Monthly Archives: September 2022
Brushfire and Otterbox . . .
Since Jan wanted to get her toesies done this afternoon, we decided it would be a good excuse (like we really need one) to eat at Torchy’s Tacos once again.
Like most places we go to, we have our standard favorites, with Jan getting the Brushfire,
with Jamaican Jerked Chicken. While I got my favorite Jalapeno Cheese Sausage Dogs.
Then since we still had time before Jan’s nail appointment, we drove over to the Verizon store at Baybrook Mall to get some help with Jan’s new Galaxy S8+.
In May 2021, when I upgraded to my Galaxy S21 Ultra, Jan inherited my S8+ that I had since I got it in Las Vegas in April 2017. But when the S8+ died, or well the screen died, she went back to my old Galaxy S5.
But recently she said it was running slower and slower, and she really wanted a larger screen. So I found a brand-new S8+, still in the box, on eBay for $200. A great buy.
So when it came in the other day, my plan was to use the Samsung Smart Switch app to transfer all the data from the old S5 to the new S8+, and change out the SIM card to the new phone. But when I tried to SIM card changeout last night, I found that while the S5 used a microSIM card, the S8+ now uses a smaller nanoSIM card. So I wanted to stop by the Verizon store to get a nanoSIM card, and since it would be a new one, they would also have to switch over the phone number.
And unlike most visits to a Verizon store, I was waited on immediately, and was done and out in less than 15 minutes. Nice.
Then while Jan was in the nail salon, I worked on finishing the phone setup. I was pretty much done by the time she came out, and she really like the wallpaper I loaded for her.
I’ve still got a few more things to finish over the next couple of days.
Then when I got home I installed the phone into the new Otterbox case that I ordered last week.
I’ve used these Otterbox cases for years and they’re the best around. They really protect your phone.
Getting home we checked out the result of all cement trucks coming and going in the park this morning. When they finished erecting the garage a couple of weeks ago, it look like this.
But after a week of putting up forms, and this morning’s cement trucks, it now looks like this.
The whole new addition is really coming along.
Thought for the Day:
“Flammable, inflammable & nonflammable… Why are there three? Don’t you think that two ought to serve the purpose? I mean either the thing flams or it doesn’t!” — George Carlin
September 22, 2009
Road Trip…
Today we made a 400 mile round trip in our toad down to South Hadley, MA to visit our friend Joannie, pick up our guns that we had left in her care while we were in Canada, and also mail we had sent to her while we were on the road.
We headed out about 10 am and stopped at a breakfast place in Sylvan Beach before we left the area.
About 10 miles down the road we got on the I-90 toll road and headed toward MA. After a stop at a rest area along the way for coffee, we arrived at Joannie’s house a little after 2pm.
We had a great time visiting with Joannie, and she served us a GREAT meal.
We hit the road a little after 6 pm and got back to the rig about 9:30 pm.
A long day, but a good visit.
Tomorrow we’ve got a 160 mile trip to move over toward Niagara Falls.
September 22, 2010
A Jumperoo and more Spicy Chicken. . .
Still fighting off this cold, but I think it’s on its last legs.
Hopefully.
After another lupper of Extra, Extra, Extra, Extra Spicy Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce at King Food trying to burn my cold out, we drove over to Brandi’s for a little Landon time.
At least Jan got some Landon time, I stayed on the other side of the room. It probably wouldn’t have been a problem, since both Brandi and Lowell have had this crud, and I think I caught it from Lowell, anyway.
But why take chances.
Here’s a shot of Landon in his Rainforest Jumperoo. It beeps, roars, blinks, lights up, twirls, whirls, and rotates.
And he just wanted to fall asleep, poor thing.
While we were at Brandi’s, we picked up box of books from Amazon that had come in for Jan.
And, of course, after we got home, Mister commandeered the box for his own. He loves boxes, He doesn’t always fit in them, but he does love them.
We got back to the rig about 5:30 and just took it easy for the rest of the evening.
September 22, 2012
All Planes, all the time . . .
We headed out on our Dayton daytrip about 9:30, but our first stop was at the McDonald’s in Harrison, right inside the Ohio line. And after a quick breakfast we were back on the road for the rest of our 85 mile trip.
Our first stop was the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, located in and around buildings that housed the Wright Brothers and their businesses.
Most people know about their bicycle shop, but less well-known is the fact they were also in the printing business, printing newspapers, flyers, pamphlets, and other items. And in addition to running two companies, they were also designing the first airplane at the same time.
As their businesses expanded, they moved to bigger buildings but always in this same small area of Dayton.
One of the first things you see inside the Museum is a replica of the Wright’s 1902 Flyer, the first successful powered heavier-than-air craft.
While we were there we also saw this replica of the Wright’s Bicycle Shop, where they repaired bicycles and built new ones.
Although Jan and I enjoyed here, we both agreed that we liked the Wright Brother’s museum at Kitty Hawk, NC.
Next we headed about 10 miles away to visit The National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Like visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it’s hard to know where to start. They had pretty much one of everything, including some that I’ve never seen in person before.
There are planes everywhere you look, in front, behind, overhead, etc..
From the Red Baron’s Fokker Triplane,
to the Kettering ‘Bug’, essentially a 1917 version of the cruise missile.
And this Kellett K3 Autogyro.
This is the last remaining Seversky P-35, the forerunner to the P-47. It was the Army Air Corps first production, singe-seat, all-metal pursuit plane with retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit.
It also has the unique property of being the only plane flown by both the U.S. and the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese government bought 20 of these from the US in 1938 and used them through the war.
I can only figure that the pilot of this B-24 Liberator either married a redhead, or got a ‘Dear John’ letter from one.
This is the ME 163B Komet, a WWII German rocket-powered interceptor designed to climb rapidly and bring down the Allied bomber formations. It was hampered by its short range and vulnerability to being shot down while landing.
The is the ME 262A, the first jet aircraft used in combat.
This is the P-61C Black Widow night fighter, the first US plane designed specially for that purpose. The radar in its nose allowed to track and shoot down enemy aircraft in total darkness.
This is one that I’ve never seen in person before. It’s the F-82G Twin Mustang, similar to the P-38 Lightning, in that it has two fuselages joined by a common wing. It was the last propeller-driven fighter aircraft acquired by US.
And this is the B-29 ‘Bockscar, only the second plane to drop an atomic bomb in wartime, in this case, on Nagasaki, Japan.
And this is a replica of the ‘Fat Man’ bomb that was dropped. It derives its explosive power from the plutonium, unlike the ‘Little Boy’ bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier, that was powered by Uranium 235.
We’ve now seen both WWII atomic bombers, this one, along with the ‘Enola Gay’ at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
This wraps up today’s blog. I’ll continue our tour in tomorrow’s post.
September 22, 2014
Are We, or Are We Not . . .
Fracking.
Well, we may be fracking. Or we may not be fracking.
We certainly got a good bit busier, with 96 vehicles in today, up from yesterday’s 70, and Saturday’s 60. But nothing like the 300+ we had for two days in a row at last year’s frac gate when they started up.
We’ve been told that there are three wells in the back that are ready to frac, but no one seems to know when they’re supposed to start, just RSN (Real Soon Now). But then this afternoon one of the vacuum trucks that had been running in and out all afternoon, came in and then back out about 5 minutes later.
When I asked why, they said that they were fracking on the back pad,and they couldn’t get in.
So we don’t know. If this is how fracking is done up here, we’ll take it. No 300 vehicle days would be nice.
Don’t know what’s going on with the rig in front of us. They’re supposed to skid the rig to the new hole on Wednesday, but they’re not finished drilling yet. There’s a full rack of drill pipe on the derrick, so they obviously planned to drill more, but the rig’s been quiet all day with no drilling going on. Looks like they broke something again.
After all, remember, It’s A Yugo.
I’m still getting login attempts on the blog, but less of them since I upped the lockout requirements. Now after two failed retries, they’re locked out for 4 hours, and after two lockouts, they’re locked out for 48 hours.
They trying a lot of different login names, still with no luck, of course. I mentioned the other day that I use a VERY strong password, made up of just random garbage, so they’re not going to guess it, and throwing a dictionary attack at it simply won’t work either.
But as you can see, they keep trying.
The food fairy showed up again. The same one that brought the Red Beans and Rice with Sausage yesterday, dropped off Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas today. Again, homemade, and really, really good. We could get used to this.
I forgot to mentioned yesterday’s and today’s dessert that Jan made to go with our gifts. It was a delicious Peach Dump Cake. She made a big pan of it the other day, so we’ll be able to eat on it for several days. Really good with whipped cream on top.
September 22, 2015
It’s On . . .
Jan and I have a couple to gate sit for us this Sunday from 1pm to 7pm, so Jan’s all giddy again. They live right up the road in Marshall, TX about 30 miles away, so it won’t be a long trip for them. And this way we’ll get to celebrate our 48th Wedding Anniversary only a day early.
One thing nice about having the window AC outside here with us is that we don’t have to use our mister anymore. No, not Mister the cat, but this.
It’s a home version of the overhead misting systems you see at amusement parks and restaurants with outdoor waiting areas. We mounted a couple of the spray nozzles in front of a 20” box fan and it would drop the 100° air coming into the fan down to about 80° coming out. So it did the job.
The only problem, besides the occasional nozzle clog, was that after a while you were just . . . damp. And anything around you got damp too. In fact Jan started reading her paperback books and her Kindle inside a zip lock bag just to keep things somewhat dry. So this is a big, and drier, improvement.
Unfortunately for our possible long term stay here, our frack is running wide open tonight, and very loud. Loud enough that it’s pretty much impossible to talk over it. And this is what it looks like from here, about 500 yards away.
Of course, if they keep true to form, they’ll break something before the shift is over and things will come to a grinding halt. We hope.
Looks like tonight is going to be another chilly one, with the temperature already down to 62° at midnight, so I’m wearing one of my long-sleeve FRC shirts, and may end up with a windbreaker on too before the night is over.
September 22, 2016
Just No Pleasing Us . . .
It went down to 67 degrees here last night, cool enough that with the slight wind, I went inside and grabbed my windbreaker. But it sure was nice.
According to The Weather Channel we’ve got one more day of low 90’s, Friday, and then Saturday the front moves through with temps in the 80’s and thunderstorms. With pretty much the same Sunday, on Monday, it’s more rain, with 78 and 60.
Then it settles down to Sunny with mid-80’s and mid-60’s as far as the eye can see. Of course The Weather Channel said this once before and then change its mind and we got summer and high 90’s back.
Of course in a couple of months, we’ll be wearing two pair of sweats and a pair of jeans, two long-sleeved shirts, a hoodie, and a windbreaker, while we’re huddled around 3 heaters and wondering where summer went.
There’s just no pleasing us.
As is usual for a Thursday, I headed into B/CS for Wal-Mart and lunch. I first went to the pharmacy to pick up Jan’s three prescriptions that I had called in yesterday, but found one of them not ready because it had come in this morning . . . the product, not my order.
They said it would be about 30 minutes, so I headed out to get the groceries. At some point here I had planned to get a haircut, but I guess since it wasn’t on the list, I forgot about it. When I got home, I told her to put it on next week’s list.
I can’t wait too much longer because I’m starting to get into ponytail territory here, or at least one of those little short ones that turns up at the end about a couple of inches past the rubber band.
Finishing up with the groceries, I picked up the now-ready prescriptions, and headed across the parking lot to get our Chick-fil-a lunch.
They have a new app that lets you submit your order and pay online and then pick it up at the designated store. But I’m not sure it’s needed, at least for me.
I walked in the door, right up to the counter, where there were 5 cashiers working (you never see this at McD’s), placed my order, and swiped my card. A minute or so later I had my two large lemonades in a nice cardboard carrier, and turned to get straws and napkins. By the time I turned back around, I heard my name called and was handed my bag of stuff. And my Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich was a special order to add bacon. BTW you’ve gotta try their bacon, on anything. It’s thick cut, fried very crisp, and really flavorful.
Hmm! I wonder if you can just order bacon?
Anyway I was back out the door in less than seven minutes. Take that, McD’s.
One thing interesting about their new app is all the changes and additions to your food that it allows you that aren’t shown on the menu board at the store. But one thing annoying about the app is that it won’t let you peruse the menu if the store is closed. What’s up with that?
It should let you at least look at the menu, but just not order. Or even pre-do your order and then submit it when you’re ready.
As I mentioned yesterday, before I went into CFA, I did try the Open Signal program to see what I got in B/CS. And it showed me the tower I was connected to just a few blocks away on the other side of the Hwy 6 main drag.
I then ran a speed test and found I had 12 Mbps down and 5 up, with a 49 ms ping. My signal strength was – 92 dbm and 90%. A good strong signal. I also wrote down the actual lat/long coordinates to double check that it wasn’t showing the tower was in Missouri like it does from here.
So this just reinforces my thought that there is something screwy about the tower I’m connected to here. And reinforcing that reinforcement, is the fact later this afternoon while I was outside on the gate, I picked up my phone to make a call and notice that it was again showing 3G data.
Now normally here I show 2 bars of 4G data, but as I noticed the other day when I was in Open Signal and this happened, my 3G signal was much stronger than my 4G one. In fact I was showing 5 bars of 3G!
But before I could run SpeedTest.net, or the one in OS, my phone jumped back to 2 bars of 4G again.
And FWIW I have another app, Network Signal Info, that is also supposed to show me the lat/long and distance of a tower. But when I try it here, it will not give me any values, but instead says, ‘Cell has wrong values’. Like I said, just screwy.
At least my new desktop Wi-Fi card to supposed to be here tomorrow. So maybe that will fixed my Internet problems. But somehow I kinda doubt it.
I was reading through the manual for our new TV last night and discovered a couple of things. One is that there is an Amplify command on the Sound Settings menu. And it certainly seems to work.
The manual says that it “. . . increases the overall intensity of high-frequency sounds for a better listening experience. It is designed for hearing-impaired listeners.”
Well,except for the part where it calls me ‘deaf’, I like it.
And I’m not deaf. I just have a loud A/C right over my head.
I also found out that we have PIP (Picture in Picture) but I don’t think it will do any thing for us, since it only has selections for Air or Cable inputs. So there is no way to do PIP from the DirecTV DVR. Bummer!
Another thing I found that I haven’t tried yet is a setting under the Sound Effects Menu called ‘DTS TruDialog’. It says, it “Increases voice intensity to make dialog clearer”, so it will be interesting to see what difference this one makes.
But whatever it does, it looks like based on ‘Amplify’ alone, that I won’t have to buy a sound bar.
September 22, 2017
Never mind . . .
Today was really nice, the first time I’ve been able to sleep in for about a week. What with Clear Lake trips, moving to a new park, and other stuff, it’s just been go, go, go.
In fact, we never left the rig at all today, and maybe not tomorrow either.
I mentioned yesterday how nice this park, Hillcrest RV Park, is. But I do have a small gripe. The Verizon signal is pretty weak. I was hoping for better since there’s a cell tower right down the road, but apparently it’s not a Verizon tower. Oh Well.
They do have park WiFi here, but since I haven’t been able to find anyone to pay, I haven’t been able to get the code.
I really like my new printer, a HP 4650 Wireless Printer.
It’s well worth the $70 cost, with edge to edge printing, an auto document feeder, and automatic two-sided printing. It’s also much faster, but for a different reason than you might think. It is marginally faster, 9.5ppm vs. 8.5ppm, compared to my old printer, but that’s not the real difference.
The way most people judge a printer’s speed is how soon the page comes out when they hit the PRINT button, because they usually only print 1 or 2 pages at a time. So the fact that their printer can crank out 9.5 ppm really means nothing.
No, the real speed issue for most people is what’s known as TTFP, or Time To First Page. In other words, how soon that first page comes out. And in this case the TTFP for the 4650 is over twice as fast as my old printer. So that’s the real difference.
A while back we came across this old photo of Jan. She thinks it was in the 1st or 2nd grade. It’s about the size of a postage and was rolled up in a tight scroll. So flattening it out and scanning it, I had this.
But after about a hour or so with Paint Shop Pro (a Photoshop clone) I had this.
Not bad. She’s was a really cutie even back then.
If you were worried about tomorrow’s prediction of the end of the world, David Meade, the Biblical Numerologist who announced that The End Is Nigh, says,
Apparently the End Is Still Nigh, not just as Nigh as was predicted. But it’s still coming, he said.
You can count on it.
September 22, 2018
Rainy Days And Saturdays . . .
always get me down. And keep me from getting much done outside, too.
In between rain bands this afternoon I started prepping to install my new house batteries.
It rained pretty much all night and most of the morning, before slacking off in the early afternoon. So I first started with the new ones, getting them set up by installing the bolt-type connectors.
This was necessary since the rig uses the bolt-on connections rather than conventional automotive posts. Next up I ‘staked’ the posts and the terminals together using a screwdriver and a tap from a hammer.
I learned this trick when I was10 years old, and watching/helping/learning/getting in the way from the mechanic working on the Jimmy (GMC) 6-71 diesel engines in my father’s shrimp boats in Gulf Shores, AL
It locks the two together and helps give them a better long-term connection.
Next I disconnected the outside two Interstate 6 volts batteries and removed them, leaving the other two still connected, making it quicker and easier to swap out the old and new ones when the time comes.
But that time didn’t come this afternoon because the heavy rain showed up again and brought things to a halt. So maybe tomorrow.
About 4:30 Jan and I headed out for a late lunch at Denny’s, and then a stopover at WalMart for a few things before heading back home.
I did make a stop by the PO and found our new (renewed) passports had come in. And in only about 3 weeks. Not bad.
So now we’re all set for next April and another 10 years.
Right now the rain is supposed to slack off tomorrow afternoon so maybe I can finish up with the batteries, and a few other chores as well.
Or maybe not. We’ll see.
September 22, 2019
Our Future Robot Overlords . . .
Last night we watched the last of the four episodes of Maigret on Ovation, and it was just as good as the first three. It’s really sad to see a quality series like this not continued.
Rowan Atkinson is great in the part, especially if you’ve only seen him as Black Adder or Mr. Bean, both of which are hilarious.
One thing I didn’t mention the other day is that Budapest, Hungary was the stand-in for 1950’s Paris, with another location in Hungary for shots of the French countryside.
And since we were just in Budapest back in May, we were always on the lookout for locations we might recognize. And we did think we saw the steps at the Fisherman’s Bastion a couple times.
I’m pretty sure that Ovation will be showing the four episodes a number of times, so you’ve still got a chance to catch them.
Don’t miss out.
I’m constantly amazed at how much more interactive that Alexa is becoming. When I asked her to do something, she’ll say ‘OK’ and then I’ll always say, “Thank you.”
I mean, I’m always careful to be polite to our future robot overlords.
Then a couple of months ago, she started answering me back with, “You’re Welcome”, “Sure”, “Any Time”, or “No Problem”.
Neat!
But a couple of weeks ago she started adding little things like, “Have a nice Friday”, or “Hope you have a nice weekend.” Then last week during the heavy rains we had, she said, “Try to stay dry out there.”
Then yesterday morning she upped her game when she said, “Enjoy the nice weather today, now that all the rain has gone.”
Spooky!
This afternoon I booked Jan and I tickets for the Tuesday afternoon 2pm showing of Jan’s long-time favorite, “Downton Abbey”. It’s been a while since we’ve been to this theater in Webster and it turns out that they’ve made a lot of upgrades. Like all of the 18 screens are now Reserved Seating, and have these very nice electric recliners, complete with cup holders and footrests.
I think the biggest problem might be for us to stay awake.
September 22, 2020
Is It Actually Already Over ?
We stayed in today, mainly due to the many reports of flooding around the Houston area due to the passing through of Tropical Storm Beta. Though in our case we saw none of the forecasted 50 mph winds, and not a lot of the heavy rains.
But a lot of other areas around here did get a lot of rain, with streets so flooded you could only see the tops of the cars.
I finished putting together our absentee ballot request letter to send off to South Dakota tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll get back to us pretty soon. I do like that SD has a website that lets you track your request so you can be sure they received it and that it’s being processed. Nice.
Budding Entrepreneurs . . .
Our daughter Brandi said that Landon, his BFF Sophie, and another friend, Adam, have to into a candy delivery business at their school. They wrote an app, put it online, and take orders to candy to be delivered at school.
Landon found a empty, unused locker where the candy is left to be picked up after the payment transaction.
So let’s recap.
You’ve got kids at school selling contraband, collecting the cash, and then leaving the product to be picked from a dead drop.
What could possibly go wrong?
Sounds like something I would try.
Jan and I both really like our VivoHome Ice Machine.
We make a gallon Ziploc bag full every other day which works out great for us. But the unit has one annoying feature, or maybe non-feature.
When the tray is full of ice and ready to be emptied, a red light comes on. But no beep or buzz to give you a heads-up. And since the unit sits behind me on the table, sometimes I don’t get tray emptied and in the freezer, until it starts to melt a bit. So I wanted to add a audio alert of some kind.
So rather that tearing into the unit, I decided to use a photocell to sense when the light comes on. And what I came up was this module.
It comes complete with a attached photocell and a built-in relay to control a buzzer.
I also ordered a 5v buzzer to go along with the setup.
I keep you updated.
Thought For The Day:
According to the New York Times, as of 2018, approximately 15 people per year have been killed with AR-15 type rifles since 2007. But in the same time frame approximately 13 people a year have been killed by VENDING MACHINES!
BAN ASSAULT VENDING MACHINES! or You can have my Snickers when you pry it from my cold, sticky fingers.
September 21, 2009
When in Rome…
Today we planned to to drive the 15 miles over to Rome, NY to see if we can find where Jan lived when she was here in 1961-1962 when her father was stationed at Griffiss AFB.
But before we could get of the park however, we got to talking with the couples parked next door to us. They’re from Wisconsin and were heading to Niagara Falls a few days before we will be there. Joni and Jan both collect moose stuff and had to compare collections.
And Mister had a great time exploring the inside of their rig.
We all had such a good time talking, we were both late hitting the road, so it was about noon before we finally headed out.
After stopping at Wendy’s for lunch, we drove over to where the Air Base used to be. The base closed in 1993, but parts of it have been redeveloped over the years.
It took a while, driving around while Jan tried to get her bearings, but we finally found Jan’s Junior High. Apparently now it’s an Upper Elementary School, which means it is 5 & 6 grades only.
It still looks pretty good.
And then after a couple of false starts, we found Jan’s old house, somewhat the worse for wear!
Actually a lot the worse for wear.
A developer had bought the housing in 2005, apparently hoping to refurb and sell them. Don’t know if it was the economy or what, but it looks like that fell thru. Only a few units out of hundreds have been redone. And only one seems to be occupied.
But it shows what the places looked like when Jan lived here.
It was a kind of bittersweet time for Jan.
After driving around some more we stopped off at Walmart for a few things. While browsing in the Sporting Goods section, I noticed they finally had some ammo in stock, specifically 9mm and .25 Auto.
No .380 unfortunately. But it didn’t make any difference. I was going to buy several boxes of each, but found out they couldn’t sell it to me.
It seems that in New York you must have a permit to just OWN a handgun, not to conceal carry one. And without a permit you can’t even BUY handgun ammo in New York state.
Oh well.
After Walmart Jan got a pedicure and then we headed over to Sylvan Beach to Eddie’s, a restaurant we’d seen the night before. We both had the spaghetti and meatballs. Good stuff.
Then it was home and in for the night.
Tomorrow we’re going to make a 400 mile round trip in our toad down to South Hadley, MA to visit our friend Joannie, pick up our guns that we had left in her care while we were in Canada, and also the mail we had sent to her while we were on the road.
September 21, 2010
Cough, Hack, Wheeze. . .
Not much happened today. I’m still fighting off this cold, I think I’m on the downside, but I’ve been coughing so much, my chest hurts.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.
Jan and I did pretty much nothing this morning except have coffee. Then about 2 pm we drove over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup. I hoped that by loading up the soup with some extra-hot jalapenos, it would help burn this cold out.
It couldn’t hurt, right.
Coming home we stopped off at Kroger’s for some groceries, and were very happy to run into our granddaughter, Piper.
Unfortunately for me, Jan got the only hug, since I didn’t want to take a chance on giving her what I’ve got.
She was on her way home from school before going into work at Sprinkles, a frozen yogurt shop in Webster.
We got back about 5 pm and settled in for a night of new TV shows, NCIS’s and Glee.
September 21, 2012
Nice Slow Day . . .
Today got off to a slow start. I woke up early with a headache, took some aspirin, and then went back to bed. So when I finally got up it was almost 11. Almost half the day gone before I even got started.
Nice!
About 1pm I called Spartan Chassis about my tail pipe and fuel tank problems.
To catch up, the end of my chrome tail pipe extension had rusted out so I ordered a new one from Spartan a couple of months ago. But when I tried to replace the old one I couldn’t get it loose. The extension was inserted into the pipe coming out of the muffler and then a 4-inch clamp encircled it.
Well, for the last several days I’ve tried everything to get the old pipe out of the muffler pipe with no luck. I’ve tried penetrating oil, brute force with a rubber mallet and a length of galvanized pipe, and heating the outside of the pipe with a propane torch. Nothing worked.
I had assumed that this extension was the original one, but after talking to Spartan I don’t think so. According to Spartan the extension should not be inserted into the muffler, but merely butted up against the muffler pipe and then the clamp holds everything together.
So now I’m planning to just cut off the old extension flush with the muffler pipe and then clamping the new one on like it’s supposed to be. But it will probably have to wait till after we move this coming Monday.
My other question was about my partially collapsed diesel fuel tank, caused by a clogged fuel tank vent hose. He thought my idea about putting 5 to 10 PSI of air pressure had a good chance of working. Again I’ll wait till we’re at our next park.
About 5pm we all headed over to Batesville to get our Mexican Food Fix at Acapulco Mexican Restaurant. It had been recommended by a waitress at Skyline Chili, and boy was she right.
It was really good, and really popular, too. Within 15 minutes after we got there the place started filling up. Hopefully this will hold us for a while, since good Mexican can be hard to find up North.
Later, after we got home, Landon’s Aunt Sherry posted this photo of Master Landon at dinner tonight. Looks like he’s having Mexican too.
On another note, I found this photo on Facebook and really got a kick out it.
Tomorrow we’re got to make the 85 mile trip to Dayton to visit the The National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the Wright Brother’s Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.
September 21, 2013
And the rains came . . .
and came and came and came and …
Well, yesterday for the first time since we got here, the bottom really dropped out. We had about 3.5 inches of rain in about 3 hours.
Yep, that’s us under that blue dot right in the center. The real problem was that the storm moved over us and then just stopped. For 3 hours.
Pretty soon it was just a lake all around us. But unlike our last heavy rain, the pea gravel I had them put down under our canopy kept us high and dry. So no mud.
Finally around 6:30 pm things cleared up and we saw some blue sky once again. But no rainbow, so I guess we’ve got some more rain in store down the road.
As far as today’s weather, it looks like Fall has sprung, or fallen, or something. Tomorrow, the 22nd is officially the first day of Fall, but it snuck in a day early. The high today was only 82 and tonight it’s supposed to go down to 63. In fact it’s 65 right now. And for the next few days the temps are pretty much 80’s and 60’s the entire time.
Nice.
Tonight we had another catered meal that they dropped off yesterday. Looks like Hell Fighters’ Kitchen is not around any more since a new company, IPS, is handling the rest of the Completion. But it still was good.
We got two BIG plates of steak, grilled sausage, and BBQ beans, and as usual, we split one and saved the other one for later.
As far as the gate goes, things have really quieted down here. We had 94 vehicles day before yesterday, 105 yesterday, and then 88 today. Though I think part of it was due to the weekend. Much better than 300.
This Monday we start our 2nd month here, and from what we keep hearing we could be here for our entire 3 month stay. Hope so. We’re off the beaten path, but not too far. And we’ve got good cell and Internet.
And most importantly, Walmart is only 20 miles away.
September 21, 2014
‘Rockin’ the Bakken’ . . .
and the Eagle Ford too.
First off, a Piper update. Here’s what Chris Facebooked about 6pm this evening.
We’re home! Several stitches, a few staples, some bruised ribs, a tiny bit of nerve damage (which should take care of itself with time) and Lord knows how many thousands of dollars later. On the upside, we finally had a family road trip!
LOL. Well, at least things ended on a high note.
For a recap of what went on yesterday, you can check here: A Scary Night
Apparently the ATV the four of them were riding hit a rut in the road and it jerked them sideways, and the ATV rolled down an embankment. The two guys jumped clear, the other girl was thrown out, and Piper rode it all the way to the bottom, ending up with ATV on top of her, with the two guys having to lift it off.
The other girl had a bad compound fracture of her arm and had to be Lifeflighted. So in comparison, Piper got off pretty good. Luckily, she’s right-handed and the injury is to her left wrist, so it won’t interfere with school.
Saw an interesting article today called ‘Rockin’ the Bakken’, talking about all the money flowing into North Dakota from the Bakken Shale oilfields, and how the rig workers spend it. And of course it’s pretty much the same here in the Eagle Ford Shale here in Texas.
And it seems Jan and I are still working the Eagle Ford. I didn’t realize until very recently that where we are here 90 miles north NNW of Houston, is still considered part of the same Eagle Ford formation we were working 60 miles south of San Antonio for the last two years. Now that’s a big oilfield.
We’ve seen the same thing here in the Eagle Ford, with new rig workers coming in, riding with someone because they don’t have a good vehicle. Then a month later they show up in a $50,000 dually diesel pickup. Must be nice.
Well, the cows were back today but the sat dome survived.
My ‘fix’ seems to have worked so far. Jan said earlier in the morning two cows had walked right up and stuck their heads under the canopy, just checking things out.
After getting Linda and Piper heading back home with Piper’s boyfriend, Chris came by about 3pm to pickup Piper’s laptop that I had been cleaning the gunk out of. He stayed about an hour before finally heading home too.
Probably glad to be off the road after all the back and forth trips to Piper’s hospital up here in Crockett.
Sonja and Lendel, Master Landon’s other grandparents, sent along this photo of their vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC
Looks like they’re having a good time. You don’t see that much water in Oklahoma.
The last few days have been pretty quiet here on the gate. We had 3 days with vehicle counts in the 80’s, with yesterday at 60, and today at 70. Very nice.
Tonight’s dinner was Red Beans and Rice with Sausage, and Corn Bread. It was dropped off for us by one of the rig workers this morning and it made a great dinner.
The Red Beans and Rice were delicious, but the Corn Bread was great. Not this stuff you get so many places that’s half flour, sweet, and has the texture of cake. Corn Bread should be made from coarse stone-ground cornmeal, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, and just enough sugar so the crust will brown. I will allow you to put some kernel corn, or jalapenos in it, and you can make it with buttermilk. But’s that’s it.
THERE SHOULD BE NO WHEAT FLOUR IN CORNBREAD!
If you want to put flour in it, call it something else. It ain’t Corn Bread.
September 21, 2015
It’s awfully quiet over there . . .
Our frack has been down most of the last several days, and that’s fine with us. Hopefully we can stretch this out until the Sunday before Thanksgiving, since this is always when we head back to the Houston area for the winter.
When the frack crew is done here, they’ll move right down the road to another site, and it would be nice to move with them, but you never know. So we’d like to see this one last as long as possible.
Tomorrow starts our second month here, and they’re apparently a little over 1/3 done, so that bodes well, I guess. So the more downtime for them, the better for us, I guess.
But downtime doesn’t mean a lot less traffic though. The same workers come and go, with the only difference being the sand trucks. But the sand trucks aren’t really a problem anyway, since it’s the same guys in the same trucks, so we just flag’em in and write ‘em down. Yeehaw!
The Priority Mail package I sent to the kids down in Friendswood finally got delivered today, five days late. But at least it got there. That’s something, I guess.
Jan and I have put out the word on the Gate Guard Facebook pages looking for a relief guard for 6 – 8 hours later this week. Our 48th Anniversary is a week from today, and we always try to get some time off for dinner and movie.
Shreveport is the closest big city, and only an hour away, so we’ll probably head over there for the evening.
Although our daytime weather is still in the mid 90’s, at night it’s dropping in the 60’s now. Enough so that I usually put on a long sleeve shirt sometime during the night. So I guess it’s kind of half Summer, half Fall. Of course when it’s down in the 30’s and sleeting in November, we’ll look back on this time fondly.
We needed ice, so I made a Carthage run this morning, with O’Reilly Auto Parts/ACE Hardware visits along the way, Coming home I made a Chicken Express stop to pick up lunch for us. Except it was more of a Fish Express stop since that’s what we both got.
Fried Catfish Fillets and Fried Okra for both of us. If that’s not a Southern meal, I don’t know what is.
September 21, 2016
Maybe You CAN Mess with Mother Nature . . .
Well, after my little rant the other day about where the heck Fall went, it seems like Mother Nature may have gotten back on track.
After another couple of days in the low 90’s, the temps start dropping, until Tuesday it’s supposed to be Partly Sunny with a high of 78 degrees and a low of 60. We’ll see now if that holds up. Supposedly there’ll be some rain mixed in among the intervening days, but you can’t have everything.
Of course the weather guy on the radio also said yesterday that it was going to be “Mostly to Occasionally Partly Cloudy”, so I don’t know how much he can actually be trusted. I mean, isn’t that the whole idea of ‘Partly’?
Here’s hoping.
The FedEx guy stopped in front of the rig about 2:30 today, delivering my new Yagi Wi-Fi antenna, but that was pretty much the high point of entire day. It was all down slope after that, at least as far as antennas go.
I quickly got it mounted on the horizontal arm of the big window awning, pointing it down toward the trailers.
But that was where it stopped for right then. Since I was on the gate until 6pm, I was going to wait until I got up at 10pm tonight to run the coax in the window and hook it up to the desktop.
I was really looking forward to seeing how much my signal level would increase. Would it go from the normal 2 bars to 4 bars? Or maybe even 5 bars! I was like an anxious kid on Christmas morning,
But all I got was the pink bunny suit with feet. Not a Red Ryder BB Gun in sight.
After hooking up the SMA connector to the desktop’s Wi-Fi card, I eagerly looked at the monitor.
And I had a grand total of 2, count’em, 2 bars of signal. Which dropped to 1 bar even as I was watching.
I’m beginning to think that this entire area is just jinxed.
I mentioned last night that as of about midnight I had no 3G or 4G data on my phone, and my Hotspot wouldn’t connection to anything. Well I kept trying and finally about 2:30 it all started working again. The whole area is just flakey, I think.
I’m also beginning to think that I really do have a problem with the Wi-Fi card in my desktop machine. I’ve wondered about this before since even with a decent inside antenna, it couldn’t see near as many Wi-Fi signals as my phone or tablet, or even our Kindles. But I never followed up on it since it’s usually just connecting to the Cradlepoint router that’s six inches away.
So I quickly put in an Amazon order for this TP-Link model.
TP-LINK N900 2.4GHz or 5GHz Dual Band PCI Express Adapter
Besides hopefully fixing my signal problem, it will also give me a 5GHz connection too. So more tomorrow night I guess.
This morning while Jan was on the gate, an NOV guy, one of the facilities support people, came by and gave us our very own garbage can.
Before, I had to put on my hardhat and lug the bags about 75 yards to one of the big cans on the pad. So this is a lot more convenient.
And even better, when Jan ask him if there was a large dumpster or any thing on site where we could get rid of our old TV, he said no problem, that he would take it. And he even went in the rig and brought it out for her.
Even more better, they did all this without waking me.
For dinner tonight Jan fixed us each a plate of her World Famous Gate Guard Nachos. Simple, quick and delicious.
I give them 3 YUMS UP!
Tomorrow is Wal-Mart/Chick-fil-a day, and I also want to get a haircut. Luckily the CFA is in the Wal-Mart parking lot, so it’s convenient, and good.
September 21, 2017
Like It More and More . . .
Today was another Clear Lake day, but this time with the added benefit of pouring-down rain most of the way down.
Because of the aforesaid rain, I left for home about 3pm instead of my usual 4. I did make a stop at a nearby O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to get some wire loom
for the rewiring of my rig/toad lights using the new connectors that I bought.
The loom is used to cover the wires to protect them from being abraded or damaged.
Getting up to Willis I made a quick stop at the Kroger’s for gas and a few groceries before getting home about 5:30.
Yesterday’s trip over here was first time for two of my recent upgrades, the slide remote control and the rear AC control. Well, I’m batting .500
The rear AC remote worked perfectly, turning the unit off before I started up the generator, and then turning it back on once the generator is up to speed, saving walking back and forth.
The slide worked, kind of.
Pressing the ‘B’ button started the slide coming in . . . for a little bit. When it was almost all the way in, it suddenly started going back out, even with no buttons pressed. And then when it was all the way back out, it stopped. Again without pressing any buttons.
WTH?
So I tried it again. And got the same result.
WTH? 2
After doing this a couple of more times, I bought the slide in manually as always before.
I have no idea what could cause this, so it’s back to the drawing board, I guess. Don’t know if it’s a bad unit, or what.
We’re really enjoying our stay here at the Hillcrest RV Park in Punkin, TX.
Level sites, good, solid power, great! water pressure, and even better, I haven’t been able to find anyone to pay yet.
The only strange thing is the 600ft driveway leading in from TX150. It is strictly a one-way road, so you better be sure that there’s not another rig coming in or out. Otherwise someone’s backing up.
Tonight Jan and I watched the 3rd installment of The Orville and we like it more and more.
The combination of serious story subjects injected with sometimes off-the-wall humor seems to be a perfect duo. Can’t wait for next week’s episode.
September 21, 2018
Now There’s Two Of Them?
I had hoped to get some stuff done around the rig this afternoon after work, maybe get the new rig’s house batteries installed.
But the closely-spaced rainstorms moving through kind of put the kibosh on that. So maybe tomorrow. Same thing goes for looking at my generator problem.
However we may get a break on our upcoming Florida trip, at least as far needing the AC’s on along the way. It’s a little far out for really accurate forecasting, but The Weather Channel shows that the daily high temps between here and Alabama looked to be in the high 70’s-low 80’s during our travel timeframe.
Hopefully it will hold. But we’ll be traveling early in the morning anyway.
The AC power supply for my 6 year old ASUS laptop has gotten kind of flakey so I ordered a new one from Amazon that came in today. And since my battery (the original one) was also pretty worn out, I added one of them too.
This new battery, at 7800 mAh, has about 50% more capacity than the old one.
The perspective here makes it hard to see, but the new one holds the extra capacity by making it a riser.tilting the keyboard to a better angle.
My new (replacement) front wheel hub cover also came in.
So when I put the cover on, it might be good time to check the oil level in my front wheel hubs while I’m at it.
As a follow up to Brandi’s Big Green Backyard Lizard, seems like there may be more than one running loose.
When Brandi posted the story on Facebook, someone alerted her to someone else who had lost their scaly green pet. But when Brandi contacted them, she found that hers wasn’t the missing one.
And when she posted the result of her call, someone said, “So there’s two of them roaming around out there?”
September 21, 2019
Some Sad News . . .
All the comments on yesterday’s blog about Climate Change, or the lack thereof, were all very positive, with some nice comments. Thanks.
On a sad note, we got news this afternoon that my cousin, Anna Jean, had died today.
That’s her on the left., along with Jan, Anna Jean’s sister Marjorie, and Marjorie’s husband Walter, back in 2017 when we were visiting up in Athens, Alabama. She was always so vibrant it was hard to believe that she turned 93 this past July.
Although I always though of her as my cousin, I was kind of curious exactly what relation she was to me. In working it out, she was my mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter.
And according to Google that makes her my First Cousin Once Removed.
She will be missed.
Jan and I headed out a little before 1pm to have lunch at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood. where we were meeting up with long-time friend/client Theresa. She was going to drop off her HP Envy laptop so I could upgrade the hard drive.
Her model came with a 200GB SSD drive, small by today’s multi-TB standard hard drives. But SSD drives offer almost instant boot-up and faster access to programs.
So, because she’s running out of room on her 200GB drive, she wants to upgrade to a 1TB SSD.
So I ordered a new one this evening from Amazon which should be here on Monday. In the meantime I’ll copy all of her data off onto an external HD for safety purposes, and then try to make a System Image of the old drive to then reinstall it onto the new one. We’ll see how it goes.
Our daughter Brandi is out in San Diego with her BFF Shawna having a Girl’s Weekend, with I think, a little work involved. Sounds like a lot of fun.
That’s Brandi on the left with Shawna on the right.
Not much on the schedule for tomorrow, so maybe a nice quiet day.
September 21, 2021
One Last Gasp . . .
I mentioned a couple of days ago about our incoming winter cold front, with a week of day temps in the low 80’s and night temps in the low 60’s. It’s about time.
But summer had to have one last gasp today with a high of 95°, the warmest it’s been in a month or so. But now hopefully done for this year.
Jan and I headed out about 1pm, bound for Webster, and Snooze for lunch once again. And as normal, Jan got her Bravocado Toast,
while I went a little different, with their version of Denny’s Ultimate Omelet.
And although it was OK, it was no ‘Ultimate Omelet’. It was drier that Denny’s version, and they apparently they don’t pre-grill the ingredients before they dump them in the eggs. Instead they just go in cold.
Probably won’t have it again.
Next stop was at work to fix a couple of things that my client had ‘fixed’ this morning. If he would just keep his hands off stuff, or at least call me before he ‘fixes’ anything, my job would be a lot easier.
And lucky for me, he doesn’t read this blog.
After that we made a WalMart stop, we finished up with Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Cowboy Coffee.
Always delicious.
