Jan and I were on our way up to The Woodlands area to meet up with Ed & Debi Hurlburt for a return visit at Adriatic Cafe and Italian Grille. We liked it so much last month that we wanted a return visit.
And one of the great things about this place is that as soon as you sit down, they greet you with a big basket of their delicious hot garlic bread knots.
First up were nice salads with homemade Bleu Cheese dressing.
Then Jan and I moved on to their ‘Spaghetti The Works’, with meat sauce, sliced mushrooms, Italian sausage, and a meatball
This was Jan’s first time getting the Spaghetti, and she didn’t want the sausage, so I asked for it to be added to mine. So they brought me a large plate just filled with sausage, so when I dumped it on my plate, it looks like all I got was sausage.
But there is spaghetti, sauce, meatballs, etc., under there too.
Between the bread, and the salad, Jan and I both had a lot of leftovers to bring home. And wanting to stretch out our take-home, we asked for a separate order of spaghetti and sauce to go.
After our 2+ hour get-together, Jan and I were on our way home by about 2pm, getting back to the rig about 3:30.
A really nice day with great friends.
With this being my longest time sitting in one place for over an hour, I was a little leery on how I would feel. I had even primed Jan that she might have to drive home. But as it turned out, I didn’t have a problem.
I was expecting to be really stiff and sore when we got to the restaurant, but it wasn’t bad at all.
Thought For The Day:
If you think I’m too sarcastic, you should hear what I don’t say.
And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™
Alaska 2008
More Photos From Our Time In Alaska
October 10, 2009
Brrrr !!!!
Today the rain is finally gone and the sun is out.
But it’s cold. And tonight it’s supposed to go down to freezing tonight.
Brrrrr !!!
Today was just a late lunch at our new favorite Mexican place, El Camino Real.
Jan had a combo plate and I had the Pork Chili Verde. Really hot, just like I like it.
After that, it was Walmart / Sam’s Club more ‘stuff’ time. Then it was back to the coach.
After putting stuff away, it seemed a good time for a nap.
Later for supper, we had Famous Dave’s BBQ leftovers.
Just another day in Paradise…
October 10, 2010
Back to Chili’s again. . .
As has been usual lately we started out the morning having coffee and just lazing around the coach, enjoying the great weather.
Brandi sent over this photo of Lowell getting some daddy time.
Then about 4 pm we headed up to Webster to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Alpine Brauhaus, a German restaurant we always enjoyed, but it’s moved since the last time we ate there.
And apparently they changed their hours. They now close at 4 pm on Sunday.
Bummer!
We then decided to head across the parking lot to Chili’s, a chain we used to eat at 2 or 3 times a month, but then about 2 years they dropped our favorite dish, and now we haven’t been there in over a year.
Jan and I loved their Grilled Chicken Caribbean Salad with Honey-Lime Dressing, but after eating it for years, they suddenly discontinued it.
Bummer again!
So we were very happy to find that they brought it back, almost. It’s a little different. It’s now called just the Caribbean Salad, but you can get it with grilled chicken or grilled shrimp. They’ve also added Dried Cherries and dropped the Pico de Gallo.
But it’s still good, so we’ll be going back a lot more often now.
We also got some good Landon photos while we were there.
Here’s Landon sleeping peacefully.
And here’s Jan annoying him with a frog. Well, I guess he is smiling.
BTW the red spot on his forehead is a birthmark, of a type that usually fades away in 18-24 months.
I left Chili’s before everyone else to do some work at a client’s office while Jan drove Brandi’s car back to the rig.
She’s picking up Brandi early to drive her to a doctor’s appointment, since I need the truck to visit another client tomorrow morning.
I got back to the rig about 8:30 and did some website work for a couple of clients.
Tomorrow will be another busy day.
October 10, 2011
With a Name like Smucker’s . . .
Today’s our last day at Smith’s Campground here in Loudonville and we’re really going to miss it. Amy and her family have really made us welcome.
After lunch at 11 that included some delicious pumpkin bread, Amy, Kim, and Scott Smith came by to get a tour of our rigs and chat for a while. Then about 12:45 Jan and I headed over to Kidron, OH.
Along the way we passed this really neat fall pumpkin patch, just the perfect accent for our trip through the Ohio countryside.
Our destination in the small town of Kidron was Lehman’s Hardware. Originally selling products used by the Amish, it has become known as THE source for non-electric appliances.
While originally over 90% of their business was Amish, now, since Lehman’s has become a tourist spot, it’s less than 10%.
And recently another source of business has been supplying props for movies such as World of the Worlds, and two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
One interesting thing was how expensive old-looking new stuff can be. A stove like this gas model, a modern stove dressed up in an old cabinet is over $7000.00.
They even have a whole room with nothing but different types of oil lamps and fuel.
After about an hour wandering up and down every aisle, we headed up the road about 8 miles to Orrville, OH and the Smucker’s store and factory.
Unfortunately, they don’t have a factory tour of any type, but they do have a neat store.
I had assumed that Smucker’s was owned by some other big corporation, but I was surprised to learn that Smucker’s is a really big corporation that owns a lot of other companies.
Companies like the following: JIF, Pillsbury, Martha White Flour, White Lily Flour, Robin Hood Flour, Crisco, Knott’s Berry Farm, Borden, Carnation, Hungry Jack, and Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee (but not the coffee shops), are just some of their brands.
Leaving Smucker’s we headed back toward home, but stopped off at Jake’s Steakhouse for dinner.
It was recommended by a lady at the Smucker’s store and we thought we would give it a try.
And it turned out to be really good. Jan had the Sirloin steak, and I had the Soup and Salad Bar. All really good. And we were very well taken care of by our waitress, Mouse.
And yes, Mouse is her real name. When we asked, she said when she was born, she just squeaked instead of crying, and her doctor called her a little mouse. So, her parents, both hippies, decided to name her Mouse.
And showing the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, Mouse named her daughter, Ocean, apparently because Mouse’s husband was a surfer, and Mouse herself, used to be a Shrimp Boat Captain in Tarpon Springs, FL.
You learn the strangest things talking to your waitress.
Tomorrow we head out for Elkhart.
October 10, 2013
Not Much . . .
has been happening on the gate the last few days. It’s been really quiet. We’re only getting about 50-60 vehicles a day through here, and the weather’s been very nice too.
Our days are pretty much in the high 80’s / low 90’s and hopefully will stay there for a while. And while we have had nights down into the high 40’s, recently they’ve been in the 60’s which is nice.
On the Landon front, he’s started playing soccer and Brandi and Lowell just got his first scouting report.
Seems like they’re pretty proud.
Also, Landon got his haircut the other day and has now decided he’s too big to sit in the Firetruck chair and now wants to sit in the ‘big boy’ chair.
That’s about it for now from the suburbs of beautiful Whitsett, TX.
October 10, 2014
Twenty Questions . . .
We were busy today, but not quite yesterday busy. We only had 166 vs. yesterday’s 199 vehicles coming in, so not too bad. But of course, a good percentage go back out too, so it does keep you on your feet a lot.
After getting a lot of confusing info from everyone about what’s what on all our pad sites, I took some time this afternoon to drive around back there to see for myself.
For some reason, they keep adding names to sites, and changing names too. I found we have 6 different pad sites with 10 different names, apparently depending on who’s working the site at that time. Seems like sometimes they just make up their own names for a site, but forget to tell us.
The rig across from us has had 4 different names since we’ve been here. The rig name/number has stayed the same, but the pad name keeps changing. I think this is because each new drill hole has a different name, but this wasn’t the way they did it the last time we worked a drill rig. Before it was always the pad name plus 1H, 2H, etc., i.e. Mercury #1H, or Mercury #3H.
I came back out and drew up a map to help Jan and I keep things straight, as a lot of these trucks come with very vague directions to where they’re supposed to go. And with some, it’s kind of a game of Twenty Questions, apparently to see if I can guess where they need to go.
So after getting their name, company, and tag number, it goes like this.
Me: “OK, Bobby, where are you going this morning?”
Bobby: “Ahhhhhh, let’s see.” Now he starts pawing through his papers like it’s just occurred to him that he needs to know this.
Bobby: “Ahhh, Mid-Texas?” Note the question mark.
Me: “Nope, try again.”
After 10 or 15 seconds of noisy paper pawing, I finally suggest, “How about MD TEXAS?”
Bobby: “Yeah, that’s it.”
OK, we’ve narrowed it down to one of 6 pads
Me: “OK, Bobby, you got anything else for me?”
Bobby: “Ahhhhh, Still-Water?”
Me: “OK, we’ve got it down to 4 sites now. What else ya got?”
More loud paper fumbling,
Bobby: “They’re fracking?”
OK, now we’re down to 2 sites.
Me: You got a company name?”
Bobby: “Go Frac?”
Bingo. We have a winner.
And if he’d just pulled in and said, “I got sand for Go Frac.” he’d have been on his way 5 minutes ago.
I’m sure most of you have heard of Amazon Prime, with free Two Day Shipping. And of course, for a little bit more, you can get it tomorrow.
And in some areas they’re even doing Same Day Delivery. But now they’ve taken the next step.
Amazon: Yesterday Shipping
Believe me, I can’t wait. There’s been some times I could have really used this.
October 10, 2015
Dang Lazy Mule . . .
Or Our Budding Bandido.
I could get used to this. Yesterday and the day before, we had 72 vehicles coming in the gate. Today we had 55. And with the temp finally making it to 83° with sunny skies, it was just about perfect.
We were told yesterday that all the cleanup and completion work here should take about two months. So if that holds true, and it may not, then that would mean we would be here until we’re ready to leave on the 22nd of November.
We hope.
We’ve also heard that when things get going here, they might be working a 12 hour day.
We hope.
But then when I asked one of the company men this afternoon if they would be taking the day off on the Monday Columbus Day holiday, he laughed and said, “Hell, we’re lucky we get Thanksgiving and Christmas off.”
So I’m not putting a big bet on a 12 hour day.
This is probably the best gate we’ve had. Close to town, good cell/Internet service, nice surroundings, friendly owner, and not an over-abundance of traffic. Wish they were all like this.
I mentioned recently about my WordPress login page now requiring me to ‘Prove my Humanity’ by adding two numbers together and then entering the total on the screen along with my login name and password. I figured this was to cut down on automated scripts trying to hack your password and get into the site.
Why I don’t know. Of course there’s no credit card data or anything like that. I guess they could do some sort of malware injection through one of the blog posts, but Godaddy monitors that kind of thing pretty closely. And if they did manage to hack into the site, I could immediately regain control by calling Godaddy and giving them my secret password.
But it’s highly unlikely that they could guess my password anyway, as it’s 10 characters of gobbledygook, letters, numbers, upper case, lower case, and symbols. So good luck with that.
But with all that, it’s not slowing down hacking attempts either. I mean you’re talking about an automated script, written to hack into WordPress sites. So how hard is to program your script to add the two numbers together and type it in the little box along with your name and password attempt?
It’s a computer. It can add two numbers. That’s what computers do. Compute.
And you can see from a few days ago, how well it’s working.
The attempts started a couple of minutes after 9am and continued until a little after 10:30.
Each one of these attempts means three failed logins, and then that IP address is locked out for 4 hours. Here are the lockout settings I’m using.
Then after a second 4 hour lockout, that IP address is locked out for 48 hours. So these attempts are coming from a lot of different IP addresses, and mostly from Eastern Europe. Go figure.
Landon, Lowell, and Brandi went down to Friendswood to visit Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper today, and Landon, our budding Bandido, got what I imagine was his first motorcycle ride from his Uncle Chris.
And of course, every biker needs his blue dragon along for support.
Looks like he really enjoyed it too.
I guess anticipating the possibility of a 12 hour shift, I now have a 12 hour Mule. Or maybe it’s just lazy. But whatever the problem, the second Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm system I installed to catch vehicles leaving the pad, just won’t work at night.
It works fine in the daytime, especially now that I moved it closer the other day, but sometime during the night, it just quits.
It’s hard to tell exactly when it quits, because we don’t get a lot of traffic at night. But at some point I just notice it’s not working. But the other one coming in to us just keeps chugging alone.
Tomorrow I’m going to try moving it closer again to see if that helps. Otherwise, I’ll try swapping the transmitters. If nothing works, I’ll call the company.
Dang Mule.
On a final note, I had a number of blog readers, including Jan, wondering about the ‘Jewish vampire’ reference in yesterday’s blog.
I seem to remember it from one of those comedy vampire movies back in the late 70’s – early 80’s. In my mind I see Richard Benjamin confronting a vampire, and triumphantly holding out a cross to ward the vampire off. The vampire laughs, calls him a ‘putz’ in a Jewish accent, and begins to hit him with the cross. Benjamin, realizes his mistake, and starts frantically reaching in his shirt, before finally pulling out a ‘Star of David’ just in time to save the damsel in distress.
October 10, 2016
Lemon Grass and Dragon Sauce . . .
This morning I started checking out other gate guard companies to see about getting another gate, hopefully before we have to move over to the Colorado River Thousand Trails this Thursday
I also filled out and printed out our absentee ballot forms so we can send them off tomorrow.
About 2pm Jan and I headed out for lunch and some shopping, with our first stop at Asian BBQ and Grill in Conroe. As seems to happen when we go to our favorite places, we generally get our favorite dishes. And this afternoon was no different.
We started out with a couple of their Shrimp Spring Rolls, with the Spicy Hot Peanut Sauce
They put a big dab of Chili Sauce into the Peanut Sauce and then top it with freshly crushed peanuts. Really Good!
Jan got her Lemon Grass Chicken Bowl with rice noodles, bean sprouts, carrots, and cucumbers,
while I got the Grilled Pork Bowl with a Shrimp Skewer,
which has the same veggies as Jan’s dish.
And of course, you can’t eat at Asian BBQ without getting a big bowl of their Dragon Sauce.
While we were there I talked to the owner about doing a website for him. We had talked before we went on the gate, so I wanted to follow up with him again. And this time I mocked up a sample page for him, using some of the photos I’ve taken for the blog over past visits.
I think it looks pretty good for about 30 minutes work. I’m going to check back in with him on Wednesday.
He’s interested in me setting up an online takeout ordering system for him. It’s not something I’ve done before, but of course I told him it wouldn’t be a problem. Not the first time I’ve promised something I haven’t done before.
So far I’ve always come through.
Next up was a quick stop by Sam’s Club to get a new battery for the truck. The old one is about 5 years old, and it’s starting to fade. I’ll put it in tomorrow and then take the old one back to get my $18 core charge back.
Last, was a groceries stop at the Super Kroger’s over in Willis, as well as a Cinnamon Dolce Latte from their Starbucks for on the way home.
Tomorrow I’ll start actually making calls to gate guard companies, specifically Guard 1 and SiteWatch, both of whom offered us gates after Jamie of Gate Guard Services called us with our Blue Moon Gate.
Wrapping up, both of my recent repairs seem to be holding. The water pump repair on our Splendide Washer/Dryer combo is still working with no problems, and hopefully will continue that way.
And although we’ve only used it a few times since I remounted the control panel, our microwave is also still working. But I’m not sure we’ve given it a long enough test yet. We did make two bags of popcorn last night, which required two 3.5 minute cooking periods. In the past we might have seen a problem with the second one. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
October 10, 2017
The King Is Dead . . .
Long Live The King.
It was nice to sleep in and not have to travel down to Clear Lake, but then there’s tomorrow.
The weather really cooled off today, with a high of 77 and going down to 56 tonight. And 79/59 tomorrow. Very Nice.
I was reading an article this morning about a new hot pepper, hotter even than the fabled Carolina Reaper.
It’s called Dragon’s Breath, and it was developed by a guy in England not to eat, but to be used as a topical anesthetic for people who are allergic to regular anesthetics.
And at almost 2.5 million Scoville units, it’s almost a million units more than the Carolina Reaper.
Once the Ghost Pepper became the first pepper to cross the 1 million unit line, the newer peppers, i.e. 7 Pot, the Scorpions, the Reaper, etc., all crept up a couple of hundred thousand units at a time.
Until the Dragon’s Breath, that is.
But before I could even finish researching the new king, the Dragon’s Breath, a new hotter king came along, the Pepper X.
And the old king was deposed with another large jump, all the way up to almost 3.25 million Scoville units.
These peppers are in a range that they can kill people, and have. Ruptured esophagi, anaphylactic shock, suffocation, etc. But if you want to try some of these peppers, at your own risk, of course, check out the The iBurn Store here in Houston
Although I’ve got some Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper flakes, recently the 3rd hottest, and just used them the other day at the Asian BBQ & Grill, I’ve never tried the Carolina Reaper, and I probably won’t. And that goes for the Dragon’s Breath and Pepper X as well.
A man’s got to know his limitations.
October 10, 2018
Pelicans and Dolphins and Cranes, Oh My. . .
For everyone who has emailed their concern about our proximity to Hurricane Michael, we’re fine. In fact, except for some overcast skies, rain sprinkles, and brisk winds, we’ve seen no sign of Michael.
Of course, the same can not be said for the people a couple of hundred miles to our west. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in the storm’s path.
First to catch up on last night’s visit to the Dixie Crossroad’s restaurant in Titusville, a long-time favorite of ours since the 80’s. We had been disappointed to hear that since the place had changed hands a while back, the quality had gone down, even to the point of no longer serving the free basket of corn fritters that came with the meal.
So we were very happy to see a basket of them on our table.
And the food, and the service, pretty much held up for the rest of the meal. Jan had a salad,
and the Fried Mullet with Garlic Butter Steamed Veggies.
One thing funny is that Dixie Crossroad’s is known for their Mullet. And when I was growing up in south Alabama, mullet was the go-to fish for any fish fry. Though they won’t normally bite a hook, they’re pretty easy to catch a lot pretty quickly with a cast net.
But when we moved out to Texas in late 1978 and tried to order mullet, we found that they considered it a trash fish, good only cutting up as bait. Different strokes, I guess.
But they’re missing out on some good eatin’.
As for me, I started off with a cup of Clam Chowder,
and the Shrimp & Oysters with Cheese Grits.
I made the mistake of giving Jan a taste of my chowder and almost didn’t get my spoon back. She said that’s what she’s getting next time.
Everything was really good, so maybe they’re back on track, but the prices were a good bit higher than we just paid for similar meals in Gulf Shores and Breaux Bridge.
But still good.
Now to today.
About 11am Jan and I headed into Titusville and the WalMart there to try and get our South Dakota Driver’s License Renewal / Vision Statement / New Glasses problem straightened out once and for all.
We fell behind the power curve when our long-time mailbox service, My Dakota Address, shut down without notice around the end of July. After having started refusing everyone’s mail a week or so earlier.
So with all their ex-customers scrambling to get a new South Dakota address, the remaining services were overwhelmed, which put us into the middle of September to get a new address.
Then I could start putting in the paperwork to renew my South Dakota Driver License. Part of the Renewal By Mail is to have your eyes checked by an Optometrist for the vision part of the renewal, who then fills out an SD DMV form that I submitted to SD with my renewal papers.
But apparently the optometrist checked off something that SD didn’t like, so it all started back over again. Then my new glasses, promised to come in before we left for Florida, didn’t . And neither did Jan’s.
However, they did come in Wednesday after we left, and we got the call while we were sitting in Crazy Bout Crawfish in Breaux Bridge, LA having dinner after the first travel day of our trip.
Luckily I was able to have my client’s office manager pick them up that afternoon and get them in the mail to us the next day. I had her send them to a friend’s address here in Florida since we would be on the road.
So now, after calls between South Dakota, Webster, TX, and the Walmart here, we may have it straightened out. But I’m not holding my breath.
I guess I’ll know more tomorrow when I talk to SD again.
A little later we took a nature tour of the area. I say, nature tour, because we saw Manatees,
Pelicans,
and Dolphins riding the bow wave of a passing boat.
And if that wasn’t enough, how about a quartet of Sandhill Cranes just strolling through the neighborhood?
Jan was giddy.
Later, after a drive up to New Smyrna Beach and a drive back down out on said beach, we ended up at Dustin’s BBQ in Edgewater.
If you didn’t know better, when you walk in, you would think you’re in a Sonny’s BBQ. The layout is similar, as is the menu. And that’s because the owner used to work for Sonny’s, and then went out and started his own chain with six locations in Florida.
Jan had the Endless Salad Bar and a BBQ Grilled Chicken Breast, while I had the house special, Baby Back Ribs with Cajun Garlic Shrimp, Fried Okra, and Cheese Grits.
All really good, and hopefully we’ll get to go back before we leave.
Dustin done did Sonny proud.
And tomorrow we’ll do it all over again.
October 10, 2019
More Oil Filter Info . . .
Today was a nice stay-at-home day. In fact the only time I left the rig was to walk the garbage down to the dumpster.
The only thing new was that I did raise the bed to take a look at my oil filter mount from up above. I ty-wrapped my phone to a long dowel rod and stuck it down by the filter to try and get a look at the filter adapter base.
And although it’s kind of hard to see under the crud, it sure looks like there’s a separation seam between the two parts.
Tomorrow night we’re attending the Alvin Opry up in, where else, Alvin. We’ll probably have dinner at our usual Monterey’s for a bowl of their great Chicken Tortilla Soup.
Also meeting up with our friend, Maria Sutton. Really looking forward to it.
October 10, 2020
Easy! Or Too Easy?
We’re coming into Jan’s favorite time of the year – HalloThanksMas.
So Jan has Halloween shirts, Thanksgiving shirts, and Christmas shirts. But now she’s got one ordered that covers all of her holidays, plus one of her favorite animals.
But she’s also got this one coming that’s a little more definitive.
I was outside and under the rig about 1pm, and for a change everything went quickly. Since I cut 6” off my drill extension I had no problem manipulating the drill and bit into position. I was a little concerned about how to keep the bit lined up with the old hole, but it seemed to align itself with no problems. I did wear my safety goggles since aluminum bits were raining down, but I was lying off to the side anyway.
It only took about 10 minutes to drill all four holes, but I did notice that the two that were already stripped out drilled out much easier.
Then I started tapping the new threads in, using the 12” tap handle extension that I also got for this job. And I was very happy that I had gotten one with build-in ratcheting. Made it a lot easier both cutting in and backing out. I just kept turning it until it bottomed out and stopped. I did spray both the hole and the tap with cutting oil.
So was it Easy? Or too easy? With all the trouble I’ve had getting to this point, it’s kind of worrisome that this part ended up being so easy.
I would have continued on by screwing in the Helicoils, the next step, but I noticed that I had little pieces of aluminum flashing sticking out around each hole left over from the tapping. So, before I installed the Helicoils, I wanted to chamfer, or bevel, down the lip of the hole.
But I didn’t have a polishing stone to do that, so I called it an afternoon. So after getting cleaned up, Jan and I were off to have a late lunch at our local favorite, Los Ramirez Mexican Restaurant.
As we got parked I noticed this Art Car in the parking lot, a really neat paint job.
Nice!
Jan got her usual Pechuga Rellena, a grilled chicken breast on top of a bed of grilled shrimp and broccoli, with half an avocado.
And I got my fav, the Beef Fajita Taco Salad. Now it starts out like this.
But wait, there’s more!
Jan doesn’t care for the lettuce/tomato garnish that comes on her dish, so she gives it to me, and then I top it all off with a big dollop of their Green Sauce, ending up like this.
And of course, a heavy sprinkling of my Carolina Reaper pepper flakes.
Delicious!
Finishing up I went right across the street to the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to get a chamfer stone for tomorrow’s work session. I only wanted one, but I ended with a set of 10, which was all they had. But it was only $7.99, so not too bad.
I’ll use the big one on the middle left.
Coming home we made a quick pass by the Santa Fe P.O. to see if our South Dakota Absentee Ballots had shown up yet.
We’re still waiting.
October 10, 2021
Wings Over Houston Recap . . .
Jan and I headed up to Ellington Field and Wings Over Houston Airshow about 10:30, and by 11:30 we were in our parking spot in Prime View parking. Unfortunately even though the gates only opened at 10 and the flying didn’t start until 1pm, our Prime View parking spot was a lot further away from the gate than I had hoped.
But we finally made it to our assigned seats in the Prime View area. And unlike a lot of attendees who brought their own snacks,
we just decided to graze at the many vendor’s booths. Though I did glaze longingly at the Shipley Donuts box.
In fact, a little bit later Jan headed over to pick up some lunch for us, and also visit the Porta-Potties while she was out and about, coming back with a large hot dog for her and a large sausage dog for me, as well as chips for both of us.
The first plane we saw was a C-5M transport, not part of the airshow, but to do a training mission out over the Gulf.
Next up was the Tora, Tora, Tora display, depicting the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of it since it was my turn for a food run, as well as it was my turn for the potty run.
So I was standing in what seemed to be the longest line at the food area, the one for funnel cakes when the Tora thing started up, about 15 minutes early according to the schedule. So I missed it.
But it looked like this,
And even from about 300 yards away you could feel the heat.
When I finally got close enough to actually see the food booth, I found that the funnel cakes were $15.00. Yikes!
But with all that time spent waiting in line, I went for it anyway.
Probably what they had in mind.
But I did get to see some flames from the depiction of the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April 1942, our reply to Pearl Harbor.
Though the real attack was with 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers, the show was with a little bit of everything, including a B-17.
Next up was the CF Snowbirds, Canada’s military demonstration team.
The F-22 Raptor was the next in the air, showing off some fantastic moves.
I think the most amazing one was where the F-22 came by level, pulled a tight climb straight up to about 10,000 ft., and then just hung there, stationary in midair, supported only by its engine thrust.
And then throttling back, it dropped down backward, staying perfectly vertical, to about 5000 ft., where it nosed over level and accelerated out of sight.
Wow!
That’s about it for tonight. I’ll finish up the rest tomorrow.
October 10, 2022
Creeping Up On Us?
I had two more hints about Verizon’s 5G service in our area. This morning at work up in Webster I noticed 5G on my phone and when I tested it I got 195 Mbps. And as before, 5G almost immediately disappeared.
Then coming home this afternoon, while I was at the stoplight at FM646 and FM1764, I again noticed 5G. And when I tested again I got 116 Mbps. Again it disappeared.
But on a hunch I tested it at 4G and got 56 Mbps, much faster than before.
So maybe 5G is slower creeping up on us. It’s about time.
A few days ago I ordered a set of these Suction Cup Shower Handles.
We’ve got a set of these in our rig shower, and they’re a big help. So I wanted to get a ‘travel’ set for our upcoming trips. Though we request a Handicap Accessible Shower when we travel, some of these leave a lot to be desired.
On our Alabama trip this past June, at one hotel, their ‘Handicap Assessable Shower’ was one of those roll-in models, very nice, but not a handhold in sight.
No towel/washcloth bar, no soap dish, no nothing.
These handles stick like crazy to any smooth surface and are sized to fit in those standard 4” ceramic shower tiles. But just pop up the handles and pull up on the little tab on the suction cup and they come right off.
Tomorrow’s going to be Torchy’s Tacos for lunch, and then who knows?
October 10, 2023
16 Psyche . . .
Apparently, so as not to overshadow my recent birthday, SpaceX postponed the upcoming Falcon Heavy – 16 Psyche launch from Oct. 5 to this Thursday, Oct. 12 at 9:16 am CDT.
After traveling an estimated 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers), the spacecraft will arrive at the asteroid 16 Psyche, which is located at the far edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, in 2029.
Once the spacecraft is in place, mission scientists will study the metal asteroid, which is different from the rock- and ice-dominated bodies studied in situ in the past, to learn more about how the rocky planets of the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) formed.
Discovered in 1852, Psyche is considered one of the most fascinating objects in the main asteroid belt, and scientists have only been able to study it at a distance. Scientists think the asteroid is composed of the exposed core of a planetesimal, a small body that formed during planet formation as gas and dust around a star collapsed in dense patches.
The Falcon Heavy vehicle features the twin boosters strapped to the side of a standard Falcon launch vehicle allowing for heavier payloads into more extreme orbits.
My favorite part of a Falcon Heavy launch is getting to see the two boosters come back and land at the Cape. It’s not possible with every Falcon Heavy launch, but it will be for this one.
Looking forward to it, even if I will have to get up early.
Thursday will also be our monthly Alvin Opry Group get-together, though it’s been moved from T-Bone Tom’s to Texas Roadhouse.
Looking forward to seeing everyone again.
Also, everything still looks to be a Go for the Wings Over Houston AirShow this Saturday, with a high of 80°, no clouds, and a 0% chance of rain.
Yay!
