Looks like winter is finally creeping back in, with temps in the low-mid 80’s in the daytime and low 60’s at night.
It’s about time.
Tomorrow will be my first day back at work since before my back surgery, so we’ll see how it goes. Dr. Wang suggested I start back with just one day a week.
The only problem I see is that I’m going to actually have to put real clothes on.
Bummer!
I’ve also got my first Physical Therapy session scheduled for next Wednesday. It’s scheduled for right after I leave work on my way home.
Thought For The Day:
A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing. So Is A Lot – Albert Einstein
And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™
October 8, 2008
More Photos On Our Way To Alaska
October 8, 2009
Lost in the Fifties, again …
The morning before we left Celina, OH, we went back to “Lost in the Fifties”, a restaurant in nearby St. Mary’s
But as I mentioned, this place also has a great 50’s memorabilia museum, with a lot of stuff that you don’t expect to find in a small town.
Like…
This was Elvis’ leathers and motorcycle used in his film “Roustabout”, filmed in 1964.
And…
This was one of the outfits that Elvis wore during his very last tour in June of 1977.
And here is the outfit that he wore for one of his album covers.
And this is the album cover.
And here is one of Elvis’ 3 pink Cadillac’s.
According to the placard, this was the 2nd one he bought. The first one was a 1954 model. Then he bought this one in 1955. But after driving it for a while he discovered it didn’t have air conditioning, so he traded it back to the dealer for one that did have AC.
The 3rd one is the one that’s on display at Graceland.
The only thing I can figure out is that he bought this one in the winter, and then didn’t try the AC until spring.
Here’s one of Elvis’ Army uniforms, complete with his Army Commendation Award papers and his promotion to Sergeant paperwork.
And the museum has other celebrity outfits too.
Here’s James Dean’s jacket from “Rebel Without A Cause”.
And here’s an outfit worn by Dale Evans.
And they even have their own Elvis.
This is Elvis Aaron Presley, Jr. And if you check out his link, you’ll find that he has been acknowledged as the son of Elvis Presley, both in Elvis’s will and a DNA test.
He’s performed all over the country, including Vegas. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see him though.
The museum has a number of exhibits, but I’ve just given you the highlights, but it’s a big place and very interesting to browse thru.
More tomorrow…
October 8, 2010
Landon Time . . .
Today was another easy day, but kind of long.
About 10:15 am we left the coach and headed up to the Clear Lake area, first for lunch at King Food, our favorite Chinese restaurant, and then I dropped Jan off at Brandi’s so Jan could get some Landon time and Brandi could get some rest. We also took Brandi her favorite Spicy Shredded Beef with Won Ton Soup from King Food.
After dropping Jan off I headed back over to my client in Pearland, and then was back to pick her up about 4:30 pm. Leaving Brandi’s, we stopped by Sam’s Club and CVS before meeting Bob and Beth Young for dinner at Genghis Grill, a great local Mongolian BBQ place.
Then it was home by about 8 pm. Tomorrow we’ll meet some friends for breakfast at IHOP about 11 am, and then go over to their house so I can work on a computer problem.
Sorry for the boring day, but readers whine and moan if I don’t post something.
October 8, 2011
Cheddar’s and Oreos . . .
Today was ‘Errand’ day, which after coffee and some of Jan’s delicious cheese toast made with three different cheeses, meant we headed out about noon toward Mansfield, OH.
Our first stop was Cheddar’s, one of our favorite restaurant chains down in Texas.
After a great lunch we headed over to Wal-Mart. Jan and I had to pick up our prescriptions and some other things.
Then it was on down the road to Wal-Mart’s evil twin, Sam’s Club for kitty litter and Joint Juice. I mean, you can’t let your joints get unjuicy, now can you?
The rest of day next consisted of a drive-by visit to the Ohio State Reformatory.
Built starting in 1886, and closed in 1990, it’s been used in many movies, including The Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One. Normally you can take a tour, but it’s closed right now getting ready for their Halloween tours.
After that we did a quick drive-through of the local fairgrounds checking on RV rally suitability. (It wasn’t) and then a final stop at DQ for a frosty treat before heading back to the park.
Getting home about 5:30 we ended up in the middle of a mass trick-or-treat mob. The park is very busy this weekend and full of kids, and this afternoon was trick-or-treat time.
Smith’s Campground does a great job of providing plenty of things to keep people entertained, both old and young, including candy bar bingo and showing the kids movies in the pavilion.
The longer we stay here the more impressed Jan and I are with how the Smith’s run this place. Really wish all RV parks were like this.
Finishing out the evening, we all sat outside for a couple of hours, watching the sun go down and the campfires light up and a good time was had by all.
Finally, our daughter Brandi sent over this photo of Landon and his Oreo cookie face.
Looks like he’s wearing more than he ate, but I bet he had a good time, anyway.
October 8, 2014
One Drill Rig, 3 Fracs, One Workover Rig . . .
And a partridge in a pear tree.
We were kind of expecting a real jump in vehicle count today, based on our experience with last year’s frac gate, but we ended up with only 175 compared to yesterday’s 168 count.
But I do wish they would stop ganging up on us. As I mentioned the other day, I think a bunch of trucks gather up the road someplace and then all head in at the same time. And I think that they call ahead to their friends inside and coordinate so that they all head out at the same time.
This is the only thing I figured out. Because I will sit here for 20 minutes and see nobody, and then suddenly I’ve got 8 trucks lined up trying to come in, and 6 more trying to go out. And they’re all bottlenecked right in front of me.
What I really want is one of those traffic light setups you see used during road construction where they’ve got a one-lane bridge or something, and the lights just alternate, letting a few cars through at a time. That would solve a lot of my problems.
It’s probably not going to happen though, and for the same reason.
They did skid our rig over to the 3rd hole yesterday, and are now back drilling. Maybe that’s why they (and we) got the catered meal last night.
Which we had one of tonight and it was really good.
Dog came by to visit again today.
And unfortunately for Dog, Mister was outside with Jan. Apparently Dog likes cats and came over to Mister to say ‘Hi’. And Mister said ‘Hi’ back with a paw full of claws to Dog’s nose.
Jan said Dog looked like his feelings were hurt more than anything else.
Well, that’s the latest schedule; a drill rig here in front of us, a workover rig on one pad in back, two fracs starting up on two other pads, and a 3rd frac starting up RSN (Real Soon Now).
Don’t know where the partridge comes in though.
October 8, 2015
A Night on the Town . . .
It only took two hours.
It’s a small town. What can I say?
Well, we found out this morning that we’re not going to be moving to the new frack site right up the road, but they want us to stay here and work the cleanup and completion. And from what we’ve been told, that should take us close to our target leave date of the 22nd of November.
We hope. We’ll see.
One thing that’s really nice about staying is that we get to stay. We don’t have to pack up and move. And none of the 3 possible sites I checked out are as nice as where we are now.
Things have really quieted down here, with most of the frack equipment moved up the road to the new pad. We only had 72 vehicles in today, as opposed to our usual 120 – 130.
And along with everything else, we also lost our trash trailer to the new frack. But it shouldn’t be a problem, since I’ll just drop it off on my way to town for groceries. And if not, there’s always the dumpster at Whataburger.
Since everything was so slow, and really shuts down around 6pm, Jan and I headed into Carthage for dinner. We’d already cleared it with Jamie, our GGS supervisor, and told the company guys we’d be gone for a couple of hours, so no problem.
Since we’d had such a great meal last time, we thought we’d revisit the Longhorn Grill again. And I was in luck, because as it turned out, Thursday night is Prime Rib Dinner night. Jan, however, wasn’t quite as thrilled because she doesn’t really care for Prime Rib. Her loss, and more for me.
We both ordered salads, remembering how good they were last time, probably because of their homemade dressings.
And also because there’s not a shred of iceberg lettuce in it.
While Jan went with the same 9oz Sirloin with loaded baked potato that she got last time, I tried the Prime Rib.
And was not disappointed. As I said last time, someone here knows how to cook meat. It was charred on the outside edges, and medium-rare to rare on the inside, perfect for Prime Rib.
And it was big enough that I only ate half, so we had some to take home for steak sandwiches another time. And the reason I only ate half was that my dinner came with a slice of their delicious homemade Strawberry Cheesecake. I would have gotten a picture but it disappeared too fast. Maybe next time.
We were back at the rig by 7:30 after a really good time. It was nice to just be able to sit and talk without any interruptions. Jan started her shift while I slept for a few hours before I relieved her at 11pm. Back to work.
* * * * *
Jan and I are apparently Google Maps famous. If you click on this link, you will see where we were a year ago today.
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.8787074,-96.1440804,91m/data=!3m1!1e3
That’s our rig parked right across from the drill rig, which you can see better if you zoom out a bit. You can see our canopy right beside the rig, and the generator/water trailer off to the right. On the far side of the little road next to us is our trash trailer. Yes, last year we had our own.
Our truck and the sewer trailer are just to the left of us and under the trees. I’m not sure whose car that is parked just to the left of the trees, but we did have a few visitors while we were there.
Ran out of time tonight, so tomorrow night I’ll get back to my adventures trying to purchase a TT Zone Pass.
Finishing up for tonight though, check out this 50 lane traffic jam in China as apparently everyone in the country tries to come home after a holiday weekend.
And you thought Houston traffic was bad.
October 8, 2016
Microwaves and Microswitches . . .
After putting the new site online last night, I spent this morning picking at it some more, changing a few colors here and repositioning a couple of things there.
Today I added a Favicon to the site, and then configured the Mobile version that shows up on your phone.
Favicons are those little pictures you see on the tabs in your browser.
You only have a 16 x 16 pixel area to work with, so it can be hard to get a good representation. I started out using the entire Texas Flag Sunglasses Logo,
but it was so small it was just a red, white and blue blob. So I switched to just using the left lens and that seem to work a lot better.
Later in the afternoon I removed the control panel from the microwave oven to take a look at the intermittent heating problem we’ve been having the last month or so
I suspected a microswitch problem, but I didn’t see any sign of that. In fact it looked like the problem might be due to a broken flange on the control panel itself. So I cut out a new retaining bracket from a piece of heavy plastic and used it to lock down the panel a lot tighter.
Since the problem only happens intermittently, we’ll just have to see if it reoccurs or not.
With the new TV season ramping up, Jan and I watched another new show a couple of nights ago, and like Timeless, the new one we watched last week, this one, called Frequency, is kind about time travel also. Or at least time travel by radio.
A police officer finds that she can communicate with her father over his ham radio, an undercover police officer who died 20 years ago, killed under circumstances that made it look like he was on the take.
His daughter gives him info that allows him to survive and clear himself. But like in Timeless, changing the past even slightly can have unintended consequences in the present.
When I was telling a friend about the show, she said it sounded familiar. Turns out there was a movie by the same name that came out in 2000, starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. The premise was pretty much the same, except the father was a firefighter killed in a warehouse fire. So I guess what goes around, comes around.
Tomorrow, who knows? But I imagine we’ll find something to do.
October 8, 2017
Now This Is Just Ridiculous . . .
Plus, many of you are sharing our blog with others using the “Share this:” buttons at the bottom of each blog. Again, Thanks.
Today was another of those nice never-left-the-rig days. Jan mostly read while I worked on cleaning up a client/friend’s laptop. Originally I worked on the laptop a year or so ago when it belonged to another client/friend who gave it to this other client/friend. So now I’m cleaning it all out and getting it set up for its new owner.
A couple of days ago we did something we’ve never done before.
We turned down a gate. And a very nice gate from the description we got.
When we contacted Todd, our SiteWatch supervisor from last/this year back in August, he said things were slow right then, but he expected things to pick up around the first of the year. So we rearranged our schedule for this winter, planning to not gate guard until after Christmas.
Plus I wanted to get my Clear Lake client back on the straight and narrow before we head out.
As it was, the gate sounded perfectly, with a steady 3 or 4 months on tap, just perfect for us. Hopefully something like it will be available when we’re available.
Our friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt are parked right by the electrical panel that took out the power here in the ‘G’ section of the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails.
Ed passed on this info about what’s going on with it.
That panel was running on a 400 amp meter, and with all the new 50 amp rigs it just couldn’t hold up and it melted the meter. They ran a second panel which will run off a second meter, but Entergy won’t bring the new meter out until Monday morning, at which time they will inspect it. You would think that with the revenue TT brings them they could have sent a man out Saturday to plug in a new meter.
This is getting ridiculous. My Verizon data usage reset today at midnight, so I was back to full 4G speeds again, but apparently for only about 19 hours. At 18:47 this evening I got an email from Verizon saying that I had used 13.5 GB on my 15 GB. Then at 19:06, 19 minutes later I got another email saying I had used all of my 15 GB for this month, all in just 19 hours.
That’s 750 MB per hour!
Guess I’ll be on the phone to Verizon tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
October 8, 2018
Eye Of The Storm . . .
For everyone who’s emailed or commented on our proximity to Hurricane Michael, No, we’re not heading into the eye of the storm.
Right now, at about 7pm Monday the storm is just off the west coast of Cuba, and by tomorrow afternoon, when we’ll be parked at the Seasons in the Sun RV Park in Mims, FL, just north of Titusville, the storm will just be about the same latitude as Miami.
So we’ll probably get some rain on the way, and after we’re there, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
We pulled out of our site at the Escapees Park about 9, got hitched up, and were on the way by about 9:15. Rather than backtrack up SR59 to I-10, we cut out across the countryside to hook up with US90E and then on to I-10 north of Pensacola.
Then it was a 170 mile run to Quincy, FL where we stopped for the night at Beaver Lake RV Park, a small Passport America park, for $23 a night.
It’s pretty much just wide-open grass-covered field with full hookups. But it’s nice and level, with a lot of room between the sites so we could maneuver without unhitching.
Plus the Marathon station where we checked in out front has a diesel pump we can get to without unhitching. Especially nice since we stayed home tonight and finished off our leftover Lambert’s Throwed Roll’s Hamburger Steaks.
Still delicious.
Since we’ve got a 320 mile trip tomorrow, we want to get an early start, probably around 8am. Though it’s more to be sure we’re ahead of any incoming weather, it’s also cooler.
However, as we traveled today I noted that with the windows open and the vents fans running, we wouldn’t have been any more comfortable with the AC’s. Hope it holds.
Landon, et al. have been really enjoying their new pool.
Chris and Linda came down from Kingsland, and Miss Piper came up from Clear Lake to also enjoy the pool this weekend.
Looks like fun.
October 8, 2020
It’s Delta’s Fault . . .
Well, Hurricane Delta’s associated rains showed up a day early, and put a damper on my under-the-rig work, so that’s on for Saturday now.
Our grandson Landon is a really good artist and was asked to submit a possible cover for this year’s yearbook with a theme of “Mission Epic”.
Here’s his entry:
And Yes, that’s a dachshund in the spacesuit, because Creech the Dachshund is the school mascot for Creech Elementary Comets.
I’m always amazed to look at the small details he puts into his drawings. And how good his lettering is. Hard to believe he’s only 10.
But, unfortunately, he came in 2nd in the contest, so his drawing will be on the back cover instead of the front.
The winner better be a budding Rembrandt, if he beat Landon’s drawing.
For dinner this afternoon it was another visit to Dickinson Seafood, starting with their really good salad,
and then moving on to the Blackened Catfish with Grilled Veggies.
October 8, 2022
Huddle Up . . .
Lunch today was Texas Huddle once again, and the place was jam-packed due to the Texas vs. Oklahoma game.
Jam-packed, loud and rowdy. Emphasis on the ‘loud.’
Jan got her usual Bunless Cheddar Mushroom Burger along with a Side Salad, and a side of their Grilled Veggies.
I again got the Cowboy Burger with Bacon, Ghost Pepper Cheese, Fresh Jalapenos, and Chipotle BBQ Sauce, as well as a Side Salad.
Really, really good, and Juana, our regular server, took great care of us.
And even better, the Texas Longhorns ran all over the Oklahoma Sooners, 49-0.
Sorry, Lowell.
October 8, 2023
Good To Go . . .
It was 59° when we got up this morning, with a 56 scheduled for tonight. And the upcoming weather really bodes well for the Wings Over Houston Airshow.
Though we’re supposed to have rain Friday morning, Saturday looks be be clear and sunny, with 0% chance of rain. And even better, the high is only supposed to be 77°.
So as of right now, we’re good to go for this Saturday.
And here’s the latest info on Saturday’s upcoming Ring of Fire eclipse with times and paths.
Lunch today was at Texas Huddle, and since Houston was playing, it was a rowdy, crowded place. But the food was as good as always.
Our next two scheduled stops, the Dry Cleaners stop, and the Dollar Tree one, got canceled, leaving only the one at Goodwill to drop off some bags of clothes that Jan had cleared out of our closet.
Then our last stop was at HEB for our weekly stuff, plus the stuff we didn’t get at WalMart yesterday.
Next week looks to be busy with our Alvin Opry group get-together at T-Bone Tom’s over in Seabrook
Then, as I said, it’s the Wings Over Houston Airshow on Saturday.
Looking forward to everything.
