To A ‘T’ . . .
Work today was pretty quiet for a change, so I was able to catch up on a bunch of little things that had been stacking up. And after today, I don’t go back to work until Thursday, since my client will be out of town Thursday and Friday, and he doesn’t want Jennifer there alone all day.
How did I not know this?
A new keyboard shortcut has been showing up online, and I wonder how I never heard of it.
Ever close a tab in your browser and then wish you hadn’t. Just use Ctrl-Shift-T and it will pop back up. And every time you do it again, the next last one will pop up. And so on, and so on. Check it out.
I’m still discovering things about my new BeHear NOW Hearing Assistants. One of the most unusual is the EasyListen mode. Though I haven’t had a chance to try it out, it allows you to slow down the speech you hear on a phone call. It has four settings: Normal, Slow, Slower, and Slowest. It will be interesting to hear what it sounds like in action.
They also have 4 microphones, one on each of the two earpieces, and one on each of the two control stalks. This apparently makes it easier to filter out background noise.
And it seems that several of our readers have taken advantage of the $75 discount code ‘blowou80’ to order them a set.
BTW the reason these are called Hearing Assistants and not Hearing Aids is that ‘hearing aids’ are regulated and licensed by the FDA. Which is why they cost a lot more.
Tomorrow is my 2nd Physical Therapy session, from 1 to 2 pm. Don’t know if I’ll get any new exercises, or just keep doing the original 4 that I started with.
Finishing up, I came across this stunning photo of San Francisco . . . in 1885!
I guess the giveaway on the date is . . . no cars.
Thought for the Day:
In 1969, we built the C-5A, a transport plane whose cargo bay was large enough to accommodate the entire first flight of the Wright brothers only 66 years before.
Athens, AL
July 18, 2010
Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer…
Today started off with coffee and a relaxing morning enjoying the RV life. Then about 2:15 pm we left for my Uncle Theo and Aunt Virginia’s house to go to lunch about 20 miles away in Huntsville, AL at Macaroni Grill. We had a good meal and a great time getting together with them.
Getting back to their house, we said our goodbyes and left with some of Virginia’s delicious banana bread, and a fresh-made peach cream pie.
Theo and Virginia Calvin
Getting back to the rig, we left the pie in the fridge and drove next door to Ed and Jan’s to get together for some watermelon in the gazebo.
These two cuties are my 2nd cousins, Stahlie and Darby. They’re home-schooled and speak 3 languages, including Russian. Their father Wes manages the RV park here.
This young man is Luke, Stahlie and Darby’s younger brother. Behind him is his mother, Helen.
And this little ball of fire is Harlan.
About 7 pm we said good night and goodbye to everyone and headed back to the coach.
We had a great time here in Athens, catching up with the family. We definitely look forward to seeing everyone again next year.
Tomorrow we head north to Louisville, KY about 250 miles away. We’ll there for 8 days that includes attending The Rally, the largest RV rally in the country.
July 18, 2011
Another Wild Moose Chase . . .
Today is our last full day in Columbia Falls, and today’s the day we’re doing Glacier National Park. And if you’re not into hiking, biking, or rowing, the main thing to do in Glacier is to make the 50 mile ‘Going to the Sun’ Highway drive.
So after coffee at 9:30 we headed out about noon, first for some errands and then out into the Park.
And after getting gas and dropping off some mail at the Post Office, our first stop was at The Huckleberry Patch in Hungry Horse.
Around since 1949, it’s supposed to the be the best place in the area to get Huckleberry Pie. And after really good sandwiches, we decided ‘they’ were right. The pie was delicious . . . ala mode, of course.
After lunch we drove the 10 miles to the entrance to the park at West Glacier.
And after getting our National Park Passports stamped at the Visitors Center, we started our drive.
Most of the trip was along the shores of one of the several large lakes in the area.
This is the boat launch area on Lake McDonald at Apgar Village.
More Lake McDonald.
These next shots are of the rapids along McDonald Creek.
What about bears?
More beautiful scenery.
These next two shots are of Heaven’s Peak at almost 8900 feet.
Needless to say, there are glaciers everywhere you look.
We saw a number of these neat old tour buses around the park. Note the ‘natural’ air conditioning. Also fun when passing by the many waterfalls along the side of the road.
More glaciers.
Coming over the top of Logan Pass, at 6664 feet, the high point of our drive, we came across our first wildlife, these two mountain goats, and
this Big Horn Sheep.
And then of course, more glaciers.
Nearing the end of our 50 mile journey, we passed St. Mary Lake. Very blue.
Leaving the park, and rather than just turn around and come back the same way, we decided to take the long way home by taking US-89 south to MT 49 to US-2. And although it’s the long way back at 100 miles, it’s also a little faster because it’s not bumper to bumper through mountain passes like the Sun Highway.
And we got to see new scenery, like these high rolling plains at almost 5500 feet.
And Lower Two Medicine Lake.
About 45 miles from home, we saw this sign and had to stop. I mean, do they lick us, or do we lick them, like toad licking. Enquiring minds, and all that.
Turns out there was no licking, but we did see a lot of goats.
This guy’s losing his coat. Wonder if he’s cashmere?
Among a lot of others, saw this mother with two kids.
Getting back into Columbia Falls about 8 pm we decided to try The Nite Owl once more, since they should have their Broasted Chicken this time of night. And they did. And it was really good.
Tomorrow we head out for Garrison, MT for one night, and then on to Billings for one night, and then to Cody for 5 nights or more.
And once again, Jan has gone mooseless.
July 18, 2013
Vegas on the Dells . . .
Today is our last day here in the Wisconsin Dells and we pretty much did nothing all day, just taking it easy.
I did redo the ground connection on the charge wire that keeps the toad battery charged while we’re towing it behind the rig. Everything was working fine until I had my Blue Ox Aventa Tow Bar rebuilt at the recent Escapade in Gillette, WY. I noticed when the tech was working on it, he added new Teflon washers in the ball joint and I’m thinking that was enough insulation to keep the tow bar from acting as the ground connection between the toad and the rig. So now I’ve done a separate wire to fix the problem.
I hope.
About 7 pm Jan and I headed into the Dells to have our last dinner here at Famous Dave’s BBQ. We’ve only got a few more weeks in Famous Dave’s territory and want to get in a few more meals.
As usual we had a great meal and got a bread pudding dessert to go. Free this time due to taking a online survey. Neat.
The Dells kind of reminds me of Vegas with all the out-sized attractions around town.
This is “Top Secret”, an overgrown version of those roadside ‘Mystery Houses” that you see in some areas.
Then there’s another large area with a Greco-Roman theme, complete with a Trojan Horse,
and a Roman Coliseum.
And here’s one of the smaller of the many waterparks in the area. They even have a number of very large indoor waterparks.
Leaving Famous Dave’s, the sun had gone down so we spent some time driving around checking out all the lights on the attractions. Again, like a Vegas, Jr.
Tomorrow, after getting diesel, we’ll head north about 230 miles to the Island Casino in Wilson, MI. Then on Saturday we’ll be Sault Sainte Marie for a week, an area we’ve never visited and are really looking forward to seeing.
Leaving Fort Smith, AR
July 18, 2015
I Miss Arizona . . .
Today turned out to be kind of a comedy of errors as we traveled to West Memphis, AR and Tom Sawyer RV Park. We had planned to leave about 9:00 but things started going wrong pretty early.
As I was setting up, I found the fuse had blown that powers the 12V sockets on the dashboard. So this meant that my Brake Buddy Alert Receiver and the small inverter that runs my computer weren’t working. So I went to the drawer where my 20amp fuses are supposed to be, and NO fuses at all, much less 20’s. So I can plug my laptop into the house power since we’ll be running the genset to keep things cool, but I’ll have to do without my Brake Buddy Alert.
By now it was about 10 after 9am, not too late, so I cranked up and started bringing the levelers up. While Jan was running the slide in, I turned the AC’s off and started up the genset, and since we were still on shore power, the transfer switch did its thing and we were now gen power. Then after the genset had warmed up a bit, I turned the AC’s back on.
By now the levelers should have been up, but when I checked the panel, it showed them still down. So it was outside to see what the problem was.
And boy, was it a problem.
When I backed into our site, there was one of those concrete parking lot barriers at the back of the site to keep you from going back too far. So to be sure that we had room in front of the rig to park the truck, I put my rear wheels right against the barrier and let my levelers come down right behind the barriers, clearing the barrier by over an inch.
But somehow there was enough movement in the rig during the two nights we were there that one of the leveler pads ended up under the edge of the barrier. So when I brought up the levelers, it actually picked up the concrete barrier on one side.
I didn’t know they had that much power. Down, yes. But not up.
This was what was keeping the levelers from coming all the way up. So now I had to let the levelers back down, and then crawl under the rear of the rig and maneuver that honking big piece of concrete off the pad. Getting that done, I was happy to see that my levelers now came up just fine. So after all that, by the time I got us hooked up to the truck, it was now 9:40. But at least we were on the way.
But at this point, I decided I miss Arizona. Even though it was only about 85 degrees outside, with the humidity, my shirt was now soaking wet. 10% humidity would be nice.
The trip was pretty smooth until we were about 50 miles outside West Memphis and then the road went to crap. And that included the rest areas As we were pulling out of one, there was about a 6 inch drop in the pavement just as we got on the entrance ramp back onto I-40, that shook us down to our fillings.
And as I found a few minutes later, it also popped open one of our bay doors, as I was quickly informed by passerby’s. So I had to pull over on the shoulder to close the bay door. Luckily nothing had fallen out.
Then about 5 more miles down the road, there was another big pothole that I couldn’t dodge. And this one caused the genset to shut off. It started right back up, but with our transfer switch problem, and no shore power, it wouldn’t switch over.
So again I had to pulled over, go back and lift the bed, and manually switch the transfer switch over to the genset. I’ll be glad when we’re in one place long enough to get this replaced.
We finally pulled into the Tom Sawyer RV Park a little after 3pm. I’m really glad we had reservations, because 2/3’s of the park is under water due to all the rain. In fact there was a cardboard sign taped to the big sign out on the highway that said. “No Vacancy. If you don’t have a reservation, don’t bother.”
I’ll finish up tomorrow with our great visit to Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous, one of the best BBQ places in Memphis.
Colorado River Thousand Trails
July 18, 2016
Merlin and MECO . . .
It turns out that there are a lot of ‘closet’ Murdoch Mysteries fans out there. I’m just disappointed that it took Jan and I so long to discover it.
It’s a really fun show and we’re happy to see that we’re only watching Season 4 right now, while they’re presently filming Season 10. So we’ve got a while to go.
I’ve penciled in tomorrow evening around 7:30 to do the initial prep work for my AC evaporator coil cleaning on the roof unit. I’m going to remove the 4 bolts that hold down the shroud, and the 4 remaining screws holding the evaporator sheet metal on. Only 4 here because didn’t put all the rest back in before.
I’ll also pull the hose and spray nozzle up there so all I to do Wednesday morning is uncover the AC, mask off the air return opening and then start spraying and cleaning the coil. Then I’ll use the spray hose to rinse it all off.
I plan to do all this Wednesday morning before it gets too hot, as it still should be in the high 70’s – low 80’s then so not too bad.
I hope.
We had originally planned to go to the Fayette County Country Music Opry up in La Grange, after eating at the nearby Whataburger. But Jan was a little under weather this afternoon, so we didn’t do the Opry. But just because she was a little sickish, didn’t mean she didn’t still want Whataburger.
So around 4:30 I drove into Columbus to pick up dinner at that one. And this time they actually got the order correct. Delicious as usual.
But as I was leaving the park, I discovered I have another AC problem, this time in the truck. The AC blower is dead.
Hopefully it’s just a fuse, since I replaced both the control resistor pack and the blower motor last year. I guess it could possibly be the control knob itself, but if that were the case, probably only one speed would be affected, not all.
So I’ll check it out tomorrow.
Wrapping up for today, I thought I’d post this amazing long-exposure shot of the recent SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch to the International Space Station.
The straight line on the left is the rocket launch itself, disappearing through the clouds. I haven’t been able to find out what the bright spot near the top is.
The Falcon 9 doesn’t do a post Max-Q throttle up like the Shuttle did, and I think it’s too early for the MECO (Main Engine Cut Off) and 2nd stage ignition. So I don’t know and Google hasn’t helped.
At the very top, to the right of the main track, you will see a couple of small streaks. That is the Re-entry Burn of the 1st stage as it moves out of the way of the 2nd stage engines and sets up its return as it now heads back to Earth for landing.
The 1st stage free-falls for 6 to 8 minutes, depending on launch angle, and then the landing burn initiates, which is where the burn restarts in the photo, all the way down to a soft landing.
Previously I’ve posted a video of the Falcon 9 1st stage soft landing on a barge out in the Atlantic. The barge landings will be necessary depending on the launch angle needed to reach the correct orbit. Under some conditions, the 1st stage won’t have enough fuel to reach the land-based touchdown point. So then they’ll use the barge.
One other neat thing about the 1st stage is that it uses 9 (Yes, 9! ) Merlin 1D engines. And these are powerful enough so that even if two engines fail along the way, the rocket can still make orbit and complete its mission. You gotta love redundancy.
Lake Conroe Thousand Trails
July 18, 2017
Unintended Consequences . . .
Well, we did finally leave the rig today for dinner and a little shopping.
We headed out about 4:15 to first eat at the Golden Corral down on I-45. Jan had been ‘jonsing’ for some fried chicken, and GC has some of the best.
I like the fact that I can get a little of everything.
Afterwards we looped back around to the Home Depot so I could pick up some Plexiglass sheets to construct the air deflector for our rig’s AC cover. Hopefully it will redirect the airflow over the AC so it cools better while we’re on the road.
Then it was a quick stopover at the Kroger’s for a few things and then home.
Recently I’ve been thinking about unintended consequences and their effect on our lives. And what happens when they backfire.
You know, like in British Colonial India when the government started offering a bounty for dead cobras, hoping to reduce the deadly population. For a while it worked . . . until people started breeding cobras so they could turn them in for the reward.
Then when the government scrapped the program, all of the now-worthless cobras were released, resulting in more cobras in the wild than they were to start with.
Oops!
Or when in 1859 an Australian imported 24 wild rabbits from England and released them into the countryside so he could hunt them. But apparently they could make new bunnies faster than he could shoot them, because by the 1920’s, less than 70 years later the population was estimated to be over 10 billion bunnies. That’s BILLION, with a B.
By the 1890’s they had devastated over 2.5 million acres of Australia. Today, due to heavy eradication efforts, the rabbit population numbers around 200 million.
What’s up, doc?
Another example, as I mentioned in my Trinity Site blog post the other day, are the Oryx antelope that were imported to the White Sand area of New Mexico in the late 70’s.
The original 93 have grown to over 5000, more than there in the Kalahari desert where they came from. And since they have no natural predators (lions) here, they too are tuning into real pests.
Going back in history, those of you close to my age probably remember ‘freak’ shows at the traveling carnivals that came to town. Every carnival had one, or sometimes two. That way they could charge you twice.
Modern freak shows really originated with P.T. Barnum in the 1840’s when he introduced Gen. Tom Thumb to the public.
Tom, aka Charles Stratton, who ironically was a distant cousin of Barnum’s, became very wealthy over the years, making as much as $4000 a week in today’s dollars.
Or how about The Dog-Faced Boy, who during the 1880’s was making the equivalent of $13,000 a week.
In more modern times they even had their own town in Florida. Gibsonton, about 20 minutes south of Tampa was home to hundreds of freak show performers who lived there when they weren’t traveling. They lived in very nice houses, drove Cadillac’s, and had nice lives.
At least until the 50’s – 70’s when do-gooder’s took it all away. Citing ‘discrimination’ and ‘exploitation of the disabled’, they got laws passed restricting the shows, and then shutting them down, apparently to save them from themselves.
And as a result, many ‘freaks’, who previously had nice lives and incomes, died in destitution, in some cases, while living on the streets.
Or how about Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act.
Sounds great, right.
Take down all the billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising along our Interstates, giving us pristine views of green, rolling hills and landscapes. What could be wrong with that?
Well, nothing, unless you were a billboard company that went out of business and had to lay off all your employees, or a landowner whose main income was from the billboards erected on their land.
But the big hit was to all the mom and pop businesses off the Interstates. The many restaurants, motels, gas stations, and even roadside attractions started withering away when no one knew they were out there. Thousands went out of business across the country,
And it wasn’t much better for the travelers.
Was there a gas station at this exit, or a motel? Or maybe at the next one?
This is why we now have those signs at the exits listing food, lodging, and gas available at each exit. So we went from a billboard or two 50 yards right off the highway, to one or more right in our face at the exit.
Not exactly a big improvement.
I’ll continue this topic tomorrow, with more current examples. Stay tuned.
July 18, 2019
Just As Funny Now . . .
We’re caught with all the orders except for ones waiting on product to come in. We were supposed to have a big shipment of electrolysis needles this morning but they didn’t show up. Hopefully tomorrow.
Next Prime Day I guess I need to look through the ads a little more closely. Apparently there were some pricing ‘errors’ listing a bunch of very expensive cameras and accessories.
Like a $13,000 lens for $94.48. You can see how it’s back at $13,000 on Amazon – Canon Telephoto Lens
You can read more about all the deals here on the PetaPixel website. It seems like some people were just stuffing their cart full as fast as they could until the deals were shut down.
For my part I’m not exactly sure that these are mistakes, especially since they seemed to only occur in the Camera area. Seems like they would be randomly scattered around the product lines.
No, I suspect this is a marketing ploy by Amazon to hype Prime Day sales, getting people to scramble through the site looking for other ‘mistakes’, and of course, coming across other ‘deals’ they just have to have.
A couple of days ago we came across the very first episode of the Beverly Hillbillies on BEST, channel 268 on DirecTV. And it’s just as funny now as it was in 1962. You just couldn’t help laughing.
When the Clampett’s drove into our living rooms in their 1921 Oldsmobile, they were pretty much hated by the critics, who said it was “strained and unfunny.” and “painful to sit through.” But the public went head over heels for it.
By the sixth episode it was the number one TV show in the country and mostly stayed that way for the next 10 years. And two episodes from1964 are listed as the 2nd and 4th most watched episodes of the entire decade. And the 2nd one, “The Giant Jackrabbit”, about an escaped kangaroo of course, is ranked as one most watched half hour episodes ever on TV.
Even the theme song ended up as a No. 1 hit.
But the show, still in the top five, was canceled when “The Great Rural Purge” swept through CBS in 1971, ending shows such as “Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., Lassie, Hogan’s Heroes and The Jim Nabors Hour.” as well as Beverly Hillbillies.
Many of which were still in the top ten show list.
The reason given was that advertisers wanted more hip, sophisticated shows like MASH and Mary Tyler Moore. Of course you would think that if that were true, the public wouldn’t have been watching them.
But the inside scoop in the industry was a little different. As the story goes, the wife of the president of CBS hated the fact that her elitist friends teased her about her husband’s ‘Countrified’ network. So she demanded that he get rid of all of those ‘hick’ shows and put on something more ‘cultured and refined’.
Ahhh. What somebody will do for true love. Or at least to get his wife to stop nagging him.
And the cancellation of the Hillbillies didn’t seem to slow Buddy Ebsen down at all, since he was right back on the air in 1972, starring as Barnaby Jones.
July 18, 2020
A Day Trip To The Island . . .
Jan’s been wanting to do a Galveston Day Trip and today seemed like a good day for it. So we headed out about 1pm with our first stop the Sunflower Bakery and & Café on 14th St, our go-to brunch place on the island.
We eaten here a number of times over the years, usually with our kids, but also with friends. It’s always good and it’s always busy, with a wait on weekends.
But not today, which I assume was WuFlu-related. They were busy, with most of the tables full, but rather than cordon off every other table, it looks like they just removed half the tables to meet the rules.
Since this was a special trip we started out with Mimosas, with Jan showing off her new Viking dragon shirt.
Jan got the Small Breakfast with Fruit instead of the Fried Breakfast Potatoes,
while I got the Migas, with Three Eggs Scrambled With Tortilla Strips, Onion, Tomato, Jalapeño, And Cheddar Cheese With Fruit, Beans And Flour Tortillas.
Very, very good. Especially the Mimosas, which we both agreed had more than their normal share of Champagne in them. Really strong. But good.
And before we left we had to pick up a couple of their fantastic Wedding Cookies for each of us. It is a bakery after all.
After that delicious meal, we drove up and down a number of streets looking at all old homes, some completely redone, some in-work, and some badly in need of help. But all interesting.
One thing we did notice was that Galveston now has their own animal mascot. Over the years as we traveled we’ve seen porpoises, bears, pelicans, mermaids, moose, pronghorn antelopes, and a javelina mother and baby.
And so we’ve got Galveston’s Sea Turtles.
Really neat.
After Jan finished critiquing all the home color schemes she didn’t like, (and she was right. Some of them are down-right hideous.) we drove down along the seawall a good ways until we finally lucked on parking space on the ocean, and just sat and enjoyed the views.
Finally about 4:30 we started home after a really nice, fun day.
July 18, 2021
Astor or Astro?
Jan and I were on the road up to Katy about 10:45 to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at the new location of Astor Farm To Table.
This is a big upgrade from their former location, believe me.
Jan got their Fresh Strawberry Salad with Grilled Chicken.
I got the Cowboy Omelet with pretty much everything in it, except the African Goat Curry.
Lowell got the Croissant Eggs Benedict with Roasted Potatoes.
One thing that was kind of funny was the name of the restaurant that showed up on my PayPal debit card usage email,.
“You paid ASTRO FARM TO TABLE using your debit card.”
So it looks that when the restaurant owner switched the ‘O’ and the ‘R’ when he was entering the name into the credit card system, so ASTOR became ASTRO.
Getting down to Galveston we were lucky enough to find a parking spot in a lot right across the street from the 1894 Grand Opera, and as I said yesterday, we were required to wear a mask both in the lobby and in the theater itself.
But even with the masks being worn, the theater was still ‘social distancing’. Or at least that’s what it looked like.
All the seats were socially distance, with the red covers dividing up the blue, usual seats. In fact it looked like less than half the total seats were actually available.
Jan and I really enjoyed seeing Yakov Smirnoff yesterday afternoon. Not only is his stuff really funny, but it makes you think.
He started saying that he grew up in the communist, socialist Soviet Union where the government was so restrictive and controlling that they told you where you could live, who you could live with, where you could work, where you could travel, where you could eat, who you could eat with, and what you had to wear.
And then he said, “Oh, wait”
That got the biggest laugh and applause of the show.
The performance lasted about 90 minutes with no intermission, and afterwards, Yakov came out to the lobby and signed autographs and posed for pictures. Though with everyone wearing a mask, you could have been having your photo taken with just about anyone, and just said it was with Yakov, I guess.
Being on the far side of the theater exit, by the time Jan and I got to the lobby, there was a very long line waiting to see him, so we left for our Saltgrass dinner reservation.
And to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, it seems that when the Galveston Saltgrass Steakhouse takes a reservation, they keep the reservation. This is the 3rd time that we’ve had a reservation down there during a very busy time, and we’ve also been seated within a couple of minutes of our arrival. And I always ask for a window table, if possible, and we’ve always gotten one.]
Since I’ve posted photos of our steaks previously, I won’t do it again. But everything was as delicious as always.
Thought For The Day:
