Monthly Archives: November 2022
My Baby’s Back Home . . .
After raining pretty steadily for the last 4 days, today showed up bright and sunny, perfect for the drive up to Katy to pick up my Jan at Brandi’s.
They got back from Colorado about 10:30 last night, saying they had a great time, but Brandi came home with a severe sinus/ear infection, so she’s a little under the weather for the next few days.
Loading up Jan and all her baggage, we headed over the nearby Grimaldi’s Pizzeria for Post-Turkey Day pizza.
As we always do, we started out with the Small Spinach Salad,
and then segued to an 18” The Don pizza, which comes with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, and Meatballs. To which we add Bacon and Mushrooms.
We always get the big 18” one so we have leftovers to bring home.
Then while I read in the truck, Jan had her way with the Trader Joe’s right next door.
Then it was finally back to the rig about 4:30.
So glad to have my baby back.
Thought for the Day:
Cogito ergo sum. – Descartes
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. Cogito. – Ambrose Bierce
November 26, 2009
It’s Turkey Day… and Ham Day… and Stuffing Day.. and…
We got up about 9 to get Jan’s world-renowned squash casserole (made with fresh squash) in the oven before we headed out to Shawna’s for Thanksgiving dinner.
We headed out about 11, stopping by Brandi’s to pick up the HoneyBaked Ham we left there, since we didn’t have room for it in our rig fridge with the other stuff in it. We also stopped at a convenience store for a Houston Chronicle to get all the ads for tomorrow’s sales.
We got to Shawna’s in Katy, TX about 65 miles away, about 12:30 pm. We have known Shawna and her husband, Jason, for about 15 years. Shawna, my daughter Brandi, and I worked at the same place for a while, and we’ve been friends every since. For a number of years now, at least once a year, either Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, we all get together for a big meal at Shawna’s.
And then we walk in the door and everyone wants to know the sausage balls are. Jan is also famed for her sausage balls, and everyone loves them, and all 8 dozen go fast. There would probably be a mutiny if we showed up without them.
After a great meal and a nap on the sofa (when I fell asleep Green Bay & Detroit were playing. When I woke up it was Dallas & Oakland).
About 4:30 we waddled out (I told you it was a BIG meal) to the truck and headed home with a lot of leftovers, stopping at Buc-ee’s for coffee.
It was dark by the time we got back to the rig, so we were in for the night, still so full we didn’t even think about supper.
November 26, 2010
BRRRRRR!!!!! . . .
When Jan got up about 7:30 it was 42 degrees and raining.
By 11:30 it was up to 43 degrees and raining.
Wheeee! Heatwave!
About 12 the rain had slacked off so Jan went out to reload the bird feeders and I went out to re-align the sat dish. It had been blown slightly off target due to the high winds we had all last night.
Then about 1 I called Direct TV to get our DNS West Coast feed turned back on. What I found out was that to get the West Coast feed turned back on it was going to cost an extra $6 per month, but I would now get 2 new channels, CW and PBS, that I didn’t have before. These two extra channels had previously been an additional $5 each, so I didn’t get them since this would have increased our DNS service from $14 to $24, almost doubling the cost just for two extra channels.
I’m cheap. What can I say.
So now our DNS is going from $14 to $20, which I’m not crazy about, but at least I’m getting something out of it.
About 4:30 we drove up to La Brisa to meet our friend Maria for supper, after which she and Jan were going to play Bingo again down in La Marque at the Knights of Columbus Hall.
And she did good. She won $95 on a game and she was really happy.
Of course, when I ask her how much she’d spent the last 4 weeks to win that $95, she said she didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t think she wanted me raining on her parade.
Well, if she had fun, I’m happy.
It’s supposed to be even colder here tonight, with a low of 33 degrees, the coldest so far this year. But at least the rain is supposed to be going away.
November 26, 2011
Moving Day . . .
After our coffee and a quick drive past the site to be sure no one had come in and parked there overnight, we moved the rig a little before 11 and got settled in at our new home.
Hooking up backwards wasn’t as much a problem as I anticipated. I had thought I might need another length of sewer hose, but as it turns out my two pieces were just enough.
Power was no problem since whoever originally purchased our coach ordered the extra-long power cord, and that’s been a big help several times.
As it turns out, the only problem was with the water connection. The previous tenant had left one of those silver 2-way hose connectors like this.
The problem was the threads on both sides were so messed up that I couldn’t connect my hose to it. And worse, I couldn’t get the splitter off, either. It was stuck good.
The pipe is PVC and when I tried to use a wrench to twist it off, the PVC started to bend. Just what I didn’t want to do – break off the pipe.
My solution was to call the park office and let them fix it. We’ll just stay on internal water till they get it fixed.
Here’s a couple of views out our front window. As you can see we’re only about 20 feet from the water.
By the time we got parked the thunderstorms were rolling in and the formerly blue skies were turning gray and dreary.
This shot shows Jan’s favorite island. A lot of birds make this area home and it’s one of her favorite sights.
After we got settled in, a little after 12, we headed up to Seabrook to have lunch at Hooters, our (my) favorite hot-wing place. Really like their XXX hotter sauce.
After lunch our next stop was Wal-Mart for a few things. It looks like the Black Friday madness has subsided to a dull roar. They were busy, but not overly so. We didn’t even have to wait in line to check out.
Coming back into the park, we saw our newest resident, a Roseate Spoonbill, hanging around with a paddling of wild ducks.
When we first saw it a few days ago, it was resting on the bank, facing away from us, and we thought it was a Flamingo. But these shots proved different.
It was still pretty cloudy, so he looks a little colorless, but in the bright sun, the pink really stands out. A beautiful bird.
I’ll try to get some better shots later.
We still haven’t seen the Great Blue Heron that was here our past three winters. Hope he’s OK.
Getting back to the rig about 2, the rainy weather made a perfect setting for very nice nap. The rain on the roof of the rig made it very easy to fall asleep.
Supper was leftovers of Mexican and BBQ with cookies for dessert. Nice and simple.
Tomorrow I want to dig out my truck manual and see what I can do about the broken window lifter.
If the weather cooperates, that is.
November 26, 2012
Back to the Old Grind . . .
Kind of.
I realize some people might not consider living and traveling fulltime in an RV the “Old Grind”, but sometimes it seems we never have as much free time as we did when we worked fulltime.
I guess we’ve just traded one kind of fulltime for another. But we have a lot more fun.
We did get to sleep in this morning at least, the first time in a week or so. Although we were on vacation, so to speak, last week in Marble Falls, no one slept late. Landon wakes up about 6am and it’s pretty hard to sleep after that.
I did get up about 10 and then spent the rest of the morning drinking coffee and working on some client computer stuff.
But it’s a lot easier working when this is the view out the front of the coach.
Finally about 1:30 I headed out on some errands and a client visit. My first stop was the bank to make a deposit, and then it was on to the client’s office to take a look at that bad computer.
It was an older one and it looks like the power supply died, since it wouldn’t power up at all. This computer was one of several office computers that had been replaced a while back. But the client was still using this one because it had Windows XP on it, and he had some old office software that wouldn’t run on anything after XP.
He said he still had a couple of others in the back, so I told him to bring one up. My first plan was to swap the power supply module out, but then it occurred to me that it would be quicker and simpler to just swap out the hard drive instead, and that’s what I did. So my client was back up and running in about 10 minutes.
My next stop was Brandi and Lowell’s to pick up the mail that came in while we were in Marble Falls, and then it was on to a nearby Kroger’s to fill up the toad with gas.
What in the world has happened with gas prices the last couple of days? Last Sunday when we got back in Houston I filled up with diesel for $3.53 a gallon. Today it’s $3.69 at the same station. And this past Tuesday I filled up the truck for $2.98, today it’s $3.09.
It looks like the prices are going up as the stations get fuel deliveries because I found a few stations still selling at $2.99, one of them being the Kroger’s here. But the Kroger’s about 5 miles away is already up to $3.09.
And it was good to find out that my magic Kroger’s Rewards Card still works. Actually it’s a Fred Meyer’s card we got in Alaska in 2008, but Kroger’s owns Fred Meyer’s so it works here too.
The magic thing about it is that it ALWAYS gives the $ .10 a gallon discount. Normally you have to purchased $100 of groceries to get the one-time discount, until you buy another $100 worth.
But I discovered when I got back from Alaska that with this card I get the $.10 every single time. Like I said, it’s magic.
I got home about 4:30, picked up Jan, and we headed out to La Brisa, a really good Mexican restaurant right up the road, for our usual great meal.
Coming home I got a call from another client, wanting to know if I was back in town, and could I come by tomorrow afternoon.
Like I said, back to the Old Grind.
November 26, 2013
A Squash Shortage ?
Well, I was finally able to find a rental car this morning so that problem was taken care of. I did use Enterprise, the “we’ll pick you up’ people, but they weren’t sure how long it would take to get the car out to us, so about 11am I walked down to the office to see about getting a ride, And as luck would have it, the park owners, Tom and Kevin, were heading in to Houston for a meeting with the engineer for the RV park upgrades, and were happy to give me a ride.
By noon I was on my way back to the park to pick up Jan and head off for an afternoon of lunch and errands. And what’s better for lunch on a cold, rainy afternoon than a big bowl of Monterey’s Little Mexico Chicken Tortilla Soup. And chips. There had to be chips and salsa.
Next up I got to freeze my rear off standing in line outside the HoneyBaked Ham store to pick up our Thanksgiving ham. Originally I was going to pick it up yesterday when the line would have been shorter, but that didn’t work out, so today’s the day.
And man, was it cold! It was about 40° with a brisk wind that just cut right through you. And to think, last year I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when I pick it up. But after about 30 minutes I was finally inside the store and the counter was in sight.
Ten more minutes and $77 later I was back in the warm car where Jan had been waiting, waiting in the nice warm car.
I did mention she was waiting in the nice warm car while I stood out in the cold rain, didn’t I ?
After I warmed up and stopped shivering, we headed over to Kroger’s to pick up some Thanksgiving supplies, but once inside, our first stop was at the Starbuck’s for a Pumpkin Spice Latte for Jan, and a Cinnamon Dolce Latte for me. Anything to warm me up.
We found everything on our list except for the frozen squash for Jan’s World Famous Squash Casserole. We found the frozen broccoli, we found the frozen chopped onions, but no squash was to be had. Plenty of okra, spinach, green beans, black-eyed peas,and even edamame. But no squash
So heading back toward the rig, completely squashless, we decided to make a stop at another Kroger’s on the way, but once again no squash.
What’s up with that?
Somebody at Kroger’s forgot to order frozen squash? Was there a squash famine this year? Inquiring minds, and all that.
Getting home I made a call to Coach-Net to make an appointment to have my truck towed up to Brock’s Automotive tomorrow morning. Then Jan and I will head up to Brandi’s where Jan and Lowell’s mother Sonja, will help her cook for Thanksgiving.
And I’ll probably be out looking for squash.
November 26, 2014
Oops!
Jan and I decided to have breakfast this morning in Livingston before we left, and Lone Star Charlie’s had really good reviews so off we went. And the reviews were right. Great omelets, great bacon, great biscuits, and great grits. Everything was seasoned perfectly. And the coffee was good too.
But getting back to Chris and Charles’ site is where the Oops! comes in. Jan suggested I back in so I would be heading the right way to hitch up before we pulled out this morning, so I pulled past the driveway, started to back in, lined up the driveway in my outside mirror, and with a quick ‘CLUNK’, my rear wheel was hanging in midair, just spinning along. With the sun in my eyes, I had not noticed that the driveway passing over the culvert was inset, and I was now hung up on the curb. It’s like that on both sides, why I don’t know, but I didn’t notice it.
My first thought was that maybe I could get the rig in front of the truck, hitch up and then pull it out. But a quick look showed that I would probably rip out brake lines and the gas tank if I did that. About this time, Dennis Hill drove by on his Harley, and I was busted. No way I could deny this ever happened now.
It was very apropos that to get me out of this situation in her driveway, I called the Good Sam Emergency Road Service that Chris had sold me. Johnny of Smith’s Towing, showed up about 45 minutes later, unfortunately not before Dennis did, but pretty quick.
He agreed there was no way to pull it out without damage, so he put a trailer hitch bar into the receiver on my truck, extended his boom, and attached a cable to the hitch.
Then he lifted the rear of the truck up to clear the curb, and then retracted his boom to move the wheel back onto the driveway.
So now I was able to turn my front wheels and back up with no problems.
So finally we were on our way a little before 1pm, only about 45 minutes late. But it wasn’t like we had a schedule to keep.
After a nice drive through the country, we arrived at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails about 2:15pm. We tried to find a site in our usual ‘E’ section, but they were all full, so it was off to wander around the park looking for an open site. We finally found one in the ‘F’ section, and unlike many in this area, the one we found was very level. And even better, these sites are paved, unlike the ‘E’ area, which are grass/mud. So we were very quickly parked and set up.
About 5:30, along with Lynette and Mac McHenry, we headed out to The Fish Pond Restaurant, where we ate right after we got here last week.
Last time I had a Ribeye and Jan had the Fried Catfish, both very good. But this time I went with the Master Burger Double Cheeseburger and Jan had the Steak Fingers, very good.again.
This is a place that has big enough menu, that you can keep going back and not repeat yourself. Hopefully we’ll go back again too.
Tomorrow we’ll head down to Friendswood to have Thanksgiving Gumbo with Chris, Linda, and Piper. Then Jan will stay over and puppy-sit for a few days while Chris et. al, are out of town.
I mean, how could you not want to puppy-sit a face like this.
November 26, 2015
Pretty Painless . . .
and Very, Very Tasty.
First off, Jan and I want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you enjoyed your day as much as we enjoyed ours.
After we were up and had our coffee about 8:30, we headed out about 10am, with our first stop the Cracker Barrel right down I-45 in Conroe. I had called them on Tuesday to pre-order our Thanksgiving Meal To-Go that we were to pick up.
The restaurant itself was already jam-packed, but they had the whole take-out process streamlined. Signs first pointed me inside to a special line where I quickly paid the $65 for my order. Then it was back to the truck and around back to get in line to pick up our order. But here’s where the process kind of broke down.
The pickup area was a canopy at the backdoor where you could drive up and get your meal, but they didn’t have the direction really defined, so some people were trying to pull in from one direction and some from the other. And then while that was being worked out, other people were parking off to the side, and then walking up.
And this resulted in some upsetness (my new word) to the people in the cars who were there first, because the walkups were getting served ahead of them. Finally the lady in the car behind us got out and started complaining, and things quickly got straightened out.
But even with all this drama, it was less than 15 minutes before we were back on the road heading down to the Clear Lake area. As I said, pretty painless.
Traffic was about what I expected for a Thanksgiving morning, with the usual slowdown around the Pierce Elevated, but it freed up pretty quickly. We did luck up on our side of the freeway, because as we came down off the Pierce we saw that there had been an accident on the other side, with two cars having spun around and scattered large pieces of themselves all over the roadway. The result of this was 5 lanes of traffic backed up for several miles down the Interstate.
Getting into the Clear Lake area we were surprised to see how many changes had been done to the Interstate since we were here this past August for a few days. The El Dorado interchange was completely rearranged from before and the traffic flow is very different.
We arrived at Chris’ about 11:30 and got the food inside and unpacked, still warm, from the large, heavy cardboard box.
Inside the box everything was laid out, labeled, and ready to go.
And as I said, still warm.
And following up on our easy peazy Thanksgiving theme, everyone just served their plates from the containers and popped them in the microwave for a minute or so. Then all we had to do was sit down around the table and enjoy our meal.
And it was very, very tasty. We all agreed that Cracker Barrel does a great Turkey Dinner. In fact, we often go to CB on a normal Thursday just so Jan can have their Turkey and Dressing.
As Jan said, “We didn’t cook for two days, spend 20 minutes eating, and then two hours cleaning up.” When we were done, the containers went in the fridge, the plates and silverware went into the dishwasher, and we were done. Then for dessert we all had some of the pumpkin pie that Chris baked, and some of the Coconut Cream Pie we got from the Fish Pond Restaurant yesterday.
Like I said, pretty painless, and very, very tasty. Easy peazy.
After dinner, while we were watching the dog show, and then the Panthers – Cowboys game (a 33 – 14 blowout leaving Panthers 11 – 0 for the season), I checked online to see what it will entail to replace the broken glass screen on Chris’ Galaxy S5 phone. And it looks like there are two different ways to go. A cheap, difficult way, and an expensive, easy way.
The screen itself only costs about $10, but looks be a difficult 2 – 3 hour job, mostly due to having to separate the glass from the LCD screen. And if you accidently crack the LCD in doing this, you get to move on to the bonus round, and have to take the $150 expensive, easy route anyway, $150 being what a new LCD display with glass costs. So we’ll have to decide what we’re going to do before we’re together next time.
November 26, 2016
New Toy Update . . .
I mentioned the other day about my new Dash Cam, and our Thanksgiving trip back to Katy was my first chance to really try it out.
I really like the quality (1080p) and the color is good too. In addition I like the 140° view. My other dashcam, the one in the rig, has a 170° angle, which means the view is more distorted.
You can check out a sample below.
A really great deal for only $50.
I also got another new toy recently, a little sister to our Amazon Echo Alexa, an Amazon Echo Dot
Only about 1.5 inches high, it does just about everything the full-size version does. The only downside is that the speaker system is not as good due to its smaller size. For this reason the Dot is really made to be hooked up to a Bluetooth or external speaker.
But in real world use it seems to work just fine with the internal speakers. Besides its smaller size, the other thing I really like is the fact that, unlike the Echo which is powered by an AC adapter, the Dot is powered by a standard USB-micro HTML cable just like your cellphone or tablet.
What all this boils down to is that that Dot is great for use on the road. We have used our big Echo traveling in the rig where there is plenty of room, but the Dot is much better for use in the truck. And since it’s USB powered I can plug it right in rather than having to use an inverter.
Even better, the Dot is only $49.99 compared to $179.99 for the big sister. And even more better, right now through Cyber Monday, the Dot is only $39.99. A great deal.
We used it to listen it to iHeartRadio, our 9000+ songs in Amazon’s Cloud Storage, or the 2 million+ songs we get with Prime Music.
Looks like Google has finally come out with their version of the Echo called Google Home. I imagine though it’s going to take them a while to catch up with all the things Echo offers.
I’ve enjoyed all the back and forth on Facebook about whether or not stores should be open on Thanksgiving for shopping. There was a lot of discussion on both sides, citing greedy corporations, angry shoppers, etc.
Hearing this always makes me think of the Blue Laws here in Texas when we moved out here in December 1978. Not only were no big stores open on Sunday, there were a lot of strange restrictions on what you could buy.
Things like the fact you could buy cloth diapers on Sunday, but you couldn’t buy disposable ones. You could buy a hammer or a screwdriver, but not nails or screws. In fact there were 100’s of these weird differences. Eventually the big stores had enough and many started opening on Sunday, pretty much daring the authorities to punish them. Finally in 1985 the whole thing collapsed. At this point, even the churches couldn’t stem the tide.
But what really broke the dam was an article in the newspaper that revealed only about 5% of the working population was employed in retail sales affected by the Blue Laws. The other 95% were police, firefighters, EMT, doctors, nurses, etc. Others worked at refineries, chemical plants, TV stations, and the like.
Landon got to tell Santa Claus his Christmas Wish List today at Bass Pro Shop.
November 26, 2017
In An Instant . . .
We bought a 2+ pound eye of round roast a couple of weeks ago to try out in our Instant Pot, But we got so busy that we ended up freezing it.
So today we decided to try out our IP with Pot Roast and Veggies. We’d seen that we could do the roast frozen so that’s how we did it.
I put the roast in the IP and then added beef broth, water, salt, pepper, and heat.
Then I added some of the cut-up onions from our veggies,
locked the lid down and then set the the IP to Meat and 90 minutes, and off it went. It took about 15 to reach pressure and then the countdown began.
Per the instructions, 90 minutes later I did a quick release and here’s what we had.
Jan had already prepared the veggies, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The corn I was going to do separately.
So in the IP they went right into the leftover juices.
This time I set the IP to Manual and 10 minutes with a 10 minute natural release and then quick release.
As soon as they were done, I put the corn on the cob in our steamer basket, still using the original liquid, and set the IP for Manual and 3 minutes, and then did a quick release.
And about 10 minutes we were ready to eat. The roast sliced easily and was fall-apart tender.
It was delicious, but no heat. We’ll add more next time.
The veggies were a little over-cooked, but still delicious. Maybe 8 minutes next time and quick release.
I like my corn on the cob with some bite to it, but next time I’ll do it for 4 or 5 minutes, instead of 3.
All in all, it was a good first try with our Instant Pot. Looking forward to more great meals.
November 26, 2018
Touchdown . . .
The Mars Insight Lander touched down right on time this afternoon, and seems to be fully operational. But it will be a while until they’re sure, and then they’ll deploy the solar panels and the test instruments. Hope all goes well.
Since I was out sick on Wednesday and we were closed on Friday, today was a catch-up day with a lot of stuff to send out and things on the website and in the catalogs to update with new prices. Busy, Busy.
Coming home I stopped in at Costco to fill up the tank for our trip up to Katy tomorrow. Found the price still at $1.91. How low will it go?
About 4:30 Jan and I headed back out to have dinner at the new Slim Chickens. Just as good as last time. Glad it’s close by.
Next up was a stop at the nearby WalMart for a few things for Jan to have for meals during her upcoming Adventures in Dog-Sitting. Then, just by happenstance, we drove by the Marble Slab where the coffee ice cream was calling out to us . . . ‘buy two small Coffees to go’. So we did.
Our last stop was the Santa Fe PO for our mail, where we found our new SD license plate stickers had come in. One less thing to worry about.
Tomorrow I’ll take Jan up to Brandi’s in Katy so she can dog-sit (and cat-sit) Miss Kitty, Baxter, and Mooshe (the cat) while Brandi, et. al., along with friends, Chantelle, Eric, and Maddox, are flying off to Disney World in Orlando where they’ll be staying until next Monday. Landon’s first trip to the Mouse Kingdom.
I brought home the System Image Recovery Disk and started trying to re-image the laptop hard drive after we got back home. But the first three times I tried it using the latest image I did on the 23rd, it kept failing, so right now I using the one I made back in October. And so far it’s working.
I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
November 26, 2019
Got The Rig Back . . .
But not until about 5pm, so I’m at the River Bend RV Park in Luling and I’ll head back toward Santa Fe tomorrow morning.
Happily surprised that the total bill was only about $1,055.00, much less than I expected.
The air compressor problem is definitely fixed, and hopefully the oil leak is too. But I really won’t know until I drive for a while.
November 26, 2020
Pass The Turkey,
and the Dressing, and the Green Beans, and the Mashed Potatoes, and the . . .(Insert Your Favorite Thanksgiving Dish Here)
About 12:30 I started putting out and heating up our Thanksgiving meal, mostly compliments of Cracker Barrel.
I mixed the chicken broth in with the Cornbread Dressing and put it in the convection/microwave for about 40 minutes while I was prepping everything. And a lot of the prepping consisted of taking the lids off the Green Beans, the Carrots, and the Mashed Potatoes, and putting a couple of big dollops of KerryGold Butter in each dish.
As well as drizzling melted KerryGold over the top on the Yeast Rolls, which went into the toaster/convection oven at 400° for about 15 minutes, coming out looking like this.
While this was going on I got out the Turkey Breast, cut open the sealed plastic bag, and started slicing.
And no, it’s not really greenish. It’s just the lighting.
Then after cycling all the Veggies and the Turkey Gravy through the microwave,
and laying everything else out,
we were ready to eat.
Really, really good. Thanks to Cracker Barrel.
And then for dessert, there was pie.
And yes, there’s a piece of Chocolate Pecan and a piece of Cream Cheese Pumpkin underneath all that Whipped Cream somewhere.
And the clean up consisted pretty much of just snapping the lids back on the serving dishes and putting them back in the fridge.
Nice!
The only downside to this very nice day, is that we lost the park WiFi Internet about 10:30 am, and as of 11 pm tonight we still don’t have it back. The WiFi signal is there, and we can connect to it and get an IP address, but it’s just not talking to anything.
Rob, the park owner who’s out of town, had his daughter come over and reboot everything here, but it didn’t help. And so far it’s been impossible to talk to anyone at Xfinity.
Nothing we have will get a signal. The TV, computer, tablets, Kindles, Echo’s, all zip. But I can connect to my Verizon MiFi or my phone hotspot, so I know it’s not me.
So later in the afternoon I turned our DirecTV DVR back on and we watched stuff we had recorded a while back.
November 26, 2021
Black Friday . . .
Jan and I spent about an hour this morning putting together my new Respawn Gaming Chair, a 30 minute job that took about an hour due to old fumble fingers here.
It’s amazing how many times I could drop that Allen wrench. Jan, to her credit, kept the snickering mostly muffled.
Then about 1pm, we headed out for our Black Friday event. No, it was not at WalMart or Costco, but at Twin Peaks.
You see, Black Friday at Twin Peaks means Black Lingerie Friday. Much better than fighting the crowds at WalMart, believe me.
Something funny did happen though. We asked specifically for our favorite server, Sylvia, but were told we would have to wait a few minutes for an open table in her area.
When we were being seated, we had to wait a few seconds for the busser to finish wiping down the table. Right about then, the young lady who was guiding us to our table said,
“You asked specifically for Sylvia. Are you her grandparents?”
We both just laughed, and said, “No, she’s just a really good server.”
And she is too.
In fact, she showed up at our table with our specific drink order, two unsweet iced teas, two iced waters, an extra glass of ice, and a bunch of extra lemons, just a minute or so after we sat down, without us even having to order it.
That’s Sylvia on the left and her BFF Victoria on the right. Notice I kept the shot from the waist up.
Jan laughing said she didn’t know which way to look. There were just ‘cheeks’ everywhere.
Me, I just kept my mouth shut.
Who Knew?
With all bad weather running around, our friend’s Ron and Anne decided to head out today, a day earlier than planned, on their way to Yuma. And along the way they did have their first Buc-ee’s experience at the one in Luling. They’ll probably never be the same.
Jan and I really enjoyed getting to know them, and spending time with them.
Hope we can see them again soon.
Since Brandi and her family will be home late tonight/early tomorrow, I’m heading up to Katy to pick up Jan from her dog-sitting gig about 1pm. Then we’re having lunch at our favorite Grimaldi’s Pizza before Jan does some Christmas shopping at the Trader Joe’s right next door.
It’s a two’fer.
Yesterday a man who apparently fell off the Carnival Cruise Ship Valor on Wednesday, was rescued Thanksgiving Day after spending 12-15 hours treading water in the Gulf of Mexico.
He was last seen leaving the bar about 11pm, saying he was going to use the restroom. And he wasn’t seen again aboard the ship again.
After the cruise ship reversed course, and with the Coast Guard helping, they found the guy and pulled him aboard a helicopter. When rescued, he said he had no idea how he ended up in the water.
Personally, I figure he was drunk enough that he decided to pee over the railing and fell in.
Then while reading this article, I can across this about another man-overboard incident.
I used to work for Royal Caribbean / Celebrity. I had to go on cruises about twice a year to manage IT deployments. Honestly, it was so automatic I didn’t do much other than lay in the sun during the day and play blackjack at night.
Anyway about 12 years ago I was on a Celebrity ship, Solstice I think. Casino closed early because the clientele was older. I’m getting a snack around midnight and there was an announcement “all crew alpha alpha alpha port side. Ship starts a turn at the same time. (Seas were 8-10 feet.)
It took a solid 45 minutes for the ship to make a full circle back. In the meantime, you could see a flashing beacon out there.
And this is crazy: the spotlights were so bright that even from a few miles away there was a red dot. That red dot was actually the reflection from the overboard passenger’s bald head.
Alright so we sort of stop a mile away. A skiff (probably 25 ft. long) pops out the side with three guys. It runs to the pink dot. Sits next to it for a minute and starts drifting away. 10-15 minutes later another skiff pops out. It runs out to the pink dot…. And makes its way back.
A buck naked 50-60 year old man is passed out. They put the skiff back in the boat and all the passengers and crew watching disperse.
The next day my team got the full story from the bridge. The guy was there to get married. He got rip roaring drunk and got in a fight. So he strips naked, stands on a rail near the bridge. When someone notices him, he jumps.
The crew deployed a beacon. That is how they knew where to find him. That was the blinking light.
When the first skiff got out there, he refused to get in. A guy reached for him and he punched the crew member breaking his nose.
The second skiff went out with the ship doctor. This is where I thought it sounded odd, but the bridge swore it was true. The ship doctor has a tranquilizer gun at his disposal. They shot the passenger and pulled him into the second skiff.
He got expelled from the ship the next day in Honduras. He was alone. His new wife, and all the family that came for the wedding stayed on the ship.
So who knew that cruise ship doctors carry tranquilizer guns?
Thought For The Day:
In the words of Robert Heinlein: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.”
November 25, 2009
Thanksgiving Eve…
Today was a ‘get ready for Thanksgiving’ day.
We headed out about 8:15. I was dropping Jan off at Brandi’s to fix her Thanksgiving dishes and I was going to beat the crowd at the HoneyBaked Ham place.
NOT!
When I got there at 9, the time they opened, there was already a line out the door and down the block. About 150 feet. So much for early.
About 90 minutes later I had my ham and headed back to Brandi’s. Then after Jan was finished, we drove over to King Food for lunch. And it’s still great as always.
Getting back to the rig, I left Jan and headed back out.
I first went by the park office to settle up and then headed over to pay a visit to one of my clients who had called with a problem.
Finally got back to the rig about 5pm and we settled in for the night.
November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving . . .
Today began early for Jan, but lucky me I got to sleep in until 9 am.
She had to get up and put her Squash Casserole in the oven. She had prepared it yesterday, but it needed to cook for about an hour. Everything else was done.
Then a little after 10 we headed out toward Shawna’s, a trip of about 70 miles out to the Katy area. We did a quick detour by Brandi’s to pick up the HoneyBaked Ham and the two pumpkin pies we had stored in her fridge there.
We got to Shawna’s beautiful new house a little before noon and the first words we heard were “Where’s the Sausage Balls?”. Just like I said yesterday.
Jan, of course, immediately went for Landon.
And here’s Mr. Landon getting the giggles, bouncing on Lowell’s knee.
And here he is surrounded by his many female admirers.
As always, the meal was fantastic, with ham, turkey, cornbread dressing, corn casserole, squash casserole, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, and a number of great desserts.
After lunch, some people wandered off to watch the games, some of the kids went upstairs to watch movies in Shawna’s beautiful new theater room with a really big screen, and some people, like me, wandered off to take a nap, after that great meal.
A little after 4 we headed back home to the rig, getting back about 5:30 pm.
I mentioned yesterday about the changes in Direct TV’s Distant Network Service that let’s you get the East Coast and West Coast Network Stations.
Well, after reading about the changes, I checked my Direct TV service and found that I had lost the West Coast feed. I figured I would call them on Friday.
But getting back this evening, I found we had not only lost the West Coast, but now we had lost the East Coast feed, and the Houston local channel spotlight, as well.
It took almost 30 minutes on the phone to get things turned back on, but I still need to call them tomorrow to try and get our West Coast feed turned back on. The guy on the phone had no idea why I had lost the feeds as there was nothing in my records about them being turned off.
November 25, 2011
Almost Home . . .
Once again I was up about 9am since we were suppose to move this morning , , , maybe. So about 10 I headed over to the office, with a detour by the site where we supposed to move today.
But as you can see it was still occupied
So I checked in with the office and they had no news except that the 5er was supposed to leave today.
We’ll see.
Since we couldn’t move yet, about 11 I headed off to see a client. I’m still working my way through all their computers, cleaning and tiding them up, doing updates on the OS and programs, and clean out the gunk.
About 3:30 the RV park called and said we could move anytime as the site was now empty. I told them we’d move tomorrow since I wasn’t at the park and they said no problem.
I headed back to the rig about 4, stopping by the newly vacated site to check out our view-to-be.
Looks pretty good.
The only downside is that since the site is set up for a 5th wheel, if we want to have our windshield looking out over the bay, (and isn’t that the whole point of parking on the water?) I’ll have to cross-connect the utilities under the rig.
No problem, but I’ll probably have to buy another length of sewer hose.
Jan and I then headed back up to Seabrook to have dinner at Chili’s, with Jan having the Baby Back Ribs, and I had my usual Grilled Chicken Caribbean Salad.
We’ve been eating this salad for years, but in 2008 they discontinued it. And we stopped eating at Chili’s for two years. When we finally went back it was back on the menu. The waitress said they’d had a lot of complaints and requests for it, so I guess our boycott worked.
We’ll probably try to move about 11 tomorrow, but it depends on the weather since we’re supposed to have heavy thunderstorms tomorrow.
Just what you want on a moving day.
November 25, 2012
Back home again . . .
We left our Lake House Thanksgiving retreat about 8:30, but before we left Marble Falls we wanted to have breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Café.
First opened in 1929, it’s served the likes of President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, Ethan Hawke, James Lovell, Lyle Lovett, Texas Governor Rick Perry and First Lady Anita Perry, Willie Nelson, Darrell Royal, Roger Staubach, and Chuck Woolery.
August company indeed.
We really lucked out getting there when we did, since we got seated immediately. By the time we left, the line was out the door.
Besides their delicious food, especially breakfast, they’re also well-known for their pies.
So yes, there’s about 9 inches of meringue on that pie.
After saying our goodbyes with Lowell and Brandi, and getting our Nana and Papa hugs from Landon, we all headed back home.
Our first stop was at our favorite Buc-ee’s on I-10 at Luling. Landon had enjoyed playing with some marbles in a game left at the lake house, so Jan got him a set while we were there.
After a second stop at the Flying J in Brookshire, we got back to the rig about 3pm and found that Laura Lee had done a great job taking care of Mister and Emma.
Tomorrow it’s back to the grind with clients and chores.
November 25, 2013
I Hear Bells . . .
or at least I think I do Every time I start to fall asleep, I keep thinking I’m hearing the ding,ding of the driveway bell on the gate. Same thing happened last year, too. And also just like last year, we both find ourselves looking at car tags to see if we recognize them. It’ll pass.
Well, if we thought the weather was bad last night, all we had to do was wait for today. It got colder and wetter. And of course I had to wait until this morning to hook up water and sewer. Doing it this morning meant I had to get down on my hands and knees in the cold water so I could run the hoses under the rig to the pedestal on the wrong side.
Fun.
But the first thing I did after getting up was to start checking on rental cars since I’m going to have to have the truck towed into the shop. And I quickly ran into a problem.
There are pretty much no cars to be had, especially from Enterprise, the ‘we’ll pick you up’ people, which is what I need. Apparently everyone rents cars to travel for Thanksgiving. Although this year it was worse because of the bad weather. They’re supposed to be bringing in more vehicles tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll luck up.
I also talked to Brock’s Automotive, the car repair shop I’ve used for years. Turns out my Dodge Dakota doesn’t have conventional front wheel bearings. Instead it has an integrated hub-bearing assembly like this.
If I I had a 2WD, it would be a quick and simple repair. Just remove the tire/wheel and then remove the 3 bolts, and then remove the old hub and reinstall the new one.
Unfortunately the 4WD repair is a little more involved.
About noon I walked up to the office to pay for the month and also get the park WiFi code. They have a very good system here with good coverage, and excellent speed. Here’s the SpeedTest results from earlier this evening.
During the day when the load is lighter, I’ve seen 20Mbps download speed. Very nice
Although it was overcast and rainy all day, we still got to enjoy the view out our windshield.
One of many reasons why we like this park so much.
November 25, 2014
How Do I Clean Off Drilling Mud?
Chris and Charles Yust pulled out of their site here at the Livingston Escapees Park about 8am. But I only know that 2nd hand from Jan since they did it so quietly that I never woke up. Which is surprising since their engine was only about 10 feet from my bed.
We’ll head back to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails tomorrow morning, but in the meantime, I wanted to use Charles’ pressure washer to try and remove the drilling mud residue from the roof of our rig.
I made up a bucket of water, Dawn, and Awesome, and started in on the front cap and the edges of the windshield that I hadn’t done originally when it looked like this.
I used my long-handle scrub brush to spread the cleaning solution around and then let it soak for a few minutes. Then I used Charles’ Karcher Pressure Washer to hose it off.
I was pleasantly surprised to see all the mud came off the front cap and windshield and left things sparkly clean. I was much less pleased to see that the mud at the top edge of the roof wasn’t touched. So it was up on the roof, after all.
Once up there I had Jan connect a line to lift the brush, the bucket of cleaning solution, and the pressure washer up there with me. And it was even worse than I thought when seen from the ground.
The front 10’ of the roof was pretty much solid black with the mud, as well as the front AC cover and the vent fan cover. I found the AC and vent covers cleaned up very easily, and there was a 2 foot wide strip of smooth plastic that did as well. But the regular roof surface, a pebbly vinyl-looking area, just refused to clean up.
My next attempt was a can of Gunk Engine Degreaser to see how that worked. I sprayed it on a small area, let it sit for a few minutes, and then tried again. And again with no luck. By now I was running out of time, so I wrapped up and put things away, to try another day. I guess I could always just spray paint the roof white again.
I had told Dennis Hill yesterday at his party that I would come down and take a look at his computer problems, so Jan and I headed down there a little before 3pm. Although we spent more time talking to Dennis and Carol than working, I was able to get most of Dennis’ problems worked out.
Later, we all headed out to eat dinner at Texas Pepper, a Mexican place they like. And for good reason, as all our food was really delicious.
Getting back to their rig, we talked a while longer, before it was after 7:30 and past Jan’s bedtime. Or at least when she starts to fall asleep, so we headed home.
Luckily we won’t have to be up too early for our trip back to Conroe tomorrow.
November 25, 2015
Just Puttering . . .
Today ended up being a nice ‘just putter around the rig’ day.
After coffee in our repaired Mr. Coffee (it’s still working fine) and a couple of slices of pumpkin bread, I started going through some bins looking for a couple of things I need for projects.
Once we move over to Colorado River TT in a couple of weeks, I’ve got a extended plumbing project planned. And since I’ll have the water shut off for a while, I’ll send Jan off to stay with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon for a day or so.
First I want to replace the flush ball mechanism in our Sealand Traveler toilet. Since while we were on the gate, we’ve actually been flushing it with a pair of locking pliers. The plastic shaft finally rounded off and the spring cartridge and the foot pedal would no longer flush it.
And while I’ve got it apart, I want to replace the seal kit, and that’s one of the things I’m looking for in the bins. I bought a seal kit a while back as a spare, but so far it isn’t where I thought it should be, so today I’ll be looking in places it’s not supposed to be.
My second project is to replace the lavatory faucet. I’ve got all the parts, so it’s just a matter of taking care of it when the water is off.
But the last one is probably going to be the tricky one. For a while now we’ve had a small leak in our shower, apparently at the back of the shower faucet itself. I’m assuming it’s on the input side to the faucet since it seems to leak whether we actually use the shower or not.
The real complication is that fact that there’s no access panel to the rear of the faucet from the bedroom. There’s supposed to be one. American Coach said so.
When I called them, they said the access panel was right behind the mirror on that wall. I said there wasn’t a mirror on that wall, and there wasn’t any access panel, either.
Their answer to this, “Well,there should be.”
Thanks for your help.
So this means I’m going to have to cut my own access panel, and then come up with some sort of cover for the hole. Presently we have a large picture hung there, but right now it’s hung too high to cover the area where the hole will have to be, and it wouldn’t look right if we hung it lower.
But the important thing is to first fix the leak.
Next chore was to install my new vehicle tags. My present ones run out the end of November so I wanted to get them on before I forget about them. Normally I just get the stickers, but my tags are 8 years old, and are getting pretty beat up, especially the one on the front of the rig which is mounted down fairly low. So this year I paid the extra $10 each and got new tags, and of course new numbers.
Another thing on my list was to install some cable clamps in my electrical bay. Unlike newer rigs that control the engine block heater with a switch, mine has to be plugged in. And it seems like the cord is always hidden away behind the coils of my shore power cord.
So I installed some cable clamps to hold the block heater cord up out of the way.
Sometimes the easy chores are good too.
About 4 Jan and I went into Conroe to have dinner at the local Culver’s. While Jan had a burger and fries, I guess I finally burned out on all the Whataburgers we had on the gate, so I went the soup and salad route, with their Cranberry Bacon Bleu Cheese Salad and a cup of Cheesy Tortilla Soup.
I don’t normally care for Bleu Cheese, but the crumbles in this salad add a nice touch of tartness against he sweetness of the cranberries. Very good.
Tomorrow we’ll head down to Chris and Linda’s in Friendswood to have Thanksgiving dinner. With Brandi, Lowell, and Landon in Oklahoma for the week, we debated what to do for Thanksgiving.
No one really wanted to cook, and no one really wanted to fight the crowds at a restaurant, so we compromised and did a little of both. On our way down to Chris’, we’ll stop off at the Conroe Cracker Barrel to pick up their Thanksgiving To-Go meal for six.
It comes Turkey and Dressing, Ham, Three Quarts of Sides (for us it was Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Green Beans, and Mac & Cheese), Cranberry Relish, Biscuits, and Corn Muffins.
Linda has fixed some of her delicious Cranberry Salad and a Pumpkin Pie, and we’re also bringing a homemade Coconut Cream Pie from yesterday’s visit to the Fish Pond Restaurant.
So no crowds and easy cleanup.
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 25, 2017
Great Friends and Good Food . . .
Janice and Dave Evans invited us over for lunch today, so we walked over about 11:45 for a great meal of Red Beans and Rice, and Jalapeno Cornbread with brownies for dessert.
We also got to meet their son John, as well as Dave’s brother John, and his wife Lisa, Then later their friend’s Joe and Joanna, so a big, fun group.
We stayed for several hours before coming home, after setting up a rendezvous for later this afternoon.
We met Janice and Dave down at Pho 20 about 4:30 and were greeted by our favorite waitress, Mariah. (Named for the singer, not the wind. We asked.)
Everyone got something new, except me. Of course since Janice and Dave hadn’t been here before, it was all new to them.
Dave got the General Tso’s Chicken,
while Janice got the Chicken Pho.
Both Janice and Dave said it was really good.
This time my Jan went with the Orange Chicken,
while I stayed put with my Jalapeno Chicken.
As with our other visits, Jan and I started off splitting the House Crunch Salad with Miso Dressing. Really good. Going to have to get some of this dressing.
Tomorrow looks to be another quiet day around the rig, with not a lot going on.
So nice.
November 25, 2018
A Typical Fall Day In Texas . . .
Today is going to be one of those typical Fall days in Texas, what with running the AC’s this morning and the heaters tonight.
It was sunny and 75° today, but it’s going down to 41 tonight. And only up to 57° tomorrow and 38 tomorrow night. Of course it could be a lot worse like up north of here where the roads are closed due to high winds and heavy snow.
Today was just a nice stay-at-home day for us, computing, napping, TV’ing, reading, etc. Couldn’t be much nicer.
My project for today was to replace the HD in our ASUS X53E laptop, circa 2012. I’m starting to get errors from the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) firmware system built into the HD itself. Every time I boot up it gives me a DOS warning message that the HD needs to be replaced ASAP. But since I’m not seeing any ‘actual’ errors during operation, I’m thinking that the drive is probably sensing more and more intermittent read/write errors.
This happens when the HD tries to read some data from the drive and gets an error the first few times before finally reading the data correctly. Or the same thing when it tries to write some data to the drive.
So in preparation for this changeout, a couple of days ago I made a complete System Image of the laptop’s HD onto my 2TB WD external drive.Then all I had to do today was to find the replacement 500GB drive I had ordered for another project a while back but never used.
But when I found that, I realized I had another problem. I didn’t have a copy of the System Repair DVD here at home that I need to reinstall the System Image. So I’ll bring one home from my client’s tomorrow.
The neat thing about a System Image is that it’s a snapshot of the drive, so when I install the image to a new drive, it starts up exactly like it was before. There’s no reinstalling the OS, programs, data, etc. Just copy and go.
Or at least I will tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, NASA got another Mars Lander touching down around 2pm CT tomorrow afternoon. After it lands (a toss-up since only about 50% of past Mars landers have been successful), it will deploy a seismometer and a probe that will drill about 3 meters into the interior of the planet and then spend the next two years checking temps and monitoring for Marsquakes.
You can check out the landing on either NASA TV or streaming at Space.com.
November 25, 2019
Almost, But Not Quite Yet . . .
I checked in with Dix Diesel Center about 10 this morning and was told that the gaskets would be in about 1pm, and that it shouldn’t take too long to get them installed.
FWIW I still don’t yet know where these gaskets go, but I definitely want to find out before I leave.
But when I checked back in about 4pm, I was told the gaskets had come in, but the mechanic was working on another job and hadn’t gotten to our rig yet. The dispatcher said he might be able to get to the job later in the afternoon.
When I was pretty adamant that I did not want to spend Thanksgiving waiting for our rig to get repaired, he said he would do his best to push it up in the queue, and to check with him about 8:30 tomorrow morning and see how things are going.
I plan on going ahead and checking out of the hotel and just wait around at Dix, hoping I can be annoying enough to encourage them to get it fixed and get me on the road out of their hair.
We’ve enjoyed our stay here at the Luling La Quinta, nice rooms, friendly staff, 24 hour coffee in the lobby, and a good free breakfast. However I do have to question their Free Ultra Fast Internet.
Well, I guess the ‘Free’ part is correct, but I have big questions about the ‘Ultra Fast’ part. But after repeated tests using Speedtest.net, the fastest connection I’ve seen was 1.07 Mbps, with some as low as 0.96 Mbps.
But when I brought my Verizon MiFi back to our room from the rig, I’m getting between 17 and 20 Mbps.
So does that mean my MiFi is ‘Ultra Ultra Ultra Fast’?
November 25, 2021
Happy Gobble Gobble To All . . .
The incoming cold front (low of 70 last night, 46 tonight) brought rain with it, not heavy, but just a steady on and off drizzle. Bur it may be part of the reason that when we got to Cracker Barrel about 11, it was busy, but not overwhelmed.
So I dropped out Jan out front while I found a place to park. And since a lot of the clientele today was us old people, there were no handicapped spaces available, but I did find a space not too far from the door, and hobbled in.
And found Jan already seated, and we had our plates in about 15 minutes.
And it was just as delicious as always. And since it came with cornbread/biscuits, pumpkin pie, and a drink, all for $12.99, it was a great deal, too.
However, our plan to buy a couple of dinners to take home for leftovers was thwarted by the fact that we were now supposed to have ordered them ahead of time. But it still worked out because we had leftovers anyway.
And as we were leaving about an hour later, they were much, much busier.
We chose wisely.
Since we knew we were going to be eating kind of early, I didn’t fix coffee this morning. So we were very happy to see Cowboy Coffee open for business when we went by about 10:45, thinking we could get coffee on the way home. But our hopes were dashed when we came back by about 12:15 and found them closed. Guess they were just open for people heading out to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.
Bummer!
Getting home, we make calls to both kiddo’s, Brandi up in OK, and Chris over in Kingsland. Good to hear from both.
After that it was time for a post-turkey nap.
A really nice day.
Hopefully yours was as nice as ours.
