Our RV Adventures

Tomorrow morning Jan and I are heading to Houston to first have lunch at the Katz’s Deli in the Montrose area.

Katz’s is our go-to place on Houston trips and is known for their Reuben’s. This one, the Klassic, is their medium one.

The biggest one, the NYC, is a lot bigger.

Plus they have great soups and pastries as well.

YUMM!

Then after which we’ll head on over to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to take in the King Tut’s Tomb Discovery Experience.

We’re really looking forward to both.

And of course no blog about King Tut would be complete with Steve Martins’ SNL video.

More tomorrow from the tomb.

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Thought for the Day:

What does not kill you . . . can sometimes damage you QUITE severely.

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February 22, 2010

Desolate charm…

This morning we left Saddleback Mtn RV Park about 10:30am heading for Las Cruces.

This is a nice little park in the middle of nowhere, but it does have its desolate charm.

Even Mister was unable to find much of interest.

Note that Mister is dragging his lease behind him. Most parks have a rule that all pets must be on a leash. I haven’t found one yet that requires someone to be holding that leash!

I did have to take time this morning to add air to my left inside real dual. It has a slow leak, but I’m not yet sure if it’s the tire, the extension, or the screw-on pressure sensor. I swapped the sensors around to see.

Normally driving in West Texas is fun due to the speed limits out here.

But since we usually cruise along at 55 mph, it’s not much fun now.

About noon we stopped at a Wendy’s in Van Horn, TX. Not as good as yesterday’s BBQ, but when you’re trying to find a place to park 63 feet of rig and toad, you can’t always be too picky.

And a few minutes after leaving Van Horn, we entered the Mountain Time Zone. In a couple of weeks we will be in the Pacific Time Zone after we leave Yuma.

Passing thru El Paso, we stopped on the far side at a Flying J to fill up with diesel. All these hills really eat up the mpg. 129 gallons of diesel cost me $360.

We arrived at the Las Cruces KOA about 3:30 and got set up. Although it’s not cheap, we always stay here due to the great view.

About 5pm we drove down to Old Mesilla to have dinner at La Posta, one of our absolute favorite Mexican restaurants. La Posta has been a restaurant since 1939, and before that, it was a Butterfield Stage Depot, with an interesting history.

While we were in La Posta, it started raining really hard, but had stopped by the time we left. But the weather won’t improve while we’re here. Tomorrow we supposed to have a high of 45 and a low of 27, with SNOW!

Just what we need.

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February 22, 2011

Gevalia and Gambel’s Quail . . .

We started today with some of the great Gevalia Cinnamon coffee that our friend Gina gave us a year or so ago. I thought we had used it all, but I found one last box in the back of the cabinet. And since it was still vacuum-sealed, it was still fresh.

Next I called my client Kim to tell her that I’d come up with a kludge to get all her phones working again. This doesn’t fix the real problem, but it does get the pressure off, and means that I won’t have to go back to Houston to get things working. The only problem will come when they have to add more computers and phones as the business grows. And since they’re just getting started, hopefully that will be a little while, at least long enough for me to fix the problem. I do have an idea, but I need to check with the VOIP company first.

When I went outside I got this shot of this Gambel’s Quail running around behind the rig. When I first saw them at a distance I thought they were roadrunners, but when I zoomed in I saw the difference.

A roadrunner looks like this,

or even this.

About 11am I called American Coach to check about drilling a hole in the floor next to the driver’s seat. I need to bring in a 2nd cable for our new DVR and figured the best way was to come up from the compartment right underneath. They said there should be no problem. I’ll get to it in the next few days. Right now I’m just coming in the driver’s window and using a piece of pipe insulation to seal it.

Next I got back to pulling up the carpet under and around the computer area. It’s a real pain in the rear getting up all the staples around the edges.

About 12:30 we headed out to our other favorite restaurant here in Gila Bend, the Space Age Restaurant. Originally built in the 1960’s, the owner owned copper and manganese mines, and a plastics company, that all supplied materials for NASA. So he was really enamored with the space program. So when he built a motel/restaurant it had a space theme.

It’s even got a flying saucer.

Our next stop was the local hardware store  where I found a air deflector for the AC vents in the bedroom. 

The way vents are now the air blows directly down on us in the bed. I’d been looking for deflectors, but could never find the right size. However these are adjustable in length so they fit perfectly and are held on by magnets. We’ll have to see if the magnets will hold while we’re on the road.

Getting back to the park, we stopped off at the gift shop/gas station to check their souvenirs. I also wanted to take a look at the two old tractors they have out front.

This one’s a John Deere, of course, but something I’ve never seen before

are these bolt-on rubber tire covers.

The second one is a McCormick-Deering, but the placard says it was made by International Harvester in Chicago IL.

Looking at these wheels makes me wonder if the John Deere above was originally like this, but then the metal teeth were replaced with the rubber covers. It would be a real problem to drive it on the highway like this.

After talking to another client about a keyboard problem he was having with his laptop, we called our daughter Brandi to get the lowdown on Master Landon’s 6 month check up yesterday. Apparently everything was fine, and he won’t need another one for 3 months.

A little later I took down the curtains on the passenger side of the windshield to wash them. I noticed the other day that they were kind of dusty and this seemed to be a good time to take care of that.

A little after 4pm I drove over to the Elks Lodge to double check on my initiation on March 1st.

Then it was back to carpet pulling. Tomorrow I should be ready to pull up the driver’s chair to get the carpet under it. We’ll see.

For dinner Jan fixed up the last of yesterday’s hot dogs that I had grilled up. Still good.

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February 22, 2012

A Real Head Sweater . . .

After a nice, quiet morning of coffee and some of the delicious muffins that Jan and Gina baked last week, we headed out about 1 pm for an afternoon of errands and dinner.

Our first stop was the Sam’s Club pharmacy to pick up a new prescription for Jan. Her doctor had changed one of hers and sent it into the Sam’s near our house in Friendswood. Unfortunately they went ahead and filled it and called to say it was waiting for her . . . in Friendswood.

So I called the Friendswood Sam’s and had them unfill the prescription so it would show back up in the system, and then called the Las Cruces Sam’s and had it filled here.

Leaving Sam’s we called our friend’s Al & Adrienne in Tucson to let them know we’ll be there tomorrow night and set up a time to meet at Poco & Mom’s for dinner.

Then, because it had been more than 4 days, Jan was starting to suffer from Wal-Mart withdrawal, so that was our next stop. Hopefully she can hold out again until we’re in Yuma this coming Sunday.

Next up was a stop at Supercuts so Jan could get her hair cut. Then it was back to the rig to drop off our groceries and take it easy for a while.

Leaving the rig about 4 pm, we first drove over to a nearby Valero to check on fueling up with diesel tomorrow morning as we’re on our way to Tucson.

In the past, we’ve fueled up at the Bowlin’s Akela Flats store where we always stop on our way west, but I called this morning to check their diesel price since it didn’t show up in GasBuddy. And I’m glad I did.

Their diesel is $4.099, but I can get here in Las Cruces for about 3.839. Big difference when I’m taking on about 100 gallons.

Looks like I’ll have no problem getting in and out of the Valero and then we’ll hook up the toad at a vacant lot right down the block.

Next up was dinner at El Comedor, our other favorite restaurant here in Las Cruces, besides La Posta.

One of the things we both like about New Mexico Mex is their use of Green Chiles in their dishes, and El Comedor does it up right. Really hot, and really flavorful.

In fact we both agreed that we enjoyed our meal here tonight better than at La Posta last night. It just had more favor. And their salsa is really hot, hot enough that, along with their green chili sauce, really makes my bald head sweat. And my nose run. My indicators of a really good meal.

And the Tres Leches we split for dessert was really good, too.

On another note, my oil leak appears to be gone. I noticed I had a leak just after we got back to Houston in November, but since it seemed to be dripping down from the vicinity of the oil filter, I was hoping it was filter-related.

When the guy from RV Mobile Lube changed the filter out last month, he said it was wet around the filter, but he didn’t see any problem with the the seal, or the filter itself.

So I decided to cross my fingers and wait and see. So far I’ve checked every time we’ve parked , and no leak. But still keeping my fingers crossed.

Tomorrow we’ve got about 250 miles to Tucson for one night, hopefully staying at the Pima County Fairgrounds where we stayed last year.

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February 22, 2013

Deer and Diodes . . .

After our morning coffee (Texas Pecan), Jan and I headed over to Gina’s for the day. A little later I drove over to the Subway to pick up breakfast sandwiches for everyone. (Black Forest Ham, Egg, and Cheese on 7 Grain Honey Oat)

Then it was back to the rig for me and back to work on my To-Do List. First up was to finish my taillight upgrade. I was rewiring them to use separate bulbs for towing, rather than using the regular bulbs through steering diodes, which made them dimmer.

So after installing the new bulb socket in the other lens, I installed the bulbs in the sockets and wired it up. This was easy because I was able to just unplug my steering diode assemblies and then plug the wires into the new sockets.

I used a 12v power supply to feed voltage into the wiring harness plug at the front of the truck and found that everything was working fine. So I buttoned it all back up and the job was done. Another checkmark on my list.

Next up I took down and cleaned the AC filters and the exhaust fan screens to get rid of all the dust and cat hair that had accumulated. About this time I noticed some deer around so I put out some food for them. And they really seem to like the Creep Feed.

I even had one that would come up to me and eat out of the bucket in my hand.

Then I replaced the 12v socket in the bedroom with a new one like I did up front yesterday, since that one was also a little flakey.

Last up I spent some time going around oiling all the squeaking cabinet hinges that have accumulated recently. It’s certainly a lot quieter now.

About 5 I headed back over to Gina’s for a while. She didn’t really feel like going out, so about 7:30 Jan and I drove over to Milagro’s, a local Tex-Mex place that has probably the best chips I’ve ever eaten. Can’t really describe what’s different about them, but they sure are good. And so’s their salsa.

For dinner Jan and I both had their Taco Salads with Ground Beef. For the dressing Jan just used salsa, but I always get their Blackberry Habanero dressing. Again, really, really good.

Tomorrow, Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are coming up from Houston to spend the weekend here, so we can all get together. Hopefully we can make it over to Salt Lick BBQ while they’re here.

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February 22, 2014

Oil and Eggs . . .

More chores this morning.

First up, I got my Sears Air Compressor out and topped off the rig and the truck tires.

Before I got this, I would have to crank up the rig engine and tap into the air brake line to air them up, but now this one works fine and is a lot easier to use. If you get one, be sure to get the 150 psi model, not the 125. The 125psi will not air up big rig tires.

About 10:30 Jan and I headed into Webster to have another ‘last meal’, this one at King Food, our favorite local Chinese restaurant, a place we’ve been eating at for over 35 years. We’re on our 4th owner.

After a really good lunch, we headed over to our son Chris’ house to pick up his floor dolly. I want to take it with me when we leave on Monday because I need to pull our washer/dryer out of the cabinet to reconnect the vent hose to the outside vent. It’s apparently come loose and is just venting the heat and lint into the rig. The floor dolly is the perfect height to pull the unit out on and roll it aside. I’ll get the dolly back to Chris before we leave the area in the next 6 weeks.

Then it was off to a client’s house to drop off the external HD I set up the other day and pick up a check. Heading home we made a quick stop at Kroger’s on the way to pick up a few things and buy some lottery tickets.

Then it was back to ‘getting ready to roll’ chores. I started packing away things in the basement and also the truck. Then I topped off the rig coolant, and windshield washer fluid. The rig oil was a quart low but when I went to top it off, I found I was out of Shell Rotella 15W40 diesel oil, so I’ll run down to Wal-Mart later and pick some up.

Tomorrow morning we’re meeting our friends Bob and Maria for breakfast at The Egg & I about 10. Then back home, I’ll crank up the rig, raise the levelers, and get us up on the airbags. This is my normal procedure when we’ve been parked this long.

I will add one new thing and that is to bring the slide in and then run it back out, just to be sure there’s not a problem with the new flooring. I don’t expect one, but better to know now than Monday morning when we’re ready to leave..

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February 22, 2015

Great Times with Old Friends . . .

Although the forecast was for clouds and rain today, it started out warm and sunny. In fact by noon we had the AC’s on. So I was outside working on my chore list.

First up, I got back on my headlights. I removed the old passenger side unit, replaced the clear turn signal bulbs with amber ones, and then installed the new one. Again, easy posy.

Then I removed the new unit Chris and I installed yesterday so I could replace the clear bulbs with amber ones on that one too. But the reinstall was anything but easy posy. I’m not sure why, but it was a real pain in the butt to get it lined up and tightened down correctly. But finally, all of a sudden, it just worked. Going to be interesting to see what it looks like tonight with both lights installed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working down my list, trying to catch up for lost time due to all the bad weather. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the weather is going to allow me to get some paint on the rig bumper, but we’ll see. I may be able to do it on the way to Tucson. Weather-wise, it looks like Las Cruces might be a possibility.

About 4:15 Jan and I headed up to Webster to have dinner at Zio’s with our long-time friends, Bob and Maria.

We’ve known them since the mid-80’s, and as I said, they’re pretty much our oldest living friends.

We had a lot of catching up to do, even though we just saw each other 6 or 8 months ago. So much catching up, in fact, that we were at the restaurant for a little over 3 hours, not getting back home until about 8:15. Of course we’ll get together again when we come back through here in August.

Coming home, the new headlights performed great. I still need to touch up the alignment, but really it’s not that bad now.

Tomorrow morning Jan and I have our annual physical checkups and then we’ll be done with all the medical stuff for this year.

We hope.

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February 22, 2016

A Little Progress . . .

I slept in this morning, until about 11:30, since we didn’t plan to walk today. I still haven’t been able to completely shake this stomach crud that’s bedeviled me for the last few days. No cough or sniffles, no runny nose or sneezing, just a queasy stomach and no real appetite, but it comes and goes. Yesterday I felt OK, but today not so much.

But life goes on and I need to get the washer fixed, so about 2:30 I drove into Conroe to a appliance parts place to see what they had in the way of replacement drain pumps.

The counter guy brought out several for us to look at and compare with my old pump that I brought with me. Finally he came out with this one.

Looking it over, it had real possibilities. First off, the electrical connections were identical and would plug right in with no problems. But the hose connections were a little more problematic in that they weren’t the same size as the original, both input and output being larger. And the input connection comes out the end rather than the side.

But while trying to decide if it was worth buying and trying to make it work, the guy said something that sealed the deal for.

‘It’s free.”

It was from a special order European washer that was damaged in shipment and was not sold, so they parted it out. But while removing the pump, they broke off a piece of the mounting plate, so it couldn’t be sold anyway. He said he kept meaning to throw it away so it was my lucky day.

Getting back home I did put 120vac to it to confirm it runs, and then stuck it in a bowl of water to be sure it pumped. With both these tests passed, now I’ve got to figure out a way to mount it and hook it up. But that’s for tomorrow.

So far, Jan’s Facebook account still has not been re-activated. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a repeat of the short blog I posted earlier today.

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Gone From Facebook ?!

Our regular Facebook friends know that a week or so ago, an imposter account under the name Janice White was created, using my photo and info, and then started sending out friend requests to my already-friends.

And about 15 or so of you responded.

At that point, I, and several others, reported the bogus account as an imposter.

FYI, you do this by going to the bogus account profile. This is where all the biographical info is displayed. Then locate the Message box on the right side of the screen, just to the right of the Like button.

Next click on the Gear symbol dropdown and select Report Page and then just follow the prompts to select the reason for the report.

So last night, Facebook, in their infinite wisdom, disabled MY account, not the imposter one. Or maybe they disabled both. I don’t know since I can no longer log into Facebook,

I’ve send them several emails responding to their telling me my account was disabled. Hopefully they will get this straightened out soon.

Could any of you still on Facebook search for a Janice White account using my picture and let me know if it’s still available.

Thanks,

Jan (not Janice) White

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Right after I posted yesterday’s blog last night, I went to Facebook to post it there and found Jan’s Facebook account disabled.

I have now written several emails to Facebook with no answer yet. Several others have confirmed that the imposter account under the name of Janice White is still online. So if you have time I would appreciate you searching for the Janice White account under the Find Friends tab and reporting it as bogus. Note that this will not be in your friend’s list, but where you search for new friends.The way to tell it’s the correct one is that it will have Jan’s picture in her red patterned dress, which they copied off the original site.

Thanks.

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February 22, 2017

Routing Our Way. . .

Jan and I started talking this morning about our upcoming travels, so my checklist got put aside for the day so we could plot out our route, or at least get a better handle on it.

Jan and I both had seen someone’s post on FB about how they weren’t able to get in the Las Vegas Thousand Trails in the upcoming months. So our first step was to book us there for two weeks starting April 8th. And luckily, we had no problem.

At least not there.

Next we tried to book the two weeks before Vegas at one of our favorite parks, one we’ve never had trouble getting into, Verde Valley. But of course now we had problems.

They were totally booked from the 3/25 to 4/08, so that was out., But of course I had a backup plan, and that was the Countryside Encore RV park in Apache Junction, where we’ve stayed a number of times before. But not this time.

This time I ran into something I had not encountered before. We would be going from the Voyager Encore park in Tucson to Countryside, and we quickly  found out we can’t do that.

Voyager, Countryside, as well as the Golden Sun Encore park,  also in Apache Junction, are all considered ‘one’ park, so you can not go directly one to another without a week out. News to us.

So now we’re booked into the Santa Fe RV park, also in Apache Junction, for  two weeks under Passport America. We’ve stayed here before and found it a very nice park.

After Vegas we’ve got a week booked at Soledad Canyon north of Los Angeles. It’s been a few years since we’ve done LA, and we’re looking forward to it again.

After that we’ll head north up I-5 working our way toward two weeks at the Bend/Sunriver Thousand Trails. I had planned for us to spend one night at the Turtle Beach Fish Camp TT along the way, but they didn’t have an opening. So I’ll keep checking back or we’ll just find a park along the way.

We don’t yet have the rest quite nailed down yet, but we’ll be back at Colorado River again starting June 25th, just in time for our big family reunion.

Jan and I have been catching up on TV shows that we recorded while we were gate guarding. And one of those is Grimm.

We’re about halfway through the last season of 13 shows, and we’re really going to miss it. It’s a great show, with both great writing and effects, and it will be interesting to see how they wrap it up.

Tomorrow we’re heading down to Pearland to have lunch with Bonnie, a former co-worker of Jan’s, and then stop by at our daughter Brandi’s for some Amazon packages.

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February 22, 2018

A Busy Weekend . . .

I went into work today, not my usual schedule, because I’m taking off tomorrow so we can doggy-sit for Brandi’s canines up in Katy.

After I got home about 4:15, we headed back out about 4:45pm to meet Chris and Linda at our nearby favorite Pho 20 for dinner.

Turns out they liked it as much as we do, especially the House Crunch Salad with Miso Dressing and Tempura Crunchies.

It’s Chris’ new favorite.

Jan and I both got salads, while she got the Orange Chicken and I got a bowl of their delicious Won Ton Soup.

Chris and Linda split a Crunch Salad, an order of Sesame Chicken and an order of the Shrimp Spring Rolls.

All delicious.

As I mentioned, the upcoming weekend will be a busy one. Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading up to Brandi’s in Katy, We’ll be taking care of Miss Kitty and Baxter while Brandi et. all, are up in the Dallas area spending the the weekend at Great Wolf Lodge.

Then Saturday afternoon we’ll come back down here so Jan can attend her yearly Coding Coworker’s get-together. This is a group of Jan’s former coworkers that have gotten together every year since we started RV’ing in 2008. Sometimes they meet at a local restaurant, but this year they’re meeting at someone’s home, with everyone bringing a dish or two.

Then while Jan’s is partying, I’ll swing back by the rig to take care of Miss Karma and then grab a big bowl of Hot & Sour Soup for dinner before picking up Jan. Then it’s back up to Katy for the night. Wrapping up, Sunday it’s back down here.

Like I said, a busy weekend.

One other thing I’ll be doing this weekend is setting up a new laptop for a friend. She had it sent to Brandi’s so it will be waiting for me.

It’s a Dell Inspiron 15” Touchscreen, a really nice machine for only a little over $500. A really good deal if you’re in the market for a laptop.

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February 22, 2019

No Schlepping . . .

Although I read that we would not be receiving the flight details for our cruise until about April 5th, I came across our flight info while I was poking around our entry on MyVikingJourney.com

Turns out that we’re leaving IAH (Bush Intercontinental) on KLM  Airlines flight #662 at 3pm on April 26th. Really like the 3pm part. We’ll have a 9 hour 15 minute flight direct to Amsterdam, then a 1 hour 35 minute layover before we take a 1 hour 55 minute flight to Budapest.

But when I checked our flight home, I found a problem. We were still booked as coming home directly from Amsterdam on May 15th, and not from London on the 24th.

So I sent off an email to our friend/travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, to check it out for us. She got back to me later in the morning, saying she had talked to Viking and they had corrected the problem, but that it would be about 72 hours before our online info is updated.

And not only do we have our flight info, but we also have our seats reserved. And as we’ve done in the past, we booked aisle seats across from each. That way we only have a person on one side of us, and we can easily talk across the aisle.

Later I went ahead and gang-booked the 13 Included Excursions on our trip, and then while I was at work I printed out listings of the 45 optional (Extra Cost) excursion possibilities. These range in price from $49/person for a tour of Vienna’s Historic Farmer’s Market, led by a Viking chef, or a tour of Budapest’s Grand Market Hall, up to $399/person for a Flightseeing tour over Austria and Germany, with sights like the Austrian Alps, and Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest Retreat, a remote mountain top chalet.

So now we’re checking these out to see if any catch our eye. One thing nice that Viking does is to flag any of the optional tours that conflict time-wise with our all-ready booked Included ones. Makes it a lot easier to figure out the scheduling.

Another thing I had Chantelle check on the other day was to see if we could get a tour of Highclere Castle, the real ‘Downton Abbey’.

Jan’s a big fan so I was hoping to get us on a tour, but unfortunately, the available ones in May are either while we’re on the cruise itself, or after we’re back in the States. Bummer!

Chantelle has been great with this, holding our hands the whole way. So if you need help with your travel plans, give her a call at 713.494.2555 or check her out at the link above.

I’ve also gotten the names of several limo services to see about getting a towncar from the RV park here in Santa Fe to IAH and then back home when we return. Chantelle gave me one she uses, and one that Brandi uses, and I’ve got another local to compare.

We want to leave the truck here at the rig, so it doesn’t look like we’ve completely abandoned the place, as well as just not have the hassle of parking and schlepping our bags around at the airport.

Tomorrow evening Jan has her annual get-together with her former hospital co-workers, this time at the Delta Blues Smokehouse in Webster. They’ve done this every year since we hit the road, and it’s always a lot of fun for everyone.

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February 22, 2020

Old Friends and Good Times . . .

I spent most of today trying to transfer several terabytes of data from my old computer over to my new one.

I had originally planned to use my 4TB Portable External HD to just transfer it all over at once. But the old computer will no longer recognize the drive. However the new computer has no problems with it, so it’s not the drive.

So I’m reduced to moving the data over 128GB at a time on a flashdrive. Slowly but surely.

Jan had her former coworker get-together this evening at King Food. Every year they have it at a different restaurant, or occasionally at someone’s home.

Last year it was at Delta Blues BBQ and next year it will be at La Brisa Mexican Restaurant.

They started having this gathering in 2009 after we returned to Houston from our first year of RV’ing, and it’s been going on every year since. A nice group of ladies.

As if the Iowa Caucus software debacle wasn’t enough, MIT has found that a mobile voting program called Voatz, and used in a number of different states since the 2016 election, is easily hacked, allowing votes to be exposed, changed, or deleted.

MIT Finds Hackers Can Change Votes in Voting App Used in U.S. Federal Elections

Again, what part of paper and pencil don’t they understand?

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February 22, 2021

Catching Up . . .

Things are looking up in the refund department. Last night a deposit showed up in my credit card account from Holland America as a refund of the deposit on our cruise that was supposed to go in mid-May. It was for more than the minimum I thought I’d get back, but not all of it. But I can’t figure how they came up with the amount they sent.

And after a serious talk with the hotel manager at the La Quinta where we stayed for 4 nights during the Big Freeze, I got a refund of the $152+ that I was overcharged on our stay. It only took a slight mention of the State Attorney General, price gouging during a State of Emergency, and a stern letter to Wyndham Corporate offices, but that got it done.

It looks like Amazon’s starting to catch up with their deliveries. A number of my orders that should have been here last week, but as of last night were scheduled for this Thursday, suddenly showed up this afternoon. Hopefully the rest of my orders will also appear posthaste.

Last Monday afternoon when we filled up with gas at the Texas City Buc-ee’s, I was surprised that the gas pump still worked, even though it was covered in a 1/4” layer of solid ice.

Well, at least everything worked up until I asked for a receipt and the printer went ‘Gurgle, Gurgle, Clunk!” and then died. Hopefully it worked better after it thawed out.

Regular readers know how much Jan and I like Van Gogh and his paintings. Well I came across this tribute to Van Gogh done with drones flying in formation.

600 of them flying in patterns make up the show.

You can read more about it here.

Hundreds of drones took Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ to the skies

Check it out.

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February 22, 2022

Taking A Snooze . . .

After a nice, quiet morning Jan and I were on our way up to Webster to have brunch at Snooze once again.

Jan got her usual favorite, the Bravocado Toast,

and we split an order of their ‘Bacon But Different’. There originally were three pieces here, but Jan got her share before I could even get a photo.

This bacon is made from slices of tender belly bacon, rubbed with brown sugar, cayenne, chili flakes, and then drizzled with black peppered maple syrup. Really, really good.

I decided to try their 3 egg Omelet with Jack cheese, Ham, and Sausage.

In another universe, this would have been a really good omelet. But I’ve been spoiled by Denny’s Ultimate Omelets that look like this.

Then after lunch, we made a Lowe’s stop for a shelf board for a rig project I’ll talk about later, and then a Big Lots visit for some of the Hemp lotion Jan likes, that they have cheap.

Then it was home for the night, where I brought in the newest residents to Jan’s Flamingo Flamboyance from the Jeep.

When we were at Costco the other day, we found this pair, and at a great price, too.

They’re life-sized, all metal, with individual feathers, and very well made. I was interested to see that these are actually a Costco product and not from some 3rd party. They’ll be a great addition to the flock.

And probably the last, since the Flamboyance is starting to get a little crowded now.

And even Karma thinks they’re a good idea. Or at least she approves of the box they came in.

As I mentioned before, Karma was never a box cat until very recently. And now she has a small box lined with a towel that she lays in a few times a week.

But today she immediately crawled into the Flamingo box and settled down for a nap.

Strange Cat!

Lunch today was at Los Rameriz Mexican with both of us getting the Pechuga Rellena, a large grilled chicken breast on a bed of grilled broccoli and shrimp, and covered with melted cheese.

It normally also comes on a bed of rice, but we have them leave that off. And along with the salad, it also comes with half a sliced avocado, which mysteriously immediately makes its way to Jan’s plate.

Really, really good.

Then it was on over to WalMart to get our weekly WalMart stuff, and then home for the day.

Jan and I were talking the other night about Young Sheldon and how it’s going to connect with The Big Bang Theory, its predecessor.

Of course if you don’t watch YS or watched TBBT, this will all mean nothing to you.

But if not, here goes.

YS is coming to the point where George, Sheldon’s father is supposed to die from a heart attack, predicted for either the last episode of this season, or the first one of next season. This is kind of written in stone. But the fact that George is supposed to have a affair with his next door neighbor, Brenda hasn’t materialized yet.

Plus a lot of things mentioned in TBBT don’t fit at all with YS.

Like George keeping a bottle of ‘driving whiskey’ in his pickup truck.

No ‘driving whisky’ and no pickup truck.

Mary put ground glass in George’s chewing tobacco.

No ground glass and no chewing tobacco.

His mother Mary, staying with Sheldon in Germany while he was guest teaching, had to leave him to go back to Texas because a tornado blew their trailer house off the blocks.

No trailer house

So a lot of viewers, including Jan and I, are wondering how they’re going to reconcile all this.

In addition, in TBBT the grown-up Georgie mentions nothing about having a child, so some viewers wonder if something happens to Mandy and the baby in childbirth.

And finally, how does young Sheldon go from being the only slightly strange kid in YS to become the OCD/Autistic adult Sheldon in TBBT.

It seems some viewers don’t want YS to go as dark as it seems to be going, and want YS to ignore TBBT and just pretend it never happened.

We’ll see, I guess.

---

Thought For The Day:

Ignorance is bliss. Until it kills you.

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February 21, 2010

90,000 and counting…

Today was a big day in our rig “Beauty’s” life.

At 11:16 this morning, traveling between Canyon Lake, TX and Balmorhea, TX, our “Beauty’ turned 90,000…miles, that is.

She had 62,512 miles when we bought here, so, in the last 2+ years we traveled over 27,000 miles. Not bad for beginners.

We left Lake Pointe RV Resort this morning about 9:00am, heading toward a stop-over tonight at Saddleback Mountain RV Park.

About noon, we stopped for lunch in Junction, TX. We parked at a Valero Truck Stop and drawn by the wonderful smell, we ended up at Cooper’s BBQ across the street.

And boy was it good. Jan had a rib plate with beans and potato salad, and I had a rib and jalapeno sausage plate with beans and potato salad. We split a peach cobbler for dessert. Really, really good BBQ. You know that the place was going to be good, since they cook their meat in an outside pit, surrounded by a large stack of wood.

It’s always interesting driving thru West Texas, despite what some people say. Along the way today, we saw wild goats, wild sheep, wild pigs, llamas, and a zebra. All without leaving the highway. And, of course, last week we saw camels, donkeys, and buffalo.

We pulled into the RV park about 5:30pm and got set up. There’s not much to it, but it is cheap ($10), quiet, level, and convenient to I-10. Just what we want for an overnight stay.

Tomorrow we’ll head out for Las Cruces, NM for a couple of days.

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February 21, 2011

Hot Dog!

Jan and I slept in this morning enjoying the cool temperatures so we didn’t get up until about 10am, to find a call from our daughter Brandi waiting for us. Yesterday was Landon’s 6 month birthday, and today is his 6 month checkup.

Brandi laughingly wanted to know if Jan could babysit Landon this Saturday. Sure, I mean it’s only 1250 miles back to Houston. No problem.

Though I think Jan would do it, just to get some Landon time.

After fixing coffee, I caught up on some computer work, while Jan read her new Janet Evanovich book. Then about 10:30 I got a call from the client that I did that one last job for right before we left Houston. And she had a problem.

All of her phones quit working this morning. They worked just fine on Friday, but when she came in this morning they quit working … one at a time.

I spent a good while on the phone with the VOIP company Tech Support guy with no luck. He didn’t know what the problem was, he just knew it wasn’t his companies fault. He kept wanted to blame our routers, but he couldn’t answer my question about why it worked for two weeks and then went down one phone at a time.

I guess tomorrow I’ll be spending more time on the phone, this time with AT&T.

About noon Jan fixed a lunch of sandwiches and chips, then I went out and pulled out our Weber Q200 grill from the bay.

Our kids gave it to us for Christmas in 2007 right before we hit the road. We haven’t used it as much as we should have, but Jan had a hankering for hot dogs this evening so I wanted to be sure the the grill worked and had enough LP gas in the bottle.

After being sure the grill was working, I made a run into Gila Bend to the hardware store and the NAPA auto parts store. I was looking for a 3/4 wrench to make it easier to remove the rig seats to get at the carpet underneath them. I was also looking for a set of small snap ring pliers to let me disassemble our electric heaters to clean the dust and cat hair out of them.

Getting back to the rig I pulled the passenger chair and starting ripping up the carpet. It was slow going due to all the staples they used in the corners, but I did make some headway.

About 4:30 I started up the grill while Jan had already started the baked beans.

I grilled the hot dogs and the buns on the Weber and they both came out great. So about 5 we sat down to delicious hot dogs, beans, and chips.

Then after supper I did a little more on the carpet and then fixed evening coffee.

Tomorrow, more work on the carpet.

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February 21, 2012

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, . . .

After a quiet night at Saddleback Mountain RV Park, and coffee and muffins this morning, we headed out about 10 am for Las Cruces, 240 miles away.

75 miles later, a little past Van Horn, we entered Mountain Standard Time, and our trip suddenly became an hour shorter

Even going through El Paso was pretty uneventful, except for the usual idiots cutting in front of me. I was tempted to air-horn a couple of them, but I’ve noticed that they tend to swerve and change several lanes at one time when I do that. But it is fun to think about.

We pulled into Las Cruces and the Coachlight RV Park about 1:15. While I was unhooking, the owner came by and we talked a few minutes. Then he said that I sounded more like someone from Alabama than someone from South Dakota.

I laughed and said I has born in Birmingham and grew up in Gulf Shores and Athens. He said he learned to fly choppers at Ft. Rucker and spent 20 years in the Army.

We got parked and set up, and just rested up for a while. Then about 4:30 Jan and I drove over to La Posta de Mesilla, one of our all-time favorite Mexican restaurants. Housed in a building that was once a Butterfield Stage stop, I first ate at La Posta back in the early 80’s when I was out here at the White Sands Test Facility working on Space Shuttle stuff.

Then in 2007 I got to bring Jan here for the first time when we came through Las Cruces in our rental Class C on our first RV trip.

And now we eat here every time we come through. Really good food.

On another note, I had something nice but strange happen with my HP laptop the other day. Some time after I bought it in late 2008, the touchpad quit working. It wasn’t a real problem since I just plug in a mouse most of the time anyway. But it bugged me anyway.

Thinking it might be a driver problem, I uninstalled the old ones, downloaded new ones, and reinstalled them with no luck. In fact I tried this several times, and finally gave up and just used the mouse.

Then a few days ago I was installing some Microsoft updates and noticed one of them was from HP for the touchpad. Later, after the updates were installed and the laptop rebooted, I thought to check the touchpad, and lo and behold, it now worked! Strange and bizarre.

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February 21, 2013

Subs and Biscuits . . .

We got over to Gina’s about 9:30 after Jan had fed the deer here at the park. Then about noon I drove over to the Subway to pick us up some sandwiches for lunch. Later, coming back to the rig, I got back on my rig To-Do list.

One of the things I did was replace on of the 12 volt sockets on the dashboard. This one, the one that powers my Brake Buddy Alert Receiver when we travel, had become flakey and intermittent. Luckily I found one at an auto parts store that was a direct replacement so it pretty much just plugged right in.

Later I started changing the way my truck taillights are powered from the rig when we are towing it. Originally I set it up so that the normal truck lights were powered directly by the rig through steering diodes. But the voltage drop across the diodes dimmed the taillights somewhat, even when the truck was not being towed.

So after checking out my taillight lenses to see if I had enough room, I decided to add separate new sockets and bulbs to the lenses.

Here’s how it looked before I started.

And here’s how it looked after I drilled a hole in the lens and mounted the new bulb socket.

I ran out of time before I got any further, but next I’ll remove the diodes from the system and then plug the wires from the connector on the front of the truck directly into the new sockets, which should finish things up. I’ll post a follow-up when I’m done.

About 5pm I headed back over to Gina’s so we could head down to San Marcos to have dinner at Red Lobster. Along the way we stopped off at Walgreen’s to pick up some prescriptions for Gina

Dinner was really good, especially the Cheddar Bay Cheese Biscuits, which I think Jan could just eat along with nothing else.

On the way back to the ranch, I made another quick stop at an auto parts store for a couple of more project items for my To-Do list.

Tomorrow, I’m at it again.

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February 21, 2014

Bombs Away . . .

or those damn flee-ridden ducks.

This morning started out with more work around the rig on things I need to do before we head out on Monday.

First up, I put new pull ropes on the leveler pads, and cleaned them up some. We’re not using them right now since we’re parked on concrete, but we’ll need them at the Colorado River TT park where we’re going. The reason I was replacing the ropes was that the original rope I used was polyethylene and I couldn’t get a knot to hold in it. So I replaced it with Paracord which took care of the problem.

Next up, I crawled under the rig and sprayed the PowerGear levelers with silicone spray to keep the seals lubricated. I do this a couple of times a year and have never had a problem with oil leakage.

I finished up the morning by replacing the batteries in the rig’s TireTraker Tire Pressure Monitoring System sensors. I had done the truck sensors a couple of weeks ago, so this finished things up. Tomorrow I’ll get out my Sears air compressor and top off the rig and truck tires so then we’ll be already to go tire-wise.

---

Then about 12:30 Jan and I left the rig, setting off a bomb as we went out the door.

A flea bomb.

Which is why we took Mister with us for the afternoon. In six years of RV’ing with two cats (at least until this past October), we have never had a flea problem. Until now.

So after trying several things, I.e. flea collars, sprays, powders, etc., none of which seemed to do much good, today we brought out the big guns. We used the Heartgard drops on the back of Mister’s neck last night and bombed the coach this afternoon. Hopefully this will get rid of everything.

They have a flock of tame wild ducks around the park and the office said they’re really bad about spreading fleas, so I guess we can blame it on them.

While we were out and about, I stopped off to see a couple of client’s, all of which had to come out to the car and see the much-fabled Mister. And No, we didn’t leave him in the car alone. Jan stayed with him all the time.

And anyway, I wouldn’t leave him in the car by himself. I think he’s smart enough to drive off and leave us.

Getting back to the rig about 4:30 we found any smell had dissipated and the rig was OK to enter. Actually the box says you can come back after two hours, so we were fine.

About 5:30 we headed back out, sans Mister, to meet our friend’s Bob and Beth for dinner at Abe’s Cajun Café.

And leaving the park, I saw this.

I knew this guy had a trailer full of remote control model planes, but I didn’t realized he had some you could ride on. Or maybe in.

The food at Abe’s was really good, but the menu has about 200 items on it, and it’s hard to decide what to order. You want to tell the waiter to go away and come back in a half hour or so. By then you would have decided.

I had the Cajun Trio which consisted of Seafood Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, and a Spicy Boudin Link. And Jan had Blackened Catfish with Twice-Baked Potatoes and Green Beans. Both very good.

Saying our goodbyes, we drove over to a client’s office to take a look at a problem they were having with the cash register software. Turned out not to be a problem, so much as operator error.

Tomorrow, more packing up, more last minute tasks, and another last meal.

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February 21, 2015

I Can See Clearly Now . . .

Or at least much better.

A little before 11am Jan and I decided to have breakfast out, but just then our son Chris called and suggested lunch at Barcenas Mexican Restaurant near their house, so off we went. We were hoping our granddaughter Piper would be able to meet up with us, but she showed up later in the afternoon.

After our usual delicious meal, we went back over to Chris and Linda’s so he could help me with a couple of things on my truck. One of which were my new headlights. With all the rain and wind at the rig, I had not been able to do the installation, but since Chris had the garage and a canopy to work under, I thought it might work better there.

And the uninstall the old one / reinstall the new one went about as easy as the shop manual described. Which is very unusual, believe me. Four bolts to take the old two piece unit off, and three bolts to reinstall the new one. Easy Peazy.

Chris thought it was weird, but I only wanted one new headlight installed right then, because I wanted to really be able to see the difference between the old one and the new one. Shouldn’t be a problem since I don’t think there is any law about having one headlight brighter than the other.

But we did quickly see a problem when we tested the new light. Although the headlight unit is new, you reuse the old bulbs and sockets. And while the old unit had amber turn signal lenses and white bulbs, the new unit has clear turn signal lenses. Which means since legally turn signal lights are suppose to be amber, I need to get amber bulbs to replace the old white ones. Which I did on the way home a little later.

About 6pm Jan and I headed up to the South Shore area to have dinner with our friends Tom and Barbara. We try to get together at least once whenever we’re in town, and always have a great time.

(Left to Right: Barbara, Tom, My Jan, Margaret, and James.)

And if you notice all the bottles on the table, you’ll know we had a great time tonight too. Barbara is a great cook, and the meal is always delicious. Another couple, James and Margaret, also joined us, and as Barbara said, James and I have a lot in common.

Like me, James does IT support, and does it for PPL, the big consignment RV dealer here in town. Plus we’ve both done a lot of Military Contract work over the years. So we had a great time reminiscing about things.

Finally, after getting our hugs and goodbyes, we heading home about 11pm. And I finally got to see how my new headlight performed.

And all I can say is WOW! The new one is so much brighter that it’s hard to tell the old one is even working. So I can imagine how two of them will do.

I do need to readjust the new one a little to the left, but as far as up and down, it’s perfect. Can’t wait to see both in action.

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February 21, 2016

On To Plan ‘C’ ?

Well, we did get our walk in this morning,  doing 1.15 miles, about 100 feet further than yesterday’s 1.13, since we took a slightly different route. Now we’re looking at 100% rain the next two days, so that’s probably it until Thursday, after our doctor appointments on Wednesday.

A little later I got back on my washer drain pump repair. I had planned to be back outside, but the rain started coming in early, so I stayed in. I had left some metal parts soaking in CLR overnight, and the plastic parts in a bucket with water, Dawn, and Awesome. So I retrieved those and rinsed them off in the shower, and then dried them.

Next I wanted lightly sand outside of the rotor and the inside of the stator to get rid of the gunky buildup on the parts. To make it a little quicker to do the rotor, I chucked into my drill and then held the 2000 grit sandpaper against the cylinder as I ran the drill.

This smoothed it out pretty quickly, but I had to be carefully not to sand down too far and damage the windings.

Then I wrapped sandpaper around a screwdriver and used it to sand the inside of the stator.

At this point I placed the rotor back in the stator and found that it turned much more freely now.

So now it was time to put it all back together and give a try. It took about 10 minutes to get it reassembled and ready to test. But when I put power to it, I still had the same jerky rotation, buzzing, and vibrating. And the coil was getting a lot hotter than it should after only a few seconds of power. So it’s shorted.

So now it’s back to the drawing board. I’ve got a couple of other things I want to look at first, but tomorrow I’ll follow up on my Plan ‘C”, which is to take my pump down to a local appliance parts place and see if I can find something similar that I can make work.

I did find several on Amazon that looked like they might fit the bill, but I’d rather see one in person and hold it in my hand.

And of course there’s always Plan ‘D’, which is to buy one off eBay for $185. Ouch!

A little after 5pm Jan and I headed next door to have dinner with Brett and Frankie. Brett had invited us over to show off his prowess with his smoker.

Brett was up about 5am getting the ribs going, and it certainly showed in the final results.

Frankie whipped up some fresh green beans and a batch of fried potatoes, while Brett did the ribs and also a pan of sautéed shrimp. Jan and I contributed a big bowl of her Heavenly Hash for dessert, and a bottle of Cupcake Moscato for lubrication.

And a good time, and a great meal, was had by all.

Brett and Frankie are just getting on the road in their toy hauler 5’ver for a year of traveling. They want to try out the full-timing lifestyle before they fully commit so this next year will be the test.

We had a great time getting to know them, and talking about places we’ve visited and want to visit, and things to see while we’re there.

Jan and I finally headed home about 8:30, after a really good time. We enjoyed getting to know Brett and Frankie, and are going to try to get together for dinner later in the week.

Tomorrow, hopefully I can wrap up my drain pump problem one way or the other. But we’ll see.

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February 21, 2017

Work, Work, Work . . .

With our traveling over for a few days, it was time to get back on rig repairs and updates. I’ve got a checklist in Evernote that I’m working my way through.

Today’s main job was a little work on the Throne. Yes, that one.

First up, I used my Sealand Toilet Seal Cleaning Tool to clean around the seal in our Sealand Toilet. Hence, ‘my Sealand Toilet Seal Cleaning Tool’.

In case you don’t have one, it looks like one of those wooden tongue depressors that a doctor uses to check your throat. But this one is white and flexible. If your toilet stops holding water like it should, it’s usually because there is a buildup of ‘debris’ in the seal.

So you open the valve and then run the rounded end of the tool around between the flaps of the seal, doing this several times, until the water stays in the bowl.

Next up I replaced the seat on the throne. Every throne needs a good seat, right? Actually though, there was nothing wrong with the seat except for cosmetic problems. Over a period of time, the lid starts to wear off the finish on the seat, and once that starts it tends to spread.

I replaced our seat about 5 years ago with a Church brand seat from Lowe’s. Whenever I install something on the rig I make a note in a text file I keep. So yesterday I picked a new seat with the same part number. So this afternoon it took only about 30 seconds to change out the seats. Just unlock, unsnap, snap, and lock.

Easy Peazy.

I mentioned before the digital sign on the western edge of Katy that tracks oil industry statistics, like the price of a barrel of oil, price of natural gas, and the US rig count. And according to the sign, the rig count has jumped 22 in the last two weeks, topping out at 751. And up more than 200 in the last four months.

Nice.

Saw this neat little camper in the park this past weekend, all the way from Colorado.

Sorry I didn’t get to see inside.

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February 21, 2018

But I Didn’t Accomplish Anything . . .

As I told Jan when I got home this afternoon, I got a lot done at work today, but I didn’t really accomplish anything. When she asked what that meant, I said I was busy doing a lot of different things but didn’t really make any long-term headway toward any of my big projects.

It started raining about 4am, loud enough and heavy enough to wait me up, and it keep coming down just about all day long. According to my rain gauge it’s total over 4 inches in the last 24 hours. And more to come.

My new LED headlight bulbs came in today but I probably won’t install them until this weekend when Jan and I are up in Katy puppy-sitting for Brandi.

Since they’re a little larger than the standard bulbs, they’re in two pieces with a plug in the middle to make it easier to get them mounted and plugged in.

Cougar Motors 7200 Lumen Headlight bulbs

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The reason we’re dog-sitting is that Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are heading up to the Dallas area for a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge, a 600 room hotel combined with an 80,000 sq. ft. water park, all indoors.

Looks like fun, and a great prequel to their DisneyWorld trip in the future.

Tomorrow Jan and I are meeting up with Chris and Linda to introduce them to our favorite Pho 20 for dinner. Really looking forward to it.

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February 21, 2019

Jan Says She’s Gonna Do It . . .

Jan and I spent the morning going over the shore excursions for our upcoming European Cruise Tour. We get an excursion included at every one of our 13 stops during the 15 day cruise. Plus there are optional ones also at every stop . . . at an extra cost, of course.

The excursions are also rated by Activity Level, I.e. Easy, Moderate, and Demanding. As such we’ll probably avoid the ‘Demanding’ 5 hour Bavaria By Bike tour . . . at only $109 a person, too.

So now we’re going to through the list booking the excursions, since they still have to be reserved, even if they’re free. And we’re also looking at several of the optional ones, mostly ones that include ‘Food Tasting.’

Eagle-eyed blog readers will notice that I’ve posted a countdown calendar for our cruise, but it’s really only accurate to the day. I set the time for 8am but we have no idea when we’ll actually leave, since we won’t get our ticket time info until April 5th, 3 weeks before our departure date.

After that, Jan and I headed up to Webster about 12:30 to meet our long-time friend Tricia at Snooze AM for breakfast.

Tricia is another friend that actually started out as a computer client for her home-based business, and we always try to get together every few months.

Then it was on over to the nearby SuperCuts to get her hair done. And after talking with her hair guy, she’s had an epiphany.

She wouldn’t listen to me, she wouldn’t listen to y’all, but when her hair guy, who also does coloring, tells her she’d look good with red highlights, she was all over that like she’s never heard it before.

Never a prophet in your own land, I guess.

So now she says she’s gonna do it.

While she was getting her mind changed, I stopped off at my client’s to check on an order, and then it was on up to the Ace Hardware to pick up some nylon bolts to fix the toilet seat at the office.

When Jan was done at SuperCuts we walked next door to the HEB to get a bag of their great Lola Savannah Texas Pecan Coffee and some lottery tickets Next up was Sam’s Club to pick up her glasses that came in this morning. And trying them on for the first time she was amazed at how much sharper her vision was with the new pair.

While we were there we went ahead and got gas, and I was very surprised to find that since last week, the price had jumped 14 cents from $1.75 to $1.89. Ouch!

Under the heading that “Jan Can’t Have Too Many Cat Shirts”, I saw this one on Facebook and order it for her.

Really striking.

You can get yours here. Cat On The Moon T-Shirt.

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February 21, 2020

I Should Have Done This A Long Time Ago . . .

Or It’s God’s Way Of Telling Me I Need A New Computer.

For the last several days I’ve been fighting a problem with my desktop computer. First Windows Live Mail wouldn’t open, followed the next day by Chrome.

Internet Explorer would still work, but with no more than two tabs open. Then it seems like more and more programs slowly died or became flakey. My first thought was a hardware problem, but every test I ran came up clean.

So it looks like that my Win 7 Operating System is slowly, or not so slowly, dying.  And since this computer is about 7 years old, it’s probably about time for a new one.

But as it turned out, it would be a new old one. I remembered the very powerful one that we had retired at work. It originally ran our websites when we had our server in-house.

It has an i7 processor running at 4Ghz with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 1TB HD. I’ve already ordered another 16GB of RAM which will max out the RAM.

Yesterday I scrubbed the HD, getting rid of the Linux Apache Server software, and installed a fresh copy Windows 10 Pro. Now it’s just a matter of installing new copies of the programs I need, as well as copying over all the data.

Tomorrow night Jan has her yearly get-together with a number of her former hospital coworkers, something they’ve all done every year since we started RV’ing in 2008.

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February 21, 2021

Chowderless . . .

Despite the fact that the temperature finally creeping up to 70° today, we had been wanting some Clam Chowder from the N.E. Lobster and Chowder food truck at the Three Acres Food Truck Park ever since the cold weather hit.

So we head over that way about 1pm this afternoon only to find ourselves Chowderless. The truck was not there and when I asked the lady in charge at the bar if they would be back, she said they had moved on to another location in ‘Houston’ somewhere. Well, that certainly narrows it down.

They have a Facebook page so I’ll see if I can track them. Hopefully they’re somewhere nearby.

So we had to get by with Jan’s Mushroom-Swiss Burger and Fries, and my Philly Cheesesteak with Fries. Both really good.

The owner said he flies his bread in from Philly from the same bakery that makes the rolls for Geno’s and the other famous Cheesesteak places.

We also shared an order of the Mac Attack’s Pizza Mac. It’s Mac N Cheese made with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and topped with pepperoni. Very, very good.

Mac Attack also had Lobster Mac, Cajun Mac, Buffalo Chicken Mac, and a number of others, including of course, Mac Mac, just plain Mac N Cheese for you purists.

I’m still waiting to hear back from our La Quinta hotel about our bill. They have 4 Pending charges against my card, totaling $1405.01, if they were all to go through. Of course they won’t all go through, but still.

Pending charges are what a restaurant does when they give you the check and you give them your card. The charge is Pending because you probably will be adding a tip to your charge slip. Then later, it may even be the next day, the charge is run through again, this time including the tip. and then it’s Finalized.

Hopefully I’ll hear something tomorrow.

Next up, we drove over to our storage place to finish cleaning out our last small storeroom and moving all the stuff over into our new, larger one. This will give us room to sort through and organize our stuff into keep, throw away, and sell on  eBay.

Since we’ve already got something planned for Tuesday, it now looks like Thursday will be New Toilet Day.

At least that’s the plan. But who knows these days?

As we’ve traveled around the country we’ve found a lot of towns that have animal mascots.

Elkhart, IN has, what else, an Elk.

Beaufort, SC has a Mermaid.

Seabrook,TX has a Pelican.

And both Mackinac Island, MI and Coeur d’Alene, ID have moose.

The way this guy’s chained to the balcony makes it look like he’s tried to ‘wander’ off a few times.

But animals aren’t the only mascots. Sometimes fruit is involved. When we were over in Pearland, TX last week picking up a heat lamp bulb for our water bay, we discovered that Pearland now has their own line of mascot.

What else, Pears!

BTW what defines a ‘mascot’ is not just a single statue. It’s a number of them all over town, based on the same form, but with different paint schemes. We’ve seen as many as 20 in some areas.

Sometimes at night Jan just wants to read, and I’m doing something on the computer, so we just put the MyReef 3D aquarium on the screen. It’s an Android app that runs on our Firestick HD. It’s an animation, but looks real.

I paid, I think, $2.99, for the full version with more fish and more backgrounds. Very restful and soothing.

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February 21, 2022

Drill Baby, Drill . . .

Several readers asked me about B&D Battery-Powered Drill

I mentioned the other day. As I said it’s probably the best drill I’ve ever owned, and it has more torque than you would think. Enough so that it can be hard to keep a hold of when you’re drilling or screwing into something tough.

After I ordered the drill, I found this custom case for it,

B&D Hard Storage Case

and I also got a 2nd battery for it so I can be charging one while still using the drill.

And it all fits in one neat package.

A great product.

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Jan and I have recently added a new ingredient to our daily drug/vitamin regimen. It’s selenium, in the form of 4 Brazil Nuts. Brazil Nuts have more selenium than any other food source, about 4 times as much.

And why selenium? Well, besides the usual stuff mentioned here – Benefits of Selenium, there have recently been several studies published about this benefit.

Natural mineral may help reverse memory loss

“Our models showed that selenium supplementation could increase neuron generation and improve cognition in elderly mice,” Dr. Walker said.

“The levels of new neuron generation decrease rapidly in aged mice, as they do in humans.

“When selenium supplements were given to the mice, the production of neurons increased, reversing the cognitive deficits observed in aging.”

The scientists also tested whether selenium would have an impact on the cognitive decline sometimes experienced following stroke, which can affect people’s memory and ability to learn.

“Young mice are really good at the learning and memory tasks, but after a stroke, they could no longer perform these tasks,” Dr. Walker said.

“We found that learning and memory deficits of stroke affected mice returned to normal when they were given selenium supplements.”

But don’t take more than 3 or 4 because selenium can be toxic in higher dosages.

Of course it might just be too much clutter.

Lifetime of knowledge can clutter memories of older adults, researchers suggest

So that’s it.

I’m cluttered because I know too much useless stuff?

Who knew?