Daily Archives: December 2, 2023

Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

Lunch today was at Twin Peaks, with both of us getting something different.

Jan got a cup of the Green Chili Chicken soup,

and an order of the Chicken Tenders.

While I got a bowl of Brisket Chili, which I had gotten before,

and an order of the Spicy Thai Ribs, something I haven’t had before.

But I will have them again. They were really good, with a crunchy outside crust and a moist, juicy inside.

Jan and I both had some left over, so we got a personalized take-home container from Sylvia.

And speaking of Sylvia, here she is, along with her friend Bridget.

In case you’re keeping score, that’s Sylvia on the left and Bridget on the right.

And as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the servers there think we’re Sylvia’s grandparents, since we always ask for her. And we’re old.

Finally getting our goodbye hugs, we headed back down to our area for our weekly Wal-Mart stuff, and then home, only interrupted by a Cowboy Coffee stop, where we got a chance to talk with Theresa, the owner.

Theresa decorates the place for every holiday, and she went all out for Christmas this year.

Another nice, but dreary day.

You may have heard about COP28, the big Global Warming conference being held in Dubai this weekend. But it seems a lot of attendees got stuck in Munich, Germany on the way there.

‘Literally’ stuck.

As in ‘frozen to the runway’.

“Private jets in Munich on the way to Dubai global warming conference are literally frozen on the runway, which has turned into a glacier,” said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former NOAA chief scientist.

Of course, it’s not just Munich, it’s over 60% of Europe covered in snow, the most since 2010.

Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor!


Thought for the Day:

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


December 2, 2010

Great Steaks on the Guadalupe . . .

This morning started out with some of Gina’s great coffee and more catching up on things. Then about 10:15 Gina and Jan took two of the cats, Jonesy and Beau Kitty, down to the vet in nearby Sattler for some shots and micro-chipping.

Then after they got back we drove over to Milagro’s, our favorite local Mexican place. Their chips and salsa are top of the line and everything is seasoned perfectly. I had a taco salad and a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, while Jan and Gina split an order of bean and cheese nachos and a taco salad. They have a fantastic Blackberry Habanero Vinaigrette salad dressing that I have to get every time we go.

Getting back to the ranch after lunch, Gina decided it was a good time for a nap, while Jan and I drove back down to Sattler. I wanted to stop by the Wells Fargo to get a new debit card, and then go across the street to the Ace Hardware to get some supplies to complete Gina’s Honey-Do list.

After we got back from Sattler, Jan also thought it was a good time for a nap, while I worked some on the Honey-Do list.

Then about 5:30 we all drove over to Gruene (pronounced ‘Green”) to eat dinner at the Gruene River Grill, a steak place Gina had been to once before.

And boy was it good. Gina and I both had the Balsamic Ribeyes, and Jan had the Grilled Sirloin with mushrooms. All came with roasted new potatoes and very al dente green beans. These were great pieces of meat.

GRG_1

Although it was hard to tell at night, the restaurant overlooks the beautiful Guadalupe River that winds all through this area, and they have a lot of decks and tables for outside dining.

GRG_2

GRG_3

This is a place we’ll have to go back to.

We got home a little after 8, and then while Jan and Gina watched TV, I finished up the Honey-Do list, and cleaned all the ‘Gunk’ out of her computer.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow Jan and I head about 65 miles up the road to Burnet to meet the kids for a long weekend on Inks Lake. Should be fun.


December 2, 2011

BBQ and Square . . .

After an enjoyable morning of coffee and doing nothing else, our son Chris called about 11:30am to see if we were home. He and Linda were coming by to borrow my Square credit card reader.

If you ever need to take a credit card, even only occasionally, and you have an iPad, iPhone, or an Android phone, the Square is for you.

Square Reader

Your account is free, the reader is free, and they only charge 2.75% and no transaction fee. That’s cheaper than some of my clients get with their regular merchant accounts

It’s very simple to use. The reader plugs into the earphone jack on your device, and after running the app, you just enter the amount and swipe the card.

Square Reader 2

In 12-36 hours the money shows up in your bank account and you get an email telling you it’s there. When I did a test using my own credit card one afternoon, the money was there the next morning.

Anyway, Chris makes a very popular Habanero Jelly, and now Apple Butter and Banana Butter. He’s going to be selling it at the Kemah Farmer’s Market this weekend, and although most people pay cash, he wants to be able to take credit cards if necessary. He signed up for a reader a few days ago and already has his account set up, but his reader hasn’t come in yet.

About 1pm I headed out for an afternoon of mostly errands, with a little client stuff thrown in for fun.

After a drive-thru at the bank, I stopped off to pick up a Houston Chronicle. Not for the news. Who wants day-old news when you’ve got the Internet?

No, I wanted the Fry’s Electronics sales ad that always comes in the Friday edition. I’ve got a number of client projects in work, and I want to see what Fry’s has to offer.

My next stop was to check in with a client. I’m trying to get him to upgrade his main machine before we leave in a couple of months. His old machine is about 4 years old and due for an upgrade.

Coming home I stopped by the dry cleaners to pick our summer bedspread that I dropped off the other day. When we’re back here in Houston we have a heavier one for the winter, and then switch back to the summer one right before we leave.

Leaving the dry cleaners I dropped off the clean one at the store room until we’re ready to leave.

Later, a little before 5pm Jan and I headed over through Dickinson to I-45 and then north up to Spring Creek BBQ, one of the best (or at least the closest, best) rib places in this area. And their sides, BBQ Beans, Green Beans, Corn on the Cob, Mac ‘n Cheese, Potato Salad, Cole Slaw, and fresh, hot, homemade rolls, are also hard to beat. And the sides are all you can eat, too.

Really, really, really good!


December 2, 2013

Back to ‘Normal’

Today was really our first ‘normal’ day back here at Galveston Bay RV Resort. We had lunch at Monterey’s Little Mexico for Chicken Tortilla Soup and Beef Fajita Nachos. Then it was off to a client’s house/office out in the country. Like many of my clients, these are also long-time friends. In fact they used to live right down the street from us and our daughters grew up together.

In this case, Tom’s computer, one that I built for him in January 2007, is still going strong. But it has been made obsolete by time. He uses it mostly for customer emails and shipping UPS packages using their software. But the latest version of UPS Worldship no longer supports the OS, Windows 2000, running on this computer. And although the computer could be upgraded to run a newer OS, it still would be a 7 year old computer.

So we’re going to replace it, probably with a laptop, since they’re traveling more now. He’s also going to have to replace one of his printers, an older model that HP didn’t support with Win7/Win8 drivers.

I’ll get back to him later this week with several laptop ideas for him to select from and we’ll go from there..

Our next stop was a Starbuck’s for a Pumpkin Spice Latte for Jan and a Cinnamon Dolce Latte for me before heading to the Chase Bank next door. They sent me a new VISA debit card to replace my old one because they received information that my old number may have been compromised. I haven’t noticed any problems but why take a chance. I just needed to run it through the ATM to activate it.

Then it was off to another client’s to check in and get some idea of any upgrades he wants while I’m here.

Our last stop before we headed home was at Tuesday Morning so Jan could check out their Christmas card selection. She says they always have the most unique cards at the best prices.

Getting home about 4pm, it was time for a nap.

And it was a good nap.


December 2, 2014

DUMBO Pizza . . .

As I figured yesterday, our stay-at-home day today, became a going out shopping and eating day.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But before we left I talked to Galveston Bay RV Resort to see how things were coming along with getting their new sites open, and it’s looking good. Turns out they’re now hoping to have them up and running by Dec. 15th. Here’s hoping.

We left the rig about 1pm, heading for the Fry’s Electronics down in North Houston. I came up with a couple of more projects based on the Fry’s Christmas Sales email alerts that I’ve been getting, and we won’t be back down to the Fry’s in Webster until this weekend.

It’s been 10 years or more since I’ve shopped at this Fry’s, but since the layout is pretty much the same as the one in Webster, I found everything I was looking for, and of course as usual, I found several things I didn’t know I was looking for, but apparently really needed. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.

The other advantage to this Fry’s is that coming back home, we pass right by the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria located in the Woodlands. Grimaldi’s has been our favorite pizza place since we first ate at one with Brandi and Piper when they visited us up in New York in 2009. We ate at the original Grimaldi’s located in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area of Brooklyn. It was the best pizza we’d ever eaten, so we were really happy when a couple of years ago our friend Lyn Cross alerted us to the fact that they had started opening Grimaldi’s around the country.

Since then we eaten at Grimaldi’s all over, including two in Houston, two in San Antonio, one in Tucson, and one in Gilbert, AZ. And probably a couple of more we’ve forgotten about.

As usual, we started out with the Small Salad, which despite the name, is large enough for both of us to have two servings.

Grimaldi's Woodlands 4

Then it was on to the large 18” pizza, with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Italian Sausage, Meatballs, and Jalapenos. Besides the crust made with New York water and cooked in a coal-fired brick oven, another thing that makes this pizza unique is that the mozzarella cheese is laid on in slices, and not shredded cheese just sprinkled on.

Grimaldi's SA 5

We always get the large so we’ll have plenty of leftovers, as this pizza heats up great.

Heading toward home, I made a quick stop at the nearby Barnes & Noble for me, and a drive-by checkout of the location of  The Container Store for a later visit for Jan.

Lowell sent over Landon’s school pictures that just came back.

Landon School Pic A Fall 2014-2

Landon School Pic B Fall 2014-2

This kid should be a model.


December 2, 2015

Boo Yah x 2 . . .

After our coffee and pumpkin bread this morning I got back to work on a problem with my NEW BLOG – COMING SOON! ©®™.

Yesterday I upgraded the Jetpack plugin, and somewhere along the line it went terribly wrong. When the update was finished, instead of going back to the blog, I  got a screen that said the blog was undergoing maintenance and to try again in a few minutes.

And when I tried again in a few minutes, still no blog. Just a red and black screen that said “500 – Internal Server Error”.

Rut Roh!

I decided to wait for a while to see if it would straighten out and went on to some other projects.

For lunch Jan heated up the last of yesterday;’s chili. Rather than crackers, we tear a corn tortilla into small pieces in the chili before we put it in the microwave. Just as good as yesterday.

Later in the afternoon, I got back on my dead new blog problem. I went in the back door through my Godaddy account and made a complete backup of the entire folder that holds the website. I’ve done a lot of custom css programming on this, and I didn’t want to lose it if I had to wipe things and start over.

My first thought was to see if I could just reinstall WordPress on top of itself, hopefully correcting the problem. If I did this I wouldn’t lose my css mods, but I would have to reset a lot of things to get it back to where I was to start with.

What I really wanted to do was to deactivate and delete the Jetpack plugin since that’s where the problem seemed to start. But since I couldn’t get WordPress to run I couldn’t use its Dashboard to do that like I normally would. But I finally figured out how to do it through the Godaddy backdoor

And once I deactivated the Jetpack plugin, I was able to bring up the website again. Then I was able to log in and use the WordPress Dashboard to delete and then reinstall Jetpack. And this time it all worked with no problems.

Boo Yah!

With that problem fixed, I moved on to the problem on this blog a couple of days ago. I was trying to correct the fact that when I originally exported all the files from my old blog and imported them here, for some reason only the last ten days of June 2014 came over.

I repeated the export/import thing several times on just that month, still with no luck. So I came up with a ‘cunning’ plan to just copy and paste each of the missing 20 days from the old blog to the new one, one day at a time. This of course resulted in the people who have email subscriptions to this blog receiving year and a half old copies of blog posts, all within a few minutes. Luckily I was made aware of the problem after I had only done four.

So time for a new ‘cunning’ plan.

My next idea was to export the month of June 2014 from the old blog to my new COMING SOON blog, and then export from there to this blog, thinking maybe that this would work.  So after I got my faulty Jetpack plugin update problem fixed, I gave it a try.

And Boo Yah! again, this time it worked.

So another problem crossed off my list.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading down to Brandi’s for dinner,  and later a Christmas Lights hayride with Landon. Then we’ll spend the night, and Friday morning we’ll take Landon out for breakfast and then to school.

Besides the obvious ‘fun times with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon’ reason for this, the other one is that Brandi is having day surgery Friday morning for a reoccurring sinus problem, and Lowell and Brandi will need to leave for the hospital before it’s time to drop Landon off at school. So it’s Nana and Papa to the rescue.

Since we’re heading down to Brandi’s, we want to take our Gate Guarding bin with us to keep in their attic. We store this Gate specific stuff so we don’t have to carry it around all year, and this is a good time to get that taken care of, and it gets the bin out of the coach.

So I needed to get our Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm systems cleaned up and stowed away in the bin. Not really a problem, but since the traffic sensors were buried in the roadway, they were still covered in mud, and in a plastic bag stored in the back of the truck. So I had to get them out and washed off, and stowed away with the rest of the stuff.

For dinner tonight Jan heated up our leftover Grimaldi’s pizza from our Monday night visit.  Still delicious.

We’re really looking forward to tomorrow night.


December 2, 2016

Hazelnut Coffee and Pumpkin Pie . . .

We enjoyed a nice, quiet, gloomy, rainy morning with our Hazelnut coffee topped with whipped cream. Just perfect for this time of year.

And of course Miss Karma gets her share too. The whipped cream, not the coffee.

Then about 1:15pm we headed out, first for the Chicken Fried Steak/Fried Catfish lunch buffet at Barth’s. Really good as usual, along with Hushpuppies and Fried Okra. They also had Mac N Cheese and Pinto Beans, but I’d rather fill up on steak and catfish and not Beans and Mac N Cheese.

Then it was off about 10 miles north to check out the location of the new site that I’ll be working for two days starting tomorrow morning at 5:30am. I’d rather have problems finding it today, and not tomorrow morning in the dark.

Last night I had checked out the location on Google Maps aerial and then grabbed the GPS co-ords to enter in my GPS. And, this time at least, the GPS took me right to the correct gate.

BTW I learned a trick with Google Maps a while back that I thought I’d pass on. Of course it’s very possible that everyone else already knows this, but I’ll pass it on anyway.

I regularly get directions to find a certain FM (Farm To Market)  road or a CR (County Road) leading to a gate. And if you have no idea where to start, it can be a pain tracking it down. But if you just go to the general area in Google Maps and type in the road name, i.e. CR 169 or FM1353, it will take you right to the road.

A Big Help.

On the way home we made a Wal-Mart stop for a few things. Strangely, it’s always just for a ‘few things’, but it never seems to end up that way. In fact before we left the rig today, Jan was working on her list and I noticed she had two different pieces of paper. When I asked her why, she said, “Well, this one is today’s list, and this one is next week’s list.”

So that’s the problem. Too many lists.

Last up was a quick stop at HEB for a Pumpkin Pie refill.

Finishing up, I thought I’d give you an update review on the

iKross 2-in-1 Tablet and Cellphone Extended Cup Mount Holder

that I got from Amazon on Black Friday.

CellphoneTablet Holder 2

I got a chance to try it out on our San Antonio Trip yesterday, and I really like it. It’s very sturdy and locks into the cupholder very tightly and will not come out until you release it.

It works both with my tablet to run Waze

Cupholder Tablet Stand

and my cellphone to find local places.

Cupholder Cellphone Stand

And it even makes a great hat rack.

Cupholder Hat Stand

A Triple Threat.


December 2, 2017

Running In OverDrive . . .

As far as the Direct TV problem I’m having with the video/audio blanking for 3 or 4 seconds intermittently, it’s still kind of up in the air.

A number of blog readers commented that they’re having the same problem with Direct TV, and even Dish. But I’m now looking in a different direction.

Last night I was watching a news show and during the last five minutes, the video/audio flash 3 or 4 times. But when I went back and looked at the recording, the flashing wasn’t there. Now because of the way a DVR works, it looks like the problem is actually probably with my TV.

On a DVR the satellite signal comes into the DVR and is fed through the HD and then out to the TV. This is why you can be watching a TV show for an hour, click the Record button in the last 5 minutes, and have the entire hour recorded on the HD.

So if the video/audio glitching was coming in from Direct TV, then it should also be on the recording. But in 3 different tests, the problem has never shown up on the recordings.

I’ve got another test I’m going to try tomorrow that hopefully will narrow it down more. I’ll keep you updated.

Jan and I headed out about 2:15, first heading over to the Kemah area on TX-146 to have lunch at Stomp’s Burger Joint once again.

Stomp's Burger Joint

As much as we like Whataburger and Five Guys, Stomp’s is at a whole ‘nother level.

Where else can you get two 8 oz. 100% Angus Beef hand-formed patties?

Stomp's Hog Wild 2

And in my burger’s case, the Hog Wild, bacon is also ground into the meat.

It really doesn’t get much better.

Leaving Stomp’s we drove up through Kemah and Seabrook to check out all the new stuff being built in the area. Then it was on into Webster so Jan could get a question answered about the OverDrive app that she uses to check out books from the Harris County Public Library on her Kindle Fire.

She used to be able to suggest e-books for the library to obtain for readers to check out from within OverDrive, but somewhere along the line that menu item disappeared. Turns out that you now have to go to the website to ask for new books.

With that taken care of, we took the long way home by heading down to La Marque to the Buc-ee’s to pick up some Cranberry and Blueberry Muffins for upcoming breakfasts.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re driving up to the FM1960 area to meet Janice and Dave Evans at the Potatoe Patch Restaurant. It’ll be good to see them again.


December 2, 2018

It Gets Crowded In The Bathroom . . .

At least that’s what Jan said to me this morning, concerning her ongoing Adventures In Pet-Sitting.

Apparently the two large dogs, a 100+ Black Lab, a slightly smaller Black Lab/Akita? Mix, and Mooshe the cat, follow her everywhere she goes, even to the bathroom. And they get very upset if she tries to lock them out.

I told her that they’re probably following her around trying to figure out what she did with their ‘real’ family.

And speaking of the ‘real’ family, they’re expected home from Disney World around midnight tonight, and then I’ll pick up Jan tomorrow afternoon, and bring my baby back home.

I headed up to the Clear Lake area about 2:30 for a couple of errands. My first stop was at my client’s office to take a look at a problem with the Shipping computer. It’s the only one that uses a WiFi connection rather than a CAT 5 Ethernet cable, but for some reason it had fallen off the network.

The Office Manager called me late Friday afternoon to let me know about the problem. She had already checked out the usual suspects, like unplugging and re-plugging the WiFi USB dongle, trying a different USB port, and rebooting. All with no luck.

I keep a couple of spare WiFi dongles just for this reason, but a new one didn’t fix the problem. So I clicked the ‘Network Troubleshooter’ and let it go to work.

First up, it told that the Ethernet connection wasn’t plugged in.

Well, duh!

But then after a few seconds, it also told me that the WiFi adapter was disabled, and asked did I want to repair it?

Well, duh!

I’m assuming the problem was really with the USB WiFi interface and not the hardware dongle itself, since a new one didn’t help. but in a few seconds it said it was fixed, and it was.

The ‘why’ is the part I don’t understand, since it was working and then it wasn’t. So I’ll have to keep an eye on it in case it reoccurs.

With that taken care of, my next stop was over at the WalMart for some groceries, and then next door to Sam’s to pick up a prescription, only to find that the Sam’s Pharmacy is now closed on Sundays. Bummer!

I got home about 4:45 to find Karma waiting semi-impatiently to be fed. She knows her normal feeding time is 4pm, and she can apparently tell time really well, Or at least her stomach can.

She will be sound asleep in the front windshield, and then about 5 minutes to 4, she’ll jump down, and then walk over to where one of us is sitting. She’ll then sit down and just stare at us, never blinking, never looking away.

Spooky!

I was wrong. And certainly not for the first time or the last. But this was a simple math mistake, so jeez! But then none of you caught either, so I feel a little better.

In last night’s blog, talking about the oil capacity of our rig’s Cummins 350 ISC engine, I said this.

My engine holds 26 quarts of oil, or 4½ gallons.

And of course, it’s 6½ gallons, not 4½.

Wrapping up, I have no idea why all the paragraphs were triple-spaced in last night’s blog. So we’ll see how tonight goes.


December 2, 2019

Sweetie’s Home . . .

All’s happy in the White household again. My Sweetie’s back home. I drove up to Katy to pick her up yesterday afternoon, and with perfect timing, arrived just a few minutes after Brandi, Lowell, and Landon got home. And since we hadn’t had Mexican in a week or so, we stopped off at Los Ramirez. Mexican Restaurant once we got back to the Santa Fe area.

And I guess I could say we had a good run at Los Ramirez. They had big signs on their windows saying they had ‘New Menus’. And they did.

But no new menu items stood out. What did stand out was the price increases.

Jan’s favorite Pechuga Rellena,

Los Ramirez Pechuga Rellana 5

went from $10.99 to $12.99.  Not bad really.

But the one that hurt was my Beef Fajita Taco Salad,

Los Ramirez Beef Fajita Taco Salad

which on the Lunch Menu was previously $5.59. A really great deal.

But the ‘new’ price is now $9.95.

OUCH!

But still a pretty good deal, just not a great deal anymore. Of course we’ll still go back.

Today was really busy, due to missing a bunch of days, first for our Kingsland trip, and then the rig breakdown and repair. And then of course we’ll leaving for NYC in a couple of days. So a lot of catching up was needed, as well as prepping for our trip.

And in more trip news, it looks like there’s a good chance that we’ll have a White Christmas in NYC, with multiple inches due in the next day or so, while it should clear for our flight up there on Thursday.

The best of both worlds.

Catching up with some of the many oil leak comments, a couple of our readers suggested to add a dye to our rig oil to see if I can see where it’s leaking from. I did think about this, but because of the way the oil is just blown all over I’m not sure I could really see exactly where it’s leaking from. But I’ll keep it in mind.

Several people, including Jan, thought I should get back in touch with Dix Diesel Center to complain that they didn’t fix the oil leak. But here’s the problem with that.

Let say I do call them. If I were them, I would ask me to bring the rig back so they could look at it again. But now we’re looking at a 350 mile round trip and another expensive multi-day hotel stay.

Plus they would almost certainly run into the same problem I did. The only way to test to see if the leak is fixed is to hook up the toad and tow it for 50 miles or so. For example, when I moved the rig over to the River Bend RV Park after I picked up the rig from Dix, a distance of about 3 miles, I saw no sign of any oil leaking. And I checked.

So let’s say I just call them and ask for my money back. Again, if I were them, I’d ask me to bring the rig back so that they can confirm that the leak wasn’t really fixed. I mean, maybe I’m just trying to con them.

And the testing is a major problem, since the leak only seems to occur when we’re towing.

And this fact complicates my thought to just bite the bullet and take it up to the Cummins dealer north of Houston, and then stay in a residence hotel down here. But unless we leave them the truck, how do they test it?

I guess we drive could back up there every time to try it out, but that would be a PITA, for sure.

So, as I said, I’m still thinking about it.


December 2, 2020

Old and New Friends . . .

Jan and I were on the road about 10 am, heading down to Galveston, in the pouring rain. We were meeting up with Jim and Peri Dean and a couple of their RV friends, all over from San Antonio for the week, staying at the Galveston Island State Park.

They said they wanted Breakfast/Brunch so our first (and only suggestion) was the Sunflower Café and Bakery on 14 St.

Crossing onto the Island was ‘interesting’ to say the least. There was so much wind that the bay was just one big whitecap, and a couple of times I almost changed lanes without turning the steering wheel.

Fun!

Being a Wednesday we got seated immediately and a few minutes later Jim and Peri showed up, along with new friends Bob and Susan.

Sunflower Cafe Bob and Susan

We had a great time getting to know them, comparing places we’d all been to, and places we still wanted to go to. Apparently Susan has a very long Bucket List.

Jan, Peri, and Susan all went with the Pumpkin Belgian Waffle,

Sunflower Cafe Pumpkin Waffle

while I got the Sausage and Grits. Good, but not quite as good as the Shrimp and Grits at Snooze. The Snooze version is much more flavorful.

Sunflower Cafe Sausage and Grits

Bob got a Fried Flounder Sandwich, and I lost track of what Jim had, but we all agreed that everything was delicious.

And of course, Jan, Peri, and Susan all had to visit the Bakery for some take-home goodies.

And as usual when RV’ers get together, we were there just talking for several hours, almost 3, actually, until Bob and Susan finally had to leave for a business call.

Sunflower Cafe Jim and Peri Dean with Bob and Susan

We had a great time seeing Jim and Peri again, as well as getting to know Bob and Susan. All nice people, and hopefully we’ll see them again soon.

I had been wanting to get a service manual for our new (to us) 2003 Jeep Liberty Sport. Of course I thought about the standard ones, the Haynes and Chilton ones, but I’ve never really been happy with these.

They always seem to tell me a lot about things I already know, and very little about things I want or need to know. But I was resigned to getting one or the other (or both) but then I came across this one on Amazon.

It’s an original factory service manual, and it was only about $10 more than the Haynes version.

I remember back in the 70’s and 80’s when you bought a new car there was always a coupon in the back of the owner’s manual so you could order a copy of the factory manual,  but that went away sometime in the 90’s. And anyway I imagine that the manuals are all on DVD’s by now.

But I really lucked out finding this one.


December 2, 2021

Wash Day . . .

We left the rig about 12:30 this afternoon with a list of things to do before we leave for Branson on Saturday. But first up of course was lunch. This time at Pho Barr once again.

As before we started out with a couple of their Grilled Pork Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce.

Pho Barr Grilled Pork Spring Rolls 2

Then while Jan got her usual Grilled Chicken Vermicelli Bowl,

Pho Barr Vermicelli Bowl with Grilled Ribeye

I got the Filet Mignon Pho Bo. I mean it is a Pho place, right? It’s right there in the name.

Pho Barr Pho Bo

All really delicious. We’re really looking forward to the one in our area opening.

Then it was off to get my haircut before our trip. Which of course didn’t take long.

Heading back toward home, we made a stop at the Blue Wave Car Wash to get our Jeep all spiffy for Branson.

Next it was across the for a few things from WalMart for our trip. Finally coming home we stopped off at the PO to drop off our Christmas cards. Jan had pushed to get them done before we left so they wouldn’t be hanging over her when we get back.

Tomorrow, a lot of last minute trip stuff.


December 2, 2022

Old Friends And New . . .

And A New Record.

Jim & Peri Dean et al at Jimmy Changas

But more tomorrow night because it’s late and I’m tired.