Daily Archives: April 21, 2023
Flyway . . .
As I thought about yesterday’s SpaceX Starship Heavy test flight, the ship didn’t blow up all on its own. Once they knew it wasn’t going any further since the booster and the Starship wouldn’t separate, they purposely detonated it.
Looks like they’re really coming along on Webster’s new Flyway development. At 80 acres, it will encompass a number of hotels, restaurants and entertainment centers.
Probably the highlight of the place is going to be the Great Wolf Lodge.
The 532-room resort will encompass 27-acres and feature a 95,000 square-foot indoor water park and a 58,000 square-foot Great Wolf Adventure Park and should be open in mid-to-late 2024.
And it looks like they’re making a lot of progress on it.
Looking forward to it.
Right around the corner from us, a tree service has been taking down this tree after a couple of big limbs fell during a recent windstorm. And apparently it’s been growing here for a long time, since they had to cut out a chunk that had grown around a cable TV wire. So now it just hangs there.
Thought For The Day:
Why did the Federal Government need an Amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol consumption, and another Amendment to make it legal again, but didn’t need anything to ban certain drugs?
Discuss among yourselves.
April 21, 2010
Homes of the Stars…
We now have a middle name!
Our upcoming grandson’s full name will be –
Landon Thomas Morrison
We left the rig about 10 am headed for Hollywood and our Movie Star Home Tour.
We got there early enough to have lunch so we decided to try the Hooters across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theater where our tour would start.
One thing we’ve noticed is the Hooter’s hot wings out west are not near as hot as the Hooters in Texas. We both had ours at “911” which is their hottest normal temp. (Some Hooters also have off the menu temps called “Bentley” and “Elvis” which are hotter still.) But “911” out here is only about equal to ‘Hot” in Texas.
Anyway we got with our group and were led to our tour bus.
Since rain was forecast and it was sprinkling on the way in from Lancaster, we were a little worried, seeing as how we didn’t have a roof. But our tour guide said not to worry, that if it rained, he had a backup plan. Jan asked what the backup plan was, he said “We get wet!”.
Oh boy!
But off we went. And it turned out fine. The rain held off and the sun even came out for a while.
And now, in no particular order, here are some of the homes we saw.
Bob Barker of “The Price is Right” fame
The mountain-top retreat, high above Beverly Hills, has been owned by both Steven Spielberg and Merv Griffin. It’s up for sale now.
This is the entrance to Bill Cosby’s home.
This one is newly-built by Richard and Kathy Hilton, the parents of Paris Hilton.
This home was used both in Will Smith’s “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and in “Mommy Dearest”, with Faye Dunaway.
This under-construction mansion is rumored to be the new home of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it’s supposed to be a tight secret with a lot of security around it, even under construction.
This was Rosemary Clooney’s home.
This is one of the homes used in the Beverly Hillbillies.
This is the Beverly Hills Tower, home to Elton John, Cher, Sidney Poitier, and Matthew Perry, among others.
This is Nancy Reagan’s Nail Salon, where she has her nails done every Thursday.
This is all that remains of the location of “77 Sunset Strip”. It’s the valet parking area, and it’s not located at 77 Sunset Strip, anyway. It’s more like 4800.
This is the home of “Colombo’s” Peter Faulk.
And this is Helen Hunt’s home. And it’s up for sale, if you’re in the market.
This is the back of Johnny Weissmuller’s home. It has a quarter mile long swimming pool that winds thru the estate, with trees and vines so he could still play Tarzan. His family stills owns it.
This is the front gate of Michael Jackson’s home.where he died.
The balcony here leads into the bedroom where Michael’s body was found.
This was the home of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.
And right next door was Jack Benny’s home. It’s now owned by Jon Lovitz.
And right next door to that is Carol Burnett’s home. That’s some neighborhood.
This is Dr. Phil’s home, also known as the “House that Oprah built”.
This is Tom Cruise’s home, or what you can see of it.
And this home, complete with gargoyles, was the home of Dracula’s,Bela Lugosi.
This is a shot of the LA skyline, as seen from the Hollywood sign view point.
And, of course the Hollywood sign itself. It originally said “Hollywoodland” and was erected in 1923 as an advertisement for the Hollywood Land Co. The last four letters were removed in 1945, or destroyed by a rocket belt-wearing Nazi spy crashing into it in the movie “The Rocketeer”. Take your pick.
Back at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, there are always a bunch of movie characters in costumes for people to have their pictures taken with. We’ve seen Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia, just to name a few. However, only in Hollywood would you find KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Jesus, walking and talking.
Seeing this made me want KFC for dinner, so we stopped and picked some up on our way home.
I wonder it I’ll want to go to church on Sunday, too.
Stopping at KFC, I finally got to try the new Double Down Chicken Chicken Sandwich.
It’s two strips of bacon, two slices of Monterey Jack and Pepper Jack cheese, and Colonel’s Sauce, between two chicken breasts. It’s messy to eat, unless you keep it in the wrapper, but it’s delicious.
And at 540 calories, it’s not bad calorie-wise, either. That’s 140 calories less than a Whopper and 160 calories less than a Big Mac.
And did I say it’s really, really good?
April 21, 2011
Pelonis and DirecTV . . .
This morning started for me about 10:15. Jan of course, gets up earlier. I made coffee and we split a bacon cheese bagel from the Fry’s in Cottonwood.
Our next onerous task was simply to gaze out the windows and enjoy the great view.
The Elk’s Lodge here in Show Low has a very nice RV park with the beautiful surroundings and full hookups for only $15/day.
And it also has just the perfect amount of trees, enough to provide some nice shade, but not too many to block the satellite dish.
Around 12 Jan heated up the last of the pizza from our visit to Crusty’s Pizza in Camp Verde this past Monday, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on client web stuff.
About 3 pm I decided an hour nap was in order. Then, after a very nice nap, I tackled a problem with our Pelonis floor heaters.
There was so much dust and cat hair accumulated over the last 4 years that it was causing them to overheat and shut down. So I wanted to take them apart and vacuum them out.
Easier said than done, however.
It quickly became obvious that these things were not designed to come apart. They seemed like a Chinese puzzle, but what I didn’t count on is that they were kind of spring loaded. When I got them apart to a certain point, they just exploded into a bunch of pieces. So now I’ve got to get it all back together and hope I don’t have any pieces left over.
I hate it when that happens!
Then, a little before 5 pm our DirecTV started acting up. It was flashing a message telling me that one of the two tuners had lost the satellite signal. This happens occasionally when the wind blows the dish a little off aim. But before going outside to adjust it, I check the signal level on the DVR, and it said both tuners were 90% or above. It also was supposed to record Big Bang Theory starting at 5 but it didn’t.
I first tried resetting the DVR with the button, but after it came back up in about 5 minutes, it still was doing the same thing.
So I called DirecTV, got put straight though to Tech Support. After verifying my ID, he started sending commands to my DVR over the sat. link and having me tell him what I saw.
Then he sent some more data down to my set and had me run the System Setup using the new data. And this fixed the problem. As soon as the system came back up everything was working fine.
Great service from DirecTV.
Later we headed out for supper. We first tried Native New Yorker (yeah, I know we ate there yesterday, but it was really good), but they had a 45 minute wait. So we drove over to the Pizza Factory for an OK meal. Certainly not as good as Crusty’s or Da Boyz, but OK.
That’s it for today. Probably shopping and some errands tomorrow.
April 21, 2013
Moving Day . . . Again
Today was once again moving day. We had to move back one space to the left. A real pain in the butt, but it means we go from paying $20 a night to paying $3 a night for the next 10 days.
Since it was supposed to be 90 today, we decided to move a little earlier than we did last Sunday, so about 12:45 we hit the road, or at least drove across the road and then backed into the site next door.
It took several back and forths to get in straight because the site doesn’t have a lot of room between the pad and the sewer connection. As it was, when the rig was right along side the patio, the sewer connection was only about 6 inches from my rear tire on the other side.
But it fit, which is what mattered. So we’re now parked until we leave for Las Vegas on May 1st.
Later, Jan and I headed about 25 miles away to Fry’s Electronics. As it turns out, I needed an RF Modulator to finish hooking up our new DirecTV HD DVR. Our old DVR had an F connector output on channel 3/4 that feeds the bedroom TV. But our new DVR only has video/audio outputs, but no RF. So I needed one of those things people used to hook their video games up to their TV, but I wanted one that also had an S-Video input for the best quality.
After finding what I needed, (and a few other things of course), we headed down the road about 5 miles to another of our favorite BBQ places, Rudy’s BBQ.
Jan had the Loaded Baked Potato with Brisket, and I had a little brisket, a couple of ribs, and a half link of jalapeno sausage, I.e. a little bit of every thing.
Getting back to the park about 8:30, it was another long, but nice day.
April 21, 2014
A Very Short Season . . .
We made the move back to the Colorado River Thousand Trails. our 3rd stay since we left Galveston Bay RV Resort on Feb 24th, and hopefully our last park stay in the area before we head north.
As it stands now, we’ll leave here on May 2nd, heading up to Elkhart, IN, and then on to Goshen, IN for the 54th Escapade starting the 12th of May. We plan on making several stops along the way to visit family.
Getting into Colorado River, we had our choice of 50 amp sites, so this time we picked a site at the top of the hill in the ‘A’ section, and got a nice site overlooking the field below. I thought about pulling straight in so we would be looking out over the field from our windshield, like we overlook the bayou at the Galveston Bay park. Of course this means that we have to hook up our utilities underneath the rig, but we have long enough cords and hoses to do that with no problem. But for some reason some parks frown on this, and since I hadn’t checked it out beforehand, I decided to back in as normal.
Unlike a lot of the other sites, this one is nice and level, with a gravel pad and a concrete patio.
One thing we noticed coming up US71 and the turnoff to the park is that all the bluebonnets are just gone. And in only two weeks. Now that’s a short growing season.
We know the area hasn’t been mowed, because the Indian Paintbrushes are still there. We had thought about driving up to the Brenham area later in the week to check out the big Bluebonnet fields, but we may reconsider now.
Now that my shear pins have come in, and look to be the right ones, I’ll try to get underneath there and get it replaced pretty soon. But as before we had no problem doing it manually this morning as we left the Lake Conroe TT Park. But hopefully this morning will be the last time we have to do it that way.
We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.
April 21, 2015
High Taxes and Small Cracks . . .
I mentioned the other day about the 12% tax this Thousand Trails charged us on the $5 a day / $70 for two weeks upcharge for our 50amp site. Well, I found out where that comes from.
The normal sales tax rate here in Las Vegas is 8.1%. The 12% amount is the hotel tax charged here, the ‘room’ tax. Now why the $5 charge for 50 amp is a ‘room’ I can’t explain. I do know that I’ve never been charge tax on 50 amps before. But as Jan says, “Hey, it’s Vegas, Baby!”
After our morning coffee and English muffins, I put the finishing touches on the magnetic shade that covers the large driver’s side window, and got it mounted outside. And it quickly made a big difference in the heat coming in. Enough so that AC’s cycled on and off during the hottest part of the 85+ degree day. So far, so good.
Later in the afternoon, I took a shot at fixing the small radiator leak I’ve had for a month or so. I found that there was a small vertical crack on the top right edge of the radiator.
Anticipating this repair, I had picked up a tube of this JB Weld Epoxy.
J-B Weld SteelStik Steel Reinforced Epoxy Putty Stick
It’s easy to use, handles temps to 300 degrees, and pressures up to 900 PSI. So it should handle the radiator repair with no problems.
The crack ran just along the edge of the scalloped piece of metal on top of the radiator body. I first cleaned the area with a wire brush and roughed it up with sandpaper for increased adhesion. Finally I wiped the area down with rubbing alcohol and let it dry.
Cutting off a marble-sized piece of the JB Weld, I rolled it around in my fingers until it was a single color, and then into a 4” long snake. Then I pressed it into place along the crack and a little further out from the ends of the crack.
Checking back in an hour I found the joint perfectly cured and ready to go. So we’ll check it out tomorrow during our Wal-Mart trip.
For dinner tonight Jan heated up some of the Baked Spaghetti that we picked up from Crusty’s Pizza in Camp Verde before we left last Sunday. Really good.
April 21, 2016
It’s A Rule . . .
I spent most the day tracking down missing software and downloading needed programs from the Internet. One thing I’m doing is that I’m only reinstalling software as I need it, which should keep some of the clutter down.
:Later I also connected up my Backup Drive and started copying over data files, documents, pictures, videos, and music.All told, about 300 GB worth, including over 29,000 photos since 2006, two years before we started RV’ing.
This new computer is only about two years newer than my old one, but much, much faster. So in the end, this will all be worth it.
I was kind of surprised by this HD failure since I got no warning whatsoever from the motherboard’s S.M.A.R.T. monitoring (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; often written as SMART)
SMART is a system that monitors HD reliability and reports if there are any problems. Now it won’t catch everything, but it does give an indication on 60-70% of failures.
So I guess my HD was in that 30-40%
Something next week, after we’re at Medina Lake, I’ll do my freezer trick and see what I come up with.
Dennis and Carol Hill picked us up a little after 5pm and we headed off north of Willis to have dinner at the Fish Pond Restaurant. We’ve eaten here a number of times, but it was a first for Dennis and Carol.
And everyone seemed to enjoy their meal, with Carol having Liver and Onions, Dennis having the Chicken Fried Steak, while Jan went with her favorite Chicken Fried Chicken. I tried something a little different, the Steak Fingers. I guess everyone liked what they had, since there were four clean plates at the end.
And as usual when RV’ers get together, we talked for longer than we ate. I know, I know, hard to believe, right. But we did. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever been out with a group of RV’ers where it didn’t take at least 3 hours.
I think it‘s a rule.
Actually between the restaurant and the visiting in our rig afterwards, it was over 3 hours. But I think that was so Carol and Dennis could play with Karma, who seemed to enjoy all the attention. I kind of figured she might run and hide, but she’s turned out to be a real people cat.
April 21, 2017
Try It And Let Me Know . . .
Never Mind. It’s Fixed Now.
Jan and I were out the door and on our way up to the Verizon store on Nellis Blvd about 9:30 to pick up my new Samsung Galaxy S8+.
The store didn’t open until 10am but I guess maybe I was expecting ‘new iPhone-day of release’ lines, and there were four other people in line, but just to pay their bills.
It took about an hour to get my new phone set up and configured, all my contacts moved over, and my phone number moved also, as well as Jan’s phone number changed over to my old Galaxy S5 which now becomes her phone. So now she can ditch her old LG Revere Flip Phone.
(note it wasn’t called the LG Dawes Flip Phone. Just another instance where Paul Revere got all the credit.)
I had to planned to order an Otterbox Defender case for it from Amazon since it was about $15 cheaper than Verizon’s list price, but when I told them that they gave me the Amazon price. I will order a wireless charging pad from Amazon when we get to Soledad Canyon after tomorrow.
Finishing up with Verizon a little after 11am, we drove back over to Blueberry Hill Restaurant again, this time for breakfast.
Besides coffee, Jan had eggs, hash browns, and bacon
while I got the Chicken Apple Compote Waffle with bacon.
Good coffee and a delicious meal.
Leaving Blueberry Hill, we drove down Pecos Blvd to top off the gas in the truck at the Sam’s Club. With California’s recent $0.12 / gallon tax increase, unleaded is more than $0.30 / gallon higher than it is here in LV.
While we were getting gas we noticed all the new snow on the peaks to the west of us. Quite a difference.
What happened to Global Cooling/Global Warming/Global Cooling/Climate Change?
Getting back to the park, I picked up an Amazon package from the ranger station. It’s really nice that the Thousand Trails here does not charge $2 to hand you your mail.
Back at the rig, a nice nap was in order before I went back outside and crawled under the rig to unhook the sewer hose and stow it and the water hose away. Less to do tomorrow morning before we leave for California.
Later I spent the evening downloading apps to my new phone and getting things set up like I want. So far I’m really happy with it. with my only regret that they’ve changed the charge/data connector from the standard micro USB connector to the newer USB-C connector. But besides an AC charger module and cable, they also include a micro USB to USB-C adapter so I can still plug it in all my other cables. At least until I lose the tiny little adapter.
Tomorrow we’ll make the 250 mile trip over to the Soledad Canyon TT park near Acton, CA, and about 15 miles south of Palmdale. We’ve never stayed here before, but it’s supposedly nice and we’re looking forward to it. We’re booked there for a week before we head north for a two week stay at the Bend/Sunriver TT, one of our favorite parks.
I mentioned yesterday about a problem calling Good Sam’s Tech Help Line and getting a sex talk line where girls could talk to hot guys.
After confirming that there really was a problem, I put in a call to a Verizon Engineering number that I got from a friend who works for Verizon. And after talking to them this afternoon, I got a call back this evening.
Turns out that in some parts of the country, and only with Verizon customers, the last two digits of the number were being reversed. So 4457 became 4475, and vice versa.
In addition, it would make a difference whether or not you dialed the number as 1-800 or as 800 by itself.
But it’s fixed now. So, Never Mind.
April 21, 2018
Black Bears and Kindle Books . . .
Not much went on during the day. I did some web stuff and work a little on my project.
I did go outside and put my anemometer pole back up. I had taken it down when we did our RV test drive last Sunday and waited to put it back up today until I had redone the mounting.
Tomorrow afternoon (Sunday) we’re meeting Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at one of our favorite diner chains, the recently-opened Black Bear Diner up in Katy. We’ve been eating at Black Bear locations out west for years, from southern California all the way up to Bend, OR, and as far east as Las Vegas. In between were Mt. Shasta CA, Redding CA, Yreka CA, and even the original one, the Hi-Lo Café in Weed, CA. Though actually it’s the Hi-Lo Motel and Café . . . and RV Park.
So why is the first one called the Hi-Lo Café and the rest of them called Black Bear Diners? Well, there was a divorce involved, and so in 1995 one party moved down to Mt. Shasta, about 10 miles south and opened the first Black Bear Diner in the shadow of Mt. Shasta itself
They both have the same newspaper-like menus, and the menu items are pretty much identical, just with different names. But all the same delicious food.
The last time we ate at the Hi-Lo Café was last May right before The Great Transmission Repair. And as part of that, we ended up staying at the Hi-Lo RV Park for a couple of days.
One thing interesting about the Hi-Lo café and Weed, CA is that they consider themselves the actual beginning of the Al-Can Highway.
Now Dawson Creek, Canada might disagreed with that, but Weed makes a pretty good case.
They say that US 97 originates in Weed, CA and goes all the way up to Dawson Creek. And checking it out when we got home shows they’re right.
US 97 runs up to the Canada border at Oroville, WA and there it becomes PH (Provincial Highway) 97 and, poof!, 1400 miles later you’re in Dawson Creek. And then PH 97 runs along with the Al-Can all the way up to Watson Lake in the Yukon along with PH 1.
But when you get Dawson Creek, it’s still another 1500 miles to Fairbanks. A long trip.
April 21, 2019
27 Friends, 4 Dogs, and . . .
One Very Nervous Cat.
Brandi realty gets into the whole Easter thing, including an Easter wreath. I didn’t know they even made Easter wreaths.
Everyone sat out around the fire pit last night, enjoying the nice weather and the lighting.
Today people started pouring in around noon, with the kids hitting the pool
and the adults hitting Brandi’s Moscato Punch,
and Jan’s Sausage Balls.
But everyone showed up for the Easter Lunch Buffet with Brisket, Turkey, Jalapeno Sausage, Baked Beans, Ham-Wrapped Asparagus, Salmon, Mac N Cheese, Salad, and more.
Later, after everyone was stuffed, the older kids hid Easter Eggs all around the backyard with each child having his own color eggs to find, so no fighting over them.
Then it was more pool time for everyone.
Jan and I finally got home about 6:30, trying to get to bed early for week-long sprint to Friday.
Brandi sent us home with a couple of her full-size suitcases for our upcoming trip. They looked awfully big so the first thing I did was to measure them to be sure they meet Lufthansa’s requirements.
One of the cases measures 31”H x 18.5”W x 11”D for a total of 60.5”
The other one measures 29”H x 19”W x 10”D for a total of 58”
Lufthansa allows a total size of 62”, so we’re good to go.
Well, also with the 50# limit, too.
But I did figure out that the laptop bag I was planning on using as my second carry-on is too large, so I’ll have to find something smaller that will still fit all the electronics I want to carry, I.e. laptop, power supply, Samsung Tablet, Kindle, Kindle Fire,etc.
Tomorrow is my second-to-last day at work before we leave, and I still have a lot to wrap up. So I’ve started to prioritize things, things that must be done, things I’d like to do, and things that would be nice, but that I can blow off.
One thing I’ve decided to do is to take the rent car back Thursday afternoon rather than early Friday morning, since we won’t need it after that.
Hopefully.
April 21, 2021
PB&J and Ghost Pepper Cheese . . .
Looks like I going to have to rethink slightly the Hibiscus watering system I set up as a test for when we’re going to be gone for two weeks in June.
The concept is working fine. Alexa turns the water on at 9:00am every morning and then off at 9:01, sending a notification to my phone. But looking at the rate of water usage, I’m not sure that the kitty litter bucket will hold enough water to last for the approximately two weeks we’ll be gone. Especially since it’s possible/probable that I’ll have to increase the watering amount as the weather gets warmer.
So my new idea is install a water hose timer in a garden hose running from the outside faucet to the bucket.
This will let me add water to the bucket on a regular basis, I.e., let it run for 5 minutes ever other day. As long as it keeps the bucket filled, it doesn’t matter if it runs over a bit. The timer is only about $20 on Amazon, so it won’t hurt the wallet too much.
Tomorrow we plan on having lunch at Texas Huddle Grille once again. Jan wants another of their Mushroom Cheddar Bacon Cheeseburger, and I’m really jonsin’ for one of their PB&J Bacon Cheeseburgers spiced up with their Ghost Pepper Cheese.
Then probably the usual run-around type of errands for the afternoon, and maybe ending up with Cowboy Coffee for Sugar-Free Hazelnut Lattes with Almond Milk and Sugar-Free Whipped Cream.
Yum!
April 21, 2022
They Just Followed Us Home . . .
Jan and I had lunch once again at our new local Pho Barr just a few miles east on FM646. Our 2nd time there since it opened about 10 days ago, it was just as delicious as always.
Though we got our regular Spring Rolls, Vermicelli Bowl, and Pho Ga, we also got an order of their Fish Sauce Chicken Wings to split.
Jan first had them a couple of weeks ago when we had Pho Barr take-out up at Brandi’s in Katy. And they were so good she wanted them again. But she also wanted her usual Grilled Chicken Vermicelli Bowl.
So we split the wings, and that gave us more of our main dishes as left-overs to bring home for dinner tomorrow.
Next up was a haircut for me. I told the guy, “Short, but Not Too Short.” Now his wife knows how to cut it, but she was busy with someone else.
But he apparently has a problem with the ‘Not Too Short’ part. The only way it could be any shorter would be if he just shaved my head.
You’d think I’d learn.
Coming home we made an HEB stop and it seems we picked up a couple of hitchhikers who followed us home.
I know we swore no more flamingos, but Jan said, “Oh, they’re just too adorable.” Love the flip-flops.
So now its again No More Flamingos!
Unless they’re just too adorable, I guess.
