Monthly Archives: January 2023
Her Name Is Ashley . . .
I spent most of today at work mass producing a bunch of DVD’s. Wish they wouldn’t wait until they’re out of everything before they tell me they need more copies.
These are DVD’s of video courses on different aspects of electrolysis procedures, and we sell a lot of them. And not do I have to make the DVD’s, but the labels too. So it keeps me busy.
And out of trouble, Jan would say.
Recently I’ve been looking at the new Samsung S23 Ultra that’s coming out later this year. But so far I’m leaning against it.
My first Samsung S series phone was the S1, then the S5, and the S8+, before I got the S21 Ultra in March 2021. Each time I waited until there was enough new stuff to make it worthwhile.
I make the jump to the S21 pretty much for the 5G support and .6x/1x/3x/10x fully optical zoom capability. And out to 30x and 100x with digital zoom.
The S23 has a higher camera resolution, but my S21 has a slightly higher screen resolution (3088 pixels vs 3200 pixels).
The S23 has more internal Ram (128GB vs 256GB) and is a little faster, but not by much. But the batteries, at 5000mAh, are the same size, as are the screen sizes.
The reviews talk about how the S23 has the new Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, while my S21 only has the plain old Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. But since I never broken the plain old Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, that’s not a big selling point.
And though both have the same wireless charging speeds.
So I think I’ll stay put for a few more iterations, and maybe look again at the S25 or S26 when it comes out.
Tomorrow looks to be Texas Huddle for lunch, and our rescheduled Costco run.
After that, we’ll see.
Thought for the Day:
I have a friend who’s in a real bind and I hope someone can help him out.
He has two tickets for the 2023 SUPER BOWL, both box seats. He paid $2,500 each ticket, but he didn’t realize last year when he bought them, it was going to be on the same day as his wedding. If you are interested, he is looking for someone to take his place.
It’s at St. Joseph Church, here in Houston at 3 p.m. Her name is Ashley. She’s 5’4, about 120 lbs., and she’s a good cook too. She’ll be the one in the white dress.
January 27, 2011
Hooter’s and Cher . . .
13 Days and Counting . . .
We left the rig about 10:30 this morning heading out for a morning of errands and lunch.
Our first shop was Fry’s Electronics to check on some prices on CAT 5e cable and a wireless router for a client. Jan found some magazines so she was happy, too. Fry’s is one of my favorite places.
Our next stop was one of our favorite places, Hooter’s. This is our first time eating at the Webster location since we got back to Houston this time, and they’ve completely remodeled it since then. As usual Jan and I both got our chicken XXX hot, which is the hottest they have. Jan gets the chicken strips and a salad, and I always get 10 wings with a side of celery and carrots, with ranch dressing. I always get my wings naked, and all drums.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
‘Naked’ means no breading, and ‘all drums’ means the part of the wings that looks like a little drumstick, not the wing tips.
Leaving Hooter’s, we stopped by a client’s for a few minutes, before heading for the Home Depot over in Kemah. I needed another tube of caulk for some seams on the rig that are leaking and some shims to finish mounting the drawer in the old TV cabinet.
Coming into the park, I stopped by the office to tell them we’ll be leaving on the 9th. Then getting back to the rig I put in a call to the Doran Tire Pressure Monitor people concerning 4 bad sensors I have. They gave me RMA and told me to send them in, no charge. I always get great service from them.
While I was on the phone Jan headed off to get a pedicure while I worked on the rig roof re-caulking some seams.
While I was up there I took these shots of the view.
We’ll really miss this park when we leave and we’re always happy to come back.
As I was coming down, our neighbors from two sites down came by and introduced themselves. Eldon and Jeannie Sparks had been in Elkhart, IN last August, and will be in Yuma in March. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to spend some time with them in next few days.
A little after 5 pm we headed out to the movie. We had been wanting to see ‘Burlesque’ the Cher/Christina Aguilera musical, and this was the last day it was going to be at the theatre. Although the reviews weren’t too good, we like both stars so we gave it a shot.
And we weren’t disappointed at all. The musical numbers were fantastic, and the storyline was good, with a twist at the end. This was Aguilera’s movie debut and she did a really good job playing an Iowa farm girl moving to LA to become a star.
Cher had two good numbers, but Aguilera was really the star of the show. She has the best voice I’ve heard in a long time. Her range and power cannot be described. You have to hear it. One of her songs, “Tough Love”, was written and sung by Etta James, and if you can hold your own with an Etta James song, you can sing anything.
Heading back to the rig we stopped off at the Monterey’s Little Mexico in Dickinson for a late supper, finally getting home a little before 10pm after another great day.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 70 and sunny. Really looking forward to more warm, dry weather.
January 27, 2013
Home is where Landon is . . .
Today was another travel day, but it started with Jan and I meeting Lowell, Brandi, and Landon at Pappasito’s Cantina up in Webster at 11am.
Jan always has the Shrimp Enchiladas, and didn’t break with tradition this time either. Brandi and Lowell split an order of Beef Fajitas, while I had their delicious (and large) Grilled Chicken Taco Salad.
Landon had his favorite Mac N Cheese, but he also had a lot of grilled onions that came with Brandi and Lowell’s fajitas.
He loves to put the end of the onion in his mouth and then suck it in like a strand of spaghetti.
After a really good lunch, we piled back into Brandi’s car and made another 50 mile trip, just like yesterday. But today we ended up west of Houston, between Katy and Fulshear to check out the area where Brandi and Lowell are considering buying a house.
The area they’re looking at is called Churchill Farms, and is located off of FM-1493 between I-10 and the Westpark Tollway/FM-1093.
This one, the Capri, is one of the two models that they’re looking at.
One thing neat about this model is that as you see when you walk in, it’s a two story model that doesn’t really look like one. In addition, they plan on getting the optional 1 car garage added to the left side of the house. The model above has an office behind the large glass windows in the front, where the two car garage would normally be.
Just as you come in the door is what will be Lowell’s office, although it could be a 5th bedroom if you wanted.
A dogleg to the left leads you into the dining room, kitchen, living room area.
All we could say was “WOW”!
Down by the windows and to the right is the master bedroom.
The closet on the left here is just a small, secondary one. The master closet is through the bathroom and it’s enormous.
The master bath is very large, although I couldn’t get a good angle to show it.
This is one of the two “Jack and Jill” bedrooms, which are bedrooms, usually for children, separated by a common area, sometimes a bathroom, or, as in this case, a play area.
This one was decorated for a girl, and when we told Landon this was going to be his room, he looked around for a few seconds, and then ran out, yelling “No, no, no”.
He then ran through the play area and into this room, and said “This room Mommy, this one.”
And here’s the playroom in between the two bedrooms.
And here’s the bathroom for the two kid’s bedrooms.
This is the patio and the backyard. Part of what you see here belongs to the model next door.
Going up the stairs,
you find the the living area. It could also be configured as a media area.
And here’s the upstairs bedroom,
and the attached bathroom.
One thing that was interesting was a hole cut into the wall separating the upstairs living space from the attic area, and then glassed in.
This lets you see the heavy foam insulation sprayed between the rafters, and also between the studs in the outside walls.
To show how efficient this insulation is in keeping the attic cool,
note the chocolate bunny rabbit sitting on the rafters. Apparently it never gets hot enough in the attic to melt the bunny.
So this model that they’re looking at ends up being either a 4/3/3 with the office, or a 5/3/3 without.
All in all, a very nice future home.
Ideally they would like to be in the house by Christmas, but it’s much more likely to be the first quarter of 2014.
And of course, we still haven’t been able to agree on the location of our concrete RV parking pad, complete with full hookups. We’ll have to discuss it further.
Getting back to the rig about 4:30, we saw this large cabin cruiser/small yacht sailing into Dickinson Bayou for Galveston Bay. Nice!
And, No, Jan, you can’t have a boat.
Tomorrow I’m going to try to get the day/night shade I restrung last week finally installed, and since the parts came in for my air bag proportioning valve repair, I going to try and get that done also. But that one kind of depends on whether we get rain or not.
January 27, 2014
Ring Toss (Loss) . . .
I headed out about noon for client stuff that pretty much ate up the rest of the day. Getting back a little after 4 PM, Jan and I headed out to have dinner at the Five Guys Burger and Fries over at Victory Lakes.
I really like the fact that they have all the different toppings, and at no extra cost. I had a Bacon Cheeseburger with Mayo, Mustard, Tomatoes, Pickles, Onions, and Jalapenos. Jan had a regular Cheeseburger with Mushrooms, Ketchup, and Mustard. And this time we were smart enough to not order the Large fries, and just got a Regular fry which was enough for the both of us.
Next up we stopped by the next door Wal-Mart for a couple of things. But I’ve come to believe you can’t just stop at Wal-Mart for a ‘couple’ things. It always becomes a ‘bunch’ of things, somehow.
Getting back to the rig I set up my cube heater and my thermostat in our water bay.
The next couple of days are going to be cold with rain, sleet, and possibly snow with temps in the 20’s at night and hardly getting about freezing in the daytime. So with the thermostat I’ll just set this up in our water bay and won’t worry about it. The thermostat will turn the heater on at 35 degrees and off at 45 degrees, so I just set it and forget it.
As far as Ring Loss, a couple of weeks ago I lost my wedding ring. Unfortunately I didn’t discover it was gone until later in the evening, after we been to a number of places. I tried retracing my steps and calling the businesses to see if anyone had turned it in. But no luck.
So after over 46 years I was ringless. Checking around and online, I decided that unlike my original white gold ring, I would get one like this.
8MM Men’s Tungsten Carbide Ring Wedding Band
It’s actually made of Tungsten Carbide, second only to diamond in hardness. Because it’s so hard it can not be engraved in the normal way, but only with a laser.
It also can not be resized, so be sure you have your size correct before you order one.
The reason I lost my ring is that my fingers have shrunk over the last 46 years, and seem to shrink even more when my hands are cold. In fact I could just hold my hands down at my sides, wiggle my fingers, and my ring would fall off.
I really like the feel of my new one. It’s wider than my original, and half a size smaller, so it stays on just fine, even wiggling my cold fingers. It’s nice looking, and even better, it was only about $20.
The only possible downside is that if you hit it hard enough with something like a hammer, it will not bend, it will just shatter. Of course if the ring is on my finger when it’s hit with a hammer, I’m probably not going to worry about the ring.
January 27, 2015
No Bones About It . . .
Jan and I headed out a little before 1pm for a movie, shopping, and dinner. We had been wanting to see the latest Night At The Museum movie, as well as several others. But Museum was the oldest so we decided on that one before it went away.
We had seen the first two and enjoyed them, and we liked this one as well. They advertised this one as the last one, but they might have meant the last one with Ben Stiller, since they really left it set up using Ricky Gervais and Rebel Wilson if they decide to continue it. But they will have to continue it without Robin Williams and Mickey Rooney since they both died after the movie was completed, though actually I didn’t realize Mickey Rooney was still alive.
Our next stop was Sam’s Club to pick up our prescriptions. We were picking up 7 prescriptions between the two of us, and I really appreciated that the pharmacy lady went to a lot of extra effort when I mentioned that a couple of them were much higher in price than last time. She did some checking and was able to knock a little over $50 off the bill. That more than paid for our dinner a little later.
Which was our next stop down the Interstate about 10 miles to the Woodlands and Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. Jan and I have never found a place that we like better than Grimaldi’s. We first ate at the original one in New York in 2009 and loved it. It was located in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Brooklyn Bridge) area of Brooklyn, and was really under the Brooklyn Bridge, which was a couple of hundred feet overhead.
Besides the fact that they use fresh sliced Mozzarella cheese, and not shredded, one of the best parts is the crust. Most places we have pizza, we have ‘pizza bones’ left over. Pizza Bones are what our kids used to call the very edge of the crust that didn’t taste very good once you ran out of sauce and cheese. So there was always a pike of pizza bones on the pan after the pizza was gone. But not at Grimaldi’s. Every last bone is gone. It’s that good.
Coming home, I stopped off at an Advance Auto Parts to pick up some graphite lock lubricant. The lock on one of the locking pins on our tow bar has become very difficult to operate, probably because they’re out in the weather and dirt all the time.
Tomorrow we plan on heading out about 11am to make the 120 mile trip back over to the Colorado River Thousand Trails. We’ve done this so many times I think the coach knows the way all by itself.
But like when we left here three weeks ago, we’ll head out about 9am to have breakfast at the nearby Cracker Barrel before we leave.
January 27, 2016
Wine Whine . . .
First off, Jan wants to thank everyone for their many get well soon’s and feel better soon’s that came in from everyone. She was feeling a lot better today, and hopefully will be back to normal and back to walking tomorrow.
We saw on Facebook this afternoon that one of our favorite restaurants is opening down in The Woodlands. Brandi and Lowell first took us to the Torchy’s Tacos down in Katy last February, and it quickly become one of our favorite places.
Torchy’s is not your run-of-the-mill taco place. I guess the best description would be gourmet tacos, with just about any ingredients you can think of.
My favorites are the two below. On the left is a grilled jalapeno sausage, split lengthwise, topped with shredded cheese and Pico de Gallo, and on the right, slow-roasted pork carnitas, topped with green chilies, Queso fresco, cilantro, and grilled onions.
Jan’s favorite is the Jamaican Jerked Chicken Taco, with grilled jalapenos, mango chunks, sour cream, and cilantro. And the Chicken Fajita Taco, with grilled chicken breast, grilled onions and peppers, shredded cheese, and Pico de Gallo.
According to their website, the new Woodland’s Torchy’s will open right after we come back to Conroe again on February 14th.
Really looking forward to it.
On the subject of restaurants, a while back we were all at a local place and ordered a bottle of Moscato, a somewhat sweet, dessert wine. And it turned out to be a bottle of Beringer’s, one that we’d never tried before.
I’ve always heard those wine snob phrases, like ‘just a hint of smoky oak’ or ‘earthy, full-bodied and bright’, and ‘with a smooth buttery aftertaste’, but it’s the first time I really knew what they meant. When you take a sip of the Beringer’s Moscato, you definitely get a ‘smooth buttery aftertaste’, so I guess the wine snobs aren’t making ALL up. It was really good, but at $22 a bottle on the bill, kind of rich for our taste.
But as we were leaving the Conroe Wal-Mart last week, I saw a Beringer’s display and decided to see if they had the Moscato. And boy, did they!
The $22 bottle at the restaurant was $4.47 at Wal-Mart.
WOW! Now that’s a markup.
Now that I can afford.
“I cook with wine; sometimes I even add it to the food.” — W. C. Fields
January 27, 2017
Growing Old Is Tiring . . .
Today was our (my) turn-around day, getting off at 5pm yesterday afternoon and not going back in until 5:30pm this evening.
As far as Jan, she’s not turning around, but just off until Tuesday. But both of us really slept in this morning to make up for lost sleep time.
For the last couple of weeks we’ve been going to bed around 8-9pm and getting up at 3:45am, to be at our gates by 5. But today both of us managed to sleep about 11 hours to catch up. Very nice.
Later in the morning we went out on some errands and then had lunch at the Maya Mexican Restaurant where we ate last week. Just as good as last time, and we had the same great waitress, Erin, as last time too.
So we’ve got a really good Mexican place and we’ve got a Whataburger, so we’re all set.
Right now, after being at the gate in on the pad, I’m back out on the front gate by the highway.
The main job is to be sure the incoming vehicles are at the right gate, and that they know where to go. So we don’t have to log anyone in or out, since that’s all done at the pad. Nicer for us.
Jan and I were talking about how tired we can get doing the gate thing, when we’re really not actually doing that much. And the exercise is probably good for us. But looking back, it’s amazing what we did before we got ‘old’.
Back in 1972, when we were in our mid-20’s, Jan and I went back to school. Jan was usually taking 18 hours or so, while I normally took 21 hours, a class load I had to get special permission for.
At the same time, I had a full-time job as a Broadcast Engineer for the Alabama Educational Television Network, working 5 nights a week from 4pm to 12 midnight. Then on weekends I worked as a Broadcast Engineer at a black radio station from 9am Saturday morning to 3pm Sunday afternoon. So about 30 hours a week here.
The reason this all worked was that I had plenty of time to study and also catnap on both this jobs.
And somewhere in here I ended up singing in a black gospel choir during a church service being held in a funeral home every Sunday. Talk about an Oreo.
But that’s another story.
On top of all this, Jan and I regularly worked as the grill team at what was then the busiest McDonald’s in the country, in Birmingham, AL. If you’re working at a fast food restaurant, this is the way to do it.
I ran the grill, cooking burgers, and Jan toasted the buns, both just as fast as we could go. We walked in at 11am, worked straight through until 2pm, hung up our aprons, and walked out the door. So no cleaning, no scrubbing, and no mopping.
But wait, there’s more.
I was also working at the college 10 hours a week as the Chemistry Lab Assistant, cataloging chemicals and setting up class experiments, while at the same time Jan was working for several hours every night at Newberry’s, a 5 & 10 cent store in Eastwood Mall.
Oh, and I also occasionally worked at a TV repair shop, fixing the new transistor TV’s that were just coming out. The old guy that owned the place was just fine on the tube TV’s, but not so hot on the solid state ones. But give me a Sam’s Photofact and an oscilloscope and I could go to town.
How we managed to do all this for two years, I don’t know. It’s exhausting just writing about it, much less thinking about actually doing it.
As I said, Getting Old is Tiring.
And even more amazing with Jan, was that during part of this, she was pregnant with our daughter Brandi who was born in Sept. 1973.
And how we ever found time for that I’ll never know.
January 27, 2018
Mexi-Cobb and More . . .
After this past week’s hurry-up finishing of the ad card for my client’s upcoming February sale, I’m going to be sure I’m ready for the next one.
The next one is in June so I’m going to start working on the ad card now, leaving out only the item prices to be filled in later. Then all I’ll need to do is cull the mailing list of the Unknown Address returns, and I’ll be ready to go then.
About 2pm Jan and I drove up to the Clear Lake area for a few things. First up was the SuperCuts in Webster so Jan could get her haircut by her favorite lady. But it turns out that she was off today and won’t be back until Tuesday.
So then it was on to our next stop, lunch at the Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant on I-45. Like many of our favorite places, we pretty much swim against the tide with what we order.
For example, when we go to Outback Steakhouse, Jan’s go-to meal is their Alice Springs Chicken, not steak.
Likewise our favorite dish at Chuy’s is actually a Cobb Salad, well, a Mexi-Cobb Salad. But really the only ‘Mexi’ part of it are the green chilies garnished on top.
Made with Fajita chicken, two kinds of cheese, avocados, tomatoes, and of course green chilies, all laid out on a bed of fresh, mixed salad greens, it’s a full meal all by itself.
Really great!
One thing neat about Chuy’s is the décor. Every room is different.
The one we were in today has a school of colorful wooden fish hanging from the ceiling on individual wires.
Each one has a slightly different 3D shape and color, and are mounted right along side each other. And the AC blowing keeps them in constant motion, almost like they’re swimming along.
In the main dining room the ceiling is completely covered in hubcaps, seemingly all different.
Neat.
Next was a stop at our son Chris’ house to get our mail. Jan’s still expecting a bunch of hospital bills, but nothing yet. What we did get were a number of tax 1099 forms for this year’s taxes. Oh boy!
Then it was on to the nearby Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription, and once again I had to get them straight on the price. Originally I had transferred the prescription down from the Conroe Wal-Mart to the one here. But since the last time I got it 3 months ago, the price had jumped from about $30 up to $55. And that was a jump since I got it 3 months before that.
So I checked the Sam’s Extra Value List and found they had it for $4 for 30 pills, or $12 for a 3 month supply. So I refused it at Wal-Mart and asked them to put it back into the system. Then I called Sam’s Club to have them fill it.
But when I got the text saying it was done, the price was $28, better than $55, but not the $12 I was expecting. So when I picked it up this afternoon, I once again had to get them to correct the price. You have to on top of them.
Tomorrow afternoon Jan and I are heading up to Brandi’s in Katy to check out the house that they’re renting while they look for a new one. They closed on the sale of their old one last Monday and they’re all settled into the new one. Afterwards we’ll have linner before we had back to Santa Fe.
January 27, 2019
A First Cousin Once Removed . . .
About 4:30 we headed out to the nearby Denny’s, for what else, breakfast again. They don’t have Jan’s fav Avocado Toast, so she gets an Omelet with Mushrooms, Tomatoes, and Onions, along with Fruit and an English Muffin.
Of course since mine is pretty plain jane, I get my usual Two Eggs Over Easy, 4 slices of Crispy Bacon, Fruit, and an English Muffin. The only downside at Denny’s is that they don’t have The Egg and I’s Hazelnut coffee, but they do have Hazelnut creamers. If you know to ask for them,
Don’t know what’s happening with gas prices, but when we passed the HEB and the WalMart today on our way to Denny’s, I noticed that the HEB price had jumped 9¢ a gallon and 6¢ at the WalMart across I-45.
But the Costco, where I just got a fill-up at $1.67 a couple of days ago, is only up to $1.69. Hopefully we’re not seeing gas prices reversing direction.
When you leave a comment, be sure and give me your real email address. No one can see it but me. And I don’t share it with anyone.
Twice recently I tried to send an email back to someone who left a comment and found the email address was not valid. Don’t do that.
In the past I’ve posted artwork from my niece Stahlie who lives back in Alabama. And here’s one of her latest pictures.
Her take on the recent Blood Moon.
I refer to her, and her sister Darby, as my nieces, but actually they’re my First Cousins Once Removed. Since they’re the daughter’s of my first cousin, I always thought that they were my Second Cousin’s, but apparently not. And so they’re referred to as my nieces, and not my cousins.
Tomorrow, having given up on the Post Office finding our missing package at work, I’ll be back on the phone with eBay and the sender to get us a refund on the machine.
January 27, 2020
Sale Taxing
I spent most of the day today at work trying to get eBay to set up our Sales Tax Exemption Certificate so we don’t have to pay sales tax on items we buy for resale. Which in our case are mostly used electrolysis epilators that we buy, recondition, and resell on our website and from our paper catalog.
Every time I fill out the form they want, then they ask me for something else. And it really shouldn’t be that difficult.
The last one I went over before I left for the day seems to say that we have to fill out and submit a 2 page form to them every time we buy something on eBay. Which could be as many as 10 to 20 times a week, each form customized to the seller’s full information and a copy of the invoice and the amount we’re paying.
I’ve already sent them a copy of our Sales Tax Exemption Certificate which is all we have to normally show anyone to not pay sales tax.
So I’ll see what they come up with tomorrow.
I’m also working on a front panel graphic design for our own line of electrolysis machines we’re having made for us in Poland.
I stopped off at Costco on the way home this afternoon and was happy to find that the price had dropped about 6 cents a gallon, and was now at $1.99. Very nice.
January 27, 2021
B5 and DTV . . .
The high point of work today was replacing the passenger side mirror on my client’s wife’s 2017 Nissan Altima. And unusually, it went pretty much like the YouTube video.
The only real problem was popping off and reinstalling the small plate underneath the door handle. When it popped off, two of the three little tabs that hold it in place broke off too. But when I put back together, I just used a double-over piece of Gorilla tape to fasten it in place.
Only took me about 45 minutes start to finish. Nice.
As I mentioned a week or so ago, we cancelled our DirecTV service effective January 13th. They said they’d send me into on how to return the DVR. So when I had heard from them after a couple of weeks, I put in a call to them this past Monday and was told all I had to do was take the unit to any UPS store and give it to them along with the DTV account number and they’ll take from there.
No boxing it up. No postage. Nothing. Neat.
Recently I (and to a lesser extent, Jan) have been re-watching Babylon 5, probably my all-time favorite Sci-Fi TV series. I started out watching on YouTubeTV from Comet TV. But somehow, I didn’t get all the episodes and was missing those between Season 2 Episode 9 and Season 3 Episode 15. So I found them on Amazon Prime Video.
And I was immediately astounded on how much sharper and more colorful the video was. At first I thought maybe it was because I was paying $2.99 an episode on Prime. But then I read this article, Babylon 5 – Remastered, telling about a 6 year project to rescan all the episodes in 4K with color correction and repairs.
Which is what I’ve been watching on Prime. The remastered version is available on Prime, iTunes, and HBO Max and well worth the $2.99 per episode, or $24 for an entire season of 22 episodes.
And on a sad B5 note, it was revealed a few days ago that Mire Furlan, who starred as the Minbari ambassador Delenn on the show, had died at the age of 65 from complications of a virus.
No, not that one, but West Nile Virus. And apparently she had suffered from it for several years.
Sad.
Just Calm Down . . .
Lunch today was at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood up in Webster, another of those places where we used to eat all the time, but it’s somehow fallen off our list. In fact the last time we ate there was last March.
But it was as good as always.
Jan started with a Side Salad,
while I led off with a bowl of their Shrimp Gumbo.
Just chock full of Shrimp.
Then Jan segued on to the Grilled Catfish with Grilled Veggies.
while I actually had a Wedge Salad for my meal.
More like half a head than just a wedge. But plenty of bacon and Bleu Cheese, as well as the other goodies.
All delicious!
Moving on, we decided to save our Costco visit until this weekend, so next up was a stop at the office before heading back down to our area for a Wal-Mart stop before heading home about 4pm.
Another nice day.
Had something strange happen while we were eating at Kelley’s Country Cookin’ last week. While I was eating, my phone was sitting on the table, and I had not touched it for a few minutes. Then suddenly my phone lit up with a flashing red screen and a siren sound, showing that it was now dialing 911.
I shut it down as soon as I could, hoping that I had gotten to it before it actually dialed. But no such luck.
About 15 seconds later I got a call back from Emergency Services wanting to know if everything was all right. I told her what had happened and that my phone seemed to have done it all on its own, and I thought I had stopped it in time.
She then got a little fussy about calls like this, saying that I should have called them to let them know that it was a mistake, because they got too many calls like this that they didn’t have time for.
OK, wait.
She wanted me to call 911 to tell them that my call, which I was hoping hadn’t gone through, was just a mistake so I wouldn’t be wasting their time with non-emergency calls.
Huh?
Now I knew that I had the Automatic SOS featured turned off on my phone, and that anyway, it normally took 5 presses of the power button to activate it. Then after 60 seconds it would automatically call. And I knew I had not pressed the Power button 5 times.
But when I got home I found that when I recently upgraded my phone to Android 13, that it magically turned the SOS feature back on, AND that it now only takes pressing the Power button 3 times to activate it.
Well, thanks for letting me know.
Thought For The Day:
NEVER in the history of calming down has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.
January 26, 2011
Tea Rooms and Cinnamon Buns . . .
14 Days and Counting . . .
We had another appointment this morning at 10:30 so the doctor could go over some test results. So we headed out about 9:45.
Thinks went quickly, so by 11 we were having lunch at the Texas Tea Room. And as usual, it was really good. They make a great sandwich.
Our next stop was one of our storerooms. This one contains my mother’s furniture and I’m hoping we can get it emptied before we leave in two weeks.
Then it was on to a client’s office for a few minutes, followed by the bank ATM drive-thru.
Next, after a quick phone call, we headed over to a possible new client’s office in the Ship Channel area. They setting up a new office and want someone to wire up it up for Internet and phone service. They’re interested in possibly using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) for their phone system, which should be much cheaper, considering what a 4 lines from AT&T would cost every month, not even considering the phones themselves. We’ll see how it works out.
We got home about 2pm and were in for the evening. The weather was nice enough to actually get some things done outside for a change.
We topped off the evening with hot coffee and the last of our Buc-ee’s muffins.
That was about it for today.
January 26, 2012
Monuments and Battleships . . .
Today started with a trip up to the Houston Ship Channel for lunch at Monument Inn. Located right on the Channel, where, along with really great seafood, you get a fascinating view of the large barges and ships coming up from Galveston Bay to the Port of Houston.
We were meeting Rudy Legett and his wife Caroline there for lunch. Rudy is an Aqua Hot Repair Technician, and one of the few that will come to your coach, rather than you having to take your coach to them.
We had a great time getting to know Rudy and Caroline, and hope to run into them on the road again soon.
Leaving Monument Inn, we stopped off right down the road to get some photos of the San Jacinto Monument, where Sam Houston surprised Santa Anna and his troops, and defeated the 1400 main force with only 900 Texans. Over 600 Mexicans were killed, and more than 700 were captured. Meanwhile, only 9 Texans were killed.
Across the road from the Monument, lies the Battleship Texas, the only remaining dreadnaught battleship, and one of the few that served in both WWI and WWII.
The USS Texas fought at the D-Day Landing in Europe, and the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in the Pacific, and after being decommissioned in 1948, became the first US battleship to become a permanent museum.
Coming back to the RV park, I dropped Jan off and headed back into Clear Lake to work with a couple of clients.
Finally getting home about 5 pm, I napped for about an hour, before Jan and I drove over to Dickinson to have a late dinner at Monterey’s Little Mexico.
Tomorrow we’re going to drive down to Galveston, and then tomorrow night we’re having dinner at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon.
January 26, 2013
Jasper’s & More . . .
After a nice, quiet morning with our coffee, a little before 3 Jan and I headed up to Brandi and Lowell’s to meet up for a 50 mile drive up to the Woodlands area to have dinner at one of Lowell’s favorite places, Jasper’s – The Woodlands.
Jasper’s is the brainchild of Kent Rathburn, an award-winning chef, with 4 other highly-regarded restaurants in Texas. He trained in Paris at the famous Le Cordon Bleu Institute. But even more important to our tastes, in 2008 he beat out famed chef Bobby Flay to take the Iron Chef America crown.
We started off with a really delicious Shiner Bock Beer Cheese Soup, maybe the best soup I’ve ever eaten.
And yes, that’s popcorn in the soup, and it adds a nice crunchy texture to the dish. A novel touch.
For our entrées Brandi and I had their award-winning Ribs, Jan had the Crab Cakes, and Lowell had the Prime Rib. And we all agreed how good it was
For a light dessert, we tried out their “mini’s”, small, about the size of a shot glass, but just the right amount.
Jan and I split the Caramel Bread Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. Brandi also had the Bread Pudding, while Lowell had the Butterfinger Crème Brûlée.
The perfect end to a fantastic meal.
After dinner we had planned to take in a nearby movie, but realized that we were so full that we’d probably all just fall asleep.
So instead we just walked around the Market Street area and took in the many high-end shops and stores. Jan and Brandi made a stop at the Baby Gap store for some new jammies.
Jan’s sister, Debbie, sent over these shots of her granddaughters (our great-nieces). Below is Ella, new addition, Annisten, and Avery Jane. Really cute kids.
And this little beauty is Gwen.
January 26, 2014
Do Big Cats Dream of Electric Dogs?
We got in a 1 mile walk this morning, and will probably do another one tomorrow morning since the weather starts to get cold and crappy from Monday night on.
Since it was not too windy, we sat outside for a while with our coffee and finished up the last of the Buc-ee’s Cranberry Nut muffins that we got a few days ago.
We left Mister outside on his leash with the door open most of the afternoon as we often do when the weather is nice. Later I heard dogs barking outside and looked out the door. I saw Mister in his usual place out in the sun, which puts him pretty much at the end of his leash. The two dogs, one, a young yellow lab about 40#, and the other a small poodle about 15#, were about 10 feet away barking at Mister, who for his part, just lay there watching them.
What happened next was really amazing. And sneaky.
Mister had a strategy. He turned his back on the dogs and slowly walked back toward the coach, making about 8 feet of slack in his leash. Then he turned back around and crouched down, facing the dogs, and I then realized what he was doing.
He had a plan. He was luring them closer!
And they fell for it. They both came nearer, ending up a couple of feet inside where his leash reached. And he knew it.
At this point his rear end came up and started swaying back and forth, you know, just like you see on NatGeo right before the cougar pounces on the unwary antelope. But not wanting dog parts splattered all over the truck and the rig, I yelled at the dogs a couple of times and they ran off.
After a few seconds, Mister turned around and gave me a really dirty look, like I was spoiling his fun. Then he stalked back over to his spot in the sun, curled up and went back to sleep, probably dreaming of dogs that got away.
Our son-in-law Lowell sent over a photo of Landon wearing the glow-in-the-dark Thomas the Tank Engine shirt I bought him at the train show a few weeks ago.
Now all I need is a night shot.
Jan and I headed out a little before 4 PM so she could get the haircut she missed yesterday. And even on Sunday she had almost an hour wait before she got started. But I was just fine waiting in the truck since I had my Kindle Paperwhite to keep me occupied.
For my part, I was happy to see her walk out of the hair place with a smile on her face. Sometimes she comes out with a scowl because she’s not happy with her cut, and I hear about it. A lot.
Jan had said she wanted breakfast for supper tonight so after she was finished with her hair, we drove across the large parking lot to the nearby IHOP, the same one we tried to eat at with our friend’s Bob and Maria last Sunday morning. Then there was a 30+ minute wait so we ended up going to the breakfast buffet down on SH146 at La Brisa.
But tonight there was only a couple of other diners when we got there, though after a while the place started to fill up. I did note to Jan that I thought we were the only couple in there under the ago of 70. If some of the others weren’t over 70, then they had led a really hard life.
Tomorrow it’s back to more client stuff. Busy, busy, busy.
January 26, 2015
Three in One Day . . .
After coffee and muffins this morning I got on the phone with Thousand Trails to change our reservations around. Originally we were staying here at Lake Conroe until Feb. 4th and then over to Colorado River for two weeks until Feb. 18th. Then it would be back to Lake Conroe until the 1st of March when we’ll head for Tucson and the Escapade.
But now we’ll flip our schedule around and go back to Colorado River a week early, on the 28th. Then Jan and I will come back to Lake Conroe for two weeks. Then it’s back to Columbus until the 1st of March.
This puts us 120 miles closer to Tucson when we finally head that way. And of course, it’s still possible that we may get some time down at Galveston Bay RV Resort, but that seems less likely every day.
* * * * *
Last Wednesday, I pulled out my Sears Air Compressor to top off one of my rig tires before we headed over here to Lake Conroe, and quickly noticed it was taking a long time. In fact it wasn’t making a lot of headway at all. Looking closer I found that the hose coming out of the compressor was pulled loose and leaking air. I was able to get my tire taken care of, but wanted to replace the hose as quick as possible.
I found one at Wal-Mart the other day, so I pulled out the compressor again today and took care of the problem. As it turns out the new hose is a lot longer so I won’t have to move the compressor around as much.
The old hose is the black one at the top of the photo.
Next up, I got back to work on the shower. I was finally able to get the retaining clip to seat correctly, which let me completely reassemble the handle. So now everything works like it’s supposed to, and, more importantly, so far it looks like the leakage problem is also fixed.
When we visited Brandi and Lowell yesterday and got our mail, one of the things that came in was a new spray nozzle for our Moen Kitchen Sink faucet. For once this was a simple repair. Just unscrew the old nozzle and screw on the new one. Leak fixed.
So that’s three repairs in one day. I wish every day was that productive.
January 26, 2016
Nick and The Colonel . . .
Although it didn’t rain last night, or this morning either, as I suspected we still didn’t walk this morning. Seems like Jan’s under the weather feeling yesterday was the beginning of a mini-migraine that was still lingering this morning. Luckily it hasn’t progressed into a full-blown one. So far.
Tomorrow’s supposed to be nice, so we’ll see how Jan feels then.
Neither of us did much today, just played around and goofed off, which was nice.
Things seem to go in cycles on Facebook, and the latest to circle back around is the copycat recipes for ‘authentic’ Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’ve seen 3 or 4 versions in the last few weeks, and although they all profess to be the ‘real’ thing, they’re all a little different. But the thing none of them get right is the way it’s fried.
Despite the name, Kentucky Fried Chicken is not just fried, it’s pressure-fried in large industrial pressure cookers. The cookers held three chickens, cut into nine pieces each, and took about 10 minutes for each batch.
Back in the mid-60’s I worked for one of the first KFC’s that opened in the north Alabama, and even got to meet the Colonel who was still coming around to every new store that opened, even though he had already sold the chain.
Strangely enough, the thing he was most concerned with was the quality of the gravy. Made to go on the Mashed Potatoes, and for dipping your rolls in, we made it from scratch using the pan drippings found on the bottom of the chicken storage trays. And if you didn’t get the recipe right, you ended up with the dreaded ‘library paste’.
And Colonel Sanders hated ‘library paste’, and was known to literally pitch a fit, throwing pans around the kitchen. He also wanted the gravy made fresh every day, and not stored in the fridge overnight.
Luckily, the day he visited, unannounced, I had made the gravy fresh that morning, and had done a good job, at least according to him. He dipped a roll in the gravy pan, stuffed it in his mouth, chewed for a moment, then smacked his lips and gave me a big smile.
Whew!
As far as the ‘11 Different Herbs and Spices’, I don’t know if they are still using them, I’ve heard they’re not, but we certainly used them back then.
We started out with a 50# bag of flour, a couple of pounds of salt, and a couple of cups of black pepper. This was all mixed up in a large plastic garbage can with a wooden boat paddle. Then we tore open an aluminum foil packet that came directly from KFC. When we dumped it in the flour mixture and stirred it up, it smelled like a spice shop had exploded, scenting up the entire kitchen.
Wrapping up, here’s a little known KFC fact. Dave Thomas was one of the first six KFC franchisees in 1956. He developed the large rotating red bucket sign, and helped set up the take-out concept that dominated the KFC store concept for a couple of decades.
Then in 1968, he sold out all his KFC stores, and the next year founded Wendy’s Hamburgers.
January 26, 2017
Turn, Turn, Turn . . .
Well, we got our surprise turn-around to night shift today. After I got off today at 5pm, I come back in tomorrow evening at 5:30pm
But it’s only me that’s turning around. Jan is off until she comes back in for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, only still on day shift. After that we don’t know for her.
We were hoping to both be able to work until we leave in a few weeks, but right now that’s up in the air.
We’ll see how it goes. It seems things change minute by minute.
I had only 5 vehicles into the pad today, but that’s all going to change in the next couple of days when the frack crew starts moving in. Then it’s going to get really busy.
After last night’s Whataburger visit, tonight we decided to again visit La Bella Tavola for dinner. This is our 3rd visit in the week we’re been here because it’s that good.
Last time we had pizza, but this time we went back for the pasta dishes. Jan once again got her favorite Chicken Alfredo.
While I had my new favorite dish for the first time, Chicken Florentine.
It’s two chicken breasts sautéed with fresh mushrooms, fresh garlic, fresh spinach in a sherry wine cream sauce over spaghetti. Probably the best pasta dish I’ve ever had. So it’s my new go-to dish there.
Unless we have pizza.
We’ve been eating out more than usual just because of our limited time after working a 12 hour shift. And Jan (or me) just doesn’t feel like actually fixing anything. So we either eat out or we have leftovers from eating out.
We’ll both get another meal out of tonight’s dishes, and we got 3 leftover meals from the pizza. In fact the only place we don’t have leftovers from is Whataburger.
But that’s because it’s Whataburger.
January 26, 2018
Just in Time . . .
I mentioned the other day about my time crunch getting a mail-out ad card designed and the mailing list culled and cleaned up and off to the direct mail company by 1pm today.
It didn’t help that I was having to dodge the workmen putting up the new sheetrock ceiling throughout the office. Everything needed to be uploaded by 1 so that it could be printed, addressed, and in the mail by Tuesday morning. And I did it just in time with 5 minutes to spare.
Here’s the ad card I came up with:
FRONT:
BACK:
I could have probably done a little better without the time-crunch, but the client was really happy and that’s what matters.
Up until recently there were two blogs I read every day.
The other two were Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor and Robert Bruce Thompson’s Daynotes Journal.
If most people have heard of Jerry Pournelle, it’s as a best-selling science fiction writer, authoring dozens of books over the years. But most people don’t know about his involvement in the very beginnings of the home computer revolution, and in the nation’s space program.
He is credited with originating the very first blog, before the term (weB LOG) was even created. He called it a ‘Daybook’ and it ran on BIX (Byte Information Exchange) and GEnie networks starting in the 1985 timeframe, almost 10 years before the World Wide Web got cranked up. However, he never called his Daybook a blog, since he never liked the term.
The other thing he was first in, was submitting the first major published book written on a home computer word processor . . . in 1977.
He started working in the aerospace industry with Boeing in the late 1950’s, working on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. He also was a consultant on the space program to President George H.W. Bush
Unfortunately Dr. Pournelle died at the age of 84 in September 2017. So now I was down to one.
Robert Bruce Thompson started out in 1980’s writing top-selling computer books, like Building The Perfect PC, PC Hardware in a Nutshell, PC Hardware Buyer’s Guide. etc. His prolific output lasted into the early 2000’s when the market for computer books faded.
But Robert was a chemist by background and in 2009, lamenting the death of the home chemistry set, started producing a line of Chemistry, Honors Chemistry, Biology, and Forensic Lab Kits specifically aimed at homeschoolers, but usable by anyone who was interested.
The kits allow students to cover every thing normally available in the public school course, but on their kitchen counter.
And along with the kits, he also wrote the almost 400 page manuals that went with them.
In addition to all this, he was also into the prepping scene and regularly talked about long-term food storage, and being prepared for any disaster, natural or man-made, that might interrupt our way of life.
A real Renaissance man.
At 64 he seemed to be in good health, but about six weeks ago he caught a cold he couldn’t seem to shake and went to the doctor for the cough. The doctor gave him decongestants and other things and sent him home.
A week later he went to the ER because he was having trouble breathing. He was immediately hospitalized with congestive heart failure. And he never came out.
Although the blog posts from his wife and friends put a good face on how well he was doing, and how much he was improving, reading between the lines dispelled this.
He died six days ago on January 20th.
I’m running out of blogs.
January 26, 2019
Jan’s Hooked . . .
We both are.
After a nice, quiet morning, Jan and I headed out about 12:30, on our way up to Webster to have lunch/breakfast at The Egg and I. Breakfast is pretty much our favorite meal, so we regularly have breakfast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
We both got our usual, with Jan’s Avocado Toast and a side of Dressed Greens, and my Eggs, Bacon, Fruit, and an English Muffin. And of course their great Hazelnut coffee.
Delicious as usual.
Then it was on to the nearby HEB for some more of the Lola Savannah Texas Pecan coffee, both regular and Vanilla Cinnamon.
It’s only sold as whole beans, so I have to grind it there. You can see that it’s just full off pecan pieces. And it smells so good after it’s ground that even the checkout girl commented on it.
Finishing up, besides being the love of my life, Jan has a couple of other nice attributes. She likes airplanes/airshows and she like science fiction. So now we’re both hooked on two new Sci-Fi shows – Project Blue Book and Roswell, New Mexico.
We’ve watched the first couple of episodes of both and they’re really good. Project Blue Book is a 10 episode limited series detailing Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s work on the Project for the Air Force, starting back in the early 50’s. He started out being a skeptic and evolved into a believer.
There are 3 episodes of Blue Book so far, and if you want to catch up you can stream them on History.com.
Roswell, New Mexico is a sequel to Roswell, a TV series that aired for 3 seasons starting in 1999. And Roswell was based on a series of books called Roswell High.
This new series picks up with the same characters 10 years after the original, but so far, you don’t seem to have had watched the original to know what’s going on.
Check’em out.
January 26, 2020
Well, It Was A Nice Drive, Anyway . . .
We got up to the Buc-ee’s in Katy about 1pm and a few minutes later Brandi, Lowell, and Landon showed up to take us over to Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro for lunch. We were all looking forward to it since we hadn’t been there for about a year. Brandi and Lowell used to live about 5 minutes from Little V’s so we ate there often, but since they moved a good bit further away, not so much.
Both Jan and I tried new dishes, with Jan getting the Chicken Skewers,
while I got the Shaking Beef Plate.
I don’t know what they do to make these chunks of beef so tender, but they literally melt in your mouth. Delicious.
Finally we headed home, getting parked in our site about 5pm
Site Sweet Site.
January 26, 2021
Aliens and Indians . . .
Our day consisted of lunch of Baby Back Ribs at Spring Creek BBQ. and some time consolidating some things at our storeroom.
Then it was a Cowboy Coffee stop on the way home for Blended Sugar-Free Pumpkin Praline coffees with Almond Milk. And when we got home we sat outside and listened to Jan’s Christmas.
Very nice day!
Jan and I are looking forward to a new show that starts tomorrow on SyFy (stupid name) called Resident Alien.
Starting Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame, it’s about an alien who crash lands near a remote Colorado mountain town. His mission is to scout the earth for an alien conquest, but disguised as a human, he ends up as the town doctor and helps to solve a murder. Only a 9 year old boy can see him for what he really is.
It’s billed as a Comedy-Drama, though it starts out a little darker it seems.
Recently I came across this neat photo showing a scene from Arizona Now and Then.
Even the path is still there. Amazing.
