Daily Archives: September 16, 2022
Nothing Much . . .
Happened Today. So just our reruns.
Thought For The Day:
This is called Irony.
September 16, 2009
Canada, Oh, Canada…
Today we headed back into Canada for a few days on our way to Rome, NY and Niagara Falls.
We could have gone back by staying in the States, but going through Canada was only about 50 miles further.
So why not?
About 9:30 am we drove the truck down to have breakfast at our favorite Big Stop truck stop and then by 11:15 we were back there with the rig filling up with diesel. While we were in Canada last week I just put enough in to get us back to the States since diesel is about $1 more a gallon there.
We put in 102 gallons for $280 and by 11:30 we were on our way up US 1.
We were heading toward Quebec and the town of Notre Dame du Lac (Our Lady of the Lake) about 150 miles away.
One of the things we wanted to do was to drive to the end of US 1 in Fort Kent, ME, since we had been in Key West, FL at US 1’s Mile Marker 0, and although we didn’t travel all of US 1 between FL and ME, we did travel a lot of it.
Here is the photo I took of Mile Marker 0 in Key West.
And here is the other end in Fort Kent, ME.
And then about a block past the end of US 1 we took a right turn across the Rue Ferry bridge and we were back in New Brunswick, Canada.
Customs took about 10 minutes and we were on our way. And about 12 miles later we entered the province of Quebec for the first time. Then an hour later we pulled into our park in Notre Dame du Lac.
This may be the most beautiful site we’ve been in so far. We’re parked on a bluff overlooking a lake.
And Mister really enjoys the view too.
After we puttered for a while we headed to find a place to eat. We drove about 6 miles north to the town of Cabano and found a nice-looking restaurant called ‘Bistro du Duc’ or ‘Duke’s Bistro’.
Our waitress didn’t speak much English and I don’t speak much French. Spanish and German are more my thing. But we did get our order OK. We ordered the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce and it was really good.
One thing I’ve noticed is that in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, pretty much all signs, I.e. traffic signs, street signs, billboards, etc., are in both English and French. However that apparently doesn’t work both ways.
Here in Quebec, everything is in French, with no English at all. Even Stop Signs say ‘Arret’, and not ‘Stop’.
We saw this last year too, going through Canada to Alaska. All of the English TV channels had French subtitles and/or French audio subchannels.
But the French language channels had no English translations whatsoever. When I mentioned this to a waitress in Whitehorse last year, she just laughed and said “You’ve noticed that, have you”.
Getting back to the rig, I got the satellite set up and Jan and I just enjoyed the view. By then it was starting to get a little chilly, so we went in for the night.
Tomorrow we will head for Quebec City about 150 miles away.
September 16, 2010
Great Sunset . . .
Not much going on today.
After a lazy morning of coffee and conversation, we left about 12:30 to head over to Brandi’s. Jan was going to Landon-sit while Brandi took a nap.
After dropping Jan off I headed out to check on new tires for the truck. I checked out three different places, and I’ll go back to NTB tomorrow to get them installed.
I told Jan I’d give her two hours of private Landon time before I came back, so to kill a little more time, I stopped off at Starbucks to get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte and catch up on some reading.
Getting back to Brandi’s about 3 pm, I got in some Landon bottle feeding time and even got a couple of good burps out of him.
About 3:30 pm we headed back to the rig, stopping off at La Brisa on SH 146 in Bacliff for dinner. I had their great Chicken Tortilla Soup and Jan had the Shrimp Nachos.
We got back to the rig about 5:30 and settled in for the night. A little later we got to enjoy this great sunset.
This shot in the other direction shows lights from the many refineries in Texas City.
More tomorrow…
September 16, 2011
RV Surplus and Bob Evans . . .
I got up a little early this morning, about 9:30, so I could go over to the RV/MH Hall of Fame and pick up one of the computers that I’m installing so I can get all the bloatware taken off, and everything else set up.
Getting back to the rig, I made coffee and then got started on the computer setup. I was immediately impressed by the speed of this Acer mini-Tower. I have a 2 year old version of this model, and the difference is extreme. I normally upgrade my computer every two years, so this looks good.
A 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 4GB of RAM, a 1 TB HD, DVD drive, and HD 5.1 Audio. Not bad for under $400.
One thing I found out in ordering these computers is that Amazon has a purchase limit.
I tried to order 5 computers, but they would only let me purchase 4, even though I was trying to do it on 3 separate orders. When I inquired about how to know how many I could buy, I was told to check the ‘Quantity’ dropdown box right above the ‘Add to Cart’ button on the item page. The max quantity shown in the dropdown box is how many you can buy every 7 days, in this case, 4.
But apparently, the weekly quantity varies from item to item. Amazon will sell me 99 of the LCD monitor that I ordered, and will even sell me 999 of the Kindle that I bought this week, but only 4 computers. Go figure.
About 12:30 I headed out on some errands to the bank and then to RV Surplus to pick up some supplies.
Later in the afternoon I finished up the computer setup. I’ll take it back tomorrow morning.
A little after 5pm Jan and I headed out to Bob Evans for supper. And as usual we had another great meal, and then we split a Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert. YUM!
Just as we were finishing up, our daughter Brandi called with the latest Landon story.
It seems that last week while he eating lunch at his daycare. they had a fire drill. And after a few minutes later when they had all the kids outside, someone noticed that Landon was still holding his fork. Apparently he thought that wherever they were going, there’d be food there, and he was going to be ready. That’s my grandson.
About 8:30 Chris Yust called with a computer problem. Chris said to bring the ‘pretty one’, too.
But the ‘pretty one’ was already in her jammies and dozing off, so it was just the ‘not so pretty one’ who went over. It was a great time with a lot of laughter. A great way to round out a day.
September 16, 2012
Short and Sweet . . .
Not much happened today. We had planned to do some more sightseeing, but Jan still wasn’t feeling too great. Her voice is slowly coming back, but her stomach is still bothering her.
I worked on some computer stuff and then spent some time in the afternoon outside working on replacing the chrome tailpipe on our coach. The old one started rusting out so I ordered a new one to replace it.
But the problem is that so far I can’t get the old one off. I got the clamp off, but so far the pipe won’t come loose. I tried prying up the flanges and spraying PB Blaster into the gap and letting it soak. Then I tried banging on it with both a rubber mallet and a piece of pipe, all with no luck. Probably tomorrow I’ll dig my torch out and try heating up the outside of it. Hopefully that will loosen it up. We’ll see how it goes.
About 5 Jan was feeling better so we headed back over to Greensburg IN to once again have dinner at Chili’s. Then after dinner we drove across the road to do some Wal-Marting.
While we were shopping, Brandi called so we could talk with Landon. He’s only about 25 months old and you can carry on a conversation with him. He said he loved Nana and Papa (us) and that he’d played outside today.
On the way home we stopped for gas at a Marathon station. Seems like after helping them get the oil out of the ground for 4 months this summer, we’d get a discount, but no luck.
September 16, 2014
It’s A Three Holer . . .
Got some interesting news today about our rig. Well, the rig right in front of us. We have another rig right down the road. And two more right up the road, for that matter. But those two are not ours, I.e. not behind our gate.
Anyway our rig is a 3 holer!
No, not like an outhouse. Well, maybe, kinda. In that 3 holes are involved.
No, what this means is that they’re going to drill 3 separate wells on the same pad here. And amazingly, they do it by dragging the drill rig 25 feet until it’s over the new drill hole. And in a couple of weeks they’re gonna do it again.
When the rig was first erected, it was done on big steel plates. And when the time comes to move it, they grease up the plates, hook up two big honkin’ cranes like this one,
and just drag the 100 ton rig to its new location, using the two cranes to both pull it and steer it.
When we were following a Marathon/H&P rig down in the Eagle Ford area in 2012, they did this on our rig. And the nice thing about it was we got a couple of days off while it was going on. But since we have multiple pads here, we won’t have that luxury this time.
A few days ago, I started working with the Gate Guard Logging program that I wrote last year while we were on our frac gate.
Right now I’m just using to set up a database of everyone who comes through our gate, I.e. name, company, and tag number. This is all the info we need, other than how many people are with him, and where he’s going, which can change with every visit. The program is capable of logging people in and out, but I’m not using that function right now. I’ll talk about that in a later blog.
Right now it’s running on my laptop, but it would be easy to convert to an Android tablet like a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and use it instead of paper logs. I know some companies are using iPads for this, so we’ll see how it works out.
September 16, 2015
Christmas in September . . .
Well, Mister continues to improve every day. He’s less restless and his hunger is more controlled. The vet said to bring him back in 10 days, which will be next Thursday so I guess we’ll know more then.
I do want to thank everyone who left comments about their experiences with their cat’s similar problems, especially those who’re using the cheaper human insulin on their cats. I’m definitely going to check this out.
When I came out at 11 this morning with our coffee, I found Christmas had come early this year. There were 3 big Amazon boxes waiting for me. I’d given up trying to find a local place to send my orders to, so I ask our landowner’s son and he said he’d be glad to. I offered to pick them up from him, but he said he came out here almost every day, so it was no problem.
First off, I got a bunch of repair parts, the new thermostat for our water heater,
the new LED bulb for our shower,
the new connector for our sewer,
and a new ball and shaft for our toilet.
I’ve already installed the LED light and the sewer connector, and I’ll do the thermostat tomorrow morning, but unfortunately the toilet repair will probably have to wait.
A couple of weeks ago the foot flush lever on our Sealand toilet went limp and stopped flushing. At first I thought it was the spring cartridge had broken so I got a new one (for $30!) and quickly found that it wasn’t the problem.
I finally figured what the problem was after looking at replacement parts online. I noticed that the online parts had a square brass shaft, but my shaft was plastic. It looks like that over time, the sharp corners on the square shaft had rounded off until it was just turning inside the spring cartridge and not moving the ball. So for the last few weeks we’ve been flushing the toilet with a pair of Vice Grip pliers on the plastic shaft.
But right now I’m not sure I will be able to change things out while we’re on the gate. The toilet will need to come completely apart, since I want to also clean the entire thing, and the replace the seals as well as the ball and shaft assembly. Which is all going to take several hours or more, and that’s hard to find while we’re on the gate.
So we’ll see how long the pliers work. Hopefully until we’re off the gate.
I also ordered one of these.
It’s a Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm. We had another brand for a couple of years, but it was kind of finicky, and finally died. We didn’t use one last year due to where we were located on a road with private homes, but this year it would be nice.
A number of other gate guards have recommended this one, so I thought I’d give it a try. It also didn’t hurt, that at $60, it’s half the price of the other one.
I quickly got it set up and took it down the road and place it where the trucks first come into view around the curve. It’s at least 400 feet, and it works great. I’ll probably order a second one to monitor the trucks leaving the pad and coming our way.
But the best thing in the boxes, and my new favorite toy ever, is an Amazon Echo.
But more about it tomorrow.
September 16, 2016
Three Neats and Two Peeves . . .
First up, Piper had surgery on her recently-broken arm this morning, and everything went fine.
Don’t know yet how long she’ll have to have her cast on, but if it’s like it was when she broke it two years ago, she’s also looking at several months of physical therapy with it.
That hurts just looking at it.
I put in a call to Colaw RV Salvage outside Carthage, MO this morning trying to locate a new (used, but new to me) screen door latch for our rig. As I mentioned, American Coach no longer stocks them, so Colaw’s was my next bet.
The guy muttered for a few minutes and then said that he didn’t have them in stock. So I reminded him that out in his back lot, he has an American Eagle (like ours) and an American Dream, both of our vintage, and could he please have someone check to see if there is one still on the door jam of either coach.
He was kind of curious how I knew that they had those two, so I told we’d been there and bought parts off the Eagle, and that several body panels for our blowout repair last year came off it too. He said he’d have someone check it out and get back to me, but I haven’t heard anything yet.
My Plan B on this is to have my son Chris bend me one up out of aluminum stock and drill a couple of holes in it, but I’ll wait to hear from Colaw’s first.
If you haven’t been to Colaw’s, you need stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.
The rig’s out front are for sale, but in back are hundreds of wreck/burnt RV’s. They have golf carts for you to drive around back there, and maps to show you what rigs are where. Neat!
I’m really liking our new Samsung TV more and more, and I’m still discovering all the neat stuff it can do. I spent a while this morning playing around with it, trying different things, the first of which was the Screen Mirroring function.
Any it only took about 10 seconds to have my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 displaying on the TV screen.
Not exactly sure what I’ll use it for, but it is neat.
Another neat thing is that you can never lose the manual. It’s built right into the TV. Just hit the ‘E-Manual’ button on the remote and there it is on the screen. You can search through it, scroll through it, however you want. Another neat.
Of course, you can also download a computer copy if you want, which brings me to my first peeve. When you download the manual file, this is what you get.
ENG-US-NMATSCJ-1.104-0410.pdf
Why in the He . . . Heck can’t what it’s for be in the file name? Not only can’t you tell what model of TV it’s for, you can’t even tell it’s FOR a TV, period.
I see this all time when downloading manuals and such, and there’s no excuse for it. Depending on your directory path length, you’ve got a couple of hundred characters to play with.
Why can’t it be something like –
SAMSUNG_SMART_TV_5200_ENG-US-NMATSCJ-1.104-0410.pdf?
That’s got something for everyone, and I don’t have to rename it. Otherwise I won’t remember what the file is for next week, much less in six months.
Now on to peeve two. The remote is too small for the number of buttons it has.
Count-wise it has a few more buttons than our DirecTV remote, but it’s a good bit smaller. Plus the up, down, right, left arrow function needs to be separated out somewhat so that it’s easier to find in dim light.
The buttons are just too small and too jammed together, so it’s not a very ergonomic design. They should have taken a cue from the DirecTV one. It’s much more user-friendly.
After two fairly busy days on the gate, today we only had 42 vehicles come through. So that was nice, but of course to balance it out, at 95 degrees it was kind of hot. It’s looks like our Fall weather that was forecast last week, with highs in the low 80’s and lows in the high 60’s went back into hiding, since we’re now looking at low to mid 90’s for the next 10 days or so.
But on the plus side, tomorrow’s Blue Moon BBQ day, so that makes it all better.
September 16, 2017
Up Way Too Early . . .
But Well Worth It!
Today was the big birthday celebration down in Galveston. Our granddaughter Piper’s was on September 7th and our daughter Brandi’s was yesterday, the 15th. And also thrown in here was Landon’s 7th birthday last month.
His big party for all his friends got hurricane-cancelled, so he was in on this too.
So Jan and I were on the road by 6:30, more than 30 minutes before sunrise, way too early for anyone, especially me. The one positive thing to all this was there was no traffic, even through downtown Houston. It was just 70mph all the way.
We got to our son Chris’ about 8am where we were all rendezvousing. Brandi, Lowell, and Landon showed up a few minutes later, and in turn, we were all on the road with Jan and I riding with Chris and Linda, and Miss Piper riding with Brandi, et. al.
Our destination, the Sunflower Café, has been a favorite of ours for a number of years, since Brandi and Lowell introduced us to the place. It’s always been a great place for breakfast , brunch, and lunch, with a wide array of specialty dishes, like Fried Quail and Grits, Crab Cakes and Eggs, and Eggs Benedict Surf and Turf.
Of course, with all these wonderful selections, Jan got Eggs, Bacon, Potatoes, and Toast.
For me, I branched out a little with the Hatch Green Chile Omelet, stuffed full with Hatch Chiles, and Havarti Cheese, along with Potatoes and Jalapeno Toast.
The Hatch Chilies were very hot, and really good.
And it was all topped off with a large carafe of OJ and a bottle of Cook’s Champagne for breakfast mimosas.
It’s always hard to get this ragtag bunch to all smile at the same time. In fact a couple of them are downright surly.
But I get other photos when they’re not paying attention.
Leaving breakfast we all headed over to Moody Gardens to check out the newly-remodeled Aquarium Pyramid, and the da Vinci exhibit.
We started off with the penguins, always everyone’s favorite.
They’ve really got a great habitat here and they seem to be very happy.
Here’s Miss Piper and Landon trying to get a shot of a baby penguin who was very curious and kept coming right up to the glass.
And the many reef and coral displays are just beautiful.
One of my favorites, the Lionfish.
And they had a number of tanks filled with jellies.
Finishing up the Aquarium, we next headed over to the da Vinci exhibit in the Discovery Museum, but I’ll save that for tomorrow since this is running long.
Since we’d eaten early, by the time we got back to the Clear Lake area, we were all hungry for Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, one of our favorite places since the 90’s.
This is Jan and I finishing up a dozen raw oysters, with Chile sauce and a lot of horseradish mixed in.
Jan got her favorite CFS, gravy on the side,
while I just had a bowl of their Shrimp Gumbo, chock full of shrimp.
All really good, and the perfect way to end a wonderful family get-together.
We finally got back to the rig about 5:45, and both immediately took naps. An even better way to end a really great day.
Finally I want to thank everyone for their many kind words about the blog. It’s much appreciated.
September 16, 2018
IHOP and Eileen . . .
We were up at 7am so we could meet our long-time friends, Barbara and Tom, at the IHOP over in Clear Lake Shores for breakfast.
There’s not too many people we’d do this for, but Barbara and Tom are on the list.
We got there about 8:15, to get ahead of the crowd, and luckily too, since the place started filling up by 9. One thing kind of disappointing though, is that Dean retired last month.
We’ve had Dean as our waiter there for more than 15 years, and always looked forward to seeing him again. But no more, I guess. He retired last month.
Hope he’s enjoying his retirement though, since they said that he and his wife come in regularly to have dinner, so it seems it’s still in his blood.
It took us until about 10:30 for all the catching up we had to do since our last get-together in January, so we need to do it again sooner next time.
Later in the afternoon I checked out my battery hookup in the rig, and discovered that that I’m not going to need any new cables, which saves me at least $30+. Turns out that the two cables that connect each of the 6 volt batteries in series will work just fine for paralleling the two 12 batteries. And the other cables connecting them to the rig will work just fine too.
So with my new terminals coming in tomorrow, I’ll be all set.
I got a couple of new toys to play with in the last few days. First up was a Netgear N300 WiFi Extender.
I ordered one for my client’s office to boost the WiFi signal in the back shipping area, and decided to get one for the rig. Found it quick and easy to set up, and it really boosts the park WiFi signal from 3 bars to 5.
The only downside is that it only handles the WiFi 2.4 Ghz band and not the faster 5 Ghz one. But that’s not a factor either with my client or the park WiFi systems.
Nice and only about $25. Check it out.
Next up, as I was in Home Depot the other day I picked up one of these.
It’s an Ever Brite Ultra Solar Powered Motion-Activated Light. And at 320 lumens, it’s definitely bright. But it is a little different than most others of these type lights that I’ve seen. Once it gets dark, the light comes on at partial brightness. Then when it detects motion, it switches on full bright.
I was skeptical about this, so after letting it charge for two days per the directions, (Yes, I do occasionally read the directions), I turn it on and let it on the kitchen corner overnight, checking on it several times. And it stayed on all night and seemed to have plenty of full brightness left to go.
I’m going use it to replace our front patio light, and if it works out, I’ll replace the back one too.
I’ll let you know.
September 16, 2019
They’re Officially Stumped . . .
I was on the phone with Cummins Tech Support for about 45 minutes, as they went back and forth, talking with various people, trying to figure out what was going on with my oil filter adapter problem.
But they finally came back with “We’re Stumped.”
Well, that was helpful.
I think that part of the problem is that these guys are not mechanics, but just tech support, reading from the same bulletins that I am. So now I have 3 paths to follow now.
1. Call the RV Mobile Lube people to see if they might have any input on the problem.
2. Call the local Cummins repair place up north of Houston, and see I can talk to a ‘real’ mechanic to see if they have any ideas.
And also check with one of the Rush Truck Centers to see if they have some ideas. Rush was the place out in Los Cruces that repaired our bad fuel line sensor back in 2012, the only time I’ve had to put our rig in the shop.
3. The next thing that I’m going to do personally is to put the 4 bolts back in the adapter, fill the filter with oil and then reinstall it. This will let me crank up the engine, and lower the rig so I can hopefully reach the adapter with my hand.
When I can do this I’ve got two things to try.
First, can I push in the small pin until it’s flush with the shaft. This might release the adapter so it will slide off the shaft?
Maybe.
Second, can I pull down on the shaft and then turn it, perhaps releasing a lock up inside the adapter, letting it come loose?
Maybe.
Jan and I have been going over the Fall TV schedule, anticipating some new shows like Emergence, Prodigal Son, and Stumptown. And mourning the loss of favorites like Instinct.
Instinct was set to be renewed, and ended the season with a big cliffhanger. But then it was apparently cancelled at the last moment, leaving us all hanging, so to speak.
Maybe another network will pick it up.
Our cold ‘snap’ is looking better and better, with the high on Wednesday now forecast to be 80°. And it never got out of the 80’s at all today.
Very nice.
September 16, 2020
Coiled And Ready . . .
My Helicoil installation kit came in today, but it looks like my gaskets/bolts won’t be here until Saturday. So I probably won’t get to try it out this weekend.
As I’ve checked out Helicoils on Google and YouTube, I’ve seen a number of articles about how, because of the fact that the Helicoils are Stainless Steel and the way they lock into the base, they can be torqued down more than in the soft aluminum.
So rather than just redo the two holes that are stripped out, I’m going to do all four threads. That way I can torque the bolts down to 20-25 ft. lbs., rather than the original 17+ ft. lbs. That, coupled with the two new gaskets, will hopefully fix this once and for all.
Of course I’ve said that before.
So right now the plan is that as soon as this is done, Jan and I will take the rig out on a test drive, probably all the way out to Luling, about 175 miles away. We’ll stay overnight and then come back the next day.
The last time we tried this, we had no leakage when we got up to the Katy Buc-ee’s and thought we had it fixed. But then it started leaking again about halfway between Columbus and Luling. And leaking worse than before.
But we figure if we can do a 350 mile round trip with no leakage, then we can call it fixed. But if not, while we’re still configured for traveling, we take it up to the repair place in Channelview to let them fix it.
We figure we’ll just get a hotel room in the area, since they will need us to test any fix, since the leaking only occurs when we’re towing the truck.
But hopefully it won’t come to that.
September 16, 2021
We Had Given Up Hope . . .
Jan and I left the rig about 11:20 to meet up with some old Alvin Opry friends at Ellie’s Kitchen, a Greek restaurant over in Friendswood. But along the way. we got a phone call saying that it seems that Ellie’s had closed down. Just in the last month it seems, since we called last month before we scheduled it for the group.
By phoning back and forth, on the fly, we moved the lunch to the La Casita Mexican Restaurant, also near Friendswood. Jan and I used to eat here about 20-30 years, but it had fallen off our schedule since then.
But it was as good as we remembered. I had the Dos plate, with a Beef Taco, a Bean Chalupa, a Tamale, and two Cheese Enchiladas, along with Rice and Beans.
There was a Beef Taco on the left plate, but it didn’t last until the photo. But it was all delicious.
Jan got the Chicken en la Plancha.
Jan said the Caramelized Onions were really good.
We spent the next two hours eating and talking, and also scheduling our next get-together, on October 14th, at the Texas Roadhouse over on Hwy 288 in Pearland.
And next up on our social calendar is lunch up at the Golden Corral in Conroe next Thursday with Debi and Ed Hurlburt, and maybe Janice and Dave Evans, we hope.
During our lunch we were all talking about our favorite places to eat in our area, and the late-lamented Yummy Yummy Chinese Buffet came up. Yummy Yummy closed down ‘temporarily’ back in February 2021 saying they would reopen soon. But they never did, and eventually the signs saying they would be back soon also disappeared.
But still not giving up, we would drive every couple of weeks, always finding a shuttered building and an empty parking lot. Then finally a couple of months ago we just gave up hope.
Then our long-time friend Maria said she thought it had reopened. So coming home we made a detour down Hwy 3, and to our great joy, Yummy Yummy’s had reopened, apparently in just the last few days, since an online review last Thursday the 10th said that they were still closed.
So it’s on the menu for this coming Sunday.
Can’t wait.
