Daily Archives: April 16, 2022
An Onerous Task . . .
That turned out to be relatively easy.
Jan and I headed out for lunch about 12:30, after loading up the Jeep with a lot of winter stuff destined for the storeroom.
Lunch was at Yummy Yummy once again, our favorite local Chinese Buffet place.
We thought we’d lost it for a while when it closed down during the height of the virus stuff, and it was closed for almost 18 months. But when it finally reopened last September, we were there as soon as we heard it was back.
After Yummy’s we drove over to the big HEB on Hwy 96, hoping to get our weekly HEB visit out of the way.
Now being the day before Easter, we expected them to be busy, but not overflowing parking lot busy. So we came in one side and went out the other, without stopping.
Another day, I guess, but not tomorrow either. All HEB’s are closed on Easter.
Coming back toward Santa Fe, we got a closeup look at the new Amazon warehouse at the corner of Hwy 96 and FM1266. The gates were open, and it looked finished, but there was not a Prime truck in site.
With this one, and the one down on I-45 in La Marque, we now have two Amazon warehouses in our vicinity.
As it is right now, I ordered something at 2pm today, it was shipped at 4:15, and I got it at 8pm. If it gets much faster, I’ll be getting stuff before I even order it.
On our way back toward home we made a storeroom visit and dropped off two heaters, two large bags with our winter blankets, and my Rollator, which I haven’t used since Branson back in December. It’s nice to have that stuff out of the way. At least until next Fall.
The onerous task I mentioned was defrosting our freezer. And it turned out to be easier than I had hoped.
The last time our freezer was defrosted was in 2017 when a repair place in Louisiana turned off the rig’s 12 volt system to work on it, and did not turn it back on when they were finished. And without 12 volts, the gas function of the refrigerator doesn’t, well, refrigerate.
So we picked up a rig with a refrigerator with a lot of spoiled food in it.
But this time things worked out better.
We got a large Styrofoam Crawfish Cooler from HEB, as well as a couple of blocks of dry ice that they also sell.
At about 2 cu.ft. the cooler was large enough to hold everything from the freezer, with a dry ice block on the bottom. underneath the food, and another block on top. I also put a remote-read thermometer in there too.
At about -100°, the dry ice kept the food frozen solid for more than 24 hours. And by cold, I mean very cold.
Yes, that’s -38°. And it was down to –46 with the lid closed. A lot better than using bags of regular ice. And a lot less messy.
After we removed all the food, and turned the fridge off, we repeatedly heated up Corning Ware casserole dishes full of water in the microwave, placed them in the freezer and closed the door. After we did this 5 or 6 times, I was able to start using a plastic chisel to carefully help the defrosting along.
All told, the total job only took about 4 hours, with most of that just waiting for the hot water to speed things along.
Finishing up, I wiped everything down to dry it, and then then turned the fridge back on. At that point the fridge temp had only climbed up to 40°, not a problem.
Since the stuff in the cooler was staying nice and cold, we decided to let the freezer cool back down, so we waited until this morning to restock it.
Hopefully that’s done for another few years.
With Brandi and her family up in OK with Lowell’s parents, Jan and I are just doing lunch at Saltgrass for our Easter. I figured they might be pretty busy, so I made a reservation for 2pm.
Mmmm! Steak!
Thought For The Day:
TOMORROW: A mystical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored.
