Monthly Archives: August 2021
My Baby’s Back Home . . .
When I got home from dropping off Jan up at Brandi’s Thursday afternoon the park WiFi was down, so I switched over to our Verizon MiFi in the interim. And when it didn’t come back up in a couple of hours, I texted Rob the park owner.
He told me that they were doing some upgrades to the WiFi and it would be back up soon. And when it did, WOW!
Physically it went from this,
to this.
Plus the signal strength here in the coach jumped about 30%, and according to Speedtest.net the bandwidth went from about 10 Mbps to a little over 30. And a quick test showed me that unlike a couple of weeks ago, I can now stream 4K video with no buffering, jumping, or stuttering.
So, goodbye Starlink. For now, at least.
We were only looking at Starlink for more speed, but now we’ve got it . . .for free! So that will save us the $499 equipment cost, and the $99 per month once we get started.
So last night I put in for a refund on the $99 signup fee that I paid back in May, and they gave me no problem, and said my refund is on the way.
I was on the way up to Brandi’s in Katy a little after noon to pick up my lovely spouse. We had planned to eat lunch at Astor Farm to Table, but since we also planned on making our way over to Trader Joe’s at La Centerra afterwards. I decided that we should just eliminate a stop and have lunch first at the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria right across the street.
But it seems like everyone else had the same idea because we found a 30 to 45 minute wait. So we went back across the street and did our Trader Joe’s shopping while we waited. And as it turned out, we finished our shopping and still had about 15 minutes to wait for our table.
But luckily we already knew what we wanted so we were able to order immediately, starting with the Small House Salad. And the ‘Small’ part is an understatement. The Small Salad will easily feed 4 people. And we both had large servings and still had more than half to bring home for tomorrow.
Pizzawise, we started with a Medium (16”) The Don, which comes with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, and Meatballs. To which we add Bacon, Ham, and Mushrooms, our favorite ingredients.
And like the salad, we had plenty to bring home afterwards.
Coming home we ran in and out some really heavy downpours before getting home a little before 5pm.
Glad to have my Baby Back Home.
Thought For The Day:
I admit that my level of weirdness is above the national average, but I’m OK with that.
Toads and Hummingbirds . . .
Well, it looks like the hummingbird we thought we saw zip by while we were out on the patio was not just our imagination. While I was sitting out Friday morning before going into work, I saw one hovering by one of the day-old, closed-up hibiscus blossoms.
Just saw him for a couple of seconds before he flitted away, but he wasn’t very colorful, just kind of grayish. Too quick for me to get a photo, but hope he’ll be back.
A couple of days ago I mentioned our ‘frog pond’, basically a plate that catches the AC drip from the rig roof to be sure that the family of frogs we have living around the patio always has water.
Turns out that Chris and Linda have a resident frog in this water fountain.
Made from an old fireplug, it’s a neat feature for their backyard. But it seems like they’ve a frog who visits regularly for a swim.
Named Toad The Wet Sprocket, (Believe it or not, they’re still touring) Linda says he shows up every 3 or 4 days for a dip. She said Chris built a ramp to make it easier for him to get in and out.
This past Friday, tickets went on sale for this year’s Nutcracker Market, so I got us tickets for the first day, Thursday, November 11. So our busy November social calendar is filling up fast, with the Nutcracker Market on the 11th, the first Immersive Van Gogh on the 16th, the 2nd one on the 21st, and of course, Thanksgiving on the 25th.
And then that all segues into our Branson trip starting on the 5th of December. And with the Branson timeframe nailed down, we’re now talking about our next trip and our next, next trip.
For our next trip, having had two Alaskan Cruises cancelled out from under us, and all the uncertainty re: cruises, vaccinations, and people still getting the WuFlu anyway, we’re thinking seriously about just flying to Fairbanks next May, renting a car, and spending a couple of weeks checking out all the places around the state we liked when we spent 5 months up there in 2008.
And then for the next, next trip, Jan has always wanted to do a New England Fall Foliage tour, so we’re thinking about flying up there for a week or so in late September – early October next year. So a lot in the works.
I’ll be heading up to Katy about noon tomorrow to bring Jan back home from her weekend dog-sitting caper. Probably eat lunch at Astor Farm to Table again before we head back down this way.
Can’t wait.
Thought For The Day:
And I thought we had it bad when I had to walk 5 miles to school.
Uphill.
Both ways.
In the snow.
These are kids crossing a river on a pulley line to get to school in Italy in 1959.
