Monthly Archives: May 2025

Only One . . .

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Well, for now having two holes drilled in my head, the first back in 2014 and the second one today, I’m doing pretty good. Just a slight headache, which a couple of Advil took care of.

I was called in about 10 am, and Dr. Ramer showed up at 10:14. The operation was really quick, and by 10:23, he was done with the incision, and the specimen was off to the lab to be frozen and checked.

And a little over an hour later, the results were back, and I was happy to hear that he got it all on the first try, unlike the 2014 version, where they had to go down two more levels before they got it all.

So only one level this time. Which is what I was hoping, since I discovered this one a lot earlier.

Then Dr. Ramer started putting me back together by first cauterizing the insides and then stitching up the outside, leaving me with this.

2025 Squamous Cell Incision

Click above if you want to see it. Just 5 stitches.

And by noon, I walked out of the office looking like this.

You can click below to relive the 2014 version of today.

2014 Squamous Cell Removal

I go back for a follow-up in two weeks, and then I should be done.

* * * * * * *

Our post-op lunch was at our long-time favorite, King Food. And by ‘long-time’, I’m talking 45+ years.

And for lunch, we usually get the same thing, the Chicken in Hot Garlic Sauce, XXXX Spicy, with Jalapenos.

Jan gets hers with White Rice, while I get mine with Fried Rice.

A delicious meal, and we were home by 2pm.

Lunch tomorrow looks to be BoomerJack’s once again, and then on to Wal-Mart.


Thought For The Day:

Do commandos really go commando? And if so, why?

Asking for a friend.


Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2010 – The American Coach Rally Day 4

2015 – Sausage and Crab

2016 – A Little Misunderstanding?

2022 – Why Is It Moody?

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


May 30, 2009

Chinese Food and Satellite Repair…

Today we just took it easy around the rig until about 3:30 pm when we headed out to the New Peking Buffet Chinese restaurant for an early supper and then on to Walmart for more ‘stuff’.

When we got back a little after 5 pm a guy showed up to get some help with his satellite dish.

His wife had come by earlier in the day and noticed my satellite setup and asked if I could help her husband when he got back.  I said ‘sure’.

Here’s my satellite setup.

Satellite Stand

The brick/rock helps hold the dish down. Note the ‘visitor’ on the white rock on the base.

The dish is a Winegard Traveler that folds down and stows away, and the base is a Husky Workhorse workstand that I bought at Home Depot.  I like that it is much more stable than a tripod, and like the dish, it also folds flat.

I don’t use the stand every time,  just when I need to. Usually, I just set the dish on the picnic table (most sites have one), but sometimes the table is not in the right position if I have a lot of trees, like we do here.

‘RJ’, the guy I was helping, had just purchased a Direct TV setup, including a dish on a tripod. The night before, strong winds had blown his dish over, one of several things I don’t like about tripods.  This had bent his dish slightly, and he wasn’t having any luck getting his dish aligned again.

I showed him how to anchor his tripod better, and how to align his dish every time he sets up.

I think he’s a ‘happy camper’ now.


May 30, 2010

ACA Rally – Day 4…

Today, the last day of the rally, was a repeat of yesterday’s breakfast buffet, but this time with the addition of some very good cinnamon rolls that forced Jan and me to split one.

It twisted our arms, honest!

Outside the Energy Hall, where everything happens, we’ve enjoyed seeing these beautiful cherry trees in bloom.

CherryTrees

After breakfast, we came back to the coach and we just gelled.  The only real thing going on was a golf tournament, so it was time for a nap.

About 5:15 pm, we headed back over to the Energy Hall for the final dinner of the rally, prime rib, no less.

PrimeRib

And the prime rib meal was just as good as our other meals, and once again, there was wine on our tables.

PrimeRib 2

And here’s our table companions for the night, The Ernhardts, the Desimoes, the Emberts, and of course, my beautiful wife, Jan.

Note how happy everyone is, and how empty the wine bottles are. Of course, there’s no connection there.

PrimeRib 3

Like last night, we had entertainment after dinner. This time it was Jack Jensen and Ted Jordan. They did everything from 50-60’s rock to country and patriotic.

ACAEntertainment

We even had a bit of ventriloquism with Ted and his simian friend, M. K. Shines. (Monkey Shines, get it. Well, I guess it’s monkey humor.)

ACAEntertainment 2

Everyone really enjoyed the music, especially the last song, “God Bless The USA.”

About 8:30, things wrapped up and, saying our goodbyes, we headed back to the rig for the night.

Tomorrow, most rally attendees will probably be heading out, but we’re hanging around for a couple of days before we start back toward Austin for our daughter Brandi’s wedding on June 21st.

A complete change of subject here. A few weeks ago, we spent several pleasant days in Klamath, CA, visiting the Redwood forests in the area. Klamath is not a very big place. It’s basically just one main street with a few stores, a gas station, and a Post Office.

So it was really strange to find this story about a bizarre crime that took place there recently. Now I’m glad we didn’t stay any longer.


May 30, 2011

Happy Memorial Day . . .

flag_anim

Our heartfelt thanks go out to all our service men and women who gave their time, and in many cases their lives, to protect our country.


Our last day here at Park of the Sierras started about 10 am with coffee and some warm banana nut muffins, and more work on our trip schedule for the next couple of months. It looks like things are falling into place, and we have a pretty good idea where we’ll be until about the 21st of July. After that things become a little more foggy. But it’ll all work out.

It always does.

Going outside, I was able to successfully bypass the tail light converter and get the lights working. I’ll replace the converter while we’re at the Lake Minden Thousand Trails Resort north of Sacramento, starting tomorrow.

About 12:45, Jan, and I drove over to the Chukchansi Casino to meet Rick Phillips for lunch at the buffet.

We first met Rick last Thursday when we visited the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad.

Rick Phillips - YMSPRR

Rick is the conductor on the railway, and we enjoyed meeting and getting to know him.

Rick and his wife Laurie have a lot here at Park of the Sierras. We met Rick’s wife, Laurie, at the railroad where she works in the Railroad Museum. She was supposed to meet us for lunch today, but she was feeling under the weather, so it was just Rick today.

I was looking forward to talking more with Rick about the YMSPRR’s equipment, since most readers know how much I like trains, both big and little.

Lunch took a little longer than we had planned since it was so busy due to the holiday, but it did give us more time to talk.

After a really good meal at the Casino buffet and Jan losing $20 in the slots, we said our goodbyes and drove into Oakhurst to stop back by Von’s to pick up some more of the blueberries they had on sale.

Finishing that up I got out my air compressor and added some air to one of my tires, which always seems to lose some when we’re parked. Then it was in for the night.

The perfect end to a great day.


May 30, 2013

This is Likely the Place . . .

Really, it is.

We’re staying at the Likely Place Golf & RV Resort in Likely, CA. And a very nice place it is. Here’s the view out our front window.

Likely Place RV 1

We pulled out of the Tahoe Village park about 10:15 this morning, heading for Likely, CA tonight and the Bend OR Thousand Trails tomorrow.

As we passed the park office, I saw a UPS truck, so I stopped in to see if one of my packages had magically arrived this morning, but no such luck. Getting underway, we headed back over the mountain to meet up with US395 at Carson City. Although it’s only 27 miles over there, it takes about an hour to just get over there because of first having to drive the 10 miles of South Lake Tahoe, CA, and Stateline, NV, traffic. Then it’s the curvy climb up to 7100 feet to get over the mountain and back down to Carson City’s 4000 feet, and the Pac-Brake got a real workout coming back down.

Things went just fine until about 100 miles above Reno when we ran into about 20 miles of one-lane road repair. They were using a machine to cut those rumble strip areas into the road on the center and edge stripes. So after we waited about 20 minutes, we got to follow the pilot car for 20 miles at about 30 miles an hour.

Whoopee!

Makes you really appreciate having your refrigerator and your bathroom with you wherever you go.

Otherwise, the trip was pretty smooth, getting into the Likely Place Golf & RV Resort about 3:30, only about an hour late. And even better, our stay here at this Good Sam park was free.

When we were in Las Vegas, I bought something at Camping World, and they offered me a deal to renew my Good Sam membership at a nice discount, plus a coupon for a free night’s camping at a Good Sam park.

Likely Place RV 2

Likely Place RV 3

Although the park looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, it’s actually only about two miles off US395 on a very nice road. And if you don’t have a Good Sam coupon, it’s also a Passport America park at only $16 a night for full hookups. And of course, a very nice golf course, too.

Tomorrow we’ve got about 240 miles to get to Bend OR. And it should be a nice, easy trip. Unless we hit more repair work.


May 30, 2014

Waiting for Change . . .

I spent most of this morning hobbling around and trying to stay off my feet, or specifically my right knee. Once in a while it goes out on me, and this time has been worse than most.

I’ve been banged up a lot in my life, but, between football, parachute jumps that didn’t quite go as planned, and a chopper that didn’t want to fly anymore, my right knee and leg got it worse than the rest. So sometimes I pay the price of my wild and crazy youth.

Hopefully, by tomorrow I’ll be on the mend.

About 2:30, I drove over to Phoenix Commercial Paint, Michelle Henry’s RV Paint facility. Michelle is well-known in the RV world as one of the best places to get your RV painted or customized. If you want a new paint job, Michelle is the person to see.

But today, I wanted to talk to Josh, to see about getting my cracked passenger-side windshield replaced. Looks like everything’s now in motion. One thing I want them to do is to pull out both the good driver-side glass, and the cracked passenger side so the gasket can be replaced. American Coach recommends that this be done, since the one on there now is 15 years old and becoming stiff and brittle.

Unfortunately, we will probably have to put Beauty in the shop to have this done.

About 5:30, Jan and I drove over to George’s Gyros, a place recommended by Chris and Charles Yust of C and C RV Insurance fame. So now it was our turn.

George's Gyros 1

George’s Gyros (pronounced ‘your rows’, not ‘gy rows’) has a distinctly Greek flavor. With pita bread, Greek olives, and feta cheese, you can indulge your taste for Greek salads and food. But they’re also known for their Rib Tips, BBQ Ribs, BBQ Chicken, Chicken Wings, and Burgers.

Jan and I got the Gyro and Spinach Pie Plate below.

George's Gyros 2

For the gyros, you use the pita bread like tortillas, putting the gyro meat inside. along with tomatoes, sliced onions, peppers, and gyro sauce (a yogurt/sour cream mixture). Just like we do with fajitas down in Houston. The gyro meat is delicious. Really good.


Jan’s sister, Debbie, sent over this X-ray of her granddaughter Ella.

Ella apparently decided to be her own piggybank, and recently made her first deposit.

A quarter.

Well, you have to start somewhere.

Ella's X-Ray2

They’re still waiting for change.


I got several emails yesterday about my Photoshop (well, Paint Shop Pro) tutorial. And today I came across this illustration,

It had the heading “When you see the creepy thing, hit share.” Well, to save you the trouble, the ‘creepy thing’ is the disembodied hand on the right arm of the little girl.

Creepy Family Photo3

I figure she was crying in the original shot, so someone took her from another shot and put her in this one. Don’t know why they left the hand. Maybe thought no one would notice, or ran out of time.

Anyway, even without the spooky hand, you can tell this has been Photoshopped by looking at the blowup of the photo below.

The vertical bar in the center of the pic is a dead giveaway. You never really have abrupt transitions like this without some sort of anti-aliasing (the gradual transition of color from one pixel to another)

Creepy Family Photo6

Look at the pixels over the rest of the photo, and you’ll see what I mean.

Tomorrow, it looks like a road trip to Michigan City, Indiana. Assuming I can still walk.


May 30, 2015

Sausage and Crab . . .

Not much gets done around here on the weekends, so we weren’t expecting anything to happen. And it didn’t.

I worked on some web stuff while Jan mostly read. We did talk some about where we’re going next from here. Before the blowout, we were supposed to be at the Horseshoe Lakes Thousand Trails in Indiana right now before heading over to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Then it’s back to Houston via north Alabama and Gulf Shores toward the end of August. We always try to get back to Houston about then to be there for Landon’s birthday.

Later in the afternoon, I checked my bank account and my $109 motel bill had morphed into a $244 bill, with 3 different charges, none of them for $109.

All 3 charges are pending, so they might be updated, but just in case, I called the hotel to ask what was going on. But the clerk was new and no help either. He said if I was still in town, it might be quicker to come by later in the afternoon and talk to the manager. As it turned out, it didn’t help either.

About 3:30 Jan and I headed out on another edition of our seeming goal to eat at every restaurant in Prescott. Or at least, every good one. And once again, relying on Yelp, we hit a real winner, The Iron Springs Café

Iron Springs Cafe 1

Housed in an old train depot that was originally built in 1894, the inside is open and friendly with a lot of train memorabilia. Sheldon would certainly like it.

Iron Springs Cafe 2

And the food certainly lives up to their reputation. While Jan started with a salad, I gave their Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo a try.

Iron Springs Cafe Gumbo

Chock full of chicken and sausage, as well as okra and peppers, this was a really good bowl of gumbo, and could hold its own in Louisiana.

Jan just had to check out their much-recommended Blue Crab Cakes with rice, Pico de Gallo, and a creamy chipotle sauce.

Iron Springs Cafe Crab Cakes2

Jan’s a real Crab Cake aficionado, and she says these are as good as any she’s ever had.

Continuing on my sausage theme, I had the Sausage Bomber Sandwich.

Iron Springs Cafe Sausage Bomber

With Andouille sausage, cheese, grilled onions, and grilled peppers, it was a real meal. So much so that we couldn’t even find room to split an order of their homemade bread pudding with rum-brandy sauce.

But there’s always next time.

Then it was off to the motel to try and straighten out my charges. And with no luck as it turned out. They couldn’t explain how these different charges came about, and said it must be a problem with my bank.

Yeah, right. My bank just made up charges under the name of the motel. So, getting no real answers, I decided I’ll just wait until Monday and then check with my bank.

Tomorrow, probably more of the same.


May 30, 2016

A Little Misunderstanding?

To set the record straight, Jan and I are NOT hanging up the keys. Nor are we anywhere close. We’re just somewhat taking a break this year only.

And even with the break, we’ll still be doing over 2000 miles later this year with our planned Gulf Shores- North Alabama trip

Although the weather forecast was for Sunny with a few clouds today, we woke up to fairly heavy rains for most of the morning, with the sun only coming out later in the afternoon. And that kept the temps and AC usage down, so we had no repeat of yesterday’s power outage.

After having trouble with our rig’s water pump on the last two trips to and from Conroe, I decided to replace it rather than fooling with it anymore. It either works, or it doesn’t work, with no in-between.

The 12v power is good, and tapping on the pump doesn’t help either. I disassembled the pump head but didn’t find any obvious problems, so I just ordered this one.

Shurflo RV Water Pump_thumb[1]

Shurflo 3.0 GPM  RV Water Pump

The one that’s installed right now is 8 years old, so it’s had a good life. I installed it during our first couple of months on the road after we started RV’ing in 2008. Based on the date code on it, I assume it was the original one from 1999. It should be here next week.

For dinner tonight, Jan and I put together another of our ‘make it up as we go’ meals. Saturday, when we ate at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood and Steakhouse, we both had a lot of French Fries left over. So we got a take-home box to bring them home.

Now what to do with them?

Looking in the pantry and the fridge, we found Skyline Cincinnati Chili, Bush’s Bourbon and Brown Sugar Beans, Hot Dogs, and a large bag of Shredded Cheese. A group of ingredients that just called out for a variation of the Tater Tot Chili Cheese Hot Dog Casserole, but using French Fries instead of Tater Tots.

I mean, it’s all taters, right?

So here’s what we came up with.

Check it out. It was really good.

French Fry Casserole 4a_thumb[1]

French Fry Chili Cheese Hot Dog Casserole

To go with our meal, Jan fixed up one of her delicious salads, using her version of the salad dressing recipe she got from our friend Lynn Cross.

Jans-Salad-2_thumb1

The salad is Spring Mix & Baby Spinach, Cucumbers, Sliced Cherry Tomatoes, Shredded Cheese, and these Texas Toast Croutons.

Texas-Toast-Croutons_thumb1

These come in several different flavors, and unlike other brands, which are teeth-cracking little rocks, these are large, crunchy, tasty nuggets.

Jan’s Version of Lynn Cross’ Salad Dressing

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
3 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
3 or 4 squirts of Lime or Lemon juice. We use the juice squeeze containers
3 squirts of Honey from the Squeeze Bear
1/4 tsp.of Crushed Garlic packed in water
Salt and Pepper to taste

Once Jan has this initial mix, she adds a little more of this and that until she has it just right.

Karma’s on her way to being a grown-up kitty. At nine months she now weighs about 10 pounds. Certainly not in Mister’s weight class, but she’s a lot bigger than she was when we adopted her (or she adopted us) back in February.

Karma on the Counterr_thumb[1]

Tomorrow we’re going to try the lunch buffet at Schobel’s down in Columbus and then make a Brookshire Bros. stop on the way back home.

Maybe.


May 30, 2017

Wings and More . . .

It went down to 36° last night, but was up in the mid-70’s today. All in all, very nice.

About 5pm we headed out to meet Dave and Jeanne at the local Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. They had been doing Deadwood today, a destination for us in the next few days.

Jan and I went with the same order as last time, traditional wings, hers with Asian Zing, and mine with Mango Habanero, as well as an order of Potato Wedges.

Buffalo Wild Wings Rapid City 2

As we got to talking, it was almost scary how many likes we have in common besides RV’ing, like Dr. Who, murder, and historical mysteries. drones, computers. and more.

As usual, when RV’ers get together, we spent more time talking than we did eating, probably a good thing on my part. In fact we had been there almost 3 hours before we left. Had a really great time.

Dave and Jeanne Hecht

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get together again before they leave on Saturday.

Jan has been nursing the remains of a migraine for a couple of days, so tomorrow is up for grabs. If she does feel better, then we’ll head out about 9am, first heading down to Bear Country USA, a drive-thru wildlife park down near Mt. Rushmore. Then it’s right next door to Reptile Gardens for a visit there.

For lunch, we’ll then head back down to Hill City to get our German food fix at the Alpine Inn, then maybe back to the Dinosaur Museum nearby, before heading back home.

Supposedly, I have an Amazon order coming into the park tomorrow afternoon. I ordered a Samsung Wireless Charger for my Galaxy S8+.

Wireless Charger

You plug it into a power source, and then all you have to do is just lay your phone on the circular pad. No connecting it up. And even better, it charges faster than the regular way. And it should also work on Jan’s S5, too.

And it’s only about $17.


May 30, 2019

Stay Tuned . . .

Today I had hoped to take a look at the truck’s radiator problem, but the all-day rain that was forecast, and then came along right on schedule, took care of that.

So I spent the morning working on the new website stuff for work, trying to get everything configured and working. Then I’ve got to get the new theme installed and configured.

Finally, about 12:30, Jan and I headed up to Webster to have brunch at Snooze. Delicious as usual.

Then I made a stop by the office to check in on my HD repair, and also pick up the new Digital Photo Frame that finally came in late yesterday afternoon.

And after checking the website computer, my thoughts about the problem were confirmed. The disk scan had completed, but when I rebooted the computer, it went right back to scanning and finding errors again.

It’s dead, Jim.

So now Plan B becomes Plan A, I guess.

Leaving the office we made a quick stop for a few things at the nearby HEB, then it was home in the pouring rain, which meant we didn’t make our scheduled store room stop to drop off suitcases from the trip, electric heaters that we don’t need again until the fall, as well as the winter quilt from the bed.

This blog finally catches me up on the latest days, so now I can go back and start filling in the missing days on our trip.

Our friend, Chris Yust, flagged us on this collision between a Viking River Cruise ship and a much smaller sightseeing boat on the Danube River in Budapest. Seven people were killed and twenty-one are missing. From the article, it seems that the sightseeing boat turned in front of the Viking ship and got run over.

More Here: Viking Collision.

I assume this was the evening river cruise they did on our first night onboard, before we actually headed upriver on our cruise a day later.

You can read about it on our blog here:  Home Sweet Skirnir

Stay Tuned.


May 30, 2021

A Retro Day . . .

Jan had been jonsin’ for a Chili Dog, so about 1pm we drove to the Sonic over in Dickinson to partake of Chili Cheese Coneys and Corn Dogs. Kind of a retro day, remembering drive-ins back in the good old days.

After the young man brought our food, I mentioned pretty carhops in tight shorts and roller skates delivering our food back then, but as I said, “At least we still have Twin Peaks.”

Silence.

Then we made a quick run-through at WalMart for a few things. We’re being careful to use up anything that would spoil during the two weeks we’ll be gone on our trip.

All the recent rains have made the ground under Jan’s Flamingo Flamboyance kind of soggy, so I spent some time this afternoon straightening up some of the occupants. And I also temporarily installed one of the other nozzles on the solar-powered fountain to see what it looked like.

Flamingo Bird Bath with Fountain #2

But as I figured yesterday, it scatters the spray so much that it loses a lot of water, and the bird bath doesn’t hold a lot as it is. So I think I’ll just stick with the regular one.

Of course, we’re not as bad off as our daughter-in-law Linda’s plight. As she said, her backyard has become a ‘Water Hazard.”

Linda's Water Hazard

Yikes!

I’m gradually getting the apps I want moved over or installed onto my new Galaxy S21 Ultra. And I think I’ve pretty much got a handle on how the 5 different cameras work, although I’m not really sure how useful some of the options will be, like super slo-mo and hyper-lapse. But they’ll at least be fun to play with.

And it looks like Jan’s new-to-her S8+ is going to need a new battery soon. When the young lady at the Verizon store took it out of its Otterbox case, I could see that the battery had swollen and was starting to open up the edge of the case along the seam.

Unlike my old S5, where you can just pop off the back and install a new battery, the S8+ has to be heated up with a heat gun to melt the adhesive and then pried apart. Then a bunch of tiny screws have to be removed so you can get the battery cover off. Finally, the battery has to be heated to melt the adhesive holding it in place. Then you can replace the battery.

Then everything has to be glued back together. Sounds like fun.

Looks to be a quiet Memorial Day for Jan and me tomorrow.


May 30, 2022

Why Is It Moody?

Jan and I drove down to Decatur about 11:30 to the Moody Crab to meet up with another old friend, Anne. And as I said in a previous blog, we once dated, once.

The Moody Crab turned out to be really good, with an extensive menu.

Jan and I both started out with a bowl of their Clam Chowder.

Very good and perfectly seasoned.

Jan then got the Fried Catfish Basket with Sweet Potato Fries,

while I got the Fried Oyster Po’boy with Cajun Fries.

Anne and Alan both got Boil Bags, Anne’s with Crab Legs,

while Alan got one with Crawfish and Shrimp.

I’ve actually known Anne since she was 12 or so, but back in 1967, I was dating her older sister, Jane, and she got grounded due to flunking a test, I think. So since I had already bought tickets to something, Jane suggested that I take Anne, who I think was 14 or 15 at the time, and that it would be her very first date.

So as I said, I once dated Anne, once.

Now, Anne previously has said she has no memory of this, so maybe I just imagined it. But I don’t think so.

I actually tracked Anne down a couple of years ago after my Aunt Virginia told me that Jane had died back in 2019, and I was really surprised, and wanted to find out more.

Getting our hugs and saying our goodbyes, Jan and I headed back up to Athens, with a quick detour by the new Buc-ee’s going up right outside town.

Those poles lined up in front from one side to the other are where the 120 gas pumps will be located.

Tomorrow we’re heading over to Huntsville for lunch and some shopping. Then on Wednesday, we’ll be on our way down to Birmingham for one night


May 30, 2023

A Short Week . . .

Today was nice and slow with just lunch at Gator’s, our first time since we got back from Alabama.

Jan got her standard Strawberry Walnut Salad with Grilled Chicken,

Gator's Strawberry Walnut Salad 20230305

while I got a Side Salad, along with a bowl of their Cilantro Beef Soup.

Gator's Chipotle Beef Soup 20230423

Always delicious!

Following up on our recent vacation, I did make good use of our Shower Handles.

Key West Inn Shower Handles

Suction Cup Shower Handles

Some of these showers really don’t have much to hold on to when you’re getting in and out of the tub. It only takes about 10 seconds to install each one, and they come off just as quickly.

We’ve got a set in our shower in the rig and a set in the shower Jan uses when she’s staying at Brandi’s.

And of course, a set that travels with us in the Jeep. So we’re always prepared.

Another thing we did on this trip was to take an Echo Dot with us. I hotspotted it to my phone, and we used it to play songs as we drove along. We have Amazon’s Music Unlimited so we can pretty much play any song ever made. So we skip around, sometimes playing whole albums, and sometimes just skipping from artist to artist, playing favorite songs.

A lot of fun.

Tomorrow it’s back to work, but at least it’s a short week.


May 30, 2024

4500+! Thanks To All Our Readers!

When Jan and I spent a week in NYC for Christmas in 2019, we had so much fun that Jan said we need to come back in 5 years and do it again.

NO!

When we were there, we felt perfectly safe walking through Times Square at midnight, coming back from Rockefeller Center and the Christmas Tree.

Our hotel was only a block off Times Square, so we were around and through there a lot, and never saw anything that made us feel uneasy.

But now we’d have 3 shootings since February, and now there’s been a second! machete attack on a tourist, this time right outside the McDonald’s.

So, NO!

With our recent 3-week trip back to Alabama, and the prep time for it, it’s been a while since I’ve checked our daily blog reader stats. And it turns out that we’ve hit a new high.

On May 20, 2024, we hit 4,526 daily readers, a total from readers coming directly to our site, subscribers who receive the blog via email, and readers who come to the blog from outside, i.e., Facebook and other sources.

Since this total comes from 3 different programs, WordPress, Jetpack, and Google, I need to write a script to compile these figures daily/weekly so I don’t have to do it manually each time. It’s on my list somewhere.

I’m also getting a lot of feedback from our newer readers who are enjoying our past adventures in our Retro-Blogs.™

Thanks To All Our Readers!

 

 

 

 

Drilling Down . . .

Remember, to access our blog links,
Right-Click on The Link and Select ‘Open in New Tab’

Jan is always sweet to use headphones to listen to her ‘influencers’ during days when I’m home. But they’re heavy and hot, so I ordered a set of these JBL Vibe Beam Earbuds

We had to change out the earpieces, but she really likes them. They were very easy to set up and connect to our Samsung TV, and so far have lasted several days without recharging.

* * * * * * *

Lunch today was at an old favorite, Sonic, for Foot-Long Chili Cheese Coneys, Corn Dogs, and Ched ‘R’ Peppers.

* * * * * * *

As I usually do for corn dogs, I dug out my jar of Regensburg’s Sweet Mustard. I first tried this in Regensburg, Germany, and liked it so much I ordered more of it online.

Noting that my jar was almost empty, I later went online and tried to order more, only to find it was no longer available at MyGermanCandy.com

So now I may have to order it directly from Regensburg.

We’ll see.

* * * * * * *

For you Resident Alien fans, (and you know who you are) the show comes back for a 4th season, starting June 6th, on Peacock.

* * * * * * *

Tomorrow I’m going in to have my second Squamous Cell Carcinoma removed. The first one was back in July 2014 when we were in Elkhart, IN. Hopefully, this one will go as well as that one did.

Basically they will core out the carcinoma, layer by layer, until they don’t find carcinoma cells any longer. Each layer only takes a few minutes,  but then they have to freeze the specimen and examine it under a microscope. So it can take several hours, depending on many layers they have to drill down. In the case of my 2014 operation, they had to go down 3 layers.

Since this one seems to be smaller, I’m hoping they don’t have to go down that far.


Thought For The Day:

If I’ve offended you with my opinions, you should hear the ones I keep to myself.


Your Retro-Preview Highlights –

2010 – The American Coach Rally Day 3

2014 – Now You See Her, Now …

2015 – Fix One Thing, Break Another

2022 – Alabama Family And Food

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


May 29, 2009

Old Friends & Great Memories…

Titusville has a lot of memories for both Jan and I, together and separately.

Jan’s father retired from the Air Force here in 1966, and I met her here in July of ’67.

There was an amusement park here, then called Florida Wonderland. It had a Western town, with stagecoach rides and gunfights, and a carnival area with a lot of rides. Across the street on the Indian River, was their Marineland ‘wannabe’  with 2 porpoises, 2 manatees, an elephant seal, a giant tortoise, and a 13 ft. alligator.

Jan was working as a saloon girl in the Miss Kitty’s soft drink saloon.  I was spending the summer bumming around Florida and was hired to give tours and shows for the customers, and also take care of all the animals at the Marineland area.

I would see Jan when I went across the street to get ice and supplies. And 42 years later, we’re still together.

And now both Jan’s mother and father, brother, and still-born niece are buried here.

Plus a few years after Jan had moved here in 1966, Carol and Joe Burkott, friends of hers from high school in Massachusetts, moved down here too.

And this is who we’re getting together with for lunch today.  We hadn’t seen them in years, but we had kept in touch with Christmas cards, etc.

We’re meeting at Whistle Junction, a buffet chain restaurant here in Titusville. We only have today to spend some time together because they’re leaving for Brownsville, TX, tomorrow to visit one of their kids.

After bidding goodbye to Carol and Joe, we spent some time driving over to Cocoa Beach and Merritt Island and looking around.  Even though it was pouring down rain, we still had a good time.

About 6 pm, we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Bamba II. Pretty good food, lousy service.

And then back to our Beauty…


May 29, 2010

ACA Rally – Day 3

Like yesterday, today started out with a breakfast buffet, but with a slightly different menu from yesterday. It’s nice to not have the same thing every day.

At 9 am, the Board of Directors convened the General Members’ Meeting.

ACA Meeting

It was good to hear that although membership had declined in the recent past, it seems to be climbing again. They also talked about changing the rally schedules to make it easier for families to attend.

Then at 10 we had a presentation from Fleetwood American Coach’s National Sales Manager Jason Humphries, who told us that the industry is slowly coming back. He also talked about how new EPA regulations for 2011 are causing a big price jump on some diesel models. Engines made to meet the 2011 rules will cost between $50,000 to $60,000 dollars more than 2010 engines. That’s just the additional cost for the engine!  That means that the 2010 Eagle I showed yesterday, which cost $564,000 will now cost over $610,000, or more.  WOW!

However, this only applies to engines MADE in 2011, and is not based on the coach model year. So, coach manufacturers bought up as many 2010 engines as they could to use in 2011 coaches until they ran out. So they’re telling people that if you are thinking about a new 2011 coach, get it now before there are no 2010 engines left.

That may be why they announced that someone else at the Rally had bought an Eagle like the one I mentioned yesterday.

After lunch, Jan had craft class where they made fancy beaded bookmarks. Very nice.

Heading back to our coach, I took a picture of our Doppelgänger, about 3 spaces away. Here it is,

Dopplegander

and here we are.

The only real difference is that they have a satellite dome on top and we have an open dish.

Doppleganger 2

They also have two cats just like we do.

Then later, about 5:15 we headed back over to Energy Hall for the BBQ dinner.

Energy Hall

Once again the meal was top-notch. And this time we had wine with our meal.

After dinner, we had entertainment. His name was Joe Miller and he’s from Deadwood, SD. He looks a lot like Kenny Rogers, and he did a great tribute performance covering Roy Orbison, Marty Robbins, and Elvis. And he was very good, very entertaining.

By 8pm we were back in the coach and getting out the electric floor heaters. It’s supposed to be in the mid-30s tonight.

Well, al least it’s not snow…not yet, anyway.


May 29, 2011

Chinese and Pizza . . .

Today got off to a great start with more Landon pics from our daughter Brandi. He’s pulling himself up with no problems, and even bending over to pick something up without losing his balance.

This kid’s going to be walking in a few weeks. And then it’s look out!

Landon Almost Walking

And here he is putting on his best ‘tough guy’ face. Either that, or he REALLY doesn’t like that hat.

Landon Tough Guy

Breakfast was the obligatory coffee, along with blueberry bagels and cream cheese. Really good.

After that, Jan and I worked on trying to figure out our trip schedule for the next couple of months. We’ve had to shuffle some things around to be sure we’re back in Vernon, IL around the 10th of August for our family reunion.

Around 1 Jan heated up the leftover pizza from last night’s visit to the Pizza Factory. Then I went out to work on my tail light problem. A little checking found that my tail light converter was working on tail lights and brake lights, but not on turn signals or flashers.

Some calling around told me that no one in the area that was open today or tomorrow had one in stock. So I guess I’ll have to wait until we’re in the Sacramento area starting on Tuesday. We’ll be there for 4 days, so I should be able to find one and get it installed.

In the meantim,e I should be able to wire around the converter box to power the turn signals directly. We’ll see.

After working on the trip schedule some more, we headed out about 5pm to check out the Taste of China restaurant in Oakhurst. The reviews were pretty much 4 & 5 stars, and boy, were they right. And this was for sit-down Chinese, not our usual buffet.

We all agreed that this was some of the best Chinese food we’ve ever had. And just like last night, we regretted that we didn’t try it earlier, since we’re leaving on Tuesday. And the portions were so large that we had plenty of leftovers.

But it does leave us something to look forward to next year.

One thing kind of interesting about Taste of China is that we found out about it from the owner, Terry Nevins, who is also an RV’er. I saw a post from him on RV.net offering to send anyone his file of 160 recipes for camp cooking. When I responded, I noticed he was here in Oakhurst, and it turned out that he and his beautiful wife owned the place.

I just wish his recipe file had his recipe for Hot & Sour Soup. Bummer!

After a great meal, we went next door to Von’s so Jan could get some milk before heading home, but of course, stopping for cappuccinos on the way.


May 29, 2013

Going . . . Going . . .

Almost Gone.

After checking the tracking info for both my UPS and USPS packages, and finding one still sitting in Kent, WA and the other one in Hodgkin’s, IL, I went down to the park office about 11am to tell them the problem and they said they had no problem forwarding them on to the Bend OR Thousand Trails.

Getting back to the rig, I took a look at my rig’s wipers. They don’t seem to be tracking properly across the entire windshield and skip on part of it. Some experimentation showed that the bolts holding the wiper blades to the arms were a little too big and causing the blades to bind and not pivot correctly as the arms moved.

Since I didn’t have smaller bolts in the right size, I drove down to the local TruValue hardware store to pick up some of the right size. On the way, I double-checked with the office to be sure nothing had come in for me, and then left my forwarding address and a $20 bill to cover postage. Hopefully, it will all work out.

Getting back, I reinstalled the blades with the new bolts. I’ll check tomorrow to see how they work now. While I was outside, I also topped off my rig tires with my air compressor. Being in a colder climate means the pressure has dropped a little. Finishing up, I changed out a weak battery in one of my TireTraker TPMS sensors.

Finally about 4pm Jan and I headed out to have dinner at Red Hut Café, a Lake Tahoe tradition since 1959.

Red Hut 1

Being right down the street from the Heavenly ski lift area, they continue with the theme.

Red Hut 2

Jan had a Tuna Melt with fries, and said it was the best Tuna Melt she’d ever had.  What was different about it was the tuna. She said it was a large lump tuna, much different from the normal canned tuna. I had pancakes, eggs, and 3 strips of their delicious Jalapeno Bacon, something I had never tried before. Boy, it was good.

After dinner, we drove across the street to the marina and dock for the Tahoe Queen paddle-wheeler, and a last look at Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe Queen

Coming back to the rig, we stopped off at Raley’s for some breakfast sandwiches for the next two travel days, and also one last visit to the Peet’s Coffee located in the store.

Getting back to the park, I went ahead and pulled the truck behind the rig and got it hooked up for traveling tomorrow. One less thing to do in the morning.

We plan on heading out about 10am and traveling 215 miles up US359 to spend the night at the Likely Golf and RV Resort in Likely CA, and then on to the Bend OR Thousand Trails park on Friday.


May 29, 2014

Now you see her. Now you don’t . . .

Jan and I once again sat outside with our coffee, and the last of our Martin’s muffins. We kind of thought about walking, but figured we had done our part yesterday walking the Shipshewana Flea Market.

Mister was outside with us as usual, so I took a close-up picture of his new tag, but this evening, when I started the blog,  I found that it was obscured by the grass he was lying in. So I did a quick cleanup in Paint Shop Pro (a Photoshop clone). It wouldn’t hold up to really close inspection. For that, I’d have to work at the pixel level, but that’s very time-consuming.

Mister's New Tag 1Mister's New Tag

On another level, below is one I did about 15 years ago. This photo was taken down in Florida and was supposed to be Jan’s mother Trudy, on the left, and the three daughters. Debbie, on the right, Jan, next, and then Beverly next to Jan.

However, Beverly insisted that her jailbird friend Josie, also be in the photo.

Jan's Family 1Jan's Family 2

So, back home in Texas, I proceeded to remove Josie from the photo as depicted above. This took several hours to complete. It’s not really hard to do, more like just tedious.


Around 2:30, I saw that my Amazon order had arrived at the park office, so I drove up to pick it up, as well as a bag of ice.

Getting back home, I spent about 30 minutes putting together our new kitchen cart, which came out looking like this.

New Kitchen Cart 2

Since when we travel, the slide comes in where the cart is, it will be wheeled into the bedroom hallway, and the wheels locked.


I’ve been getting some really amazing speeds on the Verizon 4G system around here. This reading was done over in Shipshewana yesterday.

SpeedTest 35Mbs

Note the download speed was over 35 Mbps. The most I’ve had previously was about 20 Mbps.

Don’t know if this has anything to do with Verizon’s recently announced XLTE upgrade, which is supposed to be 2X the standard LTE. In fact, from what I’ve read, I’m not sure that my almost 3-year-old Samsung Droid Charge is capable of the XLTE speeds.

Tomorrow I’m going to check out a repair to see about getting the rig’s passenger side windshield replaced.


May 29, 2015

Oh, No. Not Again!

Hoping we would be back in the rig today, we had breakfast about 9am at the motel, sitting out on the patio and enjoying the sun.

Since we were supposed to check out by 11am, I called the repair shop to be sure we would be able to get back in our rig this morning before we left the motel. I was told that it was still in the bay up on the jack because they wanted to go over some things with me, but after that, they would bring it out of the repair bay and get it parked for us.

Getting there, the first thing I saw was the damaged fuel tank that had been replaced.

Old Diesel Tank

All I can say was WOW! It’s hard to imagine how that happened. Luckily, they were able to save and transfer most of the remaining diesel to the new tank.

It looked like they made a lot of headway while we were gone. The new (used) mirror was installed,

New Mirror

as well as the new (new) step.

New Step

And the new side panel around the wheel well looks great.

New Panel

I do wish however, they had gone ahead and repainted the fuel door to match the new panel. I’ll have to talk to them about that.

They told me that when they actually got under the rig, they discovered a big hole in the bottom of the front bay right behind the wheel, and so they had repaired that too, as well as completely relined the wheel well itself.

It also looks like all the wiring is repaired, but I’ll be checking it out for myself in the next couple of days.

I mentioned the other day that they had also discovered that the rear airbag on the side of the blowout had been punctured and will also need to be replaced. So that’s still on order.

They pulled the rig out of the bay about 11:30 but didn’t have a space to park for hookups yet, so they moved it over to the other side of the lot until a space opened up. Jan and I both checked it out, and it all looked OK. One thing I did notice however, was that the refrigerator was at about 50 degrees, though the freezer part seems OK, as does the little electric ice maker freezer.

At first, I thought they had not had the rig plugged in while it was in the bay, but they said they did. And the electric freezer was fine. Then, after thinking about it for a while, I figured out what had happened. The front end of the rig had been 3 feet off the ground for several days while they worked on it, and the gas/electric refrigerators don’t work well on a severe slant. In fact running one like that can sometimes damage it permanently. But later in the afternoon, it had already started pulling the temp down. Right now, at about 11:30, it’s down to 37 degrees.

Don’t know what we left in the fridge, except maybe drinks and cheese, but we’ll have to check it carefully.

Finally about 1:45, we gave up waiting and went to lunch at the nearby Cowgirl in the Kitchen Café, a new favorite of ours. We’ve eaten here twice for breakfast, but this is our first lunch.

We both started with a bowl of their delicious chili, and then Jan went with the Tuna Salad Sandwich, which is one of her favorites. For my part, I joined the Mile High Club.

No, wait. That’s not right. I ordered the Mile High Club. There, that sounds better.

And Mile High is a very apt description.

Mile High Club 1

Mile High Club 2

In fact it’s almost too big to eat. But I managed.

Getting back about 2:30, we found that our rig was now parked and hooked to power, so we started moving all our stuff back into the rig from our trip.

But Jan quickly noticed a new problem. Or rather, a second occurrence of an old problem.

As in the cracked windshield that we had replaced about a year ago, up in Elkhart, IN.

Nee Broken Windshield

Turns out they had cracked it somehow, moving it. And they said they’ll take care of it.

I had hoped we might be on our way by the middle of next week, but probably not now, since we’re waiting for a new airbag as well as a new windshield.

On a bright note, though, if they keep replacing parts, we’ll soon have an all-new rig.


May 29, 2016

An Epiphany . . . Of Sorts

After a lot of discussion (days, months, etc.) and a bunch of procrastinatin’, Jan and I have come to a decision, an epiphany, I guess.

We’re not going to travel much this year, at least not as much as we normally do. And almost certainly not up to the Escapade in Essex Junction, VT, the end of July. Of course, it’s always possible that we’ll dump out a new bowl of Jell-O, hopefully orange, my favorite, and decide to make the direct 2000-mile run up there in time.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

In the last 8 years, we’ve traveled over 73,000 miles, so a little over 9,000 miles a year. But that’s kind of distorted by last year’s blowout-shortened 5,300 miles. So, figuring that in, we’ve done almost 10,000 miles a year for the first seven years..

And in that time, we visited 47 of the 49 continental US states, somehow missing only Kansas and Nebraska in the middle. As far as Canada, we’ve visited the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, missing only Manitoba.

And as far as the Canadian territories, we visited the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, missing only Nunavut.

So, all told, not a bad record for 8 years.

Of course, we won’t stick to just bouncing back and forth between Conroe and Columbus, but will probably do a week in Gulf Shores, AL, at some point, combined with a detour up to north Alabama to check in on my relatives.

But I know our ‘hitch itch’ has not been completely scratched, not even a little bit. I doubt there’s enough Calamine Lotion for that anywhere.

Unlike the last two days, today was a nice, quiet afternoon for us, until about 3:30pm when it got really quiet, as with a loud thump, the shore power went off. But it wasn’t us this time, but the power was out on our ring, and the adjacent ring behind the dumpsters.

When our previous shutdowns kept reoccurring, due to voltages occasionally going 1 volt over 130 volts, or 1 volt under 103, I put our Progressive EMS into bypass mode, so we weren’t popping off 2 or 3 times a day.

Here’s what we ran most of the afternoon.

105 volts_thumb[1]

I don’t have a direct meter on the L-2 voltage, but when the rear AC comes, this front voltage actually goes UP to around 109-110 volts. This reinforces my thought that there is an open or high resistance neutral in the system, probably near the panel, since it affects all the sites.

After about 15 minutes, and still no shore power, I cranked up the genset and got the A/C’s back on. With the temps in the high 80’s, we didn’t want to let it go too long.

And in comparison, this is the output of our genset with both A/C’s running.

118 volts on Genset_thumb[1]

About 45 minutes later, the park guy came by to say the power was back on, and that they had found a blown breaker somewhere up the line.

I wonder if when they upgraded these two inner rings to 50 amp so that they could put a couple of cottages here, they might have done it on the cheap. The new pedestals only have a 50 amp connector, with no 30 amp or 20 amp connectors.

What I’ve seen done in the past is that rather than pull new heavier wires, capable of handling 50 amps on each leg, they do it on the cheap, and just pull one new wire. This new wire, paired with the 3 wires from the original 30 line, gives them the 4 wires they need for a 50 amp circuit. But of course, vastly undersized for the load.

Tomorrow’s another stay-at-home day, hopefully with no more power interruptions.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.


May 29, 2017

Dots and Dinner . . .

It’s still going down into the mid-30’s here at night, with high-60’s in the daytime. But they’re promising warmer weather next week. We’ll see.

Our Hermiston friends, Dave and Joanne, came by this afternoon to say ‘HI’ and set up a dinner tomorrow night at Buffalo Wild Wings. And it turns out we’ve both been in the computer industry since the very early days, so we’ll have a lot to talk about tomorrow.

Catching up on some products we use:

Our Zero G RV and Marine Hose is still doing great.

Zero G RV Hose

We’ve been using it for about a year with no problems. You don’t even have to roll it up, just wad it up and throw it in the storage bay. And it’s especially nice when I’m packing up to leave on a 35° morning and I don’t have to wrestle with a stiff hose.

We’re also really enjoying our Amazon Dot, the Amazon Echo’s little sister.

Amazon Echo Dot

I used it a lot when we were gate-guarding last year, and it’s really great when we’re traveling, either in the rig or the truck. I just hotspot my phone so it can connect with the Internet, and no more constantly changing stations as we travel.

The Dot will do everything that the full-size Amazon Echo will do. It just doesn’t have the bigger amplifier and speakers, but it can be powered from a USB plug so it’s really easy to use on the road. And in the confines of the truck, it has plenty of volume.

We can listen to stations on iHeartRadio, talk radio, or any of our 8000 songs stored in the Amazon Cloud. And at only $50, it’s less than 1/3 the cost of an Amazon Echo.

A Great Deal.

Now that the holiday is pretty much over, we’ll get back to doing some touristy stuff. Up toward the top of the list is a visit to Mt. Rushmore again. When we were here in 2008 we did both a day and a night visit, which we had planned to do this time too.

But according to some online reviews for the last few days, the fog has been so heavy that you couldn’t see the monument at night even when it was lit up. So we’ll see.


May 29, 2018

Moose and More . . .

Today was a pretty normal day for us, with Jan reading and me working on website stuff. I’m getting close on the knife website, with all the U.S.A. Steel Knives in place.

I’ve now started programming the PayPal ‘Add To Cart’ buttons, one for each knife. Then I have to paste each individual code into the corresponding product block.

I’m still waiting for the text descriptions for a lot of the knives, but hopefully, I’ll have everything done by this weekend. But we’ll see.

About 1:30 Jan and I drove into Webster to have lunch at the East Star Chinese Buffet once again. Always good.

Then I made a quick stop at my client’s to set up one of the computers to do a system image backup later tonight. I try to do a system image on all three computers at least once a month. That way, it will be a lot easier to recover if I lose a hard drive.

On the way home, we made a quick WalMart stop for a few things before getting back to the rig about 5pm.

Another nice day.


May 29, 2019

11 and 13 . . .

Jan and I both agreed that today was the first day that we felt halfway normal again. Which is pretty good for us, since half-normal is pretty much normal for us. At least on the Normal-Crazy scale.

Getting to work I was hoping that the website Linux computer had finished doing its hard disk repair scan. But it was still cranking along. So rather than telling it to fix one problem at a time by pressing the ‘y’ key, I stopped it and then restarted it, including the ‘-y’ in the ‘fsck’ command from the # prompt.

And off it went, and it was still running when I left, which doesn’t bode well at all. If it’s finding this many errors, it’s probably a major malfunction, and not repairable. But either way, I got back on moving the site up to Godaddy.

Luckily, I’ve got the data files backed up, so once I get the Zen Cart shopping cart set up and functioning I should be able just install the SQL databases and pick up where we left off.

11 and 13 are how many pounds Jan and I each gained on our trip, so dinner tonight we were back onto our regular meals, and back on to our diets.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a chance to at least get to take a look at the radiator problem on the truck, but, as usual, we’ll see.


May 29, 2021

It’s Solar Powered . . .

I left my old and new phones copying all my 52+GB of data over when I went to bed about midnight, and it was all done when I got up. And a quick look showed that all my contacts, photos, etc., appear to have been moved over, but no sign of any apps beyond the ones that came preinstalled. Which is about what I expected, since just transferring them wouldn’t have installed them.

One thing I’m happy to see is that my new phone is much, much faster, both in operation, how fast programs open and run, and also how fast data is downloaded, or at least how fast it was processed as it came in.

And later, things got even faster.

But this morning started with coffee outside on the patio while Jan admired her new flamingo bird bath, complete with the solar-powered fountain I also got for her.

Flamingo Bird Bath with Fountain

I was actually surprised how little direct sunlight was necessary to start it pumping. It also comes with 3 other spray heads, but this basic one works better to keep the water in the bird bath.

Later in the afternoon, we headed up to the Webster area, first to make an office stop to pick up a couple of Amazon orders that came in late yesterday, one of them the second wireless charger for my new phone. Then it was on down to our only remaining Chinese Buffet, East China Star.

And while we were there, I looked at my phone and saw that it now said that my phone connection was the fabled 5G. So, not wanting to lose this chance, I ran SpeedTest.net and found I was getting almost 60 Mbps.

WOW! That’s faster than our connection at work.

Then, heading back toward home, we made a quick stop at Harbor Freight, and then a final one at HEB for a couple of things.

Then this evening I discovered the plus side to copying all the apps over. As I was going through my old phone, picking apps to download to my new one, I found that apps in excess of 50Mb were downloading and installing way too fast. Then it occurred to me that the phone was checking to see if an app had already been copied to the phone, and then using that, rather than actually downloading it again.

So as a test, I downloaded a new, large app not already on my phone and found it happening at about the usual speed. Nice.

Tomorrow I’m going to start doing some prep work and making a list of what we want to take on our upcoming trip.

And maybe sit out on the patio again.


May 29, 2022

An Unusual Day . . .

A little before 10am, we headed out for the Cracker Barrel right down the road for another round of First Cousin, First Cousin Once Removed family get-togethers.

Unfortunately, we were having so much fun catching up, that I forgot to get a group photo, so you’ll have to re-see the one from June 2021 when we were last up here.

From the back, that’s Luke, Harland, Darby, and their mother, Helen.

Luke is the team leader for a company that installs French drains on houses in the Huntsville area, while Harlan is 14 and still in school, while Miss Darby is a Paralegal at a law firm here in Athens.

The one missing here is Stahlie, who is presently down in the Miami FL area on an archaeological dig. She’s part of a team that goes into areas before any new construction is allowed and surveys for any artifacts that might be there.

They regularly find relics from Indian tribes thousands of years ago, remains of Spanish encampments, and even things from the Revolutionary War era.

Neat!

To give you an idea of the kind of young lady Miss Stahlie is, how many people can say they’ve been photobombed by a Chinese Communist soldier on the Great Wall of China?

Jan had the Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes, along with Bacon,

while I got the Sunrise Sampler with a little bit of everything.

After getting our hugs and goodbyes, Jan and I made a WalMart stop before heading back to the Days Inn for the afternoon.

And now here comes the ‘Unusual’ part. Normally, we only have one big meal a day. But today we had two.

About 5pm we drove back down US72 for a bit to have dinner at another local favorite of ours, Catfish Cabin. We’ve been eating here whenever we’re back in town, pretty much since they opened in 1968. And it’s always good.

They always start us off with a fresh hot basket of their homemade hushpuppies.

Then Jan got the Cabin Plate,

with a whole catfish, fried shrimp and fried oysters, and a Baked Potato.

I got my usual Regular Combo Platter,

with Fried Catfish, Fried Oysters, Fried Shrimp, Boiled Shrimp, a Stuffed Crab, and a Baked Sweet Potato.

And then somehow we made enough room to split a slice of their Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.

But just barely.

Tomorrow we’re getting together with another old friend. And by ‘old friend’, she was 15 and I was 18 the last time I saw her until last year.


May 29, 2023

Memorial Day 2023 . . .

Memorial Day 2023 graphic

Eagle On Tombstone

Remembering Our Fallen Heroes


We were off to have lunch at Spring Creek BBQ about 1pm.

I mean, it’s Memorial Day. Isn’t BBQ a requirement?

Spring Creek Jan 20230529

For my part, I got a Two Meat Plate with Baby-Back Ribs and Marbled Brisket with Extra Bark, as well as Beans and Beans.

Spring Creek Greg 20230529

Back on May 18, 2023, I posted the following as my Thought For The Day:

Guns used to have an honored place in American schools. Gun safety was taught in schools, schools had rifle teams, schools had rifle ranges, and students built guns in shop class. Students brought guns to school to be used for hunting after class.  Then the Federal government passed the Gun Free School Act in 1994.

Since the passage of that act, the number of school shootings has skyrocketed. From 1900 to 1994, there were no mass shootings in schools (there were a couple outside of schools).  From 1994 to 2014, there were 13 mass shootings inside of schools.

What changed?

Several of our readers questioned this, saying this didn’t happen in their schools, and where were these schools anyway?  Well, they were all over the U.S.

In the High Schools I went to in Alabama, it was common during dove season (usually starting in November) to see pickups in the student parking lot with shotguns in the rear window rack. And there were gun ranges and clubs, too.

And it wasn’t just in ‘redneck’ Alabama.

It was the same in New York City.

“It was common for high school students to take their guns with them to school on the subways in the morning and turn them over to their home-room teacher or the gym coach so the heavy guns would simply be out of the way. After school, students would pick up their guns when it was time for practice.”

And it was pretty much the same all around the country.

High School Gun Clubs and Teams In The U.S.

“Until 1969, virtually every public high school—even in New York City—had a shooting club. High school students in New York City carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach during the day, and retrieved them after school for target practice. Club members were given their rifles and ammunition by the federal government. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests for university scholarships.”

So again. What Changed?

Memorial Day 2023

Flag Rig Memorial Day 2023


May 29, 2024

It’s Coming Back . . .

After being off for 3 weeks, it was kind of a system shock to go back into work today, but I powered through. I did have a little excitement when I found my computer saying that it couldn’t find the Hard Drive. Strange, since it’s an SSD Solid State Drive which doesn’t go bad that often.

But I opened it up and reseated all the cables, and it started working.

I think it just missed me.

Looks like the title of World’s Largest Buc-ee’s is coming back to Texas . . . where it belongs. It will open June 10 in Luling, TX, actually the site of the very first Buc-ee’s Travel Center, which opened there in 2003. In fact, rather than just expanding the original one, they just built an entirely new one right next door.

At 75,000 sq. ft. with 120 gas pumps, it will add an additional 200 new jobs to the area. And it comes with really good wages and benefits, too.

Coming home this afternoon, I found this Tesla Cybertruck in the next lane.

It’s even uglier from the rear.