Our RV Adventures

Or maybe just a Sick Day.

Great news after Lowell’s 3-week follow-up with his doctor today after his open-heart surgery.

He’s cleared to drive starting this coming Monday and won’t see the doctor again until May. Then yearly after that.

An amazing recovery!

We’re putting the final touches on our May Alabama trip during the next few days. We plan on leaving here Thursday, May 8th, and arriving back home on Saturday, May 25th. Then since the next Monday is Memorial Day, I won’t have to go back to work until Wednesday.

My back was really bothering me today, so I stayed home, though I still was able to keep up with most of the online parts.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re getting together with our long-time Alvin Opry group at the Webster Saltgrass Steakhouse.

But first tomorrow morning I’m stopping by Joe’s, my mechanic, to see about getting new struts/shocks for the Jeep.

Finally,

And You thought Jan’s Flamingo Flamboyance is merely Decorative.

They’re also really good watchdogs, especially rampaging T-Rex’s.

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Thought for the Day:

What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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February 21, 2010

90,000 and counting…

Today was a big day in our rig “Beauty’s” life.

At 11:16 this morning, traveling between Canyon Lake, TX and Balmorhea, TX, our “Beauty’ turned 90,000…miles, that is.

She had 62,512 miles when we bought here, so, in the last 2+ years we traveled over 27,000 miles. Not bad for beginners.

We left Lake Pointe RV Resort this morning about 9:00am, heading toward a stop-over tonight at Saddleback Mountain RV Park.

About noon, we stopped for lunch in Junction, TX. We parked at a Valero Truck Stop and drawn by the wonderful smell, we ended up at Cooper’s BBQ across the street.

And boy was it good. Jan had a rib plate with beans and potato salad, and I had a rib and jalapeno sausage plate with beans and potato salad. We split a peach cobbler for dessert. Really, really good BBQ. You know that the place was going to be good, since they cook their meat in an outside pit, surrounded by a large stack of wood.

It’s always interesting driving thru West Texas, despite what some people say. Along the way today, we saw wild goats, wild sheep, wild pigs, llamas, and a zebra. All without leaving the highway. And, of course, last week we saw camels, donkeys, and buffalo.

We pulled into the RV park about 5:30pm and got set up. There’s not much to it, but it is cheap ($10), quiet, level, and convenient to I-10. Just what we want for an overnight stay.

Tomorrow we’ll head out for Las Cruces, NM for a couple of days.

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February 21, 2011

Nice Weather . . .

For the second day in a row, it’s been great here in Gila Bend. Sunny with daytime temps in the low 70’s and nighttime in the low 40’s. Couldn’t be nicer.

Jan and I slept in this morning enjoying the cool temperatures so we didn’t get up until about 10am, to find a call from our daughter Brandi waiting for us. Yesterday was Landon’s 6 month birthday, and today is his 6-month checkup.

Brandi laughingly wanted to know if Jan could babysit Landon this Saturday. Sure, I mean it’s only 1250 miles back to Houston. No problem.

Though I think Jan would do it, just to get some Landon time.

After fixing coffee, I caught up on some computer work, while Jan read her new Janet Evanovich book. Then about 10:30 I got a call from the client that I did that one last job right before we left Houston. And she had a problem.

All of her phones quit working this morning. They worked just fine on Friday, but when she came in this morning they quit working … one at a time.

I spent a good while on the phone with the VOIP company Tech Support guy with no luck. He didn’t know what the problem was, he just knew it wasn’t his company’s fault. He kept wanting to blame our routers, but he couldn’t answer my question about why it worked for two weeks and then went down one phone at a time.

I guess tomorrow I’ll be spending more time on the phone, this time with AT&T.

About noon Jan fixed a lunch of sandwiches and chips, then I went out and pulled out our Weber Q200 grill from the bay.

Our kids gave it to us for Christmas in 2007 right before we hit the road. We haven’t used it as much as we should have, but Jan had a hankering for hot dogs this evening so I wanted to be sure the grill worked and had enough LP gas in the bottle.

After being sure the grill was working, I made a run into Gila Bend to the hardware store and the NAPA auto parts store. I was looking for a 3/4 wrench to make it easier to remove the rig seats to get at the carpet underneath them. I was also looking for a set of small snap ring pliers to let me disassemble our electric heaters to clean the dust and cat hair out of them.

Getting back to the rig I pulled the passenger chair and started ripping up the carpet. It was slow going due to all the staples they used in the corners, but I did make some headway.

About 4:30 I started up the grill while Jan had already started the baked beans.

I grilled the hot dogs and the buns on the Weber and they both came out great. So about 5 we sat down to delicious hot dogs, beans, and chips.

Then after supper, I did a little more on the carpet and then fixed evening coffee.

Tomorrow, more work on the carpet.

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February 21, 2012

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, . . .

After a quiet night at Saddleback Mountain RV Park, and coffee and muffins this morning, we headed out about 10 am for Las Cruces, 240 miles away.

75 miles later, a little past Van Horn, we entered Mountain Standard Time, and our trip suddenly became an hour shorter

Even going through El Paso was pretty uneventful, except for the usual idiots cutting in front of me. I was tempted to air-horn a couple of them, but I’ve noticed that they tend to swerve and change several lanes at one time when I do that. But it is fun to think about.

We pulled into Las Cruces and the Coachlight RV Park about 1:15. While I was unhooking, the owner came by and we talked a few minutes. Then he said that I sounded more like someone from Alabama than someone from South Dakota.

I laughed and said I was born in Birmingham and grew up in Gulf Shores and Athens. He said he learned to fly choppers at Ft. Rucker and spent 20 years in the Army.

We got parked and set up, and just rested up for a while. Then about 4:30 Jan and I drove over to La Posta de Mesilla, one of our all-time favorite Mexican restaurants. Housed in a building that was once a Butterfield Stage stop, I first ate at La Posta back in the early 80’s when I was out here at the White Sands Test Facility working on Space Shuttle stuff.

Then in 2007 I got to bring Jan here for the first time when we came through Las Cruces in our rental Class C on our first RV trip.

And now we eat here every time we come through. Really good food.

On another note, I had something nice but strange happen with my HP laptop the other day. Sometime after I bought it in late 2008, the touchpad quit working. It wasn’t a real problem since I just plug in a mouse most of the time anyway. But it bugged me anyway.

Thinking it might be a driver problem, I uninstalled the old ones, downloaded new ones, and reinstalled them with no luck. In fact I tried this several times, and finally gave up and just used the mouse.

Then a few days ago I was installing some Microsoft updates and noticed one of them was from HP for the touchpad. Later, after the updates were installed and the laptop rebooted, I thought to check the touchpad, and lo and behold, it now worked! Strange and bizarre.

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February 21, 2013

Subs and Biscuits . . .

We got over to Gina’s about 9:30 after Jan had fed the deer here at the park. Then about noon I drove over to the Subway to pick us up some sandwiches for lunch. Later, coming back to the rig, I got back on my rig To-Do list.

One of the things I did was replace one of the 12 volt sockets on the dashboard. This one, the one that powers my Brake Buddy Alert Receiver when we travel, had become flakey and intermittent. Luckily I found one at an auto parts store that was a direct replacement so it pretty much just plugged right in.

Later I started changing the way my truck taillights are powered from the rig when we are towing it. Originally I set it up so that the normal truck lights were powered directly by the rig through steering diodes. But the voltage drop across the diodes dimmed the taillights somewhat, even when the truck was not being towed.

So after checking out my taillight lenses to see if I had enough room, I decided to add separate new sockets and bulbs to the lenses.

Here’s how it looked before I started.

And here’s how it looked after I drilled a hole in the lens and mounted the new bulb socket.

I ran out of time before I got any further, but next I’ll remove the diodes from the system and then plug the wires from the connector on the front of the truck directly into the new sockets, which should finish things up. I’ll post a follow-up when I’m done.

About 5pm I headed back over to Gina’s so we could head down to San Marcos to have dinner at Red Lobster. Along the way, we stopped off at Walgreen’s to pick up some prescriptions for Gina

Dinner was really good, especially the Cheddar Bay Cheese Biscuits, which I think Jan could just eat along with nothing else.

On the way back to the ranch, I made another quick stop at an auto parts store for a couple of more project items for my To-Do list.

Tomorrow, I’m at it again.

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February 21, 2014

Bombs Away . . .

or those damn flee-ridden ducks.

This morning started out with more work around the rig on things I need to do before we head out on Monday.

First up, I put new pull ropes on the leveler pads, and cleaned them up some. We’re not using them right now since we’re parked on concrete, but we’ll need them at the Colorado River TT park where we’re going. The reason I was replacing the ropes was that the original rope I used was polyethylene and I couldn’t get a knot to hold in it. So I replaced it with Paracord which took care of the problem.

Next up, I crawled under the rig and sprayed the PowerGear levelers with silicone spray to keep the seals lubricated. I do this a couple of times a year and have never had a problem with oil leakage.

I finished up the morning by replacing the batteries in the rig’s TireTraker Tire Pressure Monitoring System sensors. I had done the truck sensors a couple of weeks ago, so this finished things up. Tomorrow I’ll get out my Sears air compressor and top off the rig and truck tires so then we’ll be already to go tire-wise.

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Then about 12:30 Jan and I left the rig, setting off a bomb as we went out the door.

A flea bomb.

Which is why we took Mister with us for the afternoon. In six years of RV’ing with two cats (at least until this past October), we have never had a flea problem. Until now.

So after trying several things, i.e. flea collars, sprays, powders, etc., none of which seemed to do much good, today we brought out the big guns. We used the Heart Gard drops on the back of Mister’s neck last night and bombed the coach this afternoon. Hopefully this will get rid of everything.

They have a flock of tame wild ducks around the park and the office said they’re really bad about spreading fleas, so I guess we can blame it on them.

While we were out and about, I stopped off to see a couple of clients, all of which had to come out to the car and see the much-fabled Mister. And No, we didn’t leave him in the car alone. Jan stayed with him all the time.

And anyway, I wouldn’t leave him in the car by himself. I think he’s smart enough to drive off and leave us.

Getting back to the rig about 4:30 we found any smell had dissipated and the rig was OK to enter. Actually the box says you can come back after two hours, so we were fine.

About 5:30 we headed back out, sans Mister, to meet our friends Bob and Beth for dinner at Abe’s Cajun Café.

And leaving the park, I saw this.

I knew this guy had a trailer full of remote control model planes, but I didn’t realize he had some you could ride on. Or maybe in.

The food at Abe’s was really good, but the menu has about 200 items on it, and it’s hard to decide what to order. You want to tell the waiter to go away and come back in a half hour or so. By then you would have decided.

I had the Cajun Trio which consisted of Seafood Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, and a Spicy Boudin Link. And Jan had Blackened Catfish with Twice-Baked Potatoes and Green Beans. Both very good.

Saying our goodbyes, we drove over to a client’s office to take a look at a problem they were having with the cash register software. Turned out not to be a problem, so much as operator error.

Tomorrow, more packing up, more last-minute tasks, and another last meal.

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February 21, 2015

I Can See Clearly Now . . .

Or at least much better.

A little before 11am Jan and I decided to have breakfast out, but just then our son Chris called and suggested lunch at Barcenas Mexican Restaurant near their house, so off we went. We were hoping our granddaughter Piper would be able to meet up with us, but she showed up later in the afternoon.

After our usual delicious meal, we went back over to Chris and Linda’s so he could help me with a couple of things on my truck. One of which was my new headlights. With all the rain and wind at the rig, I had not been able to do the installation, but since Chris had the garage and a canopy to work under, I thought it might work better there.

And the uninstall the old one / reinstall the new one went about as easy as the shop manual described. Which is very unusual, believe me. Four bolts to take the old two-piece unit off, and three bolts to reinstall the new one. Easy Peazy.

Chris thought it was weird, but I only wanted one new headlight installed right then, because I wanted to really be able to see the difference between the old one and the new one. Shouldn’t be a problem since I don’t think there is any law about having one headlight brighter than the other.

But we did quickly see a problem when we tested the new light. Although the headlight unit is new, you reuse the old bulbs and sockets. And while the old unit had amber turn signal lenses and white bulbs, the new unit has clear turn signal lenses. Which means since legally turn signal lights are supposed to be amber, I need to get amber bulbs to replace the old white ones. Which I did on the way home a little later.

About 6pm Jan and I headed up to the South Shore area to have dinner with our friends Tom and Barbara. We try to get together at least once whenever we’re in town, and always have a great time.

(Left to Right: Barbara, Tom, My Jan, Margaret, and James.)

And if you notice all the bottles on the table, you’ll know we had a great time tonight too. Barbara is a great cook, and the meal is always delicious. Another couple, James and Margaret, also joined us, and as Barbara said, James and I have a lot in common.

Like me, James does IT support, and does it for PPL, the big consignment RV dealer here in town. Plus we’ve both done a lot of Military Contract work over the years. So we had a great time reminiscing about things.

Finally, after getting our hugs and goodbyes, we headed home about 11pm. And I finally got to see how my new headlight performed.

And all I can say is WOW! The new one is so much brighter that it’s hard to tell the old one is even working. So I can imagine how two of them will do.

I do need to readjust the new one a little to the left, but as far as up and down, it’s perfect. Can’t wait to see both in action.

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February 21, 2016

On To Plan ‘C’?

Well, we did get our walk in this morning,  doing 1.15 miles, about 100 feet further than yesterday’s 1.13, since we took a slightly different route. Now we’re looking at 100% rain the next two days, so that’s probably it until Thursday, after our doctor appointments on Wednesday.

A little later I got back on my washer drain pump repair. I had planned to be back outside, but the rain started coming in early, so I stayed in. I had left some metal parts soaking in CLR overnight, and the plastic parts in a bucket with water, Dawn, and Awesome. So I retrieved those and rinsed them off in the shower, and then dried them.

Next I wanted to lightly sand the outside of the rotor and the inside of the stator to get rid of the gunky buildup on the parts. To make it a little quicker to do the rotor, I chucked into my drill and then held the 2000-grit sandpaper against the cylinder as I ran the drill.

This smoothed it out pretty quickly, but I had to be careful not to sand down too far and damage the windings.

Then I wrapped sandpaper around a screwdriver and used it to sand the inside of the stator.

At this point, I placed the rotor back in the stator and found that it turned much more freely now.

So now it was time to put it all back together and give a try. It took about 10 minutes to get it reassembled and ready to test. But when I put power to it, I still had the same jerky rotation, buzzing, and vibrating. And the coil was getting a lot hotter than it should after only a few seconds of power.

So now it’s back to the drawing board. I’ve got a couple of other things I want to look at first, but tomorrow I’ll follow up on my Plan ‘C”, which is to take my pump down to a local appliance parts place and see if I can find something similar that I can make work.

I did find several on Amazon that looked like they might fit the bill, but I’d rather see one in person and hold it in my hand.

And of course, there’s always Plan ‘D’, which is to buy one off eBay for $185. Ouch!

A little after 5pm Jan and I headed next door to have dinner with Brett and Frankie. Brett had invited us over to show off his prowess with his smoker.

Brett was up about 5am getting the ribs going, and it certainly showed in the final results.

Frankie whipped up some fresh green beans and a batch of fried potatoes, while Brett did the ribs and also a pan of sautéed shrimp. Jan and I contributed a big bowl of her Heavenly Hash for dessert, and a bottle of Cupcake Moscato for lubrication.

And a good time, and a great meal, was had by all.

Brett and Frankie are just getting on the road in their toy hauler 5V’er for a year of traveling. They want to try out the full-timing lifestyle before they fully commit so this next year will be the test.

We had a great time getting to know them, and talking about places we’ve visited and want to visit, and things to see while we’re there.

Jan and I finally headed home about 8:30, after a really good time. We enjoyed getting to know Brett and Frankie, and are going to try to get together for dinner later in the week.

Tomorrow, hopefully I can wrap up my drain pump problem one way or the other. But we’ll see.

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February 21, 2017

Work, Work, Work . . .

With our traveling over for a few days, it was time to get back on rig repairs and updates. I’ve got a checklist in Evernote that I’m working my way through.

Today’s main job was a little work on the Throne. Yes, that one.

First up, I used my Sealand Toilet Seal Cleaning Tool to clean around the seal in our Sealand Toilet. Hence, ‘my Sealand Toilet Seal Cleaning Tool’.

In case you don’t have one, it looks like one of those wooden tongue depressors that a doctor uses to check your throat. But this one is white and flexible. If your toilet stops holding water like it should, it’s usually because there is a buildup of ‘debris’ in the seal.

So you open the valve and then run the rounded end of the tool around between the flaps of the seal, doing this several times, until the water stays in the bowl.

Next up I replaced the seat on the throne. Every throne needs a good seat, right? Actually though, there was nothing wrong with the seat except for cosmetic problems. Over a period of time, the lid starts to wear off the finish on the seat, and once that starts it tends to spread.

I replaced our seat about 5 years ago with a Church brand seat from Lowe’s. Whenever I install something on the rig I make a note in a text file I keep. So yesterday I picked a new seat with the same part number. So this afternoon it took only about 30 seconds to change out the seats. Just unlock, unsnap, snap, and lock.

Easy Peazy.

I mentioned before the digital sign on the western edge of Katy that tracks oil industry statistics, like the price of a barrel of oil, price of natural gas, and the US rig count. And according to the sign, the rig count has jumped 22 in the last two weeks, topping out at 751. And up more than 200 in the last four months.

Nice.

Saw this neat little camper in the park this past weekend, all the way from Colorado.

Sorry, I didn’t get to see inside.

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February 21, 2018

But I Didn’t Accomplish Anything . . .

As told Jan when I got home this afternoon, I got a lot done at work today, but I didn’t really accomplish anything. When she asked what that meant, I said I was busy doing a lot of different things but didn’t really make any long-term headway toward any of my big projects.

It started raining about 4am, loud enough and heavy enough to wait me up, and it kept coming down just about all day long. According to my rain gauge, it totaled over 4 inches in the last 24 hours. And more to come.

My new LED headlight bulbs came in today but I probably won’t install them until this weekend when Jan and I are up in Katy puppy-sitting for Brandi.

Since they’re a little larger than the standard bulbs, they’re in two pieces with a plug in the middle to make it easier to get them mounted and plugged in.

Cougar Motors 7200 Lumen Headlight bulbs

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The reason we’re dog-sitting is that Brandi, Lowell, and Landon are heading up to the Dallas area for a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge, a 600-room hotel combined with an 80,000 sq. ft. water park, all indoors.

Looks like fun, and a great prequel to their DisneyWorld trip in the future.

Tomorrow Jan and I are meeting up with Chris and Linda to introduce them to our favorite Pho 20 for dinner. Really looking forward to it.

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February 21, 2019

Jan Says She’s Gonna Do It . . .

Jan and I spent the morning going over the shore excursions for our upcoming European Cruise Tour. We get an excursion included at every one of our 13 stops during the 15-day cruise. Plus there are optional ones also at every stop . . . at an extra cost, of course.

The excursions are also rated by Activity Level, i.e. Easy, Moderate, and Demanding. As such we’ll probably avoid the ‘Demanding’ 5 hour Bavaria By Bike tour . . . at only $109 a person, too.

So now we’re going to through the list booking the excursions, since they still have to be reserved, even if they’re free. And we’re also looking at several of the optional ones, mostly ones that include ‘Food Tasting’ in the description.

Eagle-eyed blog readers will notice that I’ve posted a countdown calendar for our cruise, but it’s really only accurate to the day. I set the time for 8am but we have no idea when we’ll actually leave, since we won’t get our ticket time info until April 5th, 3 weeks before our departure date.

After that, Jan and I headed up to Webster about 12:30 to meet our long-time friend Tricia at Snooze AM for breakfast.

Tricia is another friend who actually started out as a computer client for her home-based business, and we always try to get together every few months.

Then it was on over to the nearby SuperCuts to get her hair done. And after talking with her hair guy, she’s had an epiphany.

She wouldn’t listen to me, she wouldn’t listen to y’all, but when her hair guy, who also does coloring, tells her she’d look good with red highlights, she was all over that like she’s never heard it before.

Never a prophet in your own land, I guess.

So now she says she’s gonna do it.

While she was getting her mind changed, I stopped off at my client’s to check on an order, and then it was on up to the Ace Hardware to pick up some nylon bolts to fix the toilet seat at the office.

When Jan was done at SuperCuts we walked next door to the HEB to get a bag of their great Lola Savannah Texas Pecan Coffee and some lottery tickets Next up was Sam’s Club to pick up her glasses that came in this morning. And trying them on for the first time she was amazed at how much sharper her vision was with the new pair.

While we were there we went ahead and got gas, and I was very surprised to find that since last week, the price had jumped 14 cents from $1.75 to $1.89. Ouch!

Under the heading that “Jan Can’t Have Too Many Cat Shirts”, I saw this one on Facebook and ordered it for her.

Really striking.

You can get yours here. Cat On The Moon T-Shirt.

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February 21, 2020

I Should Have Done This A Long Time Ago . . .

Or It’s God’s Way Of Telling Me I Need A New Computer.

For the last several days I’ve been fighting a problem with my desktop computer. First Windows Live Mail wouldn’t open, followed the next day by Chrome.

Internet Explorer would still work, but with no more than two tabs open. Then it seems like more and more programs slowly died or became flakey. My first thought was a hardware problem, but every test I ran came up clean.

So it looks like that my Win 7 Operating System is slowly, or not so slowly, dying.  And since this computer is about 7 years old, it’s probably about time for a new one.

But as it turned out, it would be a new old one. I remembered the very powerful one that we had retired at work. It originally ran our websites when we had our server in-house.

It has an i7 processor running at 4Ghz with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 1TB HD. I’ve already ordered another 16GB of RAM which will max out the RAM.

Yesterday I scrubbed the HD, getting rid of the Linux Apache Server software, and installed a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro. Now it’s just a matter of installing new copies of the programs I need, as well as copying over all the data.

Yes, they’re still counting.

Iowa Democratic Party to recount caucus results from 23 precincts.

I guess the idea is just to keep doing it until they get it right. And as I mentioned the other day, Nevada’s not looking good either.

They originally planned to use the same app that was used in Iowa. But when that went up in flames, they quickly cobbled together something using Google Docs forms, ‘cobbled’ apparently being the operative word.

However, someone finally came to their senses, and they’re back to doing it the old-fashioned way. Just pick up the phone and call in the numbers.

Still think there’s nothing wrong with a paper ballot and a #2 pencil.

Tomorrow night Jan has her yearly get-together with a number of her former hospital coworkers, something they’ve all done every year since we started RV’ing in 2008.

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February 21, 2021

Chowderless . . .

Despite the fact that the temperature finally creeping up to 70° today, we had been wanting some Clam Chowder from the N.E. Lobster and Chowder food truck at the Three Acres Food Truck Park ever since the cold weather hit.

So we head over that way about 1pm this afternoon only to find ourselves Chowderless. The truck was not there and when I asked the lady in charge at the bar if they would be back, she said they had moved on to another location in ‘Houston’ somewhere. Well, that certainly narrows it down.

They have a Facebook page so I’ll see if I can track them. Hopefully they’re somewhere nearby.

So we had to get by with Jan’s Mushroom-Swiss Burger and Fries, and my Philly Cheesesteak with Fries. Both really good, though.

The owner said he flies his bread in from Philly from the same bakery that makes the rolls for Geno’s and the other famous Cheesesteak places.

We also shared an order of the Mac Attack’s Pizza Mac. It’s Mac N Cheese made with pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and topped with pepperoni. Very, very good.

Mac Attack also had Lobster Mac, Cajun Mac, Buffalo Chicken Mac, and a number of others, including, of course, Mac Mac, just plain Mac N Cheese for you purists.

I’m still waiting to hear back from our La Quinta hotel about our bill. They have 4 Pending charges against my card, totaling $1405.01, if they were all to go through. Of course they won’t all go through, but still.

Pending charges are what a restaurant does when they give you the check and you give them your card. The charge is Pending because you probably will be adding a tip to your charge slip. Then later, it may even be the next day, the charge is run through again, this time including the tip. and then it’s Finalized.

Hopefully I’ll hear something tomorrow.

Next up, we drove over to our storage place to finish cleaning out our last small storeroom and moving all the stuff over into our new, larger one. This will give us room to sort through and organize our stuff into keep, throw away, and sell on eBay.

Since we’ve already got something planned for Tuesday, it now looks like Thursday will be New Toilet Day.

At least that’s the plan. But who knows these days?

As we’ve traveled around the country we’ve found a lot of towns that have animal mascots.

Elkhart, IN has, what else, an Elk.

Beaufort, SC has a Mermaid.

Seabrook, TX has a Pelican.

And both Mackinac Island, MI and Coeur d’Alene, ID have moose.

The way this guy’s chained to the balcony makes it look like he’s tried to ‘wander’ off a few times.

But animals aren’t the only mascots. Sometimes fruit is involved. When we were over in Pearland, TX last week picking up a heat lamp bulb for our water bay, we discovered that Pearland now has their own line of mascots.

What else, Pears!

BTW what defines a ‘mascot’ is not just a single statue. It’s a number of them all over town, based on the same form, but with different paint schemes. We’ve seen as many as 20 in some areas.

Sometimes at night Jan just wants to read, and I’m doing something on the computer, so we just put the MyReef 3D aquarium on the screen. It’s an Android app that runs on our Firestick HD. It’s an animation, but looks real.

I paid, I think, $2.99, for the full version with more fish and more backgrounds. Very restful and soothing.

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February 21, 2022

Drill Baby, Drill . . .

Several readers asked me about B&D Battery-Powered Drill

I mentioned it the other day. As I said it’s probably the best drill I’ve ever owned, and it has more torque than you would think. Enough so that it can be hard to keep a hold of when you’re drilling or screwing into something tough.

After I ordered the drill, I found this custom case for it,

B&D Hard Storage Case

and I also got a 2nd battery for it so I can be charging one while still using the drill.

And it all fits in one neat package.

A great product.

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Jan and I have recently added a new ingredient to our daily drug/vitamin regimen. It’s selenium, in the form of 4 Brazil Nuts. Brazil Nuts have more selenium than any other food source, about 4 times as much.

And why selenium? Well, besides the usual stuff mentioned here – Benefits of Selenium, there have recently been several studies published about this benefit.

Natural mineral may help reverse memory loss

“Our models showed that selenium supplementation could increase neuron generation and improve cognition in elderly mice,” Dr. Walker said.

“The levels of new neuron generation decrease rapidly in aged mice, as they do in humans.

“When selenium supplements were given to the mice, the production of neurons increased, reversing the cognitive deficits observed in aging.”

The scientists also tested whether selenium would have an impact on the cognitive decline sometimes experienced following stroke, which can affect people’s memory and ability to learn.

“Young mice are really good at the learning and memory tasks, but after a stroke, they could no longer perform these tasks,” Dr. Walker said.

“We found that learning and memory deficits of stroke affected mice returned to normal when they were given selenium supplements.”

But don’t take more than 3 or 4 because selenium can be toxic in higher dosages.

Of course it might just be too much clutter.

Lifetime of knowledge can clutter memories of older adults, researchers suggest

So that’s it.

I’m cluttered because I know too much useless stuff?

Who knew?

---

February 21, 2023

TBBT vs YS . . .

Lunch today was at Los Rameriz Mexican with both of us getting the Pechuga Rellena, a large grilled chicken breast on a bed of grilled broccoli and shrimp, and covered with melted cheese.

It normally also comes on a bed of rice, but we have them leave that off. And along with the salad, it also comes with half a sliced avocado, which mysteriously immediately makes its way to Jan’s plate.

Really, really good.

Then it was on over to WalMart to get our weekly WalMart stuff, and then home for the day.

Jan and I were talking the other night about Young Sheldon and how it’s going to connect with The Big Bang Theory, its predecessor.

Of course if you don’t watch YS or watched TBBT, this will all mean nothing to you.

But if not, here goes.

YS is coming to the point where George, Sheldon’s father is supposed to die from a heart attack, predicted for either the last episode of this season, or the first one of next season. This is kind of written in stone. But the fact that George is supposed to have an affair with his next-door neighbor, Brenda hasn’t materialized yet.

Plus a lot of things mentioned in TBBT don’t fit at all with YS.

Like George keeping a bottle of ‘driving whiskey’ in his pickup truck.

No ‘driving whisky’.

Mary put ground glass in George’s chewing tobacco.

No ground glass and no chewing tobacco.

His mother Mary, staying with Sheldon in Germany while he was guest teaching, had to leave him to go back to Texas because a tornado blew their trailer house off the blocks.

No trailer house

So a lot of viewers, including Jan and I, are wondering how they’re going to reconcile all this.

In addition, in TBBT the grown-up Georgie mentions nothing about having a child, so some viewers wonder if something happens to Mandy and the baby in childbirth.

And finally, how does young Sheldon go from being the only slightly strange kid in YS to become the OCD/Autistic adult Sheldon in TBBT.

It seems some viewers don’t want YS to go as dark as it seems to be going, and want YS to ignore TBBT and just pretend it never happened.

We’ll see, I guess.

 

 

 

As I said yesterday, today was a nice stay at the rig day for us. I took care of a couple of things on the chore list, including killing some weeds around the site and bringing in a couple of rolls of paper towels from our storage shed.

Jan spend some time making all our upcoming doctor’s appointments for this year. Because of Medicare, we have to make all appointments one year plus at least one day later each year. That’s why originally we had our appointments in February, and now we’re pushed back until sometime in April, in this case, after April 6th this year.

I figure in a few more we’ll booking our doctors in December.

Last night, after I posted the blog about visiting Longneck Manor while we’re up in Fredericksburg next month, I decided to go online and actually book our tour. And I ran into a problem.

The only tour still available was the 2pm one Friday afternoon AND there was only 1 spot left available. So what was Jan going to do while I took the tour?

Yeah, right!

So I thought I’d give them a call this morning and see if they could squeeze both of us in. I mean I doubt they’re going to get a single person to sign up for the one remaining spot of the tour. And about 5 minutes after I called, Monica had me set up and I had a confirmation email.

So we’re good to go.

Then later in the afternoon I sent a text to Juana, our favorite Texas Huddle server, to see if she was working somewhere else since Huddle got closed down by the State of Texas.

Turns out that she hadn’t gone anywhere else yet, because the crew had been told that they would reopen soon. Of course they said the same thing last time when they were locked out due to non-payment of rent. They were telling everyone it was an A/C problem, despite the sign and the big padlock on the door. And they were closed almost 3 months.

I also put in a call to Joe, my mechanic to look at my struts/shocks situation on my Jeep. Hopefully I can get them done before our March trip.

Shrinkflation hits home again.

A couple of times a week, Jan and I have Whipped Cream with our morning coffee. And Karma demands a big squirt too.

Up until a couple of months ago, we could all have a couple of squirts and a generous dollop with our coffee. And then the next day we could have a smaller dollop again with our coffee.

But no more.

Now we pretty much just have the first day’s amount, and maybe an extra squirt for Karma, and that’s it.

Bummer!

---

Thought For The Day:

The First Rule Of Government:

Someone, somewhere out there is having fun. It must be stopped.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

---

February 20, 2010

Plans in Jell-O…

Well, as usual, we found our plans written in Jell-O.

We had planned to leave here in San Marcos this past Friday, but now we won’t be leaving until tomorrow, Sunday. It took longer than I figured to get all of Gina’s new stuff set up, including a new computer, and her Raccoon Cam that lets her watch the raccoons on her back porch that she feeds every night.

It’s pretty neat. It has remote pan and tilt, and night vision that really works.

But it’s all working OK now, so tomorrow we will head west to Balmorhea, TX to spend the night before arriving in Las Cruces, NM  on Monday night for a couple of days.

Then it’s on to Tucson, Gila Bend, and Yuma.

---

February 20, 2011

The Best Shrimp Burrito in the World . . .

is found at Sofia’s Mexican Food in Gila Bend, AZ, at least according to Jan.

But more about that later.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday in talking about getting diesel, is that we traveled 889 miles on the 102.7 gallons we used. This means we got almost 8.7 mpg, showing that driving 55 really saves $$. And there were a lot of hills in these miles, so that makes it even better.

Our site at the Pima County Fairgrounds only had 30 amp, but this time of the year that’s not a problem. However I would definitely want 50 amp in warmer weather.

The view to the south this morning was really nice, with the low clouds hanging on the mountainside. We’re supposed to run into rain on our trip today. Hopefully not too bad, though.

We pulled out of the fairgrounds a little before 8:30 heading for Gila Bend, AZ, about 138 miles away. We wanted to get to Holt’s Shell RV Park as early as possible since they only have 24 sites and can fill up quickly, especially since they’re a Passport America park, and the best deal in town. Last year we just lucked out and got the last site.

Traffic through Tucson wasn’t bad at all, probably helped by the fact that it was a Sunday morning. I remember a few years ago when they were redoing the Interstate through downtown, and you had to get off and on I-10 several times getting through town. It was really a mess, but today we breezed through at 55 all the way.

About 9 we were passing the Cortaro area and the Cracker Barrel where we spent the night in March 2007 while we were on our first RV trip in a rental Cruise America Class C.

We had attended the Life On Wheels seminar in Tucson, and before we headed back toward Houston, we wanted to see the Body Worlds exhibit in Phoenix, since we had missed it when it was in Houston.

We really enjoyed the show and were on our way back out of Phoenix by 5pm.

Unfortunately it was all downhill from there! We had planned to drive from Phoenix thru Tucson and back to Las Cruces on our way home. I figured it would take us about 7 hours and we would be back in Las Cruces about midnight, and in fact, already had a paid reservation at a KOA there right off I-10.

But it was not to be.

Unfortunately, due to construction, Phoenix had decided to take the 6 lanes of I-10 and 4 lanes of I-17 down to TWO lanes…DURING RUSH HOUR!!!

It took us two hours to cover the distance that took us less than 10 minutes coming in.

Finally, about 7pm, we were out of the traffic and moving down I-10 toward Tucson.

Life was good.  Yeah, right.

We suddenly started seeing traffic warnings on the overhead electronic signs.

“Freeway Closed 85 miles ahead. Expect Long Delays.”

“Freeway Closed 65 miles ahead. Expect Even Longer Delays.”

“Freeway Closed 45 miles ahead. Expect Enormous Delays.”

Well, maybe if we had really seen the last two we would have paid more attention.

After checking the computer we saw that a Flying J truck stop where we had planned to stop and refuel, was about 10 miles before this, so we decided to press on.

Asking at the Flying J, Jan was told that a car had collided with a gas tanker and they had both blown up. We were also told that they were rerouting traffic around the accident and there was only about a 30 minute delay.

And we fell for it!

Almost 5 hours later we rolled back into the outskirts of Tucson. It was now after midnight.

We had gotten up at 6am and I was dead tired. Jan had been asleep on the couch since about 9pm. It had taken us over 7 hours to cover what had taken us less than 2 going up.

At the next exit, I saw a sign for a Cracker Barrel and pulled off. Cracker Barrel is one of many companies that encourages/allows RV’ers to park in their lots. They even have large spaces striped out for them.

When I went back and crawled into bed (I left Jan asleep on the sofa) I was the only RV in the lot. When I woke up about 3:30am and decided to get back on the road, I looked out and saw there were now 7 other coaches lined up beside me. Guess I wasn’t the only one looking for a place to sleep.

Anyway, back to the present, a little while later we passed Picacho Peak and the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch, an attraction we first visited in 2008 on our way to Alaska.

They have more than just ostriches. They also have deer, miniature Sicilian donkeys, Boer goats, and Rainbow Lorikeets.

Rainbow Lorikeets are, despite the name, actually parrots, found mostly in Australia and New Zealand. And they are very friendly.

At one point Jan was covered in Lorikeets, feeding them the little cups of nectar.

Me, however, not so much. I don’t what it was, but I only got one.

These Lorikeets certainly live up to their ‘rainbow’ name.

About 20 miles later we got off I-10 and onto I-8W on the last 65 mile leg heading toward Gila Bend.

About 20 miles out we ran into heavy rain, leading me to dread having to park and set up in a downpour. However, by the time we got to the RV Park, the rain had cleared and the sun was out.

We pulled into the park a little after 11am and found plenty of sites to choose from. After getting parked and set up, Jan fixed sandwiches and chips for lunch, and then we just relaxed for a while.

So relaxed in fact, that a nap was in order. And a very nice one it was, too.

We’ve stayed here 3 or 4 times and it’s always been a nice little park, and cheap too, since it’s Passport America at $12 a night.

And the views are pretty good, too.

Along with this great sunset we saw here in 2008.

A little after 4pm Jan and I drove into beautiful downtown Gila Bend to eat supper at Sofia’s Mexican Food. We discovered this place in 2008 and always eat here when we have the chance. It’s one of those little hole-in-the-wall places that often turn out to be great.

And Sofia’s is one of those.

Jan says this is the best Shrimp Burrito in the world. And she’s had them all over the country. The thing is just stuffed with large shrimp, along with a little rice and some chopped tomatoes.

I had the Carnitas Dinner with well-seasoned shredded pork and all the fixin’s. And their chips and salsa are really good too, with a very spicy red sauce. Very, very good.

After supper we drove around a bit and then checked out the location of the Elk’s Lodge that I’m going to join next month.

We got home a little before 6, just in time for Jan’s primetime viewing pleasure, the premier of Amazing Race, and a new Desperate Housewives. A twofer for her!

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I’ll start removing the two front chairs to finish removing the last of the carpet so I can get started putting down the Allure laminate.

---

February 20, 2012

Fed Deer and Sleepy Cats . . .

After coffee and muffins this morning, Jan finally got to use some of her deer corn.

With all the rain we had while we’ve been here, it’s the first chance she’s had.

As usual we had a great time visiting Gina and look forward to seeing her again soon, hopefully in June when we’re back here for our granddaughter Piper’s high school graduation.

We headed out about 9 am, earlier than we normally like, but we’ve got a 375 mile trip today so we wanted to get an early start. It’s certainly a lot easier to get ready to travel after you’ve been parked 4 days, than when you’ve been parked 3 months like last week.

About 3 hours later, passing through Junction, TX, we stopped off to eat at Isaak’s Café, about a mile south of I-10.

On Texas Monthly’s list of Best Texas Café’s, we first ate here last year and really liked it. The only problem was that the out-of-business store whose lot we parked in last year, is now a Dollar General. So we park on a side street in a church parking lot. No tickets when we got back, so all was good.

Getting back on the Interstate, Jan wanted to drive, so she took the wheel while Mister and I napped.

He looks entirely too comfortable up there.

We both fought headwinds the entire way which meant the gas mileage sucked. But we finally got into Saddleback Mountain RV Park at the Balmorhea exit about 5:30 and got set up.

This is a really nice little park. $10 a night with Passport America for 50 amp full-hookups. They’re all long pull-thru’s so you don’t even have to unhitch, not that there’s anywhere to go out here in the middle of nowhere.

You just stop at the office, pay your $10, and pick a spot. The sites aren’t even numbered. They had 22 rigs by dark, the most I’ve ever seen, and I heard more coming in later.

For dinner Jan heated our leftovers from Salt Lick last night, and they were just as good as tonight.

Tomorrow we only have about 240 miles to Las Cruces, and we’ll gain an hour going into Mountain Time so we don’t have to leave quite as early as today.

---

February 20, 2013

Oh Dark Thirty . . .

Well, it looked like Oh Dark Thirty, but it was actually about 8:30. But the day was so dark and dreary when I got up this morning that it looked like it was about 6. And it stayed that way all day.

But at least getting to spend some time with our friend Gina made up for it. We got over to her house about 9:30 so Jan could spend the day with her while I ran some errands for her and Jan.

My first stop was at the feed store over in Sattler to get some deer corn so Jan can fatten up the many deer here at the RV park. At least I thought I was going to get corn. But someone suggested that instead of corn, I should get Creep Feed since it had a lot more protein and was better for them. And even better, it was $2 cheaper for a 50# bag.

Creep Feed is used to feed nursing calves to help transition them to solid food, and is made up of food pellets about a half inch in diameter and an inch long.

My next stop was at the PetSmart over in New Braunfels. I was looking for an aquarium air pump valve for Gina’s Oxygen Concentrator. She wanted to be able to run one line into her bedroom and another one into the living room, rather than dragging portable tanks back and forth.

When she asked the oxygen company about doing that, they said they didn’t know any way to do it. But in looking it over, the tubing was the same size as used on aquariums so I thought I might try a valve like this.

It’s all stainless steel with no rubber or gaskets to contaminate the oxygen flow.

Next up was a stop at Home Depot for a few things for the rig, and then after a quick stop at Buc-ee’s for a coffee/cappuccino, I headed back to Gina’s

I spent a while getting the air system set up and it looks like it’s going to work fine. I will have to increase the concentrator’s output a little to offset the longer length of the living room line, but that should be no problem.

About 6pm we all headed over to the Cypress Creek Café in Wimberley, one of our favorite local eating establishments.

The food is always delicious, and it didn’t disappoint this time either. And we had such a great time talking that we didn’t get home until almost 8:30. But it was certainly worth it.

---

February 20, 2014

Winding Down . . .

Jan and I headed out a little after 10:30 for another ‘last meal’, this one at Twin Peaks, our new favorite restaurant. Our regular waitress,

Lauren, took her usual great care of us, and we got a chance to talk and learn more about her.

One thing I was disappointed to learn about was the upcoming menu changes at Twin Peaks, because my favorite Average Joes are going away. They are mini Jalapeno Sausage Dogs with spicy mustard and jalapeno/onion relish. Really good.

An order of Average Joes and a cup of their Venison Chili are my go-to meal whenever we go there. Guess I’ll have to find something else when we go back. Of course I  may find something I like just as well on the new menu.

Leaving Twin Peaks we stopped off at a local carpet store to check out carpet samples for an upcoming bedroom carpet replacement project, but they didn’t have what we were looking for. We’ll try again somewhere else.

Next, after dropping a letter in the mail, Jan and I headed over to Friendswood to visit a friend and take a look at the intermittent audio problem with her entertainment center.

Leaving Connie’s, our next stops were Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club for a few things, and then after quick stops at a client’s and a hardware store, we headed back toward home. Getting back to the Dickinson area, we realized that it was after 5, and we were getting hungry, especially since we had eaten lunch at 11, so we headed over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some of their great Tortilla Soup, and Chips and Salsa.

Back to the park, I stopped off at the park office to pick up my external HD enclosure that had come in from Amazon. At the rig, after putting stuff away, I pulled the HD from the client’s computer that I mentioned yesterday and installed it in the new case.

Finishing it up, I plugged it into my computer and confirmed that it was readable as an external drive, so it goes back to the client tomorrow, as well as a rescued laptop for one client,  and a new video cable for yet another.

Tomorrow, besides delivering stuff to clients, I’ve got a lot of small chores around the rig that I need to finish up before we leave here on Monday. Then we’ve got a dinner date with some more friends tomorrow night.

Another busy day.

---

February 20, 2015

Rut Roh . . .

Jan and I left the rig about 10am, but were hindered by the high winds. So high in fact, that it was a real struggle that get the rig door open, and keep it open, while we were trying to get out. The winds today, as the next front comes through, are really something fierce.

We were heading up to the Clear Lake area for Jan’s oncologist’s appointment. This was just a routine one, for a checkup and prescription refill. Waiting for Jan, I did enjoy the fact that the clinic had superfast Wi-Fi, about 60 Mbps. Makes the waiting a little easier.

Leaving the clinic a little before noon, we drove over to the Jason’s Deli in Webster for lunch. Jan usually goes for their Broccoli and Cheese Soup, and I always have the Southwest Chicken Chili, and then we’ll try one of their many sandwiches. Always good.

Coming home I made a stop at Lowe’s for a few things and then we fought the winds back to the rig. When we got here, the winds were gusting to over 50 mph. In fact we found our satellite had blown over and rolled down the driveway.

The last time our satellite was knocked over was on our gate last year, and cows were involved.

I tried to work outside, but the wind was so high it was difficult to stand up, much less get anything done. So I took a nap.

Getting up and finding the wind had slackened off somewhat, I went outside to check out the installation of the new headlights on our truck. My shop manual said four screws should do it.

One Torx head bolt removes the amber lens set at the bottom and then three bolts hold the headlight unit itself. But sometimes the manual lies, so I wanted to check it out. But as I got the bottom lens off, it started to rain, so I stopped there. I was able to confirm that the top unit is held on by the three bolts. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

The new unit is only one piece, and held on by just the three bolts, so it should be an easy change-out.

On another note, I ordered something from Amazon this evening and found that Amazon Prime just got better. They now offer Free Two Day Shipping with SUNDAY delivery. At least here in the Houston area. Prime just keeps getting better.

Finally, under the ‘Rut Roh’ heading, the weather forecast says that it’s supposed to be windy, cold, and rainy from now until we leave here March 1st.

Just great.

---

February 20, 2016

Parts is Parts . . .

We did our walk this morning, at least the first part of it anyway, for a distance of 1.13 miles, just making a complete loop of the park. We’ll try to walk again tomorrow since it’s showing 80% chance of rain on Monday, 100% for Tuesday, and then Wednesday morning we’re back down in the Clear Lake area for our yearly checkups. So after tomorrow, Thursday might be our next shot at a walk.

After our walk, we sat outside for a while with our coffee and some of the great pumpkin muffins that Sherry gave us at lunch yesterday. Really, really good, and Jan wants the recipe. Even though it was in the 70’s, it was pretty overcast so it was still comfortable.

Later in the afternoon, I was back on pump repair. I wanted to try to completely disassemble it and see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. But before that, I hooked the pump motor up to 120vac to see if it would even run.

And it did, but very slowly, with a lot of straining. So it was obvious that there was a lot of drag on the shaft from somewhere. My first thought was bearings, but you never know..

So I started out with this.

As I figured the fan was just pressed on the shaft so I used a small gear puller to get it off. Then removing the two screws let me start to remove the motor shaft.

So I kept at it, pulling pieces off,

until I finally ended up here, with a big pile of parts. As they say, parts is parts. Hopefully I can get it all back together.

There are no roller or ball bearings, just brass sleeves, and they all looked clean and smooth, as did the shaft, so that wasn’t the problem.

But when I inserted the rotor – shown below

back into the stator – shown here

and tried to turn it, there was a lot more drag than normal. In fact there should be no drag at all. They shouldn’t be rubbing or touching in any way.

It looks like there is just gunk built up on both the outside of the rotor and the inside of the stator, and that’s causing the drag. At least that’s the theory I’m going with right now.

Tomorrow I’ll dig out some 2000 or 3000 grit sandpaper and lightly sand the two pieces to see if that makes a difference. If you ever try something like this, be sure you only use regular sandpaper, and not steel wool or metal oxide paper. Tiny bits of metal can get in the windings and short out the motor.

Finishing up for the day, I stuck the two metal pieces into a small bowl of CLR to clean them up and remove some of the rust. The plastic pieces I dunked in a bucket of Dawn and Awesome mixture to let them soak overnight.

I do have a backup plan for all this, though. Besides the option of buying one of the pumps on eBay for $100 to $185, which I’m loathe to do . . .  because I’m cheap, this afternoon I had another idea.

All I really need is a washer pump that runs on 120vac (which I’m sure all of them do) and has an input/output hookup kind of like this.

It only has to be close because I’ve got plenty of room underneath there and I can reroute the hoses if I need to. And the size isn’t a problem either for the same reason. So if I don’t have a handle on all this by Monday, I’ll take the pump down to an appliance parts place and see if they have something close.

About 4:30 Jan and I headed over to Willis for a Whataburger dinner, great as always. Then coming home we made a quick stop at the nearby Kroger’s for a few things.

All in all, a nice day. But then isn’t that what RV’ing is all about?

---

February 20, 2017

A Celebratory Dinner . . .

The forecasted rain announced itself in the middle of the night with a downpour that rattled the coach, and it was still coming down in sheets when we got up around 8am.

But by the time we left at 9am for the Clear Lake area and Jan’s medical appointments, it had slacked off enough that the flood warnings for the Houston area had been canceled. So, although it was raining steadily the entire way, we made good time, and got down to Webster in time for Jan to get a Chick-fil-A sandwich for lunch before her lab work appointment.

With that done, we made a stop at both Lowe’s and Home Depot picking up some items that we needed, as well as some other shopping along the way.

Finally I dropped Jan off at the Breast Diagnostic Center at 12:45pm for her yearly mammogram. Since she had breast cancer 3 years ago, her checkup is a little more involved,  with both a 3-D mammogram and a Diagnostic Ultrasound.

Normally the whole thing takes a couple of hours, but this time there was a problem with the order from Jan’s doctor, and the Center was running behind. And of course with Jan on pins and needles waiting for the results, it was really nerve-wracking for her.

For both of us, actually, since I  was waiting out in the truck.

Finally about 4pm she came out with the good news that everything was fine, with no problems found.

YAY!

With that over for this year, we got onto 45N and headed for home. But as we came down off the Tollway onto I-10W, we decided a celebration dinner was in order, so we made a quick exit for the Longhorn Steakhouse in Katy.

Longhorn, along with Saltgrass, are our two favorite steak places. Both are much quieter than Texas Roadhouse, and the meat quality is better than both Roadhouse and Outback.

And tonight was no exception.

Of course, since this was a celebration, we started off with a drink, a White Peach Sangria, with Absolut Vodka, Peach Schnapps, wine, and fruit juices.

A really delicious drink, that as usual, we split.

Jan went with her regular Flo’s Filet, cooked perfectly between medium and medium rare, while I went with the 18oz Outlaw Ribeye.

My side was Crispy Texas Okra, whole okra split lengthwise, and then battered and fried. Really good, and a nice change from traditional Fried Okra.

As an additional side, we split an order of their new Whole Roasted Carrots, drizzled with a Cinnamon Whiskey Caramel Sauce.

All we can say is – WOW!

After that great meal, with leftovers left over, we got home a little before 7pm, hopefully seeing the last of the rain for a while.

Next Monday, we both have our yearly doctor checkups in the morning, and then Jan has her consult with her oncologist, and that should be it for the year.

Hopefully.

---

February 20, 2018

Buyer Beware . . .

I put in a call to Thousand Trail’s Trail Collection people to get some info on it.

Our Thousand Trails membership comes up for renewal the 1st of April so I wanted to double-check that I could just buy it at any time after April 1st. Just be aware that the program ENDS every year with the renewal of your TT membership. So if I bought it on March 31st, it would end the next day.

Also be aware that the TC membership will automatically renew at the end of the time period, whether you want it to or not. So be sure to cancel it manually if you don’t want to renew.

Sounds like a good use of one of those one-time credit card numbers If your bank offers them.

A little before 3pm Jan and I headed up to Clear Lake to have an early dinner at Rudy’s BBQ, one of our 3 favorite BBQ places nationwide. The other two are Sonny’s BBQ, mostly in the Southeast, and Famous Dave’s BBQ, located pretty much everywhere except the South.

I got half a pound of their Moist Brisket,

while Jan got their Stuffed Baker, a jumbo baked potato, topped off with chopped brisket.

And of course, you can’t go to Rudy’s without getting some of their Creamed Corn.

Jan doesn’t really like corn, but she loves Rudy’s version.

After our delicious BBQ meal it was on up I-45, first to the Sam’s Club for a prescription, and then next door to the WalMart  for a few things.

That’s when it got kind of scary. As I did last week, I used the Self-Checkout area, and as I did last week I got some Granny Smith apples. But this time I noticed that the software running on the checkout kiosks was different than the last time.

But I didn’t realize how different until I put the bag of apples on the scale and started to enter the code from the little label on each apple (4017). But before I could, the computer popped up with “1.52 lbs. at $1.47/lb of Granny Smith Apples    $2.23”

OK, how did it know that I had Granny Smith apples?

So now my mind is racing, looking for an answer.

Is there a camera inside using fruit recognition software? And if so, how does it know the difference between my Granny Smith apples and Golden Delicious apples? Especially through the plastic (albeit clear) bag.

Is it reading the little labels on each piece of fruit?

Or are there RFID chips inside each label that the scanner is reading? In answer, no, there are not. I peeled off a label here at home and held it up to the light. No RFID chip.

So next time I’m peeling off all the little labels before scanning them.

Stay tuned.

And in another example of scary computer stuff, I’ve been looking at getting one of these Wyze cameras to set up here in the rig.

It livestreams right to the Internet with a 1080p picture, night vision, and motion-sensing. And even better it’s only about $25. But I held off, hearing that a new version was coming out. And that looks like the end of this month.

But double-checking the Amazon reviews flashed a big STOP sign to me. Apparently users have detected the cameras streaming data to IP addresses other than the company servers, i.e. IP addresses in China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and others.

The data is going out on UDP port 10001 which is a high-speed port with no error-checking, often used for live-streaming.

So where else is the video going beside your smartphone?

But it gets even scarier.

One Amazon user blocked the camera’s MAC address in his router so it could not transmit anything to the Internet. Instead he installed an SD memory card in the camera and just recorded the video.

The MAC address is a unique address that is normally hard-coded into Internet devices. Your router has one, your computer has one, and the Wyze camera has one that’s printed on the back of the unit.

But in this case, the camera, seemingly sensing it could no longer access the Internet, changed its supposedly HARD-CODED MAC address to another one, one that now lets it access the net again, sending your video out to other countries. You know, like China, Russia, . . .

Scary.  Buyer Beware.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.

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February 20, 2019

Red It Is . . .

Well, the consensus is that Jan should go Red again. Now all I have to do is to convince her. I know our daughter Brandi is on my side, so hopefully we can wear her down.

When we were at Cheddars yesterday I noticed a new menu item, their Texas-Sized Nachos. Now I know everything is bigger in Texas, but this is ridiculous.

21,600 CALORIES? Really?

Well I guess if you split it with 9 friends, it wouldn’t be too bad.

I got my new camera set up this evening after charging the battery overnight.

But I haven’t even taken a photo with it yet. I did format the 128GB SD card, and with the 4K quality (3840 x 2160) resolution I selected, I will be able to store over 23,000 photos at about 8MB each.

I could have set it for 4896×2752, but at 13.5MB each, the photos can be a pain to work with. But at that resolution, I would be able to print out a full-size 16” x 20” photo, if needed.

When I unpacked my camera yesterday, I thought that something was missing. The other three Panasonic Lumix had all included a charger module like this.

But not this time. All I got was an AC USB charger and cable, which means that the battery can only be charged when it’s in the camera. This means you can’t use the camera when you’re charging the battery, even if you have two batteries to swap out.

So I was happy to see that the spare battery and car charger kit I received today comes with a module that can be powered by both AC or the 12V car charger.

I was impressed to see that the camera can also be controlled via a smartphone app thru the built-in WiFi. Among other things, you can both take photos and view them on your phone with the app. Very neat!

Looking forward to having a chance to play with it more.

Several of you asked about the new Zoom Scope I ordered and wondered how it worked.

Well, I don’t know yet, since it didn’t ship until this morning, but I’ll let you know.

I took the plunge today and finally ordered a jar of pure 100% Carolina Reaper powder.

As I’ve mentioned before, At over 2.2 million Scoville units, Carolina Reapers are the acknowledged hottest pepper in the world.

There are two other peppers, Pepper X and Dragon’s Breath, that are vying for the new crown, but they haven’t been certified yet. But Pepper X is rumored to be over twice as hot as the Reaper.

So if you hear about me bursting into flames, you’ll know why.

Tomorrow afternoon Jan and I are meeting long-time friend Tricia for breakfast/lunch at our new fav, Snooze. Really looking forward to it.

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February 20, 2020

And Now Another One . . .

I Won’t Do That Again.

My Aunt Virginia gave Jan a couple of local Athens Church cookbooks, containing many of our family and friend’s recipes, including many favorites I remember from my childhood, and even later, specifically my Aunt T’s Dill Bread. Even Jan remembers this bread, since Aunt T was still alive and baking it when we were first married.

Jan suggested that I look through the cookbooks to see if I recognized any other names. And that was my mistake.

I quickly came across one that rang a bell. She was a classmate of mine, in fact she was both my Chemistry and Biology lab partner when I went to the 10th grade in Athens. She was really cute, a cheerleader, and sweet to boot. Even better, her father owned the Ford dealership in town, and she got the very first Mustang in town for her 16th birthday. She and I got along great and I almost broke my rule to not date that year.

Since I had been with my previous girlfriend, Sam (Samantha), the future Duchess, for over a year and a half while we were in South America, and I missed her, I wasn’t in a big hurry to get back to dating again.

Since I skipped the 1st grade and started directly into the 2nd, (another story) I was always the youngest kid in my class, even though few people knew it.

I also didn’t really go to the 9th grade, since we were living in South America at the time. My mother, who had been a teacher, signed off that she had home-school me, but what really happened was that she just gave me all the textbooks and told me to read them. Which I did in about a month. And had no problem in the 10th grade in Athens.

So anyway, while most kids already had their driver’s licenses going into the 10th grade, I didn’t even get my learner’s permit until October of that year.

So my asking a girl out would have gone like this.

“Mary, would you like to go to the Junior Prom with me? Oh, and by the way, can you drive?”

Nope, not going to happen!

Or even a worse scenario, having my parents drive us.

Nope, not that either. Haven’t done that since I was about 12.

So I never asked her out, but I did think about it. Partly because it seemed like a lot of guys were intimidated by her and she didn’t seem to date much. And in hindsight, I wish I had asked her out.

Because when I made the mistake of looking her up this morning, I found she died at the age of 58 in 2006, of Early Onset Alzheimer’s

I won’t do that again.

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February 20, 2021

Thankful . . .

As I said yesterday, today was just a hang-around-the-rig day, sorting through stuff, some to throw away and some to go over to the storage room. And of course, more of Jan’s delicious chili for dinner.

Later in the afternoon I went outside and got us hooked back up to shore water. Then I took a few minutes to fill our onboard water tank up again, and stowed away my heat lamp, all ready for the next freeze.

Looking over my PayPal Debit Card charges in my email, I noticed that though the charge had come through for the first two days, which was for 2 days at $64 + tax per day, nothing had come through for the last two days.

But when I went online to look at my PayPal account directly, I saw several ‘pending’ charges from the hotel that were much higher than I thought they should be,

So I asked my bookkeeper (Jan) if I could see the hotel bill that I got when we checked out. Since I had my hands full with luggage I just handed it off to my bookkeeper (Jan) without looking at it yesterday. They had taken my credit card and I had signed the bill when I checked in, so I didn’t get a chance to look it over.

But when I looked at it today, I saw a problem, a big problem. While the first two days were $64 each, the 3rd day was $139, and the 4th day was billed at $124.

WTH!

So I put into a call to the hotel, and was told what I thought might be the problem, based on things I’d been reading online in the last couple of days.

The rates that the hotel charges are set centrally and are based on an algorithm that sets the rates based on hotel occupancy. So when the hotel filled up, the rates went up. But she said they’re not supposed to go up in the middle of a stay. So she’s looking into it for me to get it corrected.

Jan and I are very thankful that we came through the Big Freeze with few problems, and our hearts and prayers go out to all the people who didn’t fair as well as we did.

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February 20, 2022

More Muffins . . .

As I said in last night’s blog, lunch today was at Gator’s Bar & Grill over in Dickinson once again. We usually try to eat here on the weekends since they have a bunch of Brunch Specials on the menu, though it seems we usually get our usual favorites. But we have on occasion gotten some of the specials and they’ve always been good.

Jan got one of her favorites, the Strawberry Walnut Salad with Grilled Chicken.

That’s a big dollop of Bleu Cheese in the middle.

it seems I’ve gotten stuck on Gator’s Baked Potato Soup with all the fixings.

Then for dessert, Jan tried Margie’s new Keto Biscuit, heated with butter. Jan said it was good, but more like a muffin than a biscuit.

Even though it had to be defrosted, my Keto Blueberry Muffin was as delicious as usual.

Heated with cold butter.

Leaving Gator’s, the next stop was at our store room so I could get a photo to show the movers.

I had to get a wide-angle shot to get it all in.

We started out here with a 5 x 5 climate-controlled unit, and then got a second one after we sold the house. Then we switched over to a 10 x 20 C-C one, which was cheaper than 2- 5 x 5’s. It’s obvious we didn’t need one this big, but at the time it was all they had in a larger one.

But I’m looking at a smaller one at the new location.

Our last stop was at the HEB for our meals next week.

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February 20, 2023

They Said It Wouldn’t Hurt As Much . . .

They Lied.

I was at my dermatologist’s office by 11, and was getting my head basted by 11:30. Then I got to wait and marinate for two hours while I read on my tablet. Next, I was taken into another room and put under the broiler.

Unlike last time with the blue light PDT, this new one has a red light. And Dr. Joe said that it was not supposed to be as painful as the blue one. I can only assume he’s never tried it, because, though my memory may have faded in the 5 years since my last one, he was very, very wrong.

It hurt a lot more.

The only redeeming factor was that it only lasted for 10 minutes, and not the 16:40 like the blue light.

And the really good news is that I get to go back in a month and do it all over again. Since just like last time, it’s a two-step process.

My head was still burning when I got home about 3pm so I rubbed some Allocaine on it and that quieted down the heat.

I wasn’t able to get any photos of the procedure because, rather than the dark glasses I was given last time, this time I had goggles that completely blocked my vision. So next month I’ll have the nurse take a photo.

Tomorrow is going to be Los Rameriz Mexican for lunch and then WalMart for more stuff.