Our RV Adventures

Building on the new Great Wolf Lodge going up in Webster, another multi-million dollar resort is going up down in Galveston, specifically on East Beach just past Stewart Beach.

A 250 Million-dollar Margaritaville venue

The resort, which will be at 317 East Beach Drive, will be a 300,000-square-foot development with 334 rooms, an elevated water park, beach access, and four restaurants. There will also be a lazy river, pickleball courts, a family entertainment center, a ballroom, and more.

Should be open sometime between 2026 and 2028.

Now all we need is a Disney park, so maybe Texas Disney?

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And now it looks like Oklahoma City is looking to thumb their nose at NYC by taking the tallest building in the US trophy away from them.

At 1907 feet, it would top the now tallest One World Trade Center by 131 feet

New York City may soon lose its bragging rights for having the tallest building in the United States — and to an unexpected destination.

In a press release from AO issued on Friday, the firm revealed its plans to expand on a building in Oklahoma City that is already in development in order to make it the tallest building in America.

The company is teaming up with real estate developers Matteson Capital to bring the 1,907-foot building to life in an up-and-coming neighborhood called Bricktown. Both AO and Matteson Capital have requested a variance from the city that will permit them to build beyond current zoning restrictions and officially construct the nation’s tallest building in Oklahoma City.

It will stand at 1,907 feet tall in honor of the year Oklahoma officially became a state

The skyscraper is part of a larger development called The Boardwalk at Bricktown which will be spread out across three acres

There will also be 1,776 residential units available at the site that range from affordable housing to luxury condos. The entire development will be spread out over three acres across two million square feet, and its location will be in close proximity to the Bricktown Canal and Oklahoma River.

Our son-in-law Lowell ought to like this.

Tomorrow Jan’s going to get her toes done, so rather than wait for her in the German restaurant next door, I’ll head over to our friends Bob and Maria’s to grab the HD out of their old computer. Then I’ll copy all the data off so I can install it on their new one.

By then, Jan should be finished, so we’ll have lunch at the German place, before finishing up at Wal-Mart before heading home.

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Thought For The Day:

The shallower the stream, the louder the babble.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

Somehow I flip-flopped the Retro-Blogs, giving the ones from January 26th last night. So you’re getting the 25th’s blogs tonight.

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January 25, 2012

Stormy Weather . . .

Before Jan went to bed last night she put our brunch in the microwave. Not to cook, but to rise.

She was fixing some of the Galaxy Gourmet Croissants that our daughter Brandi gave us for Christmas. They were shipped to us frozen solid, and in plain and chocolate-filled favors. They come out of the box about the size of a Snicker bar, but after thawing and rising for about 9 hours, they look like this.

And boy, are they good! Flakey, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth good. They’ve been on Oprah’s Favorite Things List twice in the last few years.

About 11 am Jan and I had our delicious croissants and coffee, along with a bit of conversation and world-problem solving.

The other thing we did was watch the bad weather roll in. This photo was taken about 1 in the afternoon,

We kept getting warnings and watches for tornados in the area, but I guess they missed us.

I was supposed to go into a client’s office this afternoon, but when I called them to say I was going to stay home and be in tomorrow, they said that was fine because they were closing the office and going home. So that worked out well.

Later in the afternoon, it cleared up a little, but then around 4:30 the black clouds rolled back in and started spitting rain again. But on a brighter note, it’s supposed to be nicer tomorrow.

About 5 pm we headed up the road to Stomp’s Burger Joint, our favorite local hamburger place.

Pictured is my favorite burger, the Hog Wild. It has raw, unsliced bacon ground up and then cooked with the hamburger meat. It’s kind of an inside-out bacon cheeseburger.

And of course, you can’t forget their fabulous crispy, flakey, sweet onion rings.

After Stomp’s, we drove over to Lowell and Brandi’s to pick up our mail, and see Brandi, Lowell, and Landon. Lowell’s sister Sherry was also there, but she’ll be in Oklahoma when we all get together Friday night.

Our last stop before heading home was a quick Wal-Mart fix for a few things. Then it was home for the evening.

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January 25, 2013

The Original Gun Grabbers are back . . .

and it worked this time about as well as the first time.

The first unofficial battles of the Revolutionary War, The Battles of Lexington & Concord, took place on April 19, 1775 because the British Government wanted to seize our guns, gunpowder, and other military supplies.

But due to good intelligence on the British plans, the colonials were ready, dispersing the supplies among many towns. And the rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes alerted the countryside so that the colonial militias were ready and waiting. Ironically some of this excellent intelligence is speculated to have come from Margaret Gage, the New Jersey-born wife of General Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts, and commander-in-chief of the troops in the Boston area. I guess you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you can’t take New Jersey out of the girl.

The series of running skirmishes that made up the battles left the colonials the decisive victors with 49 killed and 39 wounded against British losses of 73 killed and 174 wounded. It also punctured the vaunted superiority of the British Army, and set up the perception that the colonials had a chance to win their independence.

But this time the gun-grabbers came in the form of a British company, Reed Exhibitions, who runs the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show, one of the largest shows in the US, and held every February in Harrisburg, PA.

But this year, Reed Exhibitions, decreed a couple of weeks ago, that any sales, display, or even mention, of so-called “Assault Weapons” or high-capacity magazines was forbidden. They even banned vendors from displaying the logos of companies that made these items.

The boycott started slowly with some vendors dropping out because they had contractual arrangements with some of these manufacturers to sell and display their products.

But these first few were just the small snowball that preceded the avalanche. And an avalanche it was. And it culminated with all the major sponsors, like Cabela’s, Gander Mt., the NRA, etc., dropping out, except for Progressive Ins., all the celebrity performers, and finally the major vendors, like Smith & Wesson, Mossberg, Ruger, and Thompson.

Finally throwing in the towel, a couple of days ago, Reed announced the cancellation of the show, costing them millions, and costing the Harrisburg area an estimated $80 – 100 million to community businesses from the 250,000 visitors that were expected to attend. Reed said when announcing the cancellation that only 170 of the over 1000 vendors had dropped out. If that were true, then why cancel? I’ve seen an online list of the dropouts, and it runs on for pages, a lot more than just a 170.

Sometimes it’s better if you just keep your mouth shut.

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Under the heading of yesterday’s Random Act of Kindness, a 93 year old WWII vet and former Marine Elbert Wood returned from a doctor’s appointment to find his home vandalized and sprayed with red paint by a couple of teenagers.

Houston KTRH talk radio host Michael Berry mentioned the incident on the air and said that someone should help this guy out. In just a few minutes his phone was ringing off the hook.

By 1:30 pm people had dropped off $50,000 in checks made out to Mr. Wood, and he had commitments from a number of companies to completely remodel his house.

Plus the last time I heard the amount of checks was approaching $75,000.

The two teens were caught later that day and a couple of days later, the father of the boys came by to apologize.

Just goes to show you what people can do when they join together.

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January 25, 2014

Hair Cuts and Bee Vomit . . .

Had another client meeting about noon that lasted until after 4 PM. She had 3 computers, 4 printers, an iPhone, an iPod, and a digital TV that needed looking at. That’s about enough to keep me busy until we leave. I was able to get through most of it, and I think I can talk her through the rest over the phone, but I may need another trip back.

Getting back home, Jan and I headed back out to meet our son Chris and his wife Linda for dinner at Barcenas Mexican Restaurant near their house. Unfortunately our granddaughter Piper was out of town so we didn’t get to see her, but we did have a great meal and a great time as usual.

Jan had hoped to get her hair cut this afternoon before we met Chris and Linda for dinner, but I got back too late, So she tried to get it done on our way home tonight but we got there just as they closed, so she’ll get it done tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be pretty nice, so I’m going to try and get some stuff done around the rig outside before the weather gets crappy again. I’ve also got a couple of clients to take care of in the next several days, so I’ll still be pretty busy.

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Came across an interesting new phone app, though I’m not really sure exactly how I’d use it. But it is neat.

Available for both iPhone and Android, it’s called Burner. Here’s the website description.

Phone numbers when you need them

Need a phone number for a day, a week, a month or longer? Create a Burner number on your iPhone or Android in less than 30 seconds. Keep the number as long as you’d like and burn it when you’re done.

Control your mobile identity

Now you can share your phone number without having to compromise your privacy. Post your number on Twitter or Facebook, use it for selling on Craigslist, or make it your business line.

Burn when you’re done

Done with the number? Click “burn” and the Burner number goes out of service, wiping it from your phone and stopping texts or calls to the number.

Basically it gives you a disposable phone number linked to your cellphone, that you can shut off, or ‘burn’ whenever you want. I think the best use for most people would be when advertising something for sale, as related above.

The only downside is that it’s not free. It does cost to use. So check it out.

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January 25, 2015

Oh, The Horror . . .

The guy next door came over about 11 this morning to tell me that my water connection had started leaking, and since his rig was downhill from ours, it was pooling under his rig. He was very nice about it, maybe because yesterday I loaned him a 50 amp to 30 amp dog bone for his truck camper.

The sites here use a single pedestal for two side-by-side sites, and only have two 50 amp outlets and a 20 amp one. So why is he parked in a 50 amp site that he has to pay extra for with a truck camper with one AC and a 30 amp cord?

I don’t know, but he does have an interesting camper. It’s the first one I’ve seen that had three slides.

I guess in something that small, you need all the room you can get. And he’s got a wife and two dogs in there with him.

Later in the morning we used our Food Saver to vacuum pack and freeze the rest of the ground beef Jan cooked up yesterday. This way it’ll be already for chili or spaghetti sauce the next cold snap.

About 1:45pm Jan and I headed down to Brandi and Lowell’s in Katy to spend the afternoon. We got there about 3pm, and while Jan had some Landon time, Lowell and I started in setting up his new Dell computer and monitor.

Since it came with Windows 8.1, the first thing I did was to install Classic Shell on it to make it look like Windows 7 like on his old machine. Then I put on Total Commander, a great file manager program.

Then it was Google Chrome, AVG Free, SuperAntispyware, Malwarebytes, CCleaner, Glary Utilities, Evernote, Dropbox, and LibreOffice.

One thing that I noted was that it looks like Dell may have learned their lesson about all the CrapWare™ they used to put on their new machines. This one only had two, eBay and Dropbox. And by using the Dropbox icon to sign up, Lowell got 20GB for free. And right-click delete took care of the eBay one.

I also told him that with Windows 8.1, he will be entitled to a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out.

By this time it was almost 4:30, time to head right down the road to Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro for dinner. On Sundays especially, you want to get there early before the place fills up. As usual, Tuyen, the owner, came out to say Hi and give us big hugs. She always sits down for few minutes and talks and plays with Landon. Very nice lady.

Getting back to the house, Lowell and I got back to work. The next thing I did was to get the computer set up on his home network. Then came the hard part, getting his computer to print to his Samsung Color Laser printer via Wi-Fi. In as long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had a Wi-Fi printer setup work the very first time. And what made this one really scary was that it had an ‘Easy Wi-Fi Setup Wizard’ program. You just know this won’t go well. And it didn’t.

Like most Wi-Fi printer setups, this one required the printer to be hooked by a USB cable before you can set it up wirelessly. And even though the USB setup went fine and didn’t need the software CD, the CD was needed for the Wi-Fi setup

In this case, the fifth time was the charm. As I found before, you just have to keep running the setup over and over, each time getting a little further, until finally it makes it all the way through, and it works. At that point it was easy to also get his laptop talking to the printer too. I told Lowell to make a note of any problems he finds and I’d check with him later in the week.

After getting our hugs, Jan and I got on the road about 8pm, but didn’t go too far, just a couple of exits down I-10 to stop off at the new El Pollo Loco. We’re really glad to see them in this area. Their Citrus-Marinated Grilled Chicken is fantastic, and the sides are really good too.

We got three 3 piece white dinners with two sides each. For some reason, they will not sell just chicken, white meat only. They only sell bulk chicken in dark, or mixed. But you can buy as many 3 piece white meat dinners as you want, and the price is not that much different. Strange.

We’ll split one of the meals tomorrow, and vacuum seal the rest for later.

Before we got back on the road, we stopped at a nearby Starbucks to get a couple of our new favorite Chestnut Praline Lattes for the road. But to our horror and dismay, Chestnut Praline turns out to have been a seasonal flavor so we had to settle for our old favorite, Cinnamon Dolce Lattes. Bummer!

But Cinnamon Dolce was a seasonal flavor when it first came out too, so maybe there’s hope for Chestnut Praline too.

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January 25, 2016

Monday Afternoon Get-Together . . .

We did walk this morning but not the full loop. Jan was not feeling quite up to snuff, but wanted to try anyway. But when she started to feel more crappy, we turned back.

But as it happened, we were already over halfway, so we ended up walking 1.11 miles, more than our usual 1.01. And I don’t know if Jan was just in a hurry to get back to the rig, but we dropped our time from 25::21 to 24:51.

After resting up for a couple of hours, Jan was feeling better in time for us to head out for our lunch get-together at El Bosque. We were meeting up with Janice and Dave Evans, Debi and Ed Hurlburt, and another RV’ing couple to be named later.

We made a quick stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription before meeting everyone at the restaurant at 2pm. And as it turns out we have something in common with Bob and Denise Filiau, the couple named later.

They’re parked right around the corner from us, and also own an American Coach, in their case, a Tradition. So that makes at least 4 American Coaches in the park right now. Our Eagle, Bob and Denise’s Tradition, and another Tradition and an Eagle on the other side of the park. Almost like a rally.

In fact when I saw their Tradition this afternoon as we left the park for lunch, I thought maybe they had moved over from the other side, since it’s unusual to have two Traditions in the park, much less two that look a lot alike.

From left to right, that’s my Jan, Dave’s Jan, Bob Filiau, Dave Evans, Ed Hurlburt, and Denise Filiau playing shy behind Debi Hurlburt.

As usual at El Bosque, the food was delicious, and even better, the company was great. We always enjoy getting together with the Evans’ and the Hurlburt’s, and with Bob and Denise there, we all had someone new to regale with all our stories.

And as far as the food goes, I tried something a little different this time, the Fajitas Poblanas.

With a mix of beef, chicken, and bacon, along with poblano strips, mushrooms and onions, it made a really great meal. And so much of it I took half home for later. BTW the empty spot on the side plate was where my guac once resided. Since I don’t like it, it always goes to Jan.

We spent a couple of hours talking about our travels, where we’ve been, and where we’re going next. Bob and Denise just came from the Medina Lake Thousand Trails, and Debi and Ed are leaving for there in the next day or so.

When we were there in 2013, the lake was completely dry, with people driving and camping on it. But now as I showed the other day, it seems pretty full.

Finally saying our goodbyes and see-you-soon’s, Jan and I headed back toward the park, but with a quick stopover at Kroger’s on the way.

We had planned to meet everyone at the Activity Center for some games at 5, but once Jan got back on the sofa, she didn’t feel like leaving it. Hopefully she’ll feel better tomorrow.

My son Chris is always working on something, or building something (wonder where he gets that from?), and he showed me his latest project when we were down there this past Saturday.

He’s building his own metal-working lathe. Pretty much from scratch.

All of the parts in blue he molded and cast himself.

This drive section he put together from parts and scrap pieces. Note the multiple pulleys for speed changes.

And the drive motor was repurposed from an old air conditioning vacuum pump of mine.

Next up, now that the lathe is this far along, he’s going to cast and machine his own pulleys for the feedstock drive.

Talk about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Nothing much on tomorrow’s agenda. Since it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow morning, walking may be off the table too, even if Jan does feel like it. We’ll see.

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January 25, 2017

Frack Ready!

Well, the pad is now frack-ready, and we’re in hurry-up-and-wait mode.

As it stands right now, they should start rigging down at the other frack sometime late Friday and moving in here on Saturday.

Maybe.

If they have a problem finishing up there then everything will get pushed back a couple of days. No one came in at all night, and I only had 4 vehicles today, so really quiet. And nice.

Tonight we went to Whataburger again. Did I mentioned that it’s only 3 minutes from our RV park? Nice and convenient.

And delicious as usual.

Night before last we went back to La Belle Tavola again, this time for their pizza. When we were there the first time we saw a steady line of take-out pizzas going out the door so we decided to check it out.

As usual we got the big 18” version with Canadian Bacon, Pepperoni, Hamburger, Italian Sausage, and Mushrooms.

Very cheesy and delicious.

And we had plenty for leftovers, including last night’s dinner and today’s lunch.

When posted the Dawn at the Frack photo a couple of days ago,

several people asked me what the two big towers were. And the answer is, they’re Sandcastles. That’s their company name, and what everyone calls them.

They’re used to hold the frack sand before it’s injected into the wells. As you can tell from this photo, they’re actually trailers themselves, complete with wheels.

They’re towed in by a semi and then stood on end. Then they’re pre-loaded with sand so they’re all ready to go at start-up.

Should be another really slow day tomorrow. The calm before the storm.

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January 25, 2018

Taco Day . . .

About 4pm Jan and I drove over to 1-45 to have dinner at Taco Cabana. They’re one of those places that we really like but don’t seem to go very often. In fact I think it’s been years since we’ve eaten at one.

Jan got a Two Taco Combo Platter with one Chicken Fajita Taco and one Steak Fajita Taco, as well as Rice and Borracho Beans.

I went the plain-jane route with just two Steak Fajita Tacos. They do their fajitas on an open flame grill so they’re charred on the edges and really delicious. This is what I started with with.

But by the time I had visited the Salsa Bar, they looked like this.

Really good.

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January 25, 2019

It Just Won’t Stop . . .

Today at work consisted of even more updates, corrections, and price changes. In some cases, I was correcting the updates of the price changes. Things kept changing faster than I could keep up.

I think by the end of the day I was further behind than when I started.

Sometime this weekend we’re going to have to go to our storage room and pick up one of our small electric heaters, a Sunbeam model

These nights when it goes down into the low 30’s, our two Lasko heaters just can’t keep up, even trying to just hold the temp to 60° So we’ll add in the other one to give it a boost.

Several readers commented about the battery location in Miss Piper’s Mazda Miata, being in the trunk. I think the strangest one was the 1998 Dodge Intrepid we had a while before we started RV’ing.

The easiest way to get to the battery was inside the right front wheel well. You could get to it from above but it was much more difficult. I think all design engineers should be required to work on stuff they design.

I remember an 80’s model Pontiac that to get to a rear spark plug, you had to either drop an engine mount or drill a hole in a frame member to let you a socket and extension in there.

I’m still waiting for the weather to warm up/dry up so I can get under the rig again to follow up on my rig oil leak. I plan on washing the area down to remove all the oil residue and then drop the filter, and see what, if anything, I can see.

Then, since I’m in there, I’ll go ahead and replace the filter once again. Then it may be time for another test drive.

And in a related item, as we were coming back from Alvin last week we took a different route on FM517 and came across a place called Power Field Services. And out front was a big sign that said RV Generator Repair.

Note to self.

Wrapping up for today, it’s getting closer.

Only 3 months to go.

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January 25, 2020 U

Maybe Yes, Maybe No . . .

This morning the Weather Channel was calling for 40 to 50% chance of rain tomorrow so I was outside this morning doing some more prep work for tomorrow’s test drive up to Katy, putting away some things both in the rig and the truck.

But when I checked later in the afternoon, the chances were up to 60% and heaviest early in the morning when we’ll be trying to get unhooked and hooked up and on the road.

Later, about 2pm, Jan and I headed over to Yummy Yummy’s for lunch. Delicious as usual, with both Jan and I enjoying the boiled shrimp, which was pretty much all I had.

Coming home we stopped off at our storage room to drop off our toaster oven and pick up our BrakeBuddy for our upcoming test drive. Jan’s decided that our new Ninja Foodi Air Fryer Grill is a good replacement for the toaster oven so we can retire it now.

When I checked the weather again after we got home, and now the rain chances were up to 80%. Not good.

So after Jan and I talked it over, our test drive is up in the air, and we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow. We weren’t planning to head out until about somewhere in the 11am to 12pm time frame, so we’ll have some time to decide what we’re going to do.

But either way, we planned on going up to Katy to meet up with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon for lunch. so if necessary we’ll just drive up in the truck.

So now we’re looking at Tuesday, Thursday, or next weekend for our test drive. We’ll just have to see how the weather goes.

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January 25, 2021

Not Much . . .

Happened Today.

Went to work, worked, came home.

The door lock actuator for our Jeep came in the other day, but it looks like my next car repair is on my client’s wife’s 2017 Nissan Altima. She clipped the passenger side mirror off the other day so it somehow became my job to find a new one and replace the broken one.

From the dealer, a new one is $266.00, but I found one on eBay for $45. The reviews say that it’s an extra replacement. So it looks like that’s going to be my Wednesday.

Luckily there’s a YouTube video on how to replace it, and it looks pretty simple, using only a flat head screwdriver and a ratchet wrench. But we’ll see, I guess.

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January 25, 2022

Well, That Was Disappointing . . .

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, today was my chance to check out Arby’s new Diablo Dare sandwich, the Beef Brisket version to be exact. But it was not to be.

First off, our Clear Lake Arby’s isn’t doing dine-in, just drive-thru. And in fact, a little checking shows that none of the dozen or so Arby’s in the Houston area have open dining rooms either. So curious, I checked other Arby’s around the country and found that only about 10% of their country-wide locations have open dining rooms.

And it seems that Inspire Brands, who owns Arby’s, Sonic, and Jimmy John’s, closed the dining rooms in all of their corporate locations back in March 2020, and haven’t reopened them yet. I would imagine the open locations are franchisees and set their own rules.

But we could have handled using the drive-thru. What put the kibosh on the whole meal was that this location does not carry the Diablo Dare sandwiches. Not at all.

Bummer!

However I did call another location nearby in Friendswood-Pearland area, and found that though their dining room isn’t open either,  they do sell the Diablo sandwiches. So that’s on the schedule for this weekend.

Can’t wait too much longer since it’s only on sale until Feb. 6th.

But since I was still jonsin’ for something hot, so we drove back over to The Cookshack for their chicken tenders, mine Texas Hot, with Waffles.

Delicious! And a lot left over to bring home.

Once again Amazon showed up the Post Office today.

I ordered some more Zinc tablets from Amazon at 11:51am this morning. I got an email saying it was shipped at 12:19pm, and it showed up at the rig at 3:10pm.

Very nice.

But the PO had a problem getting another order delivered here to the RV Park. Or rather they delivered it to the park mailbox, at least according to the tracking, which said they left it in one of the package lockers.

The only problem was that they apparently forgot to leave the locker key in our mailbox, so I can’t get to it. So I’ll have to call the local PO tomorrow.

We were supposed to get together last Tuesday with long-time friends Debi & Ed Hurlburt, and Janice & Dave Evans at the Olive Garden up in Spring, but with Jan under the weather, we postponed it. But it’s back on for this coming Thursday.

Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Finishing up, Jan and I decided what we wanted to do for Valentine’s Day, so I made reservations at the Saltgrass Steakhouse down in Galveston, one of our favorites. And doing it this early we had no problem getting the time we wanted, as well as a window table.

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January 25, 2023

Detroit, Scranton, or Pittsburgh?

I spent most of today at work finishing up translating the Polenglish to American English in the User Manual for the new machines we’ve started selling.

I think it’s pretty much done, but I’ll wait a couple of days to go over it one last time. The wait makes it easier to see any last little problems.

Jan has her next Landon-sitting gig booked for next Tuesday while Brandi’s at a business meeting down in Miami. Then I’ll pick her up on Saturday after Brandi gets back. Notice how these ‘meetings’ are always in places like Miami, San Diego, or even Cabo. But never in places like Detroit, Scranton, or Pittsburgh.

Me too.

But on Monday, the day before, I’ve got my yearly dermatologist appointment to have my head checked out.

No, not that way. But since I had a Squamous Cell Cancer removed from my head in 2014, I now get checked out every year.

Hopefully I won’t have to go through the Photo Dynamic Therapy thing again.

Or, as I called it, the Devil’s Easy Bake Oven.

Feels like 1 million Fire Ants are feasting on your head.

Tomorrow looks to be Floyd’s Cajun Seafood for lunch, Costco for ‘stuff’, UPS for an Amazon return, the office for a quick check-in, and then Wal-Mart on the way home for even more ‘stuff’.