Last night’s Halloween Decorations Tour wasn’t quite as successful as we had hoped, but it wasn’t bad.
We saw a number of houses down in Galveston that were pretty neat.
And here’s Brandi’s take on Halloween.
Unfortunately the one house we really wanted to see, one that goes all out, wasn’t lit last night for some reason. We’ve passed it a number of times down on FM1764 during the daytime, and were hoping to see it at night, but no such luck.
Lunch today was Denny’s once again for our favorite Ultimate Omelets. Really, really good.
Finishing up, we made our weekly HEB stop, and then after a P.O. stop, it was home for the night.
A very nice weekend.
The Smell Of The Day: Vanilla
Thought for the Day:
“The older I get, the more convinced I am that God tailors most of our lifespans right to the breaking point of how long each of us can put up with all the idiots we’re surrounded by before we decide we just have to pick up a gun and start randomly shooting morons.”
“The way things are going, if I had a 150 year lifespan I’m pretty sure I’d be on death row by 70 or so.” – Unknown
And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™
October 29, 2009
Turkey & Dressing and Chinese . . .
Today started with Turkey & Dressing at the nearby Cracker Barrel. Jan loves their Turkey & Dressing. She says the dressing is almost as good as hers.
Almost! So Thursday is very often Cracker Barrel.
After lunch we drove back over to the Verizon store to get the correct belt holster for my new Storm 2. The one they gave me was for the Storm, and the Storm 2 is slightly smaller so it wouldn’t stay in the holster. A quick swap-out cured the problem.
I also found out they had the problem fixed with transferring my contact list from my old phone to my new one. But since I didn’t bring my old phone with me, I’ll have to come back later.
Getting back to the rig, I pulled out my air hose and gauge to air up one of the coach tires. When I had the new shocks put on a couple of days ago, I also had them bring my tires up to the correct level. But they did not screw the air pressure sensor back on the valve stem all the way so the tire starting leaking down on the way back to the park.
Our coach has a built-in air compressor that operates the air brakes and the airbag suspension system. There is also a connector that lets me tap into the system and, by starting the engine, I can air up my tires.
Coming back in, I found Jan napping so I decided to head back down to Verizon to get my contact list transferred to my new phone. Then coming home I stopped off and got gas in the toad.
About 5 pm we were waiting to hear from Al Hesselbart about getting together for dinner. Al is an RV author/historian we had met at a rally in Celina, OH a month ago. He lives here in Elkhart, and is a good friend.
We ended up meeting him at North Garden Chinese Buffet at 5:30 and had a great time listening to Al tell some great stories about the RV industry.
Tomorrow we take a road trip about 130 miles south to Decatur, IN to see where our coach ‘Beauty’ was born. The American Coach factory is there and they give tours. Then coming home we’ll stop off in Auburn, IN to visit the Auburn – Cord – Duesenberg Museum.
October 29, 2012
Almost Done Here . . .
Today was declared an official Goof-Off Day.
About 2:30pm we all headed back into Savannah for some errands, a little shopping, and dinner. So after a Post Office stop, we headed over to Oglethorpe Mall to the Barnes & Noble. All of us love wandering through bookstores, even if we don’t buy much.
Oglethorpe Mall is kind of ‘old home’ to us since we used to come here in 1970 when we lived in Beaufort, SC. It was brand-new then, and it still looks good.
Then, after B&N, Jan made a quick pilgrimage to Old Navy, we headed across the parking to eat dinner at Golden Corral.
Finally on our way home we made a quick pass by some of many old homes before heading back to Hardeeville.
Tomorrow may or may not be our last day here, depending on the weather. If the winds aren’t too bad we’ll head for north Alabama on Tuesday.
Otherwise, we’ll stay one more day and then head out on Wednesday.
We’ll see.
October 29, 2013
Boom or Bust?
or maybe our boom busted?
Well, our big gate traffic increase due to another round of ‘coiled tubing’ never materialized. In fact we had 7 less vehicles today (Tuesday) than we did on Monday.
But the fact that about 5pm a bunch of guys came in with a Wireline rig might mean they’ve got even more problems than I first thought. Wireline is a cable dropped into the well, and used for a number of different things, but none of them usually good at this point in a well’s life cycle. Normally it is used to lower equipment or measurement devices into the well to check on conditions and look for problems.
So we’re still waiting to hear what the problem is.
Yesterday a van full of pipeline workers came through the gate and an one of the guys made a comment about Mister, who was asleep on the table beside Jan. Now normally we don’t log them in or out so they never have to stop, but this time they slowed down and one of them said “A cat that size would make a good batch of cat gumbo”. Jan, of course, wasn’t too happy about this and I guess it showed on her face. Later in the afternoon when I was on the gate, the now-empty van came back by and the driver said that he thought they’d made Jan mad.
Jan had told me what they said, so I looked down at Mister who was still asleep on the table and said, “He may look fat and slow, but he’s really just big and fast. And his favorite thing is to chase dogs three times his size, so if anyone’s bleeding into the gumbo, it probably won’t be him.”
“And as far as making my wife mad, you don’t wanna to do that. If you do, she’s gonna be stopping y’all every time you come through the gate, and she’s gonna wanna to get everyone’s name, and she’s gonna wanna see everyone’s photo ID. It might take you 10 or 15 minutes to get cleared through every time.” Now since these vans come through here 10 or more times a day, and since they’ve usually got as many as 15 workers on board, this could put a real crimp in their work schedule.
The guy kinda gulped and said, “I’ll pass it on”.
I’m expecting the candy and flowers to start arriving any time now.
I’ve made another addition to the menus at the top of the page. I now have a tab with basic information about gate guarding, how we got started and what you can expect.
I’ve also added a new item to my “What Were They Thinking?” file. Why didn’t I ever have teachers like this in college?
In addition I’ve added a couple of more recipes to Jan’s Favorites. The first one is another ‘gate’ recipe, i.e. simple, quick, and delicious. It’s Habanero Chile Cheese Mac. You won’t believe how good this is.
The second one is her famous Sausage Balls. We often get together with a big group of friends for Thanksgiving and the first thing everyone wants to know is if Jan is bringing her Sausage Balls.
Enjoy.
October 29, 2014
Always the last to know . . .
We bumped up to almost 10 pages or 240 vehicles today, mostly due, I think, to a new workover rig that came into a pad that we didn’t know existed here. At least it’s labeled wrong on the info that our oil company gave us.
When we moved to this new gate, we were told that the pad we’re parked on was 1H and 2H, which means there are two wells here. The pad right down the road, where they’re getting ready to frack, is 3H, 4H, and 5H, i.e. 3 wells there.
But today I found out that 1H is not here, but about 1/2 mile on down the road, all by itself. And they’re moving another workover rig in there.
Thanks for telling us. We’re always the last to know, Which is bad because the guys coming in here are asking us for directions.
Of course some of these drivers are their own worst enemies. I had one truck come in this afternoon looking for a drill rig that wasn’t here. So I asked to see his directions. And they were pretty specific.
“Turn right at the intersection on US190 and go 4 miles. Then turn right on Junction Lane. The rig will be on your right.”
So I told him where he turned in is only 2 miles from the intersection. Then I asked him if he noticed what our road is named.
He said, “Simpson”.
So then I asked why he went 2 miles and turned on Simpson, when his directions said to go 4 miles and turn on Junction.
He said, “Cause I saw another truck turn in here.”
Whoever said men won’t ask for directions was only half-right. In many cases they won’t follow them either.
I think my venerable Cradlepoint CTR-500 router is slowly giving up the ghost. I mean it’s only 6 years old, so what gives? Anyway, the problem seems to be with the Wi-Fi part of it. It’s apparently gotten flakey.
I’m still using a USB 3G modem that looks like a large pack of gum. And the reason I’m still using it is that I’m grandfathered for unlimited data, and I don’t want to lose that by upgrading to a 4G one. And I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about numerous problems with the new ones.
At first I was afraid that my modem was dying and I’d be forced to upgrade, but it works fine plugged directly into my laptop. And with the modem plugged into the router, my desktop works fine directly connected with an Ethernet cable. And I know the Wi-Fi on the laptop and the desktop are OK, because they have no problems using my Galaxy 5S as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
But anytime I try to use the Wi-Fi from the router, my signal comes and goes, so I’ll now I’ll have to look into getting a new one, I guess. I’ll let you know what I find.
Or maybe I’ll just bang on it.
Finally, it looks like we’ve got some pretty cold weather coming through in the next few days.
I’m really looking forward to that 39° one.
(you did get the sarcasm there, right?)
October 29, 2015
A Tale of Two Laces . . .
Or A Day Too Far.
Well, we did have a few more vehicles in today than yesterday. 59 today vs. 56 yesterday. Still not bad, not bad at all. I was outside at 5:15am this morning, thinking the workers would start coming in about the same time as yesterday, but apparently they slept in today because no one showed up until almost 6:45.
We had hoped that today would be a repeat of yesterday, with everyone leaving about 5:15, so we could make one last try at dinner in town. But apparently we went a day too far, as we still had 10 vehicles on site at 5:30, and the last guy in about 4:30pm said, “See you tomorrow morning”, as he drove in.
Bummer.
The weather’s been just about perfect the last few days, with temps in the high 70’s / low 80’s in the day time, and mid to high 50’s at night, But we are scheduled for more thunderstorms on Saturday, of course, just as things finally dry out around here.
Our landowner came through today, mildly complaining about the fact that all the work crews were still around on both sites, and would be for a while now. He was originally hoping that they all would be gone by next Saturday, the 7th, the start of deer hunting season in this area.
He has a lot of deer feeders and game cameras out, and charges people to hunt on his land. So he’s going to have to cut back on the hunting areas so someone doesn’t bag his limit in Flowback workers. Or gate guards, for that matter.
Back at the end of September, when Jan and I had our afternoon Anniversary getaway to Shreveport, I tracked down a Cavender’s to buy some better boot laces, because the cheap Wal-Mart ones I’ve been buying only last a couple of months.
I normally wear boots, short boots, or engineer boots, all the time for the ankle support. Both ankles have gotten pretty banged up over the years, mostly due to a few problems encountered when jumping out of perfectly good airplanes and a helicopter that didn’t want to fly anymore, a long time ago. So if I try to do much walking in something like Crocs, or other sandals, I’m hobbling pretty quickly.
So I figured a place that sells a lot of boots should also sell the best quality, longest-lasting boot laces. And when I asked at the store, I was shown these Ariat brand ones, the ones on the right.
At $6.50 a pair I would expect them to last at least six and a half times longer than the Wal-Mart $1.00 ones on the left. So I bought two pairs, secure in the knowledge that I was now set in the boot lace department for the rest of the year, and almost certainly beyond.
TEN DAYS!
That’s how long the first pair lasted.
I had just put a new pair of the Wal-Mart ones on my boots right before I bought the new laces, and being as cheap as I am, I waited to put the new ones on until after the old ones broke. I mean, why throw away a perfectly good pair of laces, right?
So early last week the old ones snapped and it was finally time to install my new long-wearing, maybe even lifetime, shoe laces.
TEN DAYS!
I mean these are quality laces, solid leather,
and made in . . . India?
INDIA?
INDIA?
WTH!
They supposedly worship cows, but they’ll chop ‘em up and make poor-quality, third-world shoe laces out of them? What would Raj say about this?
And now I just figured out that for the $13 I paid for these ‘laces’, I could have bought two years of cheap laces from Wal-Mart.
Just damn!
October 29, 2016
GateWorthy . . . Again
After a nice quiet morning Jan and I headed out for a late lunch and some shopping.
But our first stop was the real estate office to see if our absentee ballots from South Dakota had come in. But it looks like the office closes on Saturdays, or at least no one was there, so I’ll check back on Monday. I also need to check with the bank to see if VISA check cards have come in on our new DBA account.
One of the things we were shopping for was a new toaster oven. Our 4 year old Farberware model had stopped working, or at least the broiler element on top had.
So a new one was in order.
We had decided to try Bella Sera, a well-recommended local Italian place, but first, we drove on up to the Wal-Mart to pick up a new toaster oven. I had found this one in stock online for only $40 and it’s a convection oven too. And even better, it’s all manual.
The last two ovens before the one that died today both had the digital electronic controls and neither one lasted much more than a year due to them going completely dead. So we’ll see how long this one lasts. Hopefully another 4 years.
Finally we were back at Bella Sera, just about a quarter mile back down the road from Wal-Mart.
After looking over the menu and getting a recommendation from our waitress, Jan went with the Chicken Florentine, with spinach, mushrooms, and garlic in a creamy white wine sauce over spaghetti.
I chose the Bella Sera Chicken with fresh basil, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and capers, in a fresh lemon sauce over spaghetti.
Our entrees came with Chicken Soup or Tossed Salad, so I checked out the Chicken Soup while Jan went with the Tossed Salad with homemade Bleu Cheese dressing.
The soup was really good, with lots of chicken and perfectly seasoned. After tasting mine, Jan says she may get the soup next time. And there will be a next time.
Right before our entrees were served, I checked my phone and saw a text message from Todd at SiteWatch. It had come through about an hour before, while we were still at the rig and for some reason I didn’t hear it.
It said, “FYI, the shelter is out of water, so be sure and take what you need with you tonight.” Thinking maybe he had just texted the wrong person, I texted back, “Does this concern us?”
About 5 minutes later, Todd texted back, “Oh crap. Sorry. I meant to tell you yesterday you’re on a gate tonight starting at 5pm. Can you work tonight?
It was now 3:15pm.
So I texted back, “Yep! Where? Just me or Jan too?”
Turns out it was just me (to Jan’s glee) and the location was only a few miles away from our last week’s gate, and actually only about 5 miles from our very first Marathon gate back in 2012. Looks like it will be for at least 3 nights and maybe more. And still only about 15 minutes from the rig. So nice.
So we quickly asked for ToGo boxes and the check, and headed home. Didn’t even unload the new toaster oven. Just changed clothes, packed my stuff and headed back out.
Brandi took Landon down to Clear Lake this morning so that his Uncle Chris could make a Halloween costume for him. Landon wanted to be a robot, and Chris certainly did him up right.
Of course with any project, the first thing you have to do is to take measurements.
Landon and his Aunt Piper are hard at work too. Every project needs supervisors overseeing things, right?
Things are starting to take shape.
Almost there.
And now the finished project.
Great Job, Chris!
October 29, 2017
The End Of An Era . . .
After moving Thursday, working Friday, and doing the Texas Renaissance Festival yesterday, it was really nice to sleep in this morning.
I spent the morning and early afternoon checking out and setting up some of our new toys that came in over the last few days. First up was my new LaCrosse Weather Station that came in Friday.
I set up the color display and the outside temp/humidity sensor Friday night and got it synced up with my WiFi. For some reason I had trouble getting it connected using my phone. It would see the MiFi signal but wouldn’t connect to it. However when I used my Galaxy Tab 4, it connected immediately.
You don’t need the WiFi connection, but using it lets the display automagically sync with the NIST Atomic Clock Signal so the time display is always correct. And when you give it your ZipCode location, it displays the National Weather Service forecast for your area in a graphical format. And with the LaCrosse View app on your phone you can monitor the weather conditions inside and out at your home location.
Later in the afternoon I went outside to install the windspeed sensor and the rain gauge. I mounted the anemometer on the pole I used to mount my Wilson Cellphone Booster on.
You can see it here mounted to the ladder on the rear of the rig.
.The only kind of disappointment is the rain gauge that comes with the set.
There is no way to mount it on anything. You can only just set it out on the ground or some other flat surface and hope it doesn’t blow off or walk off. It’s supposed to rain this coming Wednesday so we’ll see how that works.
Next up was a Bluetooth Keyboard I ordered for my Galaxy Tab 4 tablet.
I sometimes find that I need to type in a lot of text on the Tab and the onscreen keyboard just doesn’t cut it, so I found this one on Amazon.
It was only $14 so I thought I’d give it a try, I had a little trouble getting it to connect to the Tab, but it connected to my Galaxy S8+ phone with no problems. But with a little experimenting, I found that if I unpaired the two other devices on my Tab, it connected with no problems. Then I was able to re-pair the two devices with no problems.
Of course I had the same two devices paired on my phone and it worked with no problems right off the bat. So who knows? But it works now.
Then it was time to try out Jan’s new Instant Pot.
Instant Pot 8 Qt., 6 in 1, Pressure Cooker.
Before you cook anything in it you’re supposed to put 3 cups of water in the cooking pot and then run it for two minutes on the Steam setting to be sure it’s working OK. And since it passed the test I think Jan’s got a meal in mind for Tuesday or Wednesday.
She was worried about the size of the Instant Pot, thinking it might not be as big enough to hold a full batch of her Chili or Chicken Tortilla Soup. But when I checked, her Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker is only 5 Qt., so the 8 Qt. Instant Pot will be just fine.
October 29, 2018
Pool Salts and Good Friends . . .
I spent most of today at work trying to get a handle on the whole USPS shipping rate thing.
I’ve been working to get all the applicable rate charts on the USPS webpage into a format (.csv, .xls) that computers can read. In some cases, it’s just a matter of rote copy and paste into a spreadsheet.
Boring and time-consuming, but necessary.
When I left the rig this morning Jan was getting ready to cook up about 5# of Ground Chuck, saving out part of it to make a big batch of her world-famous chili, and the rest to vacuum-seal and freeze for later.
But after I got to work, I called her and told her to put it off so we could go out to eat tonight. Going into work, I noticed that the new Slim Chickens had started their ‘soft’ opening today and thought we’d check them out.
We’d first eaten at a Slim Chicken’s last year up in Katy with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, and really liked it. So we were looking to this new one in our area opening.
Slim’s is kind of like a Raising Cane’s with Chicken Tenders, and sides. What sets them apart is Slim’s wide range of sides. Where Cane’s only had the basic Fries and Cole Slaw, Slim’s had Side Salads, Mac N Cheese, Potato Salad, Homemade Potato Chips, Fried Pickles, Fried Okra (my favorite) and Jan’s favorite, their Fried Mushrooms.
And along with full-size salads, they also have Chicken and Waffles!
We both got Side Salads as our sides, along with an order of Fried Okra and Fried Mushrooms.
Really good, and luckily for us, really close. We’ll be back soon.
Following up on yesterday’s pool party up at Brandi’s, one thing nice about their pool is that it’s a saltwater pool. It’s much easier on your skin with little or no pruney puckering.
You don’t have to add chlorine because the pool makes its own chlorine. Using a salt cell, or salt generator, it electrolyzes the salt water, generating hypochlorous acid (HClO) and sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), furnishing the small amount of sanitizing agents needed for the pool.
What’s also nice is the extra flotation that the salt water gives, which makes lounging in the pool even more enjoyable.
Tomorrow we’re making a trip back north to one of our old home bases, the Thousand Trails park at Lake Conroe. We’re meeting up with long-time friend’s, Ed and Debi Hurlburt, and Wil and Cyndy Olsen at our favorite El Bosque Mexican Restaurant.
Can’t wait to catch up with old friends.
October 29, 2019
50 Years Ago Today . . .
This is where it happened.
And this is what it was done with.
And this what it was.
As the plaque says, this was the birthplace of the Internet. Not the Web, but the underlying Internet. The Web, which runs on the Internet, didn’t come along until the 1992-93 timeframe. Until this date, all computers were independent of each other and didn’t communicate amongst themselves.
You can read all about it here.
The whole Internet idea came about from the military wanting a secure communications system between military installations, one that couldn’t be easily knocked out, you know, by a Russian H-Bomb taking out Chicago, or something.
With a ‘net’ configuration like this,
the idea was that if one ‘node’, or city, if you will, is taken out, the data will automatically be routed along a different path to the destination. But this re-routing can also happen without losing a city, and happens routinely today.
Your data, whether it’s an email, a photo, or website text, is made up of packets of bytes, anywhere from 1000 to 1500 bytes. And these packets may be split up along the way, in many cases not arriving in the order that it was sent out. But the system on the receiving end knows how to reassemble them into the correct order.
USUALLY.
I was using the Internet email system from the mid-80’s, and was on the Web in early 1993. And it‘s been a wild ride ever since.
And Al Gore’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere
October 29, 2020
They’re There!
Today was a lunch/errand day, starting out with the delicious Blackened Catfish and Shrimp once again at our local Dickinson Seafood.
We get extra Veggies instead of the Dirty Rice,
and along with a nice salad, it’s a great deal for only $8.59 on the Lunch Menu.
Then it was on up to the Clear Lake WalMart and Sam’s for a few things before getting home about 5pm.
They’re There!
When I checked the South Dakota Voter Information Portal about 1pm today, I found that they had received and logged in my Absentee Ballot today, the 29th. So since I had only been checking my ballot each day, I thought I’d double-check that Jan’s had also arrived safely, figuring that they were mailed together so they probably arrived together.
But No.
As it turns out for some reason Jan’s ballot arrived this past Monday, the 26th. Why hers got there before mine, I don’t know. But at least they’re both there now.
So I guess we can say “We Voted!” now.
Jan’s really enjoying her birthday present, courtesy of Amazon’s recent Prime Day. I got her a Fire HD 10 Tablet.
It’s got 32 GB with a 1080p screen, and was marked down from $150 to $80 for the sale.
I also got her this cover for it.
Setup was really quick and easy since it came already registered to us, so it automagically downloaded all Jan’s favorite programs, and even our preferred WiFi logins.
And I also got a 128 GB microSD card to for to hold all the programs and files.
It’s her new favorite. I think I did good.
October 29, 2021
Party Poopers . . .
Today was Halloween dress-up day at our daughter Brandi’s work. Each group was supposed to dress up in a theme. But Brandi’s group just told everyone that they were going to be party poopers this year and were not going to compete this year.
So everyone was really surprised when they showed up today dressed as “Party Poopers’”, with ‘real’ poop.
Of course they won the Team Costume contest.
October 29, 2022
Airshow Adventures . . .
Jan and I were on our way this morning about 9am, heading up to Ellington Field for this year’s Wings Over Houston Airshow.
We’ve been coming to these for years, though not so much during our RV’ing years since the Airshow is usually toward the end of October, and we often didn’t get back to this area until right before Thanksgiving.
We did attend last year, though it was kind of blurry since I was only about a week before my 3 Level Cervical Spinal Fusion.
We got parked in the Handicapped Parking area, and thanks to a golf cart ride, we were in our seats in the Family Chalet area a little before 10. And of course the first thing we did was to take advantage of the free breakfast that came with our Family Chalet tickets.
Orange Juice, Sausage Kolaches, Cinnamon Rolls, Fruit, and Water.
When we got there they were flying RC planes and helicopters, including this jet model.
I think it was a 1/3 scale and really fast.
The first performance was Debby Rihn-Harvey in her Texas Hurricane aerobatic plane.
Next up was a Coast Guard Helo demonstration, showing how they would perform an ocean rescue.
Then up next was a father-son team, John and Shane McGillis.
That’s about it for Airshow stuff tonight. I’ll post more tomorrow.
But I want to finish up with Landon’s Halloween costume this year as a Cyborg.
This is what it looks like in the daytime.
He built the giant mechanical hand from a kit.
And here’s what it looks like at night.
As Jan and I said, “WOW!”
Needless to say, he won First Prize in the contest.
