Monthly Archives: March 2023
ReRead Yesterday’s . . .
OK, I screwed up yesterday.
The Retro-Blogs I posted yesterday were actually for today. So that means today’s Retro-Blogs are for yesterday.
So, read today’s and then go back and reread yesterday’s.
That way they’ll make more sense.
Our recent sojourn to the Texas Hill Country started with our 8am departure Thursday morning with our first stop at the Buc-ee’s up in Katy for a pit/coffee stop.
Our Jeep is still in the shop, and we really didn’t want to take Old Faithful, not because I don’t think it would make it, but we wanted something a little more comfortable and a little less smoky.
So I picked up a 2022 Toyota Corolla like this one.
I had asked for a Chevy Malibu, but it didn’t get returned in time.
Turned out to be a lot better than I expected.
But I still wonder it if can really do 160mph.
It had a lot of pep, especially for a 4 banger, though it sounded like an angry sewing machine when you punched it.
But Jan told me I wasn’t allowed to check it out.
Bummer!
Our second stop was another 90 minutes along was at the Luling Buc-ee’s, again for a pitstop/coffee break, with us finally getting into Fredericksburg about 1:45. Perfect timing since Der Lindenbaum, our favorite German restaurant opened at 1:30. And It was already half full when we got inside.
It’s that good.
And it was, but more about that tomorrow.
Thought For The Day:
I’m not stubborn. My way is just better.
March 26, 2009
Rain, wind, and storms…
We’re in our 2nd day of rain, wind, and storms so there’s not much going on. There was a tornado about 10 miles up the road in Lillian, but we were OK here.
We had the breakfast buffet again at Hazel’s down the road. Always a good meal.
A little before 2pm, a park guy came by saying they thought we were leaving yesterday and we hadn’t paid for anymore.
After Jan woke me up from my nap (I’m retired, remember) I headed down to the campground office to figure out what happened. I had gone down on Monday (the day before we supposed to leave) and extended for another week. So what happened?
Well, what happened was that I had extended and paid for a week, but in the computer they only had me down for extending a DAY. Oh, well.
I did find some more info on the surf flags.
Right now, we have a red flag and a purple flag. The purple flag normally means jellyfish or Portuguese man-of-war.
Gulf Shores shuts down swimming on their public beach at one red flag, but the state beaches do it at two red flags.
Although the surf was rougher than the other day, we would have still been swimming/surfing in it.
Surf’s Up!
Hopefully better weather tomorrow, but not likely.
We’ll see.
March 26, 2010
My Vegas Gun Moll…
Today Jan got to check off another item on her Bucket List.
About 10:30am we headed over to The Gun Store so Jan could try her hand at firing a fully-automatic weapon. In this case, a Thompson SubMachine Gun.
They had pretty much everything available, from Uzi’s to AK47’s to MAC 10’s. But I thought she might appreciate firing a good ole Prohibition Era “Tommy Gun”
Although used by the US military until the early 70’s, it gained its fame as the weapon of choice of people like Bonnie and Clyde, and Machine Gun Kelly during the 1930’s.
Here she is getting instructions on how the gun works.
Then it’s “rock and roll” time.
She had her choice of targets, so she picked Osama bin Laden.
And here she is posing with her ‘Kill”. Although it’s hard to see here, after she got use to the way the Thompson climbs as it’s fired, she put a lot of rounds dead center.
This is going to be a short post tonight.
We’ve got to get up early tomorrow. We’re driving about 50 miles south of here to Searchlight, NV to attend a Tea Party Rally.
Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Victoria Jackson, Joe the Plumber, and many others are supposed to be there.
Searchlight only has about 700 residents, but they’re expecting between 5000-10000 people, so it may be a real mess.
We’ll see.
March 26, 2012
Stuck in Las Cruces – Still
To recap: Yesterday as we turned off on Exit 135 into Las Cruces, NM, my engine sputtered a few times and then quit. We were just cresting the top of a hill that precedes a long sweeping curve down into Las Cruces. Although it was fun steering the coach without power steering, we were able to coast a little over 3 miles before being stopped by a red light. At that point I was able to pull off onto a side street that had a wide shoulder that kept us out of traffic.
Thinking that I might be out of diesel, I unhooked the toad, grabbed my 5 gallon can from the bay, and drove right down road to a Fina station, and by making two trips, got 10 gallons of diesel into the tank.
I then spent the next 30 minutes running through the re-prime procedure, but with no luck. So it was on the phone to CoachNet. They made some calls, and then told me they’d have a wrecker out in about 45 minutes who would tow us to the repair lot. Though being Sunday, no one would be there until Monday morning. And after telling me it would be 45 minutes, the wrecker showed up in only 30 minutes. Great service from CoachNet.
Well, after a somewhat fitful night sleeping in the lot outside Rush Truck Center here in Las Cruces, I checked in with the shop when they opened at 8am. I was still under the assumption that I might be out of diesel, despite the fact that my Silverleaf computer dashboard said I still had 35 gallons in my tank, plus the 10 gallons I had added.
After getting my data, a tech showed up about an hour later and tried to get the engine started. By pre-filling the Lift Pump Filter, and using a small amount of ether, the engine started up after about 10 seconds of cranking.
YEAH!
The engine ran about 3 minutes and then quit.
BOO!
Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
A second attempt did exactly the same thing.
BOO! HISS!
The tech then started checking some things, and pulling the engine oil dipstick, discovered coolant in the oil.
RUH-ROH!
Not Good.
Next step was for them to tow the rig into their shop lot using a forklift. The facility manager Clayton said it could be something as simple as a water pump or cooler gasket, (BUCKS) but it could also be blown head gasket or a warped head. (BIG BUCKS).
But it could also be a cracked block. (REALLY, REALLY BIG BUCKS)
OUCH!
Clayton said he wanted to let the Cummins rep look at it first, hopefully later in the afternoon. Since we couldn’t stay in the rig, Jan and I packed us and our two cats off to a nearby La Quinta (They take pets).
After lunch and a nice nap in the room, we drove over to the shop about 4:30 to check in. Unfortunately the Cummins guy still hadn’t shown up, so we’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow to find out what’s what.
Stay tuned.
March 26, 2013
Old Friends and Goodbyes . . .
A little after 10am, Chris and Charles Yust headed out this morning, on their way to Waco, TX for another rally. Through their C & C Marketing and Insurance, they sell GMAC Insurance for RV’s and autos, as well as Good Sam products, such as Extended Service Plans, Roadside Assistance, and their new product TravelAssist.
We buy our insurance from them. You should too. (How’s that, Chris?)
About 10:30 Jan and I drove over to Poco & Mom’s to meet our friend’s Al & Adrienne for brunch.
A small family restaurant, it only has 12 tables and if you don’t get there early, you will have a wait. But it’s worth it because they can perform culinary magic with Hatch Green Chilies.
After a delicious meal and a lot of conversation Jan and I drove over to a nearby Bookman’s used bookstore. If you’re familiar with Half-Price Books in Texas, this is the Arizona clone. Then it was on down the road to a Chase Bank to get a replacement check book cover, and since we didn’t have coffee this morning, we stopped off at Starbuck’s for our Cinnamon Dolce Latte fix. Then home for the day.
Several blog readers have asked about the Taillight Test Box that I’ve mentioned lately.
It looks like this.
It’s built in a 98 cent Wal-Mart 3×5 file box, and that box, and one of the 3 switches are all I had to buy. That was because I wanted a center-off SPDT switch so I could switch the turn signals off.
The black and red cables are connected to the vehicle battery. The other cable connects to the vehicle lights.
The left switch turns the unit on and off. The center switch turns the taillights on and off, and the right switch turns the left or right turn signals on and off.
Besides the interconnecting wiring, the only parts inside the box are a 5amp inline fuse and a 2 prong turn signal flasher.
And because I never throw anything away, I think my total cost was about $4. If you have any questions, leave me a comment.
March 26, 2014
A Asian Two’fer, for real this time . . .
Jan and I left the rig this morning about 9:45, heading down south to the Clear Lake area. Jan had one last doctor appointment to take care of, and I had some shopping to do.
But first it was lunch at King Food. We had intended to eat there last week, but at the last minute, Jan changed her mind and we ended up at Twin Peaks. But today there was no last minute change. And it was as delicious as usual. We’re really going to miss this place when we leave the area.
I dropped Jan off at the doctor’s and then headed down the road to spend some time perusing the aisles of the newly-opened Harbor Freight Tools, one of the places, that along with Fry’s Electronics, I can spend a lot of time just wandering up and down the rows.
And of course I found a few things I just had to have.
Next up, I stopped off to get the truck washed. And of course, within 15 minutes of that, it started to rain.
Then I drove over to Wal-Mart for a few things, then I stopped by an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for a couple of light bulbs.
By now it was time to pick up Jan and head back up to the Katy area. We were hoping to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, but Brandi was still under the weather coming off her flu, so we just got together with Lowell and Landon. We all met right down the road from their house at our new favorite Vietnamese place, Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro. And as usual it was really, really good.
Little V’s is a family-owned place that really goes all out. Everything’s just a little different, and much better. They even make all their own sauces from scratch. And even their Spring Rolls are different. Rather than using the thicker, sticky, translucent wrapper, they use one that’s thinner and not as chewy. And they’re made fresh to order.
Even more, they’re so dedicated to their food, that a different family member sleeps in the restaurant every night so that at 2am they can start making the stock used in their Pho dishes.
After getting our Landon and Lowell hugs, and after a quick stop for a going-home cappuccino, we got back to the rig a little after 7pm.
We’ve go more bad weather on the way so we’ll see how things go tomorrow.
March 26, 2015
First Coat . . .
I did get the first coat on the rig done early this afternoon, and it looks really good. In fact Chris did such a good that so far I haven’t found any places that really needs to be sanded or smoothed.
Since this is enamel I can only do about 1 coat a day, but in a good light it’s already pretty glossy.
Tomorrow I’ll take off the license plate and do the center section. It wasn’t damaged or repaired, but it should match.
I was a little disappointed in the resulting color, which is called Smoke Gray, and looks a lot lighter on the can. Of course it may get lighter as it dries, but right now it looks more like Battleship Gray. Hopefully I’ll be able to do another coat tomorrow.
About 4pm we headed out for dinner and some shopping. Our dinner destination was a place we discovered yesterday on our way to Wal-Mart / Sam’s Club near SanTan Village.
We passed a place called Joe’s Farm Grill that looked interesting, and was very busy to boot. Then this morning, I checked them out online. Turns out that Joe’s Farm Grill is a Triple-D winner, I.e. a Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives place, and their menu looked delicious.
From things like Grill Salmon, Ahi Tuna, and Fresh Beet Salad, to pizza, hot dogs, and burgers, Joe’s pretty much has it all. Their logo is “Common Food Done Uncommonly Well”, and that certainly describes their food.
Jan and I have both been jonsing for hot dogs recently and Joes’ seemed like the place to fill that void.
Jan had the regular hot dog basket, with an all-beef dog, onions, and farm-made relish, along with Garlic Fries.
I had Mix-n-Match, with a Carolina Dog, with Pulled Pork BBQ, coleslaw, and BBQ sauce, and a Sonoran Dog, wrapped in bacon and topped with farm beans, two cheeses, sour cream, and jalapenos, as well as an order of their Triple-D rated Onion Rings.
We also got an order of their Fried Green Beans for everyone to share.
It was easy to tell we loved this place, Everyone got really quiet, with a lot of lip-smacking, but very little talking going on.
Joe’s is part of a real family farm that provides much of the stuff they serve, with the rest local-sourced as much as possible. The restaurant, built around the old-family home, looks like an indoor fast-food place,
but the food certainly doesn’t taste that way. This is a great place to eat, so check it out. You can see their menu here. Joe’s Menu
Our next stop was the nearby Sam’s Club. We were there to pick up a prescription that wasn’t ready yesterday because they were out.
Then it was on to Fry’s Electronics. I wanted a new HD for a computer I’m building up. I got a 3TB HD on sale for cheaper than what the 2TB from the same company costs. Nice.
March 26, 2016
OPA !
We didn’t walk today, our last day here at Lake Conroe for the next two weeks, since we’ll be doing another Wal-Mart walkabout this afternoon, and that’s always good for at least a mile, or even more.
So after coffee and breakfast, I went outside to do my normal Saturday prep to travel tomorrow morning. Normally I would have closed our gray valve a couple of days ago, but with all our recent coming and going, I forgot.
So today I just closed the valves and put away the water and sewer hoses without dumping the tanks. Back inside I squirted a large dose of Dawn into the toilet, along with a cup of Calgon Water Softener and a cup of powdered laundry detergent. The black tank is about 90% full, so all this will get to slosh around in the tank until we get to Colorado River, for just a general cleaning.
This is not really to clean the tank level sensors since we don’t use them. We can go 14 days on our black tank with no problem, so I normally just dump it right before we move. And we can go longer – our record is actually 19 days, but the tank was filled to the tippy-top by then. Not a good thing.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be up about 6:30, and then finish up everything else outside, except for power, I.e., satellite, awnings, folding step, etc. Then around 8 Jan and I will head down to the Cracker Barrel for our traditional Sunday Travel Day Breakfast.
Back at the rig, I’ll crank up the diesel, raise the levelers and stow the pads, bring in the slide, and disconnect shore power. By this time the coach will be up on the airbags, and we’ll be ready to roll. And it looks to be cool enough so we can be comfortable with just the fans.
This afternoon, about 3pm, we drove into Conroe to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. We saw the first one years ago, and really liked it, and this one was just as good or better. All of the original cast are back, including some you probably thought were dead since the original film in 2002.
Both this movie and the original one were produced by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Rita and John Stamos have cameo roles in this one.
And a couple of things I was surprised to learn, is that the original movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is listed as the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time. And based on percentage of return – it cost $6 million and made $369 million, it is the second most profitable movie of all time, bettered only by Paranormal Activity.
Who Knew!
March 26, 2017
Shrimp Boats A Coming . . .
Today was a stay-at-home, catch-up on some repairs kind of day. And part of it was just goofing off. Very nice.
One thing I did was to replace the wire on the back of a picture that a friend painted of one of my family’s shrimp boats, one of seven we had at one time back in the early 60’s.
Then I replaced the rig door’s gas spring and mounting bracket.
A while back the bracket broke off and took the gas spring mounting end with it. I was able to quickly get at new spring, but it took a while to track down a new bracket. American Coach couldn’t help because in their parts list, the bracket was part of the door and they didn’t stock parks for it.
But while I was looking for something else on Amazon, I stumbled across a replacement bracket. And of course, as usual, I ordered two.
Again on the Amazon front, I had an order that was supposed to be delivered by the Post Office today, but a little after noon I received a text message saying that the package could not be delivered due a faulty address.
Now I had had two packages delivered here on Friday and Saturday so I knew Amazon had the correct address. So I assumed the PO had screwed up somehow. But this time it turned out to be Amazon’s fault.
After talking to both Amazon and the PO, I found out that the address on the package was incomplete. Instead of
Greg White
c/o Santa Fe RV Park
1800 N. Ironwood Dr.
Apache Junction, AZ 85120-1912
All it had was
c/o Santa Fe RV Park
1800 N. Ironwood Dr.
Apache Junction, AZ 85120-1912
Apparently the PO couldn’t just go ahead and just deliver it to the RV park and let us sort it out. So I’ve got to call tomorrow and see if I can pick it up at the PO.
David, a blog reader, had this question about our use of Passport America as we travel around the country. Here’s what he said.
You seem to use PA frequently when you guys are moving around.
I have found that many parks place “harsh” limits on the usage of PA. along with some pretty run down parks. What’s you take on this.
Here was my reply.
David,
We use PA all the time, and have since we started RV’ing in 2007.
If we’re going to an area/park that we haven’t used before, I first check the park out on RVParkReviews.com. This lets me weed out any questionable parks.
It’s worked well so far.
All the parks have different PA rules. Some parks only let you stay a day or two, or three. Some a week, or some will let you stay an unlimited time.
This park, Santa Fe RV Park, a very nice park, lets you stay 14 days, saving us $280 for the two weeks.
PA is $45/year.
So three nights at $15 instead of $30 a night pays for a year’s membership in PA.
Normally this only takes us a couple of weeks each year.
Hope this helps.
We consider PA one of our best values, and it saves us hundreds of dollars or more every year.
March 26, 2018
A Big Step Closer . . .
My day started with an early call from Brock’s Car Care, telling me that as soon as they started up my truck, the oil pressure came right up normally.
BUT . . . they said they could hear a little rod knock and lifter noise for a few seconds before it smoothed right out, indicating that the engine had run for a short while without oil pressure. So they were able to see the problem. and they’re sure that no lasting damage was done to the engine during this episode.
Because it’s seemingly intermittent, they first suspected that with the high mileage on the truck (277,000+), some carbon/crud buildup in the oil pan had broken loose (maybe when the driveshaft broke off) and is occasionally clogging the oil pickup tube in the pan. Which explains why it didn’t show up during the previous repair, then did for me, and then didn’t this morning.
So they’re first going to drop the oil pan and see what’s going on. Hopefully cleaning all the gunk out will correct the problem. If not, the only thing really left is to go in and replace the oil pump.
More $$$$
But still cheaper than a new truck.
One last thing to note is that this looks to have nothing to do with my ‘oil pressure’ problem a couple of months ago. Then the engine never actually lost oil pressure, since I could drive for an hour or more with no problems. And replacing the oil filter fixed the sensor problem.
Hopefully I’ll have the truck back tomorrow or Wednesday.
On the upside I did make a big jump forward at work today. I finally found where the previous IT guy hid the SQL databases used by the websites, and have control of them. I can now can copy them/back them up . . . and when I’m ready, move them online to Godaddy.
And going through a desk drawer, I also found where the previous IT guy hid his marijuana bong and Zig Zag rolling papers. Which probably explains why the webserver he set up is so squirrely.
Getting home about 4:15, we headed back out to have dinner at the nearby Pho 20. As on previous visits, we went to our favorites. Jan got her House Crunch Salad with their delicious Miso Dressing, as well as an order of Shrimp Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce.
I got the big bowl of the While Meat Chicken Pho with Mixed Veggies. And the Mixed Veggies pretty much covered the gambit, with Cauliflower, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Mushrooms, Spinach, Snow Peas, Onions, and Cucumbers.
This, along with the usual Pho garnish plate with Bean Spouts, Thai Basil, Cilantro, and Jalapeno’s, makes for a full bowl of Pho.
One thing that Sherry, the Pho 20 owner, is known for is giving us samples of new dishes and other gifts. And tonight’s was a bowl of her new Hot & Sour Soup that’s going on the menu.
Just as delicious as everything else.
March 26, 2019
It’s Weird . . .
Today was originally going to be our visit to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, along with lunch at Katz’s Deli and a stop off at the iBurn store for the latest in HOT stuff. But, like this past Sunday’s rig test drive, it all got pushed back a week, to next Tuesday.
We spent the morning going over things we want to get for the trip. One thing especially I’m looking at are SIM cards for our phones while we’re over there, for voice, text, and data.
There are a lot of choices, but one common theme is that all the ones I’ve found so far require the phone to be unlocked. And apparently some Verizon phones and plans are unlocked, or can be unlocked, and some can’t. So I’ll have to check with the Verizon store and see.
We also checked out the websites for the hotels we’ll be staying at in Paris and London. Both seem to be pretty central to the the city centers.
Here’s our room at the Hotel Eden Opera in Paris.
And here’s our room at the Lancaster Gate Hotel in London.
Both seem really nice.
Of course our real rooms could be in the back of the building, down a long, dark hallway, overlooking the stinky dumpster in the alley below. You never can tell.
Jan and I headed out about 1pm, first for lunch/breakfast at SnoozeAM, and then some WalMart/Sam’s Club shopping. Jan did get her pneumonia shot while we were at WM, which means that now I don’t have to worry about catching from her.
As I’ve said before, except for my recent Shingles shot, I don’t get vaccinations. The last time I got one, a flu shot in 1966, it put me in a coma for 4 days, and in the hospital for 2 weeks. And the doctor said I might not survive another one.
The one the year before just made me sick as a dog for 4 or 5 days
Now, yeah, I know vaccines have changed since then, and that was the flu one, and this is for pneumonia, but why take the chance?
So I just depend on the kindness of strangers. If everyone else gets all their shots like they’re supposed to, then there will be no one for me to catch anything from.
At least that’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it.
Several readers have asked about my diet plan that I’ve used to lose 70 pounds in the last year or so, so I’m putting together a blog post about. However I’m not sure it will be much help to anyone, since according to Jan, it’s “weird”.
Hey, it may be weird, but it works. For me.
March 26, 2020
A Good Report!
and We Scored!
Jan had her yearly mammogram this morning and everything came back fine. So of course we’re really happy about that. Jan really likes this place because she always knows the result before she leaves.
Then while Jan was getting that done, I headed over the WalMart, getting there about 7:30. I was surprised to find them handing out toilet paper, with your choice of two brands, and of course, one to a customer. In addition, they also had plenty of fresh eggs.
I was also looking for Paper Towels, but no luck on those, but they did have the Kleenex Jan wanted. So all in all, a successful trip.
Picking up Jan, and getting her great news, we decided to make a stop at the nearby Costco for a couple of other things Jan was looking for. Driving in, I noticed that their gas had dropped to $1.49/gal.
Good for us, bad for the oil ‘bidness’
We got there about 9am, and seeing people wheeling out carts with toilet paper and paper towels, we figured we were on the right path. So we were able to score a package of Paper Towels. Even better, we got a 6 tube pack of Lysol wipes. So our stop here was a successful, too.
And as we were checking out, they announced that they were now out of TP and PT, so we really lucked out, I guess.
However the problem was that when you buy Paper Towels from Costco, you get a 12 pack that takes up the entire backseat of the truck.
Somebody at Costco has a real sense of humor, as seen in this photo I found online.
And it looks like those of you who have squirreled away years of toilet paper, sanitizer, etc. (none of our readers, I’m sure) might be getting their comeuppance, since I saw this sign at Costco today.
Since we left the rig about 6:45 this morning, it was too early for coffee, but I set it up before we left, and then used my Switchbot phone app to start it brewing as we headed home.
Jan had one last doctor’s appointment this afternoon, with her oncologist pretty much to just go over her mammogram results, really just a formality since the news was so good this morning.
And in fact, it was apparently so much a ‘formality’ for the office, that they called and wanted to do the appointment online, using a phone app called VSee Clinic. And the call consisted pretty consisted of the doctor saying the mammogram showed no problems, which of course Jan already knew. And it did save us a trip back up to Webster this afternoon.
But we did head back out anyway a little after 4pm, first for a stop at our storage room to drop off our 2 year supply of Paper Towels and Lysol Wipes. Then we phoned in a food order to Los Ramirez Mexican to pick up on our way home. I also had them add 4 $25 gift cards to our order, to help them out as much as possible. We want them to stay around.
Day 4 in Homeschooling at the Morrison household seems to be a bit rocky.
First thing this morning:
If quarantine doesn’t end soon he’s getting shipped off to boarding school.
Then later.
Lowell bought some mini Twix bars yesterday and Landon kept sneaking them, so today I hid them and Lowell ratted me out and Landon says to me “bruh…just keep the food where it is”.
He’s now contemplating his sarcasm in time out.
Then our son Chris suggested.
Military School!
March 26, 2021
A Non-Stop Friday . . .
At least at work.
Today was one of those days at work when I walked in the door at 10:30 and I was already way behind. But I actually like it like that.
It seems like you just sit down, and then you look up and it’s time to go home.
I was able to get our new CubiCubi Dresser Storage Tower put together pretty quickly last night. The instructions were pretty decent for a change, but they really weren’t needed anyway.
And even though we had measured where it would fit, it somehow seems smaller that in the online photos. Of course, doesn’t everything. LOL
Now to decide what to stow away in it.
March 26, 2022
We Have A Date . . .
First up, I want to thank everyone for their concern about my BPPV attack. It faded as the day went on, and was gone by this morning, just as it the past.
I went out early this morning to try and remove my shore water inlet check valve. It turned out to be both harder and easier than I had expected, mainly because my fingers don’t quite have the strength that they did back in 2013 when I last replaced this.
I got the old one out and the new one in, but I couldn’t get it tightened down without a Crescent wrench. However it was about time for us to head out for lunch/errands so I’ll finish it up this afternoon.
Lunch today was the Pho Barr up in Webster once again. And now we have a date.
The new Pho Barr down in our area is supposed to open next Saturday, April 2nd. So I guess we’ll see next weekend.
After finishing up our shopping errands and we were back home I used a Crescent wrench to tighten down the fittings on the new inlet/check valve. And now it looks like that problem is fixed. There are no leaks, shore water now goes in, and no water comes out when there’s nothing hooked up to it. So the check valve part is working. I’ll finish mounting it tomorrow.
I said ‘that problem’ was fixed because I have another one that I found when I was working on this one.
This is the ball valve that diverts shore water into our 100 gallon fresh water tank to fill it up. When the handle is straight up, like in the photo, shore water works as usual. But when the valve is turned down to the left, water is sent to the tank. However now when the valve is in the tank fill position, a stream of water, kind of like what comes out of a squirt gun, comes out the back of the valve.
The exact replacement, is now only sold in Europe, but I found one on Amazon (of course) that should work, and will be here on Monday.
It’s always something.
Sunday . . .
After a great breakfast with everyone at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house, we all got our hugs, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways. Brandi, Lowell, and Landon back to Katy, Piper and Derek back to Taylor, Chris and Linda back home, and Jan and I headed back to Santa Fe. Texas, that is.
We had a great time, great food, great fun, and we’re already talking about when to do it again. I’ll spend the next couple of days catching back up with all the good times.
On our way we did make a quick stop at Jan’ favorite Pottery Ranch in Marble Falls. And the first thing she saw as we got parked was this guy.
I told her that if it would fit in the Corolla, she could have it. Well, at least until I saw this.
Yikes!
Well, maybe not.
But she did find some other (smaller, cheaper) things she wanted.
Back on the road home we came across this field of Bluebonnets and an old, abandoned stone house.
Really neat.
As is this Bluebonnet close-up.
More tomorrow.
Thought For The Day:
Looks like it’s been a lot hotter in the past.
March 27, 2009
Gather the animals, two by two…
Gather the animals, two by two… but be more picky this time.
Maybe not two of everything!
The rainstorms just won’t let up. Some places around here have had almost 8 inches. We’ve probably had 4 or 5 inches here at the park.
Luckily, we’re parked on an asphalt pad here. The last time we had rain like this while we were parked was last October in Sioux Falls, SD. Except then, we were parked on a grass site at the local fairgrounds (A lot of fairgrounds have a small number of RV sites for rent).
When we went to leave after 6 days, we couldn’t.
We were stuck and had to be towed out. The grass that was fine when we pulled in had turned to a muddy muck by the time we were ready to leave. It was pouring down rain when the tow driver showed up and the poor guy had to crawl under the front of the coach in the mud to hook up the tow cables. Once he had us hooked up, it only took about 10 minutes to slowly winch us out.
We have Good Sams Emergency Road Service so the tow didn’t cost us anything, but I gave him a big tip.
March 27, 2010
Showdown at Searchlight…
As I said yesterday, today we were going to do something a little different.
We left the rig about 7:40am (man, that’s early) and drove about 50 miles south to Searchlight NV for the Showdown at Searchlight Tea Party Express Rally.
We turned off the highway into what is normally a landscape rock quarry about 8:30 and it took us about 10 minutes to get parked.
We had to walk about 1/2 mile to get back to the stage area and found a lot of people already there.
I walked up to the top of a nearby hill to get some shots.
What was really amazing is that in less than an hour, all of the open area in these pictures was filled with people.
Jan got in the mood with a Tea Party hat and a Gadsden Flag.
One other interesting thing was going that you don’t see much anymore.
Skywriting.
But the new-fangled way: With computer-controlled planes. The planes fly in a vertical line and the computer tells each plane when to spit out a puff of smoke.
Kind of like an inkjet printer, but with smoke.
They also had a very large screen TV mounted on top of a truck. It looked better in person.
After the Governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons, opened the proceedings, Sarah Palin was the first speaker.
One of the next speakers was Jerry Doyle. (Michael Garibaldi of Babylon 5 fame). A corporate jet pilot, a successful stockbroker for 10 years, and an actor, he now hosts a nationwide syndicated talk show.
One surprising thing was that, second only to Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber really wowed the crowd. He spoke for about 15 minutes with no notes, no hesitation, just talking to the crowd.
It’s hard to believe that 18 months ago he was a working plumber who was filmed asking Barack Obama a question while Obama was campaigning on his street.
The last celebrity was Victoria Jackson, of Saturday Night Live fame. Although she is best known for her ‘blonde airhead” act, she had become known for her insightful political commentary.
The speakers were interspersed with candidates looking to run under the Tea Party banner, and a number of musical performers.
We headed back to the truck about 3:15, and were on our way by 3:30. It took us about 20 minutes to make it to the highway and head back to Las Vegas.
We thought we were home free. And we were..;.for the first 24 miles. Then, about 6 miles from the turn-off to the main highway into Las Vegas, everything came to a stop.
It took us a hour and twenty minutes to go that 6 miles. I don’t think it was all due to the Tea Party, as there were a lot of 18 wheelers in the bunch. But it was a mess.
We finally got back to the rig about 5:40, and then about 6pm, we decided we wanted to go somewhere close, so we went back to the buffet at the Boulder Station Casino. And, as on our other visits, it was very good.
We didn’t talk as long as we usually do after dinner as Jan was having trouble keeping her eyes open. So we called it a night early.
Later in the evening, I was reading reports on the internet of the size of the crowd at the Tea Party Rally,
Some were just ridiculously funny. CNN’s Fredericka Whitfield estimated that hundreds, but if not, “at least dozens of people” were in attendance. Other reports said “almost a thousand”.
On their website the night before, the Tea Party Express people said they expected 5-10 thousand.
Now look at these aerial photos and you decide.
And this picture does not cover the entire area full of people.
We were packed in pretty tight.
This picture was taken at 1:35pm, 95 minutes after the event started, and, according to the Highway Patrol, traffic was backed up for 8 miles with people still trying to get in. If you look closely, you will see that the traffic line extends around the hill at the top of the picture and further off to the left.
Now you know why I wanted to get there at 8:30am..
As we were heading back to Las Vegas, we saw cars parked as far as 4 miles from the entrance.
The late news on the Los Angeles ABC station, who had a crew there, said there were over 20,000 people there.
I think they were a little closer than CNN.
March 27, 2011
Goldilocks Pants . . .
Another lazy morning starting with coffee, and Jan and I splitting a cinnamon bun. Then I caught up on some computer stuff while Jan read. A really nice way to spend the morning.
Next I tried on the three pair of new pants I got at Wal-Mart yesterday. And once again, I bought Goldilocks pants.
You know what I mean . . . Goldilocks Pants. One pair is too tight, one pair is too loose, and one pair is juuuust right. How do they do that?
The pants, Wrangler Cargo Pants, are all the same style, just different colors.
I’ve also purchased Goldilocks Underwear. In this case, a 3 pack of Hanes, with the same problem
Also, while I’m ranting, why do they only make pants in even sizes. Normally I wear a 36 waist, but depending on the style, a 37 would fit better. But they don’t make a 37, just a 38, which is too loose.
And getting back to men’s underwear, they all seem to span two sizes, i.e. 32-34, or 36-38, with no overlap. Why don’t they make a 34-36, which would fit me better?
Who makes up these rules?
Then a little later I went out to check on my black tank valve replacement from yesterday. Removing the cap, I found no black tank leakage, but a couple of tablespoons of grey water leakage. It’s probably been that way for a while, but was masked by the black tank stuff.
So it’s now on my list to also replace while I’ve got the panel off. I’ll try to pick one up at Camping World before we leave the area.
Later,over at Nick’s we worked on some problems with his blogs. And it looks like I may have caused another one. In trying to figure out how to add pages to the nav bar on his theme, the menu shifted up on top of his logo picture. Don’t know why or how it did that. So we called Chris Guld of Geeks on Tour who set up the blog to take a look at it.
About 4:30 Jan and I headed out to Lucky Wishbone, a steak fingers, chicken, and fish place we ate at once before, but this was a different location. But it was just as good as last time.
Coming home about 6:30, since it was on our way, we went by Camping World to pick up a grey tank valve. Figure they might already be closed, and they were. Will try again tomorrow.
March 27, 2012
Still Living the Motel Life . . .
Since we were a few minutes too late for breakfast at the hotel, (I thought they said 9:30. It was 9.) we decided to head across town to IHOP.
Big mistake. Worse IHOP meal we’ve ever had. Pretty much everything was either uncooked, and/or cold. Next time it’s either Denny’s or get up earlier.
Leaving IHOP, we stopped off at Rush Truck Center to pick a couple of things up and plug in the coach to shop power. Clayton, the manager said they were just starting to look at the coach and he’d let me know as soon as they knew something.
So Jan and I headed back to the room for an afternoon of doing nothing. We read and napped, and then read and napped some more. Jan worked on her recipe file and I read and napped.
Did I mention I napped?
Finally about 4:30 we headed out for dinner after a quick stop at the rig to check in. Clayton said he was getting ready to call me with what they found so far.
They removed the oil pan and found about two quarts of coolant in the oil.
They then over-pressurized the cooling system and except for a couple of very small external leaks around hose connections, no coolant showed up anywhere.
The Tech even joked he wondered if someone just poured coolant in the oil. He also said they found no sign of oil in the coolant. So whatever’s leaking is only going in one direction.
So tomorrow they’re going to put the pan back on, fill it with oil, get it running, and see what happens.
The good news is, that so far, there’s no bad news.
For supper Jan and I decided to check out Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, a national chain that’s been around since 1941. But somehow we’ve never eaten one.
And we should have. It was really very good. Good sauce, good meat, good sides. And free ice cream for dessert.
Leaving Dickey’s, I dropped Jan off to get her hair done while I read my Kindle in the car. Then it was back to the motel for the night.
Maybe tomorrow we’ll get some more news.
March 27, 2013
Slowed to a Crawl . . .
Well, a couple of things were really slow today.
First off, nothing much happened. I worked on some stuff, and then worked on other stuff. Jan went through things in the bedroom, sorting and throwing out stuff.
Then when she was done, I got out the vacuum and gave the rug in there a thorough cleaning, but ended having to disassemble the vacuum cleaner first to clean it out before it would do a good job.
About 2 I drove over to the P.O. to mail an Easter card to Master Landon, along with a bunch of post cards to other friends and family Then coming home I made a quick stop at an O’Reilly Auto Parts store for some heat-shrink tubing and a replacement bulb for one of our floor lights.
Then for dinner, we fixed Chicken Taco Salads using the last of the El Pollo Loco chicken we got a few days ago, using some of the hot salsa we got in Fort Davis a few weeks ago. Really good.
The other thing that slowed to a crawl here is the 3G Internet service. When we got here a week or so ago, the 3G was pretty speedy at about 1.5 Mbps. But the last few days it’s dropped a cliff. I think it may be the fact that we’ve had 50-75 RV’s and trailers come into the fairgrounds in preparation for the upcoming county fair that starts the 18th of April. And probably every one has a computer and a smartphone, just sucking all the bandwidth out of the ether. Apparently leaving none of me.
Sunday we’ll be moving up to the Countryside RV Park in Apache Junction. Although it’s an Encore Park, we can stay there for $3 a night.
Nice!
I want to thank blog reader’s Ellen and Larry Clark for making me aware of this.
Tomorrow Jan and I are going to check out Brushfire BBQ here in Tucson. We’ve heard good things about it, and the online reviews are good so we’ll give it try.
See I told you it was slow.
March 27, 2014
Fans and Hawks . . .
One of the things I got yesterday at Harbor Freight Tools was a set of drill bits with 1/4 shanks.
This lets me use them in my regular drill, and also my WORX Power Screw Driver that I find myself using more and more. Small and still very powerful.
Around 11 am I put in a call to Fantastic Vent to order another motor/fan combination for our bathroom vent fan.
I really like the look of the clear plastic blades. They let a lot more light in, and supposedly, they’re made of tougher plastic than the old one. When I replaced the front one a couple of days ago, I notice the old blades were very brittle and could be easily snapped with your fingers.
The other thing I noticed was that the motor on the new one is much more powerful and moves a lot more air on HIGH.
Hopefully it will come in sometime next week.
When we arrived this past Monday, our neighbor pointed out a Red-tailed Hawk nest across the river from us. And there’s some activity going on in there. You can see a head sticking up.
Unfortunately it’s at the far end of my 72X lens so I doubt I’ll get much more. But I have seen one flying back to the nest.
The weather today was pretty cruddy. Solid overcast all day, with rain on and off, but it still made it up to 72°, which means it was just sticky all day. In fact after dark the humidity was so high that it kept triggering the rain sensor on our vent fans, making them open and close. So finally we just bit the bullet and turned the AC’s on.
Don’t know what’s on the agenda for tomorrow. We’ll have to see how the weather holds out.
March 27, 2015
A Problem Solved?
I spent most of the morning working on client stuff. It seems like they all want things done at the same time, and this week has been a perfect example. Every thing comes to a head at the same time.
I mentioned back in January after I installed my new power converter/charger that there was a slight problem with the voltage output.
Powermax 110 Volt to 12 Volt 55 Amp Power Supply Converter Charger
The Powermax unit has 3 voltage levels: A Bulk Charge Mode at 14.4 volts, a Absorption Mode at 13.6, and a Float Charge Mode at 13.2 volts. When you first power up the unit, it starts out in Bulk Charge Mode for up to 4 hours, before dropping back to Absorption Mode, which is where it will stay under heavy 12volt usage. But with mostly LED lights, our unit usually runs in Float Mode.
But Float Mode is 0.1 volt too low for the rig power system to switch over and keep the rig engine batteries charged. Up to now I had a separate battery charger on the engine batteries that I plug in every we part. But this is a PITA, and just one more thing to do when we park.
So this afternoon, I set up something different. Using an AC Timer like this one,
I set it up to turn the converter off for 30 minutes every 8 hours around the clock. When it turns back on, the converter starts back up in Bulk Charge Mode and then drops to Absorption Mode. Both of these voltages are high enough to keep the engine batteries charged. And so far today it’s working fine. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I had planned on trying to paint the center section of the rig bumper this afternoon, but by the time I got out there, the sun was directly on the bumper, making it too hot to paint without it drying too fast. So maybe tomorrow.
For supper tonight Jan heated up our leftover Grimaldi’s Pizzeria pizza from the other night, as well as the Fried Green Beans from last night’s Joe’s Farm Grill visit. Both just about as good as before. We both agree Joe’s is a place we would like to go back to before we leave.
March 27, 2016
#$%$#@& Cat !
I was up about 6:30 to finish our travel preparations for today’s move over to the Colorado River Thousand Trails. I stowed away all the satellite stuff and then got the laptop set up on the dashboard. The laptop runs our Delorme Street Atlas GPS software and our Silverleaf digital engine monitoring program.
But that wasn’t going to happen today. At least the Delorme GPS part of it.
![Chewed Plugs_thumb[1]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Chewed-Plugs_thumb1.png "Chewed Plugs_thumb[1]")
My #$%$#@& cat sometime in the last two weeks chewed off the USB connector of my GPS module, as well as the mini-phone plug from the external speaker I also use.
#$%$#@& cat !
I know I’ll be able to replace the phone plug, but I’ll have to see if I can solder a new USB plug on the GPS cable. It might even be easier to just solder a new cable onto the GPS module.
I can buy a new one from Delorme for about $40, or a used one on eBay for about $20. But I’ll try the cheaper way first.
By 8am we were ready to roll, with only bringing up the levelers, unplugging shore power, and bringing in the slide left to do, so we headed into Conroe to have our normal travel day breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel. We were a little worried if the CB would be crowded since this was Easter Sunday, but it was no busier than usual for 8am.
We were hooked up and leaving the park by about 10:45, and after a smooth, but somewhat windy trip, we got into the Colorado River park about 1pm. As we were checking, the ranger said a prime site, A10, had just opened up and to grab it quick.
He also asks if I could work on RV refrigerators and that Barbara Spade, the head ranger here, had a problem. So I told him to tell her to give me a call.
Then after we parked and got set up, our friend Jim Dean called and invited us to dinner down at their rig about 5pm. By this time Jan was already napping on the couch, so deciding this was a great idea, I adjourned to the bedroom for my nap. Later, after we were both up and getting ready to head down to the Jim and Peri’s, I got a call from Barbara Spade about her refrigerator.
She said it was a Dometic Royale, about 15 years old, and was working fine up until this morning, when she noticed it was warming up. Later she tried switching over to gas, but it didn’t seem to help, so she switched it back to electric. So I told her I would come over after dinner and take a look at it.
Peri fixed us a great meal, complete with dessert. Our contribution was six pack of Redd’s Green Apple Ale and a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
We all talked for a good while, especially about Alaska, since Jim and Peri are heading that way this summer. And when I mentioned to Jim that I was going up to look at Barbara’s fridge, he offered to come along.
When we got there we found all the lights and controls seemed to be working, but the inside was at room temp. When I pulled the outside access cover off, we found that the vent stack was hot, almost too hot to touch, but there was no temp difference in the ammonia coils up at the top of the unit. They were also at room temp. Then we switched the fridge over to gas, and we could see the blue flame, and again had heat in the vent.
Later we went back on electric and checked AC voltage coming into the board and the voltage feeding out to the heating coil. All were correct, though we did not check the continuity of the coil, but since we had heat from it we assumed it was OK.
Now normally when you’ve got heat, you should have cooling . . . unless you have no ammonia, or maybe a blockage. And if your ammonia leaks out, you definitely know it. Plus you have a yellow residue at the leak point. But no sign of that here.
As far as blockages, they don’t usually occur in operating units, but ones that are used on and off, or turned off part of the year. But you never know. And of course, one of the recommended fixes for a blockage is to take the refrigerator out and turn it upside down for a while.
So for right now, we left it running on gas, and we’ll check back tomorrow and see what we have.
March 27, 2017
Just Didn’t Want To Work On Sunday . . .
At 10:45 this morning I got a text that my replacement Cradlepoint CTR-350 router had been delivered at the park office.
So I quickly walked over to pick it up, and got a surprise. My new Amazon mouse, you know the one that couldn’t be delivered yesterday, yesterday being Sunday, because it had an incomplete address.
Well, it made it with no problems today, and it looks like the address is just fine to me.
This is the second time I’ve had a Sunday delivery scheduled that didn’t go through, the last one because the Pima Country Fairgrounds was CLOSED during the Escapade. But apparently it was open the next day with no problems.
Guess they just don’t like to work on Sundays.
It took some fooling and resetting, but I did get my new Cradlepoint router working so we once again have Wi-Fi in the rig. Our Kindles, Galaxy Tab, and Alexa are all happy once again.
Later I put in a call to the Kwikee Steps people. which is now owned by Lippert Components. Lippert also owns Power Gear and Attwood Water Heaters, as well as a bunch of other companies.
But their Tech Support was helpful, and confirmed what I thought, that the loud grinding noise I hear whenever our rig steps go in and out is caused by a bad motor. So that’s next up on my repair list as soon as I order a new motor.
My next call was to Mobile RV Glass to see about resetting our passenger side windshield. It was broken when our rig was being repaired in Prescott, AZ after our blowout in May 2015.
As they were lifting the front end to replace the damaged diesel tank they torqued it enough to crack the passenger side windshield. So it was replaced during the blowout repair.
But after a couple of months back on the road, the windshield and the gasket starting pulling away from the frame, leaving a gap at the top right of the windshield.
It’s not in any danger of coming out, as you can pulled on the windshield at the crack and it won’t budge, and it’s not loose at all.
I had tried several times over the last few months to get a guy in Conroe to come out and look at it, but he never showed up. So I figured that Apache Junction would be a good place to tried again.
The guy at RV Mobile Glass asked me to send him photos of the separation, and also the front of the rig to be sure it’s still square.
Looks fine to me.
About 2pm we headed out a for a Wal-Mart run to drop off some prescriptions and pick up a few things. Then it was back to the rig to drop off the cold stuff and off to the SanTan Village over in Gilbert to have dinner at one of our favorites, Famous Dave’s BBQ.
Service was somewhat slow, I think due to the fact that they only had one server on duty who was handling 6 or 7 tables plus the outside patio area. But the food was as good as ever.
We both started out with salads, very good salads with a really great Ranch dressing.
Then we both went with our usuals, Jan with her Half Slab of St. Louis Ribs with Fries,
while my choice was the 3 Meat Combo with St. Louis Ribs, Texas Brisket, and a Hot Link Sausage, along with Wilbur Beans and Firecracker Green Beans.
Famous Dave’s has a range of sauces, with our favorites being a combination of Devil’s Spit and Sweet & Zesty. I also spice things up a little more with some Wilbur’s Revenge, their hottest sauce. All good.
And as usual, we both had plenty leftover to take home.
I’ve been having trouble answering comments on the blog, so bear with me if I haven’t responded.
March 27, 2018
No News Is . . .
Probably Not Good News.
I didn’t heard from Brock’s Car Care today, which I’m afraid means that the problem ended up being the more expensive oil pump replacement. Of course I’m hoping that the real reason is that they’re just really backed up and haven’t gotten to it yet.
Well, I can hope, can’t I.
I’m spend some time day today researching how to move a ZenCart shopping cart website to a new server. Now that I’ve got control of the SQL databases I can start working on the move up to the Godaddy cloud.
I plan to first set up a test move using a slower shared Godaddy server. Then once that’s perfected, I’ll shut the websites down over a weekend, copy all files off and then up to Godaddy using a faster dedicated server. Then I’ll turn everything back on, and we should be good to go.
Hopefully.
March 27, 2019
I Did It My Way . . .
But Jan still says it’s weird. But I’ve lost about 70 pounds with another 15 or so to go, while Jan has lost about 50 pounds. But she has her own plan.
But mine works for me.
We’ll start off with my take on the Law of Conservation of Mass.
You cannot gain more weight than the weight of the food you eat. The calories in that food determine how much of that weight hangs around.
If you drink 5 – 16 oz. sugar-free Green Tea’s and then weigh yourself, you will be 5# heavier than when you weighed right before you drank them. But with no calories involved, in a few hours the weight will all be gone. So to speak.
But if you eat a gallon of ice cream, also about 5#, and over 4000 calories, a large part of that is going to stick around.
The USDA says the average person burns about 2000 calories a day, though some sources say around 3000 calories. So if you have that gallon of ice cream for lunch, there’s as many as 2000 calories left over. Which the body will mostly convert to mostly fat.
So, don’t do that.
Things I do do:
1. Coffee – I drink a lot of coffee. I make 12 cups every morning, with Jan getting 2 cups and the rest, 10 cups, goes in my big 40 oz. Ozark Trail Insulated Mug. Then I spend drinking it over the rest of the morning/afternoon.
2. More Coffee – I make 8 cups of Decaf every evening, with Jan again getting 2 cups, and I get the remaining 6 cups.
The coffee fills me up and cuts down any urges to snack.
It works for me, so I don’t want to hear any comments on how coffee is good/bad for me.
3. I weigh every day – I have weighed every day since I started dieting on 12/30/2017 without missing a single one. It’s interesting watching how the body handles ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ food.
Something like a steak hangs around for a couple of days,so to speak. So if you’re weighing once a week, and the night before you have a steak for 850 calories, you will weigh more than if you have 850 calories of breakfast, eggs, bacon, fruit, and English Muffin. So if you’ve been dieting faithfully all week and then weigh without losing any weight, or maybe even gain 1/2 pound, that can be discouraging.
And yes I’m taking the scale on our trip.
4. Change Your Habits – When you’re trying to quit smoking, you’re told to try and stay away from situations where you smoked before. And that’s what I did.
I’ve usually always been a night owl, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning. But when I’m eaten dinner at 5, it’s now been 6-7 hours since I’ve eaten, so I ‘snack’, pretty much my downfall. So I’ve started going to bed between 10-11pm and getting up earlier.
5. Eat One Meal A Day – I normally eat one meal a day, usually lunch or dinner. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday’s we normally eat at home.
I make up a meal with the following:
360 calories – 9 oz. of Angus Beef Strips
140 calories – 1 Steam Bag of Petite Carrots
120 calories – 1 Steam Bag of Birdseye Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Carrots
60 calories – 3 Cups of Chicken Broth to make a soup.
680 calories Total
Along with 200 calories of the Creamer used in my coffee, that totals 880 calories, pretty much a normal day’s calorie intake for me.
On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, we normally eat out, and it’s usually breakfast, at either Denny’s or SnoozeAM.
If it’s Denny’s, it’s this:
130 calories – 2 Fried Eggs
200 calories – 4 Strips of Bacon
170 calories – English Muffin
110 calories – Fruit
610 calories Total + 200 calories for Coffee Creamers gives 810 Calories for the day.
Snooze is pretty much the same, with 3 eggs instead of 2, but 3 strips of bacon instead of 4. Pretty much a wash.
When we go to Cheddar’s, I get their Veggie Plate which comes with the following:
260 calories – Bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup
120 calories – 2 Servings of Carrots
80 calories – 2 Servings of Green Beans
180 calories – Croissant
640 calories Total + Creamers, of course.
So that’s it for meals, whether we eat out or at home. It’s pretty much 800-1000 calories a day. And yes, we do splurge every once in a while. But then it’s back on the diet the next day.
A blog reader commented that we don’t seem to exercise much. We do, just not as such. When we’re in WalMart/Sam’s Club I’m tracking our distance and it’s not unusual for us to do over a mile just shopping. And that’ normally twice a week.
Now as far as the results. We just had our yearly checkups last Thursday, and everything was normal. My A1c, which had dropped down to 5.7 last year, was down to 5.4 this year. And all my other readings were very good. HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, BP, Kidney Function, Liver Function, PSA, etc., all good.
So that’s my diet plan.
Weird, I know, but it works for me.
March 27, 2021
An Early Adopter . . .
After a nice slow morning/early afternoon of coffee and conversation, Jan and I left the rig for the Denny’s and WalMart over on I-45.
I’m not normally an ‘early adopter’. You know, that person that’s at the front of line after waiting all night to grab up the latest iPhone, see the latest Star Wars movie, or buy tickets for the Beatles Reunion concert (well, since John Lennon and George Harrison are dead, I’d get in line for those tickets too.)
The last time I was actually an early adopter was April 17, 2017, when I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8+ the day it come out. And that’s turned out really good, since I’m still using it. Though I’m looking at upgrading to a S21G Ultra in the near future.
So after almost 4 years, it’s time to do it again.
Just as soon as I confirm that I have a good site picture to the right portion of the sky, I’m signing up for Elon Musk’s new Starlink Internet service. According to their signup page, it should be available in my area between mid and late 2021.
There’s a $99 refundable signup fee, with the hardware costing $499 when it’s ready to ship. Then the service is $99/month.
The 34” Starlink Dish
The Starlink Modem
The reason I’m looking to do this, even though we have free WiFi here at the park, is that we have so many outages, interruptions, and slowdowns, that it’s not that reliable.
In other words, Xfinity sucks.
Right now, we’re lucky to get 10Mbps from the park WiFi, with sometimes only about 3Mbps. And at that speed, we can’t get consistently HD quality video on our streaming.
But beta Starlink users are seeing 50 to 150Mbps, with 300Mbps promised by the end of the year. And Musk says that ultimately they hope get it up to 1Gbps.
Hopefully we’ll be on the schedule pretty soon.
Tomorrow we’re headed up to Webster to have lunch once again at Snooze, but first we’re going to stop by the office so I can start a clone job on the shipping computer. We’re switching both office computers over to the much faster SSD (Solid State Drives). So using WD’s software I’ll clone the old HD onto the new SSD drive, and then just swap them out.
Easy Pezy. I hope.
It normally takes a couple of hours to clone a 1TB drive so I thought I’d get it going before lunch to get a head start. Then while it’s finishing up, I’m going to work on a couple of other things, like getting our new much faster WiFi 6 network in the office working.
Jan’s bringing her Kindles and tablets to keep herself occupied.
March 27, 2022
Just An Error?
My new water tank ball valve should be here tomorrow from Amazon.
It’s a little shorter than the original one, but I think there’s enough slack in the piping to make it work. But if not I can always put in some spacer pieces.
I did check outside after our showers and found no evidence of any leaks, so, so far so good.
I’ll try to install the new valve, as well as my 4 port hose splitter on Tuesday. Maybe.
Jan and I headed out about 1pm, with, unusually, a few errands before we were going to have lunch. Our first stop was at the UPS Store next to the HEB to drop off an Amazon return. We wanted to do it first since the close earlier on Sunday.
Next up was the nearby Home Depot to pick up a couple of things, before ending up at the big Goodwill store right next to the WalMart. Jan was looking for a couple of things, but didn’t find anything that caught her eye.
After that it was over to the Denny’s right across the street, and the reason for delaying lunch.
Denny’s is very, very busy on Sunday mornings/early afternoons, but we’ve learned that if we wait until after 2pm, we can get right in.
I do have a correction about our last visit to Denny’s. Or maybe it was Denny’s correction.
The last time we were here I noticed that our Ultimate Omelets, previously $10.99, had jumped to $16.49. So today when we sat down, I looked at the menu and it said the Ultimate Omelet was still $10.99. Now I know our receipt last said Ultimate Omelet, so the only thing I can see is that someone mistakenly mispriced the omelet. So just an error.
And when we got our bill today, it said $10.99 each.
Good.
Finally our last stop was HEB for next week’s groceries. And then we were home by about 3:30.
Our son-in-law Lowell posted this photo, saying that the pool is open for the summer.
Looks like Landon, and probably his BFF Sophie, are enjoying the warmer weather.
