Monthly Archives: October 2022
Airshow Adventures . . .
Jan and I were on our way this morning about 9am, heading up to Ellington Field for this year’s Wings Over Houston Airshow.
We’ve been coming to these for years, though not so much during our RV’ing years since the Airshow is usually toward the end of October, and we often didn’t get back to this area until right before Thanksgiving.
We did attend last year, though it was kind of blurry since I was only about a week before my 3 Level Cervical Spinal Fusion.
We got parked in the Handicapped Parking area, and thanks to ride golf cart ride, we were in our seats in the Family Chalet area a little before 10. And of course the first thing we did was to take advantage of the free breakfast that came with our Family Chalet tickets.
Sausage Kolaches, Cinnamon Rolls, Fruit, and Water.
We when we got there they were flying RC planes and helicopters, including this jet model.
I think it was a 1/3 scale and really fast.
The first performance was Debby Rihn-Harvey in her Texas Hurricane aerobatic plane.
Next up was a Coast Guard Helo demonstration, showing how they would perform an ocean rescue.
Then up next was a father-son team, John and Shane McGillis.
That’s about it for Airshow stuff tonight. I’ll post more tomorrow.
But I want to finish up with Landon’s Halloween costume this year as a Cyborg.
This is what it looks like in the daytime.
He built the giant mechanical hand from a kit.
And here’s what it looks like at night.
As Jan and I said, “WOW!”
Needless to say, he won First Prize in the contest.
Thought For The Day:
Sometimes 90% of being married is just shouting “WHAT?” from other rooms. Especially as you get older.
Elkhart, IN
October 29, 2009
Turkey & Dressing and Duesenbergs…maybe
Today started with Turkey & Dressing at the nearby Cracker Barrel. Jan loves their Turkey & Dressing. She says the dressing is almost as good as hers. Almost! So Thursday is very often Cracker Barrel.
After lunch we drove back over to the Verizon store to get the correct belt holster for my new Storm 2. The one they gave me was for the Storm, and the Storm 2 is slightly smaller so it wouldn’t stay in the holster. A quick swap-out cured the problem.
I also found out they had the problem fixed with transferring my contact list from my old phone to my new one. But since I didn’t bring my old phone with me, I’ll have to come back later.
Getting back to the rig, I pulled out my air hose and gauge to air up one of the coach tires. When I had the new shocks put on a couple of days ago, I also had them bring my tires up to the correct level. But they did not screw the air pressure sensor back on the valve stem all the way so the tire starting leaking down on the way back to the park.
Our coach has a built-in air compressor that operate the air brakes and the air bag suspension system. There is also a connector that lets me tap into the system and, by starting the engine, I can air up my tires.
Coming back in, I found Jan napping so I decided to head back down to Verizon to get my contact list transferred to my new phone. Then coming home I stopped off and got gas in the toad.
About 5 pm, we were waiting to hear from Al Hesselbart about getting together for dinner. Al is an RV author / historian we had met at a rally in Celina, OH a month ago, and he lives here in Elkhart.
We ended up meeting him at North Garden Chinese Buffet at 5:30 and had a great time listening to Al tell some great stories about the RV industry.
Tomorrow we take a road trip about 130 miles south to Decatur, IN to see where our coach ‘Beauty’ was born. The American Coach factory is there and they give tours. Then coming home we’ll stop off in Auburn, IN to visit the Auburn – Cord – Duesenberg museum.
We’ll see…
October 29, 2011
Three States . . .
It went down to 30 here last night so I stayed in a warm bed until about 10:30. We really like our heated mattress pad and it makes all the difference on these cold nights.
And the hot coffee this morning just topped it all off.
After a nice quiet morning, we headed out about 1 pm to make the 40 mile drive into Cincinnati for the afternoon.
Our first was a place called Jungle Jim’s Market.
It’s really hard to describe this place. It’s a restaurant, an convention center, a Starbuck’s, a Cici’s Pizza, a high end clothing store, a Chipotle Grill, a bank, a pub, a pet store, and a credit union. It even has a monorail.
But most of all, it’s 6 acres of grocery store, with 1 acre for just fresh produce.
This place probably has every grocery item you’ve ever heard, and a lot you’ve never heard of.
Thirty six different types of olives, 140 different types of honey, 1,600 different types of cheeses from all over the world, over 12,000 different wines, and 1,200 different beers.
Their meat department carries fresh ostrich, kangaroo, rattlesnake, elk, venison, game hens, wild boar, pheasant, and bison. WOW!
And, of course, foods that are organic, non-dairy, earth-friendly, vegetarian, vegan, allergy-free, gluten-free, anti-oxidant, low-carb, sugar-free, fat-free, wheat-free . . . etc., though probably not all at the same time.
And while many seafood shops have live Maine lobsters, how many carry live fish? Jungle Jim’s carries over a dozen different species, including Blue Gill, Tilapia, Largemouth Bass,
and Catfish.
Regular readers here know how much I like really, really hot foods. As I say, if my nose is not running and the top of my head isn’t sweating, then it’s not really hot enough.
I’ve even twice eaten HOT! wings made with Ghost Chiles, also known as the Naga Jolokia, until recently the hottest pepper in the world.
You can read about it here at the Cypress Creek Café in Wimberley, TX.
The hottest chili in the world is now acknowledged to be the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chili.
But Jungle Jim’s is the first place I’ve found that actually sells them to the public. Besides the fresh ones, they have a salsa made with the Nagas which I bought some of, and a small package of dried Nagas, which I also bought.
The package says to wear eye protection and latex gloves before handling or preparing them.
Not sure what I’m going to use them for, maybe trick someone into eating one so I can see steam coming out of their ears.
We spent almost two hours at Jungle Jim’s and still didn’t see everything, so hopefully we’ll be able to go back again sometime.
One strange thing happen after we parked at Jungle Jim’s. Getting out and closing my door, I heard a metallic ‘clunk’. Thinking I had left the seatbelt buckle in the door, I turned around and noticed that I had left my window down, But I didn’t remember putting it down. Opening the door and trying to raise the window, I could hear the motor running but the window was not coming up.
I realized what happened was that when I closed the door, the window had come loose from its mechanism and fallen down inside the door.
Not wanting to ride home with the window down, I came up with a fix. I keep a small roll of Gorilla Tape in the truck console,
so using the pliers on the Swiss Army tool
my daughter gave me for Father’s Day years ago, I was able to pull the window up out of the door, and then use the Gorilla Tape to hold it in place, and then seal it up, ending up with this.
Gorilla Tape is perfect for this because it’s much stronger than duct tape, and twice as sticky. Even better is that the glue stays on the tape when you pull it off, and doesn’t mess up the paint job.
When I get home I’ll dig out my manual and see what it’s going to take to get the door panel off and see what happened. I suspect the window glass may have fallen out of its track. We’ll see.
Since my temporary fix seems to be holding, I may just wait until we get back to Texas in 3 weeks or so.
By now it was after 4 pm so we decided to head south to a Texas Roadhouse for dinner. My Ribeye was good, but not quite as good as the one I had in Elkhart last week. The taste was great but the texture was a little mealy.
After dinner we headed on south to the closest Wal-Mart for a few things. Coming home our route took us down through Kentucky for a few miles. Thus we had traveled through three states today, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.
October 29, 2013
Boom or Bust?
or maybe our boom busted?
Well, our big gate traffic increase due to another round of ‘coiled tubing’ never materialized. In fact we had 7 less vehicles today (Tuesday) than we did on Monday.
But the fact that about 5pm a bunch of guys came in with a Wireline rig might mean they’ve got even more problems than I first thought. Wireline is a cable dropped into the well, and used for a number of different things, but none of them usually good at this point in a well’s life cycle. Normally it is used to lower equipment or measurement devices into the well to check on conditions and look for problems.
So we’re still waiting to here what the problem is.
Yesterday a van full of pipeline workers came thru the gate and one of the guys made a comment about Mister, who was asleep on the table beside Jan. Now normally we don’t log them in or out so they never have to stop, but this time they slowed down and one of them said “A cat that size would make a good batch of cat gumbo”. Jan, of course, wasn’t too happy about this and I guess it showed on her face. Later in the afternoon when I was on the gate, the now-empty van came back by and the driver said that he thought they’d made Jan mad.
Jan had told me what they said, so I looked down at Mister who was still asleep on the table and said,”He may look fat and slow, but he’s really just big and fast. And his favorite thing is to chase dogs three times his size, so if anyone’s bleeding into the gumbo, it probably won’t be him.”
“And as far as making my wife mad, you don’t wanna to do that. If you do, she’s gonna be stopping y’all every time you come through the gate, and she’s gonna wanna to get everyone’s name, and she’s gonna wanna see everyone’s photo ID. It might take you 10 or 15 minutes to get cleared through every time.”
Now since these vans come through here 10 or more times a day, and since they’ve usually got as many as 15 workers on board, this could put a real crimp in their work schedule.
The guy kinda gulped and said, “I’ll pass it on”.
I’m expecting the candy and flowers to start arriving any time now.
I’ve made another addition to the menus at the top of the page. I now have a tab with basic information about gate guarding, how we got started and what you can expect.
I’ve also added a new item to my “What Were They Thinking?” file. Why didn’t I ever have teachers like this in college?
In addition I’ve added a couple of more recipes to Jan’s Favorites. The first one is another ‘gate’ recipe, i.e. simple, quick, and delicious. It’s Habanero Chile Cheese Mac. You won’t believe how good this is.
The second one is her famous Sausage Balls. We often get together with a big group of friends for Thanksgiving and the first thing everyone wants to know is if Jan is bringing her Sausage Balls.
Enjoy.
October 29, 2014
Always the last to know . . .
We bumped up to almost 10 pages or 240 vehicles today, mostly due, I think, to a new workover rig that came into a pad that we didn’t know existed here. At least it’s labeled wrong on the info that our oil company gave us.
When we moved to this new gate, we were told that the pad we’re parked on was 1H and 2H, which means there are two wells here. The pad right down the road, where they’re getting ready to frack, is 3H, 4H, and 5H, i.e. 3 wells there.
But today I found out that 1H is not here, but about 1/2 mile on down the road, all by itself. And they’re moving another workover rig in there.
Thanks for telling us. We’re always the last to know, Which is sad because the guys coming in here are asking us for directions.
Of course some of these drivers are their own worst enemies. I had one truck come in this afternoon looking for a drill rig that wasn’t here. So I ask to see his directions. And they were pretty specific.
“Turn right at the intersection on US190 and go 4 miles. Then turn right on Junction Lane. The rig will be on your right.”
So I told him where he turned in is only 2 miles from the intersection. Then I ask him if he noticed what our road is named.
He said, “Simpson”.
So then I asked why he went 2 miles and turned on Simpson, when his directions said to go 4 miles and turn on Junction.
He said, “Cause I saw another truck turn in here.”
Whoever said men won’t ask for directions was only half-right. In many cases they won’t follow them either.
I think my venerable Cradlepoint CTR-500 router is slowly giving up the ghost. I mean it’s only 6 years old, so what gives. Anyway, the problem seems to be with the Wi-Fi part of it. It’s apparently gotten flakey.
I’m still using a USB 3G modem that looks like a large pack of gum. And the reason I’m still using it is that I’m grandfathered for unlimited data, and I don’t want to lose that by upgrading to a 4G one. And I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about numerous problems with the new ones.
At first I was afraid that my modem was dying and I’d be forced to upgrade, but it works fine plugged directly into my laptop. And with the modem plugged into the router, my desktop works fine directly connected with an Ethernet cable. And I know the Wi-Fi on the laptop and the desktop are OK, because they have no problems using my Galaxy 5S as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
But anytime I try to use the Wi-Fi from the router, my signal comes and goes, so I’ll now I’ll have to look into getting a new one, I guess. I’ll let you know what I find.
Or maybe I’ll just bang on it.
Finally, it looks like we’ve got some pretty cold weather coming through in the next few days.
I’m really looking forward to that 39° one.
(you did get the sarcasm there, right?)
October 29, 2015
A Tale of Two Laces . . .
Or A Day Too Far.
Well, we did have a few more vehicles in today than yesterday. 59 today vs. 56 yesterday. Still not bad, not bad at all. I was outside at 5:15am this morning, thinking the workers would start coming in about the same time as yesterday, but apparently they slept in today because no one showed up until almost 6:45.
We had hoped that today would be a repeat of yesterday, with everyone leaving about 5:15, so we could make one last try at dinner in town. But apparently we went a day too far, as we still had 10 vehicles on site at 5:30, and the last guy in about 4:30pm said, “See you tomorrow morning”, as he drove in.
Bummer.
The weather’s been just about perfect the last few days, with temps in the high 70’s / low 80’s in the day time, and mid to high 50’s at night, But we are scheduled for more thunderstorms on Saturday, of course, just as things finally dry out around here.
Our landowner came through today, mildly complaining about the fact that all the work crews were still around on both sites, and would be for a while now. He was originally hoping that they all would be gone by next Saturday, the 7th, the start of deer hunting season in this area.
He has a lot of deer feeders and game cameras out, and charges people to hunt on his land. So he’s going to have to cut back on the hunting areas so someone doesn’t bag his limit in Flowback workers. Or gate guards, for that matter, I guess.
Back the end of September, when Jan and I had our afternoon Anniversary getaway to Shreveport, I tracked down a Cavender’s to buy some better boot laces, because the cheap Wal-Mart ones I’ve been buying only last a couple of months.
I normally wear boots, the short boots, or engineer boots, all the time for the ankle support. Both ankles have gotten pretty banged up over the years, mostly due to a few problems encountered when jumping out of perfectly good airplanes a long time ago. So if I try to do much walking in something like Crocs, or other sandals, I’m hobbling pretty quickly.
So I figured a place that sells a lot of boots should also sell the best quality, longest-lasting boot laces. And when I asked at the store, I was shown these Ariat brand ones, the ones on the right.
At $6.50 a pair I would expect them to last at least six and a half times longer than the Wal-Mart $1.00 ones on the left. So I bought two pair, secure in the knowledge that I was now set in the boot lace department for the rest of the year, and almost certainly beyond.
TEN DAYS!
That’s how long the first pair lasted.
I had just put a new pair of the Wal-Mart ones on my boots right before I bought the new laces, and being as cheap as I am, I waited to put the new ones on until after the old ones broke. I mean, why throw away a perfectly good pair of laces, right?
So early last week the old ones snapped and it was finally time to installed my new long-wearing, maybe even lifetime, shoe laces.
TEN DAYS!
I mean these are quality laces, solid leather,
and made in . . . India?
INDIA?
INDIA?
WTH!
They supposedly worship cows, but they’ll chop ‘em up and make poor-quality, third-world shoe laces out of them? What would Raj say about this?
And now I just figured out that for the $13 I paid for these ‘laces’, I could have bought two years of cheap laces from Wal-Mart.
Just damn!
October 29, 2016
GateWorthy . . . Again
After a nice quiet morning Jan and I headed out for a late lunch and some shopping.
But our first stop was the real estate office to see if our absentee ballots from South Dakota had come in. But it looks like the office closes on Saturdays, or at least no one was there, so I’ll check back on Monday. I also need to check with the bank to see if VISA check cards have come in on our new DBA account.
One of the things we were shopping for was a new toaster oven. Our 4 year Farberware model had stopped working, or at least the broiler element on top had.
So a new one was in order.
We had decided to try Bella Sera, a well-recommended local Italian place, but first we drove on up to the Wal-Mart to pick up a new toaster oven. I had found this one in stock online for only $40 and it’s a convection oven too. And even better, it’s all manual.
The last two ovens before the one that died today both had the digital electronic controls and neither one lasted much more than a year due to them going completely dead. So we’ll see how long this one lasts. Hopefully another 4 years.
Finally we were back at Bella Sera, just about a quarter mile back down the road from Wal-Mart.
After looking over the menu and getting a recommendation from our waitress, Jan went with the Chicken Florentine, with spinach, mushrooms, and garlic in a creamy white wine sauce over spaghetti.
I chose the Bella Sera Chicken with fresh basil, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, olives and capers, in a fresh lemon sauce over spaghetti.
Our entrees came with Chicken Soup or Tossed Salad, so I checked out the Chicken Soup while Jan went with the Tossed Salad with homemade Bleu Cheese dressing.
The soup was really good, with lots of chicken and perfectly seasoned. After tasting mine, Jan says she may get the soup next time. And there will be a next time.
Right before our entrees were served, I checked my phone and saw a text message from Todd at SiteWatch. It had come through about an hour before, while we were still at the rig and for some reason I didn’t hear it.
It said, “FYI, the shelter is out of water, so be sure and take what you need with you tonight.” Thinking maybe he had just texted the wrong person, I texted back, “Does this concern us?”
About 5 minutes later, Todd texted back, “Oh crap. Sorry. I meant to tell you yesterday you’re on a gate tonight starting at 5pm. Can you work tonight?
It was now 3:15pm.
So I texted back, “Yep! Where? Just me or Jan too?”
Turns out it was just me (to Jan’s glee) and the location was only a few mile away from our last week’s gate, and actually only about 5 miles from our very first Marathon gate back in 2012. Looks like it will be for at least 3 nights and maybe more. And still only about 15 minutes from the rig. So nice.
So we quickly ask for To-Go boxes and the check, and headed home. Didn’t even unload the new toaster oven. Just changed clothes, packed my stuff and headed back out.
Brandi took Landon down to Clear Lake this morning so that his Uncle Chris could make a Halloween costume for him. Landon wanted to be a robot, and Chris certainly did him up right.
Of course with any project, the first thing you have to do is to take measurements.
Landon and his Aunt Piper are hard at work too. Every project needs supervisors overseeing things, right?
Things are starting to take shape.
Almost there.
And now the finished project.
Great Job, Chris!
October 29, 2017
The End Of An Era . . .
After moving Thursday, working Friday, and doing the Texas Renaissance Festival yesterday, it was really nice to sleep in this morning.
I spent the morning and early afternoon checking out and setting up some of our new toys that came in over the last few days. First up was my new La Crosse Weather Station that came in Friday.
I set up the color display and the outside temp/humidity sensor Friday night and got it synced up with my WiFi. For some reason I had trouble getting it connected using my phone. It would see the MiFi signal but wouldn’t connect to it. However when I used my Galaxy Tab 4, it connected immediately.
You don’t need the WiFi connection, but using it lets the display automagically sync with the NIST Atomic Clock Signal so the time display is always correct. And when you give it your Zipcode location, it displays the National Weather Service forecast for your area in a graphical format. And with the La Crosse View app on your phone you can monitor the weather conditions inside and out at your home location.
Later in the afternoon I went outside to install the windspeed sensor and the rain gauge. I mounted the anemometer on the pole I used to mount my Wilson Cellphone Booster on.
You can see it here mounted to the ladder on the rear of the rig.
.The only kind of disappointment is the rain gauge that comes with the set.
There is no way to mount it on anything. You can only just set it out on the ground or some other flat surface and hope it doesn’t blow off or walk off. It’s supposed to rain this coming Wednesday so we’ll see how that works.
Next up was a Bluetooth Keyboard I ordered for my Galaxy Tab 4 tablet.
I sometimes find that I need to type in a lot of text on the Tab and the onscreen keyboard just doesn’t cut it, so I found this one on Amazon.
It was only $14 so I thought I’d give it a try, I had a little trouble getting it to connect to the Tab, but it connected to my Galaxy S8+ phone with no problems. But with a little experimenting, I found that if I unpaired the two other devices on my Tab, it connected with no problems. Then I was able to re-pair the two devices with no problems.
Of course I had the same two devices paired on my phone and it worked with no problems right off the bat. So who knows. But it works now.
Then it was time to try out Jan’s new Instant Pot.
Instant Pot 8 Qt., 6 in 1, Pressure Cooker.
Before you cook anything in it you’re supposed to put 3 cups of water in the cooking pot and then run it for two minutes on the Steam setting to be sure it’s working OK. And since it passed the test I think Jan’s got a meal in mind for Tuesday or Wednesday.
She was worried about the size of the Instant Pot, thinking it might not be as big enough to hold a full batch of her Chili or Chicken Tortilla Soup. But when I checked, her Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker is only 5 Qt., so the 8 Qt. Instant Pot will be just fine.
October 29, 2018
Pool Salts and Good Friends . . .
I spent most of today at work trying to get a handle on the whole USPS shipping rate thing.
I’ve been working to get all the applicable rate charts on USPS webpage into a format (.csv, .xls) that computers can read. In some cases it’s just a matter of rote copy and paste into a spreadsheet.
Boring and time-consuming, but necessary.
When I left the rig this morning Jan was getting ready to cook up about 5# of Ground Chuck, saving out part of it to make a big batch of her world-famous chili, and the rest to vacuum-seal and freeze for later.
But after I got to work, I call her and told her to put it off so we could go out to eat tonight. Going in to work, I noticed that the new Slim Chickens had started their ‘soft’ opening today and thought we’d check them out.
We’d first eaten at a Slim Chicken’s last year up in Katy with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, and really liked it. So we were looking to this new one in our area opening.
Slim’s is kind of like a Raising Cane’s with Chicken Tenders, and sides. What sets them apart is Slim’s wide range of sides. Where Cane’s only had the basic Fries and Cole Slaw, Slim’s had Side Salads, Mac N Cheese, Potato Salad, Homemade Potato Chips, Fried Pickles, Fried Okra (my favorite) and Jan’s favorite, their Fried Mushrooms.
And along with full size salads, they also have Chicken and Waffles!
We both got Side Salads as our sides, along with an order of Fried Okra and Fried Mushrooms.
Really good, and luckily for us, really close. We’ll be back soon.
Following up on yesterday’s pool party up at Brandi’s, one thing nice about their pool is that it’s a saltwater pool. It’s much easier on your skin with little or no pruney puckering.
You don’t have to add chlorine because the pool makes its own chlorine. Using a salt cell, or salt generator, it electrolyzes the salt water, generating hypochlorous acid (HClO) and sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), furnishing the small amount of sanitizing agents need for the pool.
What’s also nice is the extra flotation that the salt water gives, which makes lounging in the pool even more enjoyable.
Tomorrow we’re making a trip back north to one of our old home bases, the Thousand Trails park at Lake Conroe. We’re meeting up with long-time friend’s, Ed and Debi Hurlburt, and Wil and Cyndy Olsen at our favorite El Bosque Mexican Restaurant.
Can’t wait to catch up with old friends.
October 29, 2019
50 Years Ago Today . . .
This is where it happened.
And this is what it was done with.
And this what it was.
As the plaque says, this was the birthplace of the Internet. Not the Web, but the underlying Internet. The Web,which runs on the Internet, didn’t come along until the 1992-93 timeframe. Until this date, all computers were independent of each other and didn’t communicate amongst themselves.
You can read all about it here.
The whole Internet idea came about from the military wanting a secure communications system between military installations, one that couldn’t be easily knocked out, you know, by an Russian H-Bomb taking out Chicago, or something.
With a ‘net’ configuration like this,
the idea was that if one ‘node’, or city, if you will, is taken out, the data will automatically be routed along a different path to the destination. But this re-routing can also happen without losing a city, and happens routinely today.
Your data, whether it’s an email, a photo, or website text, is made up of packets of bytes, anywhere from 1000 to 1500 bytes. And these packets may be split up along the way, in many cases not arriving in the order that it was sent out. But the system on the receiving end knows how to reassemble them into the correct order.
USUALLY.
I was using the Internet email system from the mid-80’s, and was on the Web in early 1993. And it ‘s been a wild ride every since.
And Al Gore’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere.
October 29, 2020
They’re There!
Today was a lunch/errand day, starting out with the delicious Blackened Catfish and Shrimp once again at our local Dickinson Seafood.
We get extra Veggies instead of the Dirty Rice,
and along with a nice salad, it’s a great deal for only $8.59 on the Lunch Menu.
Then it was on up to the Clear Lake WalMart and Sam’s for a few things before getting home about 5pm.
They’re There!
When I checked the South Dakota Voter Information Portal about 1pm today, I found that they had received and logged in my Absentee Ballot today, the 29th. So since I had only been checking my ballot each day, I thought I’d double-check that Jan’s had also arrived safely, figuring that they were mailed together so they probably arrived together.
But No.
As it turns out for some reason Jan’s ballot arrived this past Monday, the 26th. Why hers got there before mine, I don’t know. But at least they’re both there now.
So I guess we can say “We Voted!” now.
Jan’s really enjoying her birthday present, courtesy of Amazon’s recent Prime Day’s. I got her a Fire HD 10 Tablet.
It’s got 32 GB with a 1080p screen, and was marked down from $150 to $80 for the sale.
I also got her this cover for it.
Setup was really quick and easy since it came already registered to us, so it automagically downloaded all Jan’s favorite programs, and even our preferred WiFi logins.
And I also got a 128 GB microSD card to for to hold all the programs and files.
It’s her new favorite. I think I did good.
October 29, 2021
Party Poopers . . .
Today was Halloween dress-up day at our daughter Brandi’s work. Each group was supposed to dress up in a theme. But Brandi’s group just told everyone that they were going to be party poopers this year and were not going to compete this year.
So everyone was really surprised when they showed up today dressed as “Party Poopers’”, with ‘real’ poop.
Of course they won the Team Costume contest.
Tomb Raider . . .
Despite all the rain today, it still looks good for our attending the Wings Over Houston Airshow tomorrow. Though it poured down most of the day, tomorrow looks to be pretty good, with a high of 71° and partly cloudy. A lot nicer than last years 90+.
As I posted earlier we’ll be in the Family Chalet area with tables and chairs, and free food.
There’s even a covered area if we need it.
Really looking forward to it.
In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned how our favorite Twin Peaks server is going to be Lara Croft – Tomb Raider during TW’s Halloween Days that started today. So this morning she texted me a photo of her outfit.
Looks pretty good, but I told her that she really needs a gun strapped to both legs.
Thought For The Day:
“There’s maybe ten years of new, and thousands of years of old. Odds are old is going to be better.” – Banecek
October 28, 2009
Culver’s and Storm 2…
About 12:30 we headed out for lunch at Culver’s, a chain restaurant we hadn’t tried before. It’s kind of a cross between a Dairy Queen, a McDonald’s, and a Denny’s. It’s counter service, but besides ice cream and hamburgers, they also dinners like fried chicken, pot roast, and sandwiches. It was good and we’ll go back.
Coming home we found a new neighbor a few sites over from us who are also full-timing. They’re from up in Michigan, but are heading down to Florida, then down to the Texas Rio Grande Valley, and then on to Yuma, AZ for the rest of the winter. We hope to see them at the Gypsy Rally in Yuma in March.
Later, Jan and I headed out to a local Verizon store so I could upgrade my Palm Treo to a new Blackberry Storm 2. I’ve been waiting for the new Storm 2 to come out since my Palm was on its last legs.
After getting my upgrade I dropped Jan off at Walmart to get her hair cut. while I ran an errand.
Coming back to the rig about 5:30 pm we decide to stay in for the evening.
October 28, 2010
Direct TV and Hooter’s . . .
Not much went on today.
About 11:30 I called Direct TV to see about getting a new DVR/Receiver. The recent winds blew my dish off target and when I went to the Setup screen, the audio feedback did not work. Without the beeping that tells me when I’m pointed correctly, it will be very hard to set up the dish.
Supposedly a technician will be out tomorrow morning between 8 and noon. We’ll see.
A little after 1 pm I went into Webster to check up on some clients.
Then, getting back to the rig about 3:30, Jan and I headed up to Kemah to the Hooter’s there for some hot wings. We got them 3 Mile Island hot, but I don’t know if our taste buds have been deadened, or they’ve reduced the heat, but these weren’t really hot. I guess next time we’ll have to bump them up to 911 or Elvis.
Jan loves Hooter’s and when her late mother lived with us, she really loved Hooter’s too.
So I used to tell everyone that my wife and mother-in-law made me take them to Hooter’s once a week. So “Am I a lucky guy, or what?”
That’s about it for today.
Tomorrow night we’ll be taking in the Halloween Show at the Alvin Opry. We’re really looking forward to it, since their Halloween Show is always great.
October 28, 2011
and then the Boredom set in . . .
Well, winter is setting in here, with 34 degrees last night, and an anticipated 30 degrees tonight. But it’s sunny and 50 degrees during the daytime, so it’s not all bad.
When I bought my Droid Charge last week, I saw this Droid Clock Dock on display. It look neat, but they didn’t have any in stock so I put it off.
But yesterday I found it on Amazon and ordered it. I picked it up at the office here at the park about 1pm and quickly checked it out. And it was even better than the specs online.
When you plug the Droid into the dock, it not only starts charging the Droid, it automatically becomes a desk clock. And you can plug in speakers and play your music through it too. It also has a recess to plug in and recharge a spare battery.
But what the specs didn’t say is that it comes with a spare battery too.
Neat.
Today was Halloween at Brandi and Lowell’s church so Landon had his first Trick or Treating experience.
Here he is getting into his costume. (It’s a giraffe, by the way.)
Landon and Mommy.
Trick or Treating for the first time.
October 28, 2012
Almost Wrapping Up Savannah . . .
As our visit to Savannah winds down, we all headed about noon back down toward Tybee Island to visit Fort Pulaski.
Fort Pulaski, named for Kazimierz Pulaski, a Polish military commander who fought in the American Revolution with George Washington, it was built between 1829 and 1847 utilizing over 25,000,000 bricks.
But it stood unused until it was seized by the state of Georgia as a prelude to the state seceding from the Union and joining the Confederate States of America.
During April 10-11, 1862, Union forces laid siege to the fort in an attempt to recapture it. After a 30 hour bombardment with the new rifled cannons, the previously-thought unassailable walls had been breached.
Knowing that with the collapse of the wall, the 40,000 pounds of gunpowder stored in the magazine were now vulnerable, and would destroy the fort and everyone in it, Colonel Charles H. Olmstead, commander of the Confederate garrison, surrendered to the Union troops.
Within six weeks of the surrender, Union forces repaired the Fort and began the blockade of the port of Savannah which continued through the end of the Civil War.
Later in the war, the fort was used as a prison for captured Confederate officers.
Later a Park Ranger dressed in Confederate gray, demonstrated the loading and firing of a British-made Enfield rifle, used by both sides during the war.
Leaving Fort Pulaski, we drove out to the end of Tybee Island to check out the local beach.
With the passing of Hurricane Sandy, we expected to see higher waves here, but it was actually pretty tame.
One thing about Tybee Island is that you can’t park anywhere without paying for it. Even the parking spots at the local Arby’s had parking meters on them, so you get to pay for parking and your roast beef sandwich.
About 4:30 we headed back toward Savannah to have dinner at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House.
“Uncle Bubba” is Paula Deen’s brother, whose nickname is Bubba, and in fact Paula Deen is a partner in Uncle Bubba’s.
We both enjoyed our meals, with my Low Country Boil, consisting of Boiled Shrimp, Smoked Sausage, Boiled New Potatoes, and Corn of the Cob, being definitely better than the same meal I had a few days ago at The Crab Shack.
Don’t get me wrong, the Crab Shack was really good. But Bubba’s version was just better. And Jan said her oysters were fantastic!
On the subject of oysters, this shirt on sale at Uncle Bubba’s explains why I love oysters so much (and Jan too.)
On the way back to the park, we drove by the Mercer-Williams House. Besides being a beautiful example of Civil War architecture, the house is most famous for being the location of the shooting described in the book and the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”
Since it was almost dark by the time we got there, here’s a photo from the Web.
And in addition to the “Midnight” death, two more deaths occurred here. In 1913 a previous owner fell over a 2nd floor bannister and died a few days later. And in 1964 a boy chasing pigeons on the roof, fell off and impaled himself on the wrought iron fence.
Ouch!
On that happy note, we headed back to the park for the night. Tomorrow will be a goof-off day before we wrap up our visit to Savannah on Tuesday.
October 28, 2014
Same Old, Same Old . . .
Trucks come in. Trucks go out.
The frack equipment continues to move in, but so far it seems at a slower pace than our other fracks. But that may be just the calm before the storm, so to speak. We’ll see. At least we probably won’t have two fracks going on at the same time like before.
Maybe.
One of our RV friends has been having a problem with small floor heaters in their rig burning out after a few days. So she asked me for help, and although I haven’t heard back from her yet, I thought I’d pass on my ideas.
The RV is on shore power plugged into their garage, and everything else is fine. But so far 3 of these small Lasko-type floor heaters have burned out within a few days when plugged into the rig, after working fine in the house.
After thinking on it a bit, my thought is that even though she’s plugged into shore power, that outlet, or all of them, must be coming off the inverter. I guess it depends on how your transfer switch is wired up.
On our rig, if we’re on shore power, the inverter is not in use, even if turned on. The order seems to be: Generator, Shore Power, Inverter. But I’m wondering if her rig might have a different order.
I suggested she check to see if her inverter is on, and if so, turn it off. Then check to see if that outlet still has power. Now she knows she’s really on shore power. And I suspect that she won’t have anymore heater problems.
The reason I think her inverter is involved is that a lot of electronic equipment does not like the modified sine wave power put out by most RV inverters. This graphic from the Xantrex company shows the difference.
The red line is what the power coming out of your wall outlet at home looks like. The blue line is what the power coming out of most RV inverters looks like. A big difference. And a difference that a lot of electronics doesn’t like. It just depends on how it’s designed.
In our case, a few years ago it happened to us. We have a heated mattress pad on our bed and it has dual electronic pushbutton controls. One day while we were traveling, and had the inverter on, one of the controllers fell off the end table and turned on when it hit the floor. This immediately killed it. Luckily I was able to order a new one. And now we unplug the mattress pad when we travel.
Most computers will work OK, and most devices that use ‘wall wart’ power supplies, or inline power supplies like laptops, will also work OK. Usually if it has a transformer in the power supply, it will work.
But it seems like any device that involves large current draw, heaters, coffee makers, etc., and has a digital readout/controller, is going to have problems with modified sine wave power. I won’t go into why this is circuit-wise, and the fact that the circuit could easily be designed not to have this problem, but it would cost an extra dollar or so. Of course if you’re making a million heaters a year, this adds up, so there is that view of things.
There are several things you can do here. First, check the literature that came with the device. In many cases it will say, “Not For Use In An RV”. Second, call the manufacturer or check their website.
Finally, if all else fails, buy something cheap. Get a heater that just has a knob that says, “OFF, HI, MED, LO”. It will work fine. Same goes for a coffee maker like that.
Or you could just replace your rig’s inverter with a $2000 Full Sine-wave model. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
That’s probably about enough on the tech stuff. Many of you are dozing off already. Jan says you can ask me what time it is, and I’ll start with the history of the sundial and come forward from there.
She’s probably right.
October 28, 2015
They’re Hereeee!
Finally!
About 20 till 6 this morning the bell rang and I stuck my head out the door expecting to greet one of the frack water guys who usually come in around 6am. But instead I found the point man for the Flowback team that was about an hour behind him.
And about 6:30 here they came. As it turned out, they weren’t really the Flowback crew yet, but more like the Flowback and ‘Anchor Down’ prep crew. So now it was back to our old routine.
I got dressed and went outside about 6:15 to get set up since we had stored away a lot of stuff under the canopy during our downtime, and also because of the four days of rain we just had. In fact as it turns out, the heavy rains may have been why everything Flowback was delayed since last week.
By 7am when I went inside to go to bed, 8 vehicles had come in, and by a little after 5pm we’d had a total of 56, a big jump from the None we’ve had for the last week or so. They were mostly bringing in equipment and tools
When we’ve got a new crew coming in like this, I always let Jan find out the particulars of what’s going on. The guys are always happy to chat up a pretty blonde who’s asking questions. Me, I usually just get ‘grunts’.
We were hoping that this might be a 12 hour job. but no, this is still a 24 hour gate. But the good news is that this Flowback will go at least a month before the Workover Rig comes in. Since we plan to leave in a little over three weeks to head back to the Houston area on November 22nd, this works out perfectly for us.
Yesterday Jan and I had talked about going out to dinner tonight, figuring it might be our last chance for a while. I mean, the Flowback’s gotta finally start sometime, right? But I guess we just went a day too far.
But not really, as it turns out. A little before 5:15, two trucks left that were the first two trucks in this morning. Since normally “First In, Last Out” means ‘Bosses’, I checked over the log and found everyone had left for the day, except for one truck. And since it was pretty overcast, there should have been lights on at the pad if anyone was still working there but it was dark down that way.
It’s not unusual for the crew to leave a vehicle or two onsite, so I stuck my head in the rig to tell Jan we might still be able to go out, but found her almost ready to bring out our dinner.
Bummer!
After we finished dinner, delicious leftovers from our Jalapeno Tree visit for Jan’s Birthday this past Sunday, I drove down to the pad to check things out.
And as I figured, the one missing truck was there, but no one else. Our window of opportunity had slammed shut.
But maybe tomorrow? We’ll see.
October 28, 2016
DKIM . . .
Jan and I are beginning to wonder if Miss Karma needs glasses.
Since we’ve had her, she’s always had a propensity to run into things. She’s much more careful about where she steps or how she jumps down from something than any of our other cats.
This afternoon she jumped down from one of the chairs and ran right into my leg. She sometimes runs from the front of the rig back to the bedroom and runs into the bed. I did look in her eyes to see if she might have cataracts, but saw no signs of them.
So how do you give an eye test to a cat?
Heading out a little before 1pm, our first was at the Lone Star Real Estate office to pick up an Amazon package that came in this morning. The lady that owns this office also owns our RV Park, and kindly lets us receive mail and packages there.
Thanks, Nancy.
Our next stop was at Barth’s Restaurant for a 3rd shot at their great lunch buffet, and today was no exception.
We’re gradually working our way through the week, having already had the Friday Mexican fare, and Sunday’s Turkey & Dressing/Fried Chicken offering. All great.
And today’s Chicken Fried Steak Fingers and Fried Catfish continued in the same theme of really deliciousness. And from what Jan says, we’re going back for more Turkey & Dressing on Sunday.
After lunch we had planned to check out the local HEB, but as we were entering the restaurant earlier, I discovered that I had left my cellphone back in the rig. And not wanting to miss a possible Todd text about another gate, we decided to loop back home to pick it up. But as happens, once we got back home, we decided to stay and do HEB another day, maybe tomorrow.
A reader, Richard, left a comment wanting to know more about the voltmeters I use to monitor our rig’s battery voltages. Actually I have three voltmeters that I’ve install in our rig – two 12 volt meters to monitor both engine batteries and house batteries, and one that monitors our AC house voltage, whether shore power or generator power.
Early on, I discovered that 12v power that feeds the overhead spot lights, map lights, and the power plugs at the dashboard comes from the engine batteries. And the 12v power in the rest of the coach comes from the house batteries.
So that means I should be monitoring both if I want to know what’s going. One reason is to be sure that the engine batteries are being charged. On our American Eagle, the engine batteries are only topped off when the house batteries are fully charged and the battery isolator switches over to charge the engine batteries.
So I have one 12v meter underneath the overhead cabinets at the dashboard. This one monitors the engine batteries.
And I have another one over the sofa monitors the house batteries.
Both of these are visible from my computer chair so I can always keep an eye on things.
I also have another one for 120vac that resides right over my driver’s chair. I put it in that position so I can monitor the generator output while we’re on the road.
And when we’re parked I can keep an eye on the shore power, especially important when the park voltage starts dipping in the Texas summertime with everyone running their AC’s full bore.
Here is the 12v version from Amazon. At $7 they’re an inexpensive addition.
And here’s the 120vac version, also from Amazon.
And this one’s only $8.
As far as hooking them up, it was really pretty simply. I was able to tap into 12v sources in the cabinets. In both cases, I hooked up the 12v meters like this.
I wired them across a couple of lights that we never use, just hooking up the red wire (+) to one side of the switch and the black wire (-) to the other side. And yes, the meter will go dead if you close the switch, but it won’t hurt it.
One of these is a rope accent light over the sofa, and the other is a high power halogen light over the dash, so they were perfect to use.
As far as the 120vac meter, it was even simpler. There is a 120vac socket in the cabinet overhead, so I just wired a two prong plug on the meter leads (polarity doesn’t matter) and plugged it in. Easy Peazy.
Now on to DKIM.
I may be taking my life in my hands, but I’m going to dip a toe into the election mess, but on a technical level.
I’m sure pretty much everyone has heard about the emails, Wikileaks and otherwise. Depending on your point of view, some of the information contained within either depressed you or encouraged you.
And a couple of the people referenced in them, after writing things they probably wished hadn’t been made public, have said the emails were tampered with, changed, or modified, to make them look bad.
But that didn’t happen, and it’s easy to tell it didn’t. Even you could do it if you wanted to. You just use a DKIM verification program.
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail, a combination of two different pieces of email verification software.
Pretty much every piece of server software that you would use to set up an email server contains the DKIM routine. In some cases it’s already set up, and in other cases, it must be manually configured.
Depending on whether your email is stored on your home computer, or on the email server, all the emails, all attachments, etc., all the emails are stored in a single large file, either a .pst file, or an .ost file.
These found, stolen, leaked, emails are not copied off one by one, like you would make a copy on one on your personal computer, but the entire .pst or .ost file is stolen, leaked, or copied.
Think of the DKIM software as being similar to the https: secure login for credit card purchases online. An encrypted handshaking takes place between your computer and Amazon’s (for example), guaranteeing that you are really talking to Amazon, and not some spoof site, giving away your credit card data.
The same thing takes place in an email from a DKIM server. It guarantees that the email is coming or going from the specified email server AND no changes have been made to any of the text in the emails.
So you can download DKIM verification software and check this out for yourself.
And now you know.
October 28, 2017
Texas Renfest . . .
Jan and I were up at 6:45am, and out the door by 7:30, to make the hour plus trip up to Brandi’s in Katy.
Then it was on up to Magnolia and the Texas Renaissance Festival.
Did some figuring and came up with the fact that we’ve been coming to the RenFest since 1979, five years after it started in 1974. What I didn’t realize is that the location is actually an old strip mine site, mining what I don’t know.
We paid the extra $10 for Preferred Parking which turned out to be well worth it. Because it comes with a shuttle that picks you up right at your car and takes you to the main entrance, and then back when you leave. Very nice. Especially when you’re really tired when you’re leaving.
And of course after entering the Faire it was time to eat. Jan got a Sesame Chicken On A Stick, and I got a Sausage On A Stick, and a Piña Colada. Very Good.
This weekend is Halloween at Renfest so we saw a lot of other costumes around, like Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, Alice and the Mad Hatter, and even a T-Rex.
One thing we always do here is to attend the Falconery Show.
Vulture
A Great Horned Owl
Another Species of Great Horned Owl.
Hawk
Falcon
South American King Vulture
Coming home we stopped off at the Friendswood Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription and a couple of grocery items. Then before leaving the parking lot, we got a couple of Coffee Milkshakes from the Whataburger to take home for supper. Our favorite.
Oh, by the way, I found Waldo(s)
October 28, 2018
Pool Party Fun . . .
Looking forward to pool time, we were on our way up to Brandi’s by 11:30 with a quick stop for gas at the nearby Valero for gas now that I knew how to get the gas cap cover open.
We got there a little before 1 and headed directly out to the pool. Lowell was already out there, as well as Miss Piper, who had combined two favorite relaxation activities, coloring and getting some sun poolside.
Brandi and Landon were off on their bikes on a neighborhood playdate, and showed up an hour or so later.
Eventually everyone was in the pool this time, even Miss Jan.
Later on, Brandi went inside and put the steaks on. Well, she put them under water, anyway.
The kitchen utensils are just being used to weight the bags down and keep them under the water.
She has one of these Sous Vide Cookers from Amazon.
It’s controlled by the cell phone app and the app even notifies you when your food is done.
Sous Vide is a method of cooking by placing the food in plastic bags and immersing it in water heated to an exact temperature. In fact, if you got a steak recently, there’s a good chance it was cooked vis Sous Vide and then thrown on the grill for a last minute sear.
You can learn more about Sous Vide here.
Later our travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, and her family came over for some pool time before we all sat done for steak.
Everyone likes their steak at least Medium Rare, so this was perfect. Miss Jan, however, is more of a Medium person, so Brandi put hers under the broiler for few minutes.
All delicious!
Finally, about 6:15 pm, and after a great afternoon, we headed back to Santa Fe, looking forward to another week of fun and frolic.
October 28, 2021
Meet Sylvia . . .
After my Dr. appointment this afternoon, we were off to lunch at one of Jan’s favorite spots, Twin Peaks. She loves the food as do I, in addition to the scenery, of course.
Jan always gets the Spicy Chipotle Chicken with a cup of their Tomato Basil Soup.
And as usual I got the Soup and 1/2 Sandwich Special, with the Green Chicken Chile and a 1/2 BLT.
And this is our new favorite server, Sylvia. She waited on us a week ago last Tuesday so we asked for her again today. And she pretty much remembered our order from back then.
They’re usually not dressed quite so ‘scantily’ but this is all for Halloween.
Lucky me.
Lowell sent over Landon’s 6th Grade photo the other day. Hard to believe he’s in Middle School already.
