Daily Archives: December 21, 2022
Dueling Forecasts . . .
The dueling weather forecasts, from Accuweather and The Weather Channel, have started to coalesce into a median, at least on the low temp of 20° from TWC and 21° from AW. Where they still different somewhat is in the high for the day, with TWC pegging it at 64° and a blistering 71° from AW.
So I guess we’ll see.
I’m going disconnect us from shore water tomorrow and then drain the hose. Our faucets already are freeze-proof so I won’t worry there. I will get out my heat lamp and reflector clamp light and set it up in the water bay to keep things warm and toasty down there.
After that, we’ll see.
Tomorrow will be lunch at Twin Peaks, and then, once again placing our lives in peril, we plan on picking up some last minute stuff at Costco.
So if there’s no blog tomorrow night, you’ll know why, I guess.
Thought For The Day:
I always give myself great advice. Unfortunately I don’t always follow it.
December 21, 2010
Birthmarks and Santa Claus . . .
This morning started with Jan heading out about 10 am to get a pedicure. I got up about the same time and started catching up on some more computer stuff.
While Jan was gone, our daughter Brandi called to check in after her doctor’s visit at Texas Children’s Hospital. Landon’s pediatrician had suggested they take in to have the hemangioma birthmark on his forehead checked out.
Funny thing for being a birthmark is that it wasn’t there when he was born. It didn’t appear for over a month, and at first just looked like a small scratch. Now it’s almost the size of a dime.
The doctor said there was no problem and that most of these disappear by age 2, and can be treated by a pulsed dye laser if needed.
So everyone was relieved.
Now that all of Brandi’s Christmas cards have gone out, I’m now allowed to post this picture of Landon and Santa that was on their Christmas card.
Landon certainly seemed happy about the whole thing. Santa must have told him that he was getting everything he asked for.
About 5 pm we drove over to Victory Lakes to meet our friend Maria for dinner at Denny’s. Then afterwards, Maria and Jan headed down to La Marque to play Bingo.
December 21, 2011
Fans and Cookies . . .
One of the packages that came in yesterday was the new fan motor for our Splendide washer/dryer. So before I went to bed last night I pulled the old motor out.
I had been told when I ordered the new motor that I would have to remove the squirrel cage fan from the old motor and install in on the new one.
It also helped that they told me that the nut holding the fan on was reverse threaded. Otherwise I might still be trying to get the fan loose.
It’s reassuring that the new motor is much heavier and better built than the old one. I mean the old one only lasted 13 years.
What kind of quality is that?
Here’s the new motor and fan all ready to go.
But Jan says I can’t finish installing it yet. She’s in Christmas Cookie baking mode and really likes having the washer by the kitchen counter for the extra space while she’s baking.
I might have to come up with something similar that I can put up and take down for Jan.
This morning started out with coffee and a call from a client whose computer wouldn’t boot up this morning. Told him I’d be there in the next hour or so.
But after heading out, my first stop was at Brandi and Lowell’s to start a load of laundry since Jan won’t let me fix the washer yet.
LOL.
Then I headed over to the client’s. At first I thought his hard drive had died. The computer would start up and then hang at the point where it should start booting from the drive. But the BIOS setup said the computer was still seeing the drive, and I could hear it spinning up.
So while pondering this, I looked down at the bottom of the computer case on the floor and noticed Max had gotten himself an early Christmas present, (or probably a Chanukkah present), an brand new iPod Nano.
Which was plugged into a USB port. I unplugged the iPod, rebooted the machine, and everything was working fine.
Many computers are set up by default to boot from a USB port or the CDROM drive before the hard drive. A thumb drive is usually not enough to trigger this, but a iPod Nano looks enough like a bootable device that the computer tries to access it and then hangs.
Finishing up there I headed back to Brandi’s to put the clothes in the dryer and then it was back over to Lowe’s to pick up some things, including a piece of 3” metal duct to help me reconnect the dryer vent when I reinstall the Splendide.
Then it was back to Brandi’s to pick up the laundry. Lowell was there and we got to spend some time talking and that was good.
Getting back to the rig, I could smell the results of Jan’s labors as I came in the door. Batches of her famous melt-in-your-mouth Candy Cane Cookies were coming out of the oven. There’s nothing like the taste of one of these in your mouth, straight off the cookie sheet, almost too hot to eat, but you don’t care, they’re so good.
Resisting the urge to eat more cookies, Jan and I headed out about 5:15 to meet our long-time friends, Bob and Beth Young, at King Food for a great Chinese meal. We always try to get together several times while we’re back in the area, and enjoy hearing about what’s going on with their big family of five kids. We’re going to try to do this at least once more before we leave town.
December 21, 2013
Terry and Phil . . .
The big thing on yesterday’s schedule was the annual Christmas Show at the Alvin Opry. But it was made better by meeting our friend Maria at Monterey’s Little Mexico for dinner before heading over to the Opry.
As I said before, we’ve been going to the Alvin Opry since 1996, and the Christmas Show is always a must.
But the star of the show last night was Alvin Opry newcomer, 11 year old Tori Vourganas. Tori plays the fiddle and the banjo, and sings to boot. And she’s cute as a button, too.
And along with Tori, perennial favorite Tony Booth made one of his too-infrequent appearances to the delight of everyone.
Then coming home about 11pm, we stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, and also avoid the Saturday Christmas crowds.
On another note, here’s a picture of our son Chris and Dick Mott comparing their cigar box guitars out in La Brisa’s parking lot.
Today was a pretty much nothing day. In fact we never even left the rig.
There’s another front coming through bringing more cold weather so after a high of 78° at about 1:30pm, the temp dropped 15° in 3 hours.
And the low tomorrow night will be in the mid-30’s, so it looks like winter is back again.
With all the Duck Dynasty controversy, I thought I’d throw something else in the mix.
Most people don’t know that pre-Duck Dynasty, Phil Robertson was a star quarterback at Louisiana Tech University, and heavily recruited by the pros. But he gave it all up because he’d rather hunt than play football.
The other part of this was that his backup quarterback almost never got to play because Phil was so good. In fact in an interview, he said Phil had the best arm he’d ever seen. Oh, and Phil Robertson’s backup quarterback, it was TERRY BRADSHAW. Yes, that Terry Bradshaw.
If you’ve ever wanted to check out Adobe’s Photoshop but didn’t want to shell out the big bucks, you can now download a legacy version for free.
With CS6 the current version, Photoshop CS2 was released in 2005, and replaced by CS3 in 2007. And now you can have a copy of CS2 for your very own.
The reason for the freebie is that Adobe no longer wants to maintain the authentication servers for a 9 year old version, and so decided to release it into the wild.
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html
Just click the above link, select Windows or Mac on the right side, and set back and wait, because it’s a 340 MB download. The program works fine up to Windows 7, but will not work on Win 8.
Below you will find the serial number needed to register the program.
Windows Serial number: 1045-1412-5685-1654-6343-1431
Mac OS X Serial number: 1045-0410-5403-3188-5429-0639
December 21, 2014
Let There Be Light . . .
Our day really started today when we headed out about 1:30, on our way to Brand’s for the afternoon. Going through Columbus, we got gas (for $2.19. So far the cheapest I’ve seen is $1.98. $2.64 for diesel) and then made a stop at Wal-Mart to pick up our prescriptions. But that didn’t work out One of the two pharmacists was out sick so the other one had to close the pharmacy while she went to lunch. And guess when her lunch period was? So I’ll have to run back down there tomorrow to pick them up.
We got to Brandi’s a little before 3, and after getting our Landon hugs, Lowell and I got to work.
A couple of weeks ago, the power in a bedroom and the adjoining bathroom went out at their house, both lights and wall outlets. I had looked at the problem a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t have any tools with me. But today I came prepared.
Since Lowell already knew that a number of the labels on his circuit breaker panel were incorrect, we started there by taking the cover off the panel and checking the output of each breaker with a voltmeter. And no luck there. They were all good.
Normally the way these things are wired up, one hot wire (black) comes from the breaker panel and then loops to each outlet and switch in a daisychain.. So a break anywhere along the line will knock out everything below it. The problem is figuring out which device is first in line, next in line, and so on.
And as was the case here, sometimes you just have to pick a place and start opening outlet boxes and switches, and testing them. In this case, the seventh time was the charm. When we took the cover plate off the 4th outlet (one on each wall) in the room, and then pulled the outlet itself out of the wall box, the lights came on for a few seconds. Got it!
These outlets and switches have a quick connect feature that allows you to just strip the wire and push it in a hole on the back of the outlet. It suppose to lock in like sticking your finger in one of those Chinese finger traps. But in this case it was broken and the wire would not stay in. So I just used my needle-nose pliers to bend a hook on the end, and tightened it down under the old-fashioned screw terminals. Slower to hook up, but more reliable.
Our job done, we all headed right down the street to Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro for our usual delicious meal.
On the home front, my new transfer switch came in, which I’ll probably install next week, and I’m going to have to do an electrical repair of my own here in the rig. The last fluorescent tube has died in the ceiling fixture in the hallway, and, as I did the bathroom, I’m going to replace the tubes with two small LED strips. Cheaper and brighter.
December 21, 2015
Old Friends, New Friends, and Chinese . . .
Jan and I headed our for our inaugural walk here at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails. Since they don’t seem to have a real designated walking path like Colorado River, I used Google Satellite View to map out a 1 mile route, which is pretty just the circumference of the park.
About a quarter of the way around, we ran into our old friend’s Garland and Valencia Scott. We first met them last winter when we were parked near each other here at Lake Conroe.
Since we were both out walking, we ended up making the circle together as we caught up on our travels this last year, and talked over our travels to be for the next year.
Garland and Valencia are the couple closest to the camera, and behind them are Gordon and Merlyn Pendergast, also new RV’ers.
Garland and Valencia are leaving for a week starting tomorrow, but they’ll be back while we are still here, so we’ll get together then. Really looking forward to it.
A little before 4pm, Jan and I headed out to meet Ed and Debi Hurlburt at the nearby China Delight Chinese Restaurant. Ed is the moderator of two popular Facebook RV groups, RV Tips and RV Chat. And not to be outdone, his wife Debi has her own Facebook group, Debi’s RV Cooking. Jan says she’s gotten some really good recipes from there, so check them all out.
Ed and Debi have been eating here for years, and after trying the food, it’s easy to see why. We’ll definitely go back.
That’s Ed in the blue shirt and Debi to his right.
Along with themselves, Ed and Debi also brought two other RV’ing couples for us to meet. That’s Jim and Claudia Horak on the right, and Jack and Lynette Starwalt behind Jan.
We all had a great time comparing places we’ve been and places we’d like to go around the country, and talking about all the things RV’ers talk about when they get together.
Leaving the restaurant, we stopped off at Kroger’s to pick up the last of the needed Christmas food supplies, as well as some Christmas gift cards. This should wrap it up, except for the Coconut Cream Pie we’ll pick up from the Fish Pond Restaurant tomorrow evening, and the Cornbread Dressing and Turkey Gravy we’ll pick up from Cracker Barrel Thursday morning on our way to our daughter Brandi’s down in Katy.
Tomorrow we’re driving over to Livingston to visit Dennis and Carol Hill at the Escapees park there, and having sampled his past culinary delights, we’re really looking forward to whatever Dennis pulls out of the smoker.
December 21, 2016
Even Closer Than We Thought . . .
As I said yesterday, today was just a nice stay at home day, or at least it started out that way.
Jan whipped up another loaf of her delicious Cranberry Orange Nut Bread, that we’ll have for breakfast over the next week or so. Nice.
Then later in the afternoon Jan and I took several of our big heavy throw rugs over the RV park laundry to give them a thorough cleaning. If she does them in our rig washer, but only one at a time. But with a FREE laundry right across the road that’s the way to go.
Jan’s used the washers once before, but it was my first time to look it over. And I was really surprised at how nice it was. Three new looking washers and three new looking dryers, all big heavy-duty units. And I did mentioned there were FREE, didn’t I.
And as it turned out, Nancy Christian, the park owner, and furnisher of the FREE washers and dryers, dropped by with some Christmas goodies and a couple of small gifts for us.
The goodie was a big batch of ‘Christmas Reindeer Crack’, a snack mixture I don’ think we’ve had before, but it sure was good. Maybe the best-tasting of any of these mixtures I’ve tasted.
I’ve posted the recipe for the Christmas Reindeer Crack under Jan’s Favorite Recipes if you want to take a ‘crack’ at it.
In another Attack of the PC Idiots, the classic Winter/Christmas song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is an assault on women and is considered, ‘rapey’. In fact one couple, who I won’t waste a link on, wrote a ‘less sexually aggressive version of it.
Here’s a quote from them:
“You never figure out if she gets to go home,”
“You never figure out if there was something in her drink.”
“It just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.”
So apparently there was even a date rape drug involved.
The song was actually written in 1944 by Frank Loesser for him and his wife Lynn to perform at parties, and it quickly became a big hit.
Here’s an article on the Baby, It’s Cold Outside controversy
And falling even further down the PC rabbit hole, some SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) now want grandmas (and granddads, I suppose) to get active consent before they hug a grandchild, even signed consent forms in some cases. You can read more about it here: Grandma Consent Forms
For dinner tonight we again made trip down to Beeville to have dinner at the Beeville Diner. Last time we each had a salad and split an order of their wings. But the wings were so good that this time we each got an order of the wings and split a salad.
We get the wings with their Sweet Tangy Golden Sauce and they’re delicious. They’ have a crispy, crunchy crust, juicy insides, and an a really great sauce.
We split the Berry Nut Salad, the same one I had last time, but this time with grilled chicken instead of fried. Just as delicious as last time.
Tomorrow we’ll have the leftover Bella Sera pizza and then I’ve got a gate starting at 5:30pm, and then the next three days at another gate starting at 5:00pm.
Work, work, work.
December 21, 2017
Fantastic !!!
After a multi-bumpy start, including my being very under the weather this morning, we did make the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert at 3:30 this afternoon.
But we’re both pooped and are going to bed early so I’ll tantalize you with a few pics, and post a detailed blog tomorrow night.
December 21, 2018
Christmas Comes Early . . .
And an unconventional one, at that. At least as far as Christmas dinner goes.
Because of all the different travel plans this year, December 25th for the White/Morrison clan will be on Sunday, December 23rd. And rather than the usual boring turkey/ham cuisine, Brandi’s doing a brisket with potatoes, baked beans, green bean salad, tortillas, and brownies.
If that doesn’t scream ‘A Texas Christmas’, I don’t know what does.
And even better, Lowell will be heating up the pool/hot tub area for some prime soaking.time.
Most of my day at work was going back and forth between eBay and PayPal to get a refund on a machine that my client bought off eBay that looked like this on the sale page.
But what we received looked like this.
And since the seller is no longer answering our emails, I submitted this to both eBay and PayPal, and then it was back and forth between the three of us trying to work out the details.
Coming home this afternoon I stopped off at the Costco for gas, this time down to $1.78. And according to GasBuddy the Sam’s Club down in Texas is at $1.74.
Nice.
Originally we were going to eat at home this evening, and then do our Christmas dinner shopping and eating out tomorrow. But with the Christmas/Christmas Dinner scheduling change, we had supper at Chili’s once again. And with Jan’s favorite Honey Chipotle Ribs and my Grilled Chicken Caribbean Salad, the food was as good as always. However, as usual, the service sucked.
And although it was Friday, it wasn’t busy when we got there. At this point we might be better off checking out one of the other Chili’s in the area.
Tomorrow will be a busy day of present wrapping and recipe making so we’re ready for Sunday’s get-together. We’re still looking for just the perfect gift for Landon, and then I came across this. Since their new house has a big fire pit, I thought this would be perfect.
I’m not sure how Brandi feels about it, however.
December 21, 2019
Jan’s Gonna Need A Bigger Freezer . . .
On our Saturday, December 7th, in New York, we spent the day riding buses. Gray Line buses like this one.
Thursday afternoon when first visited Times Square, we purchased a pair of 24 hour Gray Line bus passes from one of the many vendors on every corner.
They listed four Hop-On Hop-Off tour routes: Uptown, Downtown, Brooklyn, and a Night Tour. They also offered a Boat Tour, but since we had already visited Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in 2009, and we were doing a East River/Hudson River Night Time Dinner Cruise the next day, we didn’t plan on doing it.
We planned on taking all four trips, starting with the Downtown one that first left out at 9am, with buses every 30 minutes afterwards. And luckily the starting point was diagonally across the corner from our hotel, so very convenient. So after another run at hotel’s breakfast buffet, we were on the corner at 9am for the first bus, along with a lot of other people.
We actually didn’t plan on doing any hopping-on hopping-off. We just wanted to see the city, as much of it as we could. Unfortunately, we managed to chose the coldest day of our trip . . . to ride in an open-air double-decker bus.
The Downtown Tour was a pretty good overview of the city landmarks, taking in Times Square. Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, Financial District, Battery Park, and South Street Seaport.
In the low 30’s, plus of course the wind chill factor, I could only take a few photos before I lost feeling in my fingers, so all you get are these four.
We were kind of surprised to see Christmas trees being sold on the sidewalks, but they seem to sell everything else there, so why not?
I did get to play with the really nice zoom on my Panasonic FZ80 while we were passing the Empire State Building.
And that’s all the photos I got that day. With my gloves on I just couldn’t operate the camera.
Finishing up our first tour in about 2 hours, and ending up back in the Times Square area, Jan had been wanting some New York Clam Chowder, and Google said there was a place on the next block. But when we got there, they not longer served it. So we didn’t stay.
What we did do was to backtrack a block and have Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks at the Olive Garden we’d passed. Really good on a 35° day.
Back at the hotel we napped a little and then were back out at the bus stop for our Uptown Tour. It covered Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Harlem, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim and a lot more on the famous Museum Mile.
The Uptown Tour pretty much just segued into the Brooklyn Tour, which covered the Botanic Garden, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Antique Furniture District, Fulton Mall, The Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza, Cadman Plaza, The Brooklyn Public Library and much more.
Back at the hotel in the late afternoon, we crashed a bit, and then had a little supper at the dinner buffet, since we’d also had lunch. Then we just goofed off for a while until our 8pm Night Tour. It included a subset of the other 3 tours, like the Empire State Building, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Rockefeller Center, Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn, but at night.
Then it was back to the room, tired and happy, with Jan’s Fitbit saying we’d done over 5 miles today.
A couple of days ago there was a news story about a 75 year old Utah women found dead from natural causes in her home. But the surprising thing was that they also found her dead husband . . . in the freezer. Along with a notarized letter saying his wife didn’t kill him.
And with a little checking, the police found that he’d been dead for about 10 years, since the last time anyone saw him was the spring of 2009. Apparently she had told friends that he’d run off and left her.
Well, of course, all the commenters on Facebook and a lot of the blogs thought the wife had done him in, and the letter must a forgery. But as I told Jan, I thought it had a simpler, more benign explanation, even a loving one. Turns out the husband was being treated for a terminal illness by the VA. and had his last appointment in February 2009.
I figure the husband, knowing he was dying, and wanting his wife to be able to continue receiving his VA and SS benefits after he died, planned the whole thing, including the freezer part. The wife had received almost $180,000 in the last 10 years so it makes sense that the letter was just so his wife wouldn’t get in trouble.
Of course I don’t think people are asking the right question.
How do you get a notary to notarized a letter by a guy stating his wife didn’t kill him?
I told Jan that it’s something that I would do for her if the time came, but I think she’s gonna need a bigger freezer.
December 21, 2020
Just Karma and Me . . .
First off I want to thank everyone for the many prayers and condolences.
It means a lot.
The shock was two-fold. Not only losing two aunts in two days, but also the fact that we would have been up there during all this, but then canceled because Aunt Virginia’s doctor was so concerned about us infecting her.
Could we have done anything? I don’t know.
Would just the fact that we were up there to see her have helped? No way to tell.
But it’s hard not to second guess things.
Once again, thanks to everyone.
I’m meeting Brandi, Landon, and Jan for lunch tomorrow at 11:30 at the Cheddars on Westpark, then I’ll bring Jan back home with me, much to both Karma’s and my relief.
Of course Karma will be glad to have her back since Jan gets up a lot earlier than me, so Karma gets fed earlier.
Me, I’m just lonely and will be glad to have her back.
December 21, 2021
Naughty AND Nice!
Out and about today, our first stop was the Santa Fe Post Office to get the last of the Christmas gift cards in the mail, via Priority Mail, so that’ done.
Then it was on up to Webster for lunch at Twin Peaks once again. And like our last visit right before Thanksgiving, the week before Christmas is another ‘dress-up’ time.
Sylvia, our regular server, who always remembers everything we always order, made her own little skirt to be a little less ‘cheeky’, but many of the young ladies don’t seem to worry about that. Jan says she never knows which way to look.
Somehow I don’t seem to have that problem.
Jan says that this time of the year they should call the place ‘Twin Cheeks’.
Of course you can see a lot more skin any summer weekend on the beach at Galveston.
It does seem that the Twin Peaks dress code has changed a bit in the last 8 years. Here’s Lauren, our then-favorite server from 2013.
Jan got her favorite Spicy Chipotle Chicken along with a cup of the Tomato Basil soup.
And as usual for me, I got the Half BLT and a Bowl of the Green Chile Chicken Soup, along with fries.
Leaving TP, we headed right across the Interstate to Costco. Yes, Costco 4 days before Christmas.
But as our visit to WalMart this past Sunday, it was crowded but not overwhelmingly so. Even the check-out went fast and smooth. Finishing up, we were back home by about 4pm.
Later in afternoon, we got a couple of things from Amazon, shirts for both of us.
I got this one.
Jan says that it is so true.
Then she got this one.
I said that it was so true.
