Our RV Adventures

After about 3 days of having problems streaming Poker Face on Peacock TV, it suddenly worked last night. For some reason when we tried to watch originally, it would lock up at the first commercial. And the only way to get out of it was to reboot our Amazon Firestick.

But the problem was only on Poker Face. Other Peacock programs had no problems.

But once we got to watch it, we both really like it.

Poker Face is kind of a combination of The Fugitive and Route 66.

Charlie Cale is a young woman with a very unique ability. She can tell if someone is lying. In person, or even over video.

In the first episode, while she working as a cocktail waitress in a Nevada casino, she solves the murder of a friend of hers, imbuing the anger of the casino owner who makes it his mission to have her killed.

Then in the second episode, Charlie is on the run, being chased by Benjamin Bratt, her ‘Lt. Gerard’. Her car breaks down in a small New Mexico town where she solves another murder.

Every episode will have well-known guest stars like Ellen Barkin, Simon Helberg, Nick Nolte, Rhea Perlman, and Judith Light, and a new murder for Charlie to solve using her strange talent.

Check it out.

Through a scheduling mix-up Jan had a last minute appointment to get her blood work done for her upcoming endocrinologist appointment. So it was off to a nearby Quest Diagnostics to get stuck and have some blood sucked out of her.

Now Jan really, really, really doesn’t like needles. In fact that’s why she went into Medical Records rather than Nursing. Well, that and she doesn’t like to see blood either.

But she got through it, so to reward her from not screaming when they stuck the needle in, we went to Gator’s Grill for dinner.

We both got a Side Salad with their really good made-in-house Buttermilk Ranch.

For her entrée, Jan got their Grilled Chicken Sandwich on a Keto Bun,

while I got a big bowl of their also made-in-house Chipotle Beef Veggie Soup.

Finishing up we topped it off with a couple of their Keto Blueberry Muffins.

Keto or not, undoubtedly the best muffins I’ve ever had.

Yesterday I posted a video of the SpaceX’s first full-blown Super Heavy Booster test-firing 31 of its 33 engines. The reason for 31 of 33 was that one engine was shut down right before ignition and 1 was shut down a couple of seconds after. But SpaceX said that the Starship would have made orbit with no problems.

Then today I came across this mockup video of what the original Space Shuttle would have looked like launching from the Cape.

As I’ve mentioned before, the original Shuttle design utilized a manned Flyback Booster. Engine-wise the Booster engines were just essentially identical to the ones in the Shuttle itself. After the Booster separated from the Shuttle/External Tank, the pilots flew it back to the Cape for a dead-stick landing, just like the Shuttle would do later at the end of its orbital mission.

Note that the Flyback Booster replaced the SRB’s that were used on the final design that actually flew into space. And also note that with no SRB’s there would have been no Challenger explosion.

Also, one early version of the Shuttle itself had jet engines mounted so that it could actually fly a powered landing, rather than just dropping like a flying brick.

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Thought for the Day:

Every morning you start the day with the best of intentions . . . and then the idiots happen.

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February 10, 2011

Landon and Kitty . . .

2 Days and Counting . . .

First off, Brandi sent over these photos of Landon and his best friend, Kitty. And yes, Brandi and Lowell have a 105 lb. Black Lab/ Shepard mix named Kitty who just dotes on Landon.

I sure hope Kitty is just licking and not tasting here.

We left the rig this morning about 10am for a morning of errands, with a little breakfast thrown in for good measure.

Our first stop was Fry’s Electronics where I was looking for a XM Radio antenna for a client. With no luck on the antenna, we headed over to the Egg and I for a little breakfast with some of their great Hazelnut coffee.

Next it was off to Best Buy to for another try for an XM antenna, and once again, no luck. They did suggest that I just buy a complete XM Radio for $70 just to get the $8 antenna.

Ain’t gonna happen. I pulled out my Blackberry, went online to Amazon, and had a new antenna on the way in about 3 minutes. Done deal.

Then since I was right there, I ran next door to Lowe’s to get a 3/4” deep well socket to make it easier to pull the coach chairs up to finish removing the last of the carpet.

Then it was time for my semi-annual haircut, which as Jan said “wouldn’t take too long.” I think her snicker was the worst part.

After a quick stop at the bank, we made our last stop at a client’s for a few minutes, and then we headed back home to the rig.

Getting home Jan started packing up for our “test drive.” We’ve been parked here for 5 months, and I didn’t want to be trying to leave on Saturday morning and find something isn’t working. You know, things liked the leveler jacks won’t come up, the slide won’t come in, little things like that.

I had plugged in the engine heater last night just to be sure the oil was somewhat thinner than Vaseline, so with fingers crossed, I started the engine, and let out a big sigh as our ‘ole faithful’ roared to life.

After a few seconds I had good oil pressure, so I started raising the leveler jacks. And once again, no problems. Now it was time for the slide to come in, and again, no problems. Well, maybe a little more groaning than normal, but hey, it’s been 5 months.

Three for three so far.

Then while I went out and unplugged and stowed the power cable, Jan was out with her broom, ready to sweep the concrete pad to clean off the gravel I had earlier washed out of the leveler jack feet. While I was outside I did notice the coach was slow to come up on the front airbags, and I could hear a lot of escaping air. When this first happened to me several years ago I thought I had a leak, but was informed that this was the air system automagically venting water from the tanks. Then after a few minutes the hissing stopped and the rig came up on the front bags.

Finally, back in the coach, I put it in reverse and slowly backed out of the site. Again no problems.

So while Jan was sweeping, I made the short loop around the bayou/marina area, just to check things out in general.

The first (and only) problem showed up when we tried to put the slide back out. And it was dead.

Not a sound or anything going in or out. After checking the fuses, I did what I always do when I have a coach problem. I called American Coach for help. And as usual, Deb at American came thru.

After first asking if the keylock was On, she suggested I check the Air Brake knob. And she was right. I knew the Air Brakes were set because I heard them when I pulled out the knob.

But I apparently hadn’t pulled the knob out quite far enough. As soon as I touched it, it jumped a little bit and clicked. Trying the slide again showed that fixed the problem. Apparently I had pulled the knob out far enough to set the brakes, but not far enough to trigger the interlock switch. I guess it makes sense to interlock the Air Brakes and the slide, I just never thought about it before.

After getting us hooked back up again, I gave my new Sears Air Compressor a workout by topping off all the rig and toad tires. It took the rig tires up to 105 lb. on the front and 100 lb. on the rear with no problems. I love this thing. So much easier than using the onboard air compressor.

One funny thing came out of all this. Our two cats, Mister and Emma, normally ride in the front seat with Jan, and as soon as I started the engine they both raced to her seat to get ready to travel. But since I had some stuff on the seat, there was only enough room for one of them. So they were kind of sitting on top of each other, almost like playing musical chairs. Wish I’d had the camera.

About 4:30 we headed up to Webster for one last dinner at King Food with our friends Bob and Maria. We had such a great time we ended up talking for almost 3 hours before we split up.

Leaving King Food, we stopped off at Sam’s Club for a few things before heading over to Brandi’s for a last goodbye. It’s hard to think that the next time we see Landon he’ll be a year old.

Finally it was time to head home again after a very busy, but productive day. And tomorrow will be even busier as we wrap things up before heading out on Saturday.

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February 10, 2012

A Landon Weekend . . .

Today started with a heavy downpour that began during the night and continued into the late morning.

About 11:30 I headed into town on a bunch of errands. But my first stop was the RV park office so I could get our reservations set up for next year, and also to let them know when we would be leaving.

Then it was on to Fry’s Electronics to take back some bad RAM. It’s a very bad feeling when you take a client’s very expensive laptop apart to install new RAM and when you turn it on, it’s DEAD!

The procedure in this case is to reverse what you just did, so I installed the old RAM back in.

And it worked again. WHEW!

So now I put the new RAM back in . . . and it’s dead again. So then I took the other stick of new RAM that was in the second slot and put it in the the first slot. And it worked fine.

Again I put the first stick of new RAM back in, and it’s dead again.  So now I know for sure that one of the two new sticks is bad. So it’s back to Fry’s to swap it out.

This was Patriot RAM, one of the top names, and I’ve never gotten a bad stick before. But it sure gave me a fright this time.

My next stop was a quick one at a client’s to let them know I’d be in the office tonight working on some things.

Then it was on to Sam’s Club to try and get our prescriptions straightened out. It ended up taking me about 45 minutes, but I did make one big improvement. I got the $717 for a 3 month supply drug down to a $10 a month one.

Before leaving Sam’s I filled up with gas and then headed back to the rig to pick up Jan so we could turn back around and come back up to Brandi’s.

We’re Landon-sitting (well, Jan’s doing most of it) this weekend while Brandi and Lowell take the weekend off to celebrate his birthday out of town, so we had to stop off at their house to get the car seat so we could pick up Landon at his Day Care. He seemed really glad to see us which made Jan happy.

Getting him strapped in, we drove up to Sam’s Club again, this time to pick Jan’s new glasses that they’d called and said was ready. I know they said they’d expedite them, but we just turned the order in yesterday afternoon, so it was hard to believe they would be ready this soon.

And they weren’t. It was a false alarm, but they should be here in the next day or so. As long as they get here before we leave next Thursday, we’re fine.

Leaving Sam’s, we drove up I-45 to the Golden Corral Restaurant for dinner.

This is a good choice when we’ve got Landon because there’s plenty of choices for him. One thing he really, really liked was the chocolate syrup from the chocolate fountain. You might say he really got “into it”.

Landon fell asleep on the way back to Brandi’s, and it’s always amazing how, although he never opens his eyes or wakes up, he knows to pull his arms out of the straps and then hold them up for you to take him out.

When we got back to Brandi’s, Lowell’s sister Sherry was there to help Jan if she needed it getting Landon to bed, so I headed over to my client’s for a while.

I did manage to finally get the UPS software problem fixed so I’m glad that’s out of the way.

I finished up and headed back to the rig about 9 after a long day. Getting back to the park I did get this shot of the moon rising over the bayou.

Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do it justice.

Tomorrow I’ll head back over to Brandi’s about 10 am to pick up Jan and Landon for breakfast at the Egg and I, and then we may bring Landon back down to the rig to show him around and introduce him to Mister.

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February 10, 2014

Two Weeks and Counting . . .

This morning started early, at least for Jan. She was up at 5 AM to be sure she was awake when Landon woke up. Since Lowell had to leave for work around 5:15 and Landon’s daycare doesn’t open until 6, we filled in the gap, which is why we spent the night here at Brandi’s.

And you can never tell how early Landon will get up. Brandi left on her business trip at 4 AM this past Saturday. And Landon, hearing the commotion, was up at 3:30.

Upset that his mommy was leaving, Landon started crying until Lowell told him they’d go out for donuts after Brandi left. So Landon stopped crying, kissed his mommy goodbye, and was ready to go out for donuts. And go out they did.

Note the time on the clock at the top of this photo. After Brandi left, Lowell and Landon drove around, but found no donut shops that early on a Saturday morning. Landon then saw a Denny’s and said, “There’s Denny’s. Denny’s has blueberry pancakes. I want blueberry pancakes.”

Which is why Lowell and Landon ended up as the only people in a Denny’s at 4:35 AM. And why Jan was up at 5 AM to be sure he didn’t want to go out for pancakes when his daddy left.

On the other hand, I was able to sleep in until 8:30. After all, Landon didn’t need TWO people to watch him.

I fixed coffee in Lowell’s K-Cup Keurig brewer, and one thing I noticed is that his machine starts up much quicker than my machine, which takes about a minute or so before the coffee starts flowing. It may be because his has a water reservoir built into it.

Lowell said we didn’t have to take Landon to his daycare until a little before 10, so we got to spend some time with him. For breakfast he decided he wanted to have a Chocolate Chip Eggo waffle, so I fixed him one up.

And then he wanted a second one, so back to the toaster. So Landon’s breakfast was two Eggo waffles and two glasses of chocolate milk. But this was probably because he didn’t really eat much of anything for supper last night.

Later,Jan was trying to get him dressed and told him, “Landon, come here and put your shirt on.” Landon said, “Say the word, Nana. Say the word.” Jan said, “What word, Landon?”

Landon looked at Jan and said,”Say please, Nana, Say please!”

Out of the mouth of babes.

After dropping Landon off at his daycare, Jan and I left about 11 AM and drove over to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria for lunch. Our favorite pizza place anywhere, we try to eat at one whenever we’re near. Rather than just repeat what I’ve said about Grimaldi’s before, and why it’s so great, you can check out what I’ve posted before.
http://ourrvadventures.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/no-bones-about-it/

Leaving Grimaldi’s and heading back toward Clear Lake, we stopped off at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and a couple of donut holes to finish off a great morning.

The reason we were coming back so early was that Jan had her eye doctor appointment this afternoon. She had thought (hoped) that it was time to get her cataracts done, but the doctor said that her eyes were doing great, with no new problems and no reason to have the surgery yet. So it was all good.

Leaving the doctor’s, we stopped off at a client’s for a few minutes before picking up some prescriptions at Sam’s Club.

Then it was back home to the rig, with Mister very glad to see us.

Tomorrow will be probably a stay-at-home day, very cold and rainy.

Lastly, two things. First off, we’re starting our two week countdown here at Galveston Bay RV Resort. We plan on leaving here on February 24 and then spending two weeks at the Colorado Thousand Trails in Columbus, TX. So we’re going, but we’re not going far.

Lastly I’ve posted a couple of new things under the ‘What Were They Thinking? tab at the top of the page. Check’em out.

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February 10, 2015

A Happy Kitty . . .

Today was nice. It was the first time in about a week that I hadn’t had to be by 8am. And tomorrow I’ll be back up early since Chris will be back over to work some more on the fiberglass repair problem.

But today we slept in and made it a stay at home day.

I did have one project for the day though, I wanted to flush the rig’s water heater. With all the medical stuff last year,  I didn’t get to it then, the first time I’ve missed it in 7 years. Rather than just repeat myself, here’s the link to how I did it two years ago. Water Heater Flush. And since I skipped a year, I used the vinegar treatment that I mentioned here.

I remember when I did this after our first year on the road at the end of 2008. It was pretty obvious that it had never been done before on our 1999 American Eagle. When I used this Water Heater Cleaning Wand,

‘gunk’ just came pouring out. In fact I think it must have been half full of stuff, because after the flush, we seem to have a lot more hot water.

And today, probably because of the vinegar, I got a lot more stuff out than other years, a lot of black ‘gunk’ and little white stones of calcium carbonate.

So that’s another thing checked off my list.

Later in the afternoon I went up to the office to pick up my Amazon mail and Mister was happy for two reasons.

He got a new box to play in,

and the box contained 48 cans of his favorite cat food.

Apparently the flavor he likes is very popular, and no matter where we shop, they’re quite often out of it. So checking Amazon, I found I can buy it cheaper online, and get Prime two day shipping.

So Mister’s a happy kitty.

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February 10, 2016

Rustlin’ and Grazin’ . . .

Today was our Fredericksburg road trip, so I was up at about 8:30am and we were out the door at 9. And after a quick stop at the park dumpster to drop off some garbage, we were on the road west.

Our first stop was the Buc-ee’s at the Luling exit about 60 miles away for a potty stop, a breakfast kolache, and coffee.

And friends.

Our next-door neighbors, Vance and Bonnie Clegg, had left out for the Lake Medina Thousand Trails about 15 minutes before we also headed out, and we both got to Buc-ee’s about the same time. This was their first time to stop at one, so we got to show them around a bit before we said goodbye again.

Hopefully we’ll cross paths again soon.

Our next potty stop was the Love’s at the Comfort exit for US 87 about 110 miles later. Then we only had about 20 miles to Fredericksburg and our lunch.

So our first stop was Der Lindenbaum, a German restaurant right on Main St. We’ve eaten here for years, and it’s always been great, probably the best German food we’ve ever eaten.

Jan always gets her favorite Jager Schnitzel, which is a breaded pork cutlet covered in a mushroom wine sauce, along with red cabbage and German potatoes.

Over the years I’ve worked my way around their menu, this time settling on the Zwiebel Schnitzel, which is also a breaded pork cutlet, but with a pan-fried onion sauce, as well as the red cabbage and potatoes.

Although we didn’t get there until about 1pm, the place stayed pretty full the entire time. Then after a great lunch, we headed out to check out the many shops up and down the streets.

Jan checked out quite a few stores, but didn’t really find anything that caught her eye.

Finally on the other side of the street, we came to Rustlin’ Rob’s Texas Gourmet Foods, a long-time family favorite.

Rob’s has pretty much every sauce, butter, rub, jam, jelly, salsa, preserve,  and dip you can think of. And even better they’re all available to sample.

Every little alcove has something different. One has just a large number of ‘butters’.

Amaretto Pecan Honey Butter, Honey Chipotle Butter, Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter, Praline Pecan Honey Butter, Jalapeno Honey Peanut Butter, etc. In fact they have over 40 different flavors.

As I said, every flavor of every type are available to taste-test.

And they have either wheat thins, or pretzels available for your tasting pleasure

It’s very easy to just ‘graze’ from one item to the next, which is why we never come here before Der Lindenbaum. We would be too full afterwards.

And another thing to note about Rustlin’ Rob’s is that it’s the original home of Jan’s Moose Footstool that I mentioned last week.

But no more moose are in stock now.

After checking out the rest of Main St, along with some bench-sitting and people-watching, we made our way back to the truck, and drove about 5 miles east to visit Wildseed Farms, another place we always check out when we’re in the area.

Billed as the largest wildflower farm in the country, it’s a fun place to visit with a lot of paths and walkways through trees, bushes, and flowers.

Inside is a lot of other stuff that makes Jan happy.

In fact, this was the only place where Jan found something she just had to have.

Finally heading back into Fredericksburg, we made a quick Wal-Mart stop and then another one at the Fredericksburg Pecans store for a big bag of shelled ones.

This was another place that had samples, four different varieties of pecans that are suppose to taste different, but neither Jan nor I could tell the difference. Maybe it’s just us.

Then we were back on the road toward home, again stopping at the Love’s right before got back on I-10E.

We had kind of thought about stopping off at one of our two favorite San Antonio restaurant’s, either La Fonda on Main, called the best Mexican Restaurant in San Antonio, or the Magic Time Machine. But as we got closer, we both realized we were still just too full from Der Lindenbaum and ‘grazin’.

So we headed on around San Antonio to our last stop, again at the Buc-ee’s at the Luling exit. Besides our potty break, we got a couple of their BBQ Brisket Sandwiches for dinner after we got home, and also a couple of their great kolaches, and a couple of cranberry muffins for breakfast the next couple of days.

Leaving Buc-ee’s, we checked in with our daughter Brandi and her Strep Throat. She’s feeling a little better, and neither Lowell nor Landon have come down with it so far.

And neither have we.

Knock on wood.

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February 10, 2017

So What’s Your Bacon Number?

And No, it’s not how many strips you had for breakfast.

Well, the frack stuff is mostly gone and the coil tubing stuff is mostly here. But there are still a few dribbles and drabs of both wandering in and out.

Luckily for me, but unluckily for Art, my daytime counterpart, the big stuff can only be moved on Texas roads during daylight hours. Or at least from one half hour before sunrise until one half hour after sunset.

Which means Art got the brunt of the traffic while my night should be relatively calm.

I mentioned a while back that I was trying to come up with a better gate vehicle sensor. Although our Mighty Mules normally work great, they’re still at the mercy of any RF interference, like we’re seeing at this gate.

Day in and day out, the most reliable system seems to be the old-fashion gas station bells with the rubber hoses, exactly why our previous gate guard company, Gate Guard Services, still uses them.

But with that reliability, comes some problems. Like hundreds of feet of fairly expensive rubber hose. At least if you want the ends out far enough to give you ample warning of an incoming or exiting vehicle so you can…you know…wake up.

So I decided to combine the best of both the purely mechanical and purely electronic systems.

So I still will use a length of rubber hose as the actual vehicle sensor laying across the road. But instead of running hose all the way back to the bell, I will connect the hose to a mechanical pressure switch.

Available in various pressure sensitivities and costing $20-30, they will momentarily close a switch contact when a vehicle runs over the hose. This way I can just run wires back to the control box.

I can buy a 1000 ft. spool of twisted pair wire for about $50, giving me as much as 500 ft. of warning in either direction, just pulling out as much as I need, and then winding it back on the spool when I’m done at that gate.

And even the control box is simple.  A small plastic box, a wall wart 12v power supply and a couple of buzzer or chime modules with different tones to let you differentiate between ins and outs.  Kind of like the doorbell modules where the front door one goes “Ding Dong” and the rear door goes “Dong”.

If you wanted to get a little fancy, for a few dollars each you can buy those record and playback modules that come in the greeting cards that let you record your own message. Then you could have one saying, “Vehicle Coming In” and the other saying “Vehicle Coming Out”.

So it’s something I’ll be trying out on our next gates later this year.

So what is your Bacon number?

A couple of days ago I was reading an article about the “Six Degrees of Separation” concept. First put forward in the late 1920’s, it says that any two people on earth can be connected by only five other people in between.

And computer simulations done in the 1970’s seem to show that you only need three degrees of separation to connect any two people in the US.

Just to clarify, a ‘degree of separation’ is one person to another. So if I know one person, that’s one degree. And if they know another person, I’m two degrees from that second person. And so on.

There’s even been a couple of games invented that use this idea, the most famous being “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. Which is where your Bacon Number comes from.

The idea is to connect the actor Kevin Bacon to any other actor in as few degrees as possible, but only by using movies they were in.

For example, Kevin Bacon to Elvis Presley. This is an easy one.

Elvis Presley was in Change of Habit with Edward Asner.

Edward Asner was in JFK with Kevin Bacon.

So with Kevin Bacon always having a Bacon Number of 0, that means that Edward Asner has a BN of 1 and Elvis has a BN of 2.

And strangely enough if you want to add in plays (the movies of their day), you can give John Wilkes Booth (yes that one!) a Bacon Number of 5, or even a 4

JWB was in an 1863 production of Macbeth with Louisa Lane Drew.

Louisa Lane Drew was in a 1896 production of “The Rivals” with her grandson Lionel Barrymore.

Lionel Barrymore was in “It’s A Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stuart.

Jimmy Stuart was in “Airport ‘77” with Jack Lemmon.

Jack Lemmon was in “JFK” with Kevin Bacon.

But someone else brought JWB’s Bacon Number down to a 4 with this shortcut.

Lionel Barrymore was in “Right Cross” with Kenneth Tobey.

Kenneth Tobey was in “Hero At Large” with Kevin Bacon.

But another game takes this to a more personal note, with someone picking a famous person from history, and then the rest try to link themselves to that person with the smallest Bacon Number, still using that concept.

For example, Jan and our son Chris, and our daughter Brandi (whose was a baby) met Michael Jackson in Montgomery, AL when he came to the TV station where I worked in the mid 70’s. He was appearing in town and came by the station to do a promo.

So Jan has a BN of 1 to Michael Jackson, and oddly enough, a BN of 3 to Elvis Presley through Lisa Marie Presley.

For me, I was thinking more historical, and was surprised to find that I have a BN of 3 to Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.

When I was 9 or 10 I met, shook hands with, and talked to Eleanor Roosevelt when she was on a book tour in Nashville, TN in the late 50’s. So that gives me this.

From me to Eleanor Roosevelt to FDR to Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference in 1945. So a BN of 3.

Unfortunately Eleanor did not go to Yalta, otherwise it would have been BN of 2.

But I was astounded to find that I had a BN of 2 to Adolf Hitler from two different directions.

In the mid-60’s my father was working for Boeing on the Apollo project in Huntsville, AL. Boeing had a big party for the employees and my father took me along. When I found out that Werner Von Braun was there, I went over and introduced myself in the stumbling German that I was taking at the time. (Hey, at least I didn’t call him a jelly donut like JFK called Berlin)

And since von Braun knew Hitler, that gives this.

Me to Werner von Braun to Adolf Hitler. So a BN of 2.

As for the other path, I mentioned a few days ago that I worked as a Broadcast Engineer at a black radio station (oh the stories I could tell) in Birmingham, AL in the early 70’s, and so got to meet Jesse Owens, the famous Olympic athlete who embarrassed the German athletes at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Contrary to popular ‘knowledge’, Hitler did shake Owen’s hand, because the Olympic Committee demanded it, but Hitler did refuse to ‘congratulate’ him.

Me to Jesse Owens to Adolf Hitler. So a BN of 2 there also.

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Now that you’ve heard my Bacon Number stories, let’s throw it out to our blog readers.

What’s your shortest BN to a famous person?

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February 10, 2018

The King is Dead . . .

Well, by the time the rain stopped and the weather cleared, it was really too late to fool with taking down the last awning. Maybe tomorrow. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

As I had hoped, today turned out to be a do-nothing day, just reading, napping, computing and snacking. A perfect day.

The King is Dead. Long Live The New King.

For the last 4 years I’ve used a Bubba Keg like this for my morning coffee.

At 34oz it holds the 5 cups I brew with a little room to spare. Actually, I brew 8 cups, but Jan’s mug holds the other 3 cups. I had another, smaller before that, but I wanted something a little bigger.

But although it was foam-filled, the Bubba Keg just didn’t my coffee warm for more than a couple of hours. But since I normally nurse my caffeine fix over the day, I wanted something a little better.

I had looked at the stainless steel vacuum mugs like the Yeti and the Ozark Trail models, but they weren’t large enough, only 30oz, and that was to the very rim. So a week or so ago when I saw this at WalMart I got one immediately.

It’s the new 40oz model from Ozark Trail, WalMart’s brand. But it needs a handle, so I immediately ordered one from Amazon.

Unfortunately these new mugs haven’t been out long enough for someone to come out with a lid that seals like they have with the smaller ones.

All the new ones just have the drinking hole in them. So I’ll have to find someway to seal it up when I’m taking it into work.

Our daughter Brandi and her family are presently scattered around the country. Brandi herself is out in San Diego  at a ‘business conference’. That’s her on the right.

Yep, looks like business to me.

Notice how these ‘business conferences’ are always in places like Las Vegas or Miami, or San Diego? And never places like Duluth, or Des Moines?

Why is that?

And while Brandi is partying out west, Lowell and Landon were up in Pauls Valley, OK with his parents, celebrating Lowell’s birthday, for which Landon and his grandma Sonja baked him a birthday cake.

Sounds like fun.

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February 10, 2019

Green Beans and Cockroaches . . .

Jan and I headed up to the Sugarland area about 11, to meet up with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, for Landon’s hockey practice. Actually it’s all practice since they’re still learning the necessary skills and don’t play in games yet.

We took gloves this time and dressed a little warmer so we were a lot more comfortable than last time. It’s cold in there.

Since we were last at one of these practices a few weeks ago, Landon had been taking skating lessons on the side, with two under his belt so far. And it really shows.

He’s taking lessons from a female figure-skating instructor, learning more of the fundamentals of just skating, rather than hockey. And now he can skate backwards pretty good and he’s much more fluid on the ice.

I think he’s signed up for 10 lessons, so he still has 8 more to go, so that should make a big difference in his skating skills.

After practice was over we all headed over to the nearby Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, our usual place to eat. But, usually this time, it was really busy. Normally by now the lunch crowd has thinned and there is plenty of parking and tables.

But today the place was jammed packed. And when I ask the waitress why it was so busy today, she looked at me like I was from another planet, and said, “It’s CRAWFISH SEASON!” And yes, she said it in all caps, too.

Well, excuse me!  When I was growing up in south Alabama, crawfish were for bait. Nobody would dare eat a ‘mudbug’. They were just giant cockroaches.

Jan and I noticed that they had new menus since we were there a few weeks ago, and they’ve added some new sides, one being Grilled Green Beans.

With Lowell getting the Chicken Fried Chicken, and Brandi a Boudin Link, Jan got her usual Grilled Catfish Fillets and the Green Beans, while I got Shrimp Gumbo and the Grilled Veggies.

Wish I’d gotten the Green Beans. I will next time. They were grilled with onions and bacon, and were delicious. At least I think they were, based on the small amount Jan was willing to share.

Next time, for sure.

I did surprise Landon with a kit that I think he’ll like.

It’s from the Smithsonian people, and let’s you built a 2-1/2 foot tall rocket, which looks pretty much like a Saturn 5, I guess. Told him I wanted pictures.

I went online this evening to renew the PO Box that we have here in Santa Fe, and found they offered a new service.

You can now receive packages from any shipper, UPS, FedEx, etc., at your PO Box. It’s a free additional service called Street Addressing.

You just go online, log into your PO Box account, and click the Street Addressing box under Additional Services. You will have to drop off some paperwork at the PO to finalize it, but that’s all there is to it.

Neat!

Tomorrow it’s back to work, hoping to see that my webserver hard drive cloning job is done. Maybe.

---

February 10, 2020

“You’re A Car”

After visiting the hotel’s ‘Coffee Bar’, our Extended Stay America’s version of the Free Breakfast, we were packed and on our way by 9:15am.

Except for our initial keycard problems, our stay here was pretty nice. Our room was really a studio apartment, with a 4 burner oven/stove, a large apartment-sized refrigerator, and a microwave.

Plus the dining table made a nice computer table. A very nice stay for about $70 a night, including all taxes.

Although a little disconcerting to start with, the ‘Coffee Bar’ turned out to be pretty nice. Especially since the coffee was really good.

Plus they had pre-packaged muffins and granola bars, as well as 4 different flavors of do-it-yourself oatmeal.

And since this is an long-term residence type of place, with a stove and fridge, they even have an online cookbook for cooking on the road.

Although we were heading for Athens AL, about 180 miles north, we made a zig-zag stop at the Golden Rule BBQ out in the Irondale area of Birmingham about 90 miles along the way.

I’ve been eating here since the early 60’s, but I’m a youngster in regards to this place. It’s been in business since 1891, yes, almost 130 years. And it’s listed as the oldest continuously-operating restaurant in the state of Alabama.

So they must be doing something right.

Jan and I got the same thing, a Jumbo Sliced Pork Sandwich, mine with Outside Cut, and fries.

‘Outside Cut’ means that the meat is cut from the outside char or ‘bark’, giving the meat a little sweet crunch. Delicious.

And of course, we had to each have a piece of their famous homemade pie. I got my favorite Lemon Cream,

while Jan got a slice of the Double Chocolate Cream but she wouldn’t let me take a photo of it so no one would know she had dessert. You didn’t hear it from me.

Though it was raining a little as we left Montgomery, it started coming down in sheets as we got out of Birmingham. So much so that finally I got behind a brightly-lit semi and followed him, hoping he could see the road better than me, since I couldn’t see it at all.

This long-distance trip in our truck is the first one we’ve done like this since 2015 and it takes a little getting use to. So as we are pulling into a Rest Stop, Jan reminds me, by saying, “You’re a car”, that I need to stay on the Auto side, and not the Truck/Trailer side. Everything helps, I guess.

We got into our Day’s Inn in Athens about 2pm, and got unloaded during a lull in the rain into our very nice room.

A King, Non-Smoking room for only $66/night total. A great deal from Expedia.

Later, around 4:30 we drove right down the road to do something unusual for us. Two meals in one day. But it was to keep up a tradition.

We always have dinner our first night in Athens at the nearby Catfish Cabin, and hey, who wants to mess with tradition, right?

We both had the Blackened Catfish Filets with Steamed Veggies.

And of course a basket of their fantastic homemade hushpuppies.

Really, really good.

Catching up on yesterday, we met up with long-time friend’s Kathy and Weylan, up in the Prattville area at the Longhorn Steakhouse there.

Jan and Kathy worked together here at Jackson Hospital back in the mid-70’s and have stayed in touch. So we always get together when we’re in the area.

While Jan and Kathy were talking over old times, Weylan and I were talking over old jets, specifically F-4B, C, and D Phantoms, his in the Air Force, and mine as a civilian tech working on Marine F-4’s at the Marine Corp Air Station in Beaufort SC, part of Parris Island.

For about 3 years, I worked for both Lear-Siegler and Qualitron-Aero, moving around the country to different bases, ones like Otis AFB on Cape Cod MA, and England AFB in Alexandria LA. Jan and I really enjoyed this, but our son Chris was reaching school age and we didn’t want to have him changing schools every few months. So we settled down after that and I went back to working as a Broadcast Engineer.

It was really good getting to see Kathy and Weylan again, and we’re looking forward to next time.

---

February 10, 2022

Stranger Than Fiction . . .

We met our friend Tricia up in Pasadena this afternoon at the Pine Street Café which is part of a Wedding and Event Venue called Silver Sycamore. With a rustic look it also includes a hotel and saloon, as well as individual cabins as part of a Bed & Breakfast.

A really neat place.

And a really good café, too.

Jan and I started out with a serving of their Baked Potato Soup.

I actually liked the flavor of it a little better than Gator’s version, but the texture was strange. Rather than chunks of potatoes, it just smooth, with the texture of Cream of Wheat.

Tricia got their version of Eggs Benedict with roasted potatoes.

Looked really good.

Jan got the Grilled Turkey and Sautéed Spinach Sandwich with Provolone Cheese,

while I went with the classic BLT.

All really, really good.

Coming home, we dropped off an Amazon return at the FM646 UPS store. No box, or packing. Just walk in, hand them the item, they scan the QR code and hand you a receipt. Then about 5 minutes later, I got a text saying the cost had been credited to my Amazon account.

Nice.

I was happy to see how well the Jeep ran, my first time driving it since the repair. And I don’t know if it was just wishful thinking, or the new O₂ sensor, but it did seem a little peppier.

I’ve mentioned before about what a great artist our grandson Landon is. Brandi texted us this photo this evening showing his latest masterpiece.

A family on their street brought home their new baby today and found this chalk drawing on their driveway when they got home.

I told Landon he needs to always sign his artwork.

Today was our monthly Alvin Opry Group get-together, this time at Kelley’s Country Cookin’ over in Alvin.

Everybody got something a little different, Jan getting the Grilled Fish Fillets that was on the Thursday Specials menu, along with Fried Okra, Glazed Carrots, and Green Beans.

But I didn’t manage to get a photo of it, but Jan said it was delicious.

I did do a repeat of my last visit, the Chili & Eggs with Grits, and ‘Cornbread’.

Just as good as last time. I really like their Chili.

Did remember to get to a group photo this time.

Next month is back at our Webster Saltgrass. Always good.

In prep for a hoped-for March launch, SpaceX fired up all 33 Raptor Engines in their Super Heavy Booster for the first time. The Super Heavy is the first stage booster for Musk’s Starship.

When asked if they considered the test a success, SpaceX said, “Yes, it didn’t blow up.”

That’s always good.

---

Thought for the Day:
Dear Abby: How soon after walking into someone’s house is it acceptable to ask for their WiFi password?

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February 9, 2011

Tastefully Simple . . .

Still another early morning.

And still more coffee.

But hopefully this is the last early one for a while as I should be able to finish up my computer job today.

I left the rig about 9:45 heading up to my client’s office in Pasadena, driving in the pouring rain. Boy, am I glad I got all the outside work done yesterday.

It took about 4 hours to finished up checking out all the lines, mounting all the wall boxes, hooked up the last two VOIP phones, and neaten up all the cable runs. Then, after a walk-though with the client, I got my check and headed out . . .
to another client’s.

But this one only took about an hour to finish up. Then it was by the house to pick up my forgotten camera, but with a bonus.

Brandi was home early due to the bad weather coming in, and Lendell and Sonja, Lowell’s parents, down from Oklahoma, were there, and of course, Landon too.

Speaking of Landon, here’s the obligatory Landon photos from King Food the other night

He looks like he was not too happy to be waked up. But he did cheer up pretty quick.

Leaving Brandi’s, I stopped off at the dry cleaners to pick up our winter bedspread and then dropped it off at the storeroom for use when we return next winter, and while I was there I paid the rent on the storeroom. Normally I do this by automatic bill pay thru my bank, but since this is a change due to getting rid of our 2nd storeroom, I wanted to be sure the payment got done for the correct amount.

Finally it was time to head back to the rig. The rain had disappeared, but the front had come through and it had gotten COLD. When I got back to the rig about 5:30 it was already 32 and falling. It’s supposed to be about 26 tonight, so I’ll disconnect the water just to be safe.

Getting back to the rig I found Jan still under the weather. She’s had a sinus headache for several days now. She finally got rid of the cough, but the stuffy head just hangs on.

When I left she was planning to walk up to the clubhouse about 11 to check out the Tastefully Simple party our friend Jeannie Sparks was having, but the fact it was pouring down rain, in combination with the sinus headache, put the kibosh on that.

Jan didn’t feel like going out for dinner, so I just had my left-over Armadillo Eggs from T-Bone Tom’s the other night. Still great.

Jan eventually fixed herself a microwave dinner, and that was about it for the evening.

---

February 9, 2013

It’s Dead, Jim . . .

Almost.

I was up about 8:30 this morning for no good reason. I could have slept a whole 30 minutes longer,  but I was awake, so what the heck.

About 9:30 I headed up to Brandi’s to pick up Jan, Landon, and Aunt Sherry to have breakfast at The Egg & I in Webster.

After a really good breakfast, and a pot of their delicious Hazelnut coffee, I dropped everyone off back at Brandi’s while I headed back to the rig with a quick stop at Fry’s Electronics to pick up an HP Deskjet 1000 for a client.

If you need an inexpensive inkjet printer that produces excellent quality output, check one out. I bought one last year while we were gate guarding after my Samsung Color Laser died. I was looking for something at Wal-Mart that was cheap and small, and the 1000 fills the bill.

I paid $49 for it and was very surprised to discover how good the print quality was. So good in fact, I didn’t replace it when we got back on the road.

But the reason I was getting one for a client was that, unlike many other printers, the 1000 still works with Windows XP, which is why my client wants it. And even better, the one at Fry’s was only $29. Nice!

After Fry’s it was back to the rig, and back to work. I’ve still got a long list of chores to get done before we leave on the 18th.

My first job was done before I even went inside the rig. And that was to install the new Rain-X wipers on the truck. I first used them last year, and liked them enough to use them again this year.

Next was to finally check out my airbag repair of a couple of weeks ago. To do this I had to crank up the rig and raise the levelers. First off, it was nice to hear the diesel start right up after being unused for 3 months. You always wonder.

After starting it up and waiting about 30 seconds, I put it in High Idle and went outside. I could still hear the Low Air Pressure alarm for a couple minutes, and then about 15 seconds later the rig came up on all the airbags. Great! Ready to hit the road.

The funny thing was that when I came back in the rig, both cats were sitting side by side staring up at the large box I had stored on Jan’s seat. That’s where they usually ride in Jan’s lap when we travel, and when they hear the engine start, they expect their chair to be ready.

Next up I finished reinstalling the valance/shade combo in the living room and got it adjusted correctly. Now all the shades are good for another 14 years.

My final chore was some cabinet work. I needed to replace the drawer slide end mounts on two of the kitchen cabinet drawers. The only difficulty was the fact that I only had access to the back of the cabinet through the drawer openings, but I finally got it fixed.

That was about it for jobs today. Jan was just going to order pizza for her, Sherry, and Landon at the house, so I didn’t go back over.

---

Well, it’s not really dead, but it is defective. My Globe Helicopter has a problem.

No matter how I steer it, it only goes in one direction. I flew the one at EPO with no problem, and it didn’t do this. I tried to see it I could trim it out somehow but didn’t have any luck. So back to Amazon it goes. I’ll order another one when I get a chance.

Tomorrow it’s back over to Brandi’s for breakfast with Jan and Landon. Brandi and Lowell should be back sometime in the early afternoon, so I’ll hang around until then.

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February 9, 2014

Shaky Beef and CorrosionX . . .

I spent the morning working outside on my coach batteries, pulling all the cables off, wire-brushing the terminals, and then spraying CorrosionX on all the connections. I also topped off the water while I was at it.

We got these Interstate U2400 batteries in March of 2008 to replace the Trojan T-105’s that were original to our 1999 coach. And after 6 years they seem to be still going strong.

About 3 PM Jan and I headed up to the Katy area to Brandi and Lowell’s to spend the night. Our daughter Brandi is at a business conference in Miami this week and we’re going to help out with Landon. Monday is Lowell’s busiest day and he needs to leave the house a little after 5 AM, earlier than Landon’s daycare is open.

So we’ll get him ready and drop him off at his normal time. Then after lunch at the nearby Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, (YUUMM!),  we’ll head back down to the Clear Lake area for Jan’s 2 PM eye appointment.

A little before 5 PM, Lowell and Landon, and Jan and I drove right down the road to the Little V Vietnamese Restaurant.

Lowell said it was his and Brandi’s new favorite place. And for good reason.

It was GREAT!

Lowell had his usual Pho, while Jan and I tried a couple of other dishes. I had the Shaky Beef Wok,

while Jan had the Chicken Vermicelli dish.

Both really, really good.

My beef dish came on a bed of noodles, as did Jan’s. The beef was marinated and very tender. And they had a homemade hot sauce that was really good.

We’ll definitely go back when we’re in the area.

Landon didn’t eat much, but pretty much entertained himself with his iPad, and was really good.

---

February 9, 2015

Just to Get the Taste out of our Mouths . . .

Jan was up at 6am this morning to wait for Landon to wake up. Lowell had to head out to work about that time, so Jan wanted to be up when Landon got up, which was about 30 minutes later.

Brandi is out in San Diego at a business conference. I don’t know though.

Does this look like work to you?

Lucky me, I got to sleep in, all the way until 8am.  Then about 8:30, Jan, Landon, and I headed out for breakfast at the Denny’s over on Fry Rd. Landon had pancakes, fruit, bacon, and chocolate milk. Lowell said Landon’s going through another growth spurt, and sometimes really puts it away, and then doesn’t eat much the next day.

About 10am, we dropped Landon off at The Goddard School where he goes. Landon insists it’s not daycare, “It’s School!” And he’s right.

One thing we thought was funny was that as soon as we walked into his computer class with Landon, three little girls piped up with “Hhhiii, Landon!”

Getting back to Brandi’s, Jan read and I took a nap while we were waiting to see if we we would be needed to help with Landon later in the day, but Lowell got free on time, so a little after 3pm Jan and I headed out.

We had already decided to have dinner at Grimaldi’s Pizzeria to get the taste of yesterday’s food court pizza out of our mouth’s. But it doesn’t pay to get there before 4pm, because they shut down the coal-fired ovens between 3 and 4 to shovel out the ash, re-stoke them with coal, and then light’em up again.

We got our usual small house salad, which is a bowl big enough for both of us, and a large pizza (18”) with mushrooms, pepperoni, Italian sausage, meatballs, and extra cheese.  As big as this is, we can only eat half, so we have the rest to bring home. Heats up great in the convection oven.

Getting close to home, we stopped in at the Kroger’s in Dickinson for a few things, and I bought $10 worth of Powerball tickets for Wednesday night’s $450 million dollar drawing.

Ya can’t win if ya don’t play.

---

February 9, 2016

Cough, Cough ?

We did get our first 1 mile walk in this morning, but like the other day’s walk, we called the second loop on account of wind. Very high winds. But at least we got a mile in.

Just as we got back, I got a call from our daughter Brandi giving us a heads up because she had come down with Strep Throat. For us the incubation period is 2 to 5 days with an average of 3.

We haven’t seen Brandi since Super Bowl Sunday so we’re coming up on the middle of the period with no symptoms so far. But we’ll know more in the next couple of days, I guess.

Getting back to the rig, we had a breakfast with our leftover omelet on leftover biscuits from our recent Schobel’s visits. Along with our coffee, a really good breakfast.

Later, about 2pm, I put in a call to Schneider Welding to see if my screen door hinge was done. ‘Henry’ said it was not finished yet.

I assume that this meant he hadn’t even started it yet, since I figure it shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes at the most. Just clamp it into a vise, grind down the old welds, bend it back to a 90° angle, and weld it up.

I reminded him I needed it by Friday since we were leaving Sunday, the 14th, and he said he’d have it ready.

We’ll see.

We’re getting our usual Texas winter weather about now, with a low of 33 degrees last night, and then today, with the bright sun, the AC’s were coming on in the rig.

Could be much worse of course, with multi-feet of snow, or even down in Florida where it’s raining everyday.

Tomorrow we’re going on a road-trip over to Fredericksburg, about 190 miles away. It’s not exactly close, but of course, closer than if  we did from Lake Conroe. Normally we’ll visit on our way out west, but since we’re going east this year, this may be our only chance.

One thing we definitely want to do while we’re there is to have lunch at Der Lindenbaum, a really good German restaurant, and a must-eat on every visit. Then we’ll wander the streets for awhile, checking out all the shops.

Then at some point we’ll take a side trip out to Wildseed Farms, about 5 miles east of Fredericksburg. We always enjoy walking the grounds and checking out all the cats that live there.

My National General insurance policy through our agent’s Chris and Charles Yust of C and C RV Insurance  renews next month, and I was kind of antsy anticipating what my new rate was going to be. After our $20,000+ repair bill last summer resulting from our blowout in Arizona, I could see my rate going through the roof. But it only went up about $30 a month. Not bad at all.

Great agents and a great company.

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February 9, 2017

Is There Anything This Stuff Can’t Do?

Our DirecTV satellite system went down yesterday afternoon about 4:20 and we didn’t get it back until I got home about 5:30 this morning. Turns out that it was partially DirecTV’s fault and partially mine.

Jan and I were watching the news a little bit before I went in to work when suddenly the video froze and we got a ‘Signal Loss’ error message on the screen.

And when I checked the ‘Signal Meters’ on the receiver, I had nothing coming in. Figuring something had maybe bumped or moved the dish, I checked outside.

Nope it was still there and still upright. So just to be safe I checked DirecTV’s website to be sure they weren’t having any problems. And Nope on that.

So as a last-ditch effort since I had to leave in just a few minutes, I unplugged and then plugged power back into the dish. This started it rescanning the sky to lock onto the correct DirecTV satellite.

But when I got to the gate, Jan emailed me that she still didn’t have any signal.  On a hunch I once again checked DirecTV’s website, and found that they now said they had had problems starting at 5:20pm ET, exactly when our problem occurred. But the problem was now fixed.

So now I knew what had happened. When I reinitialized the dish, it started scanning for the correct satellite. But couldn’t find it, so it shut down.

I tried to email Jan on how to fix it but about that time I lost the phone signal here at the gate, so I wasn’t able to tell her. But when I got home this morning, all I had to do was to reinitialized it once again and in a few minutes we had TV again.

After I posted my map graphics showing our possible travels the rest of this year, several readers asked me what program I was using. It’s called Delorme Street Atlas and I’ve been using it since the DOS days.

I have it on my desktop where I use it to plan our travels. But it also runs on the laptop I have by the dashboard. Then it acts as a GPS mapping program guiding us as we travel.

The really neat thing about the program is the overlays it lets you do.

Like this one.

This shows the location of all of the 290 parks that we’ve stay in since we started RV’ing.

And this one show all of the Thousand Trail parks that are available to us.

I also have a number of other overlays, PassPort America parks, Pilot/Flying J locations, and even Places to See.

It’s very easy to use, and let’s you quickly map out a route from Point A to Point B in just a few seconds.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the program seems to be falling by the wayside. For years every January I would get a notice that the latest version of the program was available for purchase.

But last year, along about March right before we were ready to travel for the year, I realized I hadn’t gotten my update. And going to the Delorme website told me why.

Pretty much everything concerning the Street Atlas program was gone. All the blogs, support forums, FAQ’s, everything just ‘poof’.

Turns out that in January 2016 Garmin, the GPS manufacturer, had bought Delorme lock, stock, and barrel. And supposedly the only reason they wanted Delorme was for their highly-regarded satellite phones, so most everything else has been dropped.

So as it stands now, the only version of Street Atlas still available is the 2015 version, which is the one that I’m still using.

At this point, since Microsoft dropped Streets and Trips a few years ago, as far as I know there is nothing else available that will do what Street Atlas will.

But I’ll keep looking.

Looks like our frack is winding down tonight and they should be finished around 2am. Then they’ll start rigging down and moving out with coiling tubing coming in in the next day or so. When I asked one of the Company Men this evening he said we’ll definitely be busy until Jan and I leave here next Wednesday.

Coffee: The Magic Elixir

Coffee helps Jan sleep better. At least when she drinks it at the right time of day.

Jan’s a morning person, usually getting up around 7am. I’m a night person, normally going to bed between 2 and 3am, and getting up around 10-11am.  So this gives Jan four hours of computer access, and time to watch HER shows she’s recorded, i.e., cooking shows and contests, shows about families with a lot of kids, and shows about polygamist families.

Then she starts to doze off around 7:30 in the evening, and later I get her up about 11pm to send her to bed. But after now having had 3 or 4 hours of good sleep, she sometimes has a problem getting back to sleep.

Every since we’ve been RV’ing I get up at 11 and make coffee. I make 8 cups, 2 cups for Jan’s large mug, and 6 cups for my 34oz Bubba Keg. And that’s it for the day.

But since I’ve been working nights on the gate, I’ve been fixing our coffee about 4 in the afternoon, giving Jan her cup then and taking mine into the gate with me.

So now, after having her coffee in the afternoon, she has no problem staying up until 10 or 11 before she goes to bed, and then no problem falling asleep. She’s actually added several hours to her day.

Is There Anything This Stuff Can’t Do?

Guess we’ll be having afternoon coffee from now on.

---

February 9, 2018

Catching Up . . .

Today was a busy morning, first with Jan’s 8:30am Pre-Op conference at the hospital for next Wednesday’s Laser Lithotripsy. And then getting her home about 10:30, I dropped her off and headed right back up to Webster for work.

Luckily Jennifer, the office manager, was back at work today. Actually she came back this past Wednesday while I was out with Jan having her checkup. Glad to find out that she didn’t have the flu, but a case of Norovirus that she seems to have caught from family members who had just returned from a cruise and brought it with them, getting sick just as they got home, and just in time to infect Jennifer.

Spent the morning catching up with all the catalog/website updates and changes that had accumulated since I was there on Monday. The afternoon was occupied by taking photos of used/refurbished equipment and emailing them out to potential customers, and then handling the numerous follow-up questions. Very time consuming.

So far my oil pressure problem has not reoccurred, so I guess a defective filter was really the cause. What does bother me however, is that I can’t figure out anyway that the filter could have caused my problem.

I mentioned that I had read online about someone else that found the same fix for their similar problem, and several other readers said that the filter couldn’t possibly be the problem and it must have been something else.

Well, like I said, the problem was gone when I pulled out of the Jiffy Lube parking lot, so I don’t know what else it could be.

We’ve been on the go so much this week that tomorrow and maybe Sunday too, are going to be stay-at-home days. Very nice.

But if the weather cooperates just enough, I go outside and take down the last remaining awning to take over to Sundowner Canvas.

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February 9, 2019

It’s A Conspiracy . . .

We headed out for The Egg & I up in Webster for breakfast, expecting our usual great food and service. Well, one out of two isn’t bad, I guess.

Or maybe Eric, our waiter today had been talking to Raziel, our waiter at Katz’s Deli on Thursday. Or at mayby conspiring together.

We to wait about 10 minutes for a table, which was kind of unusual for this late, only about 45 minutes until they closed at 2pm. But I noticed that even through they were on wait, the rear dining room was almost empty. So either they were trying to keep the kitchen from getting overrun, or maybe they were short on wait staff.

Either way, even though we ordered our meal along with our meal. But it was over 30 minutes before we got our food, even though people who were seated after us had already gotten theirs.

Maybe it’s just us.

But at least the food was as good as usual.

Next I went by my client’s to check on the hard drive cloning job I had left running since about noon yesterday. I was making a full backup of the webserver to a second HD I had installed in the computer. I have it backed daily with iDrive, but I wanted to have a local backup too.

But I was kind of concerned about the time it was taking. It had been over 26 hours since I started the backup. So getting to the office I opened a second command terminal and ran the ‘pkill’ command which told  me where the job was. And ‘pkill’ said the job had only copied a little over 200GB of the 1TB drive, and was only moving along at about 2 MB/s, very, very slow. Why, I don’t know.

But I didn’t think to check on how much data is actually on the source drive. So it could be almost done, or still have a lot to go. I guess I won’t know until I get back to the office on Monday.

After that we stopped off at Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription and few other things, and also got on their Shingrix list. Jan and I had our first Shingrix Shingles shot back around the middle of November, so we’re now in the 2 to 6 month window to get our second one.

We always ask both WalMart and Sam’s if they’ve got any in every time we’re in the store, which is how we got the first shot. But now they’ve both got a list where they will call you when they get some in.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to Sugarland to take in Landon’s hockey practice again, and then on to Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, of course.

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February 9, 2020

Old Homes and Old Friends . . .

Jan and I moved from Birmingham down to Montgomery in January 1975, right after she had graduated with her Medical Records degree. And as it turned out, both of us already had jobs when we got here.

Jan had already been hired on at Jackson Hospital and was scheduled to start just a few days after our move. She had gone to a job fair and was pretty much hired on the spot.

We had already rented an apartment in a brand-new complex right off Atlanta Hwy and East Blvd on Burbank Dr.

We were in the bottom unit to the left of the breezeway. It was a large 2 bedroom, 1 bath model. At the time our son Chris was 7 and Brandi was about 16 months.

And as it turned out I also already had a job when we got here. I had been working full-time as a Broadcast Engineer for WBIQ Channel 10 PBS television in Birmingham, part of the Alabama Public Television Network, where I had been since July 1972.

When Chris, being only 5 at the time, wanted to know where I worked, Jan ‘simplified’ it by telling him I worked on ‘Sesame Street’. From this Chris decided that I must be Big Bird, so he told everyone that I was Big Bird on Sesame Street.

Maybe I wasn’t Big Bird, but I was busy. Besides the WBIQ job I was taking 20-22 hours at college, working as a part-time weekend Broadcast Engineer job at WENN radio, and was the Chemistry Lab Assistant at school, setting up the experiments for the Chemistry classes.

And earlier, before Brandi was born in September 1973, Jan worked a part-time evening shift at Newberry’s 5 & 10 at Eastwood Mall, AND, if that wasn’t enough, Jan and I were the grill team at what was then the busiest McDonald’s in the country, the one at Eastwood Mall.

We came in a little before 11am, and with me running the grill and Jan toasting buns and making fish sandwiches,  we made burgers as fast as we could until 2pm. Then we hung up our aprons and walked out the back door. So no cleaning, wiping, or scrubbing.

Pretty much the perfect McD’s job. At least as far as McD’s jobs go.

Looking back it was amazing that we could keep this up, But we were in our early 20’s, so it all worked out I guess.

Anyway circling back around, while we down in Montgomery in early December so Jan could get all her paperwork filled out before we moved, I had a list of Montgomery TV stations so I could see if any of them were hiring.

My first stop, being the closest to Jan’s hospital, was WCOV Channel 20, then the local CBS affiliate (now FOX). And like Jan, I was hired on the spot. In fact, when the Chief Engineer found out I want to work the night time sign-off shift, he wanted me to start that evening!

When I said I couldn’t start for a couple of weeks until we moved down here, AND that I wanted to check with the other TV stations first, he kept offering me more money, Enough so that I accepted, still saying that I couldn’t start until after the first of January. But the money he was offering was a substantial increase on what I was making in Birmingham, so I took the offer without looking further.

For us the move and job changes were a novel concept. We were each only working one job.

After our year-lease was up at the apartments, we moved into a small 3 bedroom, 1 bath rent house closer to both of our jobs.

But Jan says the real reason we moved was the rowdy bunch that moved across the hall from us and would ride their motorcycles up and down the breezeway.

Somewhere in here I heard that a cable TV company was coming to Montgomery, the first one in our area, so I tracked them down and went in to talk to them.

And suddenly I had a new job as Chief Electronics Tech for Alabama and Georgia for Storer Cable. (later to become TCI, and then parceled out into Comcast.)

But the look on the face of the Chief Engineer at WCOV when I told him I was leaving, (I thought he was going to cry) made me accept his offer (his begging) to continue to work 3 or 4 nights a week as an Engineer, for even more money again.

So suddenly I was back to two jobs again.

And I’m not sure exactly how it happened but somewhere in here I ended up as the replacement Saturday and Sunday late night DJ on WCOV AM radio, located in the same building. This lasted about six months until they could hire a new DJ.

So make that three jobs for a while.

Also around in here, we bought our first house.

Located in a neighborhood near our rent house, it was 1500 sq. ft. 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a big back yard and 3 or 4 pecan trees. We lived here until we moved to Houston in December 1978.

Driving around yesterday we were really happy to see that all three of our old homesteads were still in good shape.

Working at Storer is where I met Fred and his wife Susan, who was a school teacher.

Fred worked the outside ‘plant’, the cabling/amplifiers on the poles feeding the signal to the homes, while I mostly took care of the ‘inside’ stuff, the headend (the distribution hub for the system), the big 10 meter satellite dish, and pretty much anything electronic that wasn’t out on the poles.

Fred and I hit it off right away and spent a lot of time working in the other’s areas. Jan knew that if a big storm came through and knocked out part of the system, I was going to be out in the storm helping Fred out. And vice versa.

So we always get together when we’re back in this area, and last night we got to their house a little after 6pm for one of Susan’s delicious lasagna dinners. We’ve learned that this works better since we don’t have to worry about having the restaurant close down around us like we’ve done in the past.

And this was a good thing since we didn’t finally head back to the hotel until almost midnight.

But we had a great time catching up and reminiscing.

This afternoon we’re getting together with one of Jan’s old coworkers from Jackson Hospital for dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse up north of Montgomery in Prattville where they live.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 40 years since we left Montgomery for Houston.

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February 9, 2021

Not A Volcano . . .

Jan and I were on our way up to Conroe for our get-together by about 11am. But our first stop on the way was at the WalMart up in Webster to pick up a prescription. We were hoping it would be ready yesterday afternoon, but it wasn’t ready.

Then for some reason I got a text at 5:21 this morning saying it was ready. So who’s filling prescriptions at 5 in the morning? Thought I guess they could have had to order it from their big warehouse up in north Houston.

Anyway we got to China Delight about 10 til 1pm, and made a mad dash to the restroom. Hey, there was morning coffee, and it’s a hour and 15 minute drive, OK?

When Jan and I came out, Rick and Janice Binns were already at the table, and then a few minutes later, Debi and  Ed Hurlburt showed up.

Here’s the happy group.

That’s the Binns on the left, and the Hurlburts and Jan on the right.

Somewhere in all the conversation we managed to order, with both Jan and I getting the Volcano Chicken. And I used the term ‘Volcano’ sarcastically.

Very Sarcastically!

It was listed in RED on the menu, which meant it was supposed to be ‘Spicy’. But even after ordering it Extra, Extra, Extra Spicy, it had no heat whatsoever.

Really good, though.

As usual when a bunch of RV’ers get together, we talked for about 3 hours before Jan and I finally headed home about 4pm, hoping to get ahead of the going-home traffic. And by taking the Hardy Toll Road, and bypassing downtown Houston completely, we pretty much did, finally getting home about 5:30 after a pretty much mandatory stop at Cowboy Coffee along the way.

An Update: Toilet Thursday has now become Toilet Saturday. Jan got a call today moving one of her doctor appointment to Thursday afternoon.

This is the time of the year when we try to get all of our medical stuff out of the way, and it’s always a juggling act coordinating stuff between us.

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February 9, 2022

Not Much Today . . .

On my way to work this morning, I got a call from Joe the mechanic telling me that our Jeep is ready to go. He replaced the faulty alternator, of course, and also one of the O₂ sensors, which I’m hoping will fix my decreased gas mileage problem.

And Joe also found the cracked hose that was causing a Small Evap System Leak code on the Check Engine light.

So getting back to the rig after work and picking up Jan, we drove up to Joe’s to pick up the Jeep. Jan drove it back home and said no more Check Engine light.

Nice.

Tomorrow we’re meeting long-time friend Tricia up in Pasadena at the Pine Street Café, a breakfast/brunch tearoom. We’ve never been there before, but the menu looks good, as well as the reviews.

Looking forward to it.