Our RV Adventures

Today was a nice, laidback, quiet one, with lunch at Yummy Yummy, our favorite Chinese Buffet. And since it was a weekday, with our senior discount, it was only $9.49.

Nice!

Then coming home, we made a Timewise stop for gas and $1.1 Billion Mega-Millions Lottery tickets, along with PO and park mailbox stops.

Like I said, a nice, laidback, quiet day.

Tomorrow evening we’ve got tickets to see Jeff Dunham, of “Silence! I Keel You!” fame, at the NRG Arena at 7pm. Since it probably will go to at least 10pm, we plan on eating dinner first down in our area at the Longhorn Steakhouse before heading up to the Arena.

Though we’ve seen a lot of his TV performances, this will be our first time to see him in person, and we’re really looking forward to it.

One last follow-up on yesterday’s Lucas: Prince of Darkness electrical systems in British cars.

When asked Why do the British like warm beer?, the answer is Because Lucas also makes refrigerators.

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Titanic or Olympic?

Jan and I just finished watching a fascinating video called “Titanic: The Shocking Truth”. Streaming for free on Amazon Prime, it lays out the theory that the Titanic that sank on April 12, 1912 was actually its sister ship, the Olympic.

I had heard about this years ago, but never paid much attention to the idea since it seemed like just another wild ‘conspiracy theory’. But this video puts the whole thing in another light.

It sounds crazy, but it all lines up.

Drawn from actual photographs, movies, court records, and eyewitness testimony, it lays out the reasons for the swap, and how easy it would have been, since both were built at the same time and were almost identical.

But the few small differences seem to give away the switch-out. Things like the the fact that the Olympic had 16 portholes in one location, and the Titanic had 14. All this is shown and verified from photographs at the time.

But strangely, when the ‘Titanic’ sailed on its maiden voyage from Southampton, it had suddenly grown two extra portholes.

And there are a number of other matches along the way.

But the real kicker, for me at least, was this still shot that I grabbed from the video of the 1986 French Expedition to the wreck of the ‘Titanic’.

It’s from the bow of the ship showing the nameplate. Part of the ‘Titanic’ name plate has fallen away, revealing the letters of another name underneath.

The letters M and P.

As in OlyMPic?

Check it out for yourself and you decide.

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Thought For The Day:

WHY MEN ARE NEVER DEPRESSED:

Men Are Just Happier People — What do you expect from such simple creatures?

• Your last name stays put.
• You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
• People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.
• One mood all the time.

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January 10, 2011

Chinese Food and Bad BBQ . . .

We got up about 9:30 this morning, looking forward to a nice quiet time just staying around the rig all day.

I fixed some of the coffee our daughter-in-law Linda gave us for Christmas. The gift that just keeps on giving. Thanks, Linda.

Jan and I talked about our upcoming travels for the rest of the year, and things we need to get done before we leave. Then Jan fixed left-over Chinese for lunch.

I think Chinese is one of those foods that, like Italian, gets even better as left-overs. And still spicy hot.

After lunch, I had planned to work outside on some rig maintenance stuff, but quickly found it too cold to work without gloves. And with gloves it was just too clumsy. So I’ll have to put it off until it gets a little warmer. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that will be anytime soon. In fact it’s supposed to be even colder the next few days, with lows in the 20’s.

Later in the afternoon Jan made a batch of her great sugar-free fudge with walnuts using Splenda instead of sugar. Hmm, hmm, good.

And since I couldn’t work outside I decided to make up for it with a nice nap. While I was napping Brandi called and told Jan she thought she might be coming down the the flu.

I sure hope we don’t come down with it.

According to the web, you can be infectious one day before symptoms, and you will have symptoms 1 – 4 days after your infection. So if we’re still OK at the end of the week, we should be all right. We’ll see.

About 5pm I fixed coffee again and supper was the last of the Chinese. Still good.

That was about it for the day. Just another great day of full-timing.

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January 10, 2012

Gyro Bowls and Bingo . . .

Woke up this morning to much nicer weather than yesterday. And after some delicious fresh-ground Chocolate Almondine coffee, a Christmas gift from our son and daughter-in-law, Chris and Linda, I headed out about 12:30 for some errands and client visits.

My first stop was Fry’s Electronics, and then my other favorite local electronics place, EPO (Electronic Parts Outlet) looking for some connectors, but I struck out at both places. I may end up ordering them online. We’ll see.

Then it was on to my client’s office. I had planned to come back here and work tonight while Jan is at Bingo, but my plans changed.

Next I went by my client’s house, the one that I had all the AT&T problems with. Seems like their network printer wasn’t working.

Turns out that when AT&T switched them over to Dynamic IP’s, they also changed their IP addresses around.

There are two IP address series used on internal home networks, 192.168.x.x and 10.0.x.x. Previously everything was set up to use the 192 series, but when AT&T switched things over, the IP address also switched to the 10 series. Why I don’t know.

But since the Xerox Phaser 8400DP printer was hard-coded for a 192 address, it was suddenly left high and dry on the wrong network. But resetting the printer to 10.0.1.100 instead of 192.168.1.100 fixed it all right up.

As Jan says, probably more than you really wanted to know.

By this time it was after 4pm so I headed back to the rig to pick up Jan so we could head back up to Webster to pick up our granddaughter Piper for Bingo. Then we headed back down to Dickinson to have supper at Monterey’s Little Mexico. While our friend Maria picked them up about 6:30, I headed back up to Brandi’s.

I feel like I’m going around in circles.

While we were eating, our daughter Brandi called to ask if I could ride up to north Houston with our son-in-law Lowell to pick up his truck and drive it back home. He started a new job on Monday, and had driven his truck to work, but then when he was issued his company car, he needed someone to drive his truck back home.

A couple of days ago I ordered Landon one of those Gyro Bowls they sell on TV.

It came today, but since UPS didn’t delivered it until after he was already in bed, he hadn’t seen it yet. But knowing him, I know he’ll be fascinated by it. The idea is that you can’t spill anything out of it. If you turn it upside down, the bowl stays level and the gimbaled cover rotates over it.

Also. surprisingly, my power window motor came in today. Very quick, since it was just shipped from Mesa, AZ yesterday. Guess I know what I’ll be doing later this week.

After picking up Jan and Piper at Bingo, and then taking Piper home, it was almost 11 by the time we got back to the rig.

A busy, but fun day.

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January 10, 2013

Drying Out . . .

Well the rain is gone for a day or so, at least. But it’s supposed to be back for Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and on through the end of next week.

Oh boy!

I checked Amazon today and found they finally had the .380 caliber laser cartridge

for my Laserlyte Training System back in stock.

I got the 9mm one when I got the Target System right before Christmas, but the gun store was out of the .380’s, and so was Amazon.

So since Amazon got them in first, I ordered it from them. Should be here Friday.

Fun, fun, fun!

About noon I started another batch of my world-famous (well, I think it’s really good) Chicken Tortilla Soup. I already had the poached chicken breasts in the freezer from the big batch I did last week, so I just started the chicken broth in the slow cooker and added the spices and a can Rotel Habanero Tomato Sauce, and let it heat up.

As soon as it was hot, I dropped in the frozen chicken breast halves so they could thaw out.

I thought I might add some carrots so while things were getting started, I chopped up a couple and precooked them a little in the microwave before adding them in too.

While that was working I looked at the no heat problem with the Splendide washer/dryer. Before I did anything else I wanted to be sure that my dryer vent wasn’t clogged. If it is, the lack of airflow will cause the over-temp sensor to shut off the heat.

But unfortunately, the problem couldn’t be that simple. So it looks like I’ll have to go ahead and pull the washer out of the cabinet when I replace the door switch. Like I said before, I was hoping to avoid that. Oh, well.

A little after 4pm I added the fresh Pico de Gallo we bought the other day, and about 4:30 we were ready to eat.

The soup turned out really good. Even Jan had a second bowl. And we’ve got plenty for leftovers. YUMMM!

Tomorrow I’ve got to get an early start because I’ve got a 10am appointment with a client I haven’t seen since last year. Always like repeat business.

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January 10, 2014

Recipe for Murder . . .

Saw an article today that according to the Coast Guard the Great Lakes are freezing over at the earliest date since the 1930’s. And the same thing is happening at Niagara Falls,

Here’s what it looked like when we were there September 25th, 2009.

And here’s what it looks like now.

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I finally got a chance to crawl under the rig and look at my Kwikee step problem. It just suddenly quit working one day while we were gate guarding late last year. I could still hear the motor running when it was supposed to, but the step could be pulled in and out like it wasn’t connected to anything.

At that point, I figured my homemade cotter key, I.e. a paper clip, had come loose.

But what I found was this. The linkage was hanging down, not connected to anything. All I could see was where it had broken off.

When I pulled it off, it looked like this.

And below is where it broke off from the motor shaft. It must have just been old age because there was never any binding to cause it. My next thought was “Oh Crap. I going to be buying a new motor.” I figure there was no way t was going to be able to buy just the shaft and linkage. I could see a lot of $$$$ in my future.

But luckily for me, I was wrong. A little interneting showed me this linkage kit for my Kwikee Series 28 step. And with a little more perusing, I found that PPL Motorhomes here in Houston has them in stock. So I’ll pick one up later in the week.

I was also happy to see that all the different parts for my model are available, including a complete new step for about $420.

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Early in the morning I started a big pot of soup, basically using whatever we had in-house. I started out with a big box of chicken stock, a big tomato juice. a can of Habanero Rotel, a can of Diced Tomatoes, 2 cans of Kidney Beans, a bag of frozen kernel corn,  and 2 shredded poached chicken breasts. A few hours later we had a great batch of soup for supper, and plenty left over for more meals. Hmm! Hmm! Good!

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Tomorrow Chris and I are going to meet Lowell and Landon in downtown Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center for the Great Train Expo, a traveling model railroad show. Brandi says he’s really looking forward to it, and talks about it constantly.

Me too!

This will probably be Landon’s favorite part.

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I noticed the new ads for the Publisher’s Clearing House.

You can win a Million Dollars a year for life. That’s not an unusual prize these days, but the unusual part is that after you win, you get to designate another person to also receive a Million Dollars a year for life.

You can only imagine that no matter who you chose, you’re going to make someone, or a lot of someone else’s mad as hell. It will not end well.

Here’s another story about a elderly man who won $500 a week for life, and all his ‘relatives’ who never cared about him, came out of the woodwork.

Easy Come, Easy Go.

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January 10, 2015

The End of An Era . . .

Jan and I headed out about 9:15 this morning for a day of fun and folic. Well, more like errands and eating.

Our first stop was in Pasadena to pick up a client’s computer. The hard drive in her several-years-old one had died, and rather than just  replace the bad drive, she decided that this was a good time to upgrade to a newer, better computer. So I was picking up her old one to see if I can pull anything off her hard drive using the ‘freezer trick’.

The ‘freezer trick’ sometimes lets you pull data off a supposedly dead hard drive by putting it in the freezer in a Ziplock bag for a few hours, Then you reinstall it in the computer ASAP and see if you can get data off of it before it warms up. In the past I’ve done this over and over on a drive to get everything needed off of it.

Of course, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t . We’ll see.

Then it was on to our son Chris’ to meet up with him and Linda for lunch. After a little discussion we ended up at a nearby Cheddar’s. Jan loves their Chicken Pot Pie so she was happy with the choice. And we all had a great meal, too.

After lunch we stopped off at our former storeroom to make the final payment to close out our 20 year long rental. The end of an era.

Back at the house we said our goodbyes and then headed back out. First up was a haircut. I’ve gone to this same barber for about 20 years, so I always come back here when we’re in town. My last haircut was in October up in Bryan/College Station while we were gate guarding in the area. Before that, it was back here last August.

Hey, when you don’t have much hair, you only need a haircut every 3 or 4 months.

Our next destination was the new Marina Bay Lake Cove RV Resort down in Dickinson. Although it’s looking more and more like we’ll get down Galveston Bay RV Resort in the next couple of weeks, we wanted to check out this park as a backup.

What we found though, is that, although the park’s 96 sites are nicely laid out around a man-made lake,

it’s mostly occupied by small campers and 5th wheels of the type used by workers. There is a nice office and a smallish pool, and the sites are nicely landscaped, but the overall feeling is of a trailer park.

There were only about 10 sites open, and I don’t think I saw more than 4 or 5 Class A’s. Of course there was this one.

The sites on either side of it were empty and I saw no evidence of burn damage there, so maybe they got moved out in time. It was hot enough to melt their satellite dish about six feet away.

After looking the place over, we both agreed that, with the rates about the same as Galveston Bay, it really wasn’t someplace we wanted to stay.

Next up was a stop at Kroger’s for gas, and then on to Harbor Freight Tools for some goodies that I really didn’t need, but couldn’t resist.

Finishing up there, we finally headed toward our daughter Brandi’s, but only after a Starbuck’s stop, since we didn’t have time for coffee this morning. Getting there, I found that my client’s new computer had been delivered, so I can start setting it up. So after checking out Landon’s new room, we all drove over to Brandi and Lowell’s favorite burger joint, J-Dub’s Burger Barn over in downtown Katy.

And it was easy to see why they like it so much. J-Dub’s mixes their hamburger meat in a 75 – 25 ratio of beef and brisket, and hand-cut their fries every day.

They also have their buns specially baked to their specifications, including this jalapeno bun on the Jalapeno Burger that I ordered.

Really, really good

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January 10, 2016

$18.00!

or, How High Will It Go!

Well, as I said in last night’s blog, I decided to wait until next week to win the PowerBall, knowing would be over $1 Billion, and now it is.

They’re saying $1.3 Billion, but I suspect by next Wednesday it will be higher.

In case you didn’t follow yesterday’s blog link called Lucky You, you should. Even if you figure you’ll never win the lottery, it’s a very interesting read. And some of the things he suggests you do are kind of radical, but he gives good reasons for them.

The two most unusual ones are to legally change you name, and completely change your appearance – before you pick up your money.

Apparently it’s pretty quick and easy to change your name in most states. In fact you can even fill out the forms yourself and turn them in at the courthouse, and in 60-90 days you’re a new person. Then after a professional extreme makeover, you’re ready to go and pick up your money.

To show the change a professional makeover can make, here’s an example.

In yesterday’s blog when I was talking about EZ Tags, a blog reader reminded me that I didn’t tell you where to get your tag.
There are six locations around the city, all right along different toll roads.

EZ Tag locations

I really like the way Houston handles their tags. Other states are more expensive and not so convenient, especially ones the north and northeast.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Elkhart, IN, and would regularly drive over to the nearest big city, Mishawaka, a suburb of South Bend. And the quickest way to get there from Elkhart is to take I-80, which is also a toll road. So to make it more convenient for our traveling back and forth, I looked into getting a toll pass there.

But, first off, the tag itself costs about $15.00, and then there was a $1 a month fee whether you use the tag or not. We had hoped to get one and just use every year or so when we’re in the area. But the $1 a month fee would eat up any money left in the account, unlike our EZ Tag in Houston which we only use for a few months year with no monthly charges.

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Recently I finally got around to updating and posting an About Us page here on the blog, so you can find out more about Jan and I, where we came from, and how we got here. You can find it on the menu at the top of the page, or use the link above. Check it out.

Jan was still under the weather from her migraine this morning, so we didn’t walk today either. It also didn’t help that it was 46° and windy outside. Maybe tomorrow, so we’ll see.

By the afternoon however, she was feeling a little better, so about 1:15 we decided to head into Columbus to try out the Sunday lunch buffet. I guess it says something that at 1:30, the parking lot was still full, but we did get seated immediately, and then headed over to  the very long buffet table.

We had previously only had breakfast at Schobel’s and always enjoyed it a lot, but this was our first time for lunch. And it turned out to be a really good choice. I know we’ve had friends say that they didn’t like Schobel’s, but our experience has been very different.

Everything was delicious, from the homemade salad dressing and croutons, to the many fresh vegetables. And the meats, ham, sausage, fried chicken and roast beef, were just as good. We’ll certainly go back for the buffet again.

Coming home, we stopped off at Brookshire Bros. for a few things, and while we were there I checked my four PowerBall tickets to see if I had one anything. And I did.

I won on 3 of my 4 tickets, with a $2 win, a $4 win, and a $12 win, for a total of  $18, which means I got back most of my $20 that I paid for the tickets.

So now I’m all set for my big win on Wednesday.

Let’s see, where did I leave that name-change paperwork?

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January 10, 2017

Still Didn’t Make It . . .

We still didn’t make it to the movie in Beeville once again, but mostly because we didn’t try.

I had a feeling I might get called in on this gate again, and I was right. And about 3:30 the text came in. It did help that they moved the shift time back from 5 to 5 to 5:30 to 5:30. This was done to better match up with the frack’s shift change.

A lot of guards around here seem to be leery of working a frack gate because they’re supposed to be really busy. This is the second ‘frack’ gate I’ve worked with SiteWatch and so far I’m not impressed.

I don’t know if these are smaller fracks or what. But the 4 to 6 sand trucks a hour is not much. And using the iPad it just takes about 15 seconds to log them in if they’re already in the system, and maybe 30 to 45 seconds if they’re not. And since they usually all come in together, you’re looking at most 5 minutes to get them all in.

It’s kind of like Crocodile Dundee, when he said, “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.”

Six sand trucks does not a frack make. A frack is sand trucks lined up as far as the eye can see down the road. 40 to 60 trucks an hour for hours at a time.

That’s a frack.

We have a staging pad turnoff about 75 yards before the gate where the sand trucks are supposed to wait to be called into the pad. But last night as things were starting up, the truck drivers didn’t know that they were supposed to wait so they’d come on up to the gate. Then I’d have to make them back up until they could make the turn, and then wait on the pad.

But it looks like I’ve got them all trained now, since I haven’t had the problem tonight so far.

Jan fixed up another batch of her Hot & Spicy Chicken Vegetable Soup this morning so I had some before I left for work, and bought a mug of it with me on the gate to heat up for a late night meal.

You can find her basic recipe here – Jan’s Chicken Vegetable Soup. But she spices ours up by using Hot Habanero Rotel Diced Tomatoes rather than the Crushed Tomatoes listed, plus a lot of hot seasonings for that added kick.

Handy Tip of the Day:

If you ever wonder if your remote control is working, just hold down a button and point it at your digital camera.

Digital cameras see much farther down into the infrared part of the spectrum, the area where remotes live, so they show up bright and clear. This is also why your digital camera can take such good pictures in dim light.

This will only work with in the same room, point it at the TV, type of remotes. It will not work with those remotes like the ones with the Dish receivers that will work from another room. Those work on RF (radio frequencies), not infrared light.

I noticed recently that HP is now offering an Instant Ink option for their Wi-Fi enabled printers. When it gets low, it just orders more ink for you. And then a few days your ink order shows up on your doorstep. Well and good, but what I want to know is, what else is it ordering.

Pay-per-view porn? Escort Services? Extra paper so it can print out filthy pictures? What?

I wanna know what my printer is doing behind my back.

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January 10, 2018

A Day Delayed . . .

I woke up this morning to a phone call from my client saying that the Internet was down at the office. Apparently they were doing some more remodeling in the off ice this morning and they had the power off for a while and when it came back on, the Internet was down. Or so they thought.

But when I went online from home I found the website up and running, which meant the Internet at least, was working. So I told the office manager to check out the Shipping computer to see if it could get online.

And since it could, I told her to check the Ethernet cable running from her computer to the the router in the closet, the same closet where the construction guys had been fooling with the power at the circuit breaker panel. And after unplugging and plugging the connecter, the Internet was back on in her office.

The office manager’s computer is the only one that is still hardwired to the router. All the rest are on WiFi. But after 3 different USB WiFi adapters and also an internal plug-in PCI card, I gave up. I was never able to get any WiFi adapter to work on it. So it’s the only one that’s still a direct connect.

Jan and I headed into Clear Lake about 12:45 for her 1:30 Pre-Op consultation, but it seemed to be all down hill from there.

Unfortunately we were given the wrong info about what door to come in, so we had to walk clear to the other side of the hospital to where she was supposed to check in. Normally this wouldn’t be problem, but Jan’s still not up to snuff so it was a little wearing on her.

But after filling out a lot of ‘paperwork’, both physical and digital, getting stuck for another CBC, and being told to show up Friday at 9:30 for her 11:30 procedure, we were finally on our way.

Then just sitting down for lunch at Cheddar’s I got a call from the hospital asking Jan to come back because they ‘forgot’ to get a specimen for a urinalysis. I told them we’d be back in about an hour.

Then about 30 minutes later we got a call from her Dr. telling us that when we left the hospital last Thursday they had ‘forgotten’ to tell her to stop taking her daily baby aspirin that she takes as a general heart attack preventative.

And since they want her to be off them for a week they were pushing her procedure back to next Wednesday. Bummer.

Jan just wants to get this over with.

I was hoping to get back early enough this afternoon to have time to take down the big awning to take it in to be duplicated, but no luck.

And tomorrow it’s supposed to rain all day. But maybe Friday since that’s now open.

We were supposed to get together tomorrow afternoon with our long-time friend’s Beth and Bob Young. They’re moving to Salt Lake City on Friday, so tomorrow was a last-ditch dinner, but unfortunately circumstances intervened, so we’ll have to catch up with them on our next pass through Salt Lake.

The King is Dead. Long Live The New King.

The SR-71 Blackbird was retired in 1999 after almost 40 years of out-running everything else in the sky, including every missile that tried to shoot it down.

I actually got a chance to work on one once while I was doing DOD stuff at Otis AFB on Cape Cod, MA in the early 70’s.

Rumors of its replacement have circled through the aircraft industry for years with project names like Aurora, Goblin, and others. But a while back the name of the new plane was seemingly locked down.

SR-72

And it may have been recently spotted on Google Earth at an obscure AFB in the swamps of south Florida.

Certainly looks like some of the drawings that have been floating around. And at a purported 4600 mph, it’s more than twice as fast as the SR-71.

The new King.

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January 10, 2021

To Snow or Not To Snow . . .

It only made it up to 42° and rained a good part of the day, so all we did was head over to Los Ramirez for dinner about 4pm. Delicious as always, and with the rotten weather, almost empty.

We’ve heard that there was snow up in the Conroe area, but none down here so far, but it’s 39° and still raining so you never can tell.

Jan’s going to do up a big pot of her World-Famous Chili tomorrow for us to eat off of for the rest of the week. Really looking forward to it with all this cold, wet weather.

YUM!