Our RV Adventures

The nice book that came with my phone camera Eclipse Filter lists cities and times for the eclipse, and one of them is Killeen.

Eclipse Starts at 12:19 pm

Total Eclipse Starts at 1:36 pm

Total Eclipse Ends at 1:41 pm

Eclipse Ends at 2:59 pm

And the Totality will last for 4 minutes 17 seconds, which according to the chart, will be one of the longest totalities in the country by about 10 seconds.

A lot of people, including us, I guess, are worrying about what the weather’s going to be for the Eclipse.

Well, according to this long-range weather forecast, it looks pretty good for us.

Early forecasting for the total solar eclipse shows a higher probability of a mostly clear sky across parts of the path of totality in Texas, Arkansas and parts of New York and Maine.

Two weeks ahead of the eclipse, the FOX Forecast Center has high confidence that San Antonio, Dallas, Little Rock, and Paducah are less likely to have heavy cloud cover on April 8th.

Fingers crossed.

One of our blog readers mentioned about the temperature drop during the Eclipse.  I hadn’t thought about it, but it turns out it is a thing.

Looks like we can expect an 8-10 degree drop during the totality.

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Thought for the Day:

Sometimes you just have to tell yourself that it’s not worth the jail time. But sometimes, it’s awfully close.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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March 25, 2009

Damn the torpedoes…

Well, our road trip went off yesterday, but not quite as planned.

The idea was to head down to Fort Morgan, catch the ferry over to Dauphin Island and then visit Bellingrath Gardens.  But as we started the 22 mile trip to the ferry, we saw a sign saying the ferry was closed.

I found the number and called to double-check. The lady said the ferry was broke (yes, that’s the way she said it), but they hoped to have it going by 2pm. So we decided to run our trip in reverse. Luckily, we didn’t have to make the 44 mile round trip.

We headed up to Foley and then west on Hwy 98 through Magnolia Springs, Point Clear, Fairhope, Daphne, and Spanish Fort before hitting I-10 into Mobile. This is the way we used to travel to Mobile when I was a kid, since the Interstate didn’t exist.  It’s a very beautiful, scenic drive.

Before heading to Bellingrath Gardens after we got to Mobile, we checked out a Spartan/Cummins dealership looking for parts for my A/C problem I mentioned earlier. No luck, but I did get some good information that helped out.

Heading out, we stopped for lunch at Dreamland BBQ mainly because it smelled so good as we drove by.

Well, you know what they say, Smells can be deceiving, or something like that. I had heard how good this place was for years, and they had all sorts of awards on the walls for “Best BBQ in the South” and other stuff, but not in my book.

Jan’s ribs weren’t bad, but not great either. I ordered the Pork Plate, but I’m not sure what I got.

In the south, pork is normally sliced or chopped. If it doesn’t say ‘chopped’, it’s sliced. Yes, in north Alabama, and up into the Carolina’s, they have “pulled pork”, but it’s labeled too.

What I got was a plate of pork ‘chunks’, or something, covered in a thin sauce. In fact it looked more like ‘Carne Guisada’, or ‘Beef Stew’ with no vegetables.

The sides of potato salad and Cole Slaw were just so-so. Two other chains, Sonny’s BBQ and Famous Dave’s are much, much better.

Not recommended!

We then headed south toward Bellingrath Gardens. The Bellingrath estate was built in the early 1900’s and the family were major Coke distributors… Coca-Cola, that is. Apparently, the wife kept buying and buying plants until she just ran out of room. The place is just one big garden.

I’m just going to post some pictures of the place and let y’all enjoy.

After enjoying the Gardens, we headed down to the Ferry.  I called ahead to confirm that, yes, they had fixed the ‘broke’ ferry and were on schedule for a 5pm departure. We got there a little after 4 so we had a short wait that we spent talking to the couple in the car next to us that was pulling a small camper. Turns out they were heading to the Gulf State Park where we are, so we gave them directions.

The ferry wasn’t full so loading didn’t take long, but there was about a 15kt wind, 3ft waves, and white caps. And the ride was pretty rough. The ferry was sometimes rolling and porpoising at the same time.

I was worried about Jan when she said she didn’t have her seasickness bracelets with her.  Jan can be very prone to seasickness. She once got seasick while we were eating at a restaurant built over a lake.

Sea-Band Bracelets

But luckily, before we took our Alaska cruise in 1998, she heard about the Sea-Band bracelets, and for her, they really work. There was one point on our cruise where people were bouncing off the walls of the hallway going to and from their rooms, but Jan never had a problem.

The bracelets apparently work on an acupuncture principle, but only if she doesn’t leave them in the coach.

Luckily, she didn’t have a problem, though. I did see a few people who were decidedly pale and hovering near the railing, but I thought it better not to mention it.

Actually what I think saved her was the fact that with the motion of the ferry, she was so worried about it sinking, she forgot to be seasick.

As we pulled out we passed Fort Gaines at the tip of Dauphin Island. Fort Gaines was one of the two forts guarding Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Apparently it was so windy that some seagulls decided not to fly.  They just hitched a ride on the raised loading ramp all the way over.

Fort Morgan, named for Gen. Daniel Morgan, a hero of the Revolutionary War, and an ancestor of Jan’s (her mother was a Morgan) was the 2nd fort that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay.

The Battle of Mobile Bay in August of 1864 gave birth to the famous phrase uttered by Admiral David Farragut, “Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead”. Torpedoes then being what we now call mines, had been spread out across the entrance to the Bay to keep the Union Navy out.

Ironically, almost immediately after Adm. Farragut gave this order, his supposedly unsinkable ironclad, the USS Tecumseh, struck a mine and sank in 3 minutes taking most of its 100 plus crew to the bottom with it.

Wouldn’t you think people would learn not to label something “unsinkable”?

The Union did finally prevail and the Confederacy lost its last port on the Gulf, New Orleans having fallen a year earlier.

That’s your history lesson for today. Read the next 3 chapters and we’ll have a short quiz on Monday. Study hard!

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March 25, 2010

Toilet Flowers and Hot Wings…

I’ve decided to make our new toilet into a flower pot.  Because, so far, I haven’t been able to get it installed due to the fact that the new toilet has a different base than the old one. I know I’ll get it fixed eventually, but in the meantime, it sure looks pretty.

About 12:30pm we drove over to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.

I had the Mango Habanero wings – sweet and spicy!,  Jan had the Hot wings.

Really Good!

Then it was over to Outpost PC to purchase some remote control switch units to control our door locks.

After that, we headed over to the Atomic Testing Museum.

This museum is actually part of the Smithsonian and has an amazing amount of artifacts detailing the Atomic Age.

The Atomic Age began at 5:29;54 on July 16, 1945 when a plutonium bomb, nicknamed ‘Gadget”, was detonated at Trinity Site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico. The flash was seen 250 miles away and the heat produced was four times hotter than the sun.

One of the displays showed many of the products that traded on the atomic age theme.

Everything from Atomic Fire Ball jawbreakers to Atomic Cocktails to Atomic Hot Sauce traded on the Atomic name.

They even had an Atomic Energy Lab, from Gilbert, maker of the Erector Set.  I actually had one of these. Maybe this explains why I still glow in the dark.

Next was a collection of Geiger counters.

Since I was a ham radio operator and worked with Civil Defense, I was issued one of these.

The first H-Bomb was detonated in 1952 on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.

Earlier bomb tests, starting in 1946 on Bikini Atoll, also in the Pacific, gave the bikini swimsuit its name.

This atomic artillery shell gives you some idea of how small an atomic bomb can be.

Next was the Genie Air-to-Air Atomic Missile. Jan’s father worked on this one when he was in the Air Force.

This B61 bomb was designed in 1963 and is still the United States primary nuclear weapon.

Lastly, there is this display of a piece of the Berlin Wall that marked the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The museum gives real insight into what went on during the period from 1945 to 1992 when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ended nuclear testing by the major powers.

Leaving the museum I went up the road to Lowes for some more toilet parts. I’m going to whip this thing yet.

A while later, after it got dark we drove over to see the light show on Fremont St., but found a special event going on, with a large crowd. We’ll try again later.

So it was off to IHOP for supper. By the time we got home, it was almost 10pm.

It’s been a long day, but a lot of fun.

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March 25, 2011

A Two’fer . . .

Jan and I slept until about 9 am this morning, another semi-early wakeup call, but well worth it.

We had two good things waiting for us – Our friends Al & Adrienne were coming over at 10. A real ‘Twofer’

And since it looks like we’ll be leaving here Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to try to have supper together Monday night.

Al & Adrienne had an appointment so they left around 11:30, but Jan and I stayed talking until almost 1 pm.

Then later while Jan was napping, I drove over to the Fairground’s office to see if there was any way to get mail on Saturday. The answer was ‘NO’. Apparently, the Post Office doesn’t deliver mail to the fairgrounds on Saturday.

Coming back to the rig, I checked to see if I could just pick up the letter at the PO, but found out it was closed on Saturday.

About 5:30 we headed into Tucson before ending up at Golden Corral for supper.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and replace my black tank valve. Hopefully it won’t be too messy. We’ll see.

More tomorrow  . . .

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March 25, 2012

Stuck in Las Cruces . . .

Engine quit coming into Las Cruces this afternoon.

Got towed in by CoachNet to repair shop.

Will know more tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

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March 25, 2013

A Problem Solved–Maybe . . .

I have always had on and off problems with the circuitry feeding the taillight signals from the rig to our truck. They would work for months, then stop working and then start again. So now I think I’ve found the problem, though I won’t be absolutely sure until I finish rewiring things.

What I discovered is that my coach has had two taillight converters wired in series since we bought the coach in 2008. One of them was the one out in the open, the one I’ve replaced several times over the last 5 years, trying to eliminate this intermittent problem once and for all.

But in tracing out the wiring harness, looking for any problems, I followed it back under a ledge on the rear bumper . . . and there I found another ratty, beaten-up taillight converter.

We are our rig’s 3rd owner and I guess the first owner installed the hidden one, then the second owner, not seeing one, installed another one.

As I said I won’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet this is the problem, and that taking it out of the circuit will fix things. We’ll see.

About 1:30 Jan and I made a Wal-Mart run to the SuperCenter over on Valencia, much nicer than the one toward downtown. Then getting back to the fairgrounds, we came across a lady walking her pet, Rex on a leash.

What was unusual is that Rex is a ferret.

A very cute ferret that Jan didn’t want to give back to the lady.

We had a number of ferrets as pets over the years when Chris and Brandi were younger, and always enjoyed them. They eat dry cat food and can be easily trained to use a litter box, and really make good pets.

I hope this doesn’t put any ideas into Jan’s head.

About 4:30 Chris and Charles Yust picked us up and we headed up the road and back to Luckie’s Thai for some more of their delicious Asian cuisine and good conversation. A lot of conversation, in fact. I think we were there for almost 3 hours, but we had a great time.

Chris and Charles leave for Waco tomorrow morning, but hopefully we’ll catch them at a rally somewhere along the road later this year.

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March 25, 2014

Up on the Roof !

(Cue the Drifters)

Today was a work-around-the-rig day. First I touched up some caulking in the shower to patch a small leak. Then it was up on the roof.

Today was the day to replace the fan and fan motor in our front Fantastic Vent fan.

First I removed the MaxxAir Vent Cover and then the retaining bracket that controls the lid cover. That gave me access to the fan motor itself.

I was able to use my WORX Power Screw Driver for all this, and it really comes in handy. It has a revolving cylinder holding a number of different types and sizes of bits. So I don’t have to bring as many tools up on the roof.

Taking out the four screws holding the fan motor in place, and after clipping the wires, I removed the old fan unit and set it aside.

The new fan came with crimp spade connectors, so I installed one set on the cut-off ends on the fan chassis.

Note that I used real ‘crimpers’. Some people try to use pliers or diagonal cutters (back when I started in electronics, we called them ‘dykes’. I don’t think we can do that anymore.), but you will never get a good connection that way.

So here’s the finished install with the excess wire tied out of the way.

And here it is all buttoned up and ready to go.

When I was putting the MaxxAir cover back on, I noticed a crack in it. Some of these plastics don’t take to glue very well, so I’ll use a piece of Eternabond to seal it up.

Another plastic that is not easily patched are these RV engine coolant tanks made from polypropylene. A new tank costs from $100 to $600! , depending on your rig. A new one for my rig was $130

So I decided to try Eternabond. Wal-Mart sells these packages that are perfect for small repairs.

And it worked great. Five years later and still no leaks.

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll install the new dome lift motor on the other vent fan.

Later I met our next site neighbors, Roy and Vicky Hall, who turned out to be gate guards who worked for Gate Guard Services just like us, and we know a lot of the same people. Small world.

About 4pm Jan and I headed up to Peters’ BBQ in Ellinger for dinner. Along the way, I stopped to get some photos of the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes.

Hopefully, all the rain we’ve had this year will mean a good year for wildflowers.

We really enjoy Peters’ BBQ and try to eat here a couple of times whenever we’re in the area.

Besides the delicious BBQ, one of the things we really liked is their ‘sides’ available on a buffet table. Everything is really good.

And they’ve also got really good desserts, including Banana Pudding, Jell-O, Chocolate Pudding, Peach Cobbler, and a soft serve ice cream machine.

Really great!

Coming back from Peters’ we came over a hill and found this herd of bison.

We’ve driven this road many times and have never seen them before. You never know what’s over the next hill here in Texas.

And speaking of that, coming over the hill coming back into the park, we found a herd of deer blocking our path.

The rest quickly moved off the roadway.

Tomorrow we’re heading back down to Clear Lake for some things, and of course, lunch at King Food.

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March 25, 2015

No, not today, either . . .

But I’ll paint tomorrow for sure.

Maybe.

I spent the morning making some phone calls and working on some client stuff and then a little before 2pm Jan and I headed over to the SanTan area for a Wal-Mart / Sam’s Club run. When we were almost there, our friend Chris Yust called and said a customer had called her to say that the website I do for Chris, www.candcrvinsurance.com was down. So as soon as we were parked, I checked for myself, and yes, it was down.

One of the strange things was the way it was down. There was no error message, no Page Not Found, nothing. It just sat there and whirled. That meant it was at least seeing something there, otherwise there would be a Page Not Found, or Website Not Found.

I put in a call to GoDaddy, and after telling them my problem, the young lady went off for a few minutes and came back to tell me the problem was with my site. She said the ‘index.shtml’ file (the first page of most websites) was invalid because it was named ‘.shtml’ instead of ‘.html’.

I can only guess she hasn’t been in this business very long because ‘.shtml’ is a perfectly valid extension that indicates that a Server Side Include is being used on the page. In this case it’s used to automatically update the ‘Last Date Modified date at the bottom of the page.

Figuring it was hopeless to pursue this further while we were on the road, I took a further look at things when we got home. The first time I did just to double-check was to replace the ‘index.shtml’ file with a plain-jane ‘index.html’ that did nothing except display the words Test Page. Can’t get much simpler.

And as I expected, that didn’t fix the problem, so I was back on the phone. But since I was getting into the busy part of their support day, I was number 15 in the queue. So I decided to take it up again after supper.

Jan wanted some Hot and Sour Soup for her cold, so about 4:45 we headed over to the #1 Eastern Chinese Buffett a couple of exits west on Signal Butte. We’ve eaten here a number of times, including last Thursday, our first day in town, and it’s always great.

Besides the Hot and Sour Soup, I’m crazy about their boiled shrimp, fresh and crisp when you bite into them, not mushy like it is when they’ve been frozen.

Getting home it was back on the phone, and this time I was only number 3 in the queue. As I was waiting, I tried a number of other things, the first one being to check my other sites on this same server. And it turns out they were down too. Hmmmm!

But this site, OurRVAdventures.com, was still up. Not unusual, since this is a WordPress site, and although it’s in my GoDaddy account, it’s hosted on a different server.

I next checked my sites that, although the domain names are with GoDaddy, they’re hosted with a different company, Superb.net. And they were all working fine. So it’s not a domain name problem, it’s a problem on my shared server.

I won’t bore you with any more details, but after an hour and 30 minutes of checking everything, the GoDaddy rep and I could not figure it out. We could see the problem, we just couldn’t see what was causing the problem.

So at that point, it was boosted up to Level 3 support, and I got off the phone. I set my computer to keep trying the site, and about 30 minutes everything started working again.

I got an email from them saying it was working, but no hint as to the problem, so I’ll be back on the phone tomorrow to find out what the problem was.

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March 25, 2016

Bingo and Bazinga . . .

Jan and I were on the road for the Clear Lake area about 8:15, allowing 2 hours for the 1 hour and 10 minute trip for Jan’s 10:15 doctor appointment.. Well, 1 hour and 10 minutes with no traffic slowdowns.

That’s why I always allow 2 hours. And there’s been a couple of trips where we used almost all of the two hours.

But today was very different, I guess due to Good Friday. We not only didn’t need the two hours, we actually picked up 5 minutes, and made the trip in an hour and 5 minutes.

A New Record!

But the appointment was kind of a letdown because it turned out to just be a blood draw for another test that Jan probably doesn’t need. Both her GP and her Oncologist alerted on the fact that her blood calcium was slightly too high, 10.8 rather than a max of 10.5. So both doctors have been running extra tests looking for the cause, with no luck so far.

The level was fine last year, so Jan and I wondered what changed. The first thing that came to mind was the fact that last year she started taking the Viactiv Calcium Chews, which of course may have added to the problem. But thinking further, Jan realized that one other major change had occurred.

In August 2014, after having a very bad reaction to the Tamoxifen that she was taking as a follow-up treatment for her breast cancer in January 2014, she had to switch to something else. By August she felt she was crawling out of her skin. So the doctor switched her over to Anastrozole. And for the last 18 months she’s had no problems. Maybe this was also a change.

So I Googled “Anastrozole and high blood calcium” . . .  and BINGO!

Three papers on the NIH government website connecting Anastrozole and high blood calcium, including one that details taking a female breast cancer survivor off and back on Anastrozole, and the calcium levels followed.

In Jan’s case, her calcium level is less than 3% above normal, and it may just be that stopping the calcium chews will get it back under control.

We’ll see.

Leaving the doctor’s, we drove over to the Friendswood Supercuts so Jan could get her hair done, and I guess because of Good Friday, she had a much longer wait than usual.

And then it was off to our favorite King Food for lunch. We had checked in with Chris, Linda, and Piper to see if they could join us. But Piper was still asleep since she had a 12 hour shift in the UTMB ER, starting at 7pm, and Chris and Linda were on the way to Galveston, taking some stuff down to Piper’s new apartment.

We both had our usual Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce with Jalapenos, our go-to dish for years

And of course, I load mine up with hot pepper flakes as usual.

After we finished I dropped Jan off at Chris’ while I checked in on a couple of clients. The first one was pretty straightforward, just going over a possible upcoming project. But the second one was a little more interesting.

They had a number of small problems,  but the main one was that the three laptops had trouble consistently connecting wirelessly to their HP printer. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t

So first off I looked at the printer, printing out the Wireless Configuration Page so I could check all the settings. I found that the printer was on the house DSL Wi-Fi network, which was correct.

Then noting the printer’s IP address and host name, I checked out the printer driver settings on one of the laptops, which also were correct. But the driver showed the printer off-line and would not print.

So after futzing around for a little bit, I checked the Wi-Fi connection on the laptop itself.

And BAZINGA!

The laptop was on some other Wi-Fi network, not the house one. At first, I thought they were hooked up to a neighbor’s network,  but the connection was passworded, so how did they get their neighbor’s password?

Then the client realized that the Wi-Fi name was the one for her husband’s Mi-Fi which was on the other side of the room. Checking it out, I found that the Mi-Fi was actually attached to the laptop via USB cable,  but the Wi-Fi was turned on anyway.

Then with a little more questioning, I found out there were THREE Mi-Fi’s in the household, sometimes on, sometimes not. So sometimes the three laptops were connected to the household DSL, and sometimes they were connected with one of the various Mi-Fi’s at random.

Putting the client’s laptop back on the home network, I again tried to print, but with no luck. So I killed the printer driver and then re-installed it.

And now it worked.

After telling the client that if they wanted to print, they had to be connected to the house DSL, I finished up by fixing some of her Windows 10 upgrade teething problems, and then I was on my way to meet Jan and Chris at the Webster Hooter’s

Jan and I both agreed that Hooter’s seems to have wimped out on their hot sauces, at least the ones we usually order. In the past ‘911’ was their hottest ‘on-the-menu’ sauce, with ‘Elvis’ available ‘off-the-menu. And ‘911’ was the equivalent of the hottest of the Buffalo Wild Wings’ sauces.

But having just had BBW a couple of nights ago, the comparison is nowhere near the same. Now that may be because ‘911’ is no longer their hottest, but 3th behind ‘Spicy Garlic’ and ‘If You Dare’. Maybe they downrated it.

So I guess next time at Hooter’s we’re just going to have to take the ‘Dare’.

Heading home we found more traffic, probably due to a wreck at 59 and I-45, but it was mostly smooth sailing. We did make a “drank too much Iced Tea at Hooter’s” stop at the north Houston Flying J, and then at the Wal-Mart before getting back home to a lonely, needy cat.

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March 25, 2019

It Looked Bigger On The Website . . .

The carry-on suitcases we ordered for our cruise came in late Friday evening but I didn’t bring them home until this afternoon.

And I must say they certainly looked bigger online than in person. I’m pretty sure I cannot get a month’s worth of stuff in these. And I KNOW Jan can’t. So we’ll almost certainly be taking one or two checked bags along as well as our carry-on’s.

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March 25, 2020

And Now For Something Completely Different …

Landon’s in his 3rd day of Homeschooling, and of course, what’s school without a PE class?

Landon said he could get used to this.

I’ll bet he could.

I mentioned a few months back about my favorite book series, Bob’s Saucer Repair.

This is what I wrote back in September.

Basically, a guy comes home and finds a beautiful alien girl trying to repair her flying saucer in his garage. With a lot of interesting ideas and funny situations, it’s a really fun read. Just gloss over the fact that alien flying saucers use antifreeze for coolant as well as hydraulic fluid.

But a lot of twists and turns keep it very interesting. Even Jan loves them.

A Great Deal at $2.99, or free under Kindle Unlimited.

Jan and I just finished Book 8 in the series and the books have gotten better and better. Though there’s still a lot of humor, the stories have become a little darker, with more action, and a lot of great storylines.

Even more recommended than before!

And in other book news, Robert Heinlein has a brand new book out, in both Kindle and Hardcover.

Yes, I know he’s been dead for over 30 years, but this new book, The Pursuit of the Pankera, was written in the 1980’s and parallels The Number of The Beast. In fact the first third of both books is the same, but then the stories diverge in a parallel, but different, direction. That’s why the subtitle of both is A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes.

The Pursuit of the Pankera was known as a large number of fragments, plus Heinlein’s handwritten notes. But when someone started piecing the fragments and notes together, they found they had the entire book. So every word is Heinlein’s, with no ghostwriter filler.

After starting Pursuit, it was so good it made me go back and buy The Number of the Beast to read it again too.

And even better, both books are only $6.99, much better than the $14.99 usually charged for mainstream publisher novels.

Wrapping up, I saw a headline today that Tilman Fertitta, the billionaire owner of about 60 restaurant chains, like Landry’s, Saltgrass, Claim Jumpers, and many others, in addition to the Houston Rockets Basketball Team, had laid off 40,000 of his employees today, about 70% of his workforce.

When I mentioned this to Jan, I think she was somewhat disparaging of him doing that. He’s a Billionaire, after all. That is until I ran the numbers for her.

Let’s say the average hourly rate for the 40,000 employees is $20 per hour. Remember this covers management as well as line employees.

$20 x 40 hours per week = $800 a week average paycheck.

But when you now multiply that by 40,000, it comes out to $32 million dollars A WEEK. And then you’ve got payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and additional benefits too.

He may be a billionaire, but I’ll bet he doesn’t have $64 million in cash lying around to shell out every two-week pay period for very long.

Jan was a lot more understanding when I laid it out this way.

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March 25, 2021

Blood And Bones . . .

Jan and I left the rig around 1pm, first for lunch at Dickinson Seafood. We both get the lunch special of Blackened Catfish and Shrimp, Grilled Veggies, and a salad.

Really good, and at only $8.59 for the lunch special, it’s a great deal too.

Then it was right back down the street to our storage room to drop off our old disassembled kitchen cart.

We got it back in 2012 for Jan to roll out into the kitchen area when she was doing a lot of cooking, like for holidays and such. But because it had to be strapped down tightly when we traveled, and it didn’t get used as much as we thought. The extended top folds down, and it normally rode behind my computer chair, but it mostly ended up as just a place to stack things.

So we’ve been looking for something to replace it, and we came up with this CubiCubi Dresser Storage Tower.

It was supposed to come in tomorrow, so we wanted to get the old one out of the way ahead of time. And it was good that we got a head start, since while we were at lunch, I got an email saying it was out for delivery, and then a few minutes later I got another one saying it had been delivered up at the office.

So as soon we dropped the old one off at the storeroom we headed up to Webster to pick up the new one.

I’ll try to get it assembled as soon as I can.

A couple of days ago Jan found something on Facebook she just had to have. It’s from a site called Hanson’s Anatomy.

Katy Hanson is a very talented artist, and found herself doodling during lectures while she was in medical school, and then began using the doodles to construct study guides for her own use. And gradually it evolved into a full set covering the entire human body, and all its many processes.

The hardcover print version is $79.99, but the E-book version is only $29.99, so I downloaded it for Jan, the entire 337 MB file. Jan’s crazy about it.

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March 25, 2022

Under The Weather . . .

With my new shore water inlet coming in this morning, and my new hose splitter coming in this afternoon, I had planned to get them both installed after I came home from work today. But life intervened.

Or at least a bout of BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) did.

So not only didn’t I work on my plumbing problem today, I didn’t go in to work at the office either.

Wasn’t sure I could drive in a straight line.

So hopefully tomorrow. But we’ll see.

Besides that tomorrow we’ve got a bunch of errands on our list, starting with a quick stop at Home Depot, and then on up to Pho Barr for lunch.

And then it’s a swing by the office to pick up some paperwork, before WalMart, Sam’s, and then Costco on the way home.

Busy, busy, busy.

Not much else today, since I mostly slept, the only time my head wasn’t spinning.

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March 25, 2023

Family And Firepits . . .

Since we were busy all day and once again didn’t back to the hotel until late, it’s more mostly Retro-Blogs. But I will catch up with all the fun once we get back home.

But we did finish up the day with a nice time around the firepit in the backyard.

 

 

 

We were out the door about 12:30 to have our regular brunch at our local Denny’s, followed up with HEB, and then gas for the Jeep.

It looks like the bump stock that Joe replaced last week has fixed my ‘clunking’ suspension problem, and for only $70. And since they come in pairs, I have a spare in case the one on the other side falls off.

I had hoped to try out my Eclipse Filter/Camera combo again today, but Mother Nature intervened once again with a solid overcast. In fact it looks like Tuesday might be my next chance.

I want to see how large a zoom I can use and still see all the sun’s disk. Plus I have to allow for tracking the sun as it moves along during the eclipse.

We’ve been making a list of things we want to take with us, and one thing that came up was to take folding chairs. As I’ve said, we plan to just walk out into the Days Inn parking to watch the eclipse without having to travel anywhere. So it seems that some chairs would be nice too.

Then, depending on the traffic situation we may make the 20 minute trip over to Kempner, TX to have dinner at the Kempner Brick Oven, a really good German restaurant. And if that doesn’t work out for some reason, there’s a Golden Corral just two doors away.

So two weeks from today, we should be at our hotel in Killeen.

During our recent stay at the Quality Inn up in Mable Falls last weekend, I was amused to find this placard on the bathroom counter.

I think it is their polite way of telling you, “Don’t Steal Our Stuff Or You Will Pay.”

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Thought For The Day:

The black woman on the syrup bottle is gone, the black man on the rice box is gone, the Indian woman on the butter is gone, but they kept the land, and the old white man on the oats box is still there. So who’s the racist here?

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.

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March 24, 2010

The best $40 Ice Cream I’ve Ever Eaten…

Today started off with a trip to the ATM for some cash and then a stop at the RV park office to sign up for another week here in Las Vegas.

It’s a nice park, not too expensive (only about $125/wk. + elec.), and convenient to the Strip.

The only downside (downsides?) is that the sites are narrow and there’s no real shade.

We headed out about 12:30 pm and drove over to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant for lunch.

We had eaten at his original restaurant in Key West last year and really enjoyed it, so we wanted to give this one a try.

Jan had the same Monterey Chicken Sandwich that she had in Key West, and really enjoyed it again. I, of course, had to have a Cheeseburger in Paradise.

After we finished eating, we made the obligatory gift shop stop where Jan got her a Margaritaville Las Vegas T-shirt.

When we got back out on the street we encountered these brightly-feathered guys.

So following up on the whole Jimmy Buffet – Parrothead concept, here are some parrot heads.

We next decided to drive the Strip again trying to get some more pictures of the different casinos.

This is Paris Casino. I assume the balloon sign refers to the Montgolfier brothers, who are credited with inventing and flying in the first hot air balloon in the 1780’s.

And, of course, what would Paris be without the Eiffel Tower?

There’s also New York New York which models the New York skyline, complete with the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty..

And, although it’s not a casino, for some strange reason, this flying saucer-shaped building houses a fashion show center

Finishing up on the Strip we decided to check out The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, otherwise known as the History Channel’s Pawn Stars,

We even saw one of the show’s stars, Chumlee, who seems to be the court jester//comic relief on the show.

Nice tats!

And Jan got herself a new opal ring.

Sweets for the Sweet.

Leaving the pawn shop, we wanted to check out The Gun Store. They have billboards all over town advertising that you can rent and fire a machine gun on their in-store range. We found out it cost $50 for 50 rounds and $25 for each additional 50.

They were pretty busy, so we’ll probably come back tomorrow. Jan wants to shoot a Thompson Submachine Gun, otherwise known as the Tommy Gun from the Prohibition Era.

By now it was almost 5pm, but with our big lunch no one was hungry for supper, so we decided to just get some ice cream at Dairy Queen,

Unfortunately, the Dairy Queen we chose was inside the Boulder Station Casino.  So $10 of ice cream cost me $40, what with our $30 contribution to the Las Vegas economy via the slot machines.

We got back to the rig a little after 6pm, where I resumed fighting “The Great Toilet Wars”

More Reports from the battlefront soon…

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March 24, 2011

Bay Doors and Waste Valves . . .

As is pretty normal, Jan had one of her ‘rebound’ 2nd day migraines, not as bad as the first one yesterday, but still not fun.

A little after 11am I called American Coach with some questions on several projects I’ve got in work on our coach, and as usual, they came through with great info.

The latest news on my dented bay door is not good. The fairgrounds and the landscapers are pretty much denying that they did it.

But it was not there last Wednesday when we moved from site 407 to site 404 to get a 50 amp hookup. We haven’t moved since, and no one else has been back there, except them.

And since I just changed from Progressive Insurance to GMAC I really hate to file a claim less than two weeks after I got my new policy.

Still deciding what to do.

After lunch, I got back to work on checking our battery’s water level.

About 4:15 pm Jan and I headed into Tucson to Poco & Mom’s, a very small, very delicious Mexican restaurant that we were introduced to last year by our friends Al & Adrienne.

Poco & Mom’s does wonderful things with Green Hatch chilies, and we always eat here when we’re in Tucson.

Coming home, we detoured over to Camping World to pick up new black tank waste valves.

We have valves that leak slightly and want to replace them. I suspect mine may just have something stuck in the gate, but since I have to remove it anyway, I figure I might as well just replace it instead of cleaning it.

Mine looks to be pretty easy to remove and replace.

We’ll see.

I got an email this afternoon that the paperwork for my Thousand Trails membership is in the mail and hopefully will be here Monday. Don’t yet know how long it will take to get everything wrapped up.

That’s about it for today. Hopefully, Jan will be feeling better tomorrow.

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March 24, 2012

Last Day in Tucson . . .

Brandi called yesterday to tell more about the video of Landon helping his daddy mow the grass. She said Lowell had gone out to mow the backyard, and she and Landon were watching from the patio. All of a sudden Brandi said Landon turned and ran back into the house.

Brandi said at first she thought he was scared of the noisy mower. But in just a second he reappeared from the house dragging his toy mower behind him.

He wasn’t scared. He just wanted to help Daddy.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to Skype from Las Cruces tomorrow afternoon. Our Internet signal has been too slow here in Tucson

The RV Park here at the Pima County Fairgrounds is closing tomorrow partly because they’re starting to get ready for the Pima County Fair that starts April 19th.

They’ve already started bringing in the Porta Johns, and a lot of carny trailers are showing up.

And what’s a fair without a leafy green elephant,

or a giant ice cream cone?

Heading out about 1:30pm, our first stop was Harbor Freight Tools. I wanted a heat gun, and they had one on sale. I’m tired of trying to heat shrink tubing using Jan’s hair dryer, and this will fix the problem. Of course, I also found a few other things I just had to have. I mean, it’s Harbor Freight Tools, right.

Our next stop was Wal-Mart where we both needed something. Then it was down the road to Bookman’s used book store. Jan was looking for one last book in a Charlene Harris’ series, and she finally found it here.

Later we decided to have one last meal at Luckie’s Thai for some more great Chinese food.

And of course, more great leftovers.

We had our usually delicious meal at Luckie’s before finally heading back to the rig.

And on another note, the war is not yet won. When I checked my traps after we got home tonight I found two more mice in my traps.

Darn it!

Tomorrow Jan and I plan to head for Las Cruces about 9:30.

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March 24, 2013

Cactus and Fried Chicken . . .

Well, I finally tracked down the elusive extra circuit breakers for our site and they were both popped. There is a master circuit breaker panel at the far end of the row that also has 30 amp breakers in it. But it is strange that it’s always the ones in the remote panel that blow, and not the ones on the site pedestal.

Resetting them put power back to the pedestal by our site. But since the park is emptying out, no one is likely to park beside us before we have to leave next Sunday, so I probably won’t go to the trouble to switch us back.

In anticipation of heading up to Apache Junction next week I’ve been checking out RV parks in the area and they look pretty promising. I found several parks that start giving long-term Passport America discounts beginning April 1st, rather than the 1 or 2 nights during the season.

One of them, Santa Fe RV Park, lets you stay for 14 days for $13.50 a night under PA. That’s $94.50 a week, cheaper than we’re paying here at the fairgrounds.

About 11am I walked down to the park office and re-upped for another week. I was hoping we could stay until Monday, but the lady confirmed they will be closing the park on Sunday and we have to be out.

A few minutes later Chris and Charles Yust showed up after finishing up at the FMCA Rally down the road at Lazy Days. After they got settled we all headed out about noon to check out the Saguaro National Park, about 10 miles north of here.

After getting our National Park Passports stamped, we headed out on the 8 mile loop through the park.

The variety of cacti is just amazing.

And many of the cacti were just beginning to bloom.

And of course, the name-sake Saguaro cacti were everywhere.

These are Saguaro ‘bones’ or ‘ribs’.

These rods are what’s left of a Saguaro after it dies.

And sometimes it’s all about the view.

Since it was now getting to be supper time we decided to eat at Poco & Mom’s, a small family-run restaurant that our Tucson friend’s Al and Adrienne had taken us to several years ago. Really good Mexican food with a lot of Hatch green chilies.

Well, I knew they were closed on Mondays, but what I didn’t remember is that they close at 2pm on Sundays. Bummer!

So after a couple of minutes of discussion, we headed down the road to Golden Corral. They can sometimes be hit or miss, but one was really good. Delicious Prime Rib, great Fried Chicken, fish, etc. All good.

Tomorrow is another day.

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March 24, 2014

Save the Date (and the Time) . . .

The Date: May 15

The Time: 10:00 AM

The Event: My seminar on Gate Guarding for Fun? & Profit at the 54th Escapade in Goshen, IN from May 12th to May 17th

Hope to see you there.

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Well, as I suspected, the Tractor Supply shear pin sheared after about a second when we tried to bring in the slide before hitting the road this morning. But, luckily, it proved to be pretty easy to crank it in manually as Jan was bringing it in with the motor.

About 15 minutes after we were finished with the slide, Dave Evans showed up to see if we needed any help with it. I told him that his timing was perfect: He got there just in time to miss the work, but early enough to show his concern and get credit. LOL

Plus the breakfast casserole that his wife Janice brought over yesterday made for a delicious breakfast this morning. Thanks again, Janice.

The next problem occurred when I brought the levelers up. Visually they were completely retracted, but the lights on the control panel said they were still down. Normally this means the hydraulic reservoir is low on fluid, and that proved to be the case this time too. I always keep a couple of quarts of ATF on hand just for that purpose. So a few minutes later we were ready to go. We pulled out a little before 11, hooked up the toad by the Activity Center, and were on our way.

Being a Monday midday, traffic was pretty light. We headed south on I-45, then took the Houston Tollway for 18 miles and then got on I-10W. 65 miles later we turned off onto SR71, and a few minutes later we were at the Colorado River Thousand Trails.

It was an easy trip, and for an added bonus, after passing through Brookshire, we started seeing more and more Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes all along the highway, and a really big patch where we turned off SR71 toward the park. Hopefully, it will be a good year for them.

Due to the warmer weather, and the easy-popping, weak 30 amp breaker we had here last time, we upgraded to 50 amp this time. After checking in at the office, we got parked and set up, and using the same manual/electrical combo we used this morning, Jan and I got the slide out with no problems.

A little later I called American Coach and told them that I had received the incorrect shear pin. After a little work, they finally found what I think is the correct one. Unfortunately, they only had one in stock, but they did say they would send it out free because of my receiving the wrong one before. Hopefully it will be here by the end of the week.

Our daughter Brandi called about 4 to let us know she’s got the flu, diagnosed, and everything. Luckily (for us) we haven’t seen her since last Wednesday so we should be outside the window of opportunity.

Dodged a bullet there.

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March 24, 2015

Jalapenos do not an Inferno make . . .

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I planned to paint the rig bumper this morning, but I wasn’t thinking about how early we were leaving out this afternoon for our lunch date, so no painting today, but maybe tomorrow.

Jan and I headed out about 1pm for the Tempe area, about 20 miles east.

Getting in the area, and since I do so much business with Godaddy, it was interesting to find what I thought was their HQ.

It’s a very large complex, complete with covered parking for some, and open-air parking for others. They’ve also got covered basketball and tennis courts for the employees. Must be nice. I’ve never had a playground at any of the places I ever worked.

We got to our lunch destination about 2pm, and met our lunch companion in the parking lot of the Tilted Kilt, another entry in the ‘breastaurant’ category. And as it turns out, this one is their headquarters location, with their HQ building right across the large parking lot.

We were there to meet long-time blog reader Rod Ivers, who had suggested the place, and we were happy to add another ‘breastaurant’ to our list.

Rod and I both had burgers, while Jan had their Gaelic Chicken, pan-seared chicken breasts over fettuccine, and covered in an Irish Whiskey Cream Sauce. She said it was very, very good, and that she’s glad I’m driving home.

I had a cup of their Beer Cheese Soup, made with Guinness Stout. Very good, and maybe Jan should be driving home. I also had their ‘Inferno’ Burger with fries.

Also very good. But I’m sorry. These people must really be from up north, because jalapeno peppers and pepper jack cheese do not an inferno make. But a few shakes from my Volcanic Pepper shaker took care of that.

We now have 5 chains in our ‘breastaurant’ list: Hooters, the original one, Twin Peaks, Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke, Bombshell’s, and now Tilted Kilt. As far as how we rank them, it’s Twin Peaks, then Tilted Kilt, with Bombshell’s and Bone Daddy’s much further back. And, Oh, we’re ranking the food here, not the girls.

But Courtney, our ‘lassie’ would have ranked very high on any list.

It’s hard to put Hooters on that list, since we pretty much go there for the wings.

One thing that was kind of funny was that even the busboys (bus guys?) wear kilts. But they don’t look as good in theirs as Courtney did in hers.

We spent a couple of hours there and had a great time getting to know Rod, and finding out how many of the same places we’d traveled to.

Rod is heading out in his RV tomorrow or Thursday, so hopefully, we’ll see him down the road somewhere.

Coming home, we stopped off at a Dunkin’ Donuts near the RV park, and I got my first bad coffee from them. It was so bad it almost tasted like Starbuck’s. They said it was fresh, but it had a burnt, bitter taste. And this wasn’t even straight coffee, but a Caramel Latte.

Back home and later in the evening, I got an email saying that my long-delay domain name transfer from Network Solutions to Godaddy had finally come through, but due to the way that NS had it configured, I was having trouble setting it up. So I gave GoDaddy Tech Support a call and talked to a very nice young lady named Misty.

But even before talking about my problem, the first thing I asked her was how do you get to park in the covered parking area, She laughed and said that if I found out to please let her know. She’s been with them for about six months and still doesn’t know.

I asked her if it was as fun a place to work as I’d heard, and she said it certainly was, and that Godaddy goes out of its way to keep their employees happy. She said they have bikes and pedal cars to get between the widely separated offices and buildings, and besides the basketball and tennis courts for fun, if you don’t want to take the elevator or the stairs from the second floor to the first, you can take the giant spiral slide. Said it was really funny to watch guys in suits going ‘Wheee’ with their arms in the air like kids as they take the slide down.

She also said that they don’t use scripts when working with customers, and they’re not timed. They’re just told to keep us happy. And it was certainly obvious that they weren’t timed, since fixing my problem took just a couple of minutes, and we spent the rest of the 25 minute call talking about RV’ing, traveling, and things to see around the country. We even talked about cats. (inside Godaddy joke)

By the end of the call, I’d figured out that she didn’t work at the complex we’d seen in Tempe, but their much, much bigger headquarters up in Scottsdale. So I don’t know if this one has a slide or not.

Tomorrow, maybe painting, maybe not.

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March 24, 2016

Green Apples and Ham, er Pork . . ..

Another quiet morning in the White household. But whatever, it was nice. For most of the morning, we both goofed off with reading and Internet stuff. We didn’t walk, feeling that we had made up for it with yesterday’s 2.05 miles walking/shopping at Wal-Mart.

For some reason, we can walk a lot farther, a lot easier, in Wal-Mart than around the park. But hey, 2 miles is 2 miles.

About 2pm Jan started working on the batch of Funeral Potatoes she was taking to Dennis and Carol’s this afternoon. Pretty easy to put together, and then just pop it in the convection oven.

Jan and I headed out for Livingston, and Dennis and Carol Hill’s at the Escapees Park there.

We got to Dennis and Carol’s about 4:45, and soon after, the other guests show up.

From left to right: Dennis, Jim, Carol, in back of Mark, my Jan, Kim, the other Jan. It appears that other Jan’s husband, Dave, has wandered off.

Lucky for us, Dennis’ ‘Smoking A Butt’ did involve pork, and boy, was it good. Along with Kim’s Grilled Beans with Bacon and Cheese Bacon Biscuits, Carol’s Cole Slaw, and my Jan’s Funeral Potatoes, it was a really great meal.

As far as liquid refreshments, Dennis had a nice selection of adult libations, so I decided to try a Redd’s Green Apple Ale. And now I have a new favorite grownup beverage. In addition, when I gave Jan a taste, I had trouble getting the bottle back. Now we want to try their other flavors, Apple Ale and Strawberry Ale.

After a really nice evening, and saying our goodbyes, we headed back to Conroe, taking with us Dennis’ lovely parting gifts of his delicious smoked pork.

We got back to Lake Conroe a little before 9:30,  wrapping up a very nice day.

Tomorrow we head out for the Clear Lake area for Jan’s final wrap-up doctor appointment. Then I’ve got a couple of clients to visit to take care of some computer problems they’re having.

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March 24, 2017

Oink, Oink . . .

Our last day in Tucson, Jan and I were up and out the door a little after 10am with our first stop back at the Pima County Fairgrounds to see if I could find the computer mouse I left in Seminar Rm. 4 after our Gate Guarding seminar.

The mouse was black and the ruffled cloth on the tabletop was black, so it didn’t end up coming home with me. It’s not a big deal, only a $7 Amazon mouse, but I’m cheap and it was worth a stop-and-look in any case.

But no luck. The room had been stripped clean.

So leaving the Fairgrounds mouseless, our next stop was the Oink Café at Kolb and Broadway, but along the way, we checked out the Valero station at Kolb and Valencia to see if it was suitable for getting diesel tomorrow on our way north to Apache Junction. It’s only 3 miles off the Interstate and 30 cents a gallon cheaper than the Pilot right down the road. And since we need a little over 100 gallons, that makes a difference.

Several people had told us about the Oink Café. How can you not like a place whose slogan is ‘Breakfast, Lunch, Bacon’? And they do have bacon, eight different kinds of bacon, as a matter of fact.

Jan went with, what else, a BLT with Apple Cider Bacon.

She said it was probably the best bacon she’s ever had.

I had the 50-50 burger, which is a 1/2 patty that 50% Beef and 50% ground bacon.

It doesn’t get much better than this. And their coffee was really good too.

I also tried a sampler of 4 different types of their bacon.

From left to right: Applewood Smoked, Honey, Jalapeno, and Pepper. All very good, and all very distinctly different tasting.

And of course we had to get some donut holes to take home for tomorrow’s breakfast. And of course, they’re Maple Bacon donuts. All bacon all the time.

There’s also an Oink Café up in the Phoenix area that we might check out while we’re up in Apache Junction.

After lunch, it was over to the big Ace Hardware over on Houghton for some hardware items. Then it was on to 3 different auto parts stores until I found AW32 Hydraulic Fluid in gallon jugs.

Getting home I took care of some maintenance items around the rig. First up was using the AW32 to top off the reservoir in the rig that powers the rig’s power steering and the hydraulically-controlled radiator fan. Next, I topped off the radiator coolant and checked the engine oil.

Then I added Rain-X wiper fluid to both the rig and the truck, as well as topping off the brake fluid in the truck, and checking the oil and transmission fluid too.

Finishing up with this, I worked on some Internet stuff until it was time to head down to Omar’s for a dinner get-together with a bunch of other RV’ers, including Dennis and Carol Hill, and Sharon and Don del Rosario.

As with our previous visits, our food was really good. We both went with breakfast, Jan with a Belgian Waffle with Strawberries and Whipped Cream,

while I had the Omar’s Favorite, with 3 Cheese Enchiladas, Shredded Beef, 3 Over Medium Eggs, and Country Potatoes.

All very good.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 145 mile trip up to the Santa Fe RV Park in Apache Junction where we’ll be for two weeks, before we head out for Vegas, Baby,

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March 24, 2018

Mach 2 . . .

After a quiet morning, about 3pm Jan and I headed up to Webster to have lunch at Cheddar’s once again

We both had our usual Chicken and Shrimp, and Veggie Plate, just as delicious as usual. All their sides are good. Then after a nice leisurely meal, we circled by the Post Office in Webster to mail a letter, and then our last stop was back at Brock’s Car Care to get a couple of things out of the truck that I had left when I thought I had it back permanently.

Coming back down I-45 toward home, we saw traffic signs detailing that the FM 646 exit (our exit) will be closed from 9pm to 5pm this coming Monday through Friday nights. At some point they’re going to tear down the 646 overpass over I-45 and replace it with an underpass. But I don’t think this is for that, since they don’t look like they’re ready for that yet.

Oreo (Android 8.0) seems to have broken my phone. I just upgraded about a week ago and this is the first problem I’ve noticed.

I use the Texas Lottery app to check my Mega Millions and PowerBall lottery tickets by scanning the barcode on the bottom of the ticket. But since I upgraded to Oreo the camera doesn’t turn on. All I get is a black screen.

So the next thing I did was try the Savings Catcher Receipt scanner in the Wal-Mart app and it worked fine.

And checking Wal-Mart and Sam’s Scan & Go apps showed they both still worked too.

So then I tried rebooting the phone, again with no change. Next, I deleted the Lottery app, rebooted, and then reinstalled it. Again with no luck.

Strangely this same thing happened on my previous Galaxy S5 after an update. But that time it took out my Wal-Mart scanner. So I’ll have to keep looking at the problem.

While we’re on the subject of the lottery, I’ve already lined up my first purchase after my big win.

It’s an F4H-1F, a pre-production variant built in 1959, and the 11th one produced before the model was re-designated the F-4 Phantom II in 1962. This one was used by the Navy as a test bed for various projects and only has 461 hours since it rolled out of the factory.

I spent a lot of time in the late 60’s working on F-4’s at the MCAS (Marine Corp Air Station) Beaufort, SC (part of Parris Island) and got a couple of check rides in the back seat of one. Also got to work on one of the Blue Angel’s F-4’s one time, so it’s one of my favorite planes.

This one is listed as the “World’s Only Privately Owned F-4 Phantom Capable of Flight”, and even better it’s going for the bargain price of only $3.95 million. And that includes 3 spare J-79 engines, 3 fuel drop tanks, 2 drag chutes, and fully-active M-B ejection seats. A bargain at twice the price.

Looking forward to hitting Mach 2 again.

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March 24, 2019

Starry Night, and Peaches . . .

We spent this morning on a number of different things, some trip-related, some not. We did look back through our possible extra-cost excursions, trying to decide which if any we want to add to our trip.

I also ordered a couple of these compact travel umbrellas to take along with us. They are pretty good size and have the best reviews,

but really they only have to last for the trip. And at $17 each that’s not too bad.

Jan got the Pink Peach version,

while, keeping the Van Gogh theme, got the Starry Night one.

While I was ordering stuff I went ahead and ordered another bottle of the Busch’s Aluminum Wash, since doing all four rig wheels pretty much uses up an entire bottle. FWIW I’ve tried a number of other brands that I’ve bought locally but this stuff is the only thing I’ve found that works.

And while I was thinking about stuff for the trip that we’d ordered, I thought to the TSA Prohibited List and found, as I had suspected, that our sharp-pointy walking sticks are not allowed in our carry-on bags, but must be checked. Not a big deal though since we’d already thought about checking a single, larger bag in addition to the two bags each that we will be carrying on.

I also made our coach once again legal to drive by digging out and installing our license plate stickers, so now we’re good to go for next Sunday’s test drive and the family trip up to Kingsland Friday week.

And on another coach note, I talked with Cummins on Friday about the burnt-on residue on my oil filter mount and the tech said it is pretty hard steel rather than aluminum, so I should be able to scrape it if I have to without worrying too much about scratching it, as long as I’m careful.

And he also said the oil filter mount is replaceable. “Four bolts and it comes right off,” he said. However, I suspect this is one of those ‘MUCH easier said than done’ situations, based on the location.

Without orangutan arms, I don’t think you can reach it from underneath, and you can’t see it from the rear engine compartment. So I’ll have to see if it’s at all accessible from under the bed.

So I’m crossing my fingers that the leak is fixed now.

We knew long-time friends Butch and Fonda Williams were coming through Houston on their way from Quartzite, AZ to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation Park in Summerdale, AL, where we stayed last October on our way to Florida. But we weren’t quite sure where or when we would be able to meet.

But they ended up ‘rest-stopping’ last night the other side of Columbus, and called this morning a little after noon to say they were at the Baytown Buc-ee’s. So we headed up to meet them there.

They’ve got a 1987 MCI bus that they converted and put in a new engine, and recently spent the winter at Quartzite. So now they’re heading back to their home in Indiana by way of south Alabama.

Sounds like 2008, our first year on the road, where we came home to Houston from Alaska via Gatlinburg, TN, and the Smoky Mountains.

After catching up for a bit, we headed right down the feeder about a mile to have lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse, their first visit to one.

Not only did they seem to like their steaks, but we turned them on to our favorite Wedge Salad. And luckily, the restaurant wasn’t really busy, so we were able to spend a couple of hours catching up without the guilt of hogging a table that was needed.

Finally saying our goodbyes, we headed home and they headed east on I-10 to a nearby rest area for the night. Hopefully, we’ll see them their next time through here.

Last week I posted the following as a Thought For The Day.

Wife tells programmer husband “Pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work and if they have eggs, get a dozen.” (If you’re a programmer this is hilarious!)

Several readers, who were programmers, or programmer’s spouses, disagreed with the hilarity of the statement, and said they didn’t get it. In hindsight, I guess I should have clarified it as ‘OLD programmers.’

Several others, from my early programming time-frame, saw it the same way I did. So I guess you had to start out in the stone-age of computers like I(we) did.

In my case I started out at age 17 in 1966, programming in Fortran II on the IBM 360 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Everyone was talking about/waiting for, Fortran IV.

Never did figure out what happened to Fortran III?

So I guess you had to be there, or maybe ‘then’.

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March 24, 2020

Up On The Roof?

Jan and I were out the door a little after 7am this morning, heading up to Friendswood for our annual checkups.

Rob Amato, our park owner, has been working on getting our new streetlights installed, and just got them upright a couple of days ago. And this morning was our first time to see them in action.

They’re daylight LED lights and really brighten up the area.

And the daylight part means it looks like this underneath.

We got to the doctor’s office about 8am, and found that they would only let one of us into the office at a time. Everyone was wearing masks and gloves, and complaining about how hot it made them. Then after letting Jan and I in one at a time, they put us in a room together. After the nurse drew our blood, the doctor quickly went over our prescriptions and we were out to the desk to pay.

That’s when I mentioned, “Aren’t we supposed to pee in the jar?”

Whoops!

I think they were a little too much in a hurry to get us out the door.

Then after filling our bottles, we drove down to the Home Depot on FM646 for a few things. It was interesting to find that it was pretty much business as usual there. I wanted to get a can of spray cleaner to clean the coil in the Coleman Mach 15 AC unit in the front of our rig.

I pulled the inside panel to see if I could unclog the outside drain hole, since rather than run off the side of the rig, water was dripping down inside. But while it quickly became obvious that I was going to be up on the roof in the near future, I also found that the coil was pretty dirty and I needed to clean it ASAP.

As we left HD, I submitted an online order to the nearby Whataburger so we could drive by and pick it up. Our receipt said our order would be ready in 5-7 minutes, and to park in the lot and an attendant would bring out our order.

But after about 15 minutes we had not seen anybody, so we got in the drive-thru line and found our order waiting for us. Don’t know where the problem was, but our burgers were as fantastic as usual.

Then we drove across the roadway to park in a shady spot in the WalMart parking lot to consume our long-missed burgers and fries. These were our first burgers in a long time since we’ve been prepping for good numbers on our tests at the doctor’s.

Done with our burgers, we drove over closer to WalMart and went in to pick up a couple of items. Though the store was about as busy as usual for a Tuesday morning, the parking lot seemed to reflect the whole ‘social distancing’ meme.

Rather than most of the cars being clustered near the doors, cars looked to be scattered all around the parking lot, even out to the edges.

So spread in the parking lot, and then huddle together in the checkout line.

Got it!

Our daughter sent over this text this morning, reflecting the trials and tribulations of Homeschooling.

Homeschooling Day #2.

Landon was getting ready to log into Zoom for his morning meeting with his class and I told him the items he still needed to do this week and he said “I don’t have to do ALL that today, do I?”

And I said “no, we will space it out” and he says “whew, you’re my savior…the lazy teacher I always wanted!”

Our son, Chris, sent back, “Smart Ass runs deep in this family.”

He would certainly know, if anyone would.

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March 24, 2021

Happy Birthday!

Today, on March 24th, 1999, “Beauty”, our 1999 American Eagle coach, rolled off the assembly line at the factory in Decatur, IN.

We bought her from Roman Holiday Motorhomes in New Braunfels, TX on December 26, 2007. She had only 64,511 miles from the two previous owners, and was in fantastic shape. We picked her up on January 6th, 2008, and then after a month of prep, on February 6th, we headed for Alaska.

Well, in a roundabout way, at least.

Our route over the next two months took us out through Yuma, San Diego, LA, over to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson. Then across to Albuquerque, up through Denver, Cheyenne, and on to Billings.

Next up it was on over to Bellingham where we entered Canada at the Sumas crossing on April 13, 2008. And after the drive up to Dawson Creek, we got on the Alcan Hwy, and we were in Fairbanks, parked at the Chena Marina RV Park there, on April 26th.

We spent the next 5 months workcamping there, finally heading back home on September 19, 2008. We took a different route back, down the Cassiar Hwy, then coming south from Prince George, down the Cariboo Hwy to Cache Creek, and then across to Lake Louise, Banff, and Calgary, finally reentering the US at Sweet Grass, MT on October 8th.

Next, it was on east through Iowa and Illinois, down through Nashville, and over to Knoxville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg. Then it was on down through Alabama to Gulf Shores, before finally heading back to Houston, getting here the Sunday before Thanksgiving, November 23rd. So, almost 10 months on the road.

A wild and crazy first year. And a hell of a lot of fun!

Well, Uncle Sam was right on the money this time, and our Stimulus Funds showed up in our account this morning, just as promised. And since today was also Jan’s regular SS payday, it was even better.

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March 24, 2022

P. F. Chang’s And More . . .

For the last several days our shore water pressure coming into the rig has been good, intermittent, or nonexistent. However, whenever I looked closer, it all started working for a bit. But after a process of elimination, and the fact that water from our internal tank going through the pump works just fine, the only thing left really was the shore water inlet/check valve.

And when I went to Amazon to order a new one, I found I had ordered one back in June 2013 while we were at the Bend/Sunriver Thousand Trails Park in Bend, OR. And for the same reason, as I found out when I checked the blog for that date.

It should be here tomorrow morning, along with a new hose splitter.

This one is solid brass, so it won’t crack/rust like my previous plastic/steel one. So it’s going to be a busy weekend, I guess.

This morning we left the rig a little after 1pm, with our first stop at Esthela’s Barber Shop over in Bay Area Blvd/FM528 area.

Up until about 4 years ago, it had been Lou’s Barber Shop, where I had been going for about 30 years, not too long after it opened. Then Lou sold the shop and retired to Corpus.

Next up was our lunch at P.F. Chang’s, our first visit, but probably not our last.

It was that good.

When we sat down, our server dropped off a platter of their Chicken Lettuce Wrap for us to sample.

So good that a couple of us ordered it for their meal.  Probably the idea for the sample.

Jan ordered the Mandarin Crunch Salad with Chicken.

Which she said she would order again.

I got the lunch version of the Kung Pao Chicken Bowl, which was listed as Very Spicy.

Yeah, right!

Though it was pretty tasty.

And here is this motley bunch.

Bob and Maria, on the left, we have known since the mid-80’s. while Connie, Harry, and Sadye, we’ve known since 1997 or so. And Jan of course, I’ve known since July 1967. July 5th to be exact.

And we’ve already got next month’s get-together scheduled, this one at the Black Bear Diner down in our area.

Already looking forward to it.