I figured out the blog posting problem and I fixed the last two days worth of blogs.
and
I’ll catch up with our Cuero visit over the next few days.
As far as today, after a nice breakfast at our Fairbridge Inn hotel, we headed back into Cuero to gas up for the trip home, and get a couple of Caramel Mochas at the nearby McDonald’s.
We’ve really enjoyed them yesterday, and since it was 40° outside with a 10° wind chill, a hot drink for the road seemed like a good idea. And these are really good.
Coming through Hallettsville, we saw this store.
Not sure why they’re doing this, though Family Dollar has been owned by Dollar Tree since 2015 or so.
But really, why?
Coming into Eagle Lake, we passed an Exotic Ranch with a number of animals on display.
First up is a White Emu, which according to the Internet, are kind of rare.
And speaking of ‘rare’, how about a herd of White Buffalo? Or maybe Blonde, or at least, Blonde-ish Buffalos.
And I think these are a type of African Antelope.
After a quick stop at Brandi’s, and a somewhat longer stop at our HEB, we were home by about 3pm.
We had a great weekend, and have actually talked about doing it again next years.
More details to come.
December 10, 2010
HPB and Buc-ee’s . . .
This morning started with a cup of Pecan Praline coffee and the beautiful out the front window, while Jan and I talked about what we’re getting everyone for Christmas, and what still needs to be ordered.
When I got up Jan said our friend Gina had called with a printer problem with an Excel spreadsheet. She couldn’t get it to print in Landscape Mode, but by trying a few things on my machine I was able to tell her how to fix her problem.
Then about 2 pm we headed out to Dickinson Seafood again for lunch. After that we headed into Webster to the PO to mail off a package and the first batch of Christmas. Also picked up enough more stamps for the rest of the cards. Then it was on to Half-Price Books to sell some books back to them, and look for some more.
Then we stopped off at a local Hallmark store so Jan could get a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament for Landon.
Heading home we stopped at Buc-ee’s for gas and a newspaper and Dollar General for some Christmas wrappings and bags.
We got home about 5 pm and I started working on a laptop for a friend of ours. It had gotten a bad update and wouldn’t boot up. It just kept rebooting over and over again. It took a couple of hours but I finally got it cleaned up and working.
That’s about it for today.
December 10, 2011
Lights, Landon, Action . . .
For some reason I woke up with a bad headache this morning. Must have something to do with sleeping in an otherwise empty bed.
But I was feeling better after taking some Advil, so about 11:30 I headed up to Brandi’s to meet up with Jan and Landon.
On the way I stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up some birdseed for Jan, and then Starbuck’s for coffee and Jack in the Box for Supreme Croissants for breakfast. I also stopped off at the storage room and picked up the furniture dolly for my upcoming washer repair.
I got to the house about 1pm, just in time to help Jan bathe Landon and get him ready for his nap. Then it was time for Jan’s nap. She’d been up since 5 am and needed one.
After Landon got up he played and watched Barney the Purple Dinosaur until about 4, when we headed out for an early dinner.
We drove up to I-45 and Fuqua to eat at Golden Corral. Although the wrong direction for what we had planned for later, we wanted to see if Helen, our favorite waitress, had ended up here.
We first met Helen years ago at the Ryan’s on Bay Area Blvd in Webster. When that Ryan’s closed, she moved down to the Ryan’s in Texas City, and we followed. But this year when we visited there a couple of weeks ago, she no longer worked there. In fact we were told she had moved back to Louisiana. We thought we were out of luck.
But when we ate at Barcenas Mexican Restaurant last week, we met another waiter we’ve known for a long time, and who also knew Helen. He said she was up at the Golden Corral.
And as if turns out, a number of her customers had also found her there too.
She said she had been trying to find our card so she could call us, so it all worked out.
Leaving Golden Corral, we drove down to Dickinson to visit their Festival of Lights. We parked at a nearby church where a shuttle bus took us to the park.
We had to wake Landon up after we parked, so he wasn’t too sure what was going on with the bus ride over there.
They really do a great job with the several acres of lights they put up. And it’s free.
Landon’s head kept swiveling around so much I was afraid it was going to fall off.
Not sure what he was looking at it, but he apparently found it highly disturbing.
We got back to the house a few minutes before 8pm, with Landon amazingly still awake. But once Jan got him in his jammies and gave him his medicine he was ready for bed.
Time for Jan to catch her breath.
Once Landon and Jan were settled in, I headed back down to the rig for the night.
Tomorrow I’ll go over earlier so we can have breakfast at The Egg and I, before driving over to Bass Pro Shop to visit their Santa’s Wonderland with Landon.
Should be another busy day.
December 10, 2012
Printing in the Cloud . . .
Leaving Jan at the rig, I headed out about 8:30 to meet my son Chris up at Lowe’s to pick up the lumber for our trim project.
After getting our 1 x 6 x 10 Pressure-Treated boards we headed over to the house to decide how to proceed. What we want to do was install a horizontal trim board along the ends of the house, and also around the entrance way courtyard.
We decided to measure and cut the planks to fit, but leave the square end a couple of inches too long to allow us to cut it to fit as we installed the boards. But before we nail them in place, I want to paint them first. Then we’ll just have to touch them up a bit later.
Our next step was to set up my 12” compound miter saw so we could easily make the 45 degree angle bevels on the boards to make nice smooth joint between the individual boards. But our first cut showed a problem, The blade was shot and would hardly cut through one board.
My first thought was to head back over to Lowe’s and get a new blade. But on second thought, remembering that a new one is at least $50 and probably closer to $75, we decided to head over to our storeroom and pick up Chris’ saw.
While we were there we grabbed some other tools that would come in handy – a 4 foot fiberglass level and my heavy-duty air-driven nail gun. This will make it a lot easier to fasten the trim in place. But the flaw in this plan was we couldn’t find any extra nails to go with the gun, so we ended up heading back to Lowe’s anyway. But a $10 box of nails was a lot cheaper than a $75 blade.
By the time we left Lowe’s it was getting to be lunch time so we headed over to King Food which was nearby. Getting back to the house, it only took us about an hour to make all the cuts now that we had a good saw.
At this point we decided to call it a day because our next step was to paint the boards, and I hadn’t bought the paint yet. I didn’t figure we would get that far today, and I planned to pick up the paint on the way back to the rig anyway.
But before picking up the paint and heading home, I stopped off at a client’s office to finish installing Google Cloud Print on one of their machines.
Cloud Print is another neat free program from Google, that once installed, allows you to print to an attached printer from any other machine, anywhere on the Internet. This will allow me to print online orders directly to their office printer instead of having to fax them over, thus saving me a lot of time.
Installation on the printer end is very simple. Just install the Google Chrome browser. It does not have to replace your normal browser, i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc., It doesn’t even have to be running. It just has to be on the machine. Then start Chrome, go to the Settings, and then the Advanced Settings, scroll down, and turn on Cloud Print. The only other thing you’ll need is a Google Gmail account. If you don’t have one, you can create one from here. And like Google Chrome, you never have to use the Gmail account again if you don’t want to.
Now if you want to be able to print from your Android phone, just download the Android Cloud Print app from the App Store (there’s also one for the iPhone too). The app will lead you through the setup using the login name and password of your Gmail account, and then you’re ready to go.
You can print anything from your phone that has a Share command, or you can choose a file from within the Cloud Print app.
As far as the PC, I’m using a free program called Paperless Printer. Once you install it and give it your Gmail info, Paperless Printer will now appear as a printer selection with your normal Print command. Just select Paperless Printer, click the Print button, and your document or picture is sent to the remote printer, anywhere on the Internet.
It’s magic!
December 10, 2013
Are You Talking to a Robot . . .
and don’t know it?
This story on the Internet about Samantha, the friendly robot voice, is interesting. Apparently it sounds exactly like a human and converses naturally, at least until you start asking her off-the-wall questions.
So the the next time you get a call from a telemarketer, ask them “Are you a buttercup?” and see what they say.
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do” (Now we’ll see who gets this one)
We saw that big orange ball in the sky today, for the first time in about a week. But it really didn’t get much warmer, with the temp never getting out of the 40’s. And it’s supposed to go down to the low 30’s again tonight.
And it looks likely to stay that way for the next week or so. It looks like that Florida is the only place in the country that’s halfway warm.
They’re hogging all the warm. Damn them.
I spent part of the afternoon looking for a leak. Every now and then our shower starts leaking a little under the wall separating the shower stall from the bedroom.
I first took off the access plate at the base of the shower to see if there was any moisture showing under there. Of course, if there’s an open hole, Mister has to check it out.
He just knows there’s a mouse in there somewhere.
Luckily for me, I found no sign of moisture under the base, which is a very good thing. I don’t even want to think about pulling the shower out to fix a leak in the base or drain.
My next thought was a leak up on the wall in the faucet/nozzle area, i.e., was it leaking down the back of the shower from the faucet. It only leaks when the shower is in use, but it could be leaking from the faucet itself when it’s turned on.
To eliminate this, I took our shower nozzle down and laid it on the floor next to the drain. Then I turned the shower on and let it run for about 15 minutes. And, once again, no leak.
So now I’m left with a leak between the glass/sidewalls and the base. The only problem with this idea is the fact that I have already gotten in there on my knees and gone over every inch of the seams and recaulked everything.
So I guess I’ll check it out all over again.
Too bad I can’t get Mister to help out. He is closer to it down there, after all.
But I’m not sure both of us will fit in the shower at the same time.
December 10, 2014
65,000 . . .
After an easy-going morning, Jan and I left the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails a little after 11:15, heading for the Colorado River Thousand Trails in Columbus, about 120 miles away. Turns out the trip was just as easy-going as the morning, and we pulled into the park about 1:30 and checked in.
We were getting set up when Donna Huffer walked across the circle to say Hi. We were already scheduled to go out to dinner with her and Bob tonight, so she and Jan set up the time while I finished getting us hooked up.
We’re parked in our favorite site at the top of the hill looking out over the field below, with deer all over the place. sometimes coming right up to the patio
We did hit a milestone on today’s trip, passing 65,000 miles on our coach since we picked it up Jan. 6, 2008. With the 62,511 miles on the coach then, that gives us a total of 127, 529 by the end of today. Our Cummins 350 ISC is just getting broken in.
Hopefully we’ll hear from the Galveston Bay RV Resort in the next few days, otherwise we’ll be heading back over to the Lake Conroe TT on Christmas Eve.
We met Donna and Bob for dinner at Schobel’s Restaurant in Columbus a little after 4pm. Jan and I have eaten breakfast there a couple of times, but this was our first time for dinner.
And it turns out that they have a pretty good selection of German dishes on their menu. In fact we all ended up ordering something German. Jan got her favorite Jaeger Schnitzel, Donna got the Wiener Schnitzel, I got the Tex-Mex version of Jalapeno Schnitzel, and Bob went with their German Plate with sausage and sauerkraut. And with a salad from the salad bar filling us up, we all ended up with take-home leftovers.
Tomorrow may be a stay-at-home day with me doing some chores around the rig. Or then again, it may not be. We never know.
December 10, 2015
Like Butter . . .
Wanting to get an early start, I was up about 8:30 (for me, that’s early)and off to the hardware store in Columbus soon after.
In fact I was back by 9:30 with everything I needed to finish up the faucet install; two flexible supply lines and and two 1/2” barrels.
I pre-installed the supply lines to the new Moen faucet after wrapping the threads with Teflon tape, figuring it would be easier to do it now rather than reaching under the sink.
I was glad to see that this faucet uses an all-metal clamping system to hold it to the countertop, rather than the plastic nut that I had so much trouble getting off on the old one.
And this clamping system let me just insert everything from the top, and then reach under with a 7/16” box wrench to snug it all down. A couple of more minutes to connect the coach supply lines to the new faucet flexible lines, and I was done.
Turning the water pump back on, I gave it a quick test, letting both hot and cold run for a few minutes while checking underneath for any leaks. And with everything showing high and dry, I was done with Job #2.
So now it was time for coffee and an English muffin, and to check in with Jan who had spent the night at Brandi’s.
And now came the part I’d been kind of dreading; cutting large holes in the bedroom wall. I measured the height of the shower faucet and then drew a 10” x 6” outline on the bedroom wall.
A while back I had bought this Harbor Freight “Multi-Function Oscillating Tool” just for this,
so I was anxious to see how it was going to work. I was only going to be cutting 1/8” wood paneling, but at least I would have an idea.
And since several readers had asked me about these tools, I recorded a video to show you how it did it. And I can tell you it cut through the paneling like butter. And when I made a small test cut into one of the 2×4 cross braces, it went very buttery as well.
One thing to note here is that I was trying not to cut too deep in case a water line was right against the back of the paneling. Otherwise it would have been much quicker and easier.
After making my three cuts and removing the cutout piece, I found this.
Absolutely no sign of any leak.
Bummer!
You’d think at least ONE of these three plumbing jobs could have been easy.
So now I’ve got to make another cut at the bottom. But before I did that, I wanted to check in with American Coach to see how it was hooked up down there. But it was their lunch hour in Decatur, IN, so I grabbed a sandwich too while I was waiting the 45 minutes until I could call back.
When I finally got through to American, I found out that the water supply first comes in by the toilet, then feeds the lavatory sink, and deadends at the shower. Which means I should just have the two lines, hot and cold, coming down that way.
I did my second cutout about six inches above the floor, right over where I could feel a horizontal brace.
Well, now I was seeing some signs of moisture, but more cobwebs than anything else. The wiring feeds one of those inset floor lights right underneath, and on the piece of paneling I cut out next.
Well, now I’m seeing signs of moisture and mold, but still no actual water. In fact, since I been off shore water and using the pump for the last several days, the carpet has not been near as wet as normal, I think due to the lower water pressure,
So I think my next step is to go back on shore water and then just wait a couple of days to see what happens. But that will have to wait until Jan and I are back at the rig tomorrow night.
Right now it was time for me to get ready and head into Katy to meet up with Jan, Brandi, Lowell, and Landon for dinner, and then Jan and I will spend the night there.
The original reason we were here was so that Jan and I could take Landon to school tomorrow morning while Lowell took Brandi in for her day surgery. But today they moved her appointment back to 1pm, so Lowell will take him in as usual.
But since we’re meeting friends tomorrow night in Pasadena for dinner, and then a visit to the Pasadena Opry for the Christmas show, we’ll just stay here tonight and shorten our trip.
For dinner tonight we tried a new place called Slim Chickens. It’s a small chain, with about 25 locations in 9 states, starting in Arkansas about 10 years ago.
Turned out to be really good, with breaded to order chicken tenders, chicken wings, chicken and waffles (the waffle is shaped like the state of Texas), grilled chicken salads, and grilled chicken wraps.
I’m detecting a pattern here.
It looks like they’re building one up in The Woodlands area, so I’m sure we’ll give them a try again.
December 10, 2016
Hep C and Big Pharma . . .
Well, it looks like our cold snap is over for a few days, but there’s another one following on behind in another week or so.
Luckily for us it never got quite as cold as they forecasted. But there’s always next time I guess.
Todd texted us this afternoon with another 3 days of gate work, this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and even better, it’s night shift from 17:30 to 05:30. Nice!
And lucky for me, the night temps are supposed to only be in the low 60’s for then.
There’s probably a rule somewhere that you’re not allowed to have Turkey & Dressing twice in one week. But officially tomorrow is the start of a new week, so tomorrow it’s back to Barth’s Restaurant for their Sunday lunch buffet. And then probably a Wal-Mart/HEB run.
I posted yesterday’s Cranberry Orange Nut Bread under the Jan’s Favorite Recipes tab.
Check it out if you didn’t get it yesterday. Really delicious.
For dinner tonight we finished up the last of Jan’s Chicken Vegetable Soup that she made up a couple of days ago in our slow cooker.
Just wish we had a larger slow cooker so she could make more at one time. But unfortunately a larger model is too high and won’t fit in our cabinet.
On a completely different subject, I am sure we’ve all been seeing the commercials for Harvoni, the new Hep C cure. I saw a mention on another blog on how expensive it was. So curious, I checked on GoodRx site to see what kind of expensive we were talking about. And all I can say is WOW!
Depending on what different strain of HEP C you have, and how chronic the infection is, you will need treatments ranging from 8 to 12 weeks, so 2 to 3 months. And according to GoodRx,, a one month treatment costs in the neighborhood of $32,000. That’s a very expensive neighborhood.
So now this is where we all yell and scream about Big Pharma and the high cost of prescription drugs. But wait, there’s more.
1. Presently it takes ~12 years for a new drug to be approved for marketing after it is patented.
2. According to Forbes, the average cost of getting a new drug to market is ~$5 billion.
3. Only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing progress to human testing. One of these 5 drugs that are tested in people is approved. So that means that only 1 drug in 5000 actually make money for the company. Not very good odds.
4. But the real kicker is our patent system. Presently the Patent Office allows a time period of 20 years from patenting to expiration for a new drug. So this means that the drug company only has about 8 years to make back their $5 billion cost of developing the drug.
Then they have to make enough money to cover the partial development and testing of the other 4999 drugs that didn’t make it through the approval process.
So now they’ve covered their costs, but there’s still something missing – Profit.. Profit to keep the company in business, profit for the shareholders, etc.
So it looks like to me that the first (and very easy thing) to do to cut the cost of prescription drugs would be to make the 20 year patent time only start when the drug gets final approval and can go on sale. This would more than double the time for the drug development cost to be amortized, and reduce the price they need to charge for each dose.
Makes sense to me.
December 10, 2017
Bundle Up. We’re going to the Beach!
Last night after we got home I got a call from our friends, Bob and Maria, who we had just had lunch with earlier in the afternoon.
When they got home, they found that their refrigerator had lost power. So I led them through pulling the fridge out from the wall and checking the outlet, which was dead.
At this point I told them to find an extension cord to power the fridge for the night and that I would come over this afternoon.
So this afternoon Jan and I drove over to their house in League City to check things out. What I found was a funky breaker that had blown and was very hard to reset. But after I got it unstuck, it moved just fine and power was back on the outlet.
I told them to keep an eye on the breaker and if it acts up again it may have to be replaced.
Bob also has an older model Kindle with the keyboard that won’t charge. It feels like the connector inside the Kindle has come loose and fallen back inside the case, so I bought it home to take it apart and see if I can do anything for it.
Leaving Bob and Maria’s we headed down to Galveston for our meetup with our friend. But we were going to get there about an hour early so we decided to drive the Seawall for a half hour down and a half hour back.
The first thing we noticed was all the people on the beach. The second thing we noticed was that since it was 53° everyone was bundled up in heavy coats and sweat pants. You’ve got to really want to do the beach thing to be sitting out in the sand at the water’s edge swaddled like an Eskimo.
We drove all the way down to the Galveston Island State Park before we turned around and headed back. I guess I was expecting to see some Harvey damage but everything looked fine.
We got back to The Original Mexican Café, about 10 minutes before 4pm and got seated, just as our friend Linda showed up.
Jan and Linda started working together back in 2001, and then a few years later she up and moved to Billings, MT. So when we started RV’ing in 2008 we stopped by every time we were in the area. Then a few years ago she moved back to Galveston where she still owned a home.
Normally the food here is always great, but Jan got a Pollo ala Parrilla with a chicken breast that died of old age . . . in the Stone Age. It was thin, tough, chewy, and even hard to slice. She almost sent it back, but had enough other food to make up for it.
After finally saying our goodbyes about 6:30, we headed back home, on the way passing by the Houston Magical Lights that I’ve mentioned in the past.
Really looks great, and hopefully we’ll get to take Landon there soon.
December 10, 2018
More Mocha . . .
I spent pretty much all day at work trying to resurrect a used machine that my client had purchased on eBay.
It’s always bad news when a unit rattles when you unpack it. And taking it apart I found a number of indications that someone had opened the unit and seemingly tried their own repair. But in the process, they broke off several of the circuit board mounting standoffs as well as the solder joints for a power transistor to the board.
So it looks like I’ll have to take this unit completely apart, remove all four circuit boards, replace the standoffs, resolder the power transistor, and put it all back together. THEN I’ll finally be able to try to get it working again.
Not exactly coffee ‘purist’, Jan and I are always experimenting with our favorite coffee flavors. Right now our favorite seems to be two scoops of Lola Savannah’s Texas Pecan and one scoop of WalMart’s Mocha.
As I mentioned before, Lola Savannah is a local coffee roaster that produces a number of different coffee flavors. But our favorite is their Texas Pecan with real chunks of pecan.
And we really like the chocolate ‘mocha’ flavor addition as well, But we were looking a little more. So recently I’ve been adding a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder to the filter basket for an extra chocolate ‘oomph’ And it really works. But I have to be careful how much I add, or where I put it in the filter because the powder is so fine that it can clog the filter and not let the water through. But it is really good.
Not much else happened today, and not a lot scheduled for tomorrow either.
Nice!
December 10, 2019
Our Last Day In NYC
We were down at our hotel breakfast by about 8:15, making the most of our last few hours here in NYC.
Delicious as all our meals here at the hotel, breakfast and dinner.
And by 9:30 we were over in Times Square checking out more of the high-end shops, and, of course, one last Times Square selfie.
Walking around, we came across a police horse, complete with a smiling policeman, who let Jan get in some petting time with his horse.
By noon we were back at Junior’s for our last meal, fitting since it was also our first meal when we got here.
For Jan’s part, she got what she said was the best Grilled Cheese sandwich she’s ever had, as well as her favorite Steak Fries.
I went old-school with a Sesame Bagel with Cream Cheese. You can’t get much more NYC than that.
And the only reason I didn’t get the obligatory lox with it was that their delivery was running late that morning.
Of course, you can’t have a meal at Junior’s without Cheesecake.
Jan got the simple, but delicious, Strawberry Cheesecake,
while I got my usual Carrot Cake Cheesecake,
which I think is the only cheesecake I’ve ever gotten here, including our visits in 2009.
And we had to finish up with a cup of their wonderful cappuccino, complete with the rock candy stirrer.
Wrapping up our time here, we were on our way out to La Guardia by 2 to make our 4:45 flight back to Houston, finally getting back to the rig about 10:30.
Safe and sound, tired but happy.
We had a blast!
December 10, 2021
Wrapping Up In Branson . . .
We’ve had a great time here in Branson this week. We’ve seen some fantastic shows and had a lot of fun.
But tomorrow we head back to the real world, overnighting in Texarkana before getting back home Sunday afternoon.
Then next week I’ll start catching you up on all the fun we had.
Keep checking back.
December 10, 2022
Three Acres and More . . .
Catching up with last night’s Alvin Opry visit, we started off as usual with dinner at the Alvin Monterey’s.
Jan, as before, got her new fav, the Stuffed Avocado with Fajita Beef and Charro Beans.
I got the same bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup that I’ve been getting for 30 or so years.
Then it was on over the Opry, which is held at the local American Legion Hall.
One thing Jan and I have really enjoyed recently is that they’ve started bringing back a lot of our favorites from the old, original Alvin Opry that we started attending in 1997.
Called the Alvin Opry Alumni, we’ve seen Margie La Blanc,
Pat Varley,
and then tonight, Mary Dooley.
And we also enjoyed the other new-to-us singers, like Kelly Hartsfield,
Pete Edwards,
Stevin Marsh,
and the headliner of the night, Randy C. Moore.
This show, sprinkled with a number of Christmas songs, was one of the best in a long time. There wasn’t a dud in the bunch, and they left everyone wanting more when things wrapped up about 10pm.
A really great show!
Moving on to today, we were worried about the possibility of rain taking out our attending the Three Acre Food Truck Park’s Country Christmas Market, but it held off, and it turned out to be a really nice day.
And a lot of other people thought so too. The parking lot was packed.
And there were a lot of booths, more than we saw at the Fall Market back in October.
We decided to check out KC Dawgs, with a lot of different versions of hot dogs, all using 100% Beef dogs. Jan got the Chili Cheese Dog,
She said the Chili was delicious and wondered if it was their own recipe.
I got the Big Boy Brisket Dog, with Grilled Onions and Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce.
Jan found a couple of things she just had to have, and a couple of more for Christmas presents for others.
Wrapping things up at the Market, Jan got her hair cut at our local CostCutters, and then heading back toward home, we dropped the last of the Christmas cards into the mail.
Already looking forward to the next Market day.
Tomorrow looks to be lunch at Texas Huddle once again, with HEB and Dollar General stops, and then home.
But of course, things can change.
