Monthly Archives: January 2024

Direct To Sat . . .

I had thought there was a chance they might be pouring concrete at the new RV site pads today, but I think the 1.4” of rain we had overnight put a halt to that. And even when I came home from work this afternoon there was still standing water inside the wooden forms.

For their first launch of 2024, SpaceX put another 21 satellites into orbit.

Nothing really new about this, since they’ve already have over 5,000 up there, aiming for a total of 12,000. Or maybe even as many as 42,000.

But 6 of these 21 are different. They’re the first batch of 840 Direct To Smartphones satellites that they’ll launch in the next 6 months.

Six of the 21 Starlink satellites that launched on a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:44 p.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carry a payload that the company said could provide connectivity for most 4G LTE devices when in range.

SpaceX plans to start enabling texting from space this year in partnership with cellular operators, with voice and data connectivity coming in 2025, although the company still needs regulatory permission to provide the services commercially.

What this is saying is that when this constellation of satellites is fully licensed and operational, you’ll be able to use your cellphone to direct call through a satellite, without needing to be connected to a cellphone network.

Neat!

Tomorrow looks to be lunch at Yummy Yummy Chinese Buffet once again. Always great, and looking forward to it again.


Thought For The Day:

“Just because it’s a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean it’s a CRAZY conspiracy theory”.

Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


January 3, 2011

Rig Maintenance  . . .

Today was a stay-home, work around the rig day.

Jan went down to the park laundry to wash some rugs that are really too big for our rig’s washer/dryer, while I started working on my list of things to do before we leave here in about a month.

First I cleaned the area underneath the old wheel well flanges so I will have a clean surface under the new ones, and then started removing the old rivets.

I also cleaned and coated the battery terminals on the toad and the rig. I also planned to to drain and flush the water heater, but quickly I ran into a problem. I couldn’t get the drain plug out.

I tried using a 12’ length of pipe as a cheater bar, but even that didn’t work.

I was afraid that if I twisted too hard I might break off the connector. So I sprayed it with penetrating oil and then I’ll try it again tomorrow.

Next I cleaned the rocks and mud out of my leveler pads, and then tomorrow I’ll put silicone spray on the leveler tubes themselves. I’ll probably also spray the slide tracks at the same time.

That was about it for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the water heater drain plug after It has soaked overnight.


January 3, 2012

They had better be worth it !

Today I headed out about 11:30 for some errands and a few client visits.

My first stop was at a client’s to pick up a check, and now I finally got the Chase Online Deposit thru your cellphone thingie working.

I had tried it twice before, and no matter what I did, the check pictures came out blurry, even trying 3 or 4 times. They would look fine on the screen, but as soon as I took the picture, the result was blurred. However when I took a picture of the check the regular way with the camera in the phone, it looked fine.

So today I decided to try it again to save me making a special trip to the bank that was in the opposite direction from where I needed to go next.

And it worked fine. No problems. The only difference was that the first couple of times I tried it on the kitchen counter in the rig, and today the check was on the center console in the truck.

Of course the ad on TV shows the guy holding the check up in the air as he takes the photo, so who knows? We’ll see how it goes next time.

My next stop was Auto Zone to get new windshield wipers for the rig and the truck. After a little research, I decided to try the Rain-X Latitude Wiper Blades. According to Consumer Reports and other sources, they will last the longest.

I ended up getting them local because Amazon didn’t stock the 26 inch ones for the rig, and the place that did have them said 11 to 14 days delivery. Heck, we may be gone by then.

But, boy, were they expensive! They’re sold in singles so I had to buy 4 packages, two of each size. And the total came to just over $93.00.

They really better work good.

Then I headed over to Pasadena to check out a laptop problem with a new client. His 5-year old laptop seemed to be pretty well infected, so after fooling with it for a while, and finding he had the Recovery CD’s, I decided it would be faster, and cheaper for him, for me to pull his documents and photos off, and just reinstall Windows from scratch.

Leaving with his laptop, I headed over to another client’s for a quick look at a problem she was having with her email Contacts.

She could select a contact to email to, but she couldn’t open or edit a contact. It took a few minutes to track down the problem, and after getting it fixed, I headed home about 4:30pm.

Brandi sent over this hilarious video of Landon eating dinner while trying to stay awake. Brandi’s laughing so hard she can’t hold the camera still. A couple of times her laughing wakes him back up.

About 5:30 Jan and I headed over to the Monterey’s Little Mexico in Dickinson to meet our friend Maria to first eat supper, and then Jan and Maria were going to play Bingo at the Knights of Columbus Hall in La Marque.

Our granddaughter Piper didn’t go because she starts back to school tomorrow and wanted to get a good night’s sleep.

Maria won a small pot, but Jan busted out for the night. Maybe next week.


January 3, 2013

Tortilla Soup . . .

Unfortunately, at least for you readers, today was just another coffee, clients, and dinner day.

Like yesterday, the only new thing today was dinner. On the way home I stopped off at Monterey’s Little Mexico to pick up some salsa and Pico de Gallo to top off our Chicken Tortilla Soup to have for dinner tonight.

I added the salsa, Pico de Gallo, some more poached, shredded chicken breast, and another box of chicken stock to our leftover soup from the other day and heated it up in the slow cooker.

Then into the bowl with some shredded Monterey Jack cheese and crumbled tortilla chips and you’ve got some good eating, especially on a cold, windy evening like this.


January 3, 2014

A Blah Day . . .

This morning started too early, even if it was getting up at 9:30.

For the last 3 or 4 weeks I’ve had a persistent cough that I attributed to allergies. I had the same thing when we were Gate Guarding in 2012. And after a couple of months it went away.

This year it was exactly the same. A ‘tickle’ in my throat that gives me coughing spells. But nothing else. No sneezing, no congestion, no runny nose, nothing but the cough.

But then last night I started coughing even more and getting a sore throat. So right before I went to bed I took a big swig of NyQuil and it really helped. I slept right through the night without coughing at all.

But for some reason when I got up this morning I was hoarse and my voice was cracking when I talked. I also didn’t feel really good. Not bad, but just blah.

But duty calls, so about 10:30 I headed over to the UPS upgrade client where I was yesterday. My task now was trying to get the address book data off the old machine and onto the new one.

After spending a good bit of time on the phone with UPS, they finally decided that the problem was that I was trying to go from the 2010 version of UPS Worldship to the 2014 version on Win8. And apparently you can’t do that directly.

So they sent me a link where I can download the 2012 version which must be installed on a Win7 machine. Then we can export the data from the old version into the 2012 Win7 version. And then we’ll export it from the 2012 version into the 2014 Win8 version.

Or at least that’s their story and they’re sticking to it. So I’ll download the 2012 here at the rig, install it on my Win7 laptop, then take that over to the client tomorrow, transfer the data back and forth, and see how it goes.

So that’s my tomorrow.

Then it was off to another clients to install a new printer. Which didn’t work out very well. He bought the printer, a Samsung ML-2545 Laser Printer about a year ago and then stored it away. But when I got it out of the box, the toner cartridge was missing.

Turns out the client had taken the toner cartridge out months ago to use with another printer and forgotten about it. So we’re back to square one on this.

Heading back to the rig about 3 pm I was feeling worse and worse, just really, really tired. So getting home, I climbed into bed and took a 2 hour nap

I did feel a little better when I got up, at least well enough for Jan and I to head up to IHOP for supper. I guess it was OK, but neither of us remember much about it.

Brandi sent over the latest Landon photo, getting ready to head to town.

Landon Ready to Go to Town

Hopefully Jan and I will feel better tomorrow. But we’ll see.

Especially since I have to work tomorrow.


January 3, 2015

Fried Chicken and Windows Vista . . .

After another wet, gloomy morning, we actually started to see glimmers of sunlight peeking out from the gray. And by the afternoon it was bright and sunny, although it’s rained so much for the last week, that everything is still very soggy.

Yesterday’s power converter install is still working fine. The house batteries are staying fully charged, and the system is regularly switching over to top off the engine batteries.

So far, so good.

I was thinking about adding some new photos to the rotating slideshow at the top of the blog, so I was going through some of the more than 27,000 pictures we’ve taken in the last 7 years.

No, that’s not a typo. Since we hit the road February 6th, 2008, we’ve been averaging over 10 pictures a day. Thank God for digital cameras, otherwise we couldn’t afford the film developing costs.

I did find a few new photos that I’ll be posting in the next few days, but Jan and I really ended up just paging through the pictures, reminiscing on our trip to Alaska, and visits to Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Grand Tetons, and many others.

In fact we spent all afternoon on this, until suddenly it was time to head out for dinner. We’ve been wanting some good fried chicken so decided that Golden Corral was the place. So we headed out about 4pm for the one about 5 miles south of here.

As usual the food was really good, and even better, Golden Corral is running a promotion where you get to take home 6 free yeast rolls.

Yay, free food.

Leaving GC, our next stop was the Lowe’s right down the road. I needed a new 1/2” x 3/8” drive socket for my set. I noticed yesterday that one was missing when I went to use it on the power converter install. And I also wanted to get a small paint roller handle for another project that I’ll talk about later.

I had also planned on getting a replacement Danco faucet nozzle to go with the Danco ‘Universal’ replacement hose for our sink faucet. But blog reader Rod McElhenry reminded me that Moen faucets have a lifetime warranty, so I’ll wait and give them a call on Monday.

Then it was on to the Wal-Mart right next door for a few things, and then a last stop off at Starbuck’s to get a couple of Chesnutt Praline Lattes, and to get registered in their Starbuck’s For Life contest. Of course if you read the fine print, ‘Life’ to the Starbuck’s corporation is 30 years. But I’d be 96 by then so the point is probably moot.

Getting back to the rig, we found we had a new neighbor. Randy Lazarine, who was parked next to us in Columbus a couple of weeks ago, showed up. If you remember, he’s the guy with the new-to-him coach that had been completely mis-wired so that his power converter was not even hooked up, and his house batteries and engine batteries had been wired together. His solar panels kept things going at first, until we had a week of no sun. Then all his batteries ran down and he couldn’t even start his coach.

I didn’t have a chance to talk much tonight but I guess it’s still working OK. I’ll know more tomorrow.

Tomorrow looks to be a stay-at-home day. We’re going to put together a big batch of chicken vegetable soup in the slow cooker and goof off.


January 3, 2016

Never Again . . .

Jan and I decided to start our trip day with an early breakfast at Cracker Barrel. And unlike going to Cracker Barrel on a Sunday around 11am, going before 8am is a breeze. We were in and out in about 45 minutes, and Jan even came home with a moose.

Yeah, I know they call it Sven the Reindeer from Walt Disney’s Frozen.

Ty Moose_thumb[3]

But I’m sorry, that’s a moose

Getting back to the rig, we were hitched up and on the road by 10am. We had decided beforehand to try one of the several ‘shortcut’ routes out through the countryside this trip, instead of our normal Interstate route which racks up about 120 miles.

The ‘shortcut’ route is about 107 miles, which Google Maps says is the absolute shortest route, coming down I-45 to the FM-1488 exit, and then cutting across through Magnolia, Hempstead, Bellville, and then back onto I-10 about 9 miles east of Columbus.

Delorme Street Atlas said the route would take 2 hours and 50 minutes, and that was pretty close. We pulled up at the Colorado River Thousand Trails guard shack 2 hours and 46 minutes after we left Lake Conroe.

In comparison, our normal 120 mile Interstate route takes about 2 hours and 5 – 10 minutes. Plus our gas mileage dropped from our normal ~ 8.5 mpg to about 6.2 mpg, due mainly to two factors.

First, the majority of the trip the speed limit on these fairly narrow two-lane FM roads is 50 mph. So since my Allison transmission won’t upshift into 6th gear until about 52 – 53 mph, I ended up in 5th for most of the trip. Not very conducive to gas mileage.

And second, the roads were pretty curvy in places, necessitating even more slowdowns, as did the number of small towns along the way with 30 mph speed limits.

Plus I found myself a lot more tired when I got here. When we do the Interstate route, I pretty much put the speed control on 60 and just go. And except for our normal potty break around Brookshire, we never slow down until we’re at the exit for SR-71 at Columbus.

So, boiling it down, we’ll probably never go this route again. It takes longer, and uses more diesel. enough more that it overcomes the $6 in tolls I pay on the Sam Houston Tollway. And as I said, it’s more work. As I’ve mentioned before, the traffic doesn’t really bother me, especially since we’re moving on Sunday.

Now, as I was outside setting up, Janice Evans walked by and mentioned they do another ‘shortcut’ route, so I may check that one out with Dave when I get a chance.

I was looking at my trip odometer for 2015 and found we did 5345.2 miles for the year, a couple of thousand miles less than our normal mileage due to sitting in the back of an RV Repair place in Prescott, AZ for two months, waiting on our blowout repair.

We’ll probably do a good bit more than that this year since we’ll be going down to Tampa and West Palm Beach, FL, and then all the way to Essex Junction, VT, and then back to Houston. And probably a lot more.

I mentioned yesterday during my water heater repair saga that I had run into this same problem at the Indian River Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN a few years ago.

Well, here’s the rest of the story.

“A few years ago, while we were staying at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN, a couple parked next to us were having the same problem. I don’t remember if their rig had been in for repairs or what, but they also only had lukewarm water.”

From Larry Merritt

That was us. It was a new water heater that Camping World had installed. The mechanic had installed the bypass upside down. The water heater is still keeping the water hot in our 2005 Winnebago Adventurer.

I did not realize Larry and his wife were blog readers. It just goes to show you how small the RV world really is.

After dinner tonight I got on the glass replacement of my son Chris’ Galaxy S5 cellphone.

Here’s the starting point. I’ve got everything laid out and really to go.

Chris Cellphone Repair 1_thumb

And here you see what the playing cards are for.

Chris Cellphone Repair 2_thumb

I used the hair dryer to heat up the phone and the infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature. When the temp was right, I used a razor knife to slightly pry up the glass and a playing card to keep it separated as I worked my way around the edge of the phone.

Chris Cellphone Repair 3_thumb

It actually went a lot smoother than I expected. I stopped here for the night and will pick it back up tomorrow.


January 3, 2017

A New Gate? And A New Puppy . . .

Well, Texas’ weird winter weather is on a roll again. Yesterday and today were in the 80’s, but in the 40’s at night. Then for the next few days, it’s high 50’s/low 60’s with 30’s and 40’s at night.

Jan wanted to get some groceries today so we combined it with Fried Chicken/Roast Beef day at Barth’s before ending up at HEB and then home. The HEB is really nice here and closer than the Wal-Mart, so we go there a lot if all we need is groceries.

Tonight looks to be my last night at this gate . . . for now. But it seems like I keep getting rotated through the same ones over and over. But I would be perfectly happy to not come back to this gate, or the last one either, because of all the Internet/Phone problems.

So hopefully I’ll have a new gate in the next day or so.

I mentioned in last night’s blog that the Internet had gone down about 8pm and was still down at 11pm. Well at midnight it all came back on like someone had flipped a switch. Which I figure is what happened.

Then tonight everything was great until about 7pm when it died, only to come back on at 8pm.

And on the subject of the Internet I recently had a comment from a new blog reader, or at least a new commenter (I have to approve all first-time comments) complaining that my blog about Internet service was boring, and that I should be blogging more about RV’ing.

Here’s how I replied.

Sorry to disappoint.

We’ve been full-timing for 9 years and blogging about it for 8.

Our blog is not necessarily an ‘RV’ blog, but ‘our adventures’ as we RV. And I can tell you from experience that cell phone service, Wi-Fi service, and Internet service are prime topics as we all move around the country. In fact over the years I written whole blogs on the problems and solutions to getting Internet service in a particular area.

And of course without Internet service, this blog wouldn’t exist.

And of course right now we’re not RV’ing as such, but Oil Field Gate Guarding in south Texas about 60 miles south of San Antonio. This is something a lot of RV’ers do, and a lot of other RV’ers are interested in. In fact my wife and I give very popular seminars at the Escapee’s Escapade RV rallies on the subject.

I also write a lot about repairing things around the rig, also very popular with our readers. I’ve written blogs about repairing washing machines, toilets, rooftop AC’s, and much more.

But the main thing I can tell you is that after doing almost 3000 blogs, what I write about has to interest me. It’s not always easy coming up with 500-1000 words a day, believe me. That’s why you see so many ‘abandoned’ blogs around. They go gung-ho for about a month and then it peters out.

To keep my interest, I write on a lot of different subjects. If you check under Greg’s Musings on the top right menu strip you will find a number of well-received articles on the Election, the Electoral College, the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, and losing our past through Political Correctness. Right now I’m working on another article on Global Cooling-Global Warming-Climate Change.

Hopefully we’ll manage to come up with enough stuff to keep you reading the blog. Keep in touch and feel free to post any more comments you have.

That’s why you see so many varied topics here. Otherwise I’d get bored. And that’s also the reason I started doing the articles for the Greg’s Musings area.

And on that subject, thanks for all the kind words about yesterday’s screed on Simple But Not Easy Solutions to the immigration problem. I’ll try to get it posted as a separate article in Greg’s Musings in the next day or so.

A large part of the problem with the immigration problem is that a lot of people, especially in our government and industry, don’t see it as a problem at all, just as cheap labor.

And those who question the influx of this ‘cheap labor’ are called ‘anti-immigration’ and even racists.

Personally I have no problem with immigration, that is ‘legal, controlled immigration.’ My grandmother, my father’s mother, was born in England and around the turn of the century immigrated first to Canada and then to the US where my father was born in 1909.

Meet Baxter.

Landon and Baxter 1

Baxter is a new addition to the Morrison household, and a new little brother to both Landon and Kitty, their 125# Black Lab.

Landon-and-Kitty-2

Landon and Kitty have been together since Landon was born, and although Kitty is very protective of Landon, they still scuffle over toys and stuff like siblings

Landon and Baxter 2

Looks like he’s fitting right in with the family,

Landon and Baxter 3

even with Baxter and Landon napping together on the dog bed.


January 3, 2018

Night and Day . . .

Better and Better!

Jan was sitting up and talking when I got to her room a little after 9 this morning. Very happy to see that.

Her breakfast came about 30 minutes later, scrambled eggs, bacon, and an English Muffin. And coffee.

Tasted like the coffee was from the same place as my cup yesterday, so she passed and just drank ice water,.

She ate some of the eggs, tried a bite of bacon that was too tough to chew, and a few bites of her muffin. Not a lot, but better than last night.

Finishing up, she had a few spoonful’s of the diced pears fruit cup that came for dessert.

Later in the afternoon her attending physician came by to check on her. He did mention that when they do take care of her kidney stone in 10 days or so, they plan to use lithotripsy, a way of using sound waves to pulverize the stone inside the kidney.

When lunch came, Crusted Tilapia, Diced Carrots, White Rice, a Dinner Roll, and a Flour Tortilla for some reason. Plus Vanilla Pudding for dessert.

She ate even better this time, but I still had to help her because her hands were so shaky. But she said it was all good.

Then when dinner came about 5:30, Cilantro Chicken Breast, Green Beans, and White Rice, as well as a Dinner Roll and Chocolate Pudding for dessert, she was now able to feed herself with no problems. She said it was really good this time too.

Jan's Hospital Chicken Meal

Doing Great!

Still don’t know if she will be able to go home tomorrow yet. They said that someone was going to come in and start trying to get her up and see if she could stand on her own, but that hadn’t happened by the time I left at about 6:15pm.

So I guess we’ll see tomorrow.


January 3, 2019

Just DAMN!

After working fine, with no problems, for 28 hours and 38 minutes, the site started the whole UP/DOWN sequence again.

With no warning the site went down at 3:40 pm, and it all started again.

So now it’s back to Godaddy Tech Support once again.

Oh boy!

We did make a trip up to Spring this morning to meet up with some RV friends at the Potatoe Patch restaurant there.

Potatoe Patch Group 468

From the left: Debi Hurlburt, Sandy Mills, Judy Mott, Mike Mills, and David Evans. then coming around the back on the right: Me, Ed Hurlburt, Logan Mott (Judy’s grandson), my Jan, and David’s Jan.

Had a great time with old friends. Hopefully we can do it again soon.


January 3, 2020

More Drums . . .

We’ve almost caught up on our TV shows that we lost track of during the two weeks we were up in Kingsland and Luling back at the end of November. Then we DVR’d the final episodes but didn’t watch them until we could catch up with the older ones.

So now after using streaming to watch the missing episodes, and then the final DVR episodes, we’ve caught up on Evil, Stumptown, Emergence, and Prodigal Son, so we only have the the last episode of Bull to finish us up. And we’ll take care of that one this weekend.

We also really liked the twist at the end of the winter finale of Emergence. Talk about a surprise. One of our favorites.

Especially since the little girl is named Piper.

Since they were so good on Wednesday, we did another batch of drums this evening. Only more of them.

We had only done 10 last time since that’s how many were in 1 package. And Jan graciously gave me one of her five, so I had six and she had four. And about 3 into her 4, she started to regret her magnanimity.

So this time we did 15 drums instead of 10, and this time Jan got 8 and I got 7.

I did increase the Baking Soda to 3 Tbsp., up from 1 since I was doing more drums and thought I was a little short on the Baking Soda last time.

Ninja Foodie 15 wings coating

Then I put them on the tray and popped them into the Air Fryer, and they came out looking like this.

Ninja Foodie 15 wings Done

Next time I’m going to reverse the tray at the 13 minute halfway point since it looks like the front half cooks a little faster than the rear. Otherwise they were delicious, mine with just Kraft Bacon Ranch as a dip, and Jan’s with a Bacon Ranch/Spicy Szechuan sauce dip.

And in this case, Jan decided that 4 drums weren’t enough but 8 was 1 too many. So I got an extra one back. Yea!

You might have the commercials that just started running for SingleCare. Being hawked by Martin and Charlie Sheen, SingleCare looks to be a discount drug service similar to GoodRX.

But based on my personal comparisons, it doesn’t really measure up. Here are side-by-side comparisons of 2 drugs that Jan and I take.

You be the judge.

That’s SingleCare on the left and GoodRX on the right.

SingleCare vs GoodRx Atvor

SingleCare vs GoodRs Sil

You think maybe if they weren’t putting out the big bucks for Martin and Charlie, that they might able to come up with some better discounts?

Yeah, me too.


January 3, 2021

Glad To Be Home And Sleeping In Our Own Bed . . .

We were on our way home this morning by about 8:30am, with several detours along the way.

Our first stop was at the Sonic right down the road for breakfast sandwiches for Jan and Miss Piper, and then a little further along for Lattes at the Lazy Heron Coffee House for me and Jan.

Then our 3 car caravan hit the road for Austin with Piper leading the way, followed by Lowell, Brandi, and Landon, and then Jan and I in the Tail-End Charlie position.

We were taking this somewhat round-about way home so we could check out Miss Piper’s apartment there in Austin.

She has a really nice, large two bedroom place in a beautiful tree-lined apartment complex with easy access to the MoPac Expressway, and only about 5 minutes from her present job.

And of course the beautiful 4 poster bed that her father Chris made her.

Piper's Apartment Bedroom

And speaking of jobs, I mentioned before that she was up for a Psychological Counselor position with the Austin Police Department’s 911 Division. Well, she got the job, but due to all the paperwork that has to be done, as well as background checks, it may be late January – early February before she actually starts.

She did say that the FBI background check had come back with no problems, but there’s still more hoops to be jumped through. She also said she’s looking to get started on her Master’s Degree sometime in the near future.

You go girl!

Then after that, our next stop was at the nearby Trudy’s North Star restaurant for their really good breakfast, with some of us getting the buffet and other just ordering from the menu. But all good, however.

image

Finally, about 11:45, the Houston bunch all headed home with a bathroom/coffee stop at the Buc-ee’s in Waller. (Yeah, I know. A bathroom/coffee break kind of defeats the purpose.)

Jan and I finally got back to the rig about 3:15pm after a really great long weekend with the family.


January 3, 2022

Only 150 Days To Go . . .

This morning I completed 50 days of my bone growth stimulator treatments using my DJO device.

DJO Bone Graft Stimulator

But it dawned on me that I didn’t really know that it was still working. Sure it lights up and counts down the daily 30 minute treatment duration, but is it actually still putting out the electromagnetic field that does work?

I know it was working to start with because I dug out my EMF meter

Electromagnetic Field Meter

and found out that, yes, it was putting out an EM field, and a pretty strong one at that.

Electromagnetic Field Meter 2

But was it still working? I mean the output could have died anywhere along the line, right?

So I dug my meter out again for some reassurance. And it was still going good. But I’ll still check it out occasionally just to be sure.

Now I only have 150 days left in my 6 month treatment protocol.

And here’s another Is There Anything It Can’t Do:

A meta-analysis of 127 studies conducted in 2017 revealed that daily drinking two to four 8-ounce cups of coffee decreases risk of cancer by 20 percent, Type 2 diabetes by 30 percent, and Parkinson’s by 30 percent. Furthermore, a  huge study in the UK found that those who drink a LOT of coffee live longer than those who don’t.

There’s more: in 2021 scientists found three new advantages to drinking coffee:

1. Drinking Coffee Reduces Risk of Liver Disease

2. Drinking Coffee Reduces Risk of Heart Failure

3. Drinking Coffee Reduces Risk of Alzheimer’s

image


January 3, 2023

No Bones About It . . .

Before we left the rig this morning I made my annual dermatologist appointment to get my head checked.

No, not for that, but for any possible pre-cancerous stuff up there. I had a Squamous Cell Carcinoma removed in 2014 so I don’t want to take any more chances.

Lunch today was at our all-time favorite pizza place, Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, this the one in Baybrook Mall here in Webster.

We’ve been eating at Grimaldi’s all around the country since our first visit at the original one in NYC in 2009.

As always we started off with their small Spinach Salad, just loaded with Bacon and Gorgonzola cheese.

Grimaldi's Spinach Salad 20230103

Jan and I both agreed that this was the best one of these salads we’ve ever had.

Then it was on to The Don, a pizza with Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, and Meatballs, to which we add Mushrooms.

We always get the Large 18” version so we have leftovers to take home.

Grimaldi's The Don Pizza 20230103

The ‘Bones’ in this blog title refer to pizza. When they were little Chris and Brandi called the leftover edges of the pizza crust ‘pizza bones’, because no one ate them. But we never have any bones left with Grimaldi’s pizzas. Although it’s hard to tell from the photo the slices (not shredded) of mozzarella go all the way out to the edge. Plus the crust is so tasty, so no bones.

Then it was on up to the nearby WalMart for a few things, before making a final stop at the DSW to exchange a pair of boots that Jan got for Christmas. Then it was home for the day.

Here’s one of Landon’s latest 3D printer projects.

3D Printer Sword

Yeah, I know it looks like just a dagger handle, but it’s actually the complete dagger. The blade slides out of the handle kind of like a ballistic knife. The neat part is that the handle and the interior retractable blade are all made at one time.

 

 

 

What A Difference 13 Years Makes . . .

I had thought maybe that they would start pouring concrete for the new pads today, but no one showed up. It was about 55° today, warm enough to pour, but maybe they were worried about the slight chance of rain listed, but that never happened.

Guess we’ll see about it tomorrow.

If you’re following the Retro-Blogs.™, a couple of days ago I recounted how back in 2010, I became an ordained minister through the Universal Life Church Monastery, really just for the fun of it, after I saw something about it on a TV show.

Then I got an email from them, addressed Happy 13-year Anniversary, Rev. Gregory.

I’ve never done anything with it, but even so, I might order me one of these neat Clergy Vestments.

I’m leaning toward the purple one. Now I just need to get one of those placards that let me park anywhere.

I mentioned the other day that JetPack/Wordpress said that this blog had a little over 500,000 visitors last year, up from just 56,000 back in 2011. A big jump.

Of course this growth has meant that I’ve had to upgrade my servers on GoDaddy several times to handle the increased load.

I tried to install the new struts on our bed, but found out they won’t fit. I ordered the ones listed on the struts, but this was a label pasted over the actual strut label. But these aren’t long enough, so it’s back to researching them.

Finishing up, here’s another view of the recent Falcon Heavy Launch in a time-lapse photo.

You’ve got the launch, the two boosters landing, the center core continuing to crash into the Atlantic, and up top, the X-37B spaceplane payload heading into orbit.


Thought for the Day:

Winston Churchill was the first, or one of the very first people to use the acronym OMG (Oh My God)  in a letter . . . in 1917!

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


January 2, 2011

Over 56,000 . . . WOW!

We left the rig about 10:30 this morning heading up to League City for the Breakfast Buffet at La Brisa. But not the La Brisa we usually go to on SH 146, this time we went to the one on I-45 in League City.

And their buffet was even better than the other location, I think mainly because the restaurant is bigger and they have more room for more stuff.

Like made-to-order omelets, eggs, Belgian Waffles, French Toast, and pancakes, with bacon, sausage, tamales, chicken & beef fajitas, Carne Guisada, rice, refried beans, biscuits, gravy, fresh fruit, orange juice, milk, coffee, and Mexican hot chocolate. Delicious.

We thought we were going to have the whole family, but Brandi, Lowell, and Landon stayed home to keep working on putting down the new laminate flooring in the master bedroom.

Leaving the restaurant we headed back to the rig, stopping off for gas on the way. It was good to see the price was down a little since last week…from $2.89 to $2.77.

And, of course, after filling up at Kroger’s, we passed a Buc-ee’s selling at $2.69.

Of course.

Getting back home we turned right around and headed out to a special Sunday afternoon concert at the Alvin Opry featuring Tony Booth.

Tony Booth

Tony is a local country/western singer who’s been recording hits since the 70’s, and touring with the likes of Buck Owens and Gene Watson.

He’s a four-time Academy of Country Music award winner, and has had numerous albums and records on the charts. And on top of that, he’s a really nice guy. You can find out even more about Tony here. He’s even got his own Wikipedia page.

After a great concert we met up with fellow concert-goer (and Tony Booth groupie) Maria and her husband Bob at the IHOP in Kemah for dinner.

We got back to the rig a little before 8pm just in time for a new episode of Desperate Housewives, one of Jan’s favorite shows.

On a final note, I want to thank all of our many loyal readers for giving this blog a great year.

I just received the year-end summary from WordPress with our stats.

We had over 56,000 viewers this year, a new record, and a one-time high page view of 1,864. And that was for this post in August.

Sex and RunPee

I guess with sex and bathroom humor in a single post you can’t go wrong.


January 2, 2012

When The Moon Hits Your Eye . . .

I’ve been reading recently about Verizon upgrading their 4G network in the Houston area and all I can say is . . . WOW!

First off, we now have 4G here at the RV park. It was only 3G when we got here, but was on Verizon’s website as “Coming Soon”. Guess they were right.

But the speeds are something else. Look at that first line of SpeedTest.net results.

Yes, that says 27 Mbps download speed. That’s about 20 times what I usually get with my Verizon Air card. Later in the afternoon it ranged between 7 and 8 Mbps, still very, very good.

SpeedTest

After a nice slow morning I went in my client’s office to work on configuring one of the new computers I bought for him the other day. It took about 3 hours but I got all the software installed and updates.

Later this week I’ll move the data from the old computer to the new one and put it online.

. . . Like A Big Pizza Pie –

Tonight we decided to check out a new pizza place that I read about in the newspaper called Russo’s New York Pizzeria.

The pizza was good and so was the bowl of Tomato Basil Bisque I had. But the real standout was their large pizza.  Most pizza places have a large pizza that’s 16 or even 18 inches, but this one is 28 inches in diameter!

Big Pizza Pie

The box it comes in looks like a freakin’ coffee table. It almost takes two people to carry it.

We got the medium which is 16 inches, and could only eat half of it. But that just makes for great leftovers.

Tomorrow I’m going to see a new client, a referral from one of my other clients. Over the years that’s where most of my business has come from, so I’m always glad to hear from someone new.


January 2, 2013

More of the Same . . .

Today was the usual coffee, clients, and dinner.

But at least the dinner was a little different. Jan and I left out for Fuddrucker’s about 6pm to meet Chris, Linda, Piper, and Piper’s boyfriend Casey for dinner.

Fuddrucker’s is one of our two favorite national burger places, along with Five Guys, of course. The last time we ate at one was last October in Hershey, PA. In fact we ate there twice in two weeks we liked it so much.

One reason I really like them is that they have an 8 oz. Ribeye Steak Sandwich. Not ground, but an actual piece of Ribeye steak. Really, really good.

But in addition to the good food, we had a really great time, talking and laughing. In fact we didn’t leave until about 8pm.


January 2, 2014

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho . . .

It’s off to work I go, again.

About 10:30 AM I headed over to the Alvin area to deliver the new Dell laptop and HP printer to my client.

After getting everything set up, I finished the install of the UPS software and got it verified online. Next I got the new Zebra Label printer set up as well as the new HP 2542 Deskjet.

Zebra Label Printer

The Zebra printer is used to print the actual shipping labels that go on the packages, and the HP Deskjet prints out the invoices and reports.

After everything was configured and working, I then got the Dell laptop set up on their Wi-Fi network, and the HP talking wirelessly to the computer. Unfortunately the Zebra is wired only.

It’s always better to get everything working first, before trying to configure the Wi-Fi part of things.

Last up, I tried to move the data from the old UPS machine to the new setup. But quickly found a problem. The old program exports the data in a form that the new program won’t accept. That’s the problem trying to upgrade from the 2009 UPS software to the 2014 version. Things have changed too much in the meantime.

Since it was getting late, I’ll have to come back tomorrow and get on the phone with UPS Tech Support to see if there’s a way to convert the data and move it over.

Leaving the client’s, I stopped by the Doctor’s office to get some info on Jan’s prescriptions from this past Tuesday. I’m beginning to think that the pharmacy may have given her the wrong pills which resulted in the $245 charge.

But as it turned out, their computer system was down and they won’t be able to give me a copy until tomorrow.

Next it was on to yesterday’s client to double-check that their new UPS software was working OK. While I was there we talked about installing a new printer, which I will probably do tomorrow.

Finally about 4:30 I headed back to the rig, getting home around 5 PM. Later, Jan and I headed back into Clear Lake to meet our friend’s Bob, Maria, and Connie at King Food for dinner.

We’ve known Bob and Maria since the mid 80’s and Connie since the late 90’s, and always try to get together several times while we’re back in the area.

After a great meal, and two hours of catching up, and Jan trying to stay awake, we said our goodbyes and drove over to Chris’ to pick up our mail.

And Amazon has done it again.

Originally my new Kindle Paperwhite was supposed to be here the week of the 6th to 10th of January. Then it was Saturday, the 4th.

Yesterday they said it had shipped and would be here Friday the 3rd. But as it turns out, they shipped it Next Day, and it came today, the 2nd.

Great!

On another note, I found myself following this minivan this morning and got this photo.

Either the 19 Kids and Counting family is in town, or this is the modern version of a clown car.

19 Kids & Counting

I count Daddy and Mommy, 3 girls, 4 boys, 2 cats, and 5 dogs. Looks like each kid has their own pet. I kind of wanted to follow them to see how many get out.

Finally, I’ve posted an new entry on how the dastardly Wal-Mart corporation is once again cheating consumers. This time by giving too much of something, or maybe not enough of something. I’m not quite sure which.

And I don’t really think I want to know.

You can check it out here at What Where They Thinking and cursor down to Too Much Fox.


January 2, 2015

All Doesn’t Necessarily Mean All . . .

Another cold, rainy day here at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails with no nice weather forecast until Sunday. Nice as far as no rain, but still a low of 29 degrees Sunday night.

I guess you can’t have everything.

Later in the morning I called our friend Garland to set up our dinner plans tonight. Looks like it’s another visit to El Bosque Mexican.

Mmmm, Good. Looking forward to it.

Next up, I called the Danco  Co. up in Irving to find out why my Universal Kitchen Faucet Hose won’t fit my Moen faucet, even though the package says that it Fits All Faucet Brands.

Danco Package

The Danco Tech Support guy acknowledged that the hose would not fit my faucet, and that the Fits All Faucet Brands statement didn’t really mean that it fits ALL Brands, just a lot of them. Ironically the picture of the faucet on the box is identical to my Moen faucet.

The Tech Support guy suggested that I buy a Danco replacement faucet nozzle to go with my Danco hose. That’s another $25 to go with the $25 I’ve already spent, but a new hose alone from Moen is $65 and would take about two weeks to get here. So I guess I’ll pick up a new faucet tomorrow from Lowe’s.

Since I still had a few hours before our dinner get-together, I decided to go ahead and install my Power Converter in the compartment under the bed. My main goal was to just get it up and running inside the coach, instead of out in the battery bay where it resides now.

It took a while to get the connections set up, but within a short time I had it wired up and working fine.

Power Converter Install

That’s the new transfer switch on the left and the new power converter on the right. This is so that the cooling fan on the power converter is up against the vent on the side of the compartment. It’s amazing how much difference in the size of these units 16 years makes.

I haven’t fastened them down yet and won’t until I decide what I’m going to do about the inverter(s). When I do that, I’ll reroute the wires and lace them up neatly.

We don’t boondock very much where we would need a big hunking inverter. Our old one that I just ripped out was a 2500W modified sine wave unit. I’ve thought about replacing it with a 2000W pure sine wave unit, or maybe a 2000W and a 1000W unit.

The microwave is the only thing we have that would need the 2000W unit, and that’s for short periods. Next would be the toaster oven, The only other things we would run are the TV/DVR and the Computer/LCD Monitor, all of which will run on one 20 amp outlet.

I’m going to have to think on it some more.

Garland and Valencia picked us up at 5:00 and we headed over to the new location of El Bosque.  The food was delicious, and unlike our last visit a month or so ago after they just opened, the service was really good too.

We really enjoyed getting together with Garland and Valencia and hope we can do it again soon. Unfortunately it will probably be a while, since they’re heading out tomorrow. But hopefully it won’t be too long.


January 2, 2016

Another Day . . . Another Repair

Well, our scheduled walk with Garland and Valencia this morning was called on account of rain . . . that never materialized.

The Weather Channel had predicted rain around noon, and the Rainy Days weather radar app showed a large rainstorm moving in from the southwest. But after we canceled our walk, it never showed up. It just split apart and went around us.

But as it turned out, it worked out well for Paula and Rob Kingsbury. They’re parked two spaces down from us and we met them a couple of days as we were finishing up our walk.

They were just getting set up with their new Forest River Wildwood X-Lite on their first trip out. Paula Kingsbury happened to mention that they couldn’t get their water heater to work. Of course Jan volunteered, “If you don’t get it fixed, let Greg know. He’s good at fixing stuff.”

That’s my Jan!

Well, this morning Rob showed up to see if I could take a look at it. So a little later I grabbed my voltmeter and headed down there to take a look.

Turns out they have a Suburban SW6D, which is a 6 gallon Gas Only model. I did confirm that it had never worked since they picked up the camper, and didn’t put out hot water, so I had to keep that in mind as I investigated the problem.

The power switch was lit, and the DSI Fault light was off, so it looked like the 12V DC power situation was probably OK and the electronic igniter was working.

I next checked the continuity on the two solenoid gas valves which were OK. Then while I was looking at the manual, the unit came on, ran for about 5 minutes and then shut off.

But when they checked, there was still no hot water. So I went back to the rig to do a little Googling, which gave me a couple of more things to check. But again, no luck. The unit would come on every once in a while, but still no hot water.

Finally, as we were inside talking about other stuff, I noticed the unit come on and shut off a few minutes later. So since I was standing at the sink, I turned on the hot water and put my fingers in the stream. It came out very hot for a couple of seconds and then went lukewarm. And it kept running lukewarm for a good while, longer than I would have thought it would under the circumstances. And this started a tickle in my brain.

It reminded me of something I’d seen before, but I couldn’t quite grab it. But as I stood there feeling the water stream, it finally clicked.

It was the much-fabled, almost legendary, Bypass Valve.

A few years ago, while we were staying at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN, a couple parked next to us were having the same problem. I don’t remember if their rig had been in for repairs or what, but they also only had lukewarm water.

In this case we could feel that the water heater was hot, but again, no hot water. We were all looking at the drain and bypass valves in the water bay used to winterize the rig. At some point, I reached in and turned a valve, and presto, they had hot water.

The valve I turned was the Bypass valve, which actually connects the cold water input to the water heater and the hot water output together, ‘bypassing’ the water heater. So the hot water output was being diluted with the cold water, resulting in the lukewarm output.

So I started looking for the bypass valve here, finally finding it behind an access panel underneath the sink. And the bypass valve was closed!

Forest River Water Valves 3_thumb

Crossing my fingers, I opened the valve and voila, they had hot water.

Paula and Rob Kingsbury_thumb

And here’s the happy couple, Paula and Rob Kingsbury, excited now that they’ve got hot water.

Later, about 2pm, Jan and I drove over to the Kroger’s in Willis to pick up a few things before we leave Lake Conroe tomorrow morning

Getting back to the rig, I replaced one of my sewer hoses because it had developed some pinhole leaks. I had ordered a new one from Amazon, one without the end connectors. So today I took the connectors off the old hose and installed them on the new one. The hoses are much cheaper this way.

I learned a while back that the easiest way to get the connectors on is to first soak the hose ends in hot water for about 30 seconds or so, and then the the connectors just slide right on. Easy Peazy!

Sewer Hose Connectors_thumb

About 4pm, our friends, Garland and Valencia Scott, picked us up and we headed out for El Bosque, our favorite local Mexican place.

I had the Fajitas de la Diabla. I’m not sure what a ‘She Devil’ has to do with it, but with beef, chicken, and shrimp, as well as onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and jalapenos, it was really good, maybe the best fajita dish I’ve ever had. Really good.

El Bosque Fajita de la Diabla_thumb

Jan had the Stuffed Avocado, which she said was not quite as good as the same dish at the Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant over in Columbus, but really good just the same.

El Bosque Stuffed Avocado_thumb

We had our usual great time talking with Garland and Valencia. Valencia worked for Chevron for many years, and Garland spent 31 years with the Houston Police Department. So we really enjoyed listening to some of Garland’s many stories about the police department.

Garland and Valencia Scott 2_thumb

Hopefully we’ll be able to get together again when we get back here in a couple of weeks.

Getting back to the rig, I plugged in our engine block heater, and then disconnected and stowed away the water and sewer hoses.

I wanted to get as much done as possible before tomorrow morning because we’re going to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel before we head out for Colorado River Thousand Trails later in the morning.


January 2, 2017

Jan Got A Gate . . .

Though it looks like it’s only for one day.

But still she’s happy about it.

This morning about 7:25 Jan got a text from Todd wanting to know if she wanted a gate. So she woke me up to check it out. (I had only been asleep for about an hour and a half.)  Turns out that it’s for the day shift guard on my night shift gate.

This morning when I was relieved, it was by someone I’d never met, but knew of. Then sometime later in the morning he told Todd he needed off the gate for some reason. So Todd needed someone pretty quickly.

Todd had apparently forgotten that I was already the night shift guard on this gate, but it really didn’t matter. So Jan had her shower and got dressed and we out the door in about 20 min. And 15 minutes later we were leaving the HEB McD’s with breakfast and a full tank of gas.

I had thought that the day guy might have gotten sick or something, but he seemed fine when we got to the gate. So who knows.

More money for us.

After dropping Jan off at the gate and getting her square away, I headed back to the rig to get some sleep. Then I relieved Jan at 5pm when I came on my shift, and then she took the truck home. Of course this means she’ll have to pick me up at 5 AM tomorrow morning.

In one of his texts about this gate, Todd said we could use one of the company trucks that’s left at the park just for this purpose. But I was so groggy at first that it didn’t click until we were almost at the gate that she could have driven our truck out here while I followed in the company truck.

Jan was a little leery of driving out here by herself for the first time which is why I would have followed her. But either way I could have then driven the company truck out to relieve her this afternoon so she wouldn’t have to pick me up at 5 AM.

I’ll know better next time. Or at least be more awake, maybe.

As we left the rig, Jan had grabbed a TV dinner from the fridge to have for lunch, quick and easy with the shack’s fridge and microwave. But her lunch was not to be.

When we first came in the guard shack, she put her dinner in the freezer section of the fridge, as the day guard was gathering up his stuff. But what we didn’t catch was that when he got his stuff from the fridge he also took Jan’s TV dinner. She was not a happy camper, or guard, around lunch time. Luckily she’d had breakfast, and had some snacks in her bag.

The day guard also brought a Winegard Satellite Dome and a DirecTV receiver with him, as well as a bunch of other stuff, so it took him awhile to pack up.

I thought I had a lot of stuff with my laptop and AirCard/antenna, but I guess not.

And my AirCard didn’t do me much good tonight. About 8pm everything died, phone service, 3G, and 4G. Zip, Zero, Nada, Nyet. All gone.

This gate is no fun anymore. And it’s still down at 11pm.

* * * * *

Under the heading of You Snooze, You Lose, when Jan got back to the rig this evening our next-door neighbor came over to ask about Jan’s day gate. Turns out that they didn’t get up until after 8am so they missed Todd’s text when he tried to give the gate to them first.

More money for us.

* * * * *

Every shack has a flyswatter as part of its equipment, as well as paper towels, Lysol wipes, Windex, garbage bags, a broom and a sponge mop. But I’m not too sure about the flyswatter.

Shack Fly Swatter

The only thing I can think of is that this is the PETA version, so as to give the flies a somewhat better chance. Kind of like catch and release when you’re fishing, I guess.

Now for more of Greg’s Musings – Stirring Up Trouble Since 1948.

Several readers asked me about the Ronald Reagan quote that was my Thought for the Day a few days ago. It goes like this:

“There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.” – President Ronald Reagan

They wondered what he meant by it.

He was saying that often there is a simple solution to a problem, but the solution may not be easy to implement for various reasons, maybe either political or societal.

Here’s an example.

One of the prime issues of the past election was immigration – Build the Wall, Sanctuary Cities, Round’em up, etc.

And one of the main memes of this was, even if you do build the wall, how are we ever going to deport the 10 million, 12 million, 20 million, or 40 million (take your pick) illegals that are already here?

And here’s the Simple Solution I came up with a few years ago.

1. Mandate the use of E-Verify for all jobs.

The E-Verify system is already in place and many companies already use it. But it’s voluntary. Make it mandatory through the IRS reporting system. You would have to give the E-Verify transaction number for each employee you paid and reported wages for.

2. Then if an employer is caught hiring illegals –
a. $ 1,000 fine per illegal for the first offense.
b. $ 50,000 fine per illegal for the second offense.
c. $100,000 and 5 years in jail per illegal for the third offense.

3. Next mandate the use of E-Verify for all housing, sales and rentals.

4. Then if an seller/rentor is caught dealing with illegals –
a. $ 1,000 fine per illegal for the first offense.
b. $ 50,000 fine per illegal for the second offense.
c. $100,000 and 5 years in jail per illegal for the third offense.

Many/most rental agencies already run background/credit checks on prospective tenants. Just add E-Verify.

5. Then with nowhere to work and nowhere to live, the vast majority will leave on their own, or in other words, self-deport.

Think self-deportation won’t work? It already has.

Back around 2007 or so, Arizona passed a new strict immigration law. And although much of it was later struck down by the US Supreme, while it was in effect, illegal immigrants were literally ‘streaming’ out of Arizona. Check this article from CBS News in 2010.

Illegal Immigrants Leaving Arizona Over New Law

Yes, some of them went to other, less strict states, but many went back to Mexico.

Ironically, the Arizona law that was mostly struck down by SCOTUS was modeled on the US immigration laws that were not being enforced, mostly just substituting State of Arizona for United States Government.

And the reason the Arizona law was overturned was that SCOTUS said that states do not have the right to enforce immigration laws, only the Federal Government.

But if the Federal Government isn’t enforcing them . . . ?

E-Verify is quick and simple to use. And free. (Well, except for your tax dollars)

Each employer/rental agency, etc., is given an ID and a password to the system. They just log in, enter the person’s name and SS# and a few other bits of information. Within a few seconds they get verification of the person’s identity and a transaction number for the person that is entered into the paperwork showing that E-Verify had been checked. If it turns out later that the person really was illegal, the employer is off the hook as long as E-Verify has been checked.

So that’s the stick, now the carrot.

Although you would probably want to set a deadline, maybe three years for them to all leave, set it up so that the quicker they leave, the better chance they have to be allowed to come legally. When they pass through US Customs on the way out of US, they would register at the border and get pushed to the top of the list for a green card.

So First Out, First In.

Now there are a few additional things might want to implement, like maybe bounties for turning in employers/rentors/illegals who are violating the law.

Despite some of the bad historical connotations of this, it’s already done a lot. Whistleblowers can receive rewards for reporting government theft and corruption. And individual citizens can get bounties for the IRS for turning in tax cheats.

And I don’t know if it’s still done, but a number of years ago, employees could receive a reward if they turned in their employer, anonymously of course, for using bootleg computer software in the business.

So there’s certainly both the legal and moral precedent for it.

So here’s my quick, cheap, simple solution to most of the illegal immigrant problem.

But due to political and societal pressures from both sides, how easy would it be to implement it?

And while we’re on this subject, here’s a few thought questions.

How many are too many immigrants, illegal or otherwise?

At what point do you lose your country?

If you don’t enforce your borders, do you really have a country?

Discuss among yourselves.

Wrapping up, what ever happened the fabled ‘Melting Pot’ that we all heard about?

It seems like we do less and less to integrate immigrants (legal) into our society. Back when I was growing up, you had be able to pass a test on American History given in ENGLISH to become a US citizen.

Now I’ve read that New York City prints up ballots in over 100 languages. What’s up with that?

And remember when every January you’d see the public service announcements on TV about how every ‘alien’ (that’s the term they used) must register at the PO by January 31st. What happened to that?

In fact Mork and Mindy did a great episode with Mork down at the PO trying to register as an ‘alien’.

So let me know your thoughts on all this.


January 2, 2018

Jan’s Doing A Little Better . . .

First I want to thank everyone for the dozens of get-well wishes, so many that I can’t answer them all separately right now.

I was back at the hospital by 9 this morning, wanting to be sure I was there when the urologist came by. I was told he normally came in early, but he didn’t show up until about 1pm. Maybe that’s early for him.

About noon I went down to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich to eat there. I didn’t want to bring it back to the room, afraid the sight and smell would make Jan even hungrier than she already is, not having eaten until yesterday morning.

Luckily, besides the standard cafeteria food, they had farmed out the sandwich area and had fresh Subway subs, and chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A. So I went with a Spicy Chicken Sandwich from CFA. Really good and better food than I was expecting,

The urologist showed up about 1pm and turned everything around. He wants to treat the UTI and get that taken care of before they worry about the remaining kidney stone. In fact they may wait 10 days or so before they come back to it. She’s not in any pain from it so it should work out OK.

What they wanted to do today was to put in a urethral stent to help flush and drain her right kidney where the infection is.

They took her into PreOp about 3pm, started the procedure at 3:45 and were done by 4pm. Pretty quick.

By 6pm she was much more coherent and not as drowsy. I did get her to eat a few bites of turkey sandwich and some Jell-o when her dinner tray came. But that filled her up pretty fast, so they’ll try to get her more later this evening.

I left about 7pm and stopped off at King Food for a big bowl of Hot & Sour Soup before I headed back to the rig.

I’ll be back down there by about 9 tomorrow morning. really hoping to see a big improvement after the Cipro really kicks in and she’s gotten a little more food in her.


January 2, 2019

IT’S BAAAAACCCCCKKKKK!

Like flicking a switch, the blog came back up today at 11:02 am . . . and stayed up.

However, since I was busy at work, I didn’t notice this until about 2pm.

Last night, thinking there might be some sort of pattern in the ups and downs, I upgraded my UpTimeRobot account from the free version with 5 minute checks, to the $5.50/month version which checks once a minute.

And this is what I had this morning.

Uptime Robot 2

No discernable pattern, but . . . something was going on, because starting at 6:56 am, the site was down for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Previously, over the last 10 days it’s never been down for longer than 30 minutes, or up for more than 30 minutes. In fact, it was mostly up and down every 1 to 10 minutes.

But then a few hours later the problem just up and disappeared.

And since nothing on the blog had been changed, upgraded, or updated, that pretty much puts the lie to the idea that the entire problem was due to any blog software problems. meaning as I thought from the beginning that this was a server hardware problem.

And Godaddy finally fixed it.

But since I’ve been feeling like crap today, with congestion and a bad headache, this is all you get until tomorrow when I’ll be back in the blog business.


January 2, 2020

That Wonderful Stuff . . .

Yesterday we finally got a chance to try out Jan’s favorite new Christmas gift, a Ninja Foodie Digital Air Fryer Oven.

Ninja Foodie Oven

The Ninja folks don’t make it easy to keep track of their Foodie line, what with 5 different appliances, including a blender.

Our daughter Brandi has one and loves hers, so I got Jan one too. And it works great for us, since, although it’s larger than the Toaster Oven it replaces, it folds up out of the way for storage, leaving us more counter room

Ninja Foodie Counter

But just in case she might decide she doesn’t like it, we’re keeping the old Toaster Oven around for a while, anyway.

The first thing Jan wanted to do with the Oven was to Air Fry some chicken wings, or in this case, drums. Brandi told us they were fantastic and gave us her really simple recipe.

1 Tbsp. of Baking Soda
1 Tsp. of Salt
2 Tsp. of Pepper

Apparently the Baking Soda is the secret to really crispy wings. Or at least, so says the Internet . . . and Brandi

Here’s what our Foodie looks like folded up.

Ninja Foodie Folded

And here it is folded down and ready to use.

Ninja Foodie Down

Out in front I’ve got the drums drying in paper towels, since they’re supposed to be as dry as possible.

After tossing the 10 drums in the breading, I arranged on the grill, not letting them touch.

I set the oven on Air Fry at 375° for 13 minutes and then turned the drums over. Then it was another 13 minutes at the same temp. Then I raised the temp to 420° for about 6 minutes and they were done.

Ninja Foodie Chicken Drums

And they were really crispy, crunchy, delicious. The only real problem was that we wanted more. We didn’t do anything special as far as sauce, just a small dip of Kraft’s Bacon Ranch Dressing, our favorite.

I  will however do things a little differently next time. The 1 Tbsp. of Baking Soda really wasn’t enough to thoroughly cover the drums, and the 1 Tsp. of Salt was a little too much. So I’ll try 2 Tbsp. of Baking, 1 Tsp. of Salt, and 4 Tsp. of Pepper next time to see how that works.

Jan’s cold is doing a lot better, especially since she’s sleeping so much better, due to what she calls “That Wonderful Stuff.” And that would be NyQuil Nighttime Severe Cold Medicine.

We got some good news today on the storage shed front. Rob, the park owner, said it was OK to put one up, and that we could put it right at the end of the patio where I pictured it.

RV Shed 2

But before we do this I want to get back on the rig’s oil leak problem.


January 2, 2021

Oh, Deer!

Our second day here in Kingsland started with a great breakfast at Grand Central Cafe, the same place where we ate the last time we were up here.

Breakfast At Grand Central Cafe 2021

Unfortunately Linda couldn’t be with us since she’s working a lot of extra hours since her manager is out with the WuFlu.

Then it was on over to Chris’ for the rest of the day. One of the first things I did was get a better shot of Jan’s new wind chimes without trees in the background.

Jan's Wind Chimes Better

The workmanship on this is just beautiful.

Later in the afternoon we all dug into big bowls of Chris’ Seafood Gumbo, really, really good as usual.

Chris' Gumbo 2021

Chris 2021 Around the FirePit 1

Later we did S’mores, a little earlier before it got so cold.

Piper 2021 Making S'mores

Later as it got dark, Chris threw a bunch of treated pine cones on the fire treating us to a lot of great colored flames.

Chris FirePit with Colors 1

Then about that time the deer started coming out of the woods all around us.

Chris 2021 Deer 1

Chris 2021 Deer 2

Chris 2021 Deer 3

All in all, a magical day.


January 2, 2022

I Guess I Bought’em All . . .

Since we got shut out at Gator’s for lunch yesterday, we were back there this afternoon for a redo. And it was good to see how busy they were, actually busier than I think I’ve ever seen them.

Jan got the Grilled Chicken Sandwich on a Keto Bun, with Sweet Potato Waffle Fries.

Gator's Grilled Chicken Sandwich 20220102

I think it’s her new favorite.

Since it was only 41° outside I thought a big bowl of their made-in-house Baked Potato Soup would be in order.

Gator's Baked Potato Soup 20220102

Originally they were getting this pre-made from a supplier, but decided that they could do it better themselves. And they do.

And I could tell that the first time I tasted the new version.

Really good, and perfect for a cold day.

We had planned to have a couple of their Keto Blueberry Muffins for dessert, but then our server came and told us that they were completely out.

Gator's Keto Blueberry Muffin

Someone had come by right before Christmas and bought all they had. And since the bakery had been closed between Christmas and New Year’s, they hadn’t been able to restock.

That’s when I sheepishly told him that I was that ‘someone’. I had come by Christmas Eve and bought the last 5 for us to have Christmas morning up at Brandi’s.

Later, after a quick HEB stop we were home for the day.


January 2, 2023

Nothing Much . . .

Happened Today, Either.

Just like yesterday.

But 2023 is off to a good start. I wrote my first (and only) check of the month today (for our park rent) and I remembered to write 2023 and not 2022.

And I forgot to post this photo of my beautiful Sweetie from our New Year’s Eve dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse.

Jan New Year's Eve Saltgrass 20221231_pp

Even more beautiful than when I married her 55+ years ago.

Lunch today was at Los Ramirez Mexican once again. We were surprised to see how busy it was, forgetting that today was actually a holiday, probably busier than we’ve ever seen them.

But it was just as delicious as always.

Then it was on over to HEB for a few things before heading home.

And that was about it.

Like I said, Not much.