I mentioned back on August 1st that with NASA/Boeing’s Starliner docked at the ISS there’s nowhere to dock anything else.
The US part of the ISS only has two docking ports available, and there’s already a SpaceX Crew Dragon parked next to the Starliner. But now there’s another SpaceX Crew Dragon scheduled to launch for the ISS on August 18th.
And now there’s this.
Shock Revelation: Starliner Can’t Undock From Space Station Safely
It seems that Boeing left out the software that would let the Starliner undock without a crew onboard. But they don’t want to do this since they don’t trust the thrusters to let them do this safely with a crew onboard.
So now they’re stuck. So far all they’ve done so far is to delay the August 18th launch until sometime in September.
This problem doesn’t keep them from receiving supplies. In fact a Northrop Grumman’s robotic Cygnus freighter, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9, reached ISS this morning with 4 tons of supplies.
But it doesn’t dock, but instead is grabbed by the robot arm.
Stay tuned.
In other SpaceX news, they just revealed the latest iteration of their Raptor engine series, the Raptor 3.
It has over 50% more thrust while being more than 30% lighter.
But the real difference is the reduction in complexity. And less complexity means less cost.
I posted about this in the Retro-Blogs™. Today, August 6th, is a very important date in my life for two reasons.
The first is the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima today in 1945.
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother was a Captain (later Major) in the Army Nurse Corps and Chief of Nursing at West Point. Most of her nurses were on a train for New Orleans from West Point to get on a troop ship to the Pacific to participate in the invasion of the Japanese homeland. My mother and a few other of her nurses were a couple of days behind due to recovering from the flu.
And with Japan’s propensity for attacking hospital ships, there’s a very good chance she might not have made it home. After all, it was forecast that there would be over a million American casualties during a possible invasion.
And the second reason is that on this date 29 years ago Tim Berners-Lee. of the CERN Institute in Switzerland put up the very first website on what would become the World Wide Web.
“Vague but exciting”.
This is what Mike Sendall, Tim Berners-Lee’s boss at CERN in Switzerland wrote on Lee’s proposal giving him permission to develop what we know today as the World Wide Web.
So, yes, one guy invented the Web, and, no, it wasn’t Al Gore.
It was Tim Berners-Lee.
“He wrote the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which outlined how information would travel between computers, and HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which was used to create the first web pages. “
And today, August 6th, is the 25th anniversary of when the very first website went live.
And you can still see the page here at its original address.
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
And here’s the very first web server sitting on Lee’s desk,
It was a NeXT computer that had a note taped to the front that said: “This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN”.
And it was almost a year later when the very first picture was published on the Web.
It’s a photo of a parody rock band made up of CERN employees.
I figure the 2nd photo was probably porn.
I got in this early enough that I remember when there were only about a dozen websites in the entire world, all of them at universities and research facilities. And I visited all of them.
One thing to remember is that the Internet and the Web are not the same thing. The Web runs on the Internet.
The Internet came first, with the first commercial ISP’s coming online in the late 80’s, and consisted of Email, Newsgroups, and IRC Chat.
Of course, direct dial-up services like CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, etc., had been around since the late 60’s, but there was little or no connectivity between them.
Email was pretty much what it is today, while Newsgroups were gathering areas for people to trade info on pretty much every hobby, interest, and perversion you can imagine. IRC Chat was the early version of today’s Instant Messaging.
There’s more info here:
So if it wasn’t for what happened 25 years ago, you wouldn’t be reading this.
Thought For The Day:
A truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent. Wm. Blake
Your Retro-Preview Highlights –
2009 – We Found It!
2010 – Madonnas On The Trail And Our Illinois Family
2011 – Guess Who’s Walking
2013 – What Does Economy Mode Do?
2014 – Mail Order Russian Brides
2022 – Mexican Corn
And Now On To today’s Retro-Blogs.™
August 6, 2009
We Found It!
We spent our last day on Cape Cod driving around looking for the efficiency motel unit we stayed in here in 1971-72.
And we found it.
But the first time we had to do this morning was move. We only had our other site for 4 days and then someone else had it reserved. So we had to pack up and move down the road apiece from site 266 to site 2.
Actually this is a better site for us, because it’s a pull-thru and has room behind it for us to hook up the toad (truck) before we pull out tomorrow.
After getting hooked up, we headed out on our quest. And first, we found the motel, or what’s left of it, that we stayed in for a few days when we first got here. Apparently it’s no longer a going concern.
Next we moved into an efficiency motel unit that had two bedrooms. We knew it was on the water, so we just kept checking likely areas, and there it was.
We didn’t remember the name, but now it’s called the Cape Wind Resort. The place has expanded and the cranberry bog behind it is gone, but the playground area out in front where Chris played is still here. Chris turned four while we were here, so he probably wouldn’t remember the place.
We only stayed here a month or so, because the rent would go from $100 a month in the winter to $400 a month once the tourist season started after Memorial Day. That’s when we moved into the house we found a few days ago.
It’s kind of amazing that all these places are still here after almost 40 years, but then they’ve got houses around here that were built in 1675, so I guess it’s not that amazing.
Coming home we ate dinner at a pretty decent Mexican place called Sam Diego’s. Not bad.
And tomorrow it’s off to Woonsocket…
August 6, 2010
Much Ado About Nothing…
Nothing…because that’s pretty much what we did today.
Nothing.
Having stayed up until about 3 am this morning, I slept in ‘til about 11.
Jan fixed sandwiches for lunch, and then after lunch, we again did nothing.
But nothing this time also included a nap.
About 6 pm we drove over to Ryan’s for supper. Jan and I both love their fried chicken, and this time was as good as usual.
We got back to the rig about 7 and continued doing pretty much nothing.
And that was about it for the day.
Nothing.
Getting back to our recent visit to Vandalia, IL.
Vandalia is another town that is home to a Madonna of the Trail. The Madonnas are a series of twelve 18 ft. tall statues erected in 1928-29 by the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), The statues were placed along the National Old Trails Road from Bethesda, Maryland to Upland, California, mostly along what is now US 40. The statues were not carved but were cast from a mixture of crushed marble, Missouri granite, stone, cement, and lead ore in identical molds.
We saw another Madonna in Springerville, AZ when we were visiting in Show Low, AZ back in June. We’ll try to catch some others as we travel around.
Our real purpose for being in Vandalia was to visit Jan’s sister Debbie and her family. We all got together at The Depot, a local restaurant, and had a great meal.
Here’s the whole group.
From left to right: Jason, Laura, Ella, Avery Jane, Debbie, Jim, Gwen, Christina, Tana, Jan, and Me.
Now for the relationships. Jason is Debbie and Jim’s son, Laura is his wife, Ella and Avery Jane are their children. Debbie is Jan’s sister, and Jim, in the center, is her husband.
Next is Debbie and Jim’s daughters, Christina and Tana. Christina is holding Gwen, who is Tana’s daughter. And of course, Jan and I.
Hope you keep all this straight. There will be a short quiz at the end of this blog post.
And this cutie is our grand-niece, Gwen, Tana’s daughter.
Here’s Laura and Jason.
And this beautiful young lady is Miss Avery Jane, Laura and Jason’s daughter.
And this young lady is Ella, Jason and Laura’s other daughter.
And this is my cutie, Jan, with Gwen.
This is Christina, and Tana, our nieces, with Avery Jane and Gwen.
And here’s one final shot of the entire group.
We had our usual great time visiting with Jim and Debbie and family, and we’ll try to stop off for dinner on our way back to Texas the first part of September.
Leaving Vandalia on Sunday, and heading for Cincinnati, we passed by this two-hundred-foot cross just outside of Effingham, IL The Effingham Cross is located at the junction of I-57 and I-70 and is seen by about 50,000 travelers a day.
And now for your quiz. Who is Avery Jane, and what is her relationship to Jan and I?
And remember, this quiz will be 30% of your final grade.
August 6, 2011
Guess Who’s Walking?
Yep! Master Landon has started standing up on his own and walking. Brandi called us just a few minutes after we hit the road this morning.
She said he first stood up with a toy in each hand and took a couple of steps, then it was 4-5 steps. No pictures yet.
Watch out, World. He’s on the move!
We pulled out of the St. Paul East RV Park about 9:15, heading for the Pine Grove Campground just outside Shawano, WI, about 210 miles away.
Ten minutes later we were in Wisconsin for the first time. For the first 60 miles or so we were on I-94 but then turned off onto SR29. Seeing as this was a State Road I didn’t really know what to expect, but it turns out that SR29 is an Interstate in everything but name.
The next 150 miles were all four-lane, limited access, and no traffic lights, so we made good time.
I was thinking to myself that for some reason the countryside reminded me of Pennsylvania, the gently rolling hills, the neat and tidy farmhouses, and then I saw this and the image was complete.
Didn’t realize there were a lot of Amish in Wisconsin, but I guess so.
I saw yesterday that we passed 6200 miles for the year so far. I figure we’ll be between 10 and 11 thousand by the time we get back to Houston right before Thanksgiving. Since we hit the road in February 2008, we’ve put almost 43,000 miles on our coach.
And loved every mile of it.
We arrived at the Pine Grove Campground about 1:30 and got set up in a really beautiful site right on a lake. 50 amp full hookups too.
Jan immediately started doing laundry.
The only downside is no satellite reception. I put the Winegard about 60 feet away in the most open area I could find, but no luck. I’ll try again
tomorrow.
About 4:30 we headed to Shawano to have dinner. On the way, we passed this neat local institution.
The Indoor-Outdoor Movie Theater.
It has 4 screens inside and two outside, back to back. For some reason, drive-ins seemed to have survived up here. We’ve seen several still in business between here and North Dakota.
I know I certainly had a lot of fun at drive-ins growing up.
We ended up at Flamingo’s Family Restaurant for dinner, with Jan having the Roast Turkey and Dressing and I had the BBQ Pork Short Ribs. Both very good. It was easy to see why the place was so busy.
Still not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow. Our real reason for coming up this way is because we wanted to visit the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace, MI, right across the state line from Wisconsin. They’ve had a TV show on Nat Geo Wild for a couple of years, and we wanted to check the place out.
We had originally planned to go tomorrow, but there’s a 50% chance of thunderstorms, while it’s supposed to be clear on Monday. So we may extend a day here and go then, but then that will mean longer driving days getting to southern Illinois by Wednesday.
So we’ll see tomorrow. BTW it’s pouring down rain right now.
August 6, 2013
Something Different . . .
In the last couple of days I’ve come across two familiar topics on some of the online RV forums and just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to weigh in.
The first one concerns the Economy Mode button found on most Diesel Pusher transmissions, and how it works and what it does. According to Spartan Chassis’ and Allison Transmissions, it doesn’t really do much.
It seems the most mistaken idea is that it’s an overdrive gear. It’s not.
Actually the only thing it does is to change the computer so that it delays the downshift point when you start up a hill and hurries the upshift point at the top.
So if you’re driving on the straight and level, staying in 6th and never downshifting, it does absolutely nothing. Zip, Zero, Nada.
And if you’re in hilly country, constantly downshifting and upshifting one or more gears, again it will make no real difference.
The only time it will make a difference is on gently rolling hills just the right height so that Economy Mode would keep you in 6th gear, rather than having to downshift without Economy Mode. And since this is very hard to anticipate, the only way to be sure is to just leave it on all the time. And of course, you have to remember to turn it on again every time you crank up. Just don’t expect it to make a lot of difference.
The second topic is a perennial favorite: Black Tank Treatments. The packets, the tablets, the powder. The blue stuff, the green stuff, the clear stuff. Take your pick. It seems like everyone has their personal favorite. Some, like me, even mix their own.
After reading a lot of ideas and suggestions over the years, I came up with my own formula a while back that seems to keep the level sensors clean and eliminates any smells. And it’s simple and cheap, and can all be found at Wal-Mart
I buy a box of the cheapest powder laundry detergent I can find. In most cases, it’s a brand called Fab. Next up is a bottle of Calgon Water Softener and a box of RID-X Septic Tank Treatment.
Pretty much every time after I dump the black tank, I put in a scoop of detergent, a capful of Calgon, and a tablespoon of RID-X in the tank. The detergent cleans the tank, the Calgon acts as a surfactant cutting the film that blocks the level sensors, and the RID-X introduces enzymes and bacteria that help to break down and emulsify the waste, reducing the chance of a clog while draining the tank.
I’ve also seen posts saying the RID-X doesn’t do any good because we don’t have septic tanks. But at least in our case we do, in a way. We normally only dump our black tank every two weeks so the RID-X has plenty of time to do its thing. I guess if you dump every day or something, it might not work as well.
All I can say is that it works for me.
August 6, 2014
Mail Order Russian Brides
Beside the obvious Amazon ads on this blog, I also have Google ads, two within the blog text, and one large one on the right side. The content of these ads can vary, and are usually different for each reader. I can block ‘questionable’ ads, and I already have blocked some, like Mail Order Russian Brides, Filipino Girlfriends, and Online Gambling.
So if you see any ads that you find objectionable, please let me know and I will block them. Thanks.
On the other hand, if you ARE looking for a Russian Bride or a Filipino girlfriend, let me know and I’ll send you a link.
As I had figured, this morning’s dueling breads was satisfied with a tie. We each had a piece of my Aunt Virginia’s Banana Nut bread with our coffee for breakfast.
Later I went back out in the heat, 92° today, to take another look at my truck A/C problem My first test was to use my ohmmeter to check the coil of the compressor clutch, and as I suspected, the coil was open. So that’s the problem. Now what to do about it?
I can replace, and have replaced, the AC clutch on other cars. It’s not really that hard. But I would need some tools I don’t have with me. The advantage is that I wouldn’t have to pull the compressor and replace the Freon.
But, do I want to spend ~ $100 for a new clutch to put on a 10-year-old compressor, when for ~ $200 I can get a whole new compressor and clutch? Of course, then I would have to pump out the Freon, replace the compressor, then pull a vacuum on the system, and put Freon back in.
And it’s possible that if the compressor was already starting to fail and seize up, it could have caused the coil to burn out anyway.
Either way it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to do anything about it until we’re back in Houston in a week or so.
Saw a mention today that a female gate guard was run over by a big truck a couple of days ago. Looks like stitches in her head and a broken arm are the lucky (for her) result. Apparently, after talking to the driver, she walked back around the front of the truck and stopped to get his tag number without telling the driver. They can’t see you down there over those big hoods.
I normally get the tag info on the way out to talk to the driver, and then coming back, hold the clipboard up over my head until I’m clear.
Glad to hear she wasn’t more seriously injured.
Came across an interesting website the other day.
Ever hear a voice on a commercial and you know it’s someone famous, but you just can’t place it?
Well, check out www.adwhois.com. And they probably know.
.A couple of days ago, I heard a new ad for Gold Peak Ice Tea. I knew the voice was familiar, but I just couldn’t place it.
And it turned out to be Opie Taylor, I.e. Rod Howard.
Check it out.
August 6, 2015
Gulfward Bound . . .
We pulled out of Northgate RV Travel Park about 8:15, just as it started to pour down rain, and it continued until we were almost into Montgomery. And it also didn’t help the drive that we had very strong, gusty winds all the way down to Gulf Shores.
It was interesting to note the way unleaded gas prices dropped the further south we went, at least until we got off of I-65 about 50 miles from the Gulf.
North of Birmingham we were seeing prices around $2.25, then a little further south it was $2.17. By the time we got south of Montgomery, it was $2.10. Finally we saw a $2.07. Looks like under $2 is coming soon.
As far as diesel, we paid $2.28 a gallon at the Pilot just south of Montgomery, using my GS RV Plus Card, which gave me a 7-cent gallon discount off the $2.35 cash price.
Jan took over driving as we left the Pilot, and drove for about an hour and a half. She did have a really ‘FUN’ time fighting the gusty winds, so she didn’t drive for as long as she normally would.
We checked in to the Gulf State Park at Gulf Shores about 4:30 and got set up.
We weren’t able to get a site on the water this time, but it is a nice large site, with no close neighbors.
By the time we were finished setting up, it was time for some good seafood. So we headed out to have dinner at Desoto’s Kitchen, a great local place with fresh seafood.
We both had our usual Fried Seafood Platter, with Flounder, Oysters, Shrimp, and Crab Claws.
And we both always get the same two sides: Sweet Potato Casserole and Fried
Green Tomatoes. And the sides, as well as their seafood, are all prepared fresh in-house. No frozen, or pre-prepared stuff there.
We really timed our arrival perfectly. I dropped off Jan at the door while I went to park. At that point there was nobody waiting outside, but by the time I got inside there was a wait line of about 10 people Luckily we got seated immediately at the last open table.
But by the time we left about about 6:30, there must have been 50 or 60 people milling around outside waiting for a table.
It’s that good.
August 6, 2016
“Vague but exciting”
Another nice, quiet day here at Gulf Shores. We had a respite from the thunderstorms today, but they’re coming back with a vengeance the next few days, including 100% chance of Heavy Thunderstorms on Tuesday when we are supposed to leave for north Alabama.
They have Wi-Fi here at Gulf State Park, and it appears to cover the entire area using repeater relays. In fact we have a repeater pole right outside our rig.
Too bad it doesn’t work.
And it didn’t work last year either. When I asked them about the problem, I was only told they have Wi-Fi at the Activity Center. Well, to start with, I’m not parked at the Activity Center.
But what’s strange is that they’ve got the hard part done. I have 4 bars of signal here, and my systems will connect and then try to get an IP address. Which is where it all fails. It hangs there until it gives up and times out.
Which pretty much means that the system is not connected to the internet. So I don’t know if they put the system in and then decided that it was too expensive to pay for sufficient bandwidth to cover the park or what. Since we’re talking about the State Government running things, who knows?
About 2pm Jan and I did our yearly Pensacola run, mainly for two things. Sonny’s BBQ and Artesana Imports.
Sonny’s is one of our three favorite BBQ places – Rudy’s BBQ, Famous Dave’s BBQ, and Sonny’s BBQ. Between the 3, we’ve got most of the US covered for good BBQ.
Rudy’s covers Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, and we’ve eaten at a number of locations in Texas, and as far west as Phoenix. Good Texas BBQ, Brisket, and Ribs.
Famous Dave’s covers much of the US, with locations in 36 states, as far west as California, as far north as North Dakota, Montana, and Illinois, and as far east as New York. Good Ribs, Brisket, and Hot Links. We first ate at a Famous Dave’s in Billings, MT with Mike and Janna Clark, and have eaten at a number of them around the country since then.
Sonny’s covers a large part of the south and the southeast, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and we’ve been eating at various locations since the 70’s.
We always tried to eat at the Sonny’s in Pensacola when we’re in the area, so today was our chance.
The first thing we noticed was that since we were here two years ago, they’ve done a major remodeling, inside and out, really updating the look.
But the BBQ is as good as ever. Jan got her usual Sliced Pork Sandwich with Fries and BBQ Beans, and I got my usual Pork 3 Ways Platter.
With Ribs, Sliced Pork, and Pulled Pork, it covers all the bases. I got the BBQ Beans, and the Corn on the Cob. One thing I like about their Corn on the Cob is that it’s cooked in foil, and not boiled and then left in hot water so that it gets soggy.
Besides the great BBQ, another thing I like about Sonny’s is no wimpy iced tea glasses.
No, these are big, double-handed 32oz glasses, so I’m not constantly having them refilled.
After our great meal, we drove on in toward downtown Pensacola to visit Artesana Imports, a gift shop that we’ve been visiting since the 70’s. Jan always finds something she likes, and today’s find was a new seashell-based dish towel.
Always a great place to visit.
“Vague but exciting”.
This is what Mike Sendall, Tim Berners-Lee’s boss at CERN in Switzerland wrote on Lee’s proposal giving him permission to develop what we know today as the World Wide Web.
So, yes, one guy invented the Web, and, no, it wasn’t Al Gore.
It was Tim Berners-Lee.
“He wrote the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which outlined how information would travel between computers, and HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which was used to create the first web pages. “
And today, August 6th, is the 25th anniversary of when the very first website went live.
And you can still see the page here at its original address.
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
And here’s the very first web server sitting on Lee’s desk,
It was a NeXT computer that had a note taped to the front that said: “This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN”.
And it was almost a year later when the very first picture was published on the Web.
It’s a photo of a parody rock band made up of CERN employees.
I figure the 2nd photo was probably porn.
I got in this early enough that I remember when there were only about a dozen websites in the entire world, all of them at universities and research facilities.
One thing to remember is that the Internet and the Web are not the same thing. The Web runs on the Internet.
The Internet came first, with the first commercial ISP’s coming online in the late 80’s, and consisted of Email, Newsgroups, and IRC Chat.
Of course, direct dial-up services like CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, etc., had been around since the late 60’s, but there was little or no connectivity between them.
Email was pretty much what it is today, while Newsgroups were gathering areas for people to trade info on pretty much every hobby, interest, and perversion you can imagine. IRC Chat was the early version of today’s Instant Messaging.
There’s more info here:
So if it wasn’t for what happened 25 years ago, you wouldn’t be reading this.
August 6, 2017
It’s Dead, Jim . . .
Or at least it’s broke real good.
Jan and I were up and out the door by 8am this morning, first to the Cracker Barrel right next door for breakfast, and coffee. Definitely coffee.
Then we drove into Covington for more AW-32 hydraulic fluid and some gasket material. So far this trip I’ve bought over $250 of AW-32 at $14 a gallon. Yikes!
So my idea was to use the gasket material to try and make a seal between the motor and the bracket, at least well enough to get me home using a few more gallons of AW-32.
But it didn’t work.
Apparently the seal between the fan shaft and the motor has ruptured, letting the fluid just squirt out around the shaft. So the motor will have to be replaced. Not something I, or my son Chris and I, could do. At least not parked in a mall parking lot.
So at this point, we were not going anywhere today. At least not in the rig. So to make things easier on Jan, I called my daughter Brandi to see if she and Lowell could meet us halfway in Lake Charles and take Jan off my hands. At least temporarily. LOL.
So that round-trip ate up six hours of the afternoon. About all I got done today.
Tomorrow I’ll call Cummins about the problem, and then call the Cummins repair shop in Baton Rouge to get their take on things. And if it looks like they can handle the problem in a timely manner, I’ll call Good Sam ERS to get a tow scheduled, which could be tomorrow or the next day, since this is not an emergency situation.
And so it goes.
August 6, 2018
Theme For A Day . . .
Nothing much new at work today. I’m trying to find a new Zen Cart/WordPress theme that I like, to use on the company website when I move the whole thing up to Godaddy and off our in-house server.
The old theme is no longer being supported and I never really liked it anyway. But so far I’ve looked at a bunch with no luck. Either I don’t like the way they look, or they don’t have the features I want, or even worse, they have ‘features’ I don’t want that I can’t turn off.
Got a call from our buyer this morning telling me he was going to have a couple of guys at the house this morning and knew I had the Wyze cameras set up to monitor things. Guess he didn’t want me calling the police on them.
I was finally able to get in touch with our storage location and set up to get a 2nd storage room, hopefully right next door to our old one. I’ll go by there tomorrow and settle up and then maybe bring some stuff down from the house. Don’t want to wait until the last minute if they want to close earlier than the 24th..
Last week I was having trouble with the volume on my Galaxy S8+. The speakerphone worked fine, but the earphone was just barely audible. So the first thing I did was to reboot the phone.
When in Doubt, Reboot. Right?
When that didn’t work, I tried cleaning the earpiece out by pressing a piece of very sticky tape (I used Gorilla Tape) over it a few times and peeling it off. This helps pull any dirt or dust out of the tiny holes in the grill. Again, no luck.
So next up I tried booting up in Safe Mode. Knew your computer had a Safe Mode, but didn’t know your phone had one? Well, it does, both iPhones and Androids. And it’s easy to get to.
On an Android, just hold down the power button until you get the 3-button screen with Power Off, Restart, and Emergency Mode on it. Then hold down the Power Off button until you see the Safe Mode button.
Your phone will reboot and come back up in Safe Mode. This means any and all apps that you’ve downloaded are now disabled. Your phone will still work as a phone though. To get out of Safe Mode, just restart your phone again. This is handy when you think that a rogue app might be causing mischief with your phone. But that wasn’t my problem, either.
Finally I tried one last thing. I powered off my phone and left it off for about 10 minutes. And when I turned it back on, it was now working fine. So why did powering it off work and restarting it didn’t?
Well, restarting doesn’t clear everything. It just reinitializes the system and then reboots. So it’s possible to still have data of some sort buried in some wayward memory location. And it sometimes can take a bit for all the memory to run out of juice. 5 minutes would have probably been fine, but actually I got busy on something else and forgot about it.
Jan of course, is still up in Katy Landon-sitting, so tomorrow I’ll run a bunch of errands and check out the storage room.
Love You Sweetie!
August 6, 2019
Cummins and Goings . . .
Spent some time on the phone with Cummins’ Tech Support asking about my rig’s oil leak problem. And this time I got a new insight on the problem.
Especially based on the age of the rig, (20 years) he thinks it’s very probably the gasket between the oil filter flange and the oil filter head adapter where the filter screws in.
And even better it looks like something I can replace myself. Just remove the oil filter, and the two screws and the gasket comes off.
So I’ll order a new gasket tomorrow. Hopefully, this will fix the problem once and for all.
I also asked about changing out my green coolant for the red version. I was told that all I have to do is drain the green, replace the coolant filter, and add the red stuff. So I don’t need to do any type of flushing. Nice.
Pretty simple, but the oil leak comes first, and then our Onan generator not running, before I worry about the coolant.
About 1pm Jan and I headed out with a first stop at Lowe’s to return some leftover parts from my recent water leak repair. Then it was on up the Cheddar’s in Clear Lake for lunch. Delicious as always, especially the croissants.
Then after a quick stop at the office, it was on off to WalMart for some things.
Finally coming home, we stopped off at our storage room to drop off the small suitcase that Jan took up to Brandi’s.
Coming down I-45 we checked out the location of the new Black Bear Diner that’s coming to our area. Having eaten at BBD’s all over the west, and the one now up in Katy, we’re really looking forward to it.
A great place to eat, especially for breakfast.
I’ve got some clamps and grounding wire coming in from Amazon tomorrow. I want to ground our new antenna pole since it’s right up against the side of the rig, in case lightning takes an interest.
Safety First.
August 6, 2020
Bombs Away . . .
Today, August 6th, is a very important date in my life for two reasons.
The first is the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima today in 1945.
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother was a Captain (later Major) in the Army Nurse Corps and she and her nurses were on a train for New Orleans from West Point to get on a troop ship to the Pacific to participate in the invasion of the Japanese homeland.
And with Japan’s propensity for attacking hospital ships, there’s a very good chance she might not have made it home. After all, it was forecast that there would be over a million American casualties during a possible invasion.
And the second reason is that on this date 29 years ago Tim Berners-Lee. of the CERN Institute in Switzerland put up the very first website on what would become the World Wide Web.
You can read more about it further down the blog.
August 6, 2021
Fully Stacked . . .
Today, SpaceX did the first full stack of their Starship/Falcon Heavy combination. At 390 feet it’s 27 feet taller than the fabled Saturn V, and at 17,000,000 pounds of thrust, the Starship is more than twice as powerful.
But it was only temporary, just for today, so that they could check the alignment and operation of the crane system. But they hope to do a test launch to orbit in the next few months.
Elon Musk says this combo will take us to the Moon and then Mars.
Regular readers know that Jan and I are both big Van Gogh fans, and we were really looking forward to the two immersive performances, one of which is the same one that we saw in Paris in May of 2019.
You can get some idea of what these are like here.
And here.
We were supposed to see that one on Sep. 28, next month on our 54th Anniversary, but it’s now been delayed to a later, but unknown date.
And it looks like the other one, the one we were supposed to see on Nov. 21 with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon, has also been pushed back.
Both of them say it’s production difficulties, so it doesn’t look like it’s a WuFlu problem.
We were able to sit outside with our coffee this morning, enjoying the cooler weather and the blooms on Jan’s hibiscus tree. And with all the buds popping out, it looks like there’s more to come.
But it looks like the rain and the heat are coming back so who knows about tomorrow.
August 6, 2022
Mexican Corn . . .
Jan and I headed over to Dickinson to have lunch at Monterey’s Little Mexico, our first visit back there in a good while. Long enough that they’ve made some big changes to their menu.
Jan’s favorite, Chicken Ixtapa, is no more.
So she ended up ordering their new Pollo Feliz.
She thought it was OK, but kind of disappointing.
Lucky for me, they still have my favorite Chicken Tortilla Soup.
And even better, they now have a new favorite of mine, Mexican Street Corn.
Still great food, even with the changes.
Then it was on up the feeder to the HEB shopping center so Jan could get her hair cut at the CostCutters there. While she was doing that I drove over to the nearby Lowes to get some brackets so I can mount our new Wind Spinner.
Coming back to the HEB, I stopped off and got gas before picking Jan up. Then it was right next door to pick up some stuff at HEB, before finally heading home.
After almost two dry weeks, we finally got some rain last night and this morning. Fairly heavy in some cases.
And I don’t which was the cause and which was the effect, but we also have a nice cold front along with the rain. The low last night was 74°, a big drop from the normal low 80’s we have.
And the high today stayed in the 80’s, and never got near 90°.
Very nice.
And strangely enough, we had another cold front just like this last year at just about this time.
Tomorrow we’re meeting Brandi, Lowell, and Landon up at King Food up in Webster for lunch. Then she’s going back with them up to Katy for a week of Landon-sitting. I’ll pick her up Friday afternoon so we can make the Alvin Opry performance.
August 6, 2023
The Very First One . . .
Jan and I were on our way up to Brandi’s in Katy by about 11:30, first to drop off Jan’s stuff for her Landon/Doggie-Sitting stay, and check out Brandi and Landon’s new computer areas.
Landon has a new desk, one that goes up and down, so he can either sit or stand at it,
while Brandi, getting ready for her new WFH position that starts tomorrow, went the minimalist route.
Then after I got Jan’s laptop set up, we all headed up Mason Rd. to have lunch at Ray’s Mexican Restaurant once again. We were last here back in February, and it was so good we had to try it again.
Like last time I got the Tampiqueña, a Beef Fajita Steak with a Cheese Enchilada,
with Lowell getting the same thing. Really good.
Brandi got the Fajita Beef Enchiladas,
with plenty leftover to take home.
Jan got the La Gratinada, with a combo of Beef and Chicken,
also with take-home leftovers.
Finally, after getting hugs from the kids and kisses from my Sweetie, I was on my way back home, getting to the rig by about 3pm.
Since Brandi will be going through orientation for her new job Monday through Wednesday, Jan will be Landon/Doggie-sitting until I pick her up Thursday morning on our way up to The Woodlands to meet up with Debi and Ed Hurlburt for our monthly lunch get-together.
Looking forward to it all.
Today, in 1991, the very first website went online, and then about a year later, the very first picture was posted.
It was a photo of a parody rock group made of CERN employees.
I figure the second photo posted was probably porn.
