Monthly Archives: February 2021
Catching Up . . .
Things are looking up in the refund department. Last night a deposit showed up in my credit card account from Holland America as a refund of the deposit on our cruise that was supposed to go in mid-May. It was for more than the minimum I thought I’d get back, but not all of it. But I can’t figure how they came up with the amount they sent.
And after a serious talk with the hotel manager at the La Quinta where we stayed for 4 nights during the Big Freeze, I got a refund of the $152+ that I was overcharged on our stay. It only took a slight mention of the State Attorney General, price gouging during a State of Emergency, and a stern letter to Wyndham Corporate offices, but that got it done.
It looks like Amazon’s starting to catch up with their deliveries. A number of my orders that should have been here last week, but as of last night were scheduled for this Thursday, suddenly showed up this afternoon. Hopefully the rest of my orders will also appear posthaste.
Last Monday afternoon when we filled up with gas at the Texas City Buc-ee’s, I was surprised that the gas pump still worked, even though it was covered in a 1/4” layer of solid ice.
Well, at least everything worked up until I asked for a receipt and the printer went ‘Gurgle, Gurgle, Clunk!” and then died. Hopefully it worked better after it thawed out.
Regular readers know how much Jan and I like Van Gogh and his paintings. Well I came across this tribute to Van Gogh done with drones flying in formation.
600 of them flying in patterns make up the show.
You can read more about it here.
Hundreds of drones took Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ to the skies
Check it out.
Thought For The Day:
I like the type of people whose sense of humor may be described as “inappropriate” with the chance of ruining family dinner.
Chowderless . . .
Despite the fact that the temperature finally creeping up to 70° today, we had been wanting some Clam Chowder from the N.E. Lobster and Chowder food truck at the Three Acres Food Truck Park ever since the cold weather hit.
So we head over that way about 1pm this afternoon only to find ourselves Chowderless. The truck was not there and when I asked the lady in charge at the bar if they would be back, she said they had moved on to another location in ‘Houston’ somewhere. Well, that certainly narrows it down.
They have a Facebook page so I’ll see if I can track them. Hopefully they’re somewhere nearby.
So we had to get by with Jan’s Mushroom-Swiss Burger and Fries, and my Philly Cheesesteak with Fries. Both really good.
The owner said he flies his bread in from Philly from the same bakery that makes the rolls for Geno’s and the other famous Cheesesteak places.
We also shared an order of the Mac Attack’s Pizza Mac. It’s Mac N Cheese made with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and topped with pepperoni. Very, very good.
Mac Attack also had Lobster Mac, Cajun Mac, Buffalo Chicken Mac, and a number of others, including of course, Mac Mac, just plain Mac N Cheese for you purists.
I’m still waiting to hear back from our La Quinta hotel about our bill. They have 4 Pending charges against my card, totaling $1405.01, if they were all to go through. Of course they won’t all go through, but still.
Pending charges are what a restaurant does when they give you the check and you give them your card. The charge is Pending because you probably will be adding a tip to your charge slip. Then later, it may even be the next day, the charge is run through again, this time including the tip. and then it’s Finalized.
Hopefully I’ll hear something tomorrow.
Next up, we drove over to our storage place to finish cleaning out our last small storeroom and moving all the stuff over into our new, larger one. This will give us room to sort through and organize our stuff into keep, throw away, and sell on eBay.
Since we’ve already got something planned for Tuesday, it now looks like Thursday will be New Toilet Day.
At least that’s the plan. But who knows these days?
As we’ve traveled around the country we’ve found a lot of towns that have animal mascots.
Elkhart, IN has, what else, an Elk.
Beaufort, SC has a Mermaid.
Seabrook,TX has a Pelican.
And both Mackinac Island, MI and Coeur d’Alene, ID have moose.
The way this guy’s chained to the balcony makes it look like he’s tried to ‘wander’ off a few times.
But animals aren’t the only mascots. Sometimes fruit is involved. When we were over in Pearland, TX last week picking up a heat lamp bulb for our water bay, we discovered that Pearland now has their own line of mascot.
What else, Pears!
BTW what defines a ‘mascot’ is not just a single statue. It’s a number of them all over town, based on the same form, but with different paint schemes. We’ve seen as many as 20 in some areas.
Sometimes at night Jan just wants to read, and I’m doing something on the computer, so we just put the MyReef 3D aquarium on the screen. It’s an Android app that runs on our Firestick HD. It’s an animation, but looks real.
I paid, I think, $2.99, for the full version with more fish and more backgrounds. Very restful and soothing.
Thought For The Day:
Best friends are those who don’t say anything when you show up at their door with a dead body. They just grab a shovel and follow you.
