Our RV Adventures

I had my first sighting today.

A Tesla Cybertruck, which starts at about $80,000.

To me it looks like something from a 70’s science fiction movie showing what we’d be driving in the 1990’s.

Lunch today was at Gator’s Bar & Grill with Jan getting her usual Strawberry Walnut Salad with Grilled Chicken,

while I got their Blackened Chicken Breast with Roasted Broccoli and a Side Salad.

Really good, and then it was on up the feeder for our weekly Wal-Mart stuff, and then home.

A nice start to the weekend.

I mentioned the other day about the Survival Kit that I ordered from Amazon.

It came in a nice heavy-duty plastic box. One that’s too small to really hold everything once things are unpacked. Plus I’ve got a few other tools I want to add, so I ordered this .30 caliber Ammo Box.

Plano Ammo Box

Everything fits and more.

I have a bad feeling about this.

When I logged into our company PayPal account yesterday to see if someone had paid their invoice, I found this waiting for me on the login page.

This means we’ll have weeks/months of problems with the new site before all the teething problems are stamped out.

Oh, Boy!

On the subject of PayPal, they have another service that we’ve just started using at work. Or at least our customers have.

We don’t take credit cards for large orders, because it’s to easy for the customer to reverse the charge, leaving us hanging. So we required payment via Check (and wait two weeks for it to clear) or Bank Wire Transfer. Since most people don’t want to wait for two weeks for their order, they usually do a Wire Transfer, which usually requires a trip to the bank.

But PayPal now has a service called Xoom, which allows you to make a wire transfer right from your phone. Quick and Easy.

I mentioned in a recent blog about the problems we sometimes have getting nighttime Amazon deliveries. They either deliver to the wrong site, or don’t stop and just drive on by.

So I decided to try this solar light to highlight our site number.

And it seems to have worked, since we got our delivery at about 7:45 this evening.

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Thought For The Day:

There’s an old meme that says:

Be polite to everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them if necessary.

But that’s not a plan.

A plan is to also:

1. Eliminate Any Witnesses.
2. Know Where To Hide The Bodies
3. Have A Rock Solid Alibi

Now you’ve got a PLAN!

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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February 17, 2010

Jager Schnitzel, Weiner Schnitzel, and Red Cabbage…

Today we took a road trip about 50 miles west to Fredericksburg to have some great German food at Der Lindenbaum, probably our favorite German restaurant, and do a little shopping. But before heading out we stopped off at the rig to feed the cats and be sure everything was OK.

The Texas Hill Country is still beautiful, even in winter, and the drive was fun…and interesting.

It’s not that unusual to see buffalo and burros in Texas, but

camels??

For what it’s worth, these one-humped camels are Dromedary camels, and are native to Africa and the Middle East.  The two-humped camels, or Bactrian camels come from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

And what they’re doing outside of Fredericksburg Texas I have no idea.

As always, the food at Der Lindenbaum was delicious.  I had the Weiner Schnitzel, and Jan and Gina had the Jager Schnitzel. And we all have the great German potato salad and red cabbage. Jan and I like the red cabbage so much so that we always get an extra order and split it.

Wiener Schnitzel is a thin pork cutlet that has been lightly battered and fried, and Jager Schnitzel is Weiner Schnitzel covered in a fresh mushroom sauce.  Hmm Hmm Good!

Coming home we stopped at the Wildseed Farm, so Jan could, strangely enough, shop for jewelry. Don’t ask!

Getting home, we went out for burgers at Ninfa’s Tacos and Burgers in Canyon Lake. Really, really good, large handmade patties.

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February 17, 2011

Boobs and Bubbles . . .

This morning started with one of Gina’s great cranberry muffins, toasted and slathered with butter. Just fantastic!

I had gone out last night and taken down the sat dish, so we didn’t have a lot to do this morning, just unhook power, water, and grey water drain.

As soon as I went outside this morning, the deer came running, apparently thinking I was Jan. But she did get a large group when she came out a little later.

We left Lake Pointe RV Park in Canyon Lake about 8:15 after stopping at the office to check out and pay our electric bill of $12.60. All sites are plus electric, but $12.60 is not bad for 5 days.

We had a great time visiting our friend Gina and look forward to seeing her again next year.

Rather than take the most direct route to I-10W, we took the scenic route up through Fredericksburg and out US 290 to intersect I-10 about 25 miles east of Junction, TX.

The first thing we noticed was Texas’ enlightened view of speed limits out here in west Texas. Of course, since I normally set the speed control in the rig on 55, it doesn’t help me much. But it is nice to dream.

We got to Junction, where we planned to eat lunch, a little before 11am, and parked right down the street from Isaak Restaurant

We had picked Isaak’s because it was listed in Texas Monthly as one of the best small-town café’s in Texas, and we thought we’d give it a try. And Texas Monthly was right. It was really good.

When we plan on stopping at a place in a town I use Google Maps and Google Street View to find out what rig-sized parking area are available, and so far it’s always worked out.

Leaving the restaurant and walking back to the rig we saw this Deer Horn Tree. I guess it makes sense that the building right behind it is a deer processing business.

Then right outside Bakersfield (TX, not CA) we saw this. Jan immediately said “Look, it’s Boob Mountain. (God, I love this woman!)

And she was almost right. It’s called Squawteat Peak. Probably not exactly PC, but certainly not the only ones around.

In August 2009 we were in the Bar Harbor, ME area on our way to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and saw this.

Officially they’re called ‘The Bubbles’. But guess what the locals call them?

And don’t even get me started on ‘The Grand Tetons’.  Just because it’s French doesn’t mean it’s not naughty. Or maybe that’s why.

About an hour or so out of Balmorhea, I started the diesel generator so we could run the roof air conditioners, since it was getting pretty warm in the coach. It was 85 there today, warmer than we’ve been used to for a while.

We arrived at the Saddleback Mountain RV Park a little before 5pm, checked in, and got set up.

It’s a nice little park, in a desolate sort of way, but a great deal at $10 for full hookups with Passport America.

Tomorrow we have a much shorter drive of about 240 miles to Las Cruces, NM, a lot better than the 370 miles today.

More tomorrow from Las Cruces.

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February 17, 2014

7 Days to Go . . .

I spent this morning trying to finish up some more projects around the rig, getting us ready to leave a week from today. Unfortunately it seems the more tasks I complete, the more I have left to do.

About noon I headed up to Clear Lake to finish up at a client’s house, working on both his computer, and his entertainment system. It’s always something.

I had installed and configured this system several years ago,  with a 60” TV, Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound system, and a computer that controls everything. The problem turned out to be that someone had been playing with some of the sound settings and that knocked out the sound coming from Netflix through the computer.

Heading home about 3:30, I made a quick stop at another client for a few minutes to see if a problem I’d worked on a few days ago was still fixed.

About 5 PM Jan and I headed up to La Porte to meet Chris, Linda, and Piper for dinner at Monument Inn, located right on the Houston Ship Channel. And right next door to the San Jacinto Monument and the Battleship Texas.

Twelve feet taller than the Washington Monument, the San Jacinto Monument commemorates Sam Houston’s Army of Texas’ defeat of General Santa Ana on April 21, 1836.

This led to the establishment of the Republic of Texas, later to be admitted to the Union in 1845 as the state of Texas.

The Battleship Texas, launched in 1912, fought in both World Wars, and in WW2 participated in both the D-Day Landings in France, and the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific. Further, it was the first US battleship to mount anti-aircraft guns, and the first US battleship to launch an airplane from a catapult.

A real piece of history.

We have eaten here with the family a number of times over the years, but our most recent visit was about two years ago with Rudy and Caroline Legett of Aqua-Hot fame.

One of Monument Inn’s special offerings is their All You Can Eat seafood platter, with boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, fried oysters, fried catfish, and French fries. More than I can eat, but Chris gave it a valiant try.

And I even got our beautiful granddaughter Piper to let me take her photo.

Tomorrow, more chores and more client stuff.

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February 17, 2015

Two Down . . .

Two To Go

Jan and I were out the door at 9:30 this morning for another of Jan’s doctor appointments. But unlike yesterday’s, today’s appointment didn’t have a lot of worry attached to it. Just an eye checkup and a prescription for new glasses.

This just leaves Jan’s oncologist appointment on Thursday, (just routine since her mammogram came back clean) and our annual physicals next Monday.

Finished with the doctor a little before noon, Jan wanted a Taco Salad for lunch so we headed over to the nearby Chuy’s. Jan had her requested Taco Salad and I had a big bowl of their Chicken Tortilla Soup. One thing we like about Chuy’s is that you have about 8 different choices of salsa to go with your chips, including Hatch Green Chile, and our favorite, Creamy Jalapeno. Really tasty.

So tasty in fact, that Jan got it as the salsa on her Taco Salad.

Then it was off to Sam’s Club to order her new glasses. Luckily she was able to use her old frames so that saved us a few bucks. Her new ones should be in in about a week.

Our next stop was our son Chris’ to drop off some extra batteries that I ordered for our quadcopters.

UDI U818A 2.4GHz 4 CH 6 Axis Gyro RC Quadcopter with Camera RTF Mode 2

With four batteries, you can cycle through them while the others are recharging, giving you more flight time.

After a stop at the Baybrook Starbuck’s for Cinnamon Dolce Lattes, we finally headed home. Getting back to the park, I stopped off at the office to pick up the rig Denso windshield wipers that had come in.  Denso Wiper Blade, 26″ (Pack of 1)

I started using these Denso wipers a couple of years ago and I really like them. They hold up well and don’t streak or clatter.

I also talked to one of the park owners about the Wi-Fi problems they’re having. Normally their system is great. 5 bars everywhere because they’ve got repeaters all over the park, and 30 Mbps throughput.

But since we gotten here, the service has been spotty. I don’t lose connection, but the Internet just goes away. Turns out they are having problems with their Internet feed from Comcast, and that ‘they’re working on it.’ Where have I heard that before?

He said they’re looking for another provider if Comcast doesn’t get their act together.

But on another front, Comcast is doing great. While we were having our Lattes at Starbuck’s, I checked their Comcast Wi-Fi with Speedtest.net and was really surprised

Almost 55 Mbps is great for a free signal.

On another note, Cathy Emrick, one of our blog readers, let us know that the new RV park we drove through the other day is owned by Marina Bay, the same ones that own the Marina Bay RV Resort up in Kemah, and the new Marina Bay Lake Cove RV Park that we drove through about a month ago. I talked about Lake Cove here

https://ourrvadventures.com/2015/01/the-end-of-an-era-2/

and here.

https://ourrvadventures.com/2015/01/apparently-facebook-doesnt-like-the-word/

So this afternoon I gave Marina Bay a call, and after getting routed to the right person, found out that, yes, it is their park, and it should be open in about two weeks.

It’s called Willow Lake and will have 137 FHU sites, and 16 overnight W/E ‘parking’ sites. Looks to be a nice park, with a convenient location, so we’ll definitely check it out in November.

That makes two big, new parks that have opened in the area in the last few months, and they’re definitely needed. Here at Galveston Bay RV Park, the new addition they just opened a couple of weeks ago, more than doubled the size from 81 sites to 164. And when Jan and I drove around yesterday counting, we found only SEVEN sites vacant.

And there’s another new RV park going up here, right next door to Galveston Bay, so hopefully that will help keep the prices down for next year.

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February 17, 2016

The All Clear . . .

Jan and I were up and out the rig door by 8 this morning, and after a quick stop for a breakfast sandwich at the Conroe Jack in the Box, we were on our way down to the Clear Lake area for two of Jan’s doctor appointments.

Since by the time we got into Houston proper, it was pushing 9, so we were at the tail end of the morning rush and only encountered a couple of mild slowdowns, and no real problems.

Jan’s first appointment was just for a blood draw for the lab work before she sees her oncologist next Friday. Then it was off to the Breast Center for her yearly mammogram/ultrasound, which usually takes a couple of hours or so. My part in all this was to go visit a client, browse through Harbor Freight for a couple of things, and take a short nap. And worry.

Finally Jan called about 12:30 with the All Clear Signal. There was no sign of any return of her past breast cancer. So she’s good to go for another year.

Since it was just right down the street, we had a delicious lunch at King Food, one of our all-time favorites, Then it was over to our son Chris’ to spend the afternoon before our dinner get-together at about 6 with friends.

Although Miss Piper was asleep when we got there, we did get to see her before she headed off to the UTMB hospital in Galveston where she works in the ER, and loves it. Earlier we also got to see Chris and Linda before they headed out too.

About 5:30 on our way to our friends, we made a stop at Spec’s Liquors for a bottle of Cupcake Moscato d’Asti, Jan’s new favorite wine. Since we were going straight there, we were hoping they had some in the cooler, but no luck.

But they did have this.

It’s water-based cooling system running at 34°, so it will cool a bottle down in about 5 minutes. Neat and really does the trick.

We got to Barbara and Tom’s to find Barbara in the middle of fixing a delicious meal for us, like she always does.

This time is was Lasagna with Italian Sausage, Roasted Butternut Squash, Green Beans, and French Bread. Along with a salad, and then Randall’s wonderful Coconut Cream Pie for dessert, we were stuffed.

But it was a happy stuffed.

After a great time we were finally on our way home by a little before 10. Along the way we started seeing signs that the Interstate was closed northbound at Cypresswood. So after a pit stop at the Flying J in north Houston we cut over to the Hardy Toll Road and took it around the stoppage with no problem, finally getting home about 11:30pm

Tomorrow it’s back to washer repair. Oh boy.

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February 17, 2018

Unfortunately The Sun Came Out . . .

Well, I was hoping that I would have a nice, quiet, rainy day to goof off and do pretty much nothing. At least that was the forecast.

But unfortunately then the sun came out.

Which after all my fussing, whining, and complaining, pretty much obligated me to head outside and install the latest, largest addition to our new awnings. And like a lot of projects, the hardest part turned out to be the easiest, and vice versa.

Normally one of the easiest parts is to first slide the awning fabric into the top frame strip. But because this awning, at 135”, was so long I had a lot of trouble getting it in the groove and all the way to the end.

The next part, sliding the frame/fabric combo into the top rail, is normally the second easiest, but again it wasn’t. In fact Jan had to hold up the far end using our awning hook to keep it all level.

But finally it all slid into place.

The last part, getting the torque tube onto the bottom of the fabric, is usually the most difficult, but by using the ladder to keep it all even, it slid on with no problem at all.

Finally I wound up the spring ends and installed them on the swing arms, and I was done, ending up with this.

So now I have only the last one, over the slideout window, and I’ll be finished.

Jan said she was unsure about the color when we started this, but now that she actually has seen it in action, she really likes the look.

Done with one project, I was on a roll, so before I wrapped for the afternoon, I installed the new Rain-X wiper blades that I picked up at WalMart the other day.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to Brandi and Lowell’s new place in Katy, meeting up with the whole family for lunch. Really looking forward to it.

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February 17, 2019

Puddles and PMJ . . .

That’s PMJ, not PB&J.

After another nice morning, Jan and I ended up cycling through YouTube music videos, mostly oldies like Happy Together, Ghost Riders in the Sky, Wayward Wind (the Patsy Cline version), The Lion Sleeps Tonight, I’m Not Lisa, Duke of Earl, etc.

We’ve done this several times before, and like then, we keep coming back to the same performers.

The first one(s) is a group called Post Modern Jukebox or PMJ. We first came across them after seeing their version of Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass.

And a much better version, I think.

Morgan James, the singer on the right in All About That Bass really has a set of pipes on her, as evidenced in their version of AeroSmith’s Dream On.

All I can say is WOW!

But the most unusual of our favorites is Puddles, as in Puddles Pity Party.

Yes, that’s his name.

Long-time friend ‘Froggy’ Donna McNicol turned us on to Puddles several years ago and we’ve followed him ever since.

The first time we heard him was his version of Sounds of Silence.

And it just gets better.

One thing Puddles does a lot of is ‘mashups’, where he sings one song in the form of another song and artist. Check out his version of Pinball Wizard, sung like Johnny Cash doing Folsom Prison Blues. Dead on.

And here he is doing Crying as Rob Orbison.

And even better, as I was checking out his YouTube videos, I saw where Puddles is going to be in the Houston area March 18th at the Stafford Centre, and now we have tickets.

Really looking forward to it.

Regular readers know I’m always on the lookout for new gadgets, or upgrades to ones I already have, which covers these three.

First up is a new dash cam. I’ve had my last one for a couple of years, and as is usual in the tech world, there’s always something better, faster and cheaper coming down the pike.

Apeman 1080p Dash Cam

It’s smaller, but has a bigger screen, and takes a 64GB SD card, so it records for almost 12 hours before it loops around. And at $44, it’s $13 cheaper too.

Here’s a sample of the video. And it was a really overcast day, too.

Next up is a new toilet light. Makes it a lot easier to hit the target in the middle of the night.

Rechargeable Toilet Light

This one is rechargeable so I don’t have to take it off every month or so to replace the batteries. And because it’s sealed with no battery access cover, it’s more waterproof, Or something ‘proof’ anyway.

Finally, I’ve got a new Panasonic Lumix camera coming in on Tuesday.

Panasonic Lumix FZ80

This is the 4th Lumix we’ve had, getting the first one in 2006, the next one in 2009, then 2015, and then now. Before that, our first digital camera was one of those Sony’s that stored photos on a 3-1/2” floppy inserted into it.

And every time they get better, though not cheaper.

This one, at $300, is about $50 more than the 2015 model. But it has a bigger viewscreen, now touchscreen-capable, WiFi, 60X optical lens with 4X digital zoom, and records 4K video with 18.1 megapixels. And with a 128GB SD card, it will hold over 20,000 HD photos.

Perfect for our upcoming European trip.

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February 17, 2020

Déjà Vu All Over Again?

I’m sure you’ve all read about the vote-counting mess that occurred during the recent Iowa Caucus. And I’m not talking about it from a political viewpoint, but from a computer one.

Based on what I read at the time about the app, I told Jan I could certainly write one in a day or so. And it would work too.

The teachers of several high school coding classes proved my thoughts by assigning the app as a weekend programming assignment. And the kids had no problem successfully completing the test either.

And it appears that assigning the app to a bunch of kids was pretty apt.

When some computer journals got ahold of a copy of the app, they found out that it was constructed using React Native, a programming framework allowing coders to create an app that will work on Android, IOS(Apple), the Web, and other platforms.

No problem.

But it seems that the version of React Native that they used was the classroom version, used for teaching beginning coders to use the program. In other words, the app was programmed in the ‘kiddie’ version.

And for this, they paid a company called ‘Shadow’ a total of $63,000.

I would have done it for $62,000. And it would have worked, too.

And in that Déjà Vu moment, Nevada was supposed to be using the same app for their upcoming caucus this coming Friday.

Ruh Roh!

So now they’re scrambling to create an entirely new app at the last minute. But caucus volunteers are predicting a ‘complete disaster.’

What could possibly go wrong?

It really makes you wonder what’s really wrong with a pencil and a piece of paper.

While Jan and I were up in Alabama, our son Chris, his wife Linda, and our granddaughter Piper came down to visit Brandi and brought her a present, a set of his large yard wind chimes.

And they’re tuned perfectly. They make a soft ‘gong’ sound for a nice background without being obtrusive.

Really neat!

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February 17, 2021

Thawing Out . . . Kind of . . .

Our rolling blackout last night that started at 7:33pm ended almost exactly 3 hours later at 10:29pm. And so far tonight at 8pm, no reoccurrence.

And even better, by about 7pm tonight we finally have hot water again here at the hotel. It, of course, went out last night during our blackout and it took until this evening to catch up.

I suspect that the boiler is not really sized to consistently handle a full hotel load, since most of the time they’re not that full.

Jan and I drove over to the rig about 1pm to see how things were going. We were encouraged by the fact that the CenterPoint Outage Tracker site showed no outages in our area, but they were wrong once again.

Though we saw that the power was back on in locations closer to our park, it wasn’t back on for us. When I checked with our neighbor he said that the power had come back on for a few minutes yesterday, but it had been off ever since.

But on an up note, our water system had thawed out and seemed to be working fine now, with no leaks. We do have a 28° night coming up tomorrow, Thursday, and a 27° one on Friday, but since the system survived 16°, I doubt I’ll have any problems with what’s coming up.

Leaving the rig, we stopped off at Spring Creek BBQ for lunch before heading back to the hotel. When we left the food truck was back out in the hotel parking lot, so when we got back we got a funnel cake for breakfast tomorrow.

Looks delicious, and it was made to order while I waited.

I have this InkBird Smart remote thermostat hooked up to monitor our refrigerator temps while we’re away from home. It lets me check the temps, but also adjust the internal temp from anywhere, even when we were in Europe.

InkBird Smart Thermostat

Normally it connects to house AC and our MiFi, which also usually is powered by house AC. But with the power off, none of that worked.

So I moved the MiFi over to run off of the house batteries, hoping that when the AC came back up I would then be able to see the InkBird come online and I would be able to see it.

And a few minutes after 8pm it showed up, telling me the fridge temp was 35.2°. Since it wasn’t online at about 7, our power came back on somewhere between 7 and 8pm.

This also means that the heat lamp in the water bay should be back on, so I won’t have to worry about Thursday and Friday’s freeze.

But since we’re already set to stay here until Friday, we won’t go back to the rig until then.

Unless the power goes off again.

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February 17, 2022

More Saltgrass . . .

Jan and I left the rig a little before 1pm, more than an hour before our Saltgrass get-together, so I could get a haircut first.

Quicker today than waiting in line on Saturday when they’re a lot busier. No waiting today.

And the timing worked perfectly, getting us to the Webster Saltgrass about 10 minutes before 2, and finding Sadye and Harry already waiting for us. And by the time we were seated, Connie, and Bob and Maria had showed up.

While the others all got steak, Jan and I went in another direction this time since we just had Saltgrass steak this past Monday for Valentine’s Day. But of course we had to start out with Wedge Salads.

One thing that we’ve noticed is that the Webster Saltgrass puts a lot more stuff on their Wedge Salads than the Galveston one.

Then Jan got the Chicken Laredo, a grilled chicken breast, with Jack cheese, avocado, grilled onions, tomatoes, poblano peppers, cilantro, and feta cheese, along with her favorite Grilled Green Beans.

She said it was delicious. But when I asked if she would get it next time instead of steak, she said a firm, “NO”.

For my meal, I just had a big bowl of their Baked Potato Soup.

Also very good.

Recently I’ve had the Baked Potato Soup at a number of different restaurants, plus HEB’s fresh soups, and it’s always different. Apparently everyone has a different idea about what it’s supposed to taste like. But they’re all good it seems.

And as always happens, we were there almost 3 hours before we all left. And of course, we made a date for next month, this time at the P.F. Chang’s over by Baybrook Mall.

Then next Thursday we’re getting together with Debi & Ed up at the El Palenque in Spring.

Busy, busy, busy.

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February 17, 2023

Torchy’s . . .

Tomorrow it looks like a drop-off at the dry cleaners, lunch at Torchy’s Tacos, and then a nice drive out NASA Rd. 1 (I refuse to call it NASA Parkway), down SH146 to check out all the new roadwork in that area, all the way down to FM-517 and then home.

Recently I was reading another article about how we’re overpopulating the planet and destroying the earth. So I thought I’d repost this from a while back:

As a thought experiment you could house the world’s entire population in 1500 sqft 3 bedroom homes on 3000 sqft lots just in the state of Texas, 4 people to a home.

Texas has 261,797 square miles of land area
1 square mile = 27,878,400 square feet

So Texas has 7,298,481,484,800 square feet of land area

The world population is 7,125,000,000 / 4 = 1,781,250,000 households of 4 people each

Dividing the 7,298,481,484,800 square feet of land area in Texas by 3000 (3000 sqft. lots)

Giving us 2,432,827,161 1500 sqft homes on 3000 sqft lots,

Subtracting the 1,676,748,288 households from the 2,432,827,161 1500 sqft homes leaves us with 756,078,873 houses still empty, which leaves room for another 3,024,315,492 people, or streets and roads between the houses.

This leaves the entire rest of the planet to feed and clothe them.

Or you could put the world’s population, standing shoulder to shoulder, just in the city limits of Jacksonville, FL.

885 square miles or
24,672,384,000 square feet

3.4 square feet for each of 7,125,000,000 people

FWIW Jacksonville FL is the largest city by area in the continental US. But it is only the 5th largest in all 50 states.

The rest of the list goes like this.

4. Anchorage AK – 1704 sq. miles
3. Wrangell AK – 2541 sq. miles
2. Juneau AK – 2701 sq. miles

And the largest city by area in the US is

1. Sitka AK – 2870 sq. miles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve had a plethora of new restaurants opening up in our area, with a bunch coming online in the near future.

And we’re running out of days to visit them.

First up was the In-And-Out Burger up by the HEB in Webster. We ate at them a number of times out west, especially during our two-month sojourn out in Prescott, AZ for our blow-out repair in 2015, but we haven’t made it to this one yet.

Then there’s Shake Shack, also up in Webster. We’ve heard really good things about them, so they’re on the list too.

Boomerjack’s, a new sports bar, ironically located right next door to our favorite Twin Peaks, opens this weekend, plus Little Woodrow’s another sports bar right behind our Saltgrass Steakhouse, again in Webster.

And coming up in the next few weeks, we got Velvet Taco, and locally for us, Big Horn BBQ.

Velvet Taco is similar to another favorite of ours, Torchy’s Tacos, and we recently ate at a Big Horn over in Pearland and really liked it, so they’re both on our list too.

But, at least it seems that a spot in our restaurant schedule may have opened up. I mentioned the other day that someone posted online that Texas Huddle had closed down . . . Again.

Their Facebook page has been dead since Feb. 6th, including the SuperBowl. So today I drove by on my way home and found this posted on the door.

Last time they were padlocked for not paying rent, but this time the State of Texas shut them down for not paying their taxes, probably State Sale Taxes and Unemployment Taxes.

This weekend we’re back on our usual weekend schedule, with probably Gator’s and Wal-Mart on Saturday, and Denny’s and HEB on Sunday.

Fun, Fun, Fun.

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Thought For The Day:

Everything happens for a reason, and sometimes the reason is that you are really stupid and made a bad decision.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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February 16, 2010

Red Lobster and Raccoon Cams…

Today we took a trip about 60 miles north to Austin and Fry’s Electronics to pick out a new computer for our friend Gina.

Found her a nice deal on a 3 GHz Gateway Slimline with 6 GB of RAM and a 1 TB HD. Also picked up a remote-controlled video camera for back porch raccoon watching.

On the way up to Austin we stopped off at Red Lobster for lunch. I’m normally not a big RL fan, but I was pleasantly surprised this time. Of course I had a grilled chicken BLT, and not seafood, so what do I know? Jan had fried catfish that she enjoyed and Gina liked her fried shrimp, so we were all happy.

Our friend Gina lives on a 600-acre cattle ranch about 30 miles north of San Marcos in the Texas Hill Country. It’s so remote that we have to open 2 cattle gates to get to her house. But it has really fast internet, so go figure.

Now I’ve got to get all this set up before we are supposed to leave on Friday. We’ll see how that goes.

On another note, the problem with my oil pressure sending unit has returned, so it looks like replacing it did not fix the problem. The only thing that makes sense is that it’s a problem with the wiring.  I’ll have to crawl under the truck and see if I can find the problem. It was really strange to make 120 mile roundtrip with the oil pressure sitting on zero, though occasionally, it would jump back up to normal.

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February 16, 2011

Coons and BBQ . . .

Today was the first day we didn’t have an early morning planned, so we slept in, had great coffee, and some of the wonderful cranberry muffins that Gina had baked for us. Delicious!

Finally, about 12:30 we headed into New Braunfels to the closest HEB to stock up on their Snickernut Cookie coffee. We really like this flavor and this is probably our last chance to lay in supplies for the next 9 months or so.

Coming back to the area we got to Gina’s a little before 2:30pm and headed back out in her car.

Our first stop was at the feed store over in Sattler to pick up 6 – 40# bags of raccoon food (actually dog food) for Gina’s nightly feeding sessions.

About a year ago I installed a ‘CoonCam’ so Gina could watch and record her nightly visitors and their antics.

The camera can pan, tilt, and zoom, and records both stills and movies.

Here’s just a small part of the nightly mob.

This guy managed to jump about 3 feet up to this bird feeder, apparently thinking he was missing out on something. Now he’s trying to figure out how to get down.

Coming back to the Canyon Lake area we stopped to fill up the tank on Gina’s car and then headed to Driftwood, TX, about 20 miles away to Salt Lick BBQ, one of our favorite BBQ places in the Hill Country.

In fact, we all like it so much that our daughter Brandi had her wedding dinner there last June. We had about 50 guests and everyone loved it.

As usual we ordered the ‘Family Style’ menu. It’s all you can eat of everything shown below.

We also got a half BBQ chicken to go with it all. They brought out a platter piled about a foot high with ribs, brisket, and sausage, so there’s always plenty of leftovers.

And of course, you have to save room for their great peach or blackberry cobbler with ice cream. But having room doesn’t mean being able to eat the entire dessert, so we had leftovers of that too.

After dropping Gina off, and saying our goodbyes until next year, we got back to the rig a little after 6pm, just in time for Jan to have one last chance to feed the deer. And the deer know it too.

As we parked in front of the rig, the deer started heading our way, clustering around the front of the truck, waiting for Jan to start passing out the goodies.

Tonight we’ll start packing up, getting ready to head out tomorrow morning, probably about 8am, since we got a 370 mile run to Balmorhea, TX.

More tomorrow from Balmorhea.

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February 16, 2013

Running Out of Time . . .

While Jan and I were sitting outside yesterday with our coffee and enjoying the view, I got this shot of our local Roseate Spoonbill, “Rosie”. A beautiful bird.

And Lowell sent over this photo from the Valentine’s Day party at Landon’s daycare.

He says these are his ‘girlfriends’. Looks like they think so too.

Yesterday was another scramble to try and wrap up client ‘stuff’ as much as possible, so I hit the ground running pretty early. And it was rush, rush, rush all day.

But I finished up everything with one client and almost everything with the last one. Just a couple of small things that I’ll handle on Saturday.

So then after a stop at Brandi’s for the mail, and dropping off some stuff at the storeroom, I finally headed home about 5:30pm. And about 6:15 Jan and I headed up to Pasadena to have dinner with our friend Barbara, her fiancé, Tom, and their friend Doug.

And as usual with our get-togethers, the food was good, the conversation was great, and the wine flowed freely, some might say ‘too’ freely, which is why we didn’t get home until midnight, and you didn’t get a blog yesterday.

But we had a blast. So there.

Today started off pretty much like yesterday, coffee outside, and then rush, rush, rush. But today was different because Jan was with me.

Leaving about 11pm, our first stop was Fry’s Electronics for a couple of client things. And then after taking care of the last of the client stuff, we made a stop at Home Depot for some shelf brackets.

A couple of our bedroom cabinet shelves are missing a support or two, so I wanted to get that fixed.

Then, next up was a stop at Sally Beauty Supply for Jan, and then the Target right next door, along with the ULTA across the parking lot.

Like I said, busy, busy, busy, rush, rush, rush.

But our next stop was much more relaxing, a late lunch at our favorite Chinese place, King Food, with our longtime friends, Bob and Maria. And it was so relaxing that we got there at 3pm and didn’t leave until about 7.

It’s hard to believe we had this much to talk about.

But finally we said our goodbyes, got our hugs, and then headed off to another restaurant.

Yep, you read it right. We went from one restaurant right to another one. But we had a good reason.

Well, besides more food.

We’re getting the whole family together tomorrow night at King Food for a final meal before we hit the road on Monday. Well, the ‘whole’ family, except for Miss Piper, who has to work tomorrow night.

So we were going to stop by Sam’s Boat, the restaurant/grill/sports bar where she works to see her one last time.

But when we got there, she said she had been able to get the night off after all, so she would be at dinner tomorrow night. Great!

So now we didn’t need to stay and eat, right?

Wrong! But we did just have a couple of appetizers, i.e., a dozen raw oysters, and 10 mango habanero hot wings.

I mean, we had to order something so we could leave Piper a big tip, right?

And the good food there had nothing to do with it, right?

Right?

Finally after getting a picture of these two beautiful girls, we headed home, wrapping up another busy day. One more to go.

On a final note, my great-niece Stahlie posted some more of her fabulous computer artwork.

This young lady has some real talent.

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February 16, 2014

Sunflowers and Floor Mats . . .

About 10 this morning, Jan and I, along with our long-time friends, Bob and Maria, headed down to Galveston to have breakfast at The Sunflower Café, our go-to place for a great breakfast. Bob and Maria had never been there, so it was fun introducing them to the place. After breakfast, we drove around the island for a while before heading back to the rig.

While Bob, Maria, and Jan headed into Houston to visit Sur la Table, a really neat cookware store, along the lines of Williams-Sonoma. I, on the other hand, went off to work for a client. As usual, as our time runs out here, I get really, really busy. since everyone waits until the last minute.

About 5:30 we all met back up at La Brisa for dinner and more fun. Afterwards, everyone came back to the rig for some delicious coconut cream pie that we got at the local Randall’s Market.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get back together next Sunday, right before we leave. We see how it goes.

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I think Landon is training for the next Olympics in this shot. He never seems to stop.

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A number of you had asked to see the finished product of the Great Floor Upgrade.

So here it is.

Our son, Chris, really did a great job. Thanks again, Chris.

Later this evening I cut out the floor mat using the template I made of the pedal area.

And here’s what it looks like in place.

I was lucky that it fit the first time with no trimming. This is really just a trial fit. I want to scrape up some old glue and then use double-stick tape to hold it in place, although it seems to stay in place pretty good as it is.

In looking at it, I may try to find some small metal trim strips to cover the edge. I’ll check it out.

Tomorrow looks like another busy day with clients, but we are having dinner with Chris, Linda, and Piper, so that’s better.

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February 16, 2015

The All Clear . . .

Jan and I headed up to Webster about 9am this morning, awfully early, but for a good reason. Today was her first mammogram/ultrasound after her bout with breast cancer earlier this year.

She was told it would take about 3 hours, and it did, almost to the minute. And she was told she would have her results before she left, and she did.

Everything came back clean, with no reoccurrence of the cancer. So we’re all clear to leave for Tucson March 1st on schedule.

We still have appointments later this week and the first of next week, but it’s routine eye exams and annual checkups. So we’re good to go.

When Jan was finished up, we drove over to Floyd’s Cajun Seafood to have lunch. It’s our first time back there since we moved down here, and it was nice to be greeted by Brett Floyd, one of the co-owners. We’ve known Brett ever since Floyd’s opened back in the late 90’s, and we laughed about how we’ve both gotten greyer in that time.

And as usual the food was delicious, with Jan having a cup of their Creamy Crab Bisque and an order of the Crabmeat Stuffed Mushrooms, while I had a bowl of Seafood Gumbo and some Boudin.

We were happy to see how busy they were, and in fact they were on a wait by the time we left. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back before we leave.

Since both of us tossed and turned last night, by the time we got home a nap was in order, which took up most of the afternoon. I would have liked to have gotten some more stuff done outside, but the cold and rainy weather nixed that. From the time we left the rig this morning, until we got home, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees as the front came through.

It’s supposed to be sunny and dry tomorrow, but the temp won’t get much above 50, so we’ll see how it goes.

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February 16, 2016

Wash Day Blues . . .

We didn’t walk this morning because I was in repair mode – Splendide washer repair. A couple of days ago our washer went wonky and stopped pumping the water out when it goes into spin mode. The drum starts to turn but I don’t even hear the pump try to pump.

Since we had a washer full of wet clothes, we loaded them into a plastic garbage bag and took them down to Brandi’s yesterday to finish up.

So this morning, after looking over the Splendide service manual, I was hoping it was the pressure switch (cheap to buy and easy to replace), I ruled out a clogged drain line (another easy fix) since the pump would at least try to start pumping in that case.

But a call to Westland Sales disavowed me of that easy fix. The tech reminded me that the pressure switch also governs the amount of water that fills the tub at the beginning of the wash cycle. So if the switch wasn’t working, the tub would overfill. And it wasn’t.

Then he gave me the bad news. It was probably the pump itself.

Then he gave me the badder news. The pumps are no longer available.

So if it is the pump is bad, I’m out of luck. At least as far as buying a new one. But looking at a photo of a pump, there might be another way.

There’s really only two things that can go wrong with a pump like this. Either the pump rotor is jammed, or the motor has died.

The motor can be repaired, even if I have to rewind it. There are no brushes in this type of motor, so that’s not a problem either.  Actually the most likely motor problem is a broken wire leading to the windings.

As far as the pump itself, unless the pump rotor broke, it’s probably the bearings. And they can probably be kludged also.

So we’ll see.

But even with all this, I have a possible backup plan. When a friend replaced his Splendide a couple of years ago, I stripped it for parts, but I don’t know if the pump was one of them.

The next step is to pull the washer out, turn it upside down, and check out the pump situation. I didn’t start today since we’ll be down in the Clear Lake area all day tomorrow with two doctor checkup appointments for Jan, and then dinner with friends. So I’ll tackle it starting Thursday morning.

Blog reader Judy Hughes reminded me I didn’t give y’all a Traveling with Karma update since we moved over to Lake Conroe from Colorado River this past Sunday.

All in all, she took it pretty well for a first time. Especially if ‘pretty well’, means hiding as soon as we pulled out and not coming out until we were parked. But she didn’t seem to care when I started up the diesel, didn’t really seem to notice at all. I guess she didn’t like the floor moving under her feet though.

The newest thing she does is to get up on the dashboard and look out through the curtains, just watching what’s going on. She does this several times day, over and over. But she still shows no inclination to go outside though, so that’s good

The biggest change, though, is how she’s bulked up. We’ve had her for two weeks now, and when we first got her, I measured her for a harness so we could take her outside on a leash. But by the time we got it from Amazon yesterday, it almost too tight.

Thinking I might have mis-measured, or they sent me the wrong size, I checked her again. And she’s definitely filled out in the body.

Our little girl is growing up.

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February 16, 2017

Tomorrow’s A Busy Day . . .

Recapping some of yesterday.

We left the Spacious Country RV Park about 10:15, a little late due to the fact that the park people were late showing up to settle up on our electric usage.

We gave a $100 deposit when we checked in, and then got $20 back when we left. Not bad.

We were leaving that early so we could get to Colorado River TT around noon, the park checkout time. Our ranger friend, Barbara Spade, told us the park was very full and we might have a problem getting a 50 amp full hookup site. But as it turned out, we had our pick of two sites down on the river, took one of those, and got parked and set up.

One notable thing on this trip was that we passed 140,000 total miles on our American Eagle coach. The rig’s computer records this total and we can see it on our Silverleaf computer interface.

As you can tell this was about 34,000 miles ago. When we bought our rig, it had 64,511 miles on it, so that means we’ve put 75,489 miles on it since we picked it up January 6th, 2008.

Later, after a short catnap, we headed into Katy to meet up with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at our favorite Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro.

Like most places we eat at regularly, we all have our go-to dishes. For us, we all started out with an order of their Pork Spring Rolls with peanut sauce.

While everyone has their own favorite entrees, I always go with the Shaking Beef Vermicelli Bowl.

The beef strips are marinated in a delicious sauce, and then the broth soaks into the noodles. Just fantastic.

And finally we all finished up with a little dessert, spoonful’s of Crème Brule.

The perfect light end to a great meal.

Today, after my first full night’s sleep in a month or so, I started working on a few things around the rig.

First up was to tackle the rat’s nest of cables behind the computer table. It’s been accumulating for a while, so before they start actually breeding new cables back in there, it’s time to cut it down to size.

Later. I went outside and installed the new Rain-X wipers on the truck. I’ve used this brand for several years, and combined with the Rain-X wiper fluid I also use, it keeps the glass crystal clear while the rain just beads up and runs off. I’ve also got new blades for the rig that I’ll install later.

After a few more chores, I fixed coffee, and Jan and I sat outside for a while and enjoyed the view.

A few minutes later we noticed one of the bald eagles that live in the area swoop down and start eating on a fish he’d caught in the river.

A really great sight.

Tomorrow we have a very busy day, starting off getting to Chris’ down in the Webster about 10am so he can install a new AC condenser fan on our Dodge Dakota.

Then it’s lunch at King Food, haircuts for both of us, and a visit to the Verizon store to look at new plans and a new phone for Jan.

Last up will be dinner with some old friends and then back to their house to work on a computer problem.

All in all, a busy, fun day.

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February 16, 2018

Ben Hur, Redux . . .

First off, Jan wants me to thank everyone for all their get-well wishes. She’s still having no pain, and getting her strength back after the procedure.

Work today consisted of the usual stomping out small fires, all taken care of, with the last one still smoldering.

The Shipping computer is supposed to be able to access the customer database on the Office Manager’s computer so shipping addresses can be double-checked. But for some reason it’s started running very slowly, taking a long time to pull up customer info over the network.

But other network data flows at the normal speed, and calling up the customer data locally runs just fine, so it’s not the database itself. And I can copy files from one computer to the other with no problems or slowdowns. So why is the network only running slow on this connection?

As soon as I got back home from work we turned right back around and drove back up to Webster to have dinner at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, our local go-to place for seafood. And since it was Friday night and we didn’t get there until about 5pm, we had about a 15 minute wait to get a table

Finally getting seated, we ordered our iced tea, and of course, a dozen raw oysters.

Then it was back to our usuals, with Jan getting the Grilled Catfish Filets with the Grilled Steamed Veggies.

As for me, in over 20 years of eating at Floyd’s I’ve never eaten here that I haven’t had a bowl of gumbo, and this time was no different. But after listening to Jan rave about the Grilled Steamed Veggies, I decided to give them a try as well.

And Jan was right. I don’t know what it is about grilling already steamed veggies, but they are so much better. Enough so that it will be my standard side dish from now on.

Finishing up we made a quick stop by WalMart for a few things before we headed back toward Santa Fe, with another stop at the HEB for gas. It’s nice to see the price starting to come back down, now at $2.15. Much better.

When I was coming home this afternoon, I ended up behind this Ben Hur wanna-be.

Certainly can’t park too close to any curbs.

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February 16, 2019

The Egg and I Who?

After a nice quiet morning of hot coffee and whipped cream (Saturdays and Tuesdays are whipped cream in our coffee days. And of course, Karma has to have her share too. The whipped cream, not the coffee.), we headed out about 1pm to have brunch, this time at Snooze AM, a new Webster breakfast/lunch place in Webster,  and actually just a couple of blocks away from The Egg & I, our usual weekend breakfast place.

I texted Miss Piper to see if she could meet us, but she was spending the weekend in Houston with friends.

The last time we ate here was right after Jan’s first cataract surgery when she was still a little woozy from the drugs.

She got their Smash Avocado Benny, their version of Eggs Benedict, and was not a happy camper. She said the English muffin was soggy and she just didn’t like the taste. But when I pointed out that they had another version of an avocado-themed dish, their Bravocado Toast, she decided to give it another try.

And it was perfect for her, down to the Dressed Greens she gets with The Egg and version, But she says this dish is actually better. And more importantly, at least to me, is that it’s cheaper.

So Jan now says “The Egg & I Who?”

I got my usual Shrimp & Grits, which I think is the only thing I’ve gotten every time we’ve eaten here.

With the sautéed shrimp, Andouille sausage, peppers and leeks, topped with a sunny side up egg, it’s pretty much my favorite non-eggs, bacon, English muffin, and fruit breakfast.

Then afterward, it was on over to Walmart and Sam’s Club for a few things before heading home.

I didn’t plan on looking at our rig’s leaking oil filter problem this weekend because, although the temps were OK,  we were looking at a 90% chance of rain. Except that it didn’t.

But there’s always tomorrow, so we’ll see.

I missed it by a week, but this past February 9th was the 11th anniversary of the beginning of our RV travels. After buying our 1999 American Eagle on December 27th, 2007. And after prepping and new tires, we picked it up from the dealer on January 7th, 2008, and then headed to Alaska on February 9th.

Well, we headed there by way of Las Cruces, Casa Grande, Yuma, Gila Bend, Chula Vista, Temecula, Long Beach, Barstow, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Casper, Billings, Garrison, Cle Elum, Cache Creek, Prince George, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Haines Junction, and Tok, finally ending up in Fairbanks on April 26th.

And found this.

And it’s been a wild ride ever since. And it’s not over yet, though we’ve slowed down a bit.

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February 16, 2020

Not Bad For a V7 with 299,767 Miles . . .

As Well As Another 88,000+ Being Drug Around Behind The RV.

After breakfast at our Super 8 motel this morning, we headed toward home about 8:30 or so, somewhat slowed down by the steady rain. We made a quick pit stop just outside Baton Rouge as the rain finally started to taper off.

Our next stop was at the Breaux Bridge Pilot where we got gas for $1.93, as well as a couple of Jamocha Shakes for the road at the adjacent Arby’s.

Our last stop was at the Baytown Buc-ee’s for a couple of kolaches for dinner after we got home. But that took about an hour longer than we had planned.

Coming into the Webster area they had all six southbound lanes narrowed down to ONE, due to bridge construction. So instead of getting home about 4pm, it was a little after 5.

When we pulled into our rig site this afternoon I checked the truck’s odometer and found we were at 299,767 miles. Plus of course, the 88,000+ miles it’s traveled behind our RV, where the odometer doesn’t register.

I had hoped we’d make 300,000 miles on this trip, but not quite. However, we should make the 300,000 mark in a week or so.

But what really makes this remarkable is that the 4.7 liter V8 engine in our 2004 Dodge Dakota has actually been a V7 for about 6 months or so. By that, I mean that one cylinder, #7 specifically, is dead.

While the rest of the cylinders have about 125 – 135# of compression, #7 has only about 25#. However it just keeps running.

Yes, it’s got a lumpy idle, kind of like I’m running a full race cam, and it sometimes smokes a little, uses some oil, and the gas mileage is down about 10%, but it just keeps running.

It will do 75 mph on the Interstates with no real problems. It just down a little on power and won’t accelerate as fast. And we had no problems with it on our recent almost 2000 mile trip.

So my thought right now is just to keep running it until it dies, and then either have the engine rebuilt, or replaced with a rebuilt one, for about $5000-$7000. Much cheaper than the $15-20,000 that even an equivalent newer, but used truck would cost me.

Of course it could just keep running as is and outlive us all.

Finishing up, when we got together with my Aunt Lenette and Aunt Virginia last Friday, Lenette mentioned that she and her husband Tom just died a couple of weeks ago, had been married for 70 years.

Gives Jan and I, now at 52+ years, something to aspire to.

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February 16, 2021

Frozen –The Sequel

Jan and I headed down about 8:30am for our free breakfast here at the Texas City La Quinta. I told Jan as we were on the elevator I wouldn’t be surprised if it was already gone, since I don’t think they were planning on a full hotel out of the blue like this.

And I was right. All the little paper bags were gone. Of course according to another guest, all they contained was a protein bar and a bottle of water, so it wasn’t a big loss. But the coffee was good, at least.

But that was one reason we got muffins yesterday at Buc-ee’s so we were all set breakfast-wise.

When we got back to our room after ‘breakfast’ we found that the water was off. And with a little inquiring, we found out that it had been turned all up and down this side of the highway.

Rut Roh!

It’s actually easier to get by without electricity than water. You know, no toilets, etc.

Finally, about 1pm we headed over to the rig to pick up a few things and check things out. And as we were still finding the traffic lights off as we got closer to Santa Fe, we were pretty sure that the lights were still off at the rig, and we were right. Everything was frozen solid. It was 30 degrees in the water bay, and 32 degrees in the rig.

And 33.6 in the refrigerator. I had been worried about it, since it was so cold yesterday (16 degrees) before we left, that I was not able to get it to start up on propane. But it looks like mother nature took care of the problem.

In the past the rig’s plumbing has been pretty forgiving about being frozen, but we’ll see about this time when it thaws out and I turn the water back on.

Leaving the rig, we started looking around for a place to eat lunch, and finally found the Black Bear Diner open over around FM646 and I-45.

They were short-staffed and only had about half the tables open, and though they told us it would be a 45 minute wait, it only turned out to be about 15. Nice.

The service and the food were just as great as always, with Jan trying the Black Raspberry Stuffed French Toast with Bacon,

while I went with my Bacon Cheeseburger Salad and a side of Fruit.

In talking with the manager, he said they tried to open yesterday afternoon, but the door lock was so frozen up, they couldn’t get it unlockied. He also said that they were closing at 5pm today so everyone could get home safely before it started freezing again. Nice guy!

Then it was on down the Interstate to the Buc-ee’s for more coffee, kolaches, and muffins for tomorrow’s ‘free’ breakfast.

Getting back to the hotel, we found some enterprising guy had set up a food truck in the parking lot. Maybe lunch tomorrow if he’s still here?

I also went by the front desk and got us a 3rd night here since I doubt things will be thawed out before Thursday.

Karma seems to have settled into hotel life just fine after spending a couple of hours head-bumping her way around the room. And now that she seems to know the layout, she’s right at home.

And finally as far as getting power back goes, CenterPoint Energy seems to be falling further behind. Yesterday they showed 1.34 million customers without power in Houston and surrounding areas.

Then this morning they were showing 1.22 million, so they were making progress. But then this afternoon they were showing 1.44 million without power.

But as soon as they get the wind turbines defrosted, everything will be fine.

And on this note, our power here at the hotel went off at 7:33 pm and as of 9:15 was still not back on. But on the other side of the Interstate, it’s never gone off.

However at least we’re warmer than in the rig.

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February 16, 2022

Whipsawed . . .

Work today was pretty busy, which is nice because the time passes quicker. Otherwise I get bored. And as Jan will tell you, I don’t do nothing well.

Then I tend to wander off and get in trouble. You can count on it.

Tomorrow we’ve got a lunch get-together with our Alvin Opry bunch, and at Saltgrass Steakhouse for the 2nd time this week. But at the one in Webster this time.

Then Friday we’re looking forward to Season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime. This season will be 8 episodes, with two new ones dropping each week.

And as I mentioned a few blogs back, The Orville is coming back for the 3rd season. But its premiere date has changed. Originally it was going to be March 10th, but it’s now been pushed back to June 2nd.

Oh well.

Tomorrow’s also going to be one of those typical winter days in Texas, with a high of 80° and a low of 37. That’s a 43° temperature swing in one day.

Nothing like getting whipsawed.

So far the Jeep is working great after the recent repair, and it looks like the O2 sensor replacement has fixed my loss of gas mileage problem.

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February 16, 2023

Angelo’s Redux . . .

Recapping yesterday, getting back to the rig about 4pm we turned around a little later and headed back up to Webster to meet up with long-time friends, Barb and Tom at Angelo’s Pizza about 5pm.

I’ve known Barb since the early 2000’s when I did IT support for BAHEP (Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership) when she worked, and still does. But this is the first time we’ve gotten together in a while.

And this is the first Jan and I have been to Angelo’s in a while. Actually a long, long while.

Like maybe 40 years or so. Don’t remember an exact year, but both Chris and Brandi were still kids, so it was probably in the early 80’s.

Jan and I both started with a Dinner Salad with their really good Bleu Cheese dressing,

and then Jan moved on to their Grilled Chicken with Veggies.

Said it was really good.

I went with my usual Italian restaurant order, a big bowl of their Pasta Fagioli Soup.

All delicious!

Afterwards, we followed Barb and Tom to their place, where we spent a few more hours catching up while I set up her new HP Pavilion laptop.

Before finally heading home about 10pm, we promised to get together again soon.

Now on to today.

Before we left for lunch this afternoon, I got a chance to try out my new ‘Bionic’ Weed Trimmer on some of the grass surrounding Jan’s Flamingo Flamboyance.

I found it worked pretty well as long as I didn’t push it too hard. Otherwise, it would just bog down. I was happy to see that the tie-wrap cutting blades show no noticeable wear on them.

Not bad for $18.

Lunch today was at Twin Peaks once again, and our favorite server, Sylvia, was up to her usual excellence, seeing us come in the door and having our drinks at our table almost before we got to our table and were seated.

Jan started off with a salad, along with their made-in-house ‘chunky’ Bleu Cheese dressing.

Jan then got her usual Chipotle Chicken with double broccoli.

I went with the Soup and Salad Lunch Special with a bowl of their Brisket Chili and a Salad, also with their made-in-house ‘chunky’ Bleu Cheese dressing.

Great Service and Great Food.

Got a notice that my Garmin GPS had a new map update available, so I brought it in this evening to update it. The file was 4.2GB and took about 45 minutes to download. Nice thing about Garmin is that no matter how old your unit is, you still get lifetime free updates. And mine is now 11 years old.

Saw a story about this giant gator lounging on a golf course in Sebring, FL.

Looks like he’s waiting for a passing golfer to ‘play through’.

Finishing up, I saw a TV ad the other day showing some new EV, and at the end there was a small legend shown on the screen saying ‘Tailpipe Emission-Free’.

I guess wanting you to ignore that over 60% of the electricity used to charge said EV come from fossil fuels.