, with romaine lettuce, chili ground beef, refried beans, picot de Gallo, pepper jack cheese, and fresh jalapenos(there are more under the cheese). Jan also added fresh avocado to hers.

 

I baked the tortilla shells using tortilla pans made especially for that purpose.

Just put your large flour tortillas in the pans and bake them at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Easy peezy.

Here you can find the Perfect Tortilla Pans I used on Amazon, although I only paid $5 bucks for mine at Fry’s Electronics.

This is definitely a meal we’ll have again.

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Thought for the Day:

History repeats itself because human nature is static.

 

 

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January 21, 2014

I Can’t Believe She Ate The Whole Thing . . .

We had planned to walk this morning, but it was really, really windy so we decided to just have our coffee and muffins, and stay inside.

The rest of the morning Jan read and I did computer stuff for several clients. Then about 1:30 we headed up to Clear Lake, stopping first at Twin Peaks for lunch.

Our usual waitress, Lauren, had already gotten off since the afternoon was pretty slow so we had a new young lady taking care of us.

Jan decided to try a burger this time instead of her usual Chicken Ranch Sandwich. So she got the Smokehouse Burger, not realizing it was a double, It looked like this.

Coming with Cheddar Cheese, Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, and Bacon, she said it was one of the best burgers she’s had. And it was so big that after she struggled to finish it, she was too full to have any supper tonight. And I think she was sorry had eaten it all.

I, however, stayed in my comfort zone (rut?) with my usual cup of Venison Chili and an order of the Average Joes.

These are mini jalapeno cheese sausage brats with spicy mustard and relish topping. Very, very good.

Then it was on to a client’s office for a while to check things out for some new equipment. Jan always brings her Kindle Paperwhite along for just these times.

Next I stopped off at the Sam’s Club on El Dorado to look for something, and then it was on to Chris and Linda’s to pick up our mail.

Finally heading home we made stops at Petco and Wal-Mart for a few things. I think some weeks we spend more time at Wal-mart than the rig.

I know they seem to get the largest share of my money.

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Thought for the Day:

Since Pluto is no longer a planet, does that mean that Mickey had him put down?

 

 

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January 21, 2015

A Stealth Site . . .

Today was a travel day, and if we didn’t get a last minute reprieve from the Gov . . . er, Galveston Bay RV Resort, we were heading back over to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails for another two weeks.

Jan and I were up about 7:30, kind of early since we didn’t plan on leaving the park until around 11:30 or so (wanted to allow plenty of time for the phone call). Since we only had about a two hour trip to Conroe, we wanted to have breakfast at Schobel’s over in Columbus before we left. We eaten here a number of times and it’s always been good. We had ask our friend Randy to go with us, so we swung by his rig to pick him up about 9.

Jan had a Veggie omelet with a side of bacon (kinda defeats the whole veggie thing) and Randy and I both had the Spanish omelet. One thing I really like about Schobel’s omelets is that they pre-grill the ingredients.before folding them into the omelet. So the ham, onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos inside tasted really good.

This is probably the last time we’ll see Randy for awhile. When he leaves Colorado River, he’s heading over to Medina Lake for a few weeks, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths down the road.

We pulled out of the park about 11:30 with Jan following me in the toad since we were heading about 4 miles away to top of the diesel at the Colorado County Oil Co-op for $2.44 a gallon. On the way, we passed a Citgo that had diesel for $2.39, but I try not to use Citgo except when absolutely necessary.

According to GasBuddy, there’s an Exxon station up in La Grange, about 25 miles north of here that has diesel for $2.31 a gallon. I didn’t work it out on paper, but  the 13 cents a gallon I would have saved on the 40 gallons I bought, would not have paid for the 50 extra miles I would have traveled to get it cheaper.

After fueling up and hitching up, we were back on the road a few minutes before noon, and had a very smooth trip, with no slowdowns or traffic for the entire 125 miles. We got checked in a little after 2pm, and a few minutes later were parked in the same ‘stealth’ site we were in last time.

I call it a ‘stealth’ site because no one parks here because it looks so un-level and rough, mainly because of a big ridge of asphalt that is mounded up down the center. But if you just ignore that, and park anyway, you find that the site is almost perfectly level. All I had to do was just drop the levelers enough to stabilized the coach.

One thing I noticed as we came through Conroe was that the Kroger’s where we usually get gas has it for $1.67, the cheapest we’ve seen so far. I don’t know if we have any gas points left on our Kroger’s Card, but it would really be nice to fill up for 67 cents a gallon.

For dinner Jan refurbished our leftovers from Sealand Seafood the other night, and some of the delicious Broccoli-Cheese Casserole our daughter-in-law Linda sent me home with this past Saturday. Really Good.

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Thought for the Day:

Something done ‘quick and dirty’ usually turns out to be not nearly as quick as you’d hoped, and much, much dirtier.

 

 

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January 21, 2016

I Thought I Was In The Wrong One . . .

With the heavy rains overnight, and continuing into this morning, our walking was on hold for today. But tomorrow looks good.

I did put a call into another welding shop about repairing my screen door hinge and left a message, but haven’t heard back yet.

After a quiet, goof-off afternoon, about 2:30 Jan and I headed down to the Star Cinema Grill for dinner and Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the movie.

As I’ve mentioned before, Star Cinema Grill,  and others like Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Studio Movie Grill, etc., put the concept of ‘dinner’ and ‘theater’ together for real.

So rather then getting a rubber chicken dinner and a has-been star from an 70’s sitcom in a bad production of Harvey, you get a nice meal served at your seats and a first-run movie.

In many cases these are older, smaller movie theaters remodeled for dinner theater use, by taking out every other row of seats and installing small tables.

Each table has a slot underneath for menus and order tickets, and a call button on top. After checking the menu, you write what you want on the ticket and then press your call button. A few minutes later a waitperson, dressed all in black, picks up your order. The menu is in the Chili’s/Applebee’s vein with appetizers, salads, burgers, sandwiches, pizza, and desserts. You can check out their menu here. Star Cinema Grill Menu

As usual, we both went with our ‘goldie-oldies’ with Jan getting the Mushroom-Cheese Quesadillas with Fajita Chicken, and I got the 3 Amigos appetizers, picking Texas Toothpicks (Beer-battered Onion and Jalapeno Strips), Chicken Tenders, and Southwest Eggrolls.

We try to get to the theater about 30 minutes early, which lets us get seated and get our food right before the movie starts. Then about half way through the movie, the waitperson drops off your check.

Another nice thing, although we didn’t this time, is if halfway though the movie, you decide you want some popcorn, a beer, or a margarita, just press your call button.

As far as the movie, we both really liked it, with a good story, great effects, some old friends, and some new faces. A Force Awakens is a worthy sequel to the first three movies, (we won’t talk about the last three) and makes us look forward to the next two.

We did change our minds about something however. We had planned to show our grandson Landon the very first Star Wars movie on DVD, and then take him see this one. But that idea went out the window in the first 15 minutes or so. Parts of this movie are just too violent for a 5 year old. So now we’ll just  show him the first one only.

I did find one thing unusual about the theater however. In fact I thought I had walked into the wrong one.

The Men’s bathroom has no urinals.

None. Just 8 stalls

What’s up with that?

On the other hand, if you want a completely different way to have dinner, check out Dinner in the Sky.

You can join 21 other diners as you’re hoisted 165 feet in the air, where you’re served a 3 star meal, in some cases, by famous chefs. You can even get married up there.

This one is in Sofia, Bulgaria.

And this one is Prague, Czech Republic.

Started in Belgium, the concept has traveled to 45 countries around the world, with over 5000 events.

And they’ve never dropped anyone yet.

I’ll treat.

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Thought for the Day:

Here’s a riddle:

During a recent password audit by a security company, it was found that an employee was using the password:

“MickeyMinniePlutoHueyDeweyLouieDonaldGoofySacramento”

When asked why she had such a long password, she rolled her eyes and said, “Hello! It has to be at least 8 characters and include at least one capital.”

What is her hair color?

 

 

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January 21, 2017

Whataburger über alles . . .

Well, after almost a week working out of my truck on the pad, today I ‘moved on up’ to an actual guard shack.

A shack sans microwave. Somebody stole it.

While Jan worked the front gate from 5am to 5pm, I worked from 6:30am to 3:30pm on the pad. Which means that I had drop Jan off at her gate and then wait an hour or so before I went on in to the pad. But luckily they closed the pad early so she didn’t have to wait for me to get off. So we were off duty at 5pm. But rather than go back to the rig we went on into Cuero for a quick Wal-Mart stop, gas, and then food.

To show you how much we like Whataburger, we first stopped at McDonald’s for tomorrow’s breakfast sandwiches. Their Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuits can’t be beat.

But then we left McD’s and drove to the nearby Whataburger for dinner.

Last night after our rut-filled RV Park adventure, we had dinner at the Maya Mexican Restaurant in Cuero, chosen because it was Mexican, and because it was very busy.

And it turned out to be VERY good. We split the Fajitas Regias, with beef, chicken, and sausage, which was delicious. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back before we leave the area Feb. 15th.

Although I now have a shack to work out of, it doesn’t mean the area is any  less muddy around the shack.

I’m not sure my boots will ever be the same.

I talked to the new Company Man this morning about getting some gravel dumped in the area to take care of the mud. Hope it works out.

As it stands, when the frack starts next weekend?, rather than Jan and I being on opposite shifts at the front gate, we will both be on the night shift, with her at the front gate and me at the pad, pretty much like we were last week. Much better.

Jan quickly discovered she’d  rather be on night shift, going in at 5 in the afternoon, than getting up at 4 in the morning for day shift.

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Thought for the Day:

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

 

 

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January 21, 2018

A Close Call and A New Toy . . .

A few days ago we were running three heaters and hugging Karma the cat to keep warm. Then yesterday and today we were running the C’s in the rig.

You never know what to expect from Texas weather. And it’s supposed to get cold again in the next few days.

My new toy is a Harmony Home Hub

The first thing it does is allow you to control pretty much any entertainment device from your phone. But even better it allows you to set up ‘activities’ or schedules for your devices.

You can set up an activity called Play DVD. When you click it, it will turn on your TV, your DVD player and your audio system. Then it will PLAY the DVD for you.

Or you can set it to turn the TV, change the channel on your DVR and then start RECORDing. Pretty much any sequence can be programmed.

But the real reason I got it is because it will also interface with our Amazon Alexa. So that we can now turn the TV on or off, mute or change the volume, and change channels on the DVR and start RECORD strictly via voice command.

I’ve got the basics working but still have to assign names to the different activities.

More later.

About 2pm Jan and I headed up into Webster to have lunch at King Food. We once again both had a big bowl of their delicious Hot & Sour soup as well as an order of their Crispy Chicken Wings with Garlic Butter.

We were introduced to them by Brandi and Lowell when we were all together at King Food for our big Christmas Eve get-together last December. And now we get them every chance we can.

Finishing up a nice relaxing meal, we drove up to the nearby Wal-Mart for prescriptions and a few groceries. And that’s where my close call came about.

While I was waiting for Jan, I used my phone to scan my Wal-Mart receipt with the Savings Catcher App. Then I put the phone and the receipt in the bag with prescriptions. But it didn’t stay in the bag.

It fell out of the bag somewhere along the way and I missed it in the cart. And the reason I know it was in the cart is that I have a photo.

As soon as I got home and discovered it wasn’t in the pharmacy bag, or any bag for that matter, I got on my computer and went to WheresMyDroid.com. Clicking on my account and logging in, I clicked on S8+ and clicked on Location. And here’s what I saw.

My phone was still in the Wal-Mart parking lot. So I grabbed Jan’s phone and headed out the door.

At the first stop light I encountered, I clicked on Where’s My Droid’s camera icon and then clicked on Front. which got me a blank photo. Then when I clicked on Back, I got this photo.

My phone was still in the shopping cart where I left it.

By the time I got to the Wal-Mart lot my phone’s location had changed to inside the Wal-Mart, and in the approximate location of the Customer Service office.

And here you can see it sitting in a bin under the desk.

When the guy pulled it out from under the counter, he ask if I could prove it was mine. So I said, “How about I show you a photo of me on the phone?”

He said, “Sure.”

But  when I showed him this one,

but he didn’t buy it.

So I told him to look at the phone and I used Jan’s phone to take a photo of him on that phone.

He liked that one, so I headed home.

Where’s My Droid not only tracks my phones and let’s you take photos of its location, you can lock the phone remotely, even if you don’t normally keep it locked. And if worse comes to worse, you can completely wipe the phone of all your personal data, even if it’s turned off.

Once you set it, as soon as the phone is turned back on, it’s wiped.

Check it out.

A close call, indeed.

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Thought for the Day:

Having an opinion is not the same as having the answer.

 

 

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January 21, 2019

Very Potholely . . .

Back at work this morning, I had a lot of prices to update in both the catalog and on the website. January is the prime time for companies to raised their prices, so it’s a busy time.

Plus a lot of companies use this time to introduce new products, which is much more time-consuming, since I have to take photos for both the catalog and website. Then in many cases I have to move things around,  and sometimes even add pages.

Of course this means that both the index and the table of contents have to be updated. If the previous guy had only set the catalog up correctly to start with, Adobe InDesign would have automatically updated both when I add and subtract pages. Oh well.

We got another used machine in last week that I had to replace the power switch on this morning, and then check it out. Everything worked OK, except for the air system. Many of these machines have an extra-cost option of air cooling during the electrolysis treatment.

But this one was dead.

When I checked on a replacement, I found they were no longer made, and due to that, a new one was almost $200.

Yikes. It’s an air pump.

So checking Amazon, I found this one.

It’s slightly smaller, much quieter, more powerful, but with an adjustable output. And even better, it’s only $15.98.

Should be here on Wednesday.

When we came home from Jan’s eye appointment last Friday we found they were putting down new gravel on the road.

In the last month, with all the rain, it had become very potholely with too many to dodge around. Then today they came back through with a spreader/leveler and graded it out.

Looks and rides great.

Our son-in-law Lowell texted this over this afternoon. And I didn’t even know they were building one over there.

Another Buc-ee’s for us to stop at on our way to Gulf Shores

Yah!.

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The Headline of the Day:

“Cleaner air could mean more global warming, expert says”.

OK, what the hell are we supposed to do now?

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Thought for the Day:

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. – Mark Twain

 

 

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January 21, 2020

They Did It Again . . .

Jan and I are already talking about next year’s adventures. Although we got to see some New England Fall foliage when we were in the area back in 2009, but it was only as we were passing through.

We had talked about doing one of the many Fall Foliage cruises, including some by Viking Cruises, our recent European cruise company. In fact it looks like they’re dozens of them.

But they have two big problems. First, they’re really expensive. In some cases they’re even more expensive than our Viking River Cruise in Europe last year. And second, they go to a lot of places we’ve already been to. Places like Bar Harbor ME, Charlottetown PEI, Halifax NS, Bay of Fundy NS, and others in Canada, while we’d rather concentrate on New England.

So our preliminary plan is to just fly up to Boston, rent a car, and then head north, staying at B&B’s as we go along. Google says New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, starting in the last week in September and continuing into the first two weeks of October, is the prime location and time.

Here’s a sample of this year in New Hampshire.

And the time frame is perfect for us, since that will be around our 54th anniversary.

And of course we’re still thinking about doing a Mexican Ruins cruise, probably some time in spring 2021. But I guess we need to get our 2020 Alabama, and Alabama/Florida RV trips, and our September Alaskan cruise out of the way first.

We had lunch at Snooze this afternoon, the place that’s become pretty much our standard Tuesday spot.  Jan had her usual Bravacado Toast,

while I got my fav, 3 Egg Classic, with Bacon and a side of Greens.

And they did it once again. I ordered my eggs Over Medium, but as happened once before, each of the 3 yolks is done differently. And in order too.

The one closest to me was Over Easy, the next one up was Over Medium, and top on was Over Hard.

How do they do that in a single pan?

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Thought For The Day:

A wife is like a hand grenade. Remove the ring and BOOM! your house is gone.

 

 

 

I mentioned the other day about our $600 Stimulus checks finally showing up. Though a lot of people got a direct deposit right into their bank account, both this one and the one back in May came by mail.’

But it turns out that a lot of people are getting theirs in the mail another way. And they’re throwing them away, thinking it was a scam.

Some people are inadvertently throwing away stimulus check debit cards, th

They look like this –

If you accidentally threw yours away, you can request a new one by calling the IRS, if you can get through.

FWIW:

A new peer reviewed study out of Stanford is questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders (which it calls NPIs, or non-pharmaceutical interventions) to combat Covid-19. The study’s lead author is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Stanford.

The study, co-authored by Dr. Eran Bendavid, Professor John P.A. Ioannidis, Christopher Oh, and Jay Bhattacharya, studied the effects of NPIs in 10 different countries, including England, France, Germany and Italy.

And, when all was said and done, it concluded that: “In summary, we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID in early 2020.”

In fact, the study found  “no clear, significant beneficial effect of more restrictive NPIs on case growth in any country.”

This possibly explains the many graphs I’ve posted showing that places with the strictest lockdowns, like NYC, LA, and Chicago, have just as many, or even more cases per capita as areas with little or no restrictions.

See, sometimes the numbers do add up.

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Thought For The Day:

The freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” — US President George Washington, 1783

 

 

 

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January 20, 2011

Chicken Tortilla Soup and Dessert Wine . . .

Today started out very, very early, at least for me.

I left the rig about 7:15 heading for my doctor’s office up in Friendswood. I’ve got my annual physical next Tuesday, and I wanted to get my blood work out of the way so it would already be done on Tuesday.

I got out of the doctor’s about 8:45 and headed straight for the nearest Starbuck’s. I had been fasting since last night, so I hadn’t had my coffee this morning.

Greg Need Coffee Now!

Next it was over to Brandi’s to pick up our mail, before stopping off at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts. I wanted to get some different air connectors so I can interface my new Sears Air Compressor with the hoses and nozzles that connect to our coach’s air system.

My next stop was Chase Bank to go over some things with their finance person.

I finally got home about 12:30, to find Jan ready to go to lunch, so we headed over to Dickinson to Monterey’s Little Mexico. As usual, great Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Getting back about 1:45 we had just settled in when we got a call from Jan’s dentist saying they have a cancellation for tomorrow at 1pm. That moves her 2nd appointment from the 21st to the 16th, which means we will be able to leave by the 17th at the latest. Maybe even earlier with another cancellation.

A few minutes later we heard from our friends Al and Adrianne, who are presently out in Tucson. We were trying to see when we could meet up. At first we hoped to cross paths on our way out to Yuma, but they’re leading this Saturday on a RV caravan trip down to Baja, Mexico, and won’t be back in the states until the 24th of February, when we’ll be on our way to Yuma. So if not then, maybe we can meet up later this summer when they’ll be in Cody, WY. Anyway, it was good to talk to them again.

A little later, I went outside to work on the check valve in our water pump, seeing as how it was supposed to be “Partly Cloudy and Windy”. This is what it looked like at 2:15 in the afternoon.

At least they got the “Windy” right.

When it started raining about 5 minutes after I got outside, I decided that it was a good time for a nap instead.

Then, after a very nice nap, Jan and I headed out for Pearland about 4pm to meet our good friends Bonnie and Richard at Spring Creek BBQ.. Jan and Bonnie were co-workers a while back and we always get together when we’re in Houston. Along with Bonnie and Richard were Richard’s brother and his wife, who we were meeting for the first time. Nice people and we had a good time getting to know them.

We finished up the evening back at Bonnie’s with some of her great coffee and two great homemade pies, a Banana Cream and a Sour Cream Raisin, and topped it off with a delicious white dessert wine.

After a great evening, we got home about 9:45pm, closing out a very long day.

More tomorrow…

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Thought for the Day:

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato

 

 

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January 20, 2014

Another Oldie, But Goodie . . .

I was up a little early this morning since I had clients to see, but I still had time for coffee, muffins, and sitting outside with Jan and Mister for a while. Then it was off to work.

My first stop was up in Pasadena for another one of my yearly client visits. She has 2 laptops, and another one of my oldie, but goodies. Like another client earlier this month, she has a desktop computer that I built and delivered in July of 2005. I always try to build them to last, but this is really pushing it.

So much so, that I recommended that it was probably about time to consider upgrading, especially since she’s still running XP on this machine and support is falling off fast. I cleaned up her two laptops and fixed a couple of problems But I didn’t really do anything with the old desktop, since I’m going to give her a quote on a new machine in the next day or two.

Before I left I also checked to be sure that her Epson Workforce 520 printer and her HP 4850 Scanner both have Win8 drivers available so they won’t have to be replaced with the new machine.

One thing about working on Jean’s computers is that she always sends me home with fresh baked treats, in this case, warm Oatmeal-Applesauce Muffins..

They’re going to be great for breakfast the next several mornings. Yummm!

Then I was off to another client in the Pasadena area to drop off the laptop that I had finally removed the Conduit Search malware. I’m sure Tricia was glad to have it back, and I was glad to see it go.

Then I was off to the client’s office where I worked Saturday night, to see if my fixes and updates were still doing OK. No problems so far.

I headed back to the rig about 4:30 and then Jan and I drove up to Seabrook to have dinner at Hooter’s.

Jan had the Chicken Strips with 911 sauce, which used to be one of their hottest before they added a number of new ones. She also got an order of their new Mega Fries that we shared. I had my usual 10 wings, all drums, naked, with the new Triple Dog Dare sauce (now their hottest) with a side of  their also-new Chipotle Honey sauce.

BTW  “naked’ wings means they don’t have any breading on them. Get your minds out of the gutter.

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Under the heading of  “Yeah, that sounds right to me”, I think my problem is that my brain has gotten so full that stuff has started falling out the other side.

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Thought for the Day:

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”  — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873

 

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January 20, 2015

Well, the salad bar was good . . .

After working on some web stuff, I went outside to work on a couple of projects, one of which was to re-attach my tailpipe to my muffler. I had knocked it loose a while ago when I backed into an embankment behind our site while trying to not hit the overhanging limbs. I put a metal strap on it to keep it from falling completely off while I tried to come up with a way to re-attach it.

Finally came up with this: Two large stainless steel circle clamps holding four angle brackets around the base of the tailpipe (you can only see the top two). I’ve still got to put a screw the top left one, but I need to dig out my right-angle drill chuck so I can get a drill bit in there.

Then I pre-drilled holes through the brackets into the end of the muffler and screwed in large sheet metal screws. So actually it’s now more stable than it was to start with.

Then I went over to Randy’s Monaco to help with a leveler jack problem. He got stuck in the mud a couple of weeks ago when we were all at the Lake Conroe TT, as it pretty much rained the whole time we were there.

Since he was kind of sunk in, as he was being towed out, one of his leveler pads had the base pulled off of it.

His looks like this except his has four springs, not two. As it turns out, the pad is only held on to the hydraulic piston by the force on the springs. So the base pad was now just hanging off to the side.

It took a while but by using a pry bar and several large wrenches we were able to lever the pad down and over so that it popped back in place. Glad I could help.

About 4pm Jan and I drove into Columbus to have dinner at Nancy’s Steakhouse. We’d heard good things about the place ever since we started coming out here, but it was our first time. It was a plus for us that Nancy’s is owned by the same people that own Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant right across the street. But unfortunately, for us, that’s about as far as it went. Like I said, the salad bar was really good, but it was pretty much downhill after that.

Jan’s Sirloin Strip was definitely not the Medium-Well she ordered. More like just over the other side of Well, and tough and chewy with a lot of fat.

My 12oz Ribeye was done Medium-Rare as I ordered, but was not very tender and had a lot of gristle in it.  All in all, a pretty poor example of a $24 steak. Not anywhere near as good as our steaks a couple of weeks ago at Saltgrass, or Jan’s steak this past weekend at Longhorn Steakhouse.

In fact when we were at the Golden Corral in Conroe three weeks ago or so, they had 5oz Sirloin Ends that were delicious, some of the best steak I’ve had anywhere in a long time. Jan wondered why they would have steak that good on a $12 buffet. I figured that there’s not a big market for 5oz. Sirloin Ends in a restaurant.

If this was a cheaper place, we’d probably give them a second chance, but at over $60 for the meal (with tip), it’s not worth another try. Between Los Cabos, Sealand Seafood, Peter’s BBQ, and Schobel’s, there’s enough good places around here to make up for it.

And speaking of Schobel’s, Jan and I, along with Randy, are going to go have breakfast there tomorrow morning about 9am, before we head back to Conroe later in the day.

Coming home, I got gas in the truck for $1.71, and saw diesel for $2.39. Nice.

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Thought for the Day:

“I’m not questioning your honor…I’m denying its existence.” – Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones

 

 

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January 20, 2016

Lego my Lego . . .

Even though it rained heavily overnight, and it was still cloudy this morning, we still wanted to get our walk in, so we headed out, wearing long sleeves. But about half way around our 1 mile loop, the sun came out . . . and it got HOT.

So after our mid-walk break for coffee and breakfast, we both changed into short sleeves for the rest of our walk. And at 1.65 miles, the same as yesterday, and 25:47 min/miles, only two seconds slower than yesterday, it was a good walk. But that may be it until Friday since we’re looking at thunderstorms tonight and all day tomorrow.

But it is weather after all, so who knows.

Right before we left on our walk, Janice and Dave Evans dropped by to say ‘Hi’ on their way home from getting groceries. We made plans to get together for dinner sometime soon. Looking forward to it.

Later, back at the rig, I put in a call to a local glass place to see about them coming out to the park and remounting the passenger side windshield of the rig. Back last year during our blow-out repair in Prescott, AZ, the repair shop managed to crack the windshield during the repairs. And now it had started coming loose.

Windshield made it all the way through the blow-out itself, the very rough ride as I brought the rig to a stop on the shoulder, and the rocky ride on the trailer on the way to the repair shop.

But the repair place used a 15,000 pound jack like this one to lift the front of the rig about 4 feet off the ground to work underneath. And somehow along the way they torqued the front end enough to crack the glass.

Ironically, this same windshield had been replaced just a year earlier while we were up in Elkhart, IN in 2014, after it was cracked when the rig was tilted over during a rear axle inner wheel seal replacement.

And then in 2008, the driver side was cracked when we leveled the rig in 10° weather while up in Whitehouse, YT.

The glass shop guy had me text him some photos of the separation. The main one looks like this.

This is the top right corner of the windshield where the glass and the gasket have pulled away from the frame. So now I’ll just wait to hear from the glass guy.

Later I changed out my EVO canister filter for the first time since last August, right before we left to gate guard. It seemed like our water pressure was down a little, so I dug out my spare cartridge and headed outside.

And this is what I found.

This is a 5 micron filter and it seems to do a good job cleaning up the shore water. And the color change shows that. And the fact that the old one is about twice as heavy as the new one. This is the second filter I’ve replaced, with the first one lasting a little over 4 months and this one lasting 5 months. Not bad, I guess.

For dinner Jan heated up our leftovers from last night’s Vernon’s Kuntry Katfish visit, with catfish, hushpuppies, fried okra, and some of her loaded baked potato, it was plenty.

Jan also heated up a can of BUSH’S Bourbon and Brown Sugar Grillin’ Beans to round out a really good meal.

Wrapping up for today, here’s something really neat. It’s a tear-drop style camper built from 215,158 Lego blocks.

It has working lights, running water and Lego food on the stove.

 
Here’s a short video about the construction of the camper.

And you can read the whole story here: Lego Camper

Tomorrow we plan on having dinner and a movie at the Star Cinema Grill here in Conroe. We’ve been at the one in Webster, TX a number of times, but this will be a first for the Conroe one.

The Star Cinema Grill is the perfect combo for a evening out, with no rushing from dinner to make the movie on time, because it’s all in the same place.

The menu is on the same scale as an Applebee’s or Chili’s, and at least at the one in Webster, it’s always been good.

I’ll have more tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)

 

 

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January 20, 2017

Moving Day . . .

Things started moving fast this morning, and so did we.

I had just gotten to sleep after  my 12 hour shift when I started getting texts from Todd, our SiteWatch supervisor, pretty much upending everything.

Rather than close the pad gate where I’ve worked for the last few days, the CM reopened it for days only until the frack starts. But the big change is that Todd wanted us to turn around from night shift to day shift. Which means that today’s turn-around day  is maybe the only chance we’ll have to move over to Westhoff.

So after about 4 hours of sleep I was up a little after 11 so we could have one last meal at Barth’s. Then it was back to the rig by 12:30, and we were on our way by 2pm.

I had called ahead to the Westhoff RV Park and was told to just pick a site when we got there. So we did.

But it was all down hill from there. The park owner, Jan says he was creepy, was upset that we were in a ‘big, heavy’ motorcoach and were making deep ruts in his grass sites. Of course this was because the ground was soaked due to all the rain we’ve had in the last week.

Finally he asked us to move to another site where, not surprisingly, we also left deep ruts. At this point he continued to fuss and complain about how much trouble it was going to be to fill those ruts. At this point Jan got fed up and said, “Would you like us to leave?” He thought for a couple of seconds and said, “I think that would be best.” and then gave us our $240 check back. So we left, making more ruts getting out of the park.

So he ended up with the same ruts, but now he had no money. I’m not sure he thought this through.

But we later found a very nice RV near Cuero, for $250/ month with free Wi-Fi. It’s only about 20 minutes from the gate. But even better it’s only 3 minutes from Whataburger.

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Thought for the Day:

“A society that loses its sense of outrage is doomed to extinction.”

 

 

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January 20, 2018

They’re Always Watching . . .

I saw an article recently that Texas set all-time electricity usage records during the recent cold snap. But unlike other areas of the country that suffered blackouts due to an overloaded grid, Texas had no such problems.

And at least part of that is due to the fact that Texas is not part of  the nationwide grid, but maintains its own network called ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas). This lets them operate without worrying about those pesky Federal regulations and much more reliably.

This record usage showed here at the RV park as well. Normally our park voltage runs between 123 and 125 volts. But during the coldest period, when we had all three of our heaters running, the voltage was running around 110 – 112 volts.

We met Chris and Linda up at the Webster Cheddar’s at 12:30, luckily getting there right ahead of the crowd, so we got right in. Miss Piper had decided that she’d rather spend the day in Galveston with friends.

Her loss.

Chris got the Cornmeal Catfish Fillets, while Linda got her favorite Chicken Pot Pie. Jan of course got her usual favorite Key West Chicken with Shrimp,

and I again got the 4 Vegetable Plate with the House Salad.

Really good. Cheddar’s does veggies as good or better than Cracker Barrel.

After a nice, leisurely meal Jan and I  had planned to go by Wal-Mart for some things, but when we came out of the restaurant, it was pouring down rain so we just headed home.

There’s always tomorrow.

Chris brought our mail with him so after we got home we gingerly sorted through it, looking for hospital/doctor bills for Jan’s recent  stay. But so far, nothing.

Keeping our fingers crossed.

Yesterday at work I was watching a two hour YouTube video concerning some new software I’m thinking about purchasing for my client, and I was about 45 minutes in when I stopped to head home.

Then this afternoon I thought I’d pick up where I left off, but thinking I’d have to start and stop until I found the right starting point. But to my surprise, when I called it up here at home, it started up at the exact point where I stopped it at work.

Remember, they’re always watching.

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The Headline of the Day: People are four times as likely to order dessert when their waiter is overweight.

So I need to find skinnier waiters?

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Thought for the Day:

Officer: “Why did you shoot this man 6 times as he broke into your home?”

Home Owner: “’Cause the seventh time I pulled the trigger it went click.”

 

 

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January 20, 2019

At Least He Still Has All His Teeth . . .

After a somewhat cold night, officially 33° but we still had ice in the puddles when we went outside, we left for Landon’s hockey practice at 11:15am.

Originally Miss Piper was going to ride up with us, but she became otherwise engaged, so we were on our own.

We met Brandi, Lowell, and Landon about 12:30 at the Sugarland Ice Rink for the 1 hour practice. This is Landon’s 3rd year of the sport and his improvement is really noticeable. The only thing he still has a little trouble with is the whole ‘skating backward’ thing.

But I’ve always thought that the big attraction for kids playing hockey is for the same reason that we played roller skate street hockey when I was a kid.

It’s a good excuse to hit other kids with sticks. Of course, then they hit you back. I think our version was a lot rougher too, because we weren’t bundled up like the Michelin Man, with all the padding. Just skates, shorts, T-shirts, and a big stick.

You know what they say, “There’s no crying in hockey”. Well, actually there was some.

There are no pictures of Landon’s hockey prowess because I forgot to take my phone. And my backup camera (you just knew that I would have a backup camera, didn’t you.)that I keep in the truck, one like this, a 5 megapixel one with a 4X  optical zoom,

wasn’t quite up to the task.

Well, the camera was fine, but the two AA batteries had died. I leave them out of the camera because even Off, it draws enough current to run them down after a while. So at least they corroded in the Ziploc bag and not in the camera.

When the practice was over at 1:30 we headed over to the nearby Floyd’s Cajun Seafood for lunch, the same one we ate at a couple of weeks ago before the Mannheim Steamroller concert.

Today, as then, we got the same thing, a dozen Raw Oysters,

with Jan’s Grilled Catfish Filets and Grilled Veggies,

and my favorite, the Shrimp Gumbo, also with the Grilled Veggies.

But since we didn’t really have any breakfast before we left this morning, Jan started off with a Side Salad.

We’ve never had a bad meal at any of the Floyd’s we’ve eaten at. It’s well worth a visit.

And no, Floyd doesn’t pay me to post this. I wish he did.

And unfortunately, we just missed seeing him. The hostess said he was by last week, checking things out. He normally hangs out at his original Beaumont location where we’ve stopped off a couple of times to see him.

For new readers, Floyd is Floyd Landry, who we’ve known since the 1990’s. He and his brothers started the Landry Seafood restaurants before they sold out to Tilman Fertitta over 20 years ago, where it became the founding restaurant of his large entertainment corporation.

Landry’s now consists of about 65 different restaurant chains, like Saltgrass, Claim Jumpers, Bubba Gump’s, the Rainforest Café, Willie G’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, and the list goes on.

And if that’s not enough, Tilman owns a Rolls-Royce dealership, the Golden Nugget Casino chain, the Houston Rockets, two amusement parks, a Houston skyscraper (under construction), and the Tower of The Americas

in San Antonio.

I’m actually surprised the Alamo isn’t on this list. And since Landry’s is a privately-held corporation, he owns it all.

And he got his start peeling shrimp in his father’s Galveston seafood restaurant.

I wonder if he’ll adopt me?

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Thought for the Day:

Wooly Mammoths were still alive when the pyramids were being built. So maybe that’s what the Egyptians were using to haul those big blocks of stone around.