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Bad Bills . . .
Came across this great video of the soft splashdown of StarShip #13 (or Ship40) in the Indian Ocean a little over an hour after launch from StarBase, Texas.
Even neater is that you get to see part of the drone camera taking the video.
* * * * * * *
A couple of weeks ago, I got cash back from our HEB grocery purchase. HEB only allows you to get $50 back in cash, so I always get 2- 20’s and a 10, so I know it came from them.
Then I ended up giving it as a tip to Hugo, our Denny’s cook, who tried to buy something at the Denny’s register. And they ran it through their detector, which flagged it.
The next time we were at Denny’s, Angie gave it back to me. And I immediately replaced it with a $20 bill for Hugo.
Later in the week, I mentioned it to a manager to see if they had any other reports, and she said No. And she also immediately offered to replace it. But I wanted to keep it as a souvenir.
* * * * * * *
One way to tell a real from a counterfeit bill is to hold the right side up to a bright light. If you do this, you will see a phantom face inside the bill.
As you can see, the counterfeit one just has a blank oval.
And here’s the one on a real $20.
Be safe out there.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow we’ve got our monthly Alvin Opry Group get-together at Saltgrass Steakhouse, as usual, though we’re not yet sure how many will show.
Could be just Jan and me.
We’ll see.
Thought For The Day:
Am I Perfect?
No.
Do I at least try my best and keep a positive attitude?
Also No.
Your Retro-Preview Highlights –
2010 – EnterTRAINment Junction
2014 – Stuff Every RV’er Should Have
2017 – Catfish Cabin
2018 – A Lowball Offer
2024 – More Unintended Consequences
And Now On To today’s Retro-Blogs.™
July 30, 2009
Eastbound and down…
Today was a travel day.
After having breakfast at a local restaurant, we headed east toward Clinton, CT, a little after noon.
We were only going about 130 miles, but it took us about 4 hours due to all the traffic on I-95. A good part of the time we were only doing about 40 mph.
The only ‘highlight’ of the trip, if you can call it that, was the fact that it cost us $23.75 to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge, which spans the Hudson River about 25 miles above New York City.
And traffic across the bridge was very slow due to what a flashing sign said was police activity on the bridge. We could see police lights in the distance and a helicopter hovering overhead, but by the time we got to that part of the bridge, everybody was gone.
Jan jokingly said, “Maybe somebody jumped!” And it turns out she was right. A 66-year-old woman from NJ jumped from the bridge and was killed when she hit the pilings at the base of the bridge.
Apparently, this happens enough that they have installed phones all along the bridge that connect directly with the Suicide Prevention Hotline.
July 30, 2010
EnterTRAINment Junction…
We’re presently parked at the Little Farm on the River RV Park in Rising Sun, IN, about 25 miles from Cincinnati, OH.
This park is in the middle of a working farm that runs right down to the Ohio River, and we’re surrounded by corn and soybean fields
About 10:00 am, we headed into Cincinnati. Strangely enough, although Ohio is just across the river, we have to go through Kentucky to get there. Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky all come together right here in this corner of the country.
Our first destination was Quaker Steak and Lube, a hot wing place we first ate at in Buffalo, NY last year on our way back from Newfoundland. When we were there, the big promotion was their “Atomic Wings”. These rate about 150,000 on the Scoville Heat Scale (a jalapeno rates between 2500 and 8000), and you have to sign a release before they will serve them to you. Jan and I got a sample order (5 wings), and we both thought they were pretty hot, hotter than anything we’ve eaten before. Jan could only eat one.
This time they have a new deal. “Triple Atomic Wings” with a 500,000 rating. Unfortunately, they don’t offer a sampler of the Triples, and I didn’t want a whole order of 10, so we didn’t get to try them.
But Jan and I both agreed that either we had both lost a lot of taste buds, or these “Atomic Wings” today weren’t as hot as the ones we had last year. But they were good. We also had some regular Hot Wings and some Buckeye BBQ, which rates at about5000.
One thing I really like about Quaker Steak is that their chicken pieces are a good bit bigger than either Hooter’s or Buffalo Wild Wings.
After lunch, we stopped off for gas and a car wash before heading over to the main course for the day, EnterTRAINment Junction. Yes, it’s spelled correctly.
EnterTRAINment Junction is a train-themed attraction that has a railroad museum, and what I was really there for, the world’s largest indoor model railroad.
With over 25,000 sq. ft., 90 trains with more than 1200 cars, 2 miles of track, and over 6000 handmade trees, it’s really something.
I had a large HO layout when I was a kid, and if we weren’t living in the RV, I might think about building another one. But in the meantime, I still like reading about them and visiting large layouts when possible. Last year I visited the Model Railroad Museum near Lancaster, PA, but this one is much bigger.
As I said, my layout was HO, which at the time was the smallest scale at 1/87 real size. The trains we saw today were G scale, or 1/22.5
Now there are two smaller scales than HO N scale, at 1/160, and Z scale at 1/220. A locomotive in Z scale is less than 2 inches long.
We also enjoyed the American Railroad Museum, which had a lot of interesting displays and artifacts. One thing that I found funny was that when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific work crews approached their meeting from opposite directions, they passed each other by and kept on going for another 100 miles. They were getting paid by the mile and didn’t want to stop. Finally, the Government stepped in and declared Promontory, Utah the meeting point.
Leaving the Junction, we headed back to the rig, but detoured through downtown Cincinnati to get some flavor of the city. It’s a very nice town with a lot of new big buildings going up.
I kept looking for the Flimm building, but never found it.
Getting back to the rig a little before 5, we decided it was nap time for an hour or so. Then, about 6:30, we headed out for dinner at Skyline Chili, one of two chili-based restaurants in this area, the other being Goldstar Chili.
Everything is pretty much chili. Chili Dogs, chili burritos, salads with chili on them, and even chili spaghetti. And of course, all of it covered with grated cheese and onions.
And it was delicious. Hopefully, we’ll get to try Goldstar some other time.
Tomorrow we head north about 135 miles to Celina, OH, for the night before getting into Elkhart, IN, on Sunday.
July 30, 2013
Guards and Buffalos . . .
More on the Gate Guard front:
This morning, before I got up, Jan got a call from someone looking for Gate Guard Services. I wasn’t sure why they had called us, but after thinking about it for a while, I figured he had gotten our number from one of our rig’s Company Men as a Gate Guard Services contact.
All the Company Men we worked with had both Jan’s and mine’s phone numbers and email addresses in case they needed to call us at the gate. Curious, I gave the guy a callback, and that’s what had happened. Another Company Man, apparently one that we had worked with last year, had given him our number.
In addition, earlier this morning, I got an email from Jerry and Rita Scarborough, who also work for Gate Guard Services, telling me that GGS has finally switched over to Direct Deposit for our paychecks. This will make it a lot easier for us since when I used Chase’s Online Deposit last year, I kept running into a problem because Chase has a limit on how much money you can deposit online in any one month.
Whoever heard of a bank that doesn’t want your money?
About 1 pm, Jan and I headed out for the afternoon. Our first stop was at the RV/MH Hall of Fame to check in with Al Hesselbart, the director there, and a long-time friend. After talking for a while, we made a date to meet for dinner tomorrow night at King Wha, a great local Chinese restaurant.
Next up was a stop at the Sam’s Club over in Mishawaka, about 15 miles away, to pick up Jan’s prescriptions and get some other Sam’s-type stuff. Since we wanted some other pharmacy items, we went there first. When I went to pay for the prescriptions, I thought they were kind of high at $136.
So I pulled out my Pharmacy Discount Card. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I picked one of these up from the payment counter at my doctor’s office last February. Figured it wouldn’t do much, but what the heck, it’s free.
When I first used it at the Sam’s Club in Friendswood, I was surprised to find that it saved me about $50. Yeah! I was also told that I only had to enter the card into the system once, and it would apply to all prescriptions from then on.
Kind of.
I showed the Pharmacy Tech my card and asked her to be sure it was still in the system and if it would save me anything today. She said these cards never made much difference, but she would check. She went away for about 15 minutes and then came back with a big smile on her face.
I asked her if it made any difference, and she said, “You could say so”. So I asked, “How much?”. She just hit a few keys on the cash register, and a new total came up.
My $136 total was now $50. WOW!
The other thing I found out is that the card has to be re-entered each time we move our prescriptions to a new Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart. Which, for us, is pretty much every month. Note to self.
Leaving Sam’s, we went right next door to the Wal-Mart to get me some new socks since Sam’s didn’t have what I wanted.
Then, after a quick stop at a P.O. to mail a letter, we headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Usually, we get the regular wings, but this time, since the Boneless Wings were on sale, we got those instead. We both got the Mango Habanero sauce on them, which is their third hottest sauce, behind ‘Wild’ and ‘Blazin’, which is the hottest. But I always get a small cup of the ‘Blazin’ sauce as an added hit.
I do this because I like the heat of the ‘Blazin’, but overall, I also like the sweetness of the Mango Habanero, so I get the best of both worlds.
On the way back to the RV park, we first stopped off for a car wash, and then a quick stop at a Chase bank to get a roll of quarters. Jan wants to use the big washers here at the park laundromat to do some of our rugs while we’re here.
July 30, 2014
Stuff Every RV’er Should Have . . . Maybe
Since today was a rainy do-nothing day, I thought I’d continue with a list I started on a post back in June. It’s a combination of things we like and use, and some of the items from the 10 Things Every RV’er Needs seminar that I used to give at RV rallies. We’ve found all of these either very useful, or very necessary, or both.
First up are things electrical.
1. A Three Light Outlet Tester is just plain necessary, for your home or your RV. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve plugged into a 20-amp or 30-amp campground outlet and found an Open Neutral, an Open Ground, or a Reversed Open/Neutral. All of which, under some conditions, can get you shocked. Or keep the power from making it through your Electrical Management System (EMS) and into your rig. About $6.
2. The Kill-A-Watt is another must-have. With it, you can check the voltage of the outlet, of course, but also the current draw in Amps of whatever you have plugged into it. And you can also check the frequency in Hz, the power consumed in Watts, and KWH (Kilowatt Hours). I use it to set the frequency on the diesel generators when we gate guard, so our clocks run right. About $23.
P3 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor
3. A Digital Volt Ohm Multimeter (VOM) is another must-have item. With it, you can check battery voltages, fuses, pretty much anything electrical. About $9.
Digital Large Screen Multimeter
3a. Just a better VOM, this one with auto-ranging, which means you don’t have to preset the voltage range before taking a measurement, i.e., 0 to 200 volts, or 0 to 20 volts. About $20.
INNOVA Auto-Ranging Digital Multimeter
4: These are the super bright LED strips that I came across recently due to Ed Hurlburt of the RV Tips area on Facebook. They’re bright white, and are the perfect replacement for your F15T8 fluorescent bulbs. Here’s my blog post on how I replaced my fluorescent tubes with these. About $9 per set of 2.
Super Bright COB White LED Lights
5. This is a temperature-controlled outlet that I use during the winter. I have a small cube heater that I put in our water bay during very cold weather. The heater plugs into this outlet, which is plugged into the rig’s AC power. The heater is turned on, but only operates below 35° and then cuts off at 45°. About $14.
Cold Weather Thermo Cube Thermostatically Controlled Outlet – On at 35-Degrees/ Off at 45-Degrees
Hopefully, this list will prove useful to you, so if you have any questions or comments, let me know.
July 30, 2015
A Delayed Rendezvous . . .
Well, just as we’re wrapping it up here, it cools off. Pretty much since we’ve been here, the temps have been in the mid to high 90’s, and staying in the mid to high 70’s at night. But today it was only 93 degrees, with 66 tonight. And that’s how it’s supposed to stay until we leave here on Sunday.
As I mentioned before, we had planned to make a last visit to Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous for some more of their fabulous ribs. But Jan woke up with a migraine this morning and just didn’t feel like making the hour and 45-minute trip into Memphis, and of course, back home.
But she did feel like making a 30-minute drive in the opposite direction to the Cracker Barrel in Corinth, MS. Thursday being Jan’s favorite Turkey and Dressing day, it was the perfect fix.
Jan, of course, got her T & D, while I went with the Cracker Barrel Sampler, something I’ve never had before.
It comes with samples of Chicken and Dumplings, Sugar-Cured Ham, Meatloaf, and Mashed Potatoes, and then I added Turnip Greens and Fried Okra as my two sides.
I mean, if you’re at a comfort food place, then you should have comfort food, right?
Everything was great, especially the Turnip Greens. Well, everything but the Meatloaf. Although it tasted good, it was dry and chewy, and in crumbles, like it was scraped off the end of the pan. But all in all, it was a good meal.
They have plenty of parking here, so we’re thinking about stopping here for breakfast on our way to Alabama on Sunday. We checked it out, and they’ve got plenty of parking in back. But we’ll see how busy they are when we get there.
One thing I noticed as soon as we came into Corinth is that they must be having a gas war here. Everywhere had unleaded at $2.19 or less. In fact, we filled up the truck at $2.15. Nice!
Too bad they’re not having a diesel war too. It was still in the $2.40’s.
Not bad, but not as good as we saw last week over in the Memphis suburbs, where it was in the $2.26 area.
We’ll see how Jan feels in the next couple of days, to see if we’re going to try Rendezvous again.
July 30, 2016
Scratching the Itch . . .
Saturday’s usually a sleep-in day for me. Instead of getting up at 11 am, I get up at noon. But I didn’t go to bed until almost 4 am, so cut me some slack.
Of course, 15 minutes after I got up, and before I even had my coffee, a client called and needed help. He broke his computer.
By the time I first had my coffee and got his computer working again, it was almost 2 pm. So after snapping a photo of our electric meter, I headed down to the park office to settle up on our electric bill for the almost month we’ve been here.
Turned out to be $195.12 for the month, which, along with the $375 rent, totals $570.12 for our 28-day stay here. That’s $20 a day.
Not too bad, I guess.
Later, around 7 pm, after it had cooled off a bit, I went outside to stow things away for our travel tomorrow, and also to take another look at my A/C blower problem that seemed to center on the resistor pak.
The pak gets hot in operation, so it actually sticks up into the blower airflow to help keep it cool.
And after I got it out and unplugged it was quickly obvious what the problem was
There was a burnt pin on both the pak and the connector.
A little Googling said this was a fairly common problem. The long-term solution might be to replace both the plug and the pak, but I wanted to get it fixed now.
So a paperclip to the rescue.
I let it run for about 15 minutes, and although it got hot to the touch, it wasn’t hot enough to burn, so I deemed the repair a success.
For now.
Of course, I only have one speed now: high. But we pretty much only run it on high, anyway.
Finishing up, I stowed away the water and sewer hoses, as well as the chairs. So all we have to do tomorrow is unplug shore power, raise the levelers, and hit the road.
Tomorrow night we’ll be at Poche’s Fish N Camp near Breaux Bridge, LA, finally scratching the itch.
July 30, 2017
Smooth and Cool . . .
We took our time getting up and on the road this morning, not pulling out until about 10:30.
I think the spaces here at Capitol City RV Park, here in Montgomery, are some of the largest I’ve seen. At 85ft x 45ft, you could park a couple of RV’s in each site.
Though these are their ‘Premium’ sites, I was given a free upgrade when, noticing all the Auburn University stuff on the walls of the office, I told her I had gone to Auburn. Of course, I didn’t tell her I had also gone to Auburn’s arch-rival, the University of Alabama, too.
It took us about 10 minutes to get out on I-65N, heading towards Athens, AL, about 180 miles away.
Based on past trips through Birmingham, I was expecting the same really bad roads, especially coming into town from the south, but they’ve obviously been doing some work since we were through here last year. Nice and smooth.
And being Sunday, there was really no traffic to worry about, so we just cruised right through, with the only slowdowns being the many hills.
We pulled into the Northgate RV Park in Athens and were met by my cousin-in-law, Helen, at the park office. After getting in our hellos and hugs, we got parked and set up about 2:45.
About 4 pm, Jan and I headed to have dinner at Catfish Cabin, our regular ‘first night here’ restaurant.
One of the best things about this place is that pretty much everything is homemade. From the salad dressings,
to the Hushpuppies,
it’s all made in-house.
And all of their catfish, shrimp, and oysters are all fresh, then breaded and prepared at the restaurant. The only thing bought pre-prepared is the stuffed crabs like on my Combination Platter.
Jan always gets the Cabin Platter, because she really likes the whole catfish on it.
Really delicious as always.
One thing we’re enjoying up here is the cooler weather, with highs in the mid-80’s, and lows in the low-60’s, temps we haven’t seen since Rapid City, SD, back in May.
Cool.
Tomorrow we’re making a day trip back down to Birmingham to drive around, and then have dinner with our old friends Bill and Carol Alverson.
Bill and I both worked as broadcast engineers at WBIQ, Ch. 10, the local Alabama Public Television station back in the early 70’s, before we moved to Montgomery. We also both worked part-time at WENN, a black radio station in town, also as broadcast engineers.
So we’ll have a lot to catch up on.
July 30, 2018
A Lowball Offer. . .
We’re still waiting for the last two house offers to come in, hopefully in the next day or so.
I thought I might have another possible buyer today, but it didn’t work out. My client gave me an ad card for another local company that buys houses, so I gave them a call.
They sounded very interested and kept me on the phone for almost 30 minutes, giving them info on the house, and finally setting up an appointment for Thursday afternoon at 2pm.
Then, on my way home, I got a text asking me to call back to discuss what they could pay for the house. I thought that’s what they would decide after they looked at the house on Thursday. But I gave them a call when I got home.
The young lady said that she had turned over my info to the property buyer, the guy who would be checking out the house on Thursday. She said he told her that he was presently paying $75,000 to $125,000 for houses in our area, and would that be a price range that I could live with?
I told her that since I had offers for $137,000, $139,000, and $140,000, what did she think? After she was quiet for about 10 seconds, she said, “Oh, I guess not.” Then she said that she would cancel the appointment.
Now I’m not sure what was going on, but I really doubt he’s bought any house in our subdivision for $125,000, much less $75,000. But at least they didn’t waste my time.
The high bidder sent me a copy of the contract we will be using if we go forward with the deal, already filled in, so I can look it over. I was glad to see it was the standard Texas Real Estate Commission 10-page form, and not some in-house version with a lot of possible gotchas.
It now looks like I got off easy on my GPS problem. As I mentioned the other day, the new power cord did not fix my problem of the unit constantly rebooting. So I started looking at replacement units on Amazon.
Googling had told me that sometimes the problem could be caused by a bad update, but I hadn’t updated recently, so I didn’t think that was the cause. And anyway, to fix it, you have to save all your data off, do a factory reset, and then spend a couple of days downloading all the new updates, and then load your data back on. Seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, especially since I was kind of looking for an excuse to get a new one anyway.
But Friday, while I had the GPS plugged into my laptop to download the latest copy of my Favorites from the unit, I saw that a new update was available, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
And it fixed the problem!
It worked perfectly all the way up and back to Brandi’s on Saturday, and then again to and from work today.
July 30, 2019
TV Guide . . .
As was forecast, it did rain off and on all day, so the only thing I got done outside was to get my local digital antenna mounted and up in the air.
Coming inside, I switched the TV over to Off-Air and hit Scan. And in a few minutes, it had found 111 local channels. WOW.
That’s almost 3 times what it found before I put it up on the pole. Of course, about 80 of those are in languages we don’t understand.
One thing Jan was worried about was how to find out what was on the many channels since there’s not a guide like on our DirecTV. We did find one online that showed the local channels, but it would be a real pain to have to check the computer every time you wanted to know what was on.
Then, as I was looking at the TV remote, I noticed a Guide button. So out of curiosity, I pressed it, and suddenly I had a channel guide.
And just like our DirecTV guide, it not only time and program name, but also gives a short synopsis of what the show is about.
Neat
But now my question is, where is this coming from? It has to be coming over the air, but who is putting it together, and what channel is it coming in on? It doesn’t show up when you scan through the channels, just when you use the Guide button.
It must be something standard around the country, since I assume it works everywhere since it’s on the remote. But so far, Googling hasn’t turned up anything.
So I’ll keep looking.
As I mentioned yesterday, I got an email from Panasonic saying they were repairing my camera, and then today I got another email saying it was done and they were shipping it out this afternoon. Very fast service.
July 30, 2021
Trip Prep . . .
Jan and I spent this evening starting to book stuff for our Christmas in Branson visit. First up were our tickets to Yakov Smirnoff’s show on December 5, the day we arrive in Branson. We had to do this one first because that’s his last show of the season.
Next up, we got tickets to see SIX once again, on Monday at 8 pm at the Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Theater. Again, we were kind of constrained by the times of their shows and the times we had open.
Next up was a Dinner Cruise on the Branson Belle, the riverboat that cruises Table Rock Lake. We had hoped to do the 8 pm one, but they didn’t have any open during the week we’re going to be there, so it will be an early dinner, at 4 pm on Tuesday, the 7th.
One thing I found is that it’s cheaper to book directly through the theater, and not through one of the online services like BransonShows.com or others. In fact we saved over $30 on the tickets for Yakov’s show alone.
And in other ticket-buying news, I went online this morning to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and got tickets to the Pompeii Exhibit there,
and it’s going to be a family and friends excursion, with Jan and I, Brandi and Landon, and Landon’s BFF, Sophie.
And besides Pompeii, there’s also the Body Worlds exhibit,
and Victoria, the T-Rex.
So we’ve got bodies encased in stone, real bodies encased in plastic, and a T-Rex. Sounds like the perfect afternoon for a couple of almost-11 year old’s.
And us adults, too, of course.
As we’ve done on past Museum visits, we’re going to meet up first at nearby Cleburne Cafeteria for lunch beforehand. A great place to eat.
We’re set for August 10th, just before Landon and Sophie start back to school the next week on the 16th.
Then the following Thursday, the 12th, we’re meeting Debi and Ed Hurlburt, and maybe Janice and Dave Evans, for lunch at Razzoo’s Cajun Cafe up in Spring. Then coming back south, I’ll drop Jan off at Brandi’s so she can dog-sit while Brandi, et al, spend the weekend at the lake.
So it’ll be just me and Karma for our weekend.
July 30, 2022
Sharing Is Caring . . .
Well, it turns out that one ticket in Illinois won the $1.337 Billion Mega Millions lottery last night
Our daughter Brandi, covering all her bases, messaged this to Jan’s sister/family in Illinois.
Unfortunately, the luck of the Illinois bunch wasn’t any better than ours here in Texas.
However, I did win $4 on my $20 ticket. Whoopee!
But I’m not sharing it.
However, I wasn’t able to even check my ticket until this evening, because every time I checked it during the day, the Texas Lottery app either wouldn’t respond or said it was too busy. Guess too many folks were checking their tickets.
Jan and I were on our way up to Webster a little before 1 pm for lunch at Texas Huddle once again.
And like Angie at Denny’s and Sylvia at Twin Peaks, Juana, who’s only waited on us twice before, brought us our correct drink order right off the bat, and also remembered what we ordered.
After we both started with a side salad, Jan got her Mushroom Cheddar Bacon Burger (no bun) and a side of their Steamed Veggies.
I, of course, got the PB&J Bacon Cheeseburger, heavy on the PB&J.
And as usual, I dusted the burger with some of my Carolina Reaper Volcanic Pepper Flakes, for that extra touch.
Then, when the manager came to see how we were doing, she told me that some people order it with the Flaming Raspberry sauce that they have for their Chicken Wings, instead of the Grape Jelly, or in addition to it.
Next time for sure!
July 30, 2023
Was It Something We Said?
OK, everyone can stop sending us articles about what flamingos in front of your RV really mean.
Naughty secret revealed: Plastic pink flamingos in RV parks are not what they appear
Now what is the deal with the upside-down pineapples?
This past Monday, Charlie, our port-side neighbor here at the park, backed up to his camper and headed out. He’s been our neighbor for about 9 months, and when I talked to him early in the week, he didn’t mention that he was leaving. And he had to borrow a pickup, since he only had a small SUV.
And I gather that Rob, our park owner, didn’t know he was leaving either. Jan said later in the day he drove by the site and then stopped, backed up, and got out and checked the site. There was no problem with any rent owed since we’re coming up on the end of the month, which is paid in advance. But Charlie may have left while owing for his electric.
For instance, this coming Tuesday, our August rent is due, but we’ll be paying our electric bill for July.
So I don’t know. Was it something we said?
Lunch today was at a local favorite, Gator’s. Always good.
Jan got her usual delicious Strawberry Walnut Salad with Grilled Chicken and Bleu Cheese Dressing,
while I tried something new there, their version of Shrimp and Grits.
I often have Snooze’s version, so I wanted to compare them. And it’s hard because it’s an apple vs. orange thing.
Both are delicious, but as I told Jan, I probably won’t get the Gator’s version again, and that’s because it’s just too much. The shrimp are very tasty and much larger than the Snooze ones. But they give you about 3X the amount of grits.
Too much for me. But still delicious.
Then it was on up to our HEB for our usual weekly HEB stuff.
And then home.
Our regular readers will remember my talking about our first summer here in Texas after we moved down here from Alabama in December 1978. During the month of July 79, we had 13 straight days of temps over 100° and another 5 or 6 other days over 100.
Then, in July 2014, I posted this in the blog.
The weather, it’s a changin’.
You’ve probably heard about the Polar Vortex sweeping through the Mid-West over the next few days. The temps here are going from the mid-80’s to the high 60’s in the daytime, and into the low 50’s at night.
And in other news, Brisbane, Australia, just recorded their lowest temperature in 103 years. And in the Antarctic, they’ve just recorded the most ice ever seen there.
Isn’t Global Warming wonderful?
And then a couple of weeks ago, Johannesburg, South Africa, had its first snowfall in over a decade.
And according to a recent article in The Lancet, one of Britain’s most prestigious medical journals, recently published an article detailing a study of 854 cities in Europe showing ‘that cold-related deaths account for 10 times the number of deaths due to heat‘.
Sounds like hotter is better than colder.
Isn’t This How Horror Movies Start?
July 30, 2024
More Unintended Consequences. . .
Today was a very nice do-nothing Tuesday, something we instituted a few months back. It’s nice not to have to go anywhere or do anything.
I’ve kept you updated on the Boeing Starliner debacle, and now there’s more.
It seems that they’re now whispering behind the scenes that if they have to bring the stranded astronauts home on a SpaceX Dreamliner, they will have to undock the Starliner from the ISS and essentially abandon it so they can dock the Dreamliner. That’s a $1.5 BILLION loss!
More Unintended Consequences.
It seems we need vultures. Or at least, India does.
How the decline of Indian vultures led to 500,000 human deaths
Once upon a time, the vulture was an abundant and ubiquitous bird in India.
The scavenging birds hovered over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses. Sometimes they would alarm pilots by getting sucked into jet engines during airport take-offs.
But more than two decades ago, India’s vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows.
By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero because of diclofenac, a cheap non-steroidal painkiller for cattle that is fatal to vultures. Birds that fed on the carcasses of livestock treated with the drug suffered from kidney failure and died.
And that’s not all, according to a new peer-reviewed study. The unintentional decimation of these heavy, scavenging birds allowed deadly bacteria and infections to proliferate, leading to the deaths of about half a million people over five years, says the study published in the American Economic Association journal.
It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.
And speaking of Mother Nature –
Here’s a really good, but very scary video on what would happen to the US if the Super Volcano under the Yellowstone region decided to blow its top.
Yikes!
July 30, 2025
Imposter Ducks . . .
Bella the kitten and Max the dog are inseparable.
But what’s funny is that Tommy, the other kitten, and Max do not like each other, and stay far apart.
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Whatever happened to Traveler’s Checks?
Before we started full-time RV’ing in 2008, I bought a couple of thousand in $100 American Express Traveler’s Checks to tuck away just ‘in case.’
In this ‘case’, it was based on our Holland America Cruise/Tour to Alaska in 1998. While we were on the Tour part, the satellite that fed every credit card machine in Alaska went down. So all of a sudden, our cards didn’t work.
Luckily, I had just enough cash to tide us over for the 3 or 4 days until they got the sat back online.
So I figured if we ever got in another similar situation, I wanted to be prepared.
But 10 years later, I started trying to cash them in and found it difficult. Nobody wanted to take them, even the banks.
Not even my Chase bank, which sold them to me.
And the last one we cashed, the bank cashiers were calling others over to look at it since they’d never seen one, only heard about them.
What it comes down to is that the ubiquitous credit card killed off Traveler’s Checks.
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While we were stopped at a light the other day, the vehicle beside us had a nice selection of ducks on the dash
However, it quickly became obvious that these were ‘Imposter Ducks.’
They were in a Ford Bronco!
A Ford Bronco.
Blasphemy!
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Tomorrow we’ve got our monthly Alvin Opry Bunch get-together at Saltgrass Steakhouse. Beforehand, hopefully, we’ll be able to pick up a new storage cabinet for Jan at the American Furniture Warehouse right down the Interstate from Saltgrass.
