Monthly Archives: April 2023
It was a R.U.D.
We were out the the door and on our way up to Conroe by about 9:45 this morning, to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt for our monthly lunch get-together.
And just like last month, we were meeting at La Pizca, a newish Mexican restaurant there. We were back again because it was so good last time.
This time, not so much.
Both Ed and Debi’s orders were not correct, with Ed’s so wrong they gave him another dinner to take home as a replacement. Debi’s was also wrong, but they brought out replacements.
Jan said her Chile Relleno was so tough that she had trouble even cutting it.
My Chicken Tortilla Soup was OK, but not near as good as last time, and my side of ‘Grilled Veggies’ that I ordered consisted of a cup of grilled onions.
Well, onions are a vegetable, I guess.
When we asked our waiter why all the screwups, he admitted the cook was new, didn’t know the menu very well, only spoke Spanish, and had trouble reading the tickets since he (the waiter) only wrote in English.
We told him they needed a new cook, or at least the old one they had last month.
Next month, it’s obviously going to be somewhere else, in this case, the Outback Steakhouse in The Woodlands.
The Starship Heavy launch today got off to a good start, lifting clear of the pad and heading out. Making it thru MaxQ (Throttle Back and then Back up) when then about 23 miles up, going over 1000mph, it experienced what’s known in the business as a R.U.D., a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
The problem occurred about the time of MECO (Main Engine Cut Off) and Stage Separation. The 33 engines didn’t shut off and the stages didn’t separate.
Then about 4:00 into the flight, it all went BOOM! Actually I think it was deliberately destroyed. But we’ll know more in the next few days.
But SpaceX considers the test a success since it didn’t blow up on the pad and made it that far. After all, Musk said he thought this first flight only had a 50% chance of success, and both the booster and the Starship were going to crash into the ocean, even if the flight had been a complete success.
Here’s a video of the launch and RUD, starting about 40 seconds before liftoff.
It will be interesting to see how long before the next attempt.
Thought For The Day:
April 20, 2009
We’re going to Disney World…
Actually, we’re already here.
We got in today, but we won’t start visiting the parks until tomorrow.
We’ll be here until May 1st so we have plenty of time to see everything.
Here are some pics.
Our RV site at Fort Wilderness, Disney’s RV park.
Disney’s Fort Wilderness RV Park
Two Beauties
Spaceship Earth Sphere
April 20, 2010
The Bonnie Hunt Show x 2…
First, a repeat announcement
Our daughter Brandi called from the doctor’s office about 8:30 this morning to tell us that our upcoming grandchild is a boy. And his name is Landon. And he’s due the first week of September.
So now we will have a matched set. One of each.
Landon –
And our granddaughter Piper –
And only 17 years apart. Landon is due on Piper’s 17th birthday.
Anyway, back to today.
Today was a twofer. We were going to attend the taping of two episodes of the Bonnie Hunt Show at 2pm and 6pm.
The 2pm show will be aired tomorrow, April 21st, and the 6pm show will air on Thursday, April 22nd.
We left the rig about 9 am, because we wanted to have plenty of time to have lunch before the taping, and also allow for any traffic delays.
We decided to eat at a place about a block from the studio called Kay & Dave’s Mexican Cantina. Jan had a two item combo plate and I had a lunch special, with chicken tortilla soup, salad with lime-cilantro dressing, and a Chile Relleno. The relleno wasn’t as good as Esther’s last week, but it all was good.
We had to check in before noon at gate 2 of The Culver Studios, where The Bonnie Hunt Show is taped.
The Culver Studios, under various names and owners, has been around since 1918. It has been called RKO, Desilu, and Hughes Studios, among others, and owned by such as Cecil B. Demille, Lucy and Desi Arnez, and Howard Hughes,
Movies such as Gone with the Wind, King Kong, Citizen Kane, A Star is Born, and E.T. were filmed here. And TV shows like Batman, Lassie, The Andy Griffith Show, Hogan’s Heroes, The Untouchables, The Real McCoys, and more recently, The Nanny, Deal Or No Deal, Las Vegas, Mad About You, Scrubs, and, of course, The Bonnie Hunt Show were/are filmed here.
After standing in line a few minutes, we were given badges with our seating number on them, in our case, 80 and 81, After about 30 minutes we were lead to an outdoor seating area where we stayed until about 30 minutes before show time. At that time we were taken to our seats in the studio. But before that we had to go thru a security check, including metal detectors. This was to insure that we had no cell phones or cameras with us.
Which is why we have absolutely NO pictures of anything to do with the show.
And they fed us too. As we were walking in, they handing us a hot dog wrapped in foil and a can of root beer.
Then about 15 minutes, Bill, the warmup guy, came out and got things started by telling jokes, asking questions of the audience, and telling us how the show was going to work.
The show, like most talk shows, is taped in real time, In other words, It takes one hour to tape the show. When it’s time for a commercial, they keep the tape rolling in black, and everyone on stage takes a break for 60, 120, or however many seconds the commercial break lasts, and then the show picks back up.
During the break, people swarm out on the stage, ladies touching up hair and makeup of both Bonnie and her guests, sound guys checking mics, lighting people checking, well, lights, and other staff talking with Bonnie about things on the show.
Then, poof, about 5 seconds before the end of the break, everyone disappears, and Bonnie looks up at the camera and says “Welcome back”. It’s all very smooth.
The first show’s guest were Brian Austin Green and Yvette Nicole Brown. Toward the end of the show, Bonnie did her regular “Dessert of the Day” segment, which was a Boston Cream Cupcake, And we all got one. Staffers passed out boxes to each of us, but asked us not to eat them till later.
About 10 minutes after the show was over, they set up for a pickup. A pickup is a guest segment to be inserted into a later show. In this case it was Anthony Anderson from Law & Order.taped a segment with Bonnie that will be used in a show sometime next week.
After that, Bonnie came out in the audience and walked around, thanking people for coming. A really nice touch.
By then it was about 3:30 and we were told to be back for the second taping about 4:45 pm. We decided to go back to the same place we had lunch and just share an order of nachos and an order of apple-cranberry bread pudding, since we were still pretty full from lunch.
Back at the studio we were lead back in right on time. They also tried to give us another hot dog and root beef, but we turned them down.
Bill, the warmup guy, told us that one of the listed guest, Ed Begley, Jr., of Living with Ed, would not be there, but we were supposed to clap when his name was mentioned anyway. Bill said that Ed Begley’s would be taped later and inserted in the show, just like Anthony Anderson’s was done earlier.
The other guest were Patrick Warburton of “Rules of Engagement” and “Seinfeld”, and Robert Keenan, the director of the movie “Food, Inc.”
The other neat thing was we got some giveaways. We each got a T-shirt, a DVD and s book of the nature film by Disney called “Earth”, and a DVD of the movie “Food, Inc”.
Again, after the show was over, Bonnie came out and walked around the audience, talking to people and thanking them for coming. And this time Jan got to shake her hand.
It was about 7:45 pm by the time we were heading back to the truck, and it was about 9:15 by the time we got back home.
A long day, but a fun day.
And tomorrow, still more fun.
We going to take a tour of the movie stars homes. I think we’ll probably just see a lot of big, locked gates, but we’ll see.
April 20, 2011
A Small World . . .
Our travel to Show Low Day began with coffee and muffins about 7:30 and then pulling out of our site about 9:20 heading over to the Maverik Country Store we had scouted out yesterday.
By fueling up in Camp Verde, rather than making the 10 mile round trip into Cottonwood just to save a penny a gallon, we could head straight out on AZ 260 to Show Low. But my finely crafted plan was not to be.
When I got to the station I found a double trailer fuel tanker stretched across the front of the station, right where I planned to pull in. So I had to go pass the station entrance and come in from the street to the side of the station. But this left me blocking the tanker from leaving. By the time I got parked the tanker guy was finishing up, and I ask him if he wanted me to move so he could get out.
He said ‘No’, he still had some paperwork to do. He then ask how we were doing. At this point I thought he looked familiar, and it turns out he was a vendor at the recent Rally in Yuma this past March.
Wow! RV’ing is really a small world!
Once I started fueling up, I still had problems, or rather the pump did. It keep crashing, and then they would have to reboot it. Who knew gas pumps could crash?
I put in 127 gallons of diesel for a total of $525.00. But I probably won’t need diesel again until next month after we leave the Yosemite area, heading for northern California.
We finally pulled out of the station about 10:30. As we pulled out on the highway, Jan looked over and said “This feels good”. We’ve been parked for 3 weeks and it’s good to be back on the road.
The 150 mile trip took us through some spectacular scenery, and though there were a couple of hairpin turns, the roads were good and the drive was easy. There were a couple of long, slow climbs, but our rig its own on the hills.
Starting at about 3200 ft. in Camp Verde, we climbed to over 7500 ft., before easing down into Show Low at about 6400 ft..
We pulled into the Elk’s Lodge about 2pm, and after checking in and getting set up, we headed out to have a late lunch at Native New Yorker, an Arizona chain we ate at last year and really enjoyed. They have potato skins, sandwiches, calzones, pizza, chicken wings, and chicken tenders (They call them ‘strippers’, and I got really excited when I saw the sign ‘Today is Stripper Wednesday’), and it’s all good.
Getting back to our rigs, a little later I got the sat dish set up, and we finished up our day watching TV.
April 20, 2013
Our Grandson Landon, the Music Critic . . .
Brandi said that the other night she was in bed with Landon watching one of his favorite shows and singing along with the theme song. Landon reached over, put his hand over Brandi’s mouth and said, “Calm down, Mommy!”
Out of the mouth of babes, so to speak.
They’re making more progress on Brandi and Lowell’s new house. The first coat of paint is on the walls and some of the kitchen cabinets are installed.
We spent most of the day waiting for the DirecTV guy to get here with our new HD DVR. He was supposed to be here between 8 and 12, but didn’t make it until almost 2 because he got hung up at another job.
We upgraded to an HD DVR, but not for the HD service.
Our Winegard Carryout Satellite Antenna doesn’t work on HD, but since it was free, we wanted to upgrade to the HD model because it holds so many more hours of video, over 400 hours compared to our old R-16 which only held about 70. Plus I can plug in an external HD that will allow it to hold over 1600 hours. Neat.
But we did run into a problem in setting it up. Although the DVR will work just fine on SD channels, it can only be activated while connected to an HD capable antenna. So he had to take it back to his shop, hook it up to his HD antenna and activate it, and then bring it back here.
Which of course made him late for his next appointment, so I couldn’t complain about him being late for mine.
But finally about 4pm it was up and working. Now we just have to go back and reprogram it for all the shows we want to record.
For dinner we had the leftover pizza from our visit to Organ Stop Pizza the other night. Still really good and very cheesy.
About 6:45 Jan and I headed out for our walk. We did about 1.25 miles before calling it a day, using RunKeeper to keep track of our time. It’s nice to see that we keep picking up our time a little bit every walk.
If you’re a history buff, I’ve been reading a really good book that you might be interested in. It’s called The Battles that Changed History and is an excellent read. It cover 16 battles from Alexander the Great against the Persians, through Jeanne d’Arc, and ending with the Battles of Vicksburg and Midway.
One of my favorite of literary subjects is Alternative History, where one historical event unfolds differently, and changes things afterword. One famous turning point used is Lee’s Lost Orders.
A copy of the orders, detailing Lee’s battle plans for what became known as the Battle of Antietam, was lost by a Confederate courier and recovered by a Union corporal. This led to McClellan being able to blunt Lee’s attack and force him back out of Union territory. Although not really a Union victory, Lincoln used it to justify his issuing the Emancipation Proclamation which discouraged Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy.
In Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain, the first book in a 14 book series, the Lost Orders are not found by the Union, the Battle of Antietam is not fought, the Emancipation Proclamation is not issued, Britain and France come in on the side of the South, and the Confederacy wins its independence. Of course he takes a whole book to tell you this.
Even a luminary such as Winston Churchill wrote a ‘counterfactual’ as he called it, detailing how Lee won at Gettysburg, thus changing the course of the Civil War.
Sorry. It seems like I took the long way around to get back to talking about “The Battles that Changed History”, but the battles described here are perfect examples of where a small change could have major consequences on history.
Check it out.
April 20, 2014
Easter Party . . .
Jan and I left the rig about 10 am, heading down to Katy for Brandi’s big Easter Party.
Earlier in the morning, Chris posted this Easter photo of our granddaughter Miss Piper. Looks like she’s about 5 or so. A cutie then, and a cutie now.
Brandi had done a really great job on the several table settings, staying with the Easter theme.
And our son Chris came with this really neat ‘Peep’ Cake. And it tasted great too.
We ended up with about 25 friends and family, and probably enough food for a couple of dozen more.
And of course everyone had fun catching up since last year.
Later in the afternoon, the Easter Egg Hunt was on.
And then Landon got to sort through all his loot.
There were some packages waiting for me at Brandi’s, and I think this time I finally got the correct shear pins for our slide. At least they look like they’re the right size.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to install it (I got two spares) before we leave here tomorrow morning, but I’ll take care of it before we leave Colorado River.
The other thing I got in the mail was my new Square credit card reader for my phone. If you’ve been using one of these, you need to go online and request a new one. Your present one will not work after June 1st.
Tomorrow morning we’ll make the 120 mile trip back to the Colorado River TT park for a couple of weeks before finally heading north to Goshen, IN for the 54th Escapade starting May 12th.
April 20, 2015
Who’s Watching You?
It was nice to be able to sleep in this morning and not have to get up at 6am like yesterday. But back to work. So after our coffee this morning, I went back to work on my magnetic shades.
Parked where we are, we’re facing due west so we were going to need the solar shades when the temps start hitting 90 next week. So I cut slits in the hem of the two front screens so I could tuck additional magnets into place. I then sealed the slits with a small piece of Gorilla Tape.
Since I’m still in beta test on this, and haven’t fastened the magnets to the inside yet, Jan stuck the magnets on by hand as I put the shades in place outside. The extra magnets seemed to make the screens much more secure, so we’ll see how they hold up over the next few days.
After a quiet afternoon, we left the rig about 4pm, heading out to have dinner at the Boulder Station Casino right up the road. As I was locking the door, I looked up at the noise of a jetliner passing overhead. But also overhead, about 100 yards away and about 200 feet up, I saw this. Grabbing my Panasonic camera from inside I got these photos.
Before I zoomed in, I thought it was probably a DJI Phantom, and so it was.
You can buy one with all the bells and whistles here on Amazon for only $1175.00
DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ V3.0 Quadcopter with Gimbal-Stabilized 14MP, 1080p Camera
One thing that was kind of curious is that as I was snapping photos, I could tell the quadcopter was slowly rotating. When it got to a point where the camera seemed to be pointing in my direction, it suddenly started moving away from me at a pretty quick pace.
As Jan said, “Coincidence? I think not.”
Who knows?
We got to the Buffet restaurant at the Casino a little before 4:30, apparently just ahead of the rush. We only waited a few minutes for a table, but by the time I got back to our table from the buffet, the line was out around the door. Great timing!
After a really good meal for only $10 each (cheaper than Golden Corral), we drove out on Desert Inn Dr. to check out a couple of possible places to fill up with diesel when we leave here in two weeks. Luckily for us the two places with the cheapest diesel prices are right down the road for us, and right on our way out of town. And there’s plenty of room to get the rig in and out.
Neat!
April 20, 2016
WD 1 TB Hard Drive . . . R.I.P.
When I got up this morning, I was welcomed by a black & white screen on the computer, but worse was what it said.
Can Not Find Boot Device:
Please Insert Bootable Media
Crap!
Translated, that means it can’t find the hard drive.
And since I’m pretty sure it didn’t run off, that means it’s died.
Crap!
Jan said she was online this morning, and about 7:40 she tried to go to another website and the computer froze. And when she rebooted, she got the B&W screen. So I turned it off to let it cool down.
Luckily I did a full backup less than a week ago, so I’m pretty good there. But first I needed to get a working desktop PC going again. I’ve got the laptop, so I got it out so we could get online for the day.
Normally the laptop only gets used on travel days for our Delorme GPS map program and Silverleaf engine display. In fact the last time I used it like this was last year on our gate guarding gig
While I was online checking email, I was thinking about what I wanted to do. I had a new 3 TB harddrive that I bought a while back for a client project that didn’t pan out, so I could put the new HD back in it. Or I could put the new HD in a newer computer that I had stowed away.
The only problem is that the newer one is a full size desktop model, while the one that died is a mini-desktop unit that sits under the monitor. But since the full-size one was newer and faster, that’s the one I decided to go with.
Digging out the computer and the HD, I put the two together and started to install Win7. I decided to try out the Win7 install on a USB drive that I bought a while back.
![Win 7 USB_thumb[7]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Win-7-USB_thumb7.jpg "Win 7 USB_thumb[7]")
I got this back last December, but checking on Amazon tonight, it’s no longer available, but it allows you to quickly install a new copy of Win7. Of course you still need a Microsoft serial number, but I can reuse the old one from the sticker on the side of the case.
The install went very quickly with no major hiccups, and about 45 minutes later I was downloading and installing the necessary drivers and apps. At this point I put it aside for dinner.
Next I started downloading and installing the programs that I wanted – Chrome, LibreOffice, Open Live Writer, Total Commander, etc. These will get me back online, and then in the next day or so I’ll hookup my backup drive and transfer the rest over,
But I also may be able to recover some of the last week’s data that didn’t get backed up. When I turned the computer back on, it actually booted up and ran – for about 10 minutes, and then it locked up. So the problem was heat-related. Which means that I’ll probably be able to get some data off using the freezer trick
You do this by putting the drive in a zip-lock bag and leave it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Then you take it out and hook it up as quickly as possible, and then copy data off as quickly as possible. This works better if you make a list ahead of time of the most important stuff you need.
Tomorrow we’re having dinner with Dennis and Carol Hill at the Fish Pond Restaurant, and we’re really looking forward to it.
April 20, 2017
Not The Help I Was Looking For . . .
Another nice quiet morning. Jan read and I worked on some web stuff before finishing up some rig repairs.
Recently I’ve seen some discussions online about Passport America, both pro and con. Personally I can’t recommend it more.
We’ve been Passport America users since we first started RV’ing and it’s saved us $1000’s over the last nine years. In fact it’s already saved us $280 with our two week stay at Santa Fe RV Park in Apache Junction a few weeks ago, and next month it will save us over $315 for a two week stay at a very nice park north of Rapid City, SD.
Yes, some parks only allow 1 to 3 days, sometimes not on weekends, or during peak times. For example, the park in Rapid City doesn’t take PA the week before Sturgis and the week after. Otherwise it’s unlimited.
We’ve even used PA as our out week at Thousand Trail and Encore parks. Back in 2013 we spent a month at the Countryside RV Park in Apache Junction. We stayed for two weeks at $3 a night under our TT membership, one week under PA, and then another week under TT.
The funny thing was we found that different memberships are allotted different spaces, so when we switched over to PA for a week, we had to move the RV one space to the left, and then back one space to the right when the week was up.
The other complaint is that some of the parks are not the best. For that I use RVParkReviews.com to check them out, as well as Google Maps Satellite View and Street View.
I don’t have any parks scheduled after Rapid City for our trip back to Houston, but I’m sure I’ll find a bunch more PA parks along the way.
A little after 3pm Jan and I headed out, first for a scenic trip down to Boulder City and Lake Mead to drive around a bit through Old Boulder City and check out the lake.
Coming back into Henderson, we detoured down I-215W to have dinner at Claim Jumper’s, another of our favorite steak places. Claim Jumper is part of Tilman Fertitta’s Landry’s Restaurants chain. Elsewhere in the country, his Saltgrass Steakhouse is similar in menu.
We both started out with their upgrade salads, with Jan getting the California Citrus Salad, with Mandarin oranges, pecans, apples, cranberries, avocado, resins, green onions, and Bleu Cheese crumbles.
I got my favorite Wedge Salad with a wedge of lettuce, bacon, tomatoes, red onions, a Bleu Cheese Vinaigrette and Bleu Cheese crumbles.
Then it was on to our steaks, Jan’s New York Sirloin,
and my usual Ribeye.
Both really, really good steaks.
As if we weren’t full enough, we split an order of their Berry Butter Cake.
Made with a mini-Bundt cake, butter cream frosting, fresh strawberries, fresh raspberries, and powdered sugar, and served warm with ice cream, it was really delicious.
We’ve never been disappointed by a meal at Claim Jumper’s.
I’ve been a member of Good Sam’s Platinum Roadside Assistance for years, and one of the perks of the Platinum membership is being able to call an RV Tech if you have a question. But all the time I had the membership I’ve never called, so I didn’t know the phone number.
So I went to the Good Sam website and found this brochure for the Platinum Service.
http://images.goodsam.com/goodsamroadside.com/pdf/2017/Platinum%20MBB%20web.pdf
And on the second page it gives you this phone number.
But when you call that number, you get a sex talk line, and not a fun one for me, but one asking if you girls want to talk with hot guys.
Not the help I was looking for.
April 20, 2018
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To . . .
The replacement fuses for the electrolysis machine came in today, so I installed them and turned it on. And it stayed on and worked with no problems.
But after I buttoned it up, it didn’t. So I took it back apart, and now it worked fine again. WTH?
But a little investigation showed the problem. Because on the way two of the cables were laced together, they pulled another cable partway off its socket. And then when you opened the case back up it seated back into place. So I retied the cables and the problem was solved. And after thoroughly testing out the unit it was shipped to a customer this afternoon.
When I got home about 4:15 we turned right back around and headed back over to the Whataburger at Victory Lakes for dinner, I.e. Whataburger Jr’s, hot and juicy. One nice is that Whataburger has free drinks for seniors. Sometimes you have to ask, but usually, like today, they volunteer. Nice.
Then it was across the parking lot to the Lowe’s to take back some of the project parts that I got yesterday that didn’t work out, and replace them with some different ones. Hopefully these will work out better.I’ve still got one part coming in from Amazon next week so I can finish it and up and then tell you about it.
Next it was right next door to the WalMart for a few things that we found we needed. Finally heading back toward the rig we made a gas stop at the HEB along the way, before getting home a little before 7pm.
One thing I’ve noticed in the last few years is that replacement parts we’ve bought for the rig don’t seem to last near as long as the original ones.
After our blowout in May 2015 both our passenger side outside mirror and our retractable door step were replaced due to damage. The step died about a year ago, and this past Sunday I noticed that my passenger side mirror no longer works. So that’s another thing to fix.
And both of our original Fantastic Vent Fans worked for over 15 year before I need to replace the motors/gearbox. The replacements only lasted about 3 years before I had to replace them again. And that’s maybe why FF no longer gives a lifetime warranty. Strange how that works out.
On the other hand, our Sharp microwave, our Dometic NDR-1292 fridge (which has never had a recall), our Attwood water heater, our Coleman rooftop air, and our Splendide washer/dryer, all 19 years old, are all still hanging in there. Of course, most of these I’ve had to patch now and then. But I could fix them.
The newer stuff not so much.
April 20, 2019
I Tried, I Really Did . . .
But I couldn’t get my phone to sync up with my laptop, so I have no photos to post.
About 10:30am, Jan and I headed up to Brandi’s in Katy to spend Easter weekend, our last time together until the end of May.
Jan made her world-famous Sausage Balls, while I went with Lowell to get the dogs washed at a nearby do-it-yourself doggie wash. I dog-sat with one of them in the car while Lowell did the first one and the other. Otherwise the one left in the car by himself gets jealous and creates havoc.
Normally Lowell takes one from home and then comes back and takes the other one, so this just saved him a trip.
Tomorrow we’re having a whole horde of folks over for a combo Easter dinner/pool party, with at least two dozen or more people here.
Should be fun
April 20, 2020
No, but possibly, maybe . . .
Well, I had my WuFlu antibody test this morning, and the results are No, but Possibly, Maybe.
Well, that was helpful.
My test was negative, but had a couple of side indicators that said kind of yes. The problems are apparently several.
The length of time since I was sick, almost two months in my case, and which of the 8-10 different strains I had. Different strains leave different levels of antibodies, which also explains why there have been reports of some people catching the WuFlu more than once.
Plus the other possibility is that the tests are actually defective.
UK government admits Covid-19 antibody tests don’t work.
April 20, 2021
King Food and Sous Vide . . .
We sat outside this morning with our coffee, enjoying the nice weather and talking about upcoming events. Then I took care of some maintenance chores like changing out a water hose with a pinhole leak, and getting a bucket of sand so I could relevel and set the pavers that I put in between the rig door and the patio area.
Then it was out and about for lunch and errands, with the lunch stop being long-time favorite King Food for Hot & Sour Soup and Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce with Jalapenos.
Then after a quick stop at WalMart for some landscape items, we filled up with gas at the Sam’s next door. Seems like gas prices have steadied at about 90 cents over what it was in November. Hopefully it won’t start taking off again.
Then coming home, we made an HEB stop for a few things, one of them being a Styrofoam cooler to experiment with setting it up as a Sous Vide cooker enclosure.
Then of course we had to make a Cowboy Coffee stop so we would have another excuse to set out on the patio some more. Always nice.
I had seen Styrofoam coolers used as Sous Vide cookers on the Internet, but I was curious about how the Styrofoam would stand up to the hotter temps used for slow cooking ribs, etc., I.e. 160° or so.
So I cut a hole in the cooler lid just large enough to hold my Inkbird Sous Vide Cooker and gave it a try.
I filled the cooler with tap water to the high water mark on the cooker, set it for 160°, and turned it on.
It took about 55 minutes to bring the 69° tap water up to 160, and then I let it run for about an hour. At that point I turned it off, let it cool down a bit, and then dumped the water out in the sink.
And when I checked out the inside of the cooler I found no indication of too much heat, and the outside of the cooler never even became warm. So I guess we’re good to go for Ribeye’s next weekend. Maybe.
It will take a little juggling, because I like my steaks Medium-Rare and Jan likes hers between Medium and Medium-Well. So what I plan to do is to do them Medium-Rare in the cooker, and then take Jan’s out and put it on the gas grill for a bit to bring it up to Medium-Medium-Well. Then I’ll take mine out when hers is almost done and put it on the grill for a few minutes too.
The Sous Vide cooker is supposed to be able to hold steaks at a certain temp for a while without overcooking, so I’ll see how that works out.
And tomorrow’s another day.
April 20, 2022
Playing Hooky . . .
I played hooky from work today.
Sometime during the night I rolled over and got a VERY sharp pain in my lower back and right hip. And when I got up about 8am, I was still having a lot of pain when I moved.
But just because I was home didn’t mean I wasn’t working. I continued with my usual online stuff, emailing out invoices, processing PayPal payments, and sending out our Bank Wire Transfer info to customers making large purchases, >$1000.
Expiration Dates?
Back in 2015 while we were staying in Prescott, AZ while our rig was being repaired after our big blowout, we were in Sam’s Club one day and came across a display of this Campbell’s Slow Kettle Tomato and Sweet Basil Bisque.
Since Tomato Basil is Jan’s favorite, we grabbed a box of 4 to give it a try. And that night we both agreed that it was the best ‘canned’ soup we’ve ever had. So we went back the next day to buy some more.
And as happens, the display was MUCH smaller, with only 8 boxes left. So we bought all 8, for only $1.89 a box, 10 cents less than the $1.99 yesterday.
Thought we ate them often over the next few months, somehow the last 3 boxes got pushed to the back of the pantry, and I guess we lost track of them.
Until the other day. And so tonight I decided to try one for supper. Even thought the Expiration Date was December 2015.
So I figured I’d pop the top, give it a sniff, and then go from there.
And it looked fine, and it sniffed good. So I stuck my finger in and tried it.
And it tasted good.
So 3 minutes later I had a delicious bowl of Tomato and Sweet Basil Bisque. Just as good as always.
And we’ve still got 11 more bowls. So much for expiration dates.
Today was Jan’s follow-up appointment with her oncologist, really just a formality since she had a good report from her mammogram yesterday.
So all we’ve got left is our last consult follow-ups with our GP next Tuesday. Then hopefully we’re done for this year.
Tomorrow we’re heading up to Conroe to meet up with our old RV friends, Debi and Ed Hurlburt, and hopefully Janice and Dave Evans. We’re meeting them at La Pizca (The Pinch) restaurant there, the same location as last month’s get-together. Really good.
Though it’s not definite, don’t forget to check out the possible SpaceX Starship Heavy launch tomorrow morning with the window opening about 8:30am.
Thought for the Day:
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.” – H. L. Mencken
April 19, 2010
The The Tar Tar Pits…
This late breaking news just in…
We just found out our upcoming grandchild is a BOY!
His name is Landon.
Today we visited the La Brea Tar Pits, which strangely enough, is in the middle of Beverly Hills. And even stranger, or maybe funnier, The La Brea Tar Pits, actually translates as The The Tar Tar Pits, since “La Brea” means “The Tar”’ in Spanish. Thus the title of this blog.
Anyway, we got there about 11 and decided to eat lunch first at a Marie Callenders right next door, or as they call it in Beverly Hills, just ‘”Callenders”. Apparently ‘Marie’” isn’t fancy enough.
And this is not your average Marie Callenders.
And the food was really upscale too. We both had the Trio lunch plate, which consisted of a gorgonzola-pear salad with walnuts and cranberries, a choice of soup, (Jan had potato cheese, I had chicken tortilla) and a warm turkey/cheese sandwich on focaccia bread. It was all really good. And we were so full we didn’t even have room for pie…then.
After lunch we walked next door to the Tar Pits. Before we even crossed the street we could smell the asphalt in the air. And walking into the park we could see the results of the asphalt, or al least, the simulated results.
The tar, along with methane gas, bubbles up from the ground and forms large pools. And it’s been doing this for tens of thousands of years. The oldest fossil found here has been dated to 38,000 years ago.
Then rainwater and dirt/grass/leaves accumulate on the surface, masking the tar. Animals com down to drink and get mired in the muck. And sometimes predators come to feast on the “stuckees” and get stuck themselves. Thus a wide range or predators and prey have been excavated from the tar here.
Here is an excavation that’s been under way for years, and tens of thousands of fossils have been found.
Here are the bones of a sabretooth cat that are in the process of being removed.
Many of these animals were much larger than their contemporaries. Here is a medium-sized sloth. And being medium-size, this sloth was only 7 feet high and weighed 1800 pounds!
And again,this ancient bison was much larger than the ones that live today.
This is an American camel, that become extinct over ten thousand years ago.
This is a mother Mastodon and her baby, found together in the tar.
And this is “Zed”, a 13 foot tall Columbian Mammoth, bigger than any elephant alive today
These are the bones of an American Lion, that was larger than any lion or tiger of today, and larger than the sabretooth cat from its own era.
This is the skeleton of a horse. What’s different about this is that horses died out in the Americas thousands of years ago, and didn’t return until brought over by the Spanish explorers in the 1500’s.
This short-faced bear was enormous. Larger than any bear today, it was a foot taller than any grizzly and probably weighed a thousand pounds more.
And this is the sabretooth cat. Sometimes incorrectly called a sabretooth tiger, it is actually closer to today’s housecats, rather than tigers.
This diorama shows a sabretooth trying to munch on a short-faced bear. I think the cat will probably end up as bear chow.
It was really amazing walking around here, thinking about all this going on right where we were standing 20 or 30 thousand years ago.
Leaving the Tar Pits we drove about a mile away to cruise the famous Rodeo Dr.
We saw a lot of expensive cars, and a lot of shops with names we couldn’t pronounce.
Guess I should have been more impressed, but I wasn’t.
Tomorrow we’ll be attending two tapings of the Bonnie Hunt Show that will be shown Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
April 19, 2011
Show Low Eve . . .
Coffee and blueberry muffins started off this ‘Get Ready to Travel” day. Tomorrow we leave the Verde Valley for a few weeks in Show Low, AZ
I had a mental list of things that I wanted to get done, starting with reinstalling the air lifts that hold the cargo bay door open.
Then next I want to air up any tires that needed it, there’s where my problem started. Everything went smoothly until I tried to figure out why I wasn’t getting any reading on the tire pressure sensor on the driver’s side inside dual. I removed the sensor and tried to read the pressure on the valve extension with my gauge.
And got no reading whatsoever.
But since I’d had trouble with tire extensions several times before, I removed the extension and used a screwdriver to press the valve in and heard air, so I knew the tire wasn’t empty.
Now I needed a new extension, so I starting calling tire stores. Finally Big O Tires told me that Camelot RV Services stocked them. So off I went to town. It turns out the only ones they stocked that were long enough were the flexible ones, and not the normal rigid ones that I’d used before. So that’s what I got.
Getting back to the rig I installed the valve and got things working again.
My next chore was to finish cutting out the last of my RV Quick Shades to fit my windows.
By then it was about time to meet Dennis and Carol Hill, owners of the RV Driving School, for one last dinner at our favorite local Mexican place, La Fonda.
After a great time at dinner, talking about RV’ing and traveling to Alaska, we finally said our goodbyes, and Jan and I drove over to Camp Verde to check out the Maverik Country Store to see if we can get in and out with our rig to fuel up tomorrow morning. And luckily it looks like we can.
So tomorrow morning, we’ll head out to make the 150 mile trip to Show Low.
More from Show Low tomorrow.
April 19, 2013
How to be Unlucky and Lucky at the same time . . .
Joe Berti is both unlucky and lucky.
He’s unlucky because he was close up and personal at the Boston Bombings.
He’s lucky because he passed the explosion area about 30 seconds before it went off. He was even more lucky (as was his wife) because she was less than 10 yards from the first explosion and came through without a scratch.
He’s unlucky, because three days later he was driving into his home town of West, TX just as the fertilizer plant explosion took place. His car was rocked by the blast and debris rained down on the roof of his car.
He is lucky because he was once again unhurt.
His wife said they’re going to make him just stand out in a open field for a while in case he attracts any other disasters.
I’ve seen a lot of articles recently talking about how society is coming apart at the seams with all the bombings and other terrorist activities. But when you look a little closer you get a different story.
Would you believe that out of the 10 worst bombings in US history, 5 of them took place more than 80 years ago, and one of them more than 120 years ago?
And 8 of the 10 took place more than 30 years ago.
The 10 Worst Bombings in US History
10) The World Trade Center Bombing (February 26, 1993): A van filled with explosives went off in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center. Almost unbelievably, although over a thousand people were wounded, only six were killed. It could have been much worse because the goal of the bombing had been to take down both towers. Had that happened, the body count would have been even larger than 9/11. The terrorist behind the attack was Ramzi Yousef, who is now serving a life sentence.
9) The Preparedness Day Bombing (July 22, 1916): The Preparedness Day parade was designed to lift morale in San Francisco in anticipation of the possible entry of the United States into World War I. Before the event, anti-war activists were harshly critical and during the parade a suitcase bomb went off, killing 10 and wounding 40. Labor leaders Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings were convicted of the crime and were both eventually sentenced to life in prison. After the two men spent 20 years in jail, Democrat Governor Culbert Olson grew concerned about whether they received a fair trial and pardoned them.
8) The LaGuardia Airport Bombing (December 29, 1975): Four days after Christmas, a powerful bomb that had been placed in a locker at LaGuardia Airport went off. It collapsed the ceiling and fired shrapnel across the room. Eleven people were killed and seventy five were injured by the bomb. Although a number of groups were thought to potentially be responsible including FALN, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Jewish Defense League and also a Croatian nationalist named Zvonko Busic, no organization ever claimed credit and the crime remains unsolved.
7) The Haymarket Affair (May 4, 1886): A protest rally in Chicago led to a clash between anarchists, union members and police. During the protest, an anarchist threw a bomb at the police. A police officer was killed by the bomb and several others were wounded. That led to an exchange of gunfire between the cops and the violent crowd. Seven police officers and four members of the crowd were killed while one hundred twenty people were injured. While no one ever figured out exactly which anarchist actually flung the bomb, seven were prosecuted for the crime. Ultimately, Oscar Neebe received 15 years in prison, Michael Schwab and Samuel Fielden served life in prison, Louis Lingg killed himself while he was jailed and Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, George Engel and August Spies were hung.
6) The Los Angeles Times Bombing (October 1, 1910): A bomb wired to 16 sticks of dynamite exploded in an alley next to the Los Angeles Times. The bomb killed 20 employees of the paper and injured another 100. It turned out that two brothers who were members of the Iron Workers Union, John and James McNamara, were angry about the anti-union slant of the Times and set the bomb as retaliation.
5) The Bath School Disaster (May 18, 1927): After losing an election for Township Clerk, School Board Treasurer Andrew Kehoe decided to take revenge by executing what turned out to be the worst massacre at a school in American history. After murdering his wife, Kehoe set off bombs that he had secretly been planting inside the school for months. As rescuers arrived to begin helping the wounded children and teachers, Kehoe drove up in a truck filled with explosives and blew himself up, slaughtering even more people. By the time it was over, 44 people were dead and 58 were injured.
4) The Wall Street Bombing (September 16, 1920): A horse drawn carriage packed with 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of iron was detonated outside the headquarters of J.P. Morgan Bank on Wall Street. Although anarchists were believed to be responsible, no culprit was ever prosecuted for the bombing that took the lives of 30 people and injured another 300.
3) United Airlines Flight 629 (November 1, 1955): John Gilbert Graham had a poor relationship with his mother, Daisie Eldora King. After taking out 4 life insurance policies on her, he offered his mother a “Christmas present” that turned out to be a bomb. It went off while United Airlines Flight 629 was in the air, 35 miles outside of Denver. All 44 passengers and crew died.
2) Continental Airlines Flight 11 (May 22, 1962): Thomas G. Doty bought a couple of large insurance policies, purchased 6 sticks of dynamite and then got on Continental Airlines, Flight 11. Doty then committed suicide via explosion in hopes that his wife and child would receive the insurance money. All 45 passengers on the plane died when the bomb knocked the plane out of the sky.
1) The Oklahoma City Bombing (April 19, 1995): Timothy McVeigh, along with his co-conspirators Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were responsible for destroying a large section of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building with a truck bomb. They were motivated by anger at the government in general along with the heavy handed tactics used by the Clinton Administration during the Waco Siege and at Ruby Ridge. There were 169 people killed in the bombing and 675 were wounded.
On a much more cheery note, check out this family with 10 kids in Montgomery, AL.
They’ve all have been, or are being, homeschooled. But the amazing part is that 6 of them started their college studies by age 12. And that’s just the first six to reach that age.
The oldest of the 4 remaining kids, 10 year old Katrinnah, plans on taking her college entrance exams next year.
22 year old daughter Serenneh, is on track to become one of the youngest physicians in American history. And the others are no slouches, with one a spacecraft designer and another, a certified architect.
The family says they’re just ordinary folk. The father was an Army helicopter pilot, and the mother dropped out of nursing school to homeschool the kids.
They have a website called College By Twelve that tells more about how they do it.
And the rest of us wonder “Why Johnny Can’t Read”.
A little after 4pm we headed over to J & M II Chinese Restaurant, our favorite local Chinese restaurant.
Every time we go I keep telling myself that I’m going to have something different, but every time I end up having their delicious Szechwan Garlic Chicken. And having tasted mine last time, Jan changed from her usual Combo Pan-Fried Noodles to the Szechwan Garlic Shrimp.
And of course along with it we had Hot & Sour Soup and some Crab Won-Ton.
Everything as good as usual.
April 19, 2014
Laid-Back Saturday . . .
Not much at all happened today. Just a nice, quiet day around the rig.
It was nice enough outside that Mister stayed outside on his leash until it got hot enough for the AC in the rig to come on, then we brought him inside, much to his displeasure. He really likes being outside, but we’re always outside with him, or leave the door open, at least. Many times we leave the screen door open and he just comes in on his own. Otherwise he knows to bang on the screen door to be let in, to either eat or used the litter box. He won’t go outside.
Jan spent part of the afternoon making her Sausage Balls and Squash Casserole for tomorrow’s Easter get-together at Brandi’s. If we showed up without the Sausage Balls, there might be rioting. The first thing some people ask coming in the door is, “Are the Sausage Balls here yet?”
While she was working on that, I went into Conroe to get $5.00 in quarters and ten $1 scratch-off tickets. Jan puts the quarters and scratch-offs into individual plastic eggs that will be hidden for the kids to find at tomorrow’s Easter Egg hunt.
The scratch-offs are for $500 a week for 20 years, I.e. $520,000. I told Jan I wondered how we’d feel if someone won the big prize from a ticket we gave them. Then I figured we could just tell the kid we’d give him this whole bag of candy for that piece of cardboard. Hopefully he’d fall for it.
For dinner I heated up some of the Rudy’s BBQ we got on Wednesday. Along with that we also had a can of Bush’s Bourbon and Brown Sugar Grillin’ Beans. Even better, we’ve still got enough for another meal.
Later, for dessert, Jan and I split one of the Tres Leches that we got at Randall’s yesterday. Very good Tres Leches.
Tomorrow Jan and I will head down to Brandi’s about 10am for the big Easter meal. Then Monday morning we’ll head back over to the Colorado River TT park for a week or so.
April 19, 2015
Hey! It’s Vegas, Baby!
Jan and I were up about 6am to get ready for our 305 mile trip up to the Las Vegas Thousand Trails where we’ll be for the next two weeks.
Since I had done so much packing away yesterday, I didn’t really have a lot to do this morning. So after having our coffee and the Jack in the Box’s breakfast sandwiches we picked up yesterday afternoon, I first put away all the Satellite/DVR stuff.
Our 32” TV normally sits up on the front console, but when we travel, it rides on the floor on my side of the bed with a couple of pillows around it, so that just takes a minute or so to store it away.
Then I went outside and stowed away the Winegard Satellite Dome and the stand I put it on. I used to just set it on the ground, but a few years ago when we were in Houston for our 3 month winter-over, our satellite quit working. When I checked it out, I found an ant nest that completely filled the dome. So now it sits up on a foldup work stand.
I cranked up about 7:45 and I pulled out about 10 minutes later with Jan following me in the truck. Getting down to the highway, I got us hitched up and we pulled out on the highway about 8:15.
The trip was pretty smooth, at least until we got west of Kingman. Then the road pretty much became one continuous washboard. They did have a couple of long construction areas where they brought both sides over to the same side, and were completely redoing the other side. So there’s hope for the future.
We pulled in the Las Vegas Thousand Trails about 2pm after unhitching about a mile down the Boulder Hwy. Then everything kind of ground to a halt. There was nobody in the guard shack. And no one answered the intercom, either.
So after about 10 minutes of just sitting there, I walked into the park and back to the office. And it was locked up tight with no one around. And by the time I got back to the rig, there were two more rigs behind us. Finally the ranger showed up, saying she had been leading someone to a site.
We finally got parked over in the new upgraded area in a 50amp site. In fact, it’s so new and upgraded that the 50 amp here is $5 a day extra rather than the usually $3. But when I started to write the check out for $70, I was told there was tax to be added.
When I asked, “How much?”, she hit a few keys on her calculator and said, “78.40.” Yikes! Some quick mental calculations told me that’s a 12% tax rate. Yikes again.
When I later complained to Jan about it, she just looked over and said, “Hey! It’s Vegas, Baby!
April 19, 2016
Change of Plans . . .
The weather really eased up today with no more rain, at least for the Conroe area. But more is still possible, at least up until this Friday. As it stands now, 7 people have died, mostly from just driving into flooded areas.
Today was a rig cleaning day for Jan so she waited to take her shower until she was done. And a few minutes after she got in, I heard a scream, so I ran into the bathroom to see what was happening.
I found Jan terrified, trying to hide from a tiny spider on the floor of the shower. The spider was crouching at the other side, as far away from Jan as it could get. I figured that the spider was probably screaming too, but probably only a dog could hear it.
But she didn’t want me to kill it, so I had to pick it up in a tissue and throw it outside. So out the door it went.
Now this is a women who has killed scorpions, large ones, by stomping on them while wearing sandals. But she’s scared of an arachnid half the size of a dime.
But I figure that spider wrangling is one of the reasons she keeps me around so it works for me.
A little before 7pm, Barbara Spade, a ranger at the Colorado River Thousand Trails called to tell me our reservation for two weeks starting this Sunday has been cancelled due the flooding there. So I guess now we’ll be making our Lake Medina sojourn a little earlier than we had planned. I’ve already changed our reservation from Colorado River to Lake Medina, so we’re good to go.
I’ve done some rearranging and updating of some blog stuff. I set up Jan’s Favorite Recipes as individual dropdown pages.
April 19, 2017
Cruising The Strip . . .
Again, thanks for the kind comments about my Paul Revere screed. I’ve always enjoyed history, especially the misconceptions and mythical parts.
In fact one semester in college I took 3 history courses all at the same time as electives.
One reader asked if there were all these other riders, how come Paul Revere got all the press? I guess you might say he had a better press agent. Or at least had Henry Wadsworth Longfellow write a poem about him.
So why did Longfellow write about Paul Revere when there were other riders, and Revere didn’t even make it to Concord? Well, one reason stated was that Paul Revere was the best known of the bunch. A well-known and prosperous Boston silversmith, he was well-connected with the Revolutionary leadership, and a prominent member of the Sons of Liberty.
But there are some whispers that Longfellow found the name Revere easier to rhyme than Dawes, Prescott, or Bissell. Or especially Ludington.
And not surprisingly Longfellow took a lot of liberties (artistic license?) with the storyline in the poem.
For example, Revere did not observe the two lanterns in the old North Church tower, saying the British troops were coming by sea. In fact he was the one who ordered the lanterns placed in the tower in the first place.
Longfellow’s poem was not written until 1860, but ever then some people were upset that Paul Revere got all the acclaim. Helen F. Moore even penned a parody poem on the subject.
‘Tis all very well for the children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere;
But why should my name be quite forgot,
Who rode as boldly and well, God wot?
Why should I ask? The reason is clear—
My name was Dawes and his Revere
But note that she didn’t try to rhyme anything with Dawes either.
I did get my exhaust pipe strap hanger installed this afternoon and it works fine.
So that’s fixed now.
About 4pm Jan and I headed back down to the Henderson area to once again have dinner at Golden Flower Chinese Restaurant, a place that friends turned us onto. And this time we had a dinner companion.
Boots Gibson, a long-time blog reader lives in Las Vegas and wanted to get together. So Golden Flower was the perfect place.
Turns out that Boots and Jan have a lot in common, both having worked in the medical field for many years, so they hit it off pretty quick.
We had our usual great meal and spent over two hours there. I think our waitress was wondering if we were going to start all over and order again.
Later, about 7:30 Jan and I headed over to the Vegas Strip to do our drive from the top to the bottom. We both enjoy watching some of the amazing outfits people actually wear out in public as they parade along the street.
Getting down to the bottom of the Strip at the airport, we head back over to Flamingo Rd. to have a piece of pie at Blueberry Hill Restaurant, known for their homemade pies. And it certainly shows.
And tastes.
April 19, 2018
Neighbors . . .
About 3:30 Jan and I headed up to Webster, first so Jan could get her haircut at her favorite SuperCuts, or at least her favorite stylist at her favorite SuperCuts.
While she was there, I went down the block to the office to pick up some Amazon stuff that came in today, and passed on some info to my client. And when I got back to the SuperCuts Jan was just coming out. Perfect timing.
Our next stop was right down the road to have dinner again at East Star China Buffet, where we ate just last week with Chris, Linda, and Piper. And it was just as good as last time.
But, unlike last time when I had Shrimp, Shrimp, and Shrimp, this time I only had Shrimp and Shrimp. Don’t want to get in a rut.
When we pulled into the parking lot we found ourselves right behind a big tour bus unloading ahead of us, so we thought we’d had a big delay, but except for an initial stampede, it cleared out very quickly, and we had no problems.
Finishing up, and heading home, we made a Lowe’s stop for a few things for a new project I’m working on. I’ll have more details later.
I mentioned over the last couple of days about Katherine Ross, my former next-door neighbor, so here’s a repeat of that post.
Hair Dryers and Hollywood February 17, 2017
This kind of made me thing of a new game where you link yourself to another person you know through one or more celebrities.
And with my cousin Joy, she’s met Roy Orbison who knew Johnny Cash and then back to me. So we have a Bacon Number of 3. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she put some thought to it, Joy could come up with some more names that might get us down to a BN of 2. Because I actually have a bunch more too.
It’s fun to thing about.
Now since my friend Tricia spilled the beans on the whole Katherine Ross hair dryer thing and several people asked, here goes.
For the first five Shuttle launches, I was part of the NASA television crew that was set up on White Sand Missile Range at a location called Northrup Strip. Northrup Strip was designated as the backup landing site for the Shuttle.
STS-1 and STS-2 both landed on the dry lake bed at Dryden with no problems. But when STS-3 came along in March 1982, problems. Between the Shuttle launch on the 22nd and the landing scheduled on the 30th, heavy rains flooded the lake bed and made a landing impossible.
At this point the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center was still under construction, so White Sands it was. And when it was announced that the Shuttle would be landing there, it seemed like the entire world invaded the little New Mexico town of Alamogordo where we were staying.
There were only two nice motels there, a Best Western and a Holiday Inn. Located side by side, I think they may have both been owned by the same people, since they shared the same restaurant and the bar.
We probably only had 30 people staying at the hotels, but when pretty much every television crew and film crew in the world descended on the town, they found both motels already full. And that’s because, without a lot of publicity, they were filming part of a movie there. And the stars and the crew were taking up most of the other rooms.
The movie in question was “Wrong Is Right”, a dark comedy starring Sean Connery, Katherine Ross, Robert Conrad, Leslie Nielson, John Saxon, and others. There were other stars in the movie whose names you would recognize, but these are the ones concerned because they were staying at the hotels with us.
The sands of White Sands were standing in for sands of Saudi Arabia which is were part of the movie was supposed to be taking place. So they were here for a couple of weeks to get those shots.
Now before all the Shuttle Landing commotion, we had a nice tight little group, with both the movie and NASA people. We even had several astronauts with us, Anna and Bill Fisher, and Story Musgrave.
We all got along great, trading autographs for Shuttle patches, etc., getting drunk together in the bar, and sometimes some of us eating together in the restaurant.
Sean Connery was full of great stories about shooting other movies on location, including the Bond films, while Robert Conrad and Leslie Nielson were constantly throwing jokes back and forth at each other. Katherine Ross didn’t say a lot, but seemed content to listen and laugh at the jokes, and she had a beautiful laugh.
Then one morning as I’m almost ready to leave my room to go down for breakfast and then leave for White Sands, there was a knock at the adjoining door to the next room. Not knowing who was staying next door, but figuring it was a NASA type, I open it to find Katherine Ross standing there wearing a robe and with a towel wrap around her hair.
And she was holding up a hair dryer by the cord like it was a dead rat.
“You do electrical stuff, right. Can you fix my hair dryer? I’m already running late and it keeps going on and off every time I move.”
“Let me guess. You always unplug it by just yanking on the cord, right?”
“Well, yes.”
Now luckily for Katherine, I had a side business at the time. I soldered up computer boards for a couple of local computer stores in the Houston area. Back when I worked for the Department of Defense, they sent me up to the NASA Certified Soldering School at MCAS Cherry Point, NC. so my boards looked like they were factory done.
The stores would give me the blank circuit boards and all of the individual parts, IC’s, transistors, resistors, caps, etc.. I would then populate them and solder them up. I got paid $10 a board and I could do 3 or 4 an hour. Good money for 1982, especially since I was doing 100 at a time.
But what this all meant was that I had tools with me in my room since I always brought a bunch of boards with me on these trips. And I just happened to have a replacement AC plug to boot.
So it only took me a couple of minutes to snip off the old one and install the new one, which garnered me a Thank You! and quick hug from Katherine Ross.
Now the next night the bar was kind of quiet, with only the NASA people and some of the film crew there, with the stars all off at some press thing. But things picked up when Katherine walked in, dressed to the nines. Like Academy Award night nines.
She walked up to the big round table where I sitting with 6 or 8 other guys and stopped in front of me.
“Thank you for what you did for me this morning. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. I was glad I could help.”
Then she winked at me and walked off.
There was dead silence around the table, with all eyes on me.
Well, at least after Katherine left the bar.
And my reputation among my coworkers was greatly enhanced.
It’s hard to top this one
April 19, 2019
This Is Getting Real . . .
This is what Jan said when we started going through the “Goody Bag” that our friend and travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, sent us today.
It contains all the tickets, luggage tags, passport holders, ID badges, itineraries, and information we need for our trip. WOW!
We picked it up at the PO tonight on our way home from our ‘Monterey’s for dinner / Alvin Opry for fun’ evening. Saw a lot of old friends and hear a lot of great singers and songs. And the new venue at the Alvin American Legion Hall is really.
Tomorrow morning we’re heading up to Brandi’s for a couple of days for swimming and Easter dinner. Really looking forward to it.
Wrapping up this short blog, I thought you might be interested in this close-up of the 27 Merlin rocket engines that recently propelled the second Falcon Heavy into space.
April 19, 2020
the fine print . . .
I was back on the phone with our friend/travel agent Chantelle Nugent this afternoon, talking about changing our September 2020 Holland America 12 day Alaskan Cruise to May 2021. And as they say, ‘the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.’
We had been told that we would receive a 125% credit from our cancelled cruise to apply toward a new one. So we were looking at about a $1500 surplus to apply to upgrades, excursions, the gift shop, etc. But in the fine print you find out the 125% only applies to the amount you’ve already paid.
Which was the $600 deposit we made back last October, with remaining $5600 due this coming June. So we got an additional $125.00 rather than $1500.
But we did come out about another $600 ahead because our new May 2021 cruise is that much cheaper than our September 2020 one. So we decided to take that total $725, add another $675, and bump our room up from an Inside one,
to a Verandah room like this one.
Of course, if we really wanted to splurge, for $3600 extra, we could have bumped up to a Pinnacle Suite.
“It includes a living room, dining room, pantry with microwave and refrigerator, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a private verandah with whirlpool. The bedroom features a king-size bed, plus a separate dressing room and the bath includes an oversize whirlpool bath and shower as well as an additional shower stall. There’s also a sofa bed, suitable for two people, and a guest toilet. Amenities include a private stereo system, use of the exclusive Neptune Lounge, a private concierge and an array of complimentary services.”
So it has two bathrooms, one with a whirlpool tub/shower AND a separate shower. And another whirlpool on a private verandah.
And at 1134 sq. ft., it’s the size of some small homes.
For dinner this evening I did an online Curbside Pickup order at Whataburger, and as before, we ate it in our car in the WalMart parking lot. Just as delicious as always.
I’ve been thinking recently about some of the societal changes brought about by the WuFlu, and how many will be temporary and how many will hang around.
Here’s the list I’ve come up with so far.
Working Remotely/Working From Home
Online Food Ordering Pickup/Delivery
Online Grocery Pickup/Delivery
Telehealth Appointments
Doctors Able to Work Across State Lines
Online Education/Homeschooling
TV Remote Productions from Home
Live Streaming of New Movies
and most importantly
Alcoholic Drinks to Go
What are your additions?
Tomorrow morning on my way to work, I’m going by my doctor’s office to get the WuFlu Antibody Test, and the results should only take 15-20 minutes so I should know before I leave. If I have had it, then we’ll get Jan tested too.
April 19, 2021
And Now For Something Completely Different . . .
Now that Jan’s patio area is finished and up and running,
it’s time to get back to some other stuff around the rig that’s on my list, most of it maintenance chores of one type or the other.
Things like flushing out the water heater, putting the windshield solar screens back up, clean out the dryer vent hose, and replace the sliding window in the rig’s screen door.
Then the biggies area to install a new fuel pump and fuel filter in the rig’s generator and try to get it working again. If that doesn’t work, there’s a nearby company that works on Onan and other generators, both mobile and stationary, so I’ll have them come out and take a look at it. Would have been nice to have in during the recent freeze.
And then of course, there’s the real big one, getting the engine’s oil leak fixed so the rig is drivable again. Not that we’re going to do any RV traveling, but it would be nice to be able to get out of the way of an oncoming hurricane if necessary.
Then on the Jeep I want to clean off the discoloration on the headlight lenses, and then probably replace the bulbs with much brighter LED ones, finishing up with new tires and an oil change before we leave on our Illinois/Alabama trip the first part of June.
Tomorrow looks to be another errand day starting with lunch at our long-time favorite King Food Chinese. Really looking forward to a big bowl of their Hot & Sour Soup. Then coming home, Cowboy Coffee and sitting out on the patio for a while.
April 19, 2022
Old Friends and BBQ . . .
I got a new toy the other day, but I won’t be able to really play with it until Thursday.
It’s a Alexa-Controlled Smart Thermostat.
Made by Honeywell, it should be a direct replacement for the Honeywell one we have now.
Which was a replacement for the round one that was in the coach when we bought it in 2007.
Just one more thing that Alexa controls in our coach.
Things like our Power Converter, our Firestick, the fan in the bedroom, the coffee pot, the light over the sofa, the table lamp, our Jellyfish lamp, and the dryer fan motor. And probably a few others I’ve forgotten.
I fully expect that someday I’ll tell Alexa to do something and she’ll say, “I’m sorry, Greg. I can’t do that.”
And then take over the coach.
About 11:30 Jan and I drove over to Pearland to have lunch with Bonnie Horner, an old friend and former hospital co-worker of Jan’s. And we ended up having BBQ for lunch at an old favorite of ours, Central Texas BBQ.
We starting eating here back in the early ‘80’s, and it was a regular stop for us. But we haven’t eaten here since before we started RV’ing in 2008.
And it was good to be back, and just as good as always.
And it was good to be able to spend some time with Bonnie again. We’ll have to do it again soon.
