Our RV Adventures

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today in Pennsylvania, saying there will be six more weeks of winter.

However, Staten Island Chuck on, well, Staten Island, didn’t see his shadow, so an early spring is on the way.

So it’s take your pick, I guess.

Or there’s this.

Since I was off today I had planned to get some stuff down outside the rig, but a high of 44°, drizzling rain, and a steady wind wasn’t very conductive to that.

In fact, it’s never got about 45 for the last 3 days, along with the wind and rain. And it sounds like it’s even worse up in north Texas.

So I puttered around inside taking care of a few things.

But it’s supposed to warm up tomorrow, into the high 50’s with no rain. And maybe even up to 70° by next Tuesday.

Recently I upgraded the Jan’s Favorite Recipes area of the blog, adding some new ones.

Check it out.

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Thought For The Day:

When your IUD Fails . . .

Baby born clutching the IUD that was supposed to prevent him.

Sure looks like he’s smiling.

 

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February 2, 2010

Still on Schedule…

Well, things improved a little today. We were able to schedule our oil change service visit for Friday, Feb 12th. So we will be able to leave on time on the 15fh.

Since our rig has about 10 gallons of oil it’s not something I want to handle myself. The service guy will also change the fuel filters, the oil filter, check the air cleaner, and lube the chassis and driveline. He’ll also do a check of my coolant quality.

I also want to talk with him about changing my Allison transmission over to TranSynd synthetic fluid, and is it worth the extra $170 ($280 vs $450). Then we’ll talk about about whether my generator also needs service. We’ll see.

I dropped off the truck yesterday afternoon to get new shocks, new rear brakes, and a tune-up. They also found a broken emergency brake cable that meant it won’t be ready until tomorrow, since the new one has to come from Dallas. Anticipating problems like this is why I rented a car for a couple of days.

In between rainstorms today I was able to get up on the rig roof to fix a stuck microswitch on our bathroom roof vent fan.

And in my spare time I’m also trying to take care of all my computer clients who waited until the last minute to have their computers looked at.

Tonight we had dinner at Genghis Grill, a local Mongolian grill type place, with Bob and Beth Young, some friends of ours. We also got to see our granddaughter, Piper, who works there as a hostess.

Afterwards we dropped by our daughter’s house to pick up some drawer slides for our son who is building a 3 drawer cabinet for us that will fit in the space where our old CRT TV used to reside in the dashboard.

Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment for my yearly checkup and prescription renewal.

 

 

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February 2, 2013

A Busy, Fun, Family Day . . .

or I got burned.

Jan and I left the rig about 12:30 heading over to a client/friend’s to install the new computer power supply I picked up from EPO this past Thursday.

We’ve known Tom and Lyn for more that 30 years, and in fact we lived on the same street together for many of those years, and our daughters were close friends. So it was nice to get a chance to sit down and talk for a while.

I’ve seen Tom and Lyn quite a few times over the years, but this is the first time Jan has come with me and been able to get together with them.

So while Lyn and Jan were catching up, I went in with Tom to install the new power supply and get his computer up and running again. But after installing it and pressing the power button, all I got was dead silence. Bummer.

This was a brand-new supply, I had just opened and taken it out of the box. So I started pulling it back out the computer case, and that’s when I noticed something. The fan blades inside the power supply case had a lot of dust on them. And on top of that, the company name on the box wasn’t the same one on the power supply.

This was a USED power supply, stuck back in a new box. Which explains why it didn’t work.

So I packed it all back up, and after spending some more time talking, Jan and I headed back up to EPO to trade the bad power supply back in. But I ran into a problem. I didn’t have the receipt since it was back at the rig. I’ve known the owner for years, and all I would have had to do was talk to him, and the lack of a receipt wouldn’t have been a problem. But he wasn’t there, so I just bought a new power supply, and I’ll return the bad next week.

Sometime in the next couple of days, I’ll get back over to Tom’s to try again.

By now it was time to meet Chris and Linda for dinner at Sam’s Boat right on Clear Lake. Sam’s is a Bar/Sports Bar/Restaurant, and seems to always be busy.

But the main reason we were there was so we could be waited on hand and foot by our granddaughter Piper.

She’s worked here for a while, and being a cute young blonde, makes REALLY good tips. And tomorrow being Super Bowl Sunday, it should be even better.

She did get a few minutes to sit down and chat, but she quickly got busy as the Saturday night rush started.

Besides the great service (not that we’re biased, or anything) Jan and I were really impressed by the fact that Piper has mastered the trick of taking our entire order for four people without writing anything down. And we had a number of options and special requests. And she got everything perfect. Didn’t miss anything.

After a great time, and great service from Piper, we said our goodbyes and left Piper with a very busy restaurant.

Our last stop on the way home was at Wal-Mart for some groceries and supplies, getting us home a little after 8pm. Like I said, a busy, fun, family day.

One good thing about my trip to EPO was I found a new toy. A Globe Helicopter.

But the problem was they didn’t have any in stock, just their demo. They said they should have some in next week, and that they were $99.99.

So when I got home, I checked Amazon, and lo and behold, they had them, and they were only $28.99.

Mine should be here Tuesday.

Looks like it will be great for flying in the rig since the blades are protected. I’ll keep you updated.

The other thing I ordered from Amazon is some more dried hot peppers, as in Trinidad Scorpion Butch T peppers, at 1,400,000 Scoville units, now rated as the hottest peppers in the world.

I want to grind them up and add the powder to the Ghost Chili Salt that I got last year. This makes the food a lot hotter without getting too salty.

Last time I did this I used the dried Ghost Chilis I got at Jungle Jim’s Market in Cincinnati last year. But now I’m out. So I thought I’d bump things up a couple of notches this time.

Regular readers will remember that up until a few years ago, Ghost Chilis were consider the hottest, at a little over 1,000,000 Scoville units. Then they were replaced by the Trinidad Scorpion at about 1.3 million.

Then last year a new king was crowned, known as the Butch T version of the Trinidad Scorpion. For a comparison, a jalapeno is about 5000 units, and a habanero is about 20,000.

The king is dead. Long live the new king.

 

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February 2, 2014

Getting in on the Ground Floor . . .

When I got up this morning about 9 AM it was 63 degrees and sunny. But it went downhill pretty quick. By noon it was in the low 50’s and raining. And by the time I left for Katy, it was 45 degrees, and raining even more.

I had put Mister outside on his leash when it was nice and left the door open. But since I was busy working on the floor under the dash, I didn’t notice the weather deteriorating. But Mister quickly let me know by coming up to the screen door and voicing his displeasure at the misting rain falling on him. Poor Baby.

Brandi sent this pic over of Jan and Landon at the 9 AM showing of Frozen. Everyone seemed to think that the popcorn and candy were the best part of the movie.

Several readers asked how I handled the flooring under the slide.

The answer is that I didn’t do anything special.There are two different types of slide mechanisms.

1. One that rides on the floor as they are pulled in and have Teflon strips
to cushion and prevent wear.

2. One that’s held suspended above the floor as they are pulled in.

Ours was supposedly the second type. But that was the purpose of laying down
those first few test rows that I showed last week before we started.

After just laying them down there, I put a couple of pieces of newspaper down and pulled the slide in. The newspaper never moved.

And for the last several months the test strip has been down there with no problems. Plus the original carpet came up much higher than the tile and was never touched either.

So this was one less thing I had to worry about.

I did come across one problem though. The transition strip that I bought to use is not going to work as is. It looks good when I set it in place but it was quickly obvious that the part resting on the kitchen tile was too high to clear the bottom of the kitchen cabinet above it. So at this point I’m not sure what I’m going to do. A metal strip would probably work, but I’m not sure how it would look.

So my temporary fall-back position is to hold it down with Velcro, and pick it up before we pull the slide in and then put it back down after we park. We’ll see how that works.

I headed up to Brandi’s in Katy about 3 PM and the closer I got, the worse the weather got. And the worse, and slower, the traffic got. But I finally made it about 4:15, packed Jan up, and we headed back home.

Our son Chris had invited us over for his Super Bowl Seafood Gumbo so we stopped by for a delicious meal, finished off with Linda’s Rum Bread Pudding. If I’d had a second serving I would have needed a designated driver.

Jan was delighted finally seeing the floor in person and really liked it. I’ll try to finish under the dashboard tomorrow if possible, and then Chris and I will reinstall the chairs on Tuesday.

 

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February 2, 2015

Yes, It was that Good . . .

It hardly got into the 50’s today, but at least it didn’t rain. So there is that. But it pretty much killed any thing I wanted to do outside. And tomorrow should about the same, but with rain.

But that did give me a chance to play with a couple of my other new toys. I picked them up at Brandi’s on Saturday, but today was the first chance I had to check them out.

The first one was a new Dashcam.

A118 Full HD 1080P Car DVR Dash Camera

I’ve been wanting one for a while, and had checked out quite a few of them, but this one came out on top, and getting to play with it showed me why.

It’s very small, less than 3 inches long, and only about an inch and a half wide. But it records in full HD 1080p video, and has a built-in mic that can be turned on or off. And it’s only $80.

It will record about 5 hours on a 32GB micro SD card (not included), and does so in 1 to 5 minute clips (your choice). It does it like this so you don’t end up with one humongous 32GB file that’s too big to do anything with. At the end of the 5 hours, the video loops back and starts recording over the earlier stuff, unless you’ve told it not to in the settings. The files are time/date stamped, and if you buy the optional GPS module (I did), the videos are also geo-tagged with your location.

It also has a lot of neat features, like a G-sensor that will sense a crash and save any video from being overwritten from that point.

The video quality is very sharp and clear, with a 170 degree viewing angle. I’ll try to get it installed tomorrow and show you some video tomorrow night.

The only problem I foresee is in mounting it, or at least mounting it in two different vehicles, since it only comes with one mounting kit. But I’ll work something out.

My next new toy is also a tool. Well, kind of. It’s a Bluetooth Code Scanner for trucks and cars.

Vgate Bluetooth OBD2 Scan Tool

It plugs into your diagnostic port under the dash, and then connects to your phone or tablet, using one of several apps.

If any of you are familiar with the Silverleaf VMSpc computer interface like I run on my diesel engine, like below,

this is something very similar to that, but much, much cheaper. The VMSpc interface is several hundred dollars, but this one is $11.

The best way to start is to install the Torque app on your Android or iPad. Then you just plug the Scan Tool into the diagnostic port under your dash, start your vehicle, and connect your tablet’s Bluetooth to the Scan Tool’s signal.

At that point you can start to build your own virtual dashboard, just like you can on the VMSpc.

Here’s a sample.

And you can have 7 pages of different gauges to scroll through. You can  also log all your readings and email or share them.

And just like the VMSpc, this app lets you read and reset Check Engine light codes, and other parameters. The basic Torque software is free, and there are a number of other auto apps that will work with the unit. Check it out.

Here’s more info from CNet on the Torque app.

Later, after Jan made me put my toys away, we headed up to La Grange for dinner. But I knew Nick would want to stop off at the Timeless Texas Classics classic car place.

For dinner we went back to the Sealand Seafood restaurant in La Grange. And we really enjoyed it. Great Seafood.

On our way home, we made a stop at the Wal-Mart before getting back to our rig’s about 7pm. Nice day.

Tomorrow night will be at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro back in Katy, where we just ate this past Saturday.

So, yes. It was that good.

 

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February 2, 2016

Making Herself Right At Home . . .

We got our walk in this morning, but since we haven’t walked in about a week, we keep the distance to about 1-1/4 miles, but at 24:46 we set a new speed record so there is that. We’ll probably bump it up tomorrow, working toward a full two miles later in the week.

After goofing off for a while with Internet stuff, I took care of a few small chores that were hanging around, just waiting for my attention. Outside, the shore water faucet was leaking at the connection, so I replaced the washer and added some Teflon tape to the threads.

That fixed my part of the leak, but the faucet is still leaking a little around the handle, but that’s the park’s problem. I’ve reported it, but based on past performance, it won’t get repaired until it’s spurting in the air like a geyser.

This afternoon I bit the bullet and started downloading Windows 10. There’s some talk about Microsoft dropping the free upgrade to 10, so since I’d been thinking about it anyway, I decided to go for it.

One thing I’m doing different is that I’m downloading Win10 as an ISO file, and not directly upgrading one of my computers. By doing it as an ISO file, I can burn it to a DVD and then use it over and over, no matter how many computers I want to upgrade with it.

It’s somewhere over 3GB in size, so it will take a while. I’ve got it downloading in the background so I’ll just let it run until it’s done.

For dinner tonight we had our leftover Chicken Fried Chicken from our visit to the Potatoe Patch with Janice and Dave Evans the other day.  Then I got to work on our granddaughter’s laptop.

Like Janice’s laptop the other day, I ran my standard cleanup routine, SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes AntiMalware, CCleaner, and Glary Utilities. Finishing up I updated AVG Virus Protection and ran a full deep scan, which is still going on, and might go for another 12 hours.

Karma, our new kitty, has pretty much settled right in and made herself at home.

The one thing we were worried about, her learning to the use the litter box, was taken care of during the night. We spent yesterday afternoon putting her in the box about once an hour, and apparently she figured out what it was for. And as far as we can tell, she never went anywhere else before she used the little box.

Her favorite place to lay seems to be on Jan’s moose footstool, whether Jan’s using it or not.

Everyone is always amazed when they see the moose footstool. We bought it when Jan fell in love with it right before we started RV’ing in 2007. We were visiting Fredericksburg right before Christmas, and Jan just had to have it.

It’s 3 feet long and over 2 feet high. Built on a wooden frame, it’s very sturdy and has held up to all our traveling, even Landon riding it when he visits.

As I said yesterday, I wanted to call her Adolf, but Jan said NO. And today Jan said she didn’t like Hitler or Ava, either.

So I guess we’re stuck with Karma.

 

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February 2, 2017

Something Strange Is . . .

Going On . . .Ghostbusters!

Well, not quite Ghostbuster strange, but still strange.

About 4am this morning, the three different vehicle alarms all slowly started working. And by the time I left at 5:30 they were all working with no problems. And they continued working all day and into this evening.

I did confirm last night that the sensor part of the Mighty Mules is working.

If you take the cover off the head, there is a red LED that flashes when a vehicle is sensed going by. And that is happening.

But the signal is not getting to the receiver inside the shack. Which takes me right back to the idea that some sort of interference is happening in this area.

I’m not sure there’s really anything that I can do about it, but it does explain a lot.

Well, the rig didn’t get moved today either, but tomorrow for sure. Yeah, right. The move was called on account of having lunch in Cuero.

We headed into town about 11:45, but before lunch we made a stop at Donut Palace for some more of their great pastries and breakfast croissants. I take one of their Bacon, Egg, and Cheese croissants into work every night and it makes a delicious meal. Then I’ll have half of one of their Cinnamon Twists about midnight with some coffee to keep me going the rest of the night.

Lunch today was Maya Mexican again, with this time having beef, chicken, and shrimp fajitas. But accidently. We actually ordered the same Fajitas Regias that we ordered last time, with beef, chicken, and grilled sausage. But something was lost in translation and we got the shrimp instead. But it was still good and we have leftovers to boot.

After lunch we drove over to the HEB to get gas for the truck. I don’t know exactly why, but the HEB here is consistently 10 cents a gallon cheaper than any station in town, even the Wal-Mart right down the street. Then after topping off the tank, and get the discounted carwash, we headed back to the rig, just in time for me to be able to get in a couple of hours more sleep before I leave for work about 4:45pm.

As far as the rig move, the scheduled rain has been pushed back to Sunday now, and the longer we go without rain the dryer the ground gets, but we’ll probably still give it a try tomorrow.

Maybe.

 

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February 2, 2018

Birthday Bash . . .

I played hockey today so I didn’t go into work. So a nice, quiet day was had by all. I did talk to my son Chris’ about replacing the oil pressure sensor next. We’ll take a further look at the problem when he’s off work again.

I got a popup window this morning saying that Garmin had an update for my Garmin Nuvi 1490. It’s going on 7 years old, but it’s still working fine, and more importantly, it’s still getting regular updates.

In additional it has Lifetime Updates and Free Live Traffic Updates. I’ve looked at new ones and so far can’t see any reason to upgrade. It will be interesting however to see if they’ve finally fixed the one problem I’ve been reporting for years.

Many on the roads here in Texas are labeled as ‘FM’ roads, as in ‘FM 646’. Which means ‘Farm to Market’. They also have ‘RM’ (Ranch to Market’) and ‘RR’ (Ranch Road) roads. But when my Garmin gives voice directions, rather than say, ‘FM’ or “Farm to Market’, the GPS say ‘Federated States of Micronesia’. Not exactly where I’m heading.

So we’ll see tomorrow whether or not it got corrected this time. But I’m not holding my breath.

Jan has had several requests for her mom’s great Sukiyaki recipe, so I thought I’d post it here and then later in the Jan’s Favorite Recipes section.

Jan’s Mom’s Sukiyaki

1 lb. Steak
2-3 Med. Carrots
1 Large Onion
3-4 Stalks of Celery
1/4 Head of Cabbage
1 5oz Bottle of Soy Sauce
1/3 – 1/2 Cup of Sugar
1/2 Cup of Water
1 Tb Salad Oil
Mushrooms – Fresh, Canned, whatever  you want.

Heat oil, add thin slices of steak and brown quickly.
Add Soy Sauce, Water, and Sugar.
Simmer 5 minutes.
Add Carrots and simmer 5 more minutes
Add Onions, Celery, and Cabbage
Simmer 10 more minutes.
Veggies should be crisp.

Really good, and Chris and Brandi loved it growing up.

Tomorrow we’re going to reconnect with many of our old Alvin Opry friends at Tony Booth’s Birthday Bash

We haven’t seen many of them for 5 years, so we’re really looking forward to .

 

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February 2, 2021

Merry Groundhog Day . . .

Pretty much another quiet day today.

Jan and I ran some errands and then had lunch at King Food, the first time since our bug family Christmas Eve dinner.

Got our usual Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, XXX Spicy with Jalapenos. Always great.

Then after a WalMart/Sam’s stop for prescriptions and other sundries, we were home by about 4:30.

Like I said, another nice, quiet day.

 

 

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February 2, 2022

Au Contraire . . .

One thing great about Grimaldi’s leftovers is that they’re just as good the second day heated up in our convection oven. A delicious dinner tonight.

After my blog post a few days ago about Kroger’s Pharmacy Plan and GoodRX, a couple of our readers ask about GoodRX’s competitor, SingleCare. Well, I’ve not checked recently, but when it first came out a few years ago, I compared them with GoodRX and found in every case, GoodRX was cheaper, and in some cases, a lot cheaper.

Maybe it’s because of all the big bucks SingleCare is paying Martin Sheen to be their spokesman.

But check out the apps for yourself and compare.

A couple of weeks ago I announced that though we would still continue to live in it, our America Eagle RV had essentially ‘aged out’, and at 23 years old, we would no longer be RV’ing in it.

But several of our readers expressed disappointment that we wouldn’t be blogging about our travels and restaurant stops any more.

Well, au contraire!

Just as an example, since our last RV trip in April 2019, we’ve spent a month in Europe, a week in NYC at Christmas, a week in Branson at Christmas, and two weeks on the road from Houston to Illinois and Alabama and back. And we’ve got another two week trip scheduled for the Memorial Day this summer.

And we had two Alaskan cruises cancelled out from under us in the last 18 months.

So we’ve not stopped traveling. We’re just not traveling by RV anymore.

And of course we haven’t stopped eating either.

So stay tuned.

When I was talking about all the different kind of ‘noises’ in last night’s blog, I forget to give the link.

Noises: What’s the Difference?

Work today was just more of updating manuals, catalogs, and websites. Blah!

Shades of Jurassic Park?

Well, maybe Ice Age Park or 17th Century Park

A biotech company called Colossal, is actively working to reincarnate the wooly mammoth sometime in the next 4 years.

The woolly mammoth’s DNA is a 99.6 percent match of the Asian elephant, which leads Colossal to believe it’s well on its way toward achieving its goal. Through gene editing, Colossal scientists will eventually create an embryo of a woolly mammoth. They will place the embryo in an African elephant to take advantage of its size and allow it to give birth to the new woolly mammoth.

And in a parallel experiment, they’re also working on resurrecting the Dodo, a large flightless bird found in the Indian Ocean area up until the mid-1660’s when the last one was killed.

And on a more recent note, Colossal is also looking to do the same for the Thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf.

Hopefully this will turn out better than in the movies.

BTW Most of the dinosaurs shown in the Jurassic movies actually lived in the Late Cretaceous period, not the Jurassic.

But I guess Late Cretaceous Park just doesn’t have the same ring.

Landon’s latest 3D printing project is this dragon phone holder.

Neat!

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Thought for the Day:

In the 1940’s, Dr. William Sewell built an artificial heart using parts from an Erector Set.
And I thought I was doing pretty good to build that 3 foot tall Ferris Wheel.
But in my defense, I was only 8.

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February 1, 2010

Two Weeks From Today !!!!

The Hitch Itch is getting bad!

We plan on leaving two weeks from today on 2/15. Although it may slip a day or so due to scheduling the on-site RV Mobile Repair people to come out and change the oil / filters/ belts, etc., on the rig.

I’ve also been trying to get a bunch of things repaired / upgraded, etc., but the weather is just not cooperating.

So far, I’ve replaced a leaky water tank fill valve and a leaky water heater pressure relief valve.

I’m in the process of replacing a broken cable on our house battery bank, and painting some rust spots on the framework that holds the batteries.

I’m also going to replace my headlight bulbs and adjust the aim, lubricate my PacBrake exhaust brake, replace a leaky tire pressure sensor, fix a balky roof vent fan, install a new door strut, and about a hundred other things.

Unfortunately, it’s been rainy and/or cold for the last several weeks which has put a real crimp in things.

I had also planned to pull up the carpet in the front part of the coach and put down Allure laminate flooring. However, Home Depot decided that this was not to be. I placed my order on 1/6 and was told it would arrive on 1/15, leaving me a month to get it installed. No problem.

On 1/15 I was told it was on its way and would be here on 1/18. On 1/18 I was told that it had not really been shipped and was actually back-ordered and would not arrive until 2/10, maybe.

At best that’s only five days before we plan on leaving, and of course, it may not show up in time. If it does show up, I’ll take it with us and install it on the road. If not, there’s always next year.

Sure am glad that I didn’t go ahead and rip the carpet up before the flooring came in!

On better news, it looks like we’ll be cutting our travels short this coming year by about 2-1/2 months, and return to Houston the first part of September instead of right before Thanksgiving as usual.

The reason this is good news is that we’re doing this to try and be here for the birth of our 2nd grandchild. As I tell people, we try to have a new grandchild every 17 years or so.

And it’s working out perfectly. This one is due on September 7th, which is the same day our granddaughter Piper turns 17.

And here’s our daughter, Brandi, on the left, and our granddaughter, Piper, on the right. Although they’re often mistaken for sisters, they’re really aunt and niece, since Piper is our son Chris’ daughter.

I’m hoping for a boy, but everyone else apparently wants a girl.

My thought is that we’ve already got one of those and she turned out great.  So let’s try the other one.

But we’ll see how it works out.

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February 1, 2011

Pelicans and Moose and Bears, Oh My . . .

8 Days and Counting . . .

Well, the weather around here has just gone to the dogs, if the dogs are Alaskan sled dogs, that is.

One of the reasons we spend the winter here in Houston is because we expect warm weather, not 4 nights in a row in the low 20’s, yes, the low 20’s! With the possibility of snow on Friday.

But the cold weather did make the morning’s coffee even better. Then Jan and I spend some time going over our schedule since we plan on leaving one week from tomorrow. There’s still a lot to be done and people to get together with before we hit the road.

I spent the rest of the morning pulling up carpet in the front of the rig. It’s slow going because it’s very thick and tough, and hard to cut through, so it’s taken longer than I thought. Lucky for me though, it’s not stapled down like in some rigs.

On a different note, I collect mascots. Or at least pictures of them. We’ve seen them all over the country, and I’m always amazed at some of the paint jobs.

These pelicans are here in Seabrook, TX, right up the road from us.

This one’s really a stork, but I’m not sure why, though.

This one’s out in front of the Seabrook Hooters. I think it would be better if it were a female pelican.

These bears are in Easthampton, MA, a small town near Chicopee, MA, where Jan went to High School. These are just a few of the over 30 bears they have in the town. They even have a BearFest every year.

These moose are in Coeur d’Alene, ID.

This one looks like he’s in the habit of wandering off.

And finally, these mermaids are in Beaufort, SC where we lived in the early 1970’s when I worked for the Department of Defense.

Later we left the rig about 4 pm to pick up our granddaughter Piper and then met our friend Maria at La Brisa for dinner.

Then after that, Jan, Maria and Piper attended the visitation for Jackie Chattin, a friend of ours from the Alvin Opry who passed away this past Saturday.

More tomorrow. Our time here is growing short, and there’s still a lot to do.

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February 1, 2012

Rockport and RAM . . .

We’ve had a lot of rain the last couple of days around here. I figure though, it’s just passing through heading down to Rockport and Mission. And apparently, we’re supposed to keep getting rain though this Sunday.

This morning Jan and I had our Doctors appointments for the year, and $916 later, we’re just fine. Heck, I could have told her that for a lot less money, but this is the only way to get our prescriptions written so we don’t have much choice.

After we left the doctor’s, we stopped off at the Egg and I for breakfast about 10am. Then it was on to my client’s to check and be sure the UPS Shipping system was working OK.

Last night I had upgraded it to the 2012 version and also moved it from an XP machine to a new Win 7 machine, and I wanted to make sure it actually would ship a package. I didn’t want them to start trying to do shipments this afternoon and find out it wouldn’t work.

And I’m glad I did. There was a problem with the label printer that didn’t show up until you tried to print an actual label. But I was able to get it figured out and working OK I guess because they didn’t call me this afternoon.

Leaving there we stopped off at Wal-Mart for a few things before heading home. Or at least trying to.

When we tried to leave it was pouring down so hard you couldn’t see the cars in the parking lot.

But finally it slacked off and we headed home, for a while at least. On the way our son Chris called and we set up dinner with him, Linda, and granddaughter Piper at Mario’s up in Seabrook for about 5:30.

When we got home, I found Mister in my chair doing his best Jabba the Hutt imitation, and giving me that look that says. “WHAT?”

After dinner and a quick stop at a client’s, we went by Brandi’s to pick up the 2GB of RAM that had come in for a laptop I’m working on. After cleaning all the viruses and malware out, it was still glacially slow. Turns out it only had 640MB of RAM in it. But bumping it up to the max of 2GB really makes it run.

Today we had to get up early for 8am doctor appointments, tomorrow I have a 9am client appointment 45 minutes away, and Friday morning we have to take Brandi to the airport at 8:45.

This is getting up early is getting old quick. Stop it!

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February 1, 2013

Two Down, One to Go . . .

Catching up on Yesterday.

A couple of things arrived in the mail. One was the two extra thermal fuses that I ordered so I would have a spare in case one blows again in our washer/dryer. Ordinarily I wouldn’t worry about it since the one I bought locally cost around $18, and if I ordered one from the Splendide supplier they’re $40. But I found them through Amazon for $2.69 ea. So I ordered two.

I figured I’ll need another one sooner or later.

I also received the pair of Denso 26” wiper blades for the rig I ordered, also from Amazon. Fleetwood sells them for $40. Amazon had them for $18. Nice.

I headed out about 12:30 on an afternoon of client stuff. First stop was a client that’s still running XP on a computer I built for him in 2006. It does what he needs and he sees no reason to upgrade, but as it turns out his power supply finally gave up the ghost after 7 years.

Had a little trouble finding an ATX power supply locally, since all machines use SATA now, but I finally tracked down. I’ll deliver it on Saturday and get him up and running again, hopefully for another 7 years.

I got back to the rig a little before 4pm, just in time to pick up Jan and then our friend’s Dick and Lillis. We were taking them to our favorite local Chinese place, King Food.

You’re always nervous when you take someone to a place you’ve highly recommended, but it turns out that they liked it as much as we did.

We got home about 7:30 and then I had to turn right around and go back up to Webster to do some computer stuff for a client that can’t be done during the day when they’re working.

The big problem as usual, turned out to be upgrading the UPS shipping software. Every January they come out with the new version, and ever January it turns out to be a real pain. Something always doesn’t work right.

This time it turned to be a problem with configuring the Remote Workstations located on other computers around the office. The setup sure doesn’t work like it used to, and there’s nothing in the instructions telling me how to do it differently.

About 11pm I gave up and headed home. I’ll call UPS Tech Support tomorrow and see what the problem is.

Back to Today.

I left the rig about 11:30 for more client stuff, and some errands. On the way home I picked up some MegaMillions Lotto tickets, and mailed Jan’s fingerprint cards back to Gate Guard Services for Jan’s Security Guard License.

Then I stopped and filled up the truck and WOW!  A week and a half ago when I filled up, gas was $3.09. Now it’s $3.29.

Bummer!

Getting back to the rig, I took a look at the Day/Night shade on my side of the bedroom. And it turned out to be a simple fix. The barrel tie-downs on both sides had cracked letting the cords loose, so I was able to quickly repair things without having to restring the shade. Took me longer to take it down and put it back up than to actually fix it.

So that’s two down and one to go. Only the living room one is left.

About 5pm Jan and I headed out to meet some friends at the Kelley’s Country Cookin place in Alvin for dinner. Really good food.

Then we all headed over to the Alvin Opry for a great show. Since we’ve only got a little over two weeks left here, this will probably be our last visit for this time.

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February 1, 2014

Four Years in the Making . . .

or The Installing, as it were.

Well, I’m getting pretty sick of this. I’ve had to get up at 7 AM two days in a row. And even worse, when I came out into the living room this morning, the flooring elves had failed to appear once again. I’m not leaving out snacks for them ever again.

So it looks like my son Chris and I (mostly Chris) will have to finish up the floor today. And by ‘finish up’ I mean, finally start actually laying it down.

And yes, this project did start 4 long years ago. But it’s Home Depot’s fault. I originally ordered the flooring on 12/6/10. It was supposed to in by 12/15, leaving me two months to get it installed before we headed out for the year. But that was not to be.

The flooring finally came in on February 12th, three days before we were supposed to leave. So 2010 was out. 2011 has faded into the mists of time so I’m not sure what happened.

But 2012-2013 was going to be THE year. I was going to do the floor during all the spare time I had while we were gate guarding. But gate guarding consisted of guarding, sleeping, and eating, so that didn’t work out either.

So here it is, 2014, and today’s the day.

Here’s the first section laid out. When we’re finished, there will be a nice transition strip covering the joint between the tile and the flooring.

Since we have to start from the edge, but want to be sure that the flooring seam runs straight from front to back, we left some slack around the edges to allow us to adjust things when we had built out to the middle. But Chris did such a great job measuring, we didn’t need to adjust anything.

The Allure flooring we’re using glue strips on the each edge and one end that hold everything together. But the strips do make it kind of difficult to trial-fit pieces without them sticking together prematurely.

Right before Chris laid each strip down, I lightly wet-mopped the area with a sponge mop to pick up any last minute debris that might get under the tile.

I will come back later and fill in the area behind the pedals so the flooring will go all the way to the firewall.

Here the front section is completely done. Yaaah!

And here’s the finished product. We’ll set the two front chairs in place on Monday afternoon after I finish the area under the dashboard.

And here’s a close-up of the floor.

Chris did a great job, especially getting it all laid in one day. And I want to compliment myself on my great job as supervisor, which consisted mainly of handing him things and otherwise staying out of his way.

The reason I supervised is that one, I knew he would probably do a better job, and two, since you have to lay the strips down in a certain order, only one person can really be working on it at a time.

At least that’ my story and I’m sticking with it.

---

It’s Official!

At the upcoming 54th Escapade in Goshen, IN this coming May Jan and I will be giving our seminar on Gate Guarding entitled “Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit”.  Jan and I will be imparting much of the hard-won knowledge that we’ve accumulated gate guarding for 7 months the last two years. Hopefully we can tell you things we wish someone had told us before we started.

I don’t have the date and time yet, but I will let you know. Looking forward to seeing you there.

---

Brandi and Lowell are going to a 40th birthday party tonight for Brandi’s BFF, and the theme is The 70’s. Everyone is supposed to dress the part, and it looks like they’re ready to go.

Peace Out!

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February 1, 2015

Copters and Kisses . . .

The promised rain never materialized today. Instead it was sunny and in the mid-70’s. What’da they know.

I broke down last night and ordered a quadcopter like this one. I always need another one.

UDI U818A 2.4GHz 4 CH 6 Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter with Camera RTF Mode 2

I was surprised at how easy it was to fly, much easier than some of the small ones I have. And it was probably easier due to the fact it WAS bigger. A good bit bigger.

In fact it’s more than a foot across, and very stable. For only $61 it’s a great deal.

I had mine sent to Chris and Linda’s down in Friendswood, so we’ll be able to pick it up when we get down there Wednesday. I also ordered some extra batteries for it, so I won’t have to wait between flights.

Later in the afternoon, since the weather was still pretty clear, I decided to wash and wax the rig using my new pressure washer.

After filling the solution tank with the wash/wax concentrate, I used the high power wash to thoroughly wet down an area, then switched to the mix position to spray the wash/wax on. Then using my telescoping soft brush, I scrubbed the area down being sure not to miss any spots. Finishing up, I switched back to the high power setting and washed all the dirt and suds off,

Doing about a quarter of the rig side at a time, I worked my way around all 4 sides. The concentrate that came with the washer seems to work pretty well and doesn’t leave streaks when it dries. The shine looks pretty good, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as the Zip Wax Concentrate I’ve used before. So the next time I do the rig, I probably use the Zip Wax.

For dinner tonight, Jan fixed up a batch of her famous Nachos, made with both fresh and pickled jalapeños, to go along with our leftover Mexican from Los Cabos last week. Really, really good.

Then later, I fixed us sundaes with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla and several different kinds of chopped up Hershey’s Kisses. The perfect dessert.

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February 1, 2016

I wanted to call her Adolf . . .

We were up early this morning for a family get-together. Our son Chris was on his Yamaha bike traveling by here on his way up to Burnet to help a friend work on his house on Inks Lake.

He was stopping to drop off our granddaughter Piper’s laptop for a thorough de-lousing and de-gunking, and called about 7:30 saying he was about 30 minutes out, so a little later Jan and I drove down to the park office to meet him

While he was there, Bonnie Clegg, our next door neighbor came by while she was walking with some friends. She admired Chris’ bike, saying she used to ride too.

Before he left we asked Chris if he wanted to go back into Columbus for Schobel’s Breakfast Buffet, but he wanted to get back on the road. But since we were already up, after Chris left, we drove into Columbus by ourselves. On the way we both decided that we didn’t want a big breakfast, so we ended up at Whataburger.

Along the way we passed the Colorado County Oil lot. When were here two weeks ago we watch the diesel price drop from $1.85⁹ to $1.75⁹. And in the last two weeks it’s dropped another 10 cents a gallon down to $1.65⁹.

I thought about waiting to get here to fill-up Sunday, but I didn’t want to push it.

Then getting back to the rig, everything changed.

Bonnie was back from her walk when we got back to the rig, and she and Jan started talking about cats, and suddenly we had a new cat . . . maybe.

A couple about 50 yards away had been feeding a semi-feral kitten after the mother was killed a couple of months ago. They would bring her in occasionally, but mostly she stayed outside.

In fact our first attempt to get her into our RV resulted in Jan getting scratched and the cat heading back home across the park. But finally we got her corralled again and in the rig.

Although she panicked for a while and kept bumping her head against the windshield, eventually she settled down on the sofa next to Jan. And as the day went on, she made herself more and more at home.

The only question right now is the litter box. She’s never used one, so we keep regularly putting her in it, hoping she’ll get the idea. We’ll see.

The only question is whether she’s going to try and make break for it the first time we open the door.

I wanted to name her Adolf, but Jan said NO!

She said she had dreamed a couple of days ago that we would be getting a new cat soon, and that it would be black and white.

So we named her Karma.

We’ll see how it goes.

Our daughter Brandi is out in Scottsdale AZ for a business meeting and sent over these photos from her room’s balcony.

Must be nice!

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February 1, 2017

Two Weeks From Today . . .

Two weeks from tonight we’ll be parked back at the Colorado River Thousand Trails park in Columbus.

We’ll be there for two weeks, mainly getting our doctor stuff out of the way for the year. But we have a lot of other things we want to do and people we want to see before we leave for Tucson sometime around the 10th of March.

That is, if I’m not still stuck in the mud here. I didn’t get a chance to try moving the rig forward today, so it’s put off until tomorrow. I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple of days so I just didn’t feel like doing it today. Luckily it looks like the forecasted showers will hold off another day too.

In fact today I was so discombobulated that I left the rig this afternoon without my phone, my watch, and my wedding ring. So I keep rubbing my ring finger where it’s missing from.

I’m also missing my phone because at least I could usually get email and text, even if I can’t make phone calls. I say usually, because sometimes I get nothing for an hour or so, and then email and text are back.

And my 3G aircard is useless here. Right now it’s showing that I’m connected to a 3G signal and I have Internet access, but I can get absolutely no data of any kind through it.

However two miles south of here I show 4 bars of 4G with phone calls, data, and text. And my aircard works great. And 5 miles west of here on the actual frack pad, everything also works great.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s some sort of interference in this immediate area that’s causing the problem. I’m thinking along these lines because 3 different wireless vehicle alarm systems are also flakey, including our normally very reliable Mighty Mules. They will work fine for a while and then just quit for hours and then start up again, very similar to the phone problems.

This is one case that really makes me miss the old-fashion gas station bells that Gate Guard Services uses. They pretty much just work.

There is a large production facility across the street from us with a lot storage tanks and trailer office buildings. And there are also several 100 foot or so radio towers back behind the site, with microwave dishes on them.

And although none of the dishes point directly in our direction, a mis-tuned or leaky amplifier could be blanketing our area with enough RF radiation to overload local receivers, no matter what the frequency. If I had a spectrum analyzer I could try and track it down, but no such luck.

Anyway that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it.

When I came back in to the gate this afternoon to relieve Jan, I also had to apologize to her. When she came in at 5:30 this morning she was visibly shaken and upset. When I ask her why, she said it was so foggy that she couldn’t see the road most of the time and it scared her to death.

I told her that she should have just driven slow and easy and she’d be OK.

But when I headed back to the rig on the same path a few minutes later, I ended up ‘visibly shaken’ too, and probably scared ‘half’ to death.

You just could not see the road. But it was not from the fog directly, but due to the condition of the road. Along about 10 of the 16 miles trip, there are no road markings at all. Not center line, no edge strips, no nothing. Just asphalt.

And with the fog, there was no way to really tell where the road edge stopped and the shoulder (and the ditch) started. In some cases the only way to tell was the ride got rougher when your wheel went on the shoulder.

It took me over 50 minutes to make the normal 20 minute trip.

Sorry, sweetheart.

On final note, Jan has another admirer on the gate. A little after 6pm a guy was leaving in a company truck that I didn’t recognize, so I assume he was from the new workover rig that came in yesterday.

He asked me what happened to the cute blonde that was here earlier?

I said I sent her home, and he questioned, “She’s your wife?”

I said, “Yep, for almost 50 years now.”

“Damn, you rob the cradle?”

I said, “Nope. It was kind of the other way around.”

“So she was, what, 12 when you married her?”

And then before I could say anything, he said, “Hell, are you from Alabama?”

Before I could tell him Yes, he drove off.

I’m gonna have to keep a closer eye on that girl.

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February 1, 2018

It Didn’t Work . . .

Jan and I headed out about 2:30 on our way to meet our friend Lynn at the Texas Roadhouse over in Pasadena, but we detoured by our son Chris’ to let him pull the oil pressure sensor connector and Strike-Hold it.

While we were there we got a look at his new (OK,  old) bike project. It’s a 1998 Yamaha V-Star 650.

One thing noticeable is this piston as the gear shift knob. I assumed it was a real piston, but Chris turned it out of a solid block of aluminum on his metal lathe . . . which he also made himself.

This is his main ride, a Yamaha 1900.

Chris let the engine cool down for about 30 minutes before he took a crack at it. The biggest problem was getting the connector unlatched and off.  But once he did, he sprayed it, latched it back on, and then Jan and I headed over to Pasadena to meet Lynn.

And within a few minutes, I could tell that cleaning the connector didn’t fix the problem. So now we’re looking at the oil  pressure sensor again. Stay tuned.

Jan and Lynn worked together years (mid 80’s to early 90’s) ago at Medical Center del Oro Hospital up near the Astrodome, Since then Lynn has been in the marriage business.

As Minister Lynn Turner and Associates, she and her group of ministers travel all over to perform your wedding for you. She has some funny stories about weddings performed in prisons and other strange locations.

But my favorite story was when the groomsmen wheeled a coffin down the aisle on a hand truck, the coffin swings open and the groom steps out . . . in full Dracula regalia. Now Lynn had no idea this was going to happen, so she was wondering what the bride was going to be wearing . . . Bride of Frankenstein, maybe?

But the bride was just wearing a standard bridal gown. What’s up with that?

We had a great time seeing Lynn again and we want to do it again soon.

Coming home we made a Wal-Mart stop before getting home a little after 7pm.

Tomorrow’s kind of open since I’m not working, so we’ll see how it goes.

Before we headed out this afternoon, I set up Drop-In on our Alexa Echo and Dots. This lets us use them as intercoms between each other. It just takes a couple of minutes to configure them and also give each one a location, I.e. Bedroom, Living Room, etc.

Then you just say, “Alexa, Drop In on Bedroom” and you’re in a two-way conversation. Then when you’re done, you just say, “Alexa, stop.”

Neat!

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February 1, 2019

A Nice Long Chat . . .

My sale prices went online on the website right at midnight. Or I assume they did, since they were there a little after 1am when I checked. What didn’t work for some reason was that the banner ads did not switch over. So I had to do that manually, but that only took a couple of minutes, so no problem.

Of course we’ll see what happens when it’s all supposed to go back to normal at midnight on 1 March 2019.

I spent a good bit of the day at work adding a lot of new products to the website and the catalog, but I also got the a new hard drive installed in the webserver. Luckily I was able to hot-install it without shutting down the server. Once I get it configured I’ll use it to do regular image backups.

For dinner tonight we had our leftover El Bosque meal from yesterday. Combined with some of our own vegetables, it was almost as good as yesterday. Almost.

Tomorrow evening we’re headed up to Pearland for the 2nd Annual Tony Booth’s Birthday Bash. Tony is a long-time friend of ours from our Alvin Opry days, and we try to catch up with him when we can.

Tony has played with Buck Owens, Gene Watson, and many others, plus has had a number of charted hits over the years, as well as a number of ACM (Academy of Country Music) awards, including Most Promising Male Vocalist of The Year  in 1972.

Really looking forward to it.

Beforehand we plan on having dinner at the Monterey’s Little Mexico there in Alvin. Always good.

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February 1, 2021

Way To Go, Gwen!

This beautiful young lady is Gwen Robinson Bennet, our great (or grand) niece, depending on your predilection. She’s the granddaughter of Jan’s sister Debbie, and lives up in St. Charles, MO.

She graduated from high school on Wednesday, Jan. 13th, and started college the next day. A very smart young lady.

Over the years we’ve watched her grow up, from a little cutie like this,

well, two cuties above.

To this,

and this.

Congratulations, Gwen!

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February 1, 2022

Just The Bear Facts . . .

Well, we got our Grimaldi’s fix today and it was just as delicious as always. And we got a bonus.

We started out with a small Spinach Salad,

with Baby Spinach, Red Onions, Cherry Tomatoes, Bacon, Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese and Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing. Really good.

One note about Grimaldi’s salads, unless there’s more than four of you, don’t order a large salad. The small one will easily feed four people, or two servings each, in our case.

We ordered a medium, or 16” The Don pizza, which comes with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, and Meatballs. To which we added Bacon, Mushrooms, and Jalapenos.

The bonus I mentioned is that though we ordered the 16” size, we were served the 18” size by mistake. One of the managers bought it out and told us about the mistake, and that of course we would still only be charged for the 16” one. Nice.

She also told us to let her know if the crust was too blackened on the edges. We told that wasn’t possible, and it would be fine. And it was.

In fact the burnt/blackened edges are what makes the pizza crust so good. We never have any pizza ‘bones’ left over.

And even better, we had half the pizza left over for tomorrow’s supper.

Finishing up, we shared a slice of their Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake.

Really, really, really good.

So good in fact that as your forks are dueling over the last bites, you seriously regret sharing the slice to start with. It was that good.

One caveat about visiting a Grimaldi’s in the afternoon, it’s probably a good idea to call ahead and find out when they restoke their oven. As I’ve mentioned before, Grimaldi’s ovens are coal-fired, and must be shut down for an hour every day to clean out the cinders and then add fresh coal and restart them.

Seems like every Grimaldi’s does this at a slightly different time, in our case it was 2:45 to 3:45. But if you get there at the wrong time, you may have a wait.

But it will be worth it.

Afterwards we made a WalMart stop, and coming out, we saw this guy. Don’t know if he was getting a jump on Valentine’s Day, or had really screwed up and was trying to dig himself out of the mess he’d gotten into.

Hope it worked out for him.