Monthly Archives: October 2022
Schrodinger’s PowerBall.
About 2:30 I dropped Jan off to get her hair done while I drove down to the La Marque Buc-ee’s to pick up a new lid for my Yukon Outfitter’s 40 oz. mug. Couldn’t find one online, even from Yukon, but since I bought the mug there, I was hoping they would have one, and they did.
Later about 5pm we down to Galveston for Jan’s Birthday dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse. We were just here 20 days ago for my birthday, but this time was better because they finally had Jan’s favorite Pumpkin Cheesecake.
I won’t post any pictures of our food since you’ve seen it all before. But it was good, believe me.
The weather for this weekend’s airshow looks pretty decent, with little change of rain, temps around 70°. and partly cloudy skies.
Here’s hoping.
For her birthday, I got Jan a new hooded blanket . . . in Flamingo, of course.
I figured she would either love it or hate it.
Luckily for me, it was the former.
Thought For The Day:
I bought a Powerball Lottery Ticket and I haven’t checked it yet to see if I won. And until I actually check the ticket, the ticket exists in a state of both having Won and Lost the jackpot at the same time.
Call It Schrodinger’s Powerball.
October 25, 2010
Wind and Wings . . .
Brandi sent over a photo of Master Landon enjoying this weekend’s Oklahoma game. He’s certainly dressed for it. He looks like they just scored.
Although today, the 25th, is Jan’s birthday, the whole family got together Sunday night at King Food, our favorite local Chinese restaurant. We’ve been eating there for over 30 years, and we’re on our fourth owner. King Food has always been a place for our family get-togethers, in fact we normally all have dinner there on Christmas Eve. Of course, as usual, Jan hogs all the Landon time. But it is her birthday, after all.
As far as today goes, it’s been really windy here the last couple of days, with wind gusts in the 30’s. But today it got even worse, with gusts between 45 – 50 mph. Luckily the wind was coming right off the water head on to the rig, so it was not rocking the coach too much, but the small awnings were making so much noise I finally went out and let them in.
Today was a nice, laid-back day. We headed out about 3 pm for Jan’s 2nd birthday meal, this time just the two of us, at Chuy’s, a really good new Mexican place up in Webster. I had a cup of their Tortilla Soup, and then we split the Mex-Cobb Salad. A great meal.
Next it was on to Sam’s and then Wal-Mart for some supplies, and then home to the rig. Like I said, an easy day.
Now back to the rest of Saturday’s Wings over Houston Airshow.
One of the highlights was the demo flight of an F-16 Falcon, also known as a Viper.
With almost 30,000 pounds of thrust, the F-16’s positive thrust to weight ratio means it’s one of the few planes that can stand on its tail and accelerate straight up.
This photo shows the F-16 in a “High Alpha” pass. “High Alpha” stands for high angle of attack. In this mode the plane is moving horizontally at only about 100 mph. The engine thrust is the only thing keeping it in the air. If the engine were to quit, the plane would just fall.
It’s really amazing to see this plane come putt-putting by, and then lower the nose a little bit, pop the afterburners, and then accelerate straight up out of sight. I couldn’t even get my camera to change focus fast enough to track it as it climbed.
Next was a demo flight of the F/A-18 Hornet, the Navy’s do-it-all fighter/attack plane. It was designed to replace the aging F-14 Tomcat fighter, and the A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair II attack planes.
The F/A-18 was actually derived from the loser for the F-16 contract. But the Navy doesn’t like single engine planes flying over water, so they took the YF-17L, and from it, developed the F/A-18.
Here’s the F/A-18 Hornet doing a carrier landing configuration pass. Note that the tail hook is down.
And here it is doing its version of the “High Alpha” pass.
Of course, the Navy demonstration team, the Blue Angels, flies the F/A-18.
Finally, we had an F8F Bearcat / F/A-18 Heritage Flight illustrating the last of the Navy’s prop planes, and their latest jet.
The most amazing aerobatic demo of the day was from Sean Tucker and the Team Oracle biplane. Specially designed for aerobatics, the plane is built from Kevlar and carbon fiber, and weighs only 1200 pounds. Coupled with an engine of over 400 horsepower, the plane can do things that no other aerobatic plane can do.
This one is the “Corkscrew”
I told Jan that when I was flying we called some of these maneuvers ‘crashing’
This one is called the ‘Helicopter’. Although you can’t tell from this photo, the plane is just hanging on its prop, hovering in mid-air. The only thing that limits this is that the engine will eventually start to overheat due to lack of airflow.
Not much new can be said about the Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s demonstration team. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
One of the interesting displays at Ellington Field, not related to the airshow, is one of NASA’s two retired ‘Vomit Comets’. Built from KC-135 (Boeing 707’s) tankers, they were just two of the latest in a long line of “Weightless Wonders”, as NASA tried to call them. Of course everyone else called them ‘Vomit Comets”. The one here at Ellington was flown until 2000, and was also used in the filming of the movie “Apollo 13”.
The planes produce about 30 seconds of zero-gravity by flying a precise elliptic flight path that looks like this.
What you end up with is a series of arcs across the sky generating short bursts of zero-gee. It is estimated that the planes have flown over 58,000 parabolas.
The other KC-135 was retired in 2004 and now resides at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ, where we saw it this past February.
That’s about it for today.
October 25, 2012
Cakes and Crabs . . .
Jan’s birthday morning started out with Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Spice coffee, along with the last two of their Pumpkin Munchkins (holes) that we bought last week in Williamsburg, VA.
I had planned to get Jan the new Kindle Paperwhite, but when I went to order it from Amazon last weekend I found they were on a 4 to 6 week wait.
Bummer!
So she got a raincheck. Maybe she’ll get it by Christmas.
Speaking about Amazon, yesterday I ordered a couple of things from them to be delivered Friday under their Amazon Prime Two Day Free Shipping. However the confirmation email said it would be delivered today, after only one day. It turns out that both items were shipped from their Columbia, SC warehouse. about 150 miles up the road.
And the UPS guy brought the package right to our site. Neat!
I’ve still been thinking about our Snap, Crackle, Pop, electrical problem yesterday. One thing occurred to me was that it might be something with the slide since it’s right there under Jan. So, since I’d rather find out we had a problem with the slide today, rather than next week right before we’re supposed to pull out.
But as it turns out, and luckily for us, the slide seems to work fine. So it’s on to something else.
During the day Jan got birthday calls from our daughter Brandi, our son Chris, and Jan’s sister Debbie, so she was a happy camper.
About 4pm Jan and I headed down to Tybee Island, GA for Jan’s birthday dinner at The Crab Shack, all well-known local seafood place on the banks of Tybee Creek.
We ate outside on the deck,
looking out over the waters of the creek.
The food was fantastic, even though we had to share with several feline visitors. Strangely, they’re very well behaved. They don’t try to jump up, they don’t fight over the food you drop. They just sit there patiently and stare up at you. A real guilt trip.
Accompanying us to dinner tonight were Peggy and Dave, who are parked a couple of sites down us. They’ve been full-timing since 2009.
If you’re in the Savannah area, The Crab Shack is another must-eat place to visit.
We do the hard work finding these places so you don’t have to.
October 25, 2014
What Goes Around, Comes Around . . .
First off, Jan wants to thank everyone for their warm birthday wishes. She really appreciates it.
And Jamie, our Gate Guard Services supervisor, called a little before 9am this morning with a birthday present for Jan too. And it was just what she’s always wanted.
A New Gate.
But it ‘s kind of an old gate. Or at least close by. So, by 9:45 we were on our way down to the Cavender’s in Huntsville, TX, about 65 miles south, to pick up F.R.C. shirts and pants.
So why were we buying F.R.C.’s to wear when we just left a gate because we didn’t want to wear F.R.C’s? Well, the F.R.C’s we didn’t want to wear were the heavy coverall jumpsuit things, and as it turned out, there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line between the oil company and GGS, and we didn’t have to wear the coveralls, just F.R.C. shirts and pants. Which makes a lot more sense since we would have been the only people wearing the coveralls other than the guys who actually work on the rig.
And even better, GGS is reimbursing us for them.
And in another strange turn of events, we’re almost back at our old gate.
Our road has always had two gate guards. The first gate covered the first two pads and then all of our traffic too. Then we handled our part of the traffic again. It never made sense since we all worked for the same oil company.
The guards at the first gate left on Wednesday, the day after we did, since they didn’t want to wear the coveralls either. But as it turned out, the couple who replaced them didn’t work out, So here we are, a little over half a mile from where we started back at the beginning of September.
The real downside to all this was that Jan missed out on her birthday day over in Bryan/College Station today and dinner at Outback. But we tried to make up for it by having lunch at one of her other favorite places, Chili’s in Huntsville, while we were there.
We’re also trying to set a relief guard for Wednesday or Thursday of next week for a make-up day for Jan’s,
Coming back up to Buffalo, we stopped off at the Buc-ee’s in Madisonville to get some coffees and to stock up on Cranberry Nut muffins.
We pulled out of the Buffalo GGS yard about 3pm and were at our new gate by 4:15. Scotty, our GGS support tech, showed up about 30 minutes later to move the trailers around to better fit our rig.
Now we just have to get everything set back up. But at least the view is better here.
Brandi sent over Landon’s T-Ball Team photo.
Note he’s the cool one in the shades.
October 25, 2015
I’m How Old?!
First off, Jan wants to thank everyone for the multitude of Birthday Wishes. It did much to relieve the shock when she figured out how old she is today.
Today actually ends the 20 day Sweet Spot where every year we’re the same age from my birthday on the 5th of October, to her birthday on the 25th. Then tomorrow she goes back being a cradle-robber once again.
Think she’d be offended if I got her a T-shirt like this.
I guess I’ll find out tomorrow morning when she reads this blog. If there’s no blog tomorrow night, then you’ll know what happened. She was offended.
We’re finishing up our 3rd full day of rain, and everything is just soggy and wet. We don’t have any roof leaks in the rig so that’s not a problem, but with the high humidity it’s all just damp.
As you can see by this radar screenshot we’ve pretty much stayed at the outer edge of the storm front all this time. We’re that little blue dot right in the center.
So we’re getting the slow, steady rain without a lot of wind, although it did kick up a bit this afternoon, but not in any canopy-threatening amount.
Luckily we’re still staying inside since we still don’t have anyone coming to our site, just the frack water guys running the pumps for the pad up the hill. And that totaled 3 trucks today. I don’t know if the Flowback crew just gave up or washed away.
The Weather Channel has tomorrow forecast as ‘AM Showers’, but they’ve pretty much turned out to be congenital liars through all this. So we’ll just have to wait and see. Of course they show more rain next weekend as the remnants of the Mexican hurricane come north, so it starts all over again.
Since it was her birthday, and we’ve had nobody come in today, I decided that Jan needed a Birthday Dinner out, so we headed into Carthage about 4:45 for another visit to The Jalapeno Tree. This was our third time here, so we knew what we wanted from the start.
But being Jan’s birthday, we started off with a drink, and not the wimpy White Sangria we had last time, which was really just Moscato wine diluted with several fruit juices. No, this time we tried a Tijuana Tea, made with Tequila, Rum, Vodka, Gin, Fruit Juices and Coke.
And based on the punch it had, I think it was only 3 or 4 drops of Coke.
But it was really, really good.
Since what we had last time was so good, we did a repeat with Jan’s Beef Chile Rellenos,
and my El Diablo Jack Beef and Chicken Fajitas.
Topped with Bacon, Sautéed Mushrooms, and Monterey Jack Cheese, it doesn’t get any better than this. And Jan said her Rellenos were some of the best she’s had.
Since we’re still in Wait and See mode, we don’t know what we’ll have tomorrow. But the longer it takes for Flowback, and then the Workover Rig to come in, the more likely we are to make it to our preferred leave-by date of November 22nd.
But you never know.
October 25, 2016
Extra Fluffy . . .
First off, another Happy Birthday to my Sweetie Jan. She said to thank everyone for all the kind greetings and wishes. She really appreciates it.
On our way to and from the gate every day we pass a large Valero/Stripes convenience store / truck stop / gas station. In fact it’s the one that we stopped at to top off the diesel in the rig on our way into town last Wednesday.
So Jan thought we might stop off on our way home this morning and pick up a couple of tacos for breakfast and lunch today. But getting there was a problem. In fact, getting anywhere was a problem this morning.
You’ve heard of Pea Soup fog? Well this was more like Mashed Potatoes fog, and it was hard to see more than about 20 feet in front of you. I had a lot of trouble just finding the turn-ins to the place.
But getting inside we were amazed at how busy the place was, with a 24 hour taco bar called Laredo Taco Company. They have 12 different Breakfast Tacos, and about 30 different lunch selections, including tacos, burritos, and plates.
Every thing is made fresh every day, and your tacos, etc,, are made to order. This 5 to 6am timeframe is when all the oil workers are either going to work, or getting off from work. And apparently they all stop here.
We each got a breakfast taco to eat there, and then a Beef Fajita Taco for lunch later this afternoon. Both were really good, and we’ll go back for sure.
After creeping through the fog, we were back at the rig a little after 7, and in bed a few minutes after that.
Later in the afternoon I talked with Nancy, the lady that owns the RV Park to double-check her business address. She had said we could have packages and mail sent there with no problem, and we can either pick it up there or she will bring it with her when she comes by. Very nice of her.
I mentioned last night that I had been watching old TV shows on MeTV and Cozi TV, both over the air channels in this area. And one specific show was a Perry Mason from 1959.
In B&W, the episode, “The Case of the Bartered Bikini”, concerned the fashion industry and problems with competitors stealing designs, specifically, swim suit designs.
And of course this necessitated several scenes with models walking around showing off the suits. And one thing quickly became very obvious.
Based on today’s standards, these fashion models were fat, overweight, chunky, or extra fluffy, as Jan and I like to say. They would probably be laughed off the catwalk today. And this wasn’t just bad casting.
Terry Huntington, the falsely accused model/heroine of the story, was Miss California USA 1959 before going on to win Miss USA 1959 the same year as the show. So she was probably everyone’s vision of beauty at the time.
And I noticed this same thing a few years ago when I ran across a showing of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello’s 1963 ‘Beach Party’ movie on satellite. The first of seven films, it was filled with hot surfer chicks parading around in skimpy (for the time) bathing suits.
And once again, they were all . . . fluffy. Let’s go with fluffy.
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But apparently the beholder’s standards can change.
Finishing up, I don’t know what it is about gate guarding and sunsets, but we’ve seen some really spectacular ones over the years. And this evening was no exception.
Jan called to alert me to this one since the way my shack is positioned I can’t normally see it.
I told her I had ordered it special to cap off her birthday.
I don’t think she bought it.
October 25, 2017
Happy Birthday To My Sweetie . . .
Today is my Sweetie’s Birthday, and she wants to thank everyone for all the many Birthday Wishes.
One of her presents she won’t get until we’re down in Clear Lake tomorrow and we pick it up at my client’s.
But this was today’s gift.
We’ve been wanting to see TSO for a good while, but we’re usually gate-guarding that time of the year, so this year’s our chance.
About 1:30 I went outside to take care of a few travel chores, with the first being to check the rig tire pressures. One thing I really like about these Hercules Ironman tires is that they just don’t leak down. Seems like I only have to adjust the pressure twice a year or so, just for the change in temps.
When I replaced our Sumitomo’s a couple of years ago, I chose the Ironman’s due to the fact that I saw so many sets on the trucks coming into our gates. And so far they’ve been great for us.
Next up was to rewire the taillight cable on the rig, I had done the truck end about a month ago, and since we’re going to be towing tomorrow I couldn’t put it off any longer. For some reason I couldn’t convince Jan to made the 80 mile drive down through downtown Houston following the rig.
This time I did remember to stagger the crimp splices so the flex conduit doesn’t look like an anaconda after a big meal.
Finishing up I added water to the rig batteries to top them off.
Done.
About 4:15 Jan and I drove into Conroe to meet up with a bunch of other couples. We were eating at Joe’s Italian Restaurant, a place where Debi and Ed Hurlburt have been eating for years. And it turned out to be really good.
We both had salads with Ranch.]
Jan had the Chicken Alfredo,
while I had the Spaghetti Carbonara.
Both delicious and enough to take home.
Then they brought out a piece of cheesecake birthday cake for Jan,
and we all sang Happy Birthday to my Sweetie. Thanks for setting that up, Debi.
We had a large group which ended up spreading out to an adjacent booth.
Finally we headed home with a quick stop at the Wal-Mart for a prescription, getting home about 7:30.
Tomorrow we’ll head down to the Petticoat Junction RV Park in Santa Fe, where we’ll stay for the next couple of months at least.
October 25, 2018
The Birthday Girl . . .
First off, I want to wish my beautiful wife Jan a very happy birthday.
You’ve made the years just fly by. It seems like only yesterday I was trying to get you to go out with me.
I Love You More Every Day!
We left the rig about 12:30, heading over to Dickinson to pick up our rent car from Enterprise. I got one for a week to drive while our truck is at the transmission doctor.
The last time we rented a car was back in 2013 and we got a Hyundai Elantra. I was hoping this time, though, that I would get something else since I blogged at the time that it was the most uncomfortable car I had ever driven. The seat backs were kind of curved in a semicircle, so if you had wide shoulders you couldn’t fit into it without sitting to one side or the other.
So when I pulled up to the location I was happy to see a Chevy Malibu waiting for me.
Turned out to be very comfortable, and a lot of fun to drive.
Now that we had a replacement ride, our next stop was Snider Transmission back over in Santa Fe to drop off the truck for them to look at.
Kenny (Snider. It’s a family business) remembered my call and said they’d check it out and let me know.
Then after a quick stop at the local Dollar General, we headed up to Webster for Jan’s Birthday dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse.
We only have an alcoholic drink once or twice a year, so today seemed like a good time. Jan got an Amaretto Splash,
while I got a Ginger Peach Lemonade, made with Vodka, Peach Schnapps, and a Fiery Ginger Liqueur.
A very hot and spicy drink. Just my style.
We started off with our favorite Wedge Salads,
then Jan got the Center-Cut Filet (she started eating it before I could get a photo),
while I got my favorite Ribeye.
But the pièce de résistance was this made in-house Pumpkin Cheesecake.
Really delicious. Very thick and flavorful. And in season, you can buy whole pies to take home. Something to think about.
Waddling out after that fantastic meal, we headed across the Interstate to check out the new Costco. We bought our membership before we left for Florida, but it didn’t open until while we were gone.
It’ll take us a while to find our way around, though it is laid out similar to the Sam’s Club up the road a piece.
One thing I did notice, and it just may be a opening special, is that they have regular gas for $2.29, about 20 cents cheaper than any other place around.
Then on our way home we made a quick stop by the PO to check the mail, but only had some sales flyers.
Tomorrow, back to work.
October 25, 2019
Happy Birthday to My Sweetie!
The yearly sweet spot is over and I’ve got my cradle-robbing cougar back.
Spent most of the day at work going round and round with UPS WorldShip Tech Support trying to install the Remote Station version on a new computer. The installation does just fine up until I connect it to the Master Workstation and the install immediately stops and says, “The installation cannot continue due to version incompatibility issues.”
But no one can figure out what’s not compatible. It’s exactly the same versions of Win10 right down to the latest update, and the same versions of WorldShip. So what the heck is ‘incompatible’?
Even worse, Tech Support has never heard of this error. At least I think that’s what he said. His accented English was probably worse than my accented Indian.
So I’ll have to pick this up again on Monday.
As soon as I got home this afternoon we headed back out for Jan’s Birthday Dinner. Originally she had said she wanted to go to Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, but sometime during the day she changed her mind and decided on Saltgrass and steak. Fine by me.
And it was as delicious as usual, especially the Wedge Salads. And the steaks, of course.
October 25, 2020
The Sweet Spot Ends . . .
First off, Jan wants to thank everyone for the many Birthday wishes from family and friends, via Facebook, Email, Blog comments, and Text.
However, there were some questions about my posts on the Blog and Facebook mentioning my sexy Cougar and her Boy Toy, and the Sweet Spot.
Jan is 345 days older than me. I was born on October 5th and she was born on October 25th, but a year earlier. So we’re now ending that sweet spot where every year for 20 days we’re the same age.
When we were dating I had thought that she might be older than me, because I was ahead in school because I skipped the 1st grade and started directly in the 2nd. And I knew Jan was behind a grade due to a bad car accident when she was 7. Bad enough that she lost a grade and even had to learn to walk again.
But I learned at a young age that you never ask a woman how old she is.
And actually, she didn’t know she was older than until we went to get our marriage license at the courthouse. I think she stood there for a few seconds with her mouth open, rethinking the whole deal. But then, apparently she just said, “What The Heck!” Or words to that effect.
But it worked out for the best. So for 345 days a year I get a sexy Cougar and she gets her own personal Boy-Toy.
Am I a lucky guy, or what?
For her birthday meal today, Jan decided she wanted a repeat of our Anniversary meal down at the Saltgrass Steak House in Galveston.
But when we ordered, she broke one of my cardinal rules. You don’t order steak at Red Lobster, you don’t order spaghetti at Cracker Barrel, and most importantly, you don’t order fish at Saltgrass.
But it’s her birthday, so what can I say.
But, as usual we started off with our favorite Wedge Salads, always delicious.
And actually, I think these should more accurately be called ‘Half Salad’ since it’s more like a half head of lettuce than just a ‘wedge.’ But I’m not complaining.
Then Jan went off the rails by ordering the Redfish with Grilled Shrimp and Lump Crabmeat, all covered with a Lemon Butter Sauce.
That’s the Redfish in the back, with the last of her salad in the front of the photo.
And it looks like Jan made a great choice, since she said it was delicious and may be her new go-to dish there.
Of course I went with my usual 16oz Ribeye with the Grilled Green Beans.
Medium Rare, and as tender and juicy as always.
And to finish up, though we don’t usually get a dessert, the siren call of their made-in-house Pumpkin Cheesecake was just too strong to ignore, so we succumbed and split a piece. And it was just as good as it looks.
Or maybe better.
And after that delicious, and BIG meal, we decided to walk along the seawall for about a mile before finally heading home.
As Jan said, “An incredible, delightful day!”
October 25, 2021
My Cougar is Back . . .
Jan and I got the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit on Brittmore Rd off I-10 about 1:30 and were ushered right in.
After we were wanded by a security guard.
Really?
And of course, what says Van Gogh than a yellow Ford truck full of Sunflowers.
The videos start out sedately with just few images from Van Gogh’ paintings,
Then suddenly the music comes up and walls explode in color.
And the motion never stops. Paintings paint and unpaint themselves, dissolving into other landscapes.
Check out these videos I made.
One thing to keep in mind is that it was a lot darker in the theater too good, and I haven’t found a way to tone it down.
I’ll have more for you tomorrow.
My Birthday Girl
Though this blog is dated October 24th, most of you, including Jan won’t see it until tomorrow the 25th, which is Jan’s birthday.
Sweetheart, you know how much I love you, and that I probably wouldn’t be here without you.
Tomorrow we’re going down to Galveston to have dinner at our go-to celebration place, the Saltgrass Steakhouse on the Seawall.
Really looking forward to it. And Jan’s looking forward to their Pumpkin Cheesecake.
Thought For The Day:
My age is very inappropriate for my behavior.
October 24, 2010
Happy Birthday and Wings Over Houston . . . part 1
First off, I want to wish my wonderful Sweetie a Happy Birthday today. It’s today, the 25th, even though this is posted late on the 24th. I couldn’t have made it without you.
Yesterday we spent the day at the Wings Over Houston Airshow. We used to go just about every year when we lived here full-time, but the last time we did the show, it was 2007, right before we hit the road full-time. The problem was that the show is always the end of October, and we don’t normally get back to the Houston area until right before Thanksgiving.
But thanks to the arrival of Master Landon, we’re back early this year, so we couldn’t pass up a chance to go again.
Luckily, my Sweetie is an Air Force brat and likes air shows as much as I do. The last show we actually attended was at Eielson AFB, Alaska in June of 2008. We saw the AF Thunderbirds then, too, just like we saw yesterday.
The first thing we saw walking thru the gate was NASA’s Super Guppy. This is the last one of four that is still flying. We saw one one of the others this past February at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. The later ones were kind of Frankenstein’s monsters, patched together from several different aircraft types, including C-97J’s, Boeing 707’s, and others.
NASA used these to transport large rocket, Shuttle, and Space Station parts around the country.
The next thing we came across was NASA’s 747 Shuttle Transporter. I guess this will end up a museum pretty soon.
Right next door was one of NASA’s T-38’s. The astronauts use these to keep their flying hours current and to fly back and forth to the Cape. I spent some time working on these back in the 80’s. They were also used by NASA to fly along side during the Shuttle’s approach and televise the landings right down to the runway, and the NASA contractor I worked for maintained the cameras.
The show started out with the landing of the Flag by the REMAX Jump Team.
Here is a C-17 backing out to the flight line. It’s neat to see these newer jets backing up on their own, without a tug to push them out.
An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter
A P-40 Warhawk. This was the plane used by the AVG (American Volunteer Group) Flying Tigers flying in China against the Japanese before America entered the war. Later, after America entered the war, this group, known as the ‘Black Sheep” Squadron, of Baa Baa Black Sheep fame, was absorbed in the US Marines.
A Grumman F8F Bearcat. One of my favorite WWII planes, the Bearcat was designed to out-fly any German or Japanese plane in the war. Unfortunately, it did not enter active service until right after the war ended. It was the last new prop plane ordered by the military. Flown by the Blue Angels from 1946 to 1950, in 1946 it set a world time to climb record of 94 seconds to 10,000 feet. This record was not broken until well up into the century series of jets.
An AD-1 Skyraider. Another plane delivered too late for WWII, the Skyraider, (nicknamed the ‘SPAD’), was used as a ground attack plane as late as the Vietnam War.
One of several B-17’s at the show.
Close-up of the engine on another B-17.
A C-130 landing. Up until a few years ago, one of the demo flights here at the airshow was a JATO short field takeoff which was very impressive. JATO stands for “Jet Assisted Take Off”, but they’re really RATO “Rocket Assisted Take Off”, units, and are used to basically just ‘jump’ the plane into the air with little or no take-off roll.
Here’s a shot of the Blue Angels C-130 transport doing a RATO take-off at another airshow. Supposedly they don’t do the demos anymore because they don’t make the RATO bottles anymore and the supply is starting to run low.
Bummer! Watching a big C-130 just leap into the air and start flying is really something.
A B-25 Mitchell bomber, like the ones used in Jimmy Doolittle’s famous Raid on Tokyo in April 1942, the first US raid to strike the Japanese homeland.
An F4U Corsair. Called “The Whistling Death” by Japanese pilots due to the sound it made in a steep dive, the Corsair more than out-matched the Zero in all regimes except slow speed. And being very well armored, it was also hard to shoot down. “Pappy” Boyinton, leader of the Black Sheep Squadron, is credited with 22 kills in one.
An SB2C Helldiver. This is the last one still flying in the world.
As usual, the crowd was very large. especially since the weather was so good.
A C-17 C-47 Heritage Flight, showing 70 years of cargo plane history.
Tora, Tora, Tora. Every airshow they do an Attack on Pearl Harbor reenactment with a lot of planes in the air,
and a lot of big explosions on the ground, along with very large balls of fire coming up. They also do reenactments of the Battle of Midway, and a Vietnam War firefight.
And, up until a few years ago, they always finished up with the A-Bomb drop on Hiroshima, but, apparently that was deemed offensive by some, and it was discontinued.
So it seems OK to show the Japanese attacking us, but it’s not politically correct to show us attacking the Japanese. Who knew?
This AT-6, SNJ, Harvard, Zero Heritage Flight shows the various models of the venerable AT-6 advanced trainer, including the one in front made up as a Zero for the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora”.
A P-51C painted in the colors of the famed “Red Tail” Squadron flown by the Tuskegee Airmen.
A couple of shots of two of the B-17 Flying Fortresses at the show.
A B-24 Liberator. The B-24 holds the record as the most produced American military aircraft, at over 18,000 units. At its peak, Ford’s Willow Run plant was building one an hour.
As compared with the more famous B-17, the B-24 was faster, had better range, and carried a larger bomb. But it was harder to fly, and due to its design, more prone to battle damage. Also, it’s high wing design was much less safe during a ocean ditching, or a crash landing.
B-52
This A-10 Warthog was the jet-age replacement for the AD-1 Skyraider, and excels as a ground attack and tank killer.
The UH-1 Iroquois as known as a ‘Huey’. The Huey got its nickname from the fact that the original designation for the helo was the HU-1, and although it was changed to UH-1 in 1962, the name Huey stuck.
One of several aerobatic displays, this one flown in a T-34 Mentor trainer is amazing due to the fact that the T-34 is not really considered a aerobatic plane. The pilot, a retired airline captain named Deborah Rihn-Harvey with over 30,000 hours with Southwest Airlines, does some outstanding maneuvers with the T-34 since its oil and fuel systems are not certified for inverted flight.
I’ll finished up the rest of the show tomorrow since this has been a long post.
October 24, 2011
Happy Birthday to my Sweetie . . .
First off, I want to say ‘Happy Birthday’ to my beautiful wife, Jan. I’ve loved you almost since the day I met you, and you’ve made my life complete.
I got up about 9:30 this morning to find a call from the RV/MH Hall of Fame. The accountant was there to do the payroll and was having problems with the program.
Getting down there I found the problem was with the setup of the new copy of the program I had installed. Apparently some settings are kept in the program directory, and not with the data, so we had to go back in and configure the correct check formats to get everything working OK. I ended up staying until about 4:15 fixing up loose ends, and double-checking everything.
On my way home I stopped off at Lowe’s to pick up a 2” wood chisel to help me get the rest of the carpet up. When we leave here Wednesday we’ll have 12 days at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails Preserve in Ohio, and I hope to make some more headway on the floor. We’ll see.
About 5:15 pm Jan and I headed over to King Wha, our great local Chinese restaurant, where we met Al Hesselbart and Dave and Jean Damon for dinner. Another night of great food and good conversation.
I’m more and more impressed by the 4G speeds on my new Droid Charge . . . when it’s working.
Not my phone, it’s working great. But the 4G has only been turned on in this area since last Thursday, and apparently they’re still working out the kinks. Within a 15 minute period, I’ve had 4G, 3G, 1X, 4G, 3G, 4G, all sitting in the same chair.
But when it’s working, it screams. This evening at dinner, I checked with Speedtest.net and was showing 20 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. Then Jan took my phone away and said it was impolite to play with it at the table. Awwwwh! No fair. Dave was playing with his.
Four years ago, the last time we had broadband in a Sticks & Bricks, I had 5 Mbps and thought that was fast. But 20, WOW!
Wanted to give you a sneak peek at one of Landon’s Christmas presents. Hopefully he doesn’t read the blog and won’t see it.
We saw this rocking horse yesterday at Sam’s Club and just had to get it. Besides rocking, if you squeeze his ears, he whinnies and his head and tail move back and forth.
Tomorrow is our last full day here in Elkhart, and we plan on spending it driving around through the Amish countryside around Shipshewana, and then end up back at El Maguey for Jan’s birthday dinner.
October 24, 2012
Quito and Quesadillas . . .
One of my website client’s called yesterday afternoon asking permission to give my phone number and email address to a friend of his who wanted some website work done. I told him to tell his friend to give me a call.
So a little after noon today the guy gave me a call.
From Quito, Ecuador!
He’s an American who owns a Bed and Breakfast down there, and also does some immigration work, and he wants some updates done to his websites, and also some help getting higher in the Google listings. So it looks like I’ve got a new client, albeit a longer distance one than normal.
On the strange side, a little before 3pm Jan and I heard a sizzling pop in the rig, and then a few seconds later smelled something getting hot. She thought the sound came from my side of the rig and I thought it came from hers.
I started checking everything electrical in the rig with no luck. Nothing that was on quit working, or smelled burnt. And in a little while the smell was gone and never reoccurred.
So I guess I’ll just have to keep a close eye on things and see if it comes back.
About 5pm Jan and I headed into Savannah to have dinner. Since we were both wanting Mexican we ending up at Jalapeno’s Mexican Restaurant. Jalapeno’s is pretty much at the top of everyone’s list of best Mexican in Savannah, and after eating there this evening we all agree.
The Combo Platter that Jan, and I both had was just fantastic.
And we weren’t the only ones who liked the place. The parking lot was overflowing, with cars parked on the grass, on the road shoulder, and in front of No Parking signs.
We both agreed we wanted to come back here before we leave.
So many restaurants, so little time.
October 24, 2014
Happy Birthday to My Sweetie . . .
Although this blog post is dated Friday, the 24th of October, most of you, including Jan will be reading this on Saturday, the 25th. Which just happens to be my Sweetie’s birthday.
We plan to have dinner tomorrow night at Outback Steakhouse, one of Jan’s favorite places, while we’re over in B/CS.
FedEx came through and found the GGS yard out here in the middle of the country, delivering our new Galaxy Tab 4 about 11:30 this morning, so I’ve been having a lot of fun getting it set up, duplicating many of the apps I have on my phone.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-Inch, White
So far I really like it. I’ll keep you updated as I get to spend some more time with it.
While we were parked here at the yard, I thought I’d take a go at replacing our lavatory faucet. I hadn’t tried it while we were on the gate because I knew I’d have to turn the water off, and these things always take a lot longer than they should.
And today was no different. I got the water hoses disconnected with not a lot of problems, but the fasteners that hold the faucet to the counter proved to be a lot more trouble. In fact, after fooling with them for about 3 hours, they proved impossible . . for today.
There is a special wrench available for just this purpose, and I’ll pick one up at Home Depot tomorrow when we’re over in Bryan for Jan’s Birthday.
I’m not sure where the name comes from, but I came across a interesting website called CamelCamelCamel. You enter an Amazon product and CamelCamelCamel tracks the price for you, letting know when the price drops.
Turns out Amazon, and apparently many other online sellers, regularly raise and lower prices based on some weird algorithms that they’ve come up with. So CamelCamelCamel will let you know when the price drops.
October 24, 2015
Not Even For Special Occasions?
or It’s Alive!
Well, it started raining yesterday and it’s still raining today. And it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the next day. But if we had to have a lot of rain this is probably the best way to have it. Just a steady, light to medium downpour, with no wind.
And even better, we stayed inside pretty much all day since we had almost no traffic. Jan did stay outside for part of the morning, just knowing that the long-fabled Flowback crew was going to start coming in today. But she gave up after a while and came in where it was dry.
While we were having a lunch of Jan’s delicious homemade Pimento Cheese and fresh sliced tomato sandwiches, I suddenly had a thought about how to fix my problem with the new charger port on my ASUS laptop.
As I mentioned a few days ago, after I got my laptop disassembled and the old charger port unsoldered, I discovered that the new, supposedly OEM, replacement did not fit. The leads themselves were too big to fit in the circuit board holes, and, in addition, did not match up with the holes either. So I did what usually works for me. I just put it all aside and didn’t think about it. And today the solution popped into my mind.
I didn’t need to solder all five leads to the the board. I only needed two, power and ground. I checked the new port with my ohmmeter, and as I had hoped, the power from the center pin came out the lead at the back of the charger port.
The other four leads and the case were all grounds. So I snipped off the four ground leads flush with the bottom of the port, fastened the port to the circuit board with a drop of Super Glue, and then soldered the single rear lead into place. The rear lead was always the correct size so this wasn’t a problem.
Then I soldered a small piece of wire from the case to one of the ground pin holes, and it was done.
To recap, here’s how I took the laptop apart.
Above on the left is the hard drive, in the center is the Wi-Fi chip, and the green boards are the system memory.
I use cupcake papers to hold the screws for each step, and label them as I go.
I also have this set of tools for the small or weird screws. It also has the plastic ‘spludgers’ that are very useful for prying things apart without scratching or breaking them. A great deal for less than $7.
Kaisi 16-Piece Precision Screwdriver Set
The keyboard now just pops out.
There are a number of these small ribbon cables that must be unlocked and carefully removed from the socket.
One more screw lets you remove the DVD drive.
At this point the top of the computer can just be popped off,
and seven screws later, the motherboard comes out.
And finally the culprit is revealed.
Here I’m using the solder wick to ‘wick’ the solder from the joints to remove the old port.
And this is pretty much where I left things until today when I figured out how to make it work.
About 45 minutes after I soldered in the new charger port, I had it all back together.
And now for the moment of truth, I.e. the ‘magic smoke test’. Because everyone knows if you let the ‘magic smoke’ out of a piece of electronic gear, it won’t work anymore.
So holding my breath, I pushed the power button . . . and no magic smoke. Instead it started booting up. And a minute or so later I was looking at my desktop.
And note in this photo, I have the obligatory one screw left over. As they say, if you don’t have parts left over, you didn’t do it right.
As least that’s what I say.
After checking things over, like the keyboard, sound, Wi-Fi, and the touchpad, it was time for the final test.
And after plugging in the charger cord, I now had a charge light.
It’s Alive!
That done, I took the rest of the afternoon off. It’s not like I was really planning to do anything else, but I took it off anyway.
Later I came across this product on Facebook, and asked Jan what she would think about me doing this for Christmas.
“NO”
“Not even for special occasions?”
‘NO”
Party Pooper!
October 24, 2016
Jan Did Good . . .
Jan’s definitely not a night person, so she was worried about staying awake all night last night, but she did fine
Of course I helped out by calling her about every hour, just to be sure.
It wasn’t a very busy night, with most of the traffic after midnight. And even with that, the iPad locked up on me. Well, not as much locked up, as locked me out.
I last used it around 6:30, and then no one came or left until after midnight. But when I went to log someone in, I found the program had dumped me out and was now asking for a username and password. Which was nowhere to be found. So it was back to paper logs. Not a problem for me. I later found out there was supposed to be a sticker on the back, but nothing was there. I looked.
I think I mentioned that we have TV in the shacks. Nominally I think it’s so we can monitor the six cameras around our site, but it is set up for over the air TV. And I was very surprised how many stations we get. Probably about 30.
But probably the most entertaining ones are MeTV and Cozi TV, both of which show oldies. As in VERY oldies, like Car 54, Where Are You?, Sgt. Bilko, Maverick, Love Boat, Kojak, Our Miss Brooks, Donna Reed, Hogan’s Heroes, Perry Mason, etc.
So yes, VERY OLDIES.
After our shift was over, we got back to the rig about 6:30am. Jan went right to bed, and was already asleep when I came in about 10 minutes later. I had to email our invoices in to the office. Yesterday was the last day of the two week pay period, and the invoices had to be in by 9am this morning. Of course we only had one day on this one, but hey, money is money.
Jan actually got up about 10:30, grabbed a bite to eat, and then went back to sleep on the sofa, while I didn’t get up until about noon. I made coffee, fixed us some muffins, and got a load of laundry going. Later, we heated up our leftover La Fonda from last Friday. Still good.
Then it was another nap until about 4:30 when we started getting ready, and were out the door a little before 5pm. It’s only about a 15 minute drive so we were there in plenty of time.
Since I’m normally a night owl anyway, I’m not having a lot of trouble adjusting to the long nights, but it’s a little more difficult for Jan. But a couple of more days of this shift should help.
Of course that presupposes we’ll stay on this night shift. You never can tell.
October 24, 2017
I Know It Doesn’t LOOK Good, But . . .
About 2:30 Jan and I headed into Conroe to first have lunch, well, breakfast anyway, and then do some shopping.
Jan has been seeing the Denny’s ads on TV showing their Holiday pancakes, Pumpkin Cream and Cranberry Orange. So she decided we were having breakfast for lunch.
She got the Pumpkin Pancakes with the Cinnamon Cream topping, as well as eggs, bacon, and hash browns.
I went with the Cranberry Orange Pancakes with the Orange Glaze Cream sauce, also with eggs, bacon, and hash browns.
I know in the photo that it doesn’t look that good, but the Orange Glaze Cream Cheese topping has bits of orange in it was delicious.
Next up was a stop at Sam’s for a couple of prescriptions, and then Wal-Mart for some groceries before heading home. While I got all the groceries in, Jan walked next door to spend some time with the Evanses, et al. while I tried to fix some client stuff that just broke.
One of our blog readers, Snowbird, commented, reminding me of some info about Sears that I forgot to pass on yesterday. People talk about how Sears could have been Amazon by moving their catalog online if they hadn’t dropped the ball. But Sears actually had already dropped the catalog in 1993, just as the Internet was getting started.
Amazon got its start the next year, 1994, selling books out of Jeff Bezo’s garage. And it actually might have been very difficult for Sears to put their catalog online. The necessary net infrastructure just didn’t exist.
But anyway, corporate infighting had already doomed the Sear’s catalog sales model. The problem was that the stores and the catalog operation were too separate corporate entities competing with each other under the Sear’s umbrella, and they hated each other with a passion.
The store side of things saw every catalog sale as one the store was losing, and the catalog group accused the stores of sabotaging the in-store catalog sales pickup. This was because although the stores got nothing from a catalog sale in-store pickup, they still had to supply the manpower to staff the in-store catalog operation.
Finally in 1993, the store side of things managed to kill off the catalog, even though it was still profitable, by saying that the money would be better spent using it to expand and upgrade the stores.
Now Sears seems to only exist as a real estate and product liquidation company. They’ve been selling off stores and real estate in a frenzy and sold off their fabled Craftsman tool brand to Stanley Black & Decker this past March, so can Kenmore be far behind? And today it was announced they’ve severed their 100 year old relationship with Whirlpool.
So it looks like eventually it will all go down the tubes. Sad to see.
October 24, 2019
A Phone, Resurrected . . .
Jan’s phone, my old Galaxy S5, started acting up a few days ago, constantly rebooting, even after pulling the battery out for awhile. And that’s when I noticed how swollen the battery was.
Seeing this I was pretty sure that the battery was the problem, even with the phone plugged in. This is because the phone is actually powered from the battery, so even with the phone plugged in, if you pull the battery it won’t work.
So I put in an Amazon order for a new battery, but as usual I had a backup plan. I’ve had this S5 since June 2014 when we were up in Elkhart, IN, so refurbished ones are available on Amazon for about $75. And since Jan pretty much only uses it for calls at home while I’m gone, a 5 year old phone is just fine.
But I lucked out because the new battery fixed the problem.
Not So Fast:
I mentioned yesterday that after we possibly do a Mexico/Ruins cruise in 2021, we’ll be ‘cruised out’. But regular blog reader Lois piqued our interest in maybe doing a Mississippi Riverboat cruise.
So I guess we’ve got something else to keep simmering on the back burner now.
October 24, 2021
Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!!
Tomorrow, which is Jan’s Birthday, is also when we’re attending our first Immersive Van Gogh exhibit. Really looking forward to it.
It’s certainly possible, based on some felines I’ve known.
The ‘mouse delivery’ part of this reminds me of Karma back before she went blind. She had a collection of about 8 or so small multicolored fuzzy mice. There were red ones, blue ones, orange ones, etc. All bright colors. She would bat them around the rig, and then would often gather them into a pile until she wanted to play with them again.
One morning I found her staring down at the pile and then looking up at me. Wondering what she was so interested in, I looked closer at the pile. And saw a color I didn’t recognize
It was gray, kind of mouse-colored.
And then it moved.
At this point Karma reared up and struck. And it didn’t move anymore.
After she stared at the pile for a while longer, and nothing moved, she wandered off to nap on the dashboard.
What’s amazing is that somehow Karma associated the real mouse with her multi-colored playtoys, and put them all together. And when she came back later and found I had disposed of her new toy, she pawed through the pile looking for it.
Check out this video.
Bohemian Catsody
