Monthly Archives: May 2023
Memorial Day 2023 . . .
Remembering Our Fallen Heroes
We were off to have lunch at Spring Creek BBQ about 1pm.
I mean it’s Memorial Day. Isn’t BBQ a requirement?
For my part I got a Two Meat Plate with Baby-Back Ribs and Marbled Brisket with Extra Bark, as well as Beans and Beans.
Back on May 18, 2023 I posted the following as my Thought For The Day:
Guns to use to have an honored place in American schools. Gun safety was taught in schools, schools had rifle teams, schools had rifle ranges, students built guns in shop class. Students brought guns to school to be used for hunting after class. Then the Federal government passed the Gun Free School Act in 1994.
Since the passage of that act, the number of school shootings has skyrocketed. From 1900 to 1994, there were no mass shootings in schools (there were a couple outside of schools). From 1994 to 2014, there were 13 mass shootings inside of schools.
What changed?
Several of our readers questioned this, saying this didn’t happen in their schools, and where were these schools anyway? Well, they were all over the U.S.
In the High Schools I went to in Alabama, it was common during dove season (usually starting in November) to see pickups in the student parking lot with shotguns in the rear window rack. And there were guns ranges and clubs too.
And it wasn’t just in ‘redneck’ Alabama.
It was the same in New York City.
“It was common for high school students to take their guns with them to school on the subways in the morning and turn them over to their home-room teacher or the gym coach so the heavy guns would simply be out of the way. After school, students would pick up their guns when it was time for practice.”
And it was pretty much the same all around the country.
High School Gun Clubs and Teams In The U.S.
“Until 1969 virtually every public high school—even in New York City—had a shooting club. High school students in New York City carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach during the day, and retrieved them after school for target practice. Club members were given their rifles and ammunition by the federal government. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests for university scholarships.”
So again. What Changed?
Thought For The Day:
If I’ve offended you with my opinion, you should hear the ones I keep to myself.
May 29, 2009
Old Friends & Great Memories…
Titusville has a lot memories for both Jan and I, together and separately.
Jan’s father retired from the Air Force here in 1966 and I met her here in July of ’67.
There was a amusement park here then called Florida Wonderland. It had a Western town, with stagecoach rides and gunfights, and a carnival area with a lot of rides. Across the street on the Indian River, was their Marineland ‘wannabe’ with 2 porpoises, 2 manatees, an elephant seal, a giant tortoise, and a 13 ft alligator.
Jan was working as a saloon girl in the Miss Kitty’s soft drink saloon. I was spending the summer bumming around Florida and was hired to give tours and shows for the customers, and also take care of all the animals at the Marineland area.
I would see Jan when I went across the street to get ice and supplies. And 42 years later we’re still together.
And now both Jan’s mother and father, brother, and still-born niece are buried here.
Plus a few years after Jan had moved here in 1966, Carol and Joe Burkott, friends of hers from high school in Massachusetts, moved down here too.
And this is who we’re getting together with for lunch today. We hadn’t seen them in years, but we had kept in touch with Christmas cards, etc.
We’re meeting at Whistle Junction, a buffet chain restaurant here in Titusville. We only have today to spend some time together because they’re leaving for Brownsville, TX tomorrow to visit one of their kids.
After biding goodbye to Carol and Joe, we spent some time driving over to Cocoa Beach and Merritt Island and looking around. Even though it was pouring down rain, we still had a good time.
About 6 pm we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Bamba II. Pretty good food, lousy service.
And then back to our Beauty…
May 29, 2010
ACA Rally – Day 3
Like yesterday, today started out with a breakfast buffet, but with a slightly different menu from yesterday. It’s nice to not have the same thing everyday.
At 9 am the Board of Directors convened the General Member’s Meeting.
It was good to hear that although membership had declined in the recent past, it seems to be climbing again. They also talked about changing the rally schedules to make it easier for families to attend.
Then at 10 we had a presentation from Fleetwood American Coach’s National Sales Manager Jason Humphries, who told us that the industry is slowly coming back. He also talked about how new EPA regulations for 2011 are causing a big price jump on some diesel models. Engines made to meet the 2011 rules will cost between $50,000 to $60,000 dollars more than 2010 engines. That’s just the additional cost for the engine! That means that the 2010 Eagle I showed yesterday that cost $564,000 will now cost over $610,000, or more. WOW!
However this only applies to engines MADE in 2011, and is not based on the coach model year. So coach manufacturers bought up as many 2010 engines as they could to use in 2011 coaches until they run out. So they’re telling people that if you are thinking about a new 2011 coach, get it now before there are no 2010 engines left.
That may be why they announced that someone else at the Rally had bought an Eagle like the one I mentioned yesterday.
After lunch Jan had craft class where they made fancy beaded bookmarks. Very nice.
Heading back to our coach I took a picture of our Doppleganger, about 3 spaces away. Here it is,
and here we are.
The only real difference is that they have a satellite dome on top and we have an open dish.
They also have two cats just like we do.
Then later, about 5:15 we headed back over to Energy Hall for the BBQ dinner.
Once again the meal was top-notch. And this time we had wine with our meal.
After dinner, we had entertainment. His name was Joe Miller and he’s from Deadwood, SD. He looks a lot like Kenny Rogers, and he did a great tribute performance covering Roy Orbison, Marty Robbins, and Elvis. And he was very good, very entertaining.
By 8pm we were back in the coach and getting out the electric floor heaters. It’s supposed to be in the mid 30’s tonight.
Well, al least it’s not snow…not yet, anyway.
May 29, 2011
Chinese and Kringle . . .
Today got off to a great start with more Landon pics from our daughter Brandi. He’s pulling himself up with no problems, and even bending over to pick something up without losing his balance.
This kid’s going to be walking in a few weeks. And then it’s look out!
And here he is putting on his best ‘tough guy’ face. Either that, or he REALLY doesn’t like that hat.
Breakfast was the obligatory coffee, along with blueberry bagels and cream cheese. Really good.
After that, Jan and I worked on trying to figure out our trip schedule for the next couple months. We’ve had to shuffle some things around to be sure we’re back in Vernon IL around the 10th of August for our family reunion.
Around 1 Jan heated up the leftover pizza from last night’s visit to the Pizza Factory. Then I went out to work on my tail light problem. A little checking found that my tail light converter was working on tail lights and brake lights, but not on turn signals or flashers.
Some calling around told me that no one in the area that was open today or tomorrow had one in stock. So I guess I’ll have to wait until we’re in the Sacramento area starting on Tuesday. We’ll be there for 4 days so I should be able to find one and get it installed.
In the meantime I should be able to wire around the converter box to power the turn signals directly. We’ll see.
After working on the trip schedule some more we headed out about 5pm to check out the Taste of China restaurant in Oakhurst. The reviews were pretty much 4 & 5 stars, and boy, were they right. And this was for sit-down Chinese, not our usual buffet.
We all agreed that this was some of the best Chinese food we’ve ever had. And just like last night, we regretted that we didn’t try it earlier, since we’re leaving on Tuesday. And the portions were so large we had plenty of leftovers.
But it does leaves us something to look forward to next year.
One thing kind of interesting about Taste of China is that we found out about it from the owner, Terry Nevins, who is also an RV’er. I saw a post from him on RV.net offering to send anyone his file of 160 recipes for camp cooking. When I responded, I noticed he was here in Oakhurst, and it turned out that he and his beautiful wife owned the place.
I just wish his recipe file had his recipe for Hot & Sour Soup. Bummer!
After a great meal we went next door to Von’s so Jan could get some milk before heading home, but of course, stopping for cappuccinos on the way.
May 29, 2013
Going . . . Going . . .
Almost Gone.
After checking the tracking info for both my UPS and USPS packages, and finding one still sitting in Kent, WA and the other one in Hodgkins, IL, I went down to the park office about 11am to tell them the problem and they said they had no problem forwarding them on to the Bend OR Thousand Trails.
Getting back to the rig, I took a look at my rig’s wipers. They don’t seem to be tracking properly across the entire windshield and skip on part of it. Some experimentation showed that the bolts holding the wiper blades to the arms were a little too big and causing the blades to bind and not pivot correctly as the arms moved.
Since I didn’t have smaller bolts in the right size, I drove down to the local TruValue hardware store to pick up some of the right size. On the way I double-checked with the office to be sure nothing had come in for me, and then left my forwarding address and a $20 bill to cover postage. Hopefully it will all work out.
Getting back I re-installed the blades with the new bolts. I’ll check tomorrow to see how they work now. While I was outside I also topped off my rig tires with my air compressor. Being in a colder climate means the pressure has dropped a little. Finishing up, I changed out a weak battery in one of my TireTraker TPMS sensors.
Finally about 4pm Jan and I headed out to have dinner at Red Hut Café, a Lake Tahoe tradition since 1959.
Being right down the street from the Heavenly ski lift area, they continue with the theme.
Jan had a Tuna Melt with fries, and said it was the best Tuna Melt she’d ever had. What was different about it was the tuna. She said it was a large lump tuna, much different from the normal canned tuna. I had pancakes, eggs, and 3 strips of their delicious Jalapeno Bacon, something I had never tried before. Boy it was good.
After dinner we drove across the street to the marina and dock for the Tahoe Queen paddlewheeler, and a last look at Lake Tahoe.
Coming back to the rig, we stopped off at Raley’s for some breakfast sandwiches for the next two travel days, and also one last visit to the Peet’s Coffee located in the store.
Getting back to the park I went ahead and pulled the truck behind the rig and got it hooked up for traveling tomorrow. One less thing to do in the morning.
We plan on heading out about 10am and travel 215 miles up US359 to spend the night at the Likely Golf and RV Resort in Likely CA, and then on to the Bend OR Thousand Trails park on Friday.
May 29, 2014
Now you see her. Now you don’t . . .
Jan and I once again sat outside with our coffee, and the last of our Martin’s muffins. We kind of thought about walking, but figured we had done our part yesterday walking the Shipshewana Flea Market.
Mister was outside with us as usual, so I took a close-up picture of his new tag, but this evening when I started the blog, I found that it was obscured by the grass he was lying in. So I did a quick cleanup in Paint Shop Pro (a Photoshop clone). Wouldn’t hold up to really close inspection. For that I’d have to work at the pixel level, but that’s very time-consuming.
On another level, below is one I did about 15 years ago. This photo was taken down in Florida and was supposed to Jan’s mother Trudy, on the left, and the three daughters. Debbie, on the right, Jan, next, and then Beverly next to Jan.
However, Beverly insisted that her jailbird friend Josie, also be in the photo.
So back home in Texas, I proceeded to remove Josie from the photo as depicted above. This took several hours to complete. It’s not really hard to do, more like just tedious.
Around 2:30, I saw that my Amazon order had arrived at the park office, so I drove up to pick it up, as well as a bag of ice.
Getting back home I spend about 30 minutes putting together our new kitchen cart, which came out looking like this.
Since when we travel, the slide comes in where the cart is, it will be wheeled into the bedroom hallway and the wheels locked.
I’ve been getting some really amazing speeds on the Verizon 4G system around here. This reading was done over in Shipshewana yesterday.
Note the download speed was over 35 Mbps. The most I’ve had previously was about 20 Mbps.
Don’t know if this has anything to do with Verizon’s recently announced XLTE upgrade which is supposed to be 2X the standard LTE. In fact, from what I’ve read, I’m not sure that my almost 3 year old Samsung Droid Charge is capable of the XLTE speeds.
Tomorrow I’m going to check out a repair to see about getting the rig’s passenger side windshield replaced.
May 29, 2015
Oh, No. Not Again!
Hoping we would be back in the rig today, we had breakfast about 9am at the motel, sitting out on the patio and enjoying the sun.
Since we were supposed to check out by 11am, I called the repair shop to be sure we would be able to get back in our rig this morning before we left the motel. I was told that it was still in the bay up on the jack because they wanted to go over some things with me, but after that they would bring it out of the repair bay and get it parked for us.
Getting there, the first thing I saw was the damaged fuel tank that had been replaced.
All I can say was WOW! It’s hard to imagine how that happened. Luckily they were able to save and transfer most of the remaining diesel to the new tank.
It looked like they made a lot of headway while we were gone. The new (used) mirror was installed,
as well as the new (new) step.
And the new side panel around the wheel well looks great.
I do wish however they had gone ahead and repainted the fuel door to match the new panel. I’ll have to talk to them about that.
They told me that when they actually got under the rig they discovered a big hole in the bottom of the front bay right behind the wheel, and so they had repaired that too, as well as completely relined the wheel well itself.
It also looks like all the wiring is repaired, but I’ll be checking it out for myself in the next couple of days.
I mentioned the other day that they had also discovered that the rear airbag on the side of the blowout had been punctured and will also need to be replaced. So that’s still on order.
They pulled the rig out of the bay about 11:30 but didn’t have a space to park for hookups yet, so they moved it over to the other side of the lot until a space opened up. Jan and I both checked it out and it all looked OK. One thing I did notice however was that the refrigerator was at about 50 degrees, though the freezer part seems OK, as does the little electric icemaker freezer.
At first I thought they had not had the rig plugged in while it was in the bay, but they said they did. And the electric freezer was fine. Then after thinking about it for a while, I figured out what had happened. The front end of the rig had been 3 feet off the ground for several days while they worked on it, and the gas/electric refrigerators don’t work well on a severe slant. In fact running one like that can sometimes damage it permanently. But later in the afternoon, it had already started pulling the temp down. Right now, at about 11:30, it’s down to 37 degrees.
Don’t know what we left in the fridge, except maybe drinks and cheese, but we’ll have to check it carefully.
Finally about 1:45 we gave up waiting and went to lunch at the nearby Cowgirl in the Kitchen Café, a new favorite of ours. We’ve eaten here twice for breakfast, but this is our first lunch.
We both started with a bowl of their delicious chili, then Jan went with the Tuna Salad Sandwich which is one of her favorites. For my part, I joined the Mile High Club.
No wait. That’s not right. I ordered the Mile High Club. There, that’s sounds better.
And Mile High is a very apt description.
In fact it’s almost too big to eat. But I managed.
Getting back about 2:30, we found that our rig was now parked and hooked to power, so we started moving all our stuff back into the rig from our trip.
But Jan quickly noticed a new problem. Or rather a second occurrence of an old problem.
As in the cracked windshield that we had replaced about a year ago up in Elkhart, IN.
Turns out they had cracked it somehow moving it. And they said they’ll take care of it.
I had hoped we might be on our way by the middle of next week, but probably not now, since we’re waiting for a new airbag as well as a new windshield.
On a bright note though, if they keep replacing parts, we’ll soon have an all new rig.
May 29, 2016
An Epiphany . . . Of Sorts
After a lot of discussion (days, months, etc.) and a bunch of procrastinatin’, Jan and I have come to decision, an epiphany, I guess.
We’re not going to travel much this year, at least not as much as we normally do. And almost certainly not up to the Escapade in Essex Junction, VT the end of July. Of course it’s always possible that we’ll dump out a new bowl of Jell-O, hopefully orange, my favorite, and decide to make the direct 2000 mile run up there in time.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
In the last 8 years, we’ve traveled over 73,000 miles, so a little over 9,000 miles a year. But that’s kind of distorted by last year’s blowout-shortened 5,300 miles. So figuring that in, we’ve done almost 10,000 miles a year for the first seven years..
And in that time, we visited 47 of the 49 continental US states, somehow missing only Kansas and Nebraska in the middle. As far as Canada, we’ve visited the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, missing only Manitoba.
And as far as the Canadian territories, we visited the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, missing only Nunavut.
So, all told, not a bad record for 8 years.
Of course, we won’t stick to just bouncing back and forth between Conroe and Columbus, but will probably do a week in Gulf Shores, AL at some point, combined with a detour up to north Alabama to check in on my relatives.
But I know our ‘hitch itch’ has not been completely scratched, not even a little bit. I doubt there’s enough Calamine Lotion for that anywhere.
Unlike the last two days, today was a nice, quiet afternoon for us, until about 3:30pm when it got really quiet, as with a loud thump, the shore power went off.. But it wasn’t us this time, but the power was out on our ring, and the adjacent ring behind the dumpsters.
When our previous shutdowns kept reoccurring, due to voltages occasionally going 1 volt over 130 volts, or 1 volt under 103, I put our Progressive EMS into bypass mode, so we weren’t popping off 2 or 3 times a day.
Here’s what we ran most of the afternoon.
![105 volts_thumb[1]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/105-volts_thumb1.png "105 volts_thumb[1]")
I don’t have a direct meter on the L-2 voltage, but when the rear AC comes, this front voltage actually goes UP to around 109-110 volts. This reinforces my thought that there is an open or high resistance neutral in the system, probably near the panel since it affects all the sites.
After about 15 minutes, and still no shore power, I cranked up the genset and got the AC’s back on. With the temps in the high 80’s, we didn’t want to let it go too long.
And in comparison, this is the output of our genset with both AC’s running.
![118 volts on Genset_thumb[1]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/118-volts-on-Genset_thumb1.png "118 volts on Genset_thumb[1]")
About 45 minutes later, the park guy came by to say the power was back on, and that they had found a blown breaker somewhere up the line.
I wonder if when they upgraded these two inner rings to 50 amp so that they could put a couple of cottages here, that they might have done it on the cheap. The new pedestals only have a 50 amp connector, with no 30 amp or 20 amp connectors.
What I’ve seen done in the past is that rather than pull new heavier wires, capable of handling 50 amps on each leg, they do it on the cheap, and just pull one new wire. This new wire, paired with the 3 wires from the original 30 line, gives them the 4 wires they need for a 50 amp circuit. But of course vastly undersized for the load.
Tomorrow’s another stay at home day, hopefully with no more power interruptions.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
May 29, 2017
Dots and Dinner . . .
It’s still going down into the mid-30’s here at night, with high-60’s in the daytime. But they’re promising warner weather next week. We’ll see.
Our Hermiston friends, Dave and Joanne, came by this afternoon to say ‘HI’ and set up a dinner tomorrow night at Buffalo Wild Wings. And it turns out we’ve both been in the computer industry since the very early days, so we’ll have a lot to talk about tomorrow.
Catching up on some products we use:
Our Zero G RV and Marine Hose is still doing great.
We’ve been using it for about a year with no problems. You don’t even have to roll it up, just wad it up and throw it in the storage bay. And it’s especially nice when I’m packing up to leave on a 35° morning and I don’t have to wrestle with a stiff hose.
We’re also really enjoying our Amazon Dot, the Amazon Echo’s little sister.
I used it a lot when we were gate guarding last year, and it’s really great when we’re traveling, either in the rig or the truck.I just hotspot my phone so it can connect with the Internet, and no more constantly changing stations as we travel.
The Dot will do everything that the full-size Amazon Echo will do. It just doesn’t have the bigger amplifier and speakers, but it can be powered from a USB plug so it’s really easy to use on the road. And in the confines of the truck it has plenty of volume.
We can listen to stations on iHeartRadio, talk radio, or any of our 8000 songs stored in the Amazon Cloud. And at only $50, it’s less than 1/3 the cost of an Amazon Echo.
A Great Deal.
Now that the holiday is pretty much over, we’ll get back to doing some touristy stuff.. Up toward the top of the list is a visit to Mt. Rushmore again. When we were here in 2008 we did both a day and a night visit, which we had planned to do this time too.
But according to some online reviews for the last few days, the fog has been so heavy that you couldn’t see the monument at night even when it was lit up. So we’ll see.
May 29, 2018
Moose and More . . .
Today was a pretty normal day for us, with Jan reading and me working on website stuff. I’m getting close on the knife website, with all the U.S.A Steel Knives in place.
I’ve now started programming the PayPal ‘Add To Cart’ buttons, one for each knife. Then I have to paste each individual code into the corresponding product block.
I’m still waiting for the text descriptions for a lot of the knives, but hopefully I’ll have everything done by this weekend. But we’ll see.
About 1:30 Jan and I drove into Webster to have lunch at the East Star Chinese Buffet once again. Always good.
Then I made a quick stop at my client’s to set up one of the computers to do a system image backup later tonight. I try to do a system image on all three computers at least once a month. That way it will be a lot easier to recover if I lose a hard drive.
On the way home we made a quick WalMart stop for a few things before getting back to the rig about 5pm.
Another nice day.
May 29, 2019
11 and 13 . . .
Jan and I both agreed that today was the first day that we felt halfway normal again. Which is pretty good for us, since half-normal is pretty much normal for us. At least on the Normal-Crazy scale.
Getting to work I was hoping that the website Linux computer had finished doing it’s hard driver repair scan. But it was still cranking along. So rather than telling it to fix one problem at a time by pressing the ‘y’ key, I stopped it and then restarted it , including the ‘-y’ in the ‘fsck’ command from the # prompt.
And off it went, and it was still running when I left, which doesn’t bode well at all. If it’s finding this many errors it’s probably a major malfunction, and not repairable. But either way, I got back on moving the site up to Godaddy.
Luckily I’ve got the data files backed up so once I get the Zen Cart shopping cart set up and functioning I should be able just install the SQL databases and pick up where we left off.
11 and 13 are how many pounds Jan and I each gained on our trip, so dinner tonight we were back onto our regular meals, and back on to our diets.
Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a chance to at least get to take a look at the radiator problem on the truck, but, as usual, we’ll see.
May 29, 2021
It’s Solar Powered . . .
I left my old and new phones copying all my 52+GB of data over when I went to bed about midnight and it was all done when I got up. And a quick look showed that all my contacts, photos, etc., appear to have been moved over, but no sign of any apps beyond the ones that came preinstalled. Which is about what I expected since just transferring them wouldn’t have installed them.
One thing I’m happy to see is that my new phone is much, much faster, both in operation, how fast programs open and run, and also how fast data downloaded, or at least how fast it was processed as it came in.
And later, things got even faster.
But this morning started with coffee outside on the patio while Jan admired her new flamingo bird bath complete with the solar-powered fountain I also got for her.
I was actually surprised how little direct sunlight was necessary to start it pumping. It also comes with 3 other spray heads, but this basic one works better to keep the water in the bird bath.
Later in the afternoon we headed up to the Webster area, first to make an office stop to pick up a couple of Amazon orders that came in late yesterday, one of them the second wireless charger for my new phone. Then it was on down to our only remaining Chinese Buffet, East China Star.
And while we were there I looked at my phone and saw that it now said that my phone connection was the fabled 5G. So not wanting to lose this chance, I ran SpeedTest.net found I was getting almost 60 Mbps.
WOW! That’s faster than our connection at work.
Then, heading back toward home, we made a quick stop at Harbor Freight, and then a final one at HEB for a couple of things.
Then this evening I discovered the plus side to copying all the apps over. As I was going through my old phone, picking apps to download to my new one, I found that apps in excess of 50Mb were downloading and installing way too fast. Then it occurred to me that the phone was checking to see if an app had already been copied to the phone, and then using that, rather than actually downloading it again.
So as a test, I downloaded a new, large app not already on my phone and found it happening at about the usual speed. Nice.
Tomorrow I’m going to start doing some prep work and making a list of what we want to take on our upcoming trip.
And maybe sit out on the patio again.
May 29, 2022
An Unusual Day . . .
A little before 10am, we headed out for the Cracker Barrel right down the road for another round of First Cousin, First Cousin Once Removed family get-togethers.
Unfortunately, we were having so much fun catching up, that I forgot to get a group photo, so you’ll have to re-see the one from June 2021 when we were last up here.
From the back, that’s Luke, Harland, Darby, and their mother Helen.
Luke is the team leader for a company that installs French drains on houses in the Huntsville area, while Harlan is 14 and still in school, while Miss Darby is a Paralegal at a law firm here in Athens.
The one missing is here is Stahlie. who is presently down in the Miami FL area on an archaeological dig. She’s part of a team who goes into areas before any new construction is allowed and surveys for any artifacts that might be there.
They regularly find relics from Indian tribes thousands of years ago, remains of Spanish encampments, and even things from the Revolutionary War era.
Neat!
To give you an idea of the kind of young lady Miss Stahlie is, how many people can say they’ve been photobombed by a Chinese Communist soldier on the Great Wall of China.
Jan had the Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes, along with Bacon,
while I got the Sunrise Sampler with a little bit of everything.
After getting our hugs and goodbyes, Jan and I made a WalMart stop before heading back to the Days Inn for the afternoon.
And now here comes the ‘Unusual’ part. Normally we only have one big meal a day. But today we had two.
About 5pm we drove back down US72 for a bit to have dinner at another local favorite of ours, Catfish Cabin. We’ve been eating here whenever we’re back in town pretty much since they opened in 1968. And it’s always good.
They always start us off with a fresh hot basket of their homemade hushpuppies.
Then Jan got the Cabin Plate,
with a whole catfish, fried shrimp and fried oysters, and a Baked Potato.
I got my usual Regular Combo Platter,
with Fried Catfish, Fried Oysters, Fried Shrimp, Boiled Shrimp, a Stuffed Crab, and a Baked Sweet Potato.
And then somehow we made enough room to split a slice of their Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.
But just barely.
Tomorrow we’re getting together with another old friend. And by ‘old friend’, she was 15 and I was 18 the last time I saw her until last year.
VaCay ReCap . . .
I mentioned yesterday that we’ve crossed Sleep Inn off our list, but we’ve added a new one.
Key West Inn
We stayed at one for 5 nights in Fairhope, and it was the nicest one on the trip.
Very nice room, friendly staff, and a great breakfast. But unfortunately there are only about 20 of them around the country, mostly in the Southeast.
But strangely enough, there’s no Key West Inn in Key West, FL.
When I was packing the Jeep the morning we left for Alabama one of the gas struts that hold up the rear lift gate window broke off at the mount.
So as soon as we got back yesterday I ordered a new set, figuring I would replace both struts, since if one goes, the other one is probably not far behind. And from the part numbers, they’ve already been replaced at least once.
And even better, rather than the $75 EACH the Jeep dealer quoted me, the pair was only $14 on Amazon.
For our first full day back home, we left the rig to have lunch at Denny’s once again, the first really good breakfast we’ve had since we left for Alabama.
Then, after a quick HEB stop, we stopped off at Jennifer’s house to pick up Karma. Guess she was glad to see us. But with her, it’s hard to tell.
Both Jan and I really enjoyed being back in our own bed and our own shower. Only our Day’s Inn in Athens and the Key West Inn in Fairhope were any good. The others either had lukewarm water or no real water pressure. Or both.
And the Key West Inn didn’t give you those little tiny bars of soap either. Instead, in the shower they had despensers of soap and shampoo,
and Jan’s favorite Beekman products on the counter.
Very nice.
Finishing up, Sonja, Landon’s other grandmother, posted this photo of she and Landon.
He’s as tall as she is now.
Thought for the Day:
There are three kinds of people. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what the hell did happen.
May 28, 2009
On to Titusville…
We headed out of the RV park in West Palm Beach this morning about 10:30 am, with our first stop about 8 miles away in Jupiter, FL.
I wanted to go ahead and fill up with Diesel at a Shell station we had scouted out a few days earlier. We do it this way because it’s easier for us.
We try not to wait to fill up while we’re on the road. When we have our toad (I.e. pickup truck) hitched behind us, we’re 61 ft. long, longer than some tractor-trailer rigs and we’re pretty much restricted to fueling up at truckstops. But the truckstops are usually crowded and you often have to wait in line at the pumps. Plus the truckers seem to resent us getting in their way while they’re trying to make living. And I guess I don’t really blame them.
We don’t have to fill up very often. We have a 150 gallon tank that will take us over 1200 miles between fill ups. The last time we took on diesel was April 7th when we left Old Town, FL.
So what we do is when we’re parked somewhere and it’s about time to fill up, we start looking for gas stations that will work for us.
Of course, the first requirement is that station carry diesel. We also want a station that looks like it sells a lot of diesel. If diesel sets too long in the tank it starts to grow algae and pick up moisture. Both of these are very bad for your engine.
Next, we look for a place that we can get in and out off without too much trouble. This is made easier by the fact that we won’t yet have the our toad hooked up. We don’t want a place that we have to back out of or can’t turn around in.
Lastly, we try to find a place nearby we can park long enough to hook up our toad. This normally takes between 5 and 10 minutes.
The Shell station in Jupiter fit all of our criteria and $297.00 later (118 gallons at $2.499 per gallon) we were on our way to Titusville.
Since we had traveled this way before, sightseeing along US 1, we took I-95 north to save some time.
About 50 miles out of Titusville we started running into heavy rain, just what I really love when we park and it’s time to start hooking up our utilities.
Luckily the rain had almost completely stopped by the time we pulled into Manatee Hammock Campground in Titusville.
We had noticed this park several weeks ago when we drove up for the Shuttle launch and were happy to learn that it was a Passport America park which means we can stay here for 1/2 price, I.e. $15.00 per night.
We pulled in about 2:30 pm and got set up. This is a really pretty park.
I had seen the word ‘hammock’ used a lot in Florida and they didn’t seem to be talking about the one that hangs between two trees and you nap in.
It turns out that the word refers to the overhanging canopy of trees in an area. Which I guess it is kind of like the other hammock too.
May 28, 2010
ACA Rally – Day 2…
Today started off with a very nice breakfast buffet at the Energy Hall. We’ve really been surprised by the quality of the food we’ve been served here. It’s been great!
After breakfast we came back to the rig for a couple of hours. Because the ground where we’re parked is soft, I wasn’t able to level our coach when we parked because the leveler pads just sank into the ground instead of raising the coach. This left our coach with a distinct downhill tilt.
So I wanted to raise the levelers and then put some boards or pads underneath and then try to relevel.
To do this I had to start the engine. What was funny was that Emma heard the engine start and immediately ran to Jan’s chair and assumed her travel position. She looked disappointed that we didn’t go anywhere.
Now that we’re level again, going to the back of the coach isn’t like walking uphill.
Anyway, about 11:15 we headed back over to the Energy Hall for the men and ladies luncheons.
The ladies’ luncheon was held at the Prime Rib Restaurant that has also been catering our meals here at our Rally. They were taken to the restaurant by bus. And after the lunch the women’s group had a fashion show.
The men’s lunch was burgers and brats, both good, and afterwards we had a talk by a county commissioner talking about the mineral wealth of the Campbell County area. Besides being one of the largest coal-producing areas in the country, they also have immense oil and gas deposits, and if that’s not enough, they are a a large producer of uranium. Talk about your energy monopoly.
Then at 1:00 we had a seminar panel with representative from Spartan Chassis talking with us about maintenance, troubleshooting, and repair of our chassis and chassis systems.
After that I walked over to the new American Coaches they have on display in the hall.
Jan and I both agreed that out of the 3 coaches, we like the new Eagle the best. These have 4 slides and are 42 to 45 feet long, as compared to our Beauty’s 40 feet.
And the inside shows it.
These units are really beautiful and it would be nice to have one. But the list price on this unit is $564,000, so we’ll probably have to wait for our Powerball/MegaMillions win before we get one.
On 2nd thought that price makes us really happy with our paid-for Eagle.
BTW the word is that someone bought this new Eagle yesterday.
About 2:30 we headed back to coach to wait and hear from a friend of ours who was passing through Gillette on her way back to Billings.
Linda and her son Aaron showed up about 3:15 and we had a good visit with them. We hadn’t seen Linda since we were in Billings two years ago on our way back from Alaska.
Later in the afternoon, the partying started. And believe me, these people are serious about their partying. Several travel with their own Margarita machines!
Tonight was an open night so about 6 pm we drove into Gillette for dinner at Las Margaritas Mexican Restaurant. And it was very good, especially for northeastern Wyoming!
Tomorrow night, we have a BBQ dinner, and then on Sunday, we have a Prime Rib dinner.
MMMM MMMM Good!
May 28, 2011
Bring on the Steak . . .
Our daughter Brandi emailed us a picture of Landon she took this morning, showing he woke up sporting two new teeth, his first.
Bring on the steak.
We started out with coffee and the last of the Lemon Braid Bread. Sniff!
Then about 4 we headed into Oakhurst to have dinner at the Pizza Factory.
We had a very bad experience at the Pizza Factory in Show Low, AZ about a month ago, and along with our recent so-so experience at Di Cicco’s, we were reluctant to try it. But several people told us it was really good, and the best in the area. We also found out that the Oakhurst location is the original restaurant in the chain of over 120 units.
And boy was everyone right. It was delicious, as good as Da Boyz in Yuma and Crusty’s in Camp Verde. We all said we wished we had tried it earlier, so we would have had a chance to eat here more than once. But since we leaving here Tuesday morning we probably won’t get another chance.
Coming home we stopped off at Von’s for some groceries and the Taste of China restaurant to be sure they’re open tomorrow since we plan to eat there.
And of course, how else can we end the day, but with a cappuccino.
May 28, 2012
But there’s always Plenty of Hot Water . . .
The guy who decided to make large water tanks black has never been in south Texas in the summertime, and tried to take a cool shower.
It’s just all hot, all the time.
I now see why some gate guards have a tarp tented over their tanks. Right now the water in the shower is warm, but comfortable. But as the days get hotter I may have to look into the tarp thing too. We’ll see.
Here’s a series of photos I took over a couple of days as they built our rig.
The thing goes together like a giant Erector Set. But I guess that dates me.
Maybe I should say Legos instead.
I went back by Tita’s Taco Stand the other day for some more of their great tacos. Their green sauce is some of the best I’ve ever eaten. Good food and nice people.
I just wished they served their breakfast tacos all day long, instead of stopping at 11am.
Heck, I wish McDonald’s sold Egg McMuffins all day long too.
Under the heading, “They Grow Them Big Here in Texas” I took this shot of a large green grasshopper who has taken up residence under our canopy.
It’s hard to tell from the photo but his body alone is about 4 inches long. So far, he’s ignoring us and we’re ignoring him.
Let’s hope we keep it that way.
That’s about it for today. Wednesday afternoon we’ll head to Houston for a couple of days for our granddaughter Piper’s graduation, and should be back early Friday evening. Gate Guard Services is sending someone over to work our gate while we’re gone.
I will try to post a blog from Houston, but don’t know if I will have time.
May 28, 2013
Snap, Crackle, and Pop . . .
Apparently neither the US Postal Service nor UPS like me anymore.
This past Saturday our daughter Brandi sent us our mail by a USPS Priority Mail package. According to their tracking website, the package should have been delivered today. However it’s presently sitting up in Kent, WA for some reason
Brandi put it in the mail on Saturday, it left Houston on Sunday, and went straight to . . . Federal Way, WA.
HUH?
I’m in California. The capital, Sacramento, is only 80 miles away. Why send it to Federal Way, WA which is over 600 miles from here. But to compound the problem, the next day, today, instead of being delivered here in South Lake Tahoe, CA, my package moved a whole 5 miles to Kent, WA.
Where it now sits. I even went back and double-checked the address that it’s being sent to, and it’s correct.
Bummer!
As far as UPS, last Thursday I ordered a replacement lower mirror for our rig’s outside passenger-side mirror from RamCo in Elkhart, IN. It shipped out Friday, the 24th, from Elkhart and moved to Hodgkins, IL.
Where 4 days later it still sits. After initially saying, it would be delivered today, the tracking now says that it will be delivered here on Friday, the 31st.
The problem with these new delivery dates is we’re not going to be here on Friday, the 31st. We’re leaving here on Thursday, the 30th, and will be at the Bend, OR Thousand Trails on Friday. I’m going to try to call UPS tomorrow to see if I can get that package rerouted to Bend. I’ll have to see if that’s going to work.
My fall-back plan is to leave some money with the park office and hope they will forward everything.
As far as today, Jan and I headed out about 9:30 for our trip back to Virginia City, but our first stop was at the IHOP a few miles down the road. A really good breakfast and a really excellent waitress, Stacey.
Leaving from there about 10:30, we headed out on a new route to Virginia City. Rather than take the normal US 50 over the mountain to Carson City, we took SR 207 out of Stateline, NV over the mountain near the ski resorts and down through Minden to hook up with US 395 which took us up to Carson City.
Heading off of US50 and up SR341 we traveled up that 15% grade that we’d seen on our visit to Virginia City last week. Coming into town, we saw the main reason for our return visit passing by, the train ride on the Virginia & Truckee Railroad.
I had been hoping to ride behind their steam engine, but they were only running their 1950 GE 80 ton yard switcher this week.
They were only running two cars today. The open-air gondola, built in 1925, was originally a cattle car, but was cut down and seats added for passengers. The rear car, originally a box car built in 1916, was remodeled to look like a caboose.
The 35 minute round-trip ride took us down to Gold Hill, where gold and silver were first discovered in the area.
A lot of the mine equipment is still standing in the area.
This is one of the old railroad tunnels from the 1870’s. It got so unstable that it had to be shored up between trains. When a train needed to go through the tunnel, it stopped at the entrance and some of the crew would get off and remove the shoring timbers. Then the train would go through the tunnel as quick as it could, and the crew would then replace the timbers until the next train.
What could possibly go wrong here?
They finally built a new tunnel around 1880.
Getting into Gold Hill, we came across several historic buildings. This is the 1869 train station.
And this is the 1866 Bank of California building, the oldest one in town.
And of course a lot of pretty vistas along the way.
The other thing I wanted to see on our revisit here were two train museums that were not open when we were here last time. But as it turned out, I struck out on both counts.
One of them was never open. It’s actually the storage/work yard of the Virginia & Truckee, and they don’t allow visitors. The other one, the Virginia City Historical Museum, is still only open on weekends. Bummer again!
But I did get a shot of this beautifully restored Central Pacific 1873 American 4-4-0 locomotive through the window. This was used to haul gold and silver ore from Virginia City up to Lakes Crossing where the Virginia & Truckee connected with the Transcontinental Railroad. Lakes Crossing is now known as Reno.
At the peak 40 trains a day hauled ore out of here. Four partners of one big mine were making $300,000 a month . . . EACH!
Everywhere you look around here are old cars,
old equipment, and other mine junk. The American Pickers would have field day here.
Finally leaving town and heading back toward Carson City, we got a look at what’s called the ‘100 Mile View’. It’s called that because the farthest line of mountains is 100 miles away.
Getting back into Carson City, and after driving around through the old part of town, we made a Wal-Mart stop and a Bed, Bath & Beyond stop before having dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, one of our favorites, before heading home.
One of the things we find funny here is when, as I’ve mentioned before, we buy a bag of chips in Carson City at 4500 feet and then take them up to 7300 feet and over the mountain to South Lake Tahoe. There’s just this constant snap, crackle, pop from the backseat as the bag puffs up like a marshmallow.
Tomorrow, our last day here, is an official goof-off / get ready to travel day before we leave on Thursday.
May 28, 2014
Fat and Happy . . .
As usual we started out with coffee this morning, but didn’t sit outside since it had rained last night so all our chairs were wet.
We pretty much goofed off all morning before about noon, I tried out our new Toaster Oven by making Jan some cheese toast for lunch. So far, so good.
At least as far as cheese toast goes.
About 1pm, Jan and I headed over to the Shipshewana area and the Flea Market there.
We spent several hours walking up and down the myriad of rows, and only covered a small part of it. Jan bought some specialty breads and some Skin So Soft. And I found a couple of tools, and Mister got a new engraved collar tag.
After the Flea Market, we stopped off at E & S Sales, a local Amish bulk food market, where Jan found a few things.
Then it was on back to the Elkhart/Goshen for dinner at Mancino’s Pizza. We had eaten here a few days ago with Dave and Lyn Cross, and it was just as good the second time. And again, we have leftovers.
As we left the restaurant, we noticed this large groundhog about 100 yards away in a big field across the street.. I think fat and happy about covers it.
We got home about 7 pm after a really nice day.
Many of you know about the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo, and their 72 oz. Steak Challenge.
If you can eat a 72 oz. steak, as well as a Shrimp Cocktail, a Baked Potato, and Salad, and a Roll and Butter, and if you can eat it all within one hour, then your $72 cost is refunded. And yes, you have to pay up front.
Well, this is Molly Schuyler. She’s 5’ 7” tall and weighs 125 lbs.
Recently she set not one, but two new Big Texan records.
She ate the first meal in 4 minutes 58 seconds, a new Big Texan record.
Then, apparently still feeling a bit peckish, she ate a second meal, but this time taking a whole 9 minutes 59 seconds. Thus establishing a new record for eating two complete meals in less than an hour.
You can see a video of her performance here.
You can follow our visit to the Big Texan in June of 2010 here. Check it out.
Tomorrow looks to be goof-off day. Looking forward to it.
May 28, 2015
Who Knew ??
After a really nice night at this Comfort Inn, we checked out their breakfast and enjoyed it sitting out on the patio. This is a beautiful motel built back in the hills south of Prescott. You can smell the pines in the air.
So much different from our room in Amarillo the other night.
About 10am I drove over to the rig to see how things were going, and didn’t learn much because everyone was in a meeting. I did see the rig in the bay with the front end up on jacks, presumably to install the new fuel tank.
After making a Fry’s stop across the street, I headed back to the motel to let them know we’d be spending another night. With checkout at 11, I didn’t have a lot of leeway.
Of course about 2pm they called and said they would have the coach out of the bay about 5 and ready for us to move back in. So I told them to take their time and that we’d be over tomorrow morning.
Also it now looks like the rear airbag on the passenger may have also been damaged in the blowout. The mudflap that hung down right behind the tire is ripped out and completely gone, along with the big piece of angle iron that was fastened to it. This is what it looks like on the driver’s side.
And this is what’s left on the passenger side.
So maybe that’s the culprit. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.
After a nice afternoon of goofing off, reading, and napping, really nice after the go-go-go of the last week or so, about 3:30 we headed over to the Cracker Barrel. This being Thursday, it was Turkey and Dressing Day, Jan’s favorite Cracker Barrel day.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to have. At first I thought about breakfast, but looking over the menu, this caught my eye.
Who knew Cracker Barrel has great burgers? This is a half pound bacon cheeseburger with the meat’s crispy burnt edges on the outside, and moist and juicy on the inside. The bacon was very crisp, and the cheese was a thick chunk, not just a slice, and the Cole slaw and fries were good too. Just about a perfect good-old burger.
The side dish at the upper left is their Pecan Sweet Potato Casserole, one my favorites, so I always get it when it’s available, not matter what else I’m getting.
Hopefully by this time tomorrow we’ll know more about our timeline for the rest of this year, and can decide what we’ll be doing
May 28, 2016
On The Road Again . . . Again
Today was supposed to be a nice, quiet at-home day, after our 8 hour road trip yesterday, and that’s how it started out. But that changed when Jan saw the Facebook post from Bonnie Horner’s family mentioning that they were hoping friends would drop by to visit.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Bonnie’s husband Richard passed away on Wednesday, so Jan and I had decided to wait a bit before we got in touch. But once we saw the Facebook post, we got dressed and hit the road for Pearland.
![Bonnie and Richard_thumb[4]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Bonnie-and-Richard_thumb4.png "Bonnie and Richard_thumb[4]")
Lucky for us, today’s trip was the complete opposite of yesterday’s with the sun shining and just a few clouds, compared with pouring down rain yesterday. So with no weather or traffic slowdowns, we were there a little after 3pm.
Jan worked with Bonnie a good while back, and we’ve always gotten together over the years, and we were planning to set up a get-together for this year too when we got the news about Richard.
It was really good catching up with Bonnie and her children Jeanne, Susie, and Bob. Bonnie has several cats, so we all had a lot of cat stories to tell, talking about our pets.
After telling Bonnie we’d get back together for dinner soon, Jan and I headed out a little after 5. Since we were close, we decided to have dinner at one of our favorites, Floyd’s Cajun Seafood and Steakhouse right down the road in Friendswood.
We eaten at this location a number of times, though not near as many as the Floyd’s Cajun Seafood in Webster. But it’s all good no matter which one you visit.
I think I’ve mentioned before that the ‘Floyd’ in the name is Floyd Landry, the originator of the Landry’s seafood chain, before he sold it to Tilman Fertitta.
Jan loves the Chicken Fried Chicken here, especially the gravy that she always gets on the side. After the meal, when she was telling our waiter how much she loved the gravy, he said she wasn’t alone. And that they had changed the recipe once, thinking they would make it better. But they were immediately flooded with complaints, and quickly went back to the old recipe.
Don’t mess with success. Remember New Coke.
I had my usual Seafood Gumbo, as you can see is just loaded with shrimp,
![Floyd's Seafood Gumbo_thumb[1]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Floyds-Seafood-Gumbo_thumb1.png "Floyd's Seafood Gumbo_thumb[1]")
and then an Shrimp & Oyster Po-Boy.
![Floyd's PoBoy 2_thumb[1]](https://ourrvadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Floyds-PoBoy-2_thumb1.png "Floyd's PoBoy 2_thumb[1]")
Big portions, and then only reason I was able to finish it was that I had not had breakfast or lunch today. So I had plenty of room. But I was still stuffed afterwards.
Heading back on the way home, we made a Wal-Mart stop for a few things. Pearland has grown so much in the last few years they now have three Wal-Mart’s. We don’t even recognize it any more.
Finally heading for Columbus, we decided to take a detour around Brookshire on I-10. Since the heavy rains the other day, part of US90 just west of Brookshire is flooded out, forcing all of US90’s traffic onto I-10, causing a 6 mile backup on I-10 through Brookshire and almost into Katy.
So leaving Pearland we headed down US59 for a bit and then cut west through Rosenberg and then onto SR36 which brought us back onto I-10 at Sealy, bypassing all the mess.
So, with a potty stop at the TA Oasis Truck Stop, we were home by 9:30. And after two long days in a row, we are definitely staying home tomorrow and Monday.
And maybe Tuesday, too.
May 28, 2017
Some Random Stuff . . .
The last time we were in Billings, MT a number of years ago, there were a small number of casinos/bars/restaurants around the town, but nothing of any size.
But this recent visit they were everywhere, and bigger and fancier. And almost all of them out of business. So I don’t know if they overbuilt too fast, or just had more casinos than they had people who wanted to gamble. But it’s strange.
A few days ago, after our Buffalo Wild Wings visit, we got our truck washed at the Parkway Car Wash just off downtown RC. They did a great job of pre-spraying the front of the vehicle to get the fine spray of diesel oil off. We always get this blowby when we’re traveling in the mountains and using our PacBrake a lot. But hopefully we’re pretty much out of the mountains for this year.
BTW I’ve found in talking to a number of people that they don’t think their PacBrake does much, or even works at all. And, if they aren’t using it very often, and/or not performing the lubrication maintenance on the system, it’s very possible it has jammed up and it isn’t working. But there is a very easy way to check your PacBrake.
In most cases, when your PacBrake is turned on and you let off the gas, the system downshifts into 4th gear, and then engages the PacBrake. So it can be hard to tell what part of the resulting slowdown is caused by the downshifting and what part is caused by the PacBrake.
So on a hill of decent size, go ahead and downshift into 4th on your own. Then about 10 seconds later, turn on your PacBrake and let off the gas. If you feel an additional slowdown, then your PacBrake is working. If you feel nothing extra, then it’s probably not, and you need to have it checked out.
A few days ago I got an email hack I wanted to warn you about. It was supposedly from ‘USAA Bank alerts’ with the Subject ‘New banking autnification system’ And yes, that’s the way it was spelled. Bad grammar and typos are always a good clue that an email is not authentic.
Note that the real From: address is ‘[email protected]’ and has nothing to do with USAA. And if you put your mouse on the ‘Click here to get started’ button or the ‘usaa.com/contact-us’ link at the bottom of the text, it takes you to here:
www.birosagsec.webgrafika.hu/profiles/success/usaa-alerts
With a .hu country code for Hungary, it’s probably not from USAA.
So let’s be careful out there!
Wrapping up with the Jetpack MiFi data problem I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve got more info on the amount of data I’m supposedly using.
In the past, on my 3G AirCard, I’ve consistently used 20 to 25 GB a month, very seldom varying more than a couple of GB’s. But the past two months since I got the MiFi, I used up 10GB in the first 7 seven days, and then was throttled back to 3G speeds.
So at that point, both last month and this, I switched over to hotspotting from my new Galaxy S8+. And in a little over two weeks I still haven’t quite used 10GB of 4G yet.
So explain to me why I use data more than twice as fast on my MiFi as I do on my S8+? For the same stuff.
Seems kind of suspicious to me.
And of course there’s the problem of the fact that the 3G speeds I get throttled back to when I’ve used up my 10GB of 4G, is slower than the 3G I can get on my AirCard that I still have, 660 kbps vs. 1.1Mbps. And this is at the very same time from the same location.
I smell a rat!
May 28, 2018
Just Like His Uncle Chris . . .
First off, On this Memorial Day, Jan and I want to thank all the veterans for their service to our country.
I spent most of the day slogging away on the knife website. We have over 50 new knives, and each photo has to be cropped to two different sizes, one for the regular display, and a larger size for the ‘Click To Enlarge” function. Then they have to be enhanced, sharpen, and in some cases, retouched.
Then each product block has to be assembled from six different pieces, and placed in position on the page. And it all has to line up.
Then the last thing I will do is go into PayPal and create each ‘Add To Cart’ button, and then each button’s code has to be inserted into the product block.
Whew!
It’s not hard, just time-consuming. And after a while, my eyes get tired and I have to take a break.
Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are up in Oklahoma visiting Lowell’s parents there. Sonja, Landon’s other grandmother, posted this photo of Landon showing off his latest artwork, the cover of a book of student poetry. He’s now a published artist.
And here’s a closer view.
And apparently this runs in the family. Landon’s Uncle Chris is also an excellent artist and when he was in elementary school, his sketch of the school building was selected to be on the cover of the school handbook. I guess it’s Like Uncle, Like Nephew.
As always seems to happen this time of year, some of our favorite TV shows start falling by the wayside, as in CANCELLED.
One long-time favorite of ours, Lucifer, which just wrapped up its 3rd season, was cancelled abruptly after being told they had been renewed. Because of this they had actually already filmed the first two episodes of Season 4.
There’s been a big outpouring of fan support hoping for another network to pick it up, as just happened with Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing. So we can always hope, I guess.
But at least we’re going to get to see those two Season 4 episodes which were shown tonight back to back. We DVR’d them and will watch them tomorrow.
The other show we lost was a new one, Deception, about a disgraced master magician and his identical twin brother, who help the FBI solve cases using magic tricks and illusions.
Although we haven’t watched the 2 hour finale yet, it’s said that it ends in a cliffhanger that changes everything we thought we knew about what was happening on the show.
@#$@& I hate it when that happens.
May 28, 2020
We Couldn’t Get Plucked . . .
So we got Hooted instead.
Jan had her pedi-appointment this afternoon at 3, so we headed out about 1pm to first have lunch at Pluckers, a chicken wing chain. But there was some of accident on the feeder that slowed us down, and then when we got there, we were told that there would be a 20 minute wait. Since this would leave us kind of tight on getting to Jan’s appointment, we swung around to the other side of the Interstate to have wings at Hooters. Happy to see that they’ve added some more sauces.
After Jan had much prettier cherry pink nails we headed home with a stop at Costco for gas at $1.33/gallon, not quite as good as the $1.20 we got at Sam’s Club a couple of weeks ago, but still nice.
After Jan’s recent heart-attack scare due to her pneumonia shot, I decide to order a KardiaMobile for our medicine chest. I did use my pulse-oximeter to quickly eliminate her myocardial infarction possibility, but it would have been nice to also look at her actual EKG pattern. They’ve been marked down to $89 right now so it seemed like a good time to stock up.
Tired of the seemingly never-ending increases, I thinking about switching from Verizon to Total Wireless. Since TW uses Verizon’s tower system I don’t expect to see any coverage differences.
We’ve been with Verizon since 1992, starting out with one of those Motorola bag phones, the ones that look like a big black purse with a coiled handset attached. Right now we’ve got Jan’s S5, my S8+, and a MiFi for the rig, so not a lot.
Based on what I see online, it looks like I should be able to cut my bill by more than half. Since WalMart sells TW, I’ll check them out.
But I’m curious if any of our readers use TW and what your thoughts are.
May 28, 2021
Count’em! 5!
Today was a fun day at work, with most of my time spent repairing a number of customer’s machines that had been sent in with problems for me to look at. And since I don’t usually have any kind of technical specs or schematics, it means that I had to dig out some of my old troubleshooting skills.
I made an appointment yesterday afternoon for 4pm to have the local Verizon store finish the initialization of my new phone and then switch the numbers. I figured that I would hold off doing anything else besides charging it up and being sure it turned on, since I figured a SIM card change out might be necessary, and I was right. In fact both my old and new phones needed a SIM change.
I told the young lady that I would transfer all the data between the phones, and that all I needed was for her to do the new phone setup, and then transfer the phone number from my old S8+ to my new S21, and Jan’s number from her old S5 to her new-to-her S8+. All this took her about the 20 minutes and I was on my way home.
I’ve got the data transfer going right now, and it looks like it’s going to take about 4 hours doing it by Direct Connect phone to phone. Looks like it copies everything, Contacts, Apps, Videos, Photos, etc.
In the meantime I’ve been slogging through the 187 page manual that I downloaded yesterday, trying to catch up on all the new stuff on the phone, especially the 5 different cameras.
Count’em! 5!
So far I like the Jeep’s new tires. They’re a slightly firmer ride, and the handling seems crisper. And the braking is definitely better. Happy so far.
Jan got a new addition to her Flamingo Flamboyance, a glass Flamingo Birdbath. We have an number of Cardinals and Blue Jays flitting around the yard so Jan wanted to put something out for them.
Looking forward to a nice long weekend plus, since with the Monday Memorial Day holiday, I don’t go back to the office until next Wednesday.
May 28, 2022
Once Removed . . .
The weather here is a big change from the Houston area, with lows in the mid-50’s and highs in the mid-70’s, though they say it might hit 80 tomorrow. Maybe,
Nice.
Coming into Athens yesterday we passed by the new Buc-ee’s that’s under construction just south of town on I-65. Should be open early next year.
That will make 4 in Alabama, with others in Auburn, Birmingham, and Robertsdale.
About 11:30 we drove over to my cousin Marjorie’s house (First Cousin, Once Removed) to pick her up for lunch. We headed done to our usual spot, Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ down in Decatur.
Jan and Marjorie both had Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Fries,
while I had the Combo Platter.
And of course we had to finish up with slices of their homemade pies.
After lunch we spent some time driving around Athens, checking out old haunts, including the house my parents bought here when we came back from Colombia, S.A. in 1964.
They bought it new, and it still looks really good for a 50+ year old house. Looks like the new owners have repainted since we were here two years ago.
Finally about 3:30 we said our goodbyes, leaving with an assortment of her home-baked muffins.
Tomorrow, breakfast with more family.
