Family And Firepits . . .

Since we were busy all day and once again didn’t back to the hotel until late, it’s more mostly Retro-Blogs. But I will catch up with all fun once we get back home.

Firepit Family

But we did finish up the day with a nice time around the firepit in the backyard.


Thought for the Day:

Sometimes you just have to tell yourself that it’s not worth the jail time.


March 25, 2009

Damn the torpedoes…

Well, our road trip went off yesterday, but not quite as planned.

The idea was to head down to Fort Morgan, catch the ferry over to Dauphin Island and then visit Bellingrath Gardens.  But as we started the 22 mile trip to the ferry, we saw a sign saying the ferry was closed.

I found the number and called to double-check. The lady said the ferry was broke (yes, that’s the way she said it), but they hoped to have it going by 2pm. So we decided to run our trip in reverse. Luckily, we didn’t have to make the 44 mile round trip.

We headed up to Foley and then west on Hwy 98 thru Magnolia Springs, Point Clear, Fairhope, Daphne, and Spanish Fort before hitting I-10 into Mobile. This is the way we used to travel to Mobile when I was a kid, since the Interstate didn’t exist.  It’s a very beautiful, scenic drive.

Before heading to Bellingrath Gardens after we got to Mobile, we checked out a Spartan/Cummins dealership looking for parts for my A/C problem I mentioned earlier. No luck, but I did get some good information that helped out.

Heading out, we stopped for lunch at Dreamland BBQ mainly because it smelled so good as we drove by.

Well, you know what they say, Smells can be deceiving, or something like that. I had heard how good this place was for years, and they had all sorts of awards on the walls for “Best BBQ in the South” and other stuff, but not in my book.

Jan’s ribs weren’t bad, but not great either. I ordered the Pork Plate, but I’m not sure what I got.

In the south, pork is normally sliced or chopped. If it doesn’t say ‘chopped’, it’s sliced. Yes, in north Alabama, and up into the Carolina’s, they have “pulled pork”, but it’s labelled too.

What I got was a plate of pork ‘chunks’, or something, covered in thin sauce. In fact it looked more like ‘Carne Guisada’, or ‘Beef Stew’ with no vegetables.

The sides of potato salad and Cole slaw were just so-so. Two other chains, Sonny’s BBQ and Famous Dave’s are much, much better.

Not recommended!

We then headed south toward Bellingrath Gardens. The Bellingrath estate was built in the early 1900’s and the family were major Coke distributors… Coca-Cola, that is. Apparently the wife kept buying and buying plants until she just ran out of room. The place is just one big garden.

I’m just going to post some pictures of the place and let y’all enjoy.

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After enjoying the Gardens, we headed down to the Ferry.  I called ahead to confirm that, yes, they had fixed the ‘broke’ ferry and were on schedule for a 5pm departure. We got there a little after 4 so we had a short wait that we spent talking to the couple in the car next to us that was pulling a small camper. Turns out they were heading to the Gulf State Park where we are, so we gave them directions.

The  ferry wasn’t full so loading didn’t take long, but there was about a 15kt wind, 3ft waves, and white caps. And the ride was pretty rough. The ferry was sometimes rolling and porpoising at the same time.

I was worried about Jan when she said she didn’t have her seasickness bracelets with her.  Jan can be very prone to seasickness. She once got seasick while we were eating at a restaurant built over a lake.

Sea-Band Bracelets

Sea-Band Bracelets

But luckily, before we took our Alaska cruise in 1998, she heard about the Sea-Band bracelets, and for her, they really work. There was one point on our cruise where people were bouncing off the walls of the hallway going to and from their rooms, but Jan never had a problem.

The bracelets apparently work on an acupuncture principle, but only if she doesn’t leave them in the coach.

Luckily, she didn’t have a problem, through. I did see a few people who were decidedly pale and hovering near the railing, but I thought it better not to mention it.

Actually what I think saved her was the fact that with the motion of the ferry, she was so worried about it sinking, she forgot to be seasick.

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Fort Morgan – Dauphin Island Ferry

As we pulled out we passed Fort Gaines at the tip of Dauphin Island. Fort Gaines was one of the two forts guarding Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Fort Gaines

Fort Gaines

Apparently it was so windy that some seagulls decided not to fly.  They just hitched a ride on the raised loading ramp all the way over.

Hitch-hiking Seagulls

Hitch-hiking Seagulls

Fort Morgan, named for Gen. Daniel Morgan, a hero of the Revolutionary War, and an ancestor of Jan’s (her mother was a Morgan) was the 2nd fort that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

Fort Morgan

Fort Morgan

The Battle of Mobile Bay in August of 1864 gave birth to the famous phrase uttered by Admiral David Farragut, “Damn the torpedos, Full speed ahead”. Torpedos then being what we now call mines, had been spread out across the entrance to the Bay to keep the Union Navy out.

Ironically, almost immediately after Adm. Farragut gave this order, his supposedly unsinkable ironclad, the USS Tecumseh, struck a mine and sunk in 3 minutes taking most of its 100 plus crew to the bottom with it.

Wouldn’t you think people would learn not to label something “unsinkable”?

The Union did finally prevail and the Confederacy lost its last port on the Gulf, New Orleans having fallen a year earlier.

That’s your history lesson for today. Read the next 3 chapters and we’ll have a short quiz on Monday. Study hard!


March 25, 2010

Toilet Flowers and Hot Wings…

I’ve decided to make our new toilet into a flower pot.  Because, so far, I haven’t been able to get it installed due to the fact that new toilet has different base than the old one. I know I’ll get it fixed eventually, but in the meantime, it sure looks pretty.

ToiletFlowers

About 12:30pm we drove over to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.

I had the Mango Habanero wings – sweet and spicy!,  Jan had the Hot wings.

Really Good!

Then it was over to Outpost PC to purchase some remote control switch units to control our door locks.

After that we headed over to the Atomic TestingAtomicTestingMuseumSign

This museum is actually part of the Smithsonian and has a amazing amount of artifacts detailing the Atomic Age.

The Atomic Age began at 5:29;54 on July 16, 1945 when a plutonium bomb, nicknamed ‘Gadget”, was detonated at Trinity Site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico. The flash was seen 250 miles away and the heat produced was four times hotter than the sun.

One of the displays showed many of the products that traded on the atomic age theme.

AtomicEnergyStuff

Everything from Atomic Fire Ball jawbreakers to Atomic Cocktails to Atomic Hot Sauce traded on the Atomic name.

AtomicEnergyLab .They even had an Atomic Energy Lab, from Gilbert, maker of the Erector Set.  I actually had one of these. Maybe this explains why I still glow in the dark.

Next was a collection of Geiger counters.

Geiger Counter1

Since I was a ham radio operator and worked with Civil Defense, I was issued one of these.

Geiger Counter2

The first H-Bomb was detonated in 1952 on Enewetok Atoll in the Pacific.

FirstHBombSign

FirstHBomb

Earlier bomb tests, starting in 1946 on Bikini Atoll, also in the Pacific, gave the bikini swimsuit its name.

This atomic artillery shell gives you some idea how small an atomic bomb can be.

Atomic Artillery

Next was the Genie Air-to-Air Atomic Missile. Jan’s father worked on this one when he was in the Air Force.

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Genie Missile

This B61 bomb was designed in 1963 and is still the United States primary nuclear weapon.

B61

Lastly, there is this display of a piece of the Berlin Wall that marked the end of Cold War with the Soviet Union.

BerlinWall

The museum gives real insight into what went on during the period from 1945 to 1992 when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ended nuclear testing by the major powers.

Leaving the museum I went up the road to Lowes for some more toilet parts. I’m going to whip this thing yet.

A while later, after it go dark we drove over to see the light show on Fremont St., but found a special event going on, with a large crowd. We’ll try again later.

So it was off to IHOP for supper. By the time we got home it was almost 10pm.

It’s been a long day, but a lot of fun.


March 25, 2011

A Two’fer . . .

Jan and I slept until about 9 am this morning, another semi-early wakeup call, but well worth it.

We had two good things waiting for us – Our friends Al & Adrienne were coming over at 10. A real ‘Twofer’

And since it looks like we’ll be leaving here Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to try to have supper together Monday night.

Al & Adrienne had an appointment so they left around 11:30, but Jan and I stayed talking until almost 1 pm.

Then later while Jan was napping, I drove over to the Fairground’s office to see if there was anyway to get mail on Saturday. The answer was ‘NO’. Apparently the Post Office doesn’t deliver mail to the fairgrounds on Saturday.

Coming back to the rig, I checked to see if I could just pick up the letter at the PO, but found out it was closed on Saturday.

About 5:30 we headed into Tucson before ending up at Golden Corral for supper.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and replace my black tank valve. Hopefully it won’t be too messy. We’ll see.

More tomorrow  . . .


March 25, 2012

Stuck in Las Cruces . . .

Engine quit coming into Las Cruces this afternoon.

Got towed in by CoachNet to repair shop.

Will know more tomorrow.

Stay tuned.


March 25, 2013

A Problem Solved–Maybe . . .

I have always had on and off problems with the circuitry feeding the taillight signals from the rig to our truck. They would work for months, then stop working and then start again. So now I think I’ve found the problem, though I won’t be absolutely sure until I finish rewiring things.

What I discovered is that my coach has had two taillight converters wired in series since we bought the coach in 2008. One of them was the one out in the open, the one I’ve replaced several times over the last 5 years, trying to eliminate this intermittent problem once and for all.

But in tracing out the wiring harness, looking for any problems, I followed it back under a ledge on the rear bumper . . . and there I found another ratty, beaten-up taillight converter.

We are our rig’s 3rd owner and I guess the first owner installed the hidden one, then the second owner, not seeing one, installed another one.

As I said I won’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet this is the problem, and that taking it out of the circuit will fix things. We’ll see.

About 1:30 Jan and I made a Wal-Mart run to the SuperCenter over on Valencia, much nicer than the one toward downtown. Then getting back to the fairgrounds, we came across a lady walking her pet, Rex on a leash.

What was unusual is that Rex is a ferret.

Rex The Ferret

A very cute ferret that Jan didn’t want to give back to the lady.

We had a number of ferrets as pets over the years when Chris and Brandi were younger, and always enjoyed them. They eat dry cat food and can be easily trained to use a littler box, and really make good pets.

I hope this doesn’t put any ideas into Jan’s head.

About 4:30 Chris and Charles Yust picked us up and we headed up the road and back to Luckie’s Thai for some more of their delicious Asian cuisine and good conversation. A lot of conversation, in fact. I think we were there for almost 3 hours, but we had a great time.

Chris and Charles leave for Waco tomorrow morning, but hopefully we’ll catch them at a rally somewhere along the road later this year.


March 25, 2014

Up on the Roof !

(Cue the Drifters)

Today was a work-around-the-rig day. First I touched up some caulking in the shower to patch a small leak. Then it was up on the roof.

Today was the day to replace the fan and fan motor in our front Fantastic Vent fan.

Roof Vent Repair 1

First I removed the MaxxAir Vent Cover and then the retaining bracket that controls the lid cover. That gave me access to the fan motor itself.

Roof Vent Repair 2

I was able to use my WORX Power Screw Driver for all this, and it really comes in handy. It has a revolving cylinder holding a number of different types and sizes of bits. So I don’t have to bring as many tools up on the roof.

WORX Screwdriver 2

Taking out the four screws holding the fan motor in place, and after clipping the wires, I removed the old fan unit and set it aside.

Roof Vent Repair 3

The new fan came with crimp spade connectors, so I installed one set on the cut-off ends on the fan chassis.

Roof Vent Repair 4

Note that I used real ‘crimpers’. Some people try to use pliers or diagonal cutters (back when I started in electronics, we called them ‘dykes’. I don’t think we can do that any more.), but you will never get a good connection that way.

Roof Vent Repair Crimpers

So here’s the finished install with the excess wire tied out of the way.

Roof Vent Repair 5

And here it is all buttoned up and ready to go.

Roof Vent Repair 6

When I was putting the MaxxAir cover back on, I noticed a crack in it. Some of these plastics don’t take to glue very well, so I’ll use a piece of Eternabond to seal it up.

Roof Vent Repair 8

Another plastic that is not easily patched are these RV engine coolant tanks made from polypropylene. A new tank costs from $100 to $600! , depending on your rig. A new one for my rig was $130

So I decided to try Eternabond. Wal-Mart sells these packages that are perfect for small repairs.

Eternabond

And it worked great. Five years later and still no leaks.

Coolant Tank Enterabond Repair

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll install the new dome lift motor on the other vent fan.

Later I met our next site neighbors, Roy and Vicky Hall, who turned out to be gate guards who worked for Gate Guard Services just like us, and we know a lot of the same people. Small world.

About 4pm Jan and I headed up to Peters’ BBQ in Ellinger for dinner. Along the way I stopped to get some photos of the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes along the way.

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Colorado River Bluebonnets 2

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Colorado River Bluebonnets 4

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Colorado River Bluebonnets 7

Colorado River Bluebonnets 8

Hopefully all the rain we’ve had this year will mean a good year for wildflowers.

We really enjoy Peters’ BBQ and try to eat here a couple of times whenever we’re in the area.

Peter's BBQ

Peter's BBQ 1

Besides the delicious BBQ, one of the things we really liked is their ‘sides’ available on a buffet table. Everything is really good.

Peters BBQ Sides 1

Peters BBQ Sides 2

And they’ve also got really good desserts, including Banana Pudding, Jell-O, Chocolate Pudding, Peach Cobbler, and a soft serve ice cream machine.

Really great!

Coming back from Peters’ we came over a hill and found this herd of bison.

Colorado River Bison 1

Colorado River Bison 2

We’ve driven this road many times and have never seen them before. You never know what’s over the next hill here in Texas.

And speaking of that, coming over the hill coming back into the park, we found a herd of deer blocking our path.

The rest quickly moved off the roadway.

Colorado River Deer 1

Colorado River Deer 2

Colorado River Deer 3

Colorado River Deer 4

Tomorrow we’re heading back down to Clear Lake for some things, and of course, lunch at King Food.


March 25, 2015

No, not today, either . . .

But I’ll paint tomorrow for sure.

Maybe.

I spent the morning making some phone calls and working on some client stuff and then a little before 2pm Jan and I headed over to the SanTan area for a Wal-Mart / Sam’s Club run. When we were almost there, our friend Chris Yust called and said a customer had called her to say that the website I do for Chris, www.candcrvinsurance.com was down. So as soon as we were parked, I checked for myself,, and yes, it was down.

One of the strange things was the way it was down. There was no error message, no Page Not Found, nothing. It just sat there and whirled. That meant it was at least seeing something there, otherwise there would be a Page Not Found, or Website Not Found.

I put in a call to GoDaddy, and after telling them my problem, the young lady went off for a few minutes and came back to tell me the problem was with my site. She said the ‘index.shtml’ file (the first page of most websites) was invalid because it was named ‘.shtml’ instead of ‘.html’.

I can only guess she hasn’t been in this business very long because ‘.shtml’ is a perfectly valid extension that indicates that a Server Side Include is being used on the page. In this case it’s used to automatically update the ‘Last Date Modified date at the bottom of the page.

Figuring it was hopeless to pursue this further while we were on the road, I took a further look at things when we got home. The first time I did just to double-check was to replace the ‘index.shtml’ file with a plain-jane ‘index.html’ that did nothing except display the words Test Page. Can’t get much simpler.

And as I expected, that didn’t fix the problem, so I was back on the phone. But since I was getting into the busy part of their support day, I was number 15 in the queue. So I decided to take it up again after supper.

Jan wanted some Hot and Sour Soup for her cold, so about 4:45 we headed over to the #1 Eastern Chinese Buffett a couple of exits west on Signal Butte. We’ve eaten here a number of times, including last Thursday, our first day in town, and it’s always great.

Besides the Hot and Sour Soup, I’m crazy about their boiled shrimp, fresh and crisp when you bite into them, not mushy like it is when they’ve been frozen.

Getting home it was back on the phone, and this time I was only number 3 in the queue. As I was waiting, I tried a number of other things, the first one being to check my other sites on this same server. And it turns out they were down too. Hmmmm!

But this site, OurRVAdventures.com, was still up. Not unusual, since this is a WordPress site, and although it’s in my GoDaddy account, it’s hosted on a different server.

I next checked my sites that, although the domain names are with GoDaddy, they’re hosted with a different company, Superb.net. And they were all working fine. So it’s not a domain name problem, it’s a problem on my shared server.

I won’t bore you with any more details, but after an hour and 30 minutes of checking everything, the GoDaddy rep and I could not figure it out. We could see the problem, we just couldn’t see what was causing the problem.

So at that point it was boosted up to Level 3 support, and I got off the phone. I set my computer to keep trying the site, and about 30 minutes everything started working again.

I got an email from them saying it was working, but no hint as to the problem, so I’ll be back on the phone tomorrow to find out what the problem was.


March 25, 2016

Bingo and Bazinga . . .

Jan and I were on the road for the Clear Lake area about 8:15, allowing 2 hours for the 1 hour and 10 minute trip for Jan’s 10:15 doctor appointment.. Well, 1 hour and 10 minutes with no traffic slowdowns.

That’s why I always allow 2 hours. And there’s been a couple of trips where we used almost all of the two hours.

But today was very different, I guess due to Good Friday. We not only didn’t need the two hours, we actually picked up 5 minutes, and made the trip in an hour and 5 minutes.

A New Record!

But the appointment was kind of a letdown because it turned out to just be a blood draw for another test that Jan probably doesn’t need. Both her GP and her Oncologist alerted on the fact that her blood calcium was slightly too high, 10.8 rather than a max of 10.5. So both doctors have been running extra tests looking for the cause, with no luck so far.

The level was fine last year, so Jan and I wondered what changed. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that last year she started taking the Viactiv Calcium Chews, which of course may have added to the problem. But thinking further, Jan realized that one other major change had occurred.

In August 2014, after having a very bad reaction to the Tamoxifen that she was taking as a follow-up treatment for her breast cancer in January 2014, she had to switch to something else. By August she felt she was crawling out of her skin. So the doctor switched her over to Anastrozole. And for the last 18 months she’s had no problems. Maybe this was also a change.

So I Googled “Anastrozole and high blood calcium” . . .  and BINGO!

Three papers on the NIH government website connecting Anastrozole and high blood calcium, including one that details taking a female breast cancer survivor off and back on Anastrozole, and the calcium levels followed.

In Jan’s case, her calcium level is less than 3% above normal, and it may just be that stopping the calcium chews will get it back under control.

We’ll see.

Leaving the doctor’s, we drove over to the Friendswood Supercuts so Jan could get her hair done, and I guess because of Good Friday, she had a much longer wait than usual.

And then it was off to our favorite King Food for lunch. We had checked in with Chris, Linda, and Piper to see if they could join us. But Piper was still asleep since she had a 12 hour shift in the UTMB ER, starting at 7pm, and Chris and Linda were on the way  to Galveston, taking some stuff down to Piper’s new apartment.

We both had our usual Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce with Jalapenos, our go-to dish for years

King Food 2_thumb[1]

And of course, I load mine up with hot pepper flakes as usual.

After we finished I dropped Jan off at Chris’ while I checked in on a couple of clients. The first one was pretty straight forward, just going over a possible upcoming project. But the second one was a little more interesting.

They had a number of small problems,  but the main one was that the three laptops had trouble consistently connecting wirelessly to their HP printer. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t

So first off I looked at the printer, printing out the Wireless Configuration Page so I could check all the settings. I found that the printer was on the house DSL Wi-Fi network, which was correct.

Then noting the printer’s IP address and host name, I checked out the printer driver settings on one of the laptops, which also were correct. But the driver showed the printer off-line and would not print.

So after futzing around for a little bit, I checked the Wi-Fi connection on the laptop itself.

And BAZINGA!

The laptop was on some other Wi-Fi network, not the house one. At first I thought they were hooked up to a neighbor’s network,  but the connection was passworded, so how did they get their neighbor’s password.

Then the client realized that the Wi-Fi name was the one for her husband’s Mi-Fi which was on the other side of the room. Checking it out , I found that the Mi-Fi was actually attached to the laptop via USB cable,  but the Wi-Fi was turned on anyway.

Then with a little more questioning I found out there were THREE Mi-Fi’s in the household, sometimes on, sometimes not. So sometimes the three laptops were connected to the household DSL, and sometimes they were connected with one of the various Mi-Fi’s at random.

Putting the client’s laptop back on the home network, I again tried to print, but with no luck. So I killed the printer driver and then re-installed it.

And now it worked.

After telling the client that if they wanted to print, they had to be connected to the house DSL, I finished up by fixing some of her Windows 10 upgrade teething problems, and then I was on my way to meet Jan and Chris at the Webster Hooter’s

Jan and I both agreed that Hooter’s seems to have wimped out on their hot sauces, at least the one we usually order. In the past ‘911’ was their hottest ‘on-the-menu’ sauce, with ‘Elvis’ available ‘off-the-menu. And ‘911’ was the equivalent of the hottest of the Buffalo Wild Wings’ sauces.

But having just had BBW a couple of nights ago, the comparison is nowhere near the same. Now that may be because ‘911’ is not longer their hottest, but 3th behind ‘Spicy Garlic’ and ‘If You Dare’. Maybe they downrated it.

So I guess next time at Hooter’s we’re just going to have to take the ‘Dare’.

Heading home we found more traffic, probably due to a wreck at 59 and I-45, but it was mostly smooth sailing. We did make a “drank too much Iced Tea at Hooter’s” stop at the north Houston Flying J, and then at the Wal-Mart before getting back home to a lonely, needy cat.


March 25, 2019

It Looked Bigger On The Website . . .

The carry-on suitcases we ordered for our cruise came in late Friday evening but I didn’t bring them home until this afternoon.

Cruise Suitcases Orange

Cruise Suitcases Green

And I must say they certainly looked bigger online than in person. I’m pretty sure I cannot get a month’s worth of stuff in these. And I KNOW Jan can’t. So we’ll almost certainly be taking one or two checked bags along as well as our carry-on’s.


March 25, 2020

And Now For Something Completely Different …

Landon’s in his 3rd day of Homeschooling, and of course, what’s school without a PE class.

Landon's Homeschooling PE

Landon said he could get used to this.

I’ll bet he could.

I mentioned a few months back about my favorite book series, Bob’s Saucer Repair.

Bob's Saucer Repair

This is what I wrote back in September.

Basically, a guy comes home and finds a beautiful alien girl trying to repair her flying saucer in his garage. With a lot of interesting ideas and funny situations, it’s a really fun read. Just gloss over the fact that alien flying saucers use antifreeze for coolant as well as hydraulic fluid.

But a lot of twists and turns keeps it very interesting. Even Jan loves them.

A Great Deal at $2.99, or free under Kindle Unlimited.

Jan and I just finished Book 8 in the series and the books have gotten better and better. Though there’s still a lot of humor, the stories have become a little darker, with more action, and a lot of great story lines.

Even more recommended than before!

And in other book news, Robert Heinlein has a brand new book out, in both Kindle and Hardcover.

Heinlein - Pursuit of Pankera

Yes, I know he’s been dead for over 30 years, but this new book, The Pursuit of the Pankera, was written in the 1980’s and parallels The Number of The Beast. In fact the first third of both books is the same, but then the stories diverge in a parallel, but different, direction.That’s why the subtitle of both is A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes.

The Pursuit of the Pankera was known as a large number of fragments, plus Heinlein’s handwritten notes. But when someone started piecing the fragments and notes together, they found they had the entire book. So every word is Heinlein’s, with no ghostwriter filler.

After starting Pursuit, it was so good it made me go back and buy The Number of the Beast to read it again too.

And even better, both books are only $6.99, much better than the $14.99 usually charged for mainstream publisher novels.

Wrapping up, I saw a headline today that Tilman Fertitta, billionaire owner of about 60 restaurant chains, like Landry’s, Saltgrass, Claim Jumpers, and many others, in addition to the Houston Rockets Basketball Team, had laid off 40,000 of his employees today, about 70% of his workforce.

When I mentioned this to Jan, I think she was somewhat disparaging of him doing that. He’s a Billionaire, after all. That is until I ran the numbers for her.

Let’s say the average hourly rate for the 40,000 employees is $20 per hour. Remember this covers management as well as line employees.

$20 x 40 hours per week = $800 a week average paycheck.

But when you now multiply that by 40,000, it comes out to $32 million dollars A WEEK. And then you’ve got payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and additional benefits too.

He may be a billionaire, but I’ll bet he doesn’t have $64 million in cash lying around to shell out every two week pay period for very long.

Jan was a lot more understanding when I laid it out this way.


March 25, 2021

Blood And Bones . . .

Jan and I left the rig around 1pm, first for lunch at Dickinson Seafood. We both get the lunch special of Blackened Catfish and Shrimp, Grilled Veggies, and a salad.

Dickinson Seafood Catfish 20201020

Really good, and at only $8.59 for the lunch special, it’s a great deal too.

Then it was right back down the street to our storage room to drop off our old disassembled kitchen cart.

Kitchen Cart - Old

We got it back in 2012 for Jan to roll out into the kitchen area when she was doing a lot of cooking, like for holidays and such. But because it had to be strapped down tightly when we traveled, and it didn’t get used as much as we thought. The extended top folds down, and it normally rode behind my computer chair, but it mostly ended up as just a place to stack things.

So we’ve been looking for something to replace it, and we came up with this CubiCubi Dresser Storage Tower.

Kitchen Cart - New

It was supposed to come in tomorrow, so we wanted to get the old one out of the way ahead of time. And it was good that we got a head start, since while we were at lunch, I got an email saying it was out for delivery, and then a few minutes later I got another one saying it had been delivered up at the office.

So as soon we dropped the old one off at the storeroom we headed up to Webster to pick up the new one.

I’ll try to get it assembled as soon as I can.

A couple of days ago Jan found something on Facebook she just had to have. It’s from a site called Hanson’s Anatomy.

Hanson's 1

Hanson's 2

Katy Hanson is a very talented artist, and found herself doodling during lectures while she was in medical school, and then began using to the doodles to construct study guides for her own use. And gradually it evolved into a full set covering the entire human body, and all its many processes.

The hardcover print version is $79.99, but the E-book version is only $29.99, so I downloaded it for Jan, the entire 337 MB file. Jan’s crazy about it.


March 25, 2022

Under The Weather . . .

With my new shore water inlet coming in this morning, and my new hose splitter coming in this afternoon, I had planned to get them both installed after I came home from work today. But life intervened.

Or at least a bout of BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) did.

So not only didn’t I work on my plumbing problem today, I didn’t go in to work at the office either.

Wasn’t sure I could drive in a straight line.

So hopefully tomorrow. But we’ll see.

Besides that tomorrow we’ve got a bunch of errands on our list, starting with a quick stop at Home Depot, and then on up to Pho Barr for lunch.

And then it’s a swing by the office to pick up some paperwork, before WalMart, Sam’s, and then Costco on the way home.

Busy, busy, busy.

Not much else today, since I mostly slept, the only time my head wasn’t spinning.