Our RV Adventures

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And the coach came through just fine. My thermostat-controlled heat lamps kept the water bay in the high 30’s the entire time, so no problems there.

And since it’s only going doing to 30° tonight, I went outside this afternoon and hooked us back up to shore water. So we’re good to go until the next big freeze.

Of course, this is not the lowest we’ve seen in the RV. That would be 6° in Billings, MT on our way to Alaska in 2008.

* * * * *

Tomorrow we’re heading up to Conroe to meet up with friends Debi and Ed Hurlburt at China Delight, a long-time favorite of ours. Luckily the weather looks good with a high in the 50’s.

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A week or so ago, I came across this great deal on a Craftsman Tool Set. With 1/4”, 3/8”, and 1/2” drives and wrenches, it covers the whole gambit. At almost 25# and with thin wall, deep well sockets, this is an excellent buy.

And even better, for a limited time it’s half price at only $99. So I had to have one.

CRAFTSMAN VERSASTACK Mechanics Tool Set, 1/4 in, 3/8 in, and 1/2 in Drive, 230 Piece

Check it out, and don’t dally. It won’t stay half price for long.

* * * * *

Why are we in the US being left out?

The Two Countries That Serve McDonald’s McRib Year-Round

The return of the McRib is generally met with great fanfare, as is tradition for the beloved seasonal sandwich. Since the sandwich was first introduced during the ’80s, the McRib has become a cult classic, resulting in hungry customers lining up to get a taste of it year after year. The huge following the sandwich has amassed has led to the McRib becoming one of the most interesting items on the McDonald’s menu.

It may seem counterintuitive to make the McRib so limited given how popular it is. However, according to McDonald’s representatives, this is actually done on purpose and is a calculated business strategy. The reason is simple: By making the McRib more scarce, it will make the chain more money when the product eventually makes a return to the menu.

Despite the McRib’s reputation as a seasonal item, there are actually a couple of places in the world that serve the McRib year-round. Specifically, it can be found all year in Germany and Luxembourg only. This is great news for European McDonald’s customers, but unfortunate for the rest of the world, especially since the McRib’s return can sometimes take years.

Now I’m jealous.

* * * * *

Here in Texas we don’t fool around with Snowmen.

We have SnowCrawfish. Big Ones.

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Thought For The Day:

Something done ‘quick and dirty’ usually turns out to be not nearly as quick as you’d hoped, and much, much, much dirtier.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

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January 22, 2011

Road Trip !!!!!

We left the rig about 8:40 heading to Livingston by way of the Buc-ee’s on SR96. We stop there to top off the toad with fuel and Jan with breakfast kolaches. Then it was on to I-45 heading north.

We got into the Escapees RV Park outside of Livingston about 11am and quickly found the site where Dennis Hill and his wife of the RV Driving School were parked. Dennis’ RV Driving School is where Jan took her driving course a couple of years ago, and they are much recommended. I was very impressed with how good her instructor was in calming her nerves and reassuring her.

After a couple of hours catching up and comparing notes, we jumped in our truck and he gave us a tour of beautiful downtown Livingston, TX and its surrounding environs. Which took all of 15 minutes, maybe less.

Next we drove out US190 toward Lake Livingston. stopping at this boat launch along the side of the lake with a beautiful view of the lake and the bridge.

The first thing we saw was this Great Blue Heron in the bushes alongside the boat slip. At first we thought there was a nest nearby, but it looks like he was just resting.

A really beautiful bird.

Heading back toward Livingston, everyone agreed that it was time for supper. On the way out Jan had noticed this Mexican place called Pueblo Viejo, that even in the middle of the afternoon was pretty busy. We checked Yelp.com on my Droid and said it had 4 stars, so we decided to give it a try.

And the Yelp rating was dead on. It was really good. Great chips, a really hot salsa, and good food.

And even better company and conversation. We ended up sitting and talking for almost two hours before finally heading back to the RV park.

After talking over routes and schedules for the next month until we meet in Yuma, and we finally said our goodbyes and headed out about 7:15pm.

We got home about 9:15 after a great visit with good friends, and topped off the day with coffee and more delicious cinnamon rolls.

What a fitting end to a terrific day.

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January 22, 2012

Buzzers and Tabasco . . .

It’s sunny tomorrow morning, but the rain is due in tomorrow afternoon, and then rain all next week.

But on Saturday, it’s sunny again. Funny how that works out.

But rain or no rain, we’re really looking forward to the next few days.

Jan and I are big fans of dragons, and I recently found these two neat pictures on the Internet and wanted to share them.

I really like the Tabasco baby bottle. The way I like spicy hot food, I wonder if I had one of these.

On another note, the turn signal indicator on the rig does not make enough noise for me to hear it. Jan can hear it from the passenger seat, but due to too much gun accompanying gunfire, and and playing in loud rock bands, I can’t.

So today as I was going through one of the bins, I came across a little 12vdc buzzer unit and decided to fix the problem.

I removed the flasher unit (that’s the red box) from under the dashboard panel and made up a couple of spade lug jumpers. crimping the buzzer leads into the jumpers.

I then Gorilla Taped the buzzer (that’s the little black unit) to the side of the flasher unit.

Here’s another shot of the leads.

I then plugged the jumpers into the flasher socket and checked it out. Loud and Clear!

While I’m on a roll, I also want to do one as a ‘headlights on’ alarm. I’ve got the diodes, but I’ll have to look and see if I have another buzzer. If not, they’re only a couple of bucks.

Other than this, it was a pretty quiet day. Jan cleaned (company’s coming) and I worked on some projects outside. For lunch Jan heated up some delicious leftover Mexican. I think it was almost better than originally.

Then around 5pm, I headed over to my client’s office to do some stuff that’s easier done when no one’s on the network.

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January 22, 2013

Bird Blind . . .

Once again, after walking a little over a mile around the park, we sat outside and enjoyed our coffee and the view.

Here’s Pinkie, our resident Roseate Spoonbill, along with some of the Ibises.

And here’s Old Blue, the Great Blue Heron that hangs out around here.

But after goofing off all morning, it was back to work. Today was the day to take a crack at restringing my blinds.

As it turns out, it’s not really hard, just kind of time-consuming. Here I’ve laid out the 4 parts in the order that they will be assembled.

My first task was to measure out the two sets of strings I’ll be using.

The formula is:   Width + 1/2 Width + Height x 2 = length of string needed. Since this is a 4 string blind, two sets will be needed.

When I first took my blind apart I discovered it used two springs instead of just one like most stringing diagrams I had found.

But a little more research yielded this diagram.

Next I took each string, folded it in half, and then looped it through each spring.

Then using a stiff piece of wire as a needle, I threaded one string through the folded over ‘eye’ and taped it over.

Then following the diagram, I started threading the cord through the ‘night’ section of the blind.

Then I did the same thing with the lower ‘day’ section.

Here’s the blind laid out and completely strung.

Then all I had to do was slide the pieces together, and put the endcaps on. But since it was getting late, I decided to wait until tomorrow to rehang it.

While I was working on the blinds, Jan was removing everything from one of our slide pantries, so I could repair several of the shelves that had broken due to too much weight.

Jan also used this chance to go through the contents and throw away anything with expired dates.

A little judicious repair with some heavy-duty zip ties fixed things up.

About 5:30 Jan and I headed up to Webster for dinner and some shopping. Dinner was Chili’s, and the shopping was Sam’s Club for prescriptions and Kroger’s for some groceries, and then it was home for the night.

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January 22, 2014

Girls with Guns . . .

Jan and I started out this morning with a 1-mile walk around the park before enjoying our coffee and muffins sitting outside. And enjoying it while we can, because tomorrow the weather gets pretty crappy for the next several days.

We’re looking at several days of rain, with a HIGH of 37 on Friday.  BRR!

I want my Global Warming, and I want it NOW!   Excess body heat only goes so far.

About noon I headed out to a couple of clients, and looking for a couple of new computers for other clients. And by the time I’d taken care of everything and gotten back to the rig, it was about 5:30.  And my beautiful wife had dinner ready.

Saw an article online about ‘Machine Gun Tourism’. For some reason when I first saw the title I thought it said “Machine Gun Terrorism”, which kind of made sense.

But then I figured out what they were talking about. Renting out machine guns for tourists to try their hand. And when we were in Las Vegas in 2010, Jan did her part to keep tourism alive.

And this was at “The Gun Store” location mentioned in the article. She’s firing her new favorite toy, a Thompson Submachine Gun.

And apparently it runs in the family, because here’s our granddaughter Piper in Houston, firing a Smith & Wesson 500 .50 cal. revolver, considered the most powerful handgun in the world.

I’ve shot one of these a couple of times and they’re a handful.  Piper said she enjoyed the feeling of power it gave her.

Also according to the article, you can now fire one of these at “The Gun Store”.

This is a belt-fed M249 Light Machine Gun, and I want one.

Just the thing for those pesky squirrels.

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January 22, 2015

Sticker Free . . .

Well, it started raining last night and has continued to rain most of the day. In fact they issued flood warnings for the area, maybe even as much as 2 to 4 inches overnight. Tomorrow is forecast to be about the same, but starting Saturday, it’s supposed to clear up for a few days at least

One thing nice about being here at Lake Conroe is no more stickers. Or as we used to call them on the Gulf, sandspurs. Whatever you called them, they hurt like hell when you step on one. They come in the rig on your shoes, socks, and even your pant legs.

And we found out they also come in on Mister. So we have to frisk him after he’s been outside. Otherwise they fall off his fur and then snuggle down in the rugs, lying in wait like little landmines, just waiting for a bare foot.

Even worse, often when you pull them out of your foot, you get a spine broken off in your finger that’s so small that you can’t pull it out, but you will feel it every time you touch something.

About 4pm, Jan was jonsing for Cracker Barrel’s Thursday Turkey and Dressing, so much so that we ignored the pouring rain, and headed down the Interstate to the CB for dinner. One thing we both like there is that they have real dressing (cornbread dressing, the only REAL dressing) and REAL cornbread muffins (you know, the ones made with only cornmeal and not half-flour, and not so much sugar that they taste like cake.). It’s always good, and tonight was no exception. Delicious.

And even better for me, we got out of there with no extraneous gift shop purchases.

Leaving the restaurant, we had planned to make a Wal-Mart stop for a few things, but the weather was, as Jan described it, “just too yucky.” So we just headed home for the night.

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January 22, 2016

RunPee and Flixster Too . . .

We walked our walk this morning, but stopped after the first 1.01 mile loop, because it was just too COLD. Although it was sunny, it was 44 degrees and windy when we headed out, and it didn’t get any warmer along the way.  But we made up for a short walk a little later.

About 2pm Jan and I headed out for some shopping, but our first stop was here in the park. Jan’s Mary Kay lady is parked over in the ‘D’ section and we stopped off so Jan could pick up some makeup she’d ordered and catch up. Then it was off to Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart

On the way over, Jan suggested that we use Runkeeper to track our walking around the stores. I kind of figured that the GPS wouldn’t work inside the big steel buildings like that, but I was wrong.

Yeah, yeah, I am wrong once in a while.

Anyway, it worked. I turned it on when we left the truck at Sam’s and then off when we got back to the truck and drove next door to Wal-Mart. Then on and off at the truck there too.

And this is what we got.

We actually walked further shopping than we did this morning. So I may try this again.

Since we often see movies around the country as we travel, we have 3 phone apps that we use to help us out.

The first one is Flixster, which lets you see all the theaters in an area and how far they are away from your location. Then you can see all the movies being shown at a certain theater, and the times the movie is being shown.

And you can even buy tickets online for the show.

And sometimes even more useful, you can start with the movie you want to see, and Flixster will tell you what local theaters it’s showing in.

The next movie app is Silent Mode Timer Free. Ever go to a movie, put your phone on mute and then forget about it until hours later, missing incoming calls?

Well, Silent Mode is the perfect app for that.

All you do is open the app, and set the time. You can either set the elapsed time for Silent Timer to mute the phone, i.e. if the movie is 2 hours and 15 minutes long, I would set the timer for 2 hours and 45 minutes to allow for previews and credits. Then just click the Set Timer button.

Or you can just set the actual time you want your phone to turn back on. Easy to use, and it’s free.

Last up is a favorite app of ours that I’ve talked about before called RunPee. Just look up the movie you’re going to see and the app tells you the best 2 or 3 times to . . . wait for it . . . Run Pee.

Not only does the app tell you the times, it also tells you how long your window of opportunity is, what’s happening while you’re gone, and gives the ‘trigger phrase’ for when to leave. Or you can use the app’s timer that vibrates at 2 minutes before, 1 minute before, and then at the actual time. In addition, RunPee also gives you a synopsis of the first few minutes of the movie in case you’re running late.

It’s actually very funny to be sitting in a crowded theater, feel your phone vibrate, and see 4 or 5 people jump up and head out.  Sometimes I just want to yell out as everyone heads to the exit, “Run Pee!”

But one of our favorite parts is that the app also tells you if there’s anything after the credits. A lot of movies, especially Sci-Fi ones like we like, give you a taste of the next movie in the series after the credits. And many times, comedies will do outtakes, also.

But it’s really disappointing to sit through 10 minutes of credits, and then . . . NOTHING. Especially when you probably should have taken that last RunPee opportunity.

BTW there was nothing after yesterday’s Star Wars.

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January 22, 2017

Too Long A Day . . .

Not enough time to sleep.

More blog tomorrow. But here’s something to hold you.

Dawn on the Frack

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.

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January 22, 2018

Sometimes Cheaper Is Better . . .

What work I got done today was done around the remodeling that’s being done in the office. So there are pieces of sheetrock and sheetrock dust everywhere. A real mess.

Coming home this afternoon, I picked up a call-ahead order from the El Pollo Loco in Webster that’s right on the way home. Unfortunately, this will probably be the last time I’ll be able to do that, since there was a sign on the door saying that they were closing permanently on Thursday, Jan 25th.

It’s never very busy so I guess it just didn’t make it. That does still leaves the one in Victory Lakes that’s actually closer to home, but it’s a real pain in the rear to get to, where it’s located in the shopping center. But I guess we’ll have to now.

Jan and I don’t consider ourselves ‘coffee connoisseurs’, but we do know what we like. In the past we’ve really liked Kroger’s house brand, Private Selection, which runs about $6.99 per 12 oz. bag (remember when coffee actually came in 16 oz. bags.)

But recently while I was at Wal-Mart, and knowing that we were low on coffee, I decided to take a chance on a couple of bags of their Great Value house brand. And at only $3.99 a bag. And we like it better.

It smells better when it’s brewing, more coffee-like. And it has a much richer coffee taste too.

Sometimes cheaper Is better.

Looks like tomorrow will be nice enough, not really warm, but not raining and/or cool, either, to put up the other new bedroom awning. But we’ll see how it goes.

Jan and I had started planning on our next RV trip, coming up toward the end of June, when we’ll head up to Vandalia, IL for another big family reunion with Jan’s sister, Debbie and her family. And it looks like Chris, Linda, and Miss Piper, and Brandi, Lowell, and Master Landon will be there too.

Then coming home we’ll detour a little east and come back down through north Alabama to visit with my relatives for a few days.

While I was working on the websites last week, Jan and I were watching a Cash Cab marathon on GSN (Game Show Network). If you haven’t seen it, passengers hail a New York cab, only to find that they’re on a mobile TV game show.

As they travel to their destination, they’re asked questions of increasing difficulty and prize amounts. Along the way they get two Shout Outs, one mobile and one street-side. With the mobile shout-out, they can call a friend to get help with an answer. With the Street Shout Out, the cab pulls over and they can ask a random person on the street for help.

If they miss a question, it’s a strike, and with three strikes they out. As in out of the cab. They’re tossed out on the street, hopefully not in a bad neighborhood. If they make it to their destination without striking out, they can take the money they’ve won and walk away, or they get a chance to play Double or Nothing..

Like pretty much all ‘reality’ shows there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you don’t see. Only about half of the contestants are actually random passengers on the street. For the other half , they’re recruited elsewhere to be on an unnamed game show and they get in the cab thinking it’s going to take them to the game show location, and then find out that the cab IS the game show.

When the random riders from the street get in the cab, they spend about 10 minutes with a production assistant who’s riding in the front passenger seat, signing waivers, learning the rules, etc., before the ride/game actually starts.

If they win money, they’re shown leaving the cab with the cash in their hands, but they don’t get to keep those bills. The production assistant takes the cash back from them, and then they get a check in the mail with the taxes taken out.

Finally, the biggest winner on the show won $6200, while most winners are in the $500 – $1500 range.

It’s a fun show. Check it out.

Tomorrow afternoon we’ve got a get-together with RV friends Jan and Dale, once again at Cheddar’s.

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January 22, 2019

Four Hours Later . . .

And I don’t know any more than I did to start with.

Today was my one-month later eye doctor appointment after my initial maybe-diagnosis of Fuch’s Dystrophy in my left eye.

This all started last year when I had to get new glasses and an eye test to renew my South Dakota driver’s license. The Sam’s Club optometrist said I had a cataract. But when I went to Jan’s cataract guy, he said I had a tiny one, but that wasn’t what was causing my vision problems, i.e., my left eye won’t correct to better than 20/100. But he said he was a ‘retina’ guy, and I really should see the practice’s ‘cornea’ guy.

So when I saw him he ran a bunch of baseline tests and sent me home with a couple of drops to be applied 4 times daily. So today was the follow up.

And after a four hour wait, nothing’s really changed.  So he went over several possible remedies (two different types of surgery) different (more expensive) drops, or my favorite, leave it alone and check back in 6 months.

He said that there’s no harm, and it will give us a longer baseline to look for any changes.

So, as I said, after 4 hours of waiting, 2:30 to 6:30, I’m just as in the dark as before.

Coming home, we stopped at the Cheddar’s in Webster for dinner before getting home a little before 8pm.

A nice, though non-productive day.

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January 22, 2020

Some Sad News . . .

I spent most of the evening trying to set things up so I can reluctantly upgrade my desktop computer from rock-stable Win7 to Win10.

I’m doing a complete system image (iso) of the hard drive first before I install Win10 on top of it. I would actually prefer to do a clean install but I’ve got a couple of older programs that I use regularly and can’t find the CD’s for.

But with the ISO file I can just reinstall the image and I’m back where I started. In the meantime I’ll keep looking for the missing CD’s.

Although it rained pretty much all day today, tomorrow’s supposed to be a little nicer. So I’m going to do some prep work for our upcoming oil leak test drive this coming Sunday.

Some Sad News.

I got a text message from one of my cousins this evening saying that my uncle Tom Calvin had died this morning.

He was 93, and he and my Aunt Lenette had been married for 70 years. He’s the last of my mother’s brothers, and the last of my direct relatives on my mother’s or my father’s side.

But Tom’s real claim to fame is in the football world, both as one of the oldest living NFL players, and his coaching abilities in the state of Alabama, where he is known as the Winningest Coach in Alabama History.

After playing for the University of Alabama where he led the Crimson Tide in rushing and played in the 1948 Sugar Bowl, he played 4 years for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1952 to 1955. He was actually drafted for the 1951 season, but turned it down because he didn’t think the money was enough, so he took a job as a high school coach. But the next year, Art Rooney, the team owner, personally wooed him back to the Steelers with a bigger contract.

Tom even had his own Wikipedia page.

Not to be outdone, my Aunt Lenette was an Olympic-level gymnastics coach and worked with Bela Karolyi and other well-known coaches at several Olympics, including Japan in 1998 and others.

I had hoped to see him when we’re up in Alabama next month. He will be missed.

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January 22, 2021

Another Sad Day . . .

Jan and I both got bad news today.

I found out that my cousin Marjorie’s husband, Dr. Walter Walker, died yesterday.

He was 91 and in good health until recently. But he collapsed a couple of days ago and couldn’t get up. And when they took him to the hospital, they found he had advanced bone cancer.

We had just seen them last February when we visited them up in Athens, AL. So glad we got to see him then.

He will be missed by many.

And Jan found out today that her cousin Rhonda died a couple of days ago up in Tennessee. We don’t yet know what she died from, but it sounds like she had been ill for some time. She was only 66 years old.

And of course, I lost two of my aunts a day apart back in December. And this year isn’t off to a good start.

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January 22, 2022

Our ‘Parked’ Model . . .

For the first time in over a year, we had lunch at Whataburger and it was as delicious as we remembered. Our first burgers in a good while.

We need to not wait so long again.

After that Jan got her hair cut, and then we made an HEB stop right next door for a few things before heading home.

We’ve had a real cold snap for the last week or so, with some highs in the 40’s and lows in the 30’s, though today it did make up to the low 50’s. And the cold weather looks to continue for at least the next week.

A number of our readers have wondered about what happening with our rig’s oil leak repairs.

Well, not much. In fact we’ve pretty much decided that our rig is now a ‘Parked’ Model. Note not a ‘Park’ Model, but a ‘Parked’ one.

Our rig will be 23 years old this coming March, with almost 200,000 miles on it. It’s been a real workhorse, and has taken us on a lot of fantastic adventures. But it’s time to put this workhorse out to pasture.

The last time we traveled in it was March 2019 right before our month in Europe when we made the trip up to Kingsland for another family get-together.

But in running the numbers, it just doesn’t make sense to put any more time or money into a 23-year-old rig.

As far as the oil leak, the oil cooler itself is the next likely culprit. It’s pretty much the only thing left. And replacement estimates from repair shops run in the $3000-$3500 range.

In addition the rig’s tires are now 7 years old, so at the end of their lifespan. So another $3000-$3500 for new tires.

That means we’re looking at $6000-$7000 to get it back on the road.

Now it may be that when my back improves some more, I’ll replace the oil filter and adapter again so that it will at least run, but it’s very up in the air.

We’ve been here for over 4 years now, and see no reason to move anywhere else.

We pay $430 a month, which includes water and really good WiFi, and electricity runs us between $75 and $120 depending on the time of the year. So at the highest, we certainly can’t get an apartment for $550 a month.

So we’re here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

A really nice place to call home.

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January 22, 2023

Real Cornbread . . .

Lunch today was at Black Bear Diner, a place we haven’t eaten at in a while, but it’s back on our list now.

Jan started out with a House Salad as one of her 3 sides,

and then finished up with the Roast Turkey

and double Broccoli.

I went the breakfast route with the Meat Lover’s Omelet

along with Grits and Fruit.

Everything was great, except for the ‘Cornbread’ Muffin.

I’ve finally decided that no one out here in Texas knows how to make ‘real’ cornbread.

It not supposed to have flour in it, and it’s not supposed to be sweet.

Pretty much every time I’ve had Cornbread since we moved out here from Alabama, it’s been Corn Cake, not Cornbread.

It has so much flour in it it has the consistency of cake, and it’s sweet.

I’ve even found flour in bags of ‘Corn Meal’ at the grocery store, so read the labels carefully.

If you want a recipe for REAL Cornbread, try this one from my Grandmother Clara.

REAL Cornbread

2 cups Coarse Ground Yellow Cornmeal
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Sugar (Just enough so it will brown nicely)
1/2 cup Powdered Milk
Add water (about 1-3/4 cups) until thick liquid consistency
Beat in 1 Egg
Bake (preferably in a cast iron skillet) in 450° oven until set.
Turn on the Broiler, watching carefully, until the top is dark brown.

Check it out.

Jan’s been going through some old photos and she came across this one of our daughter Brandi on my mother’s deck at her house in Birmingham. Probably about 1976 or so.

A real cutie, then and now.

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January 22, 2024

Change of Location . . .

This is the Cray-1 Supercomputer.

In the late 70’s, it was the most powerful computer in the world.

But now, believe it or not, the iPhone 13 outperforms it by multiple factors.

Item           Units        Cray 1          iPhone 13           Factor

Weight         Ounces       176,000         6                   29,300X

Price(2022 $)  2022        $38,000,000     $1,000               38,000X

Speed          MFLOPS       160             15,800,000          100,000X

Memory         MB           160             512,00              60,000X

Power          kW           115             20 hours
consumption                                 LiOn Battery

Cooling                     Freon           Air
Refrigeration

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Following on this, in 1984 when I was working on the Space Shuttle Program at JSC here in Houston, my Commodore 64 had more computing power than the computers flying on the Shuttle.

Think Moore’s Law.

Moore’s law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years.

This weekend Rob added these bulkheads between each RV site pad. I assume it’s to hold back the raised area of the new sites.

Since the people who had suggested Logan’s Roadhouse for our Alvin Opry group get-together won’t be coming tomorrow, we’re now going to Saltgrass Steakhouse instead.

Yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Though the Weather people said it would start snowing about 1am this morning, when I checked about 3:30am, it was just lightly sleeting with no accumulation.

So I didn’t have high hopes for snow when I got up about 10. But looking out, I found this.

Measuring, we had a little over 3.5 inches.

Even the flamingos got a little frosty.

And our daughter Brandi got in on the fun up in Katy.

* * * * *

Later in the morning, Jan started up a batch of her world-famous chili using the new Xtra Hot Rotel Diced Tomatoes with Ghost Peppers.

And yes, it has beans in it. Despite what you may have heard, Texas Chili has always had beans it.

Here’s a repost from my blog back in March 2022.

Texas red chili purists are wrong. Beans do belong in chili, and historically, they’ve always been there

An article in the Sept. 14, 1877 edition of the Fort Scott Daily Monitor penned by an anonymous writer visiting San Antonio from Kansas gives one of the earliest published descriptions of chili.

“Speaking of hot things, at San Antonio they have a dish called chili con carne,” the article reads. “It is of Mexican origin, and is composed of beef, peas, gravy and red pepper. It is awful seductive looking, and gives a fellow the idea that he has a soft thing on hash. They always have enough to go around, for no stranger, no matter how terrific a durned fool he is, ever calls for a second dish. He almost always calls for a big cistern full of water, and you can’t put the water in him fast enough with a steam engine hose.”

The historian wrote that bean’s were often called ‘peas’ back then.

So let the Bean Wars began again.

* * * * *

When the weather gets cold, Karma starts camping out on the bed, especially when we keep the heated mattress pad turned on.

That’s one happy kitty.

* * * * *

The chef on a superyacht anchored off the Turks And Caicos Islands, who is also a professional photographer, got this shot of the remains of SpaceX’s Starship #7 coming back to earth.

He said he wondered if this is how the dinosaurs felt.

* * * * *

I doubt I’ll go into work tomorrow since there was enough sun this afternoon to melt some of the snow. But it’s supposed to go down to 18° tonight which is going to freeze it all over again.

---

Thought for the Day:

Here’s a riddle:

During a recent password audit by a security company, it was found that an employee was using the password: “MickeyMinniePlutoHueyDeweyLouieDonaldGoofySacramento”

When asked why she had such a long password, she rolled her eyes and said, “Hello! It has to be at least 8 characters and include at least one capital.”

What is her hair color?
BTW Jan thinks this is funny too.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

---

January 21, 2011

Anyone Else Dumpster Shop?

Am I the only one that likes ‘dumpster shopping’? (Dumpster diving sounds so uncouth.)

Jan thinks it’s hilarious (and a little strange) that I always look in the dumpster before I throw our trash bag in. You would be surprised what I find in there.

I’m still wearing a pair of Crocs that I found in a dumpster in Fairbanks, AK. Brand new, they still had the tags on them. I also once found a beautiful 7-1/2 artificial Christmas tree complete with lights and still in the box. My mother used it for several years before she died. (Of course, I never told her where I got it.)

I’ve noticed I especially find good stuff in RV Park dumpsters. It seems like when an RV’er is tired of carrying something around that he doesn’t need anymore, and he can’t find anyone who wants it, he just dumps perfectly good stuff. I’ve found good extension cords, computer cables, a box of DVD blanks, and a brand-new water hose still wrapped in plastic.

So the next time you’re dumping the trash, stick your head in there first. You might be surprised what you find.

Today started out when we left the coach about 10:30am for lunch at our new favorite, the Texas Tea Room. They have really great soup and sandwiches, and a special treat, saltine crackers that have been prepared and marinated like Chex Mix. Hmmm Good!

Next it was off to Wal-Mart for what seems like one of our almost daily trips there.

Then, despite Jan mentally trying to slow down the passage of time, we drove over to the Medical Center area for her 1pm dental appointment. Poor thing!

While Jan was undergoing dental torture (her words) I ran errands, first stopping at Home Depot, looking for some new water hose quick disconnects.

Then it was on to Sam’s Club for Kitty Litter and Joint Juice. They were out of Joint Juice, but I did pick up a bouquet of flowers for Jan.

Next, since I was in the area I drove over to Brandi’s to check the mail.

By this time, it was time to head back to the dentist’s office to pick up Jan. She said it wasn’t too bad and so we headed home.

Now if we’re lucky, we’ll catch another cancellation and get to leave by our original scheduled date of Feb 6th. Fingers crossed!

A little before we headed over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup. Jan’s mouth was still a little sore, so she decided soup was just the thing to hit the spot.

Our daughter Brandi texted while we were eating to catch Jan up on Landon’s recent antics. He’s apparently a real favorite at the daycare and they get upset when Lowell comes by to pick him up early. They don’t want to let him go.

I mean, how could you not love a face like this?

Coming home, Jan wanted to stop at DQ for a hot fudge sundae to soothe her sore mouth. At least that was her story, and she was sticking to it.

It’s 33° here right now. Of course it could be worse. Right now it’s –40 and snowing in Fairbanks, AK, and in Elkhart, IN where we spend a month or so every fall, it’s 3, that’s right, 3 degrees and snowing.

That 26 degrees in Livingston doesn’t sound so bad now?

That’s it for today. Tomorrow it’s Road Trip time.

---

January 21, 2012

Landon and the Ostrich . . .

Brandi sent over some photos of Landon playing with the horsey we got him for Christmas. She says he gets on and off of it all by himself now.

He’s such a cutie!

Jan and I left the rig about 2pm on our way up to Brandi’s, with a quick stop at O’Reilly Auto Parts for some electrical connectors.

Then, after playing with Landon for a few minutes, Brandi, Lowell, Jan and I headed up to The Woodlands about 3pm. They wanted to show us around the Woodlands Mall and take us to Kirby’s Steakhouse for dinner.

And when I tell you this is a high-end steakhouse, how many places do you know that have Ostrich,

or a $120 Wagyu Beef steak on the menu?

From the Fried Asparagus appetizer, to the fabulous steaks, and the Lobster Risotto, Garlic Mash Potatoes, and Sautéed Mushrooms sides, finishing up with Crème Brule with fresh berries, this was a meal to remember.

And somewhere there in the middle, we killed off a delicious bottle of Moscato d’Asti. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

Even the bathrooms are high-class.

Afterwards, we walked off dinner, sightseeing around the Woodlands Mall Outdoor Courtyard.

The place even has a Tiffany’s. Lucky for Lowell and me it closed about 5 minutes before we got there.

Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

Unfortunately a few minutes later, Brandi and Jan came across a Baby Gap store, and about $150 later, we were again on our way. But I guess it was still better than Tiffany’s.

After a wonderful evening, we headed home, finally getting back to the rig a little before 10.

---

January 21, 2013

Another Problem Fixed, almost . . .

Well, the problems diagnosed and the part ordered anyway.

Jan and I walked this morning and along the way ran into to Dick and Lillis, our dinner partners from last night on their way to do laundry. Looking forward to dinner together next week at King Food.

Afterwards, we sat outside with our coffee and just enjoyed the nice weather. After the two weeks of rain we had, the sunny weather is really nice.

A little later I started working on another coach problem. Regular readers might remember that as we were in Louisiana coming back to Texas in November we lost the air in our rear airbags. Made for a bumpy ride home, believe me.

After talking with Spartan a while back I was pretty sure there was a problem with the proportioning valve that divides air between the front and rear bags to help keep the coach as level as possible.

And since my front bags were working fine, the valve was my first stop. And crawling under the rig (well, more like wiggling. I had borrowed my son’s mechanic’s creeper, but the combination of the creeper and me just wouldn’t fit. So wiggling it was.), this is what I found.

The rod that connects the proportioning valve to the chassis had broken loose and was hanging free.

You can see here where the rod had broken loose.

And this rubber bracket was where it broke loose from.

My call to Spartan led me to a great new website – RV Chassis Parts.

They carry parts for all the major RV chassis manufacturers, and products from all of these companies and more.

I was quickly able to find my part and order it online.

And it cost me a whole $1.63 . . . so I ordered two, so I’ll have a spare.

And even better, about an hour later I got an email telling me my parts had already shipped. Great service.

Next up before we leave here in February is to get my leaky rear wheel seal fixed.

---

Our niece-in-law? Laura Robinson posted some great pics of our great-nieces, Avery Jane, Ella, and new addition Annisten. A beautiful trio of girls.

Around 4:30 I fixed dinner for us, homemade taco salads, with romaine lettuce, chili ground beef, refried beans, Pico de Gallo, pepper jack cheese, and fresh jalapenos(there are more under the cheese). Jan also added fresh avocado to hers.

I baked the tortilla shells using tortilla pans made especially for that purpose.

Just put your large flour tortillas in the pans and bake them at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Easy Peazy.

Here you can find the Perfect Tortilla Pans I used on Amazon, although I only paid $5 bucks for mine at Fry’s Electronics.

This is definitely a meal we’ll have again.

---

January 21, 2014

I Can’t Believe She Ate The Whole Thing . . .

We had planned to walk this morning, but it was really, really windy so we decided to just have our coffee and muffins, and stay inside.

The rest of the morning Jan read and I did computer stuff for several clients. Then about 1:30 we headed up to Clear Lake, stopping first at Twin Peaks for lunch.

Our usual waitress, Lauren, had already gotten off since the afternoon was pretty slow so we had a new young lady taking care of us.

Jan decided to try a burger this time instead of her usual Chicken Ranch Sandwich. So she got the Smokehouse Burger, not realizing it was a double, It looked like this.

Coming with Cheddar Cheese, Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, and Bacon, she said it was one of the best burgers she’s had. And it was so big that after she struggled to finish it, she was too full to have any supper tonight. And I think she was sorry she had eaten it all.

I, however, stayed in my comfort zone (rut?) with my usual cup of Venison Chili and an order of the Average Joes.

These are mini jalapeno cheese sausage brats with spicy mustard and relish topping. Very, very good.

Then it was on to a client’s office for a while to check things out for some new equipment. Jan always brings her Kindle Paperwhite along for just these times.

Next I stopped off at the Sam’s Club on El Dorado to look for something, and then it was on to Chris and Linda’s to pick up our mail.

Finally heading home we made stops at Petco and Wal-Mart for a few things. I think some weeks we spend more time at Wal-
Mart than the rig.

I know they seem to get the largest share of my money.

---

January 21, 2015

A Stealth Site . . .

Today was a travel day, and if we didn’t get a last-minute reprieve from the Gov . . . er, Galveston Bay RV Resort, we were heading back over to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails for another two weeks.

Jan and I were up about 7:30, kind of early since we didn’t plan on leaving the park until around 11:30 or so (wanted to allow plenty of time for the phone call). Since we only had about a two hour trip to Conroe, we wanted to have breakfast at Schobel’s over in Columbus before we left. We’ve eaten here a number of times and it’s always been good. We had asked our friend Randy to go with us, so we swung by his rig to pick him up about 9.

Jan had a Veggie omelet with a side of bacon (kinda defeats the whole veggie thing, doesn’t it?) and Randy and I both had the Spanish omelet. One thing I really like about Schobel’s omelets is that they pre-grill the ingredients before folding them into the omelet. So the ham, onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos inside tasted really good.

This is probably the last time we’ll see Randy for a while. When he leaves Colorado River, he’s heading over to Medina Lake for a few weeks, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths down the road.

We pulled out of the park about 11:30 with Jan following me in the toad since we were heading about 4 miles away to top off the diesel at the Colorado County Oil Co-op for $2.44 a gallon. On the way, we passed a Citgo that had diesel for $2.39, but I try not to use Citgo except when absolutely necessary.

According to GasBuddy, there’s an Exxon station up in La Grange, about 25 miles north of here that has diesel for $2.31 a gallon. I didn’t work it out on paper, but the 13 cents a gallon I would have saved on the 40 gallons I bought, would not have paid for the 50 extra miles I would have traveled to get it cheaper.

After fueling up and hitching up, we were back on the road a few minutes before noon, and had a very smooth trip, with no slowdowns or traffic for the entire 125 miles. We got checked in a little after 2pm, and a few minutes later were parked in the same ‘stealth’ site we were in last time.

I call it a ‘stealth’ site because no one parks here because it looks so un-level and rough, mainly because of a big ridge of asphalt that is mounded up down the center. But if you just ignore that, and park anyway, you find that the site is almost perfectly level. All I had to do was just drop the levelers enough to stabilize the coach.

One thing I noticed as we came through Conroe was that the Kroger’s where we usually get gas has it for $1.67, the cheapest we’ve seen so far. I don’t know if we have any gas points left on our Kroger’s Card, but it would really be nice to fill up for 67 cents a gallon.

For dinner Jan refurbished our leftovers from Sealand Seafood the other night, and some of the delicious Broccoli-Cheese Casserole our daughter-in-law Linda sent me home with this past Saturday. Really Good.

---

January 21, 2016

I Thought I Was In The Wrong One . . .

With the heavy rains overnight, and continuing into this morning, our walking was on hold for today. But tomorrow looks good.

I did put a call into another welding shop about repairing my screen door hinge and left a message, but haven’t heard back yet.

After a quiet, goof-off afternoon, about 2:30 Jan and I headed down to the Star Cinema Grill for dinner and Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the movie.

As I’ve mentioned before, Star Cinema Grill,  and others like Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Studio Movie Grill, etc., put the concept of ‘dinner’ and ‘theater’ together for real.

So rather than getting a rubber chicken dinner and a has-been star from an 70’s sitcom in a bad production of Harvey, you get a nice meal served at your seats and a first-run movie.

In many cases these are older, smaller movie theaters remodeled for dinner theater use, by taking out every other row of seats and installing small tables.

Each table has a slot underneath for menus and order tickets, and a call button on top. After checking the menu, you write what you want on the ticket and then press your call button. A few minutes later a waitperson, dressed all in black, picks up your order. The menu is in the Chili’s/Applebee’s vein with appetizers, salads, burgers, sandwiches, pizza, and desserts. You can check out their menu here. Star Cinema Grill Menu

As usual, we both went with our ‘goldie-oldies’ with Jan getting the Mushroom-Cheese Quesadillas with Fajita Chicken, and I got the 3 Amigos appetizers, picking Texas Toothpicks (Beer-battered Onion and Jalapeno Strips), Chicken Tenders, and Southwest Eggrolls.

We try to get to the theater about 30 minutes early, which lets us get seated and get our food right before the movie starts. Then about halfway through the movie, the waitperson drops off your check.

Another nice thing, although we didn’t this time, is if halfway through the movie, you decide you want some popcorn, a beer, or a margarita, just press your call button.

As far as the movie, we both really liked it, with a good story, great effects, some old friends, and some new faces. A Force Awakens is a worthy sequel to the first three movies, (we won’t talk about the last three) and makes us look forward to the next two.

We did change our minds about something however. We had planned to show our grandson Landon the very first Star Wars movie on DVD, and then take him to see this one. But that idea went out the window in the first 15 minutes or so. Parts of this movie are just too violent for a 5-year-old. So now we’ll just show him the first one only.

I did find one thing unusual about the theater however. In fact I thought I had walked into the wrong one.

The Men’s bathroom has no urinals.

None. Just 8 stalls

What’s up with that?

On the other hand, if you want a completely different way to have dinner, check out Dinner in the Sky.

You can join 21 other diners as you’re hoisted 165 feet in the air, where you’re served a 3-star meal, in some cases, by famous chefs. You can even get married up there.

This one is in Sofia, Bulgaria.

And this one is Prague, Czech Republic.

Started in Belgium, the concept has traveled to 45 countries around the world, with over 5000 events.

And they’ve never dropped anyone yet.

How ‘bout it? Wanna join me for dinner?

I’ll treat.

---

January 21, 2017

Whataburger über alles . . .

Well, after almost a week working out of my truck on the pad, today I ‘moved on up’ to an actual guard shack.

A shack sans microwave. Somebody stole it.

While Jan worked the front gate from 5am to 5pm, I worked from 6:30am to 3:30pm on the pad. Which means that I had to drop Jan off at her gate and then wait an hour or so before I went on into the pad. But luckily they closed the pad early so she didn’t have to wait for me to get off. So we were off duty at 5pm. But rather than go back to the rig we went on into Cuero for a quick Wal-Mart stop, gas, and then food.

To show you how much we like Whataburger, we first stopped at McDonald’s for tomorrow’s breakfast sandwiches. Their Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuits can’t be beat.

But then we left McD’s and drove to the nearby Whataburger for dinner.

Last night after our rut-filled RV Park adventure, we had dinner at the Maya Mexican Restaurant in Cuero, chosen because it was Mexican, and because it was very busy.

And it turned out to be VERY good. We split the Fajitas Regias, with beef, chicken, and sausage, which was delicious. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back before we leave the area Feb. 15th.

Although I now have a shack to work out of, it doesn’t mean the area is any less muddy around the shack.

I’m not sure my boots will ever be the same.

I talked to the new Company Man this morning about getting some gravel dumped in the area to take care of the mud. Hope it works out.

As it stands, when the frack starts next weekend?, rather than Jan and I being on opposite shifts at the front gate, we will both be on the night shift, with her at the front gate and me at the pad, pretty much like we were last week. Much better.

Jan quickly discovered she’d rather be on the night shift, going in at 5 in the afternoon, than getting up at 4 in the morning for day shift.

---

January 21, 2018

A Close Call and A New Toy . . .

A few days ago we were running three heaters and hugging Karma the cat to keep warm. Then yesterday and today we were running the AC’s in the rig.

You never know what to expect from Texas weather. And it’s supposed to get cold again in the next few days.

My new toy is a Harmony Home Hub

The first thing/* it does is allow you to control pretty much any entertainment device from your phone. But even better it allows you to set up ‘activities’ or schedules for your devices.

You can set up an activity called Play DVD. When you click it, it will turn on your TV, your DVD player and your audio system. Then it will PLAY the DVD for you.

Or you can set it to turn the TV, change the channel on your DVR and then start RECORDing. Pretty much any sequence can be programmed.

But the real reason I got it is because it will also interface with our Amazon Alexa. So that we can now turn the TV on or off, mute or change the volume, and change channels on the DVR and start RECORD strictly via voice command.

I’ve got the basics working but still have to assign names to the different activities.

More later.

About 2pm Jan and I headed up into Webster to have lunch at King Food. We once again both had a big bowl of their delicious Hot & Sour soup as well as an order of their Crispy Chicken Wings with Garlic Butter.

We were introduced to them by Brandi and Lowell when we were all together at King Food for our big Christmas Eve get-together last December. And now we get them every chance we can.

Finishing up a nice relaxing meal, we drove up to the nearby Wal-Mart for prescriptions and a few groceries. And that’s where my close call came about.

While I was waiting for Jan, I used my phone to scan my Wal-Mart receipt with the Savings Catcher App. Then I put the phone and the receipt in the bag with the prescriptions. But it didn’t stay in the bag.

It fell out of the bag somewhere along the way and I missed it in the cart. And the reason I know it was in the cart is that I have a photo.

As soon as I got home and discovered it wasn’t in the pharmacy bag, or any bag for that matter, I got on my computer and went to WheresMyDroid.com. Clicking on my account and logging in, I clicked on S8+ and clicked on Location. And here’s what I saw.

My phone was still in the Wal-Mart parking lot. So I grabbed Jan’s phone and headed out the door.

At the first stop light I encountered, I clicked on Where’s My Droid’s camera icon and then clicked on Front. which got me a blank photo. Then when I clicked on Back, I got this photo.

My phone was still in the shopping cart where I left it.

By the time I got to the Wal-Mart lot my phone’s location had changed to inside the Wal-Mart, and in the approximate location of the Customer Service office.

And here you can see it sitting in a bin under the desk.

When the guy pulled it out from under the counter, he asked if I could prove it was mine. So I said, “How about I show you a photo of me on the phone?”

He said, “Sure.”

But  when I showed him this one,

but he didn’t buy it.

So I told him to look at the phone and I used Jan’s phone to take a photo of him on that phone.

He liked that one, so I headed home.

Where’s My Droid not only tracks my phones and let’s you take photos of its location, you can lock the phone remotely, even if you don’t normally keep it locked. And if worse comes to worse, you can completely wipe the phone of all your personal data, even if it’s turned off.

Once you set it, as soon as the phone is turned back on, it’s wiped.

Check it out.

A close call, indeed.

---

January 21, 2019

Very Potholely . . .

Back at work this morning, I had a lot of prices to update in both the catalog and on the website. January is the prime time for companies to raise their prices, so it’s a busy time.

Plus a lot of companies use this time to introduce new products, which is much more time-consuming, since I have to take photos for both the catalog and website. Then in many cases I have to move things around,  and sometimes even add pages.

Of course this means that both the index and the table of contents have to be updated. If the previous guy had only set the catalog up correctly to start with, Adobe InDesign would have automatically updated both when I add and subtract pages. Oh well.

We got another used machine in last week that I had to replace the power switch on this morning, and then check it out. Everything worked OK, except for the air system. Many of these machines have an extra-cost option of air cooling during the electrolysis treatment.

But this one was dead.

When I checked on a replacement, I found they were no longer made, and due to that, a new one was almost $200.

Yikes. It’s an air pump.

So checking Amazon, I found this one.

It’s slightly smaller, much quieter, more powerful, but with an adjustable output. And even better, it’s only $15.98.

Should be here on Wednesday.

When we came home from Jan’s eye appointment last Friday we found they were putting down new gravel on the road.

In the last month, with all the rain, it had become very potholely with too many to dodge around. Then today they came back through with a spreader/leveler and graded it out.

Looks and rides great.

Our son-in-law Lowell texted this over this afternoon. And I didn’t even know they were building one over there.

Another Buc-ee’s for us to stop at on our way to Gulf Shores

Yah!.

---

January 21, 2020

They Did It Again . . .

Jan and I are already talking about next year’s adventures. Although we got to see some New England Fall foliage when we were in the area back in 2009, but it was only as we were passing through.

We had talked about doing one of the many Fall Foliage cruises, including some by Viking Cruises, our recent European cruise company. In fact it looks like they’re dozens of them.

But they have two big problems. First, they’re really expensive. In some cases they’re even more expensive than our Viking River Cruise in Europe last year. And second, they go to a lot of places we’ve already been to. Places like Bar Harbor ME, Charlottetown PEI, Halifax NS, Bay of Fundy NS, and others in Canada, while we’d rather concentrate on New England.

So our preliminary plan is to just fly up to Boston, rent a car, and then head north, staying at B&B’s as we go along. Google says New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, starting in the last week in September and continuing into the first two weeks of October, is the prime location and time.

Here’s a sample of this year in New Hampshire.

And the time frame is perfect for us, since that will be around our 54th anniversary.

And of course we’re still thinking about doing a Mexican Ruins cruise, probably sometime in spring 2021. But I guess we need to get our 2020 Alabama, and Alabama/Florida RV trips, and our September Alaskan cruise out of the way first.

We had lunch at Snooze this afternoon, the place that’s become pretty much our standard Tuesday spot.  Jan had her usual Bravocado Toast,

while I got my fav, 3 Egg Classic, with Bacon and a side of Greens.

And they did it once again. I ordered my eggs Over Medium, but as happened once before, each of the 3 yolks is done differently. And in order too.

The one closest to me was Over Easy, the next one up was Over Medium, and the top one was Over Hard.

How do they do that in a single pan?

---

January 21, 2021

Murdoch . . .

Not much going on today.

I would say it was cold and dreary. At least it looked that way. Or at least it looked like it should be. But it turned out to be warm and dreary, with a temperature of about 73°.

Around 2 we headed up to Webster to have lunch at Cheddars once again, with our usual delicious meal.

Then we drove around for a bit before heading back down to Santa Fe and home. But of course we had to make a stop at Cowboy Coffee, but not for coffee. We each got a Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate to take home.

I mentioned the other day that Murdoch Mysteries is coming back for a 14th season starting February 20th. And while we were waiting for it we started watching the series over from the beginning.

We’re now up to Season 4, but then this week we started rewatching Season 13 again so we wouldn’t get confused when we start watching 14.

And even now, watching the old ones, we sometimes can get lost about what season we’re on, and who’s done what to who.

Also happy to see that Prodigal Son has started up again.

---

January 21, 2023

Waiting For The Welfare Check . . .

From Amazon.

It’s been 3 days since we’ve had something delivered from Amazon. I’m sure they’re worried about us.

So to ease their concerns, I placed a ‘pity’ order this afternoon. Supposed to be here Monday.

Lunch today was at Dickinson Seafood once again.

Starting off with their simple, but very good salad,

we moved on to what we’ve always had here, the Grilled Catfish with Grilled Shrimp.

Absolutely delicious as always.

We had planned to make a Sam’s Club run after lunch, but when we thought about it, we were only going for two items. Then of course, when we get there we always other stuff that we ‘need’ and just have to have. To forestall that, I decided to order online and just pick it up.

And as it turned out, it was a good idea since it was pouring down rain, so we didn’t have to get wet. Just texted them what parking spot were in and some other guy got wet bringing it out to us.

And tomorrow looks to be Black Bear Diner and HEB.

Another nice day.

I know we have a lot of Murdoch Mysteries fans out there, Season 16 starts up this coming February 11th, on Ovation this time. Looking forward to it.

Finishing up, somewhere Skynet is smiling.

Here’s the latest video from Boston Dynamic, featuring their humanoid robot Atlas.

I for one welcome our future robot overlords.

That’s why I thank Alexa every time she turns on the TV

You’ve been warned.

---

January 21, 2024

It’s Not Blood . . .

Today was a typical Sunday with lunch at Denny’s, with our usual Ultimate Omelets. Then it was back across the Interstate for our weekly HEB stop.

For some reason they were a lot busier than a normal Sunday, and even the checkout guy didn’t know why. And they were even busier than last Sunday when the big freeze was coming in.

Then before leaving HEB I tried to get gas at their station, but found all the keypads on the pumps were out of order. Which actually means that the Credit Computer was down. So it was on down the road to stop at the Shell station to fill up.

Lastly we made a P.O. for our mail.

Hopefully, we won’t have to do this much longer. I think our box there renews in February, so I’m thinking I won’t renew and just have everything forwarded to our park address. One less bill and one less stop.

I had planned on installing my new water pump Tuesday morning, but it’s supposed to start raining around midnight tonight and then keep at it for the next 3 or 4 days. So we’ll see how it goes.

Tuesday afternoon we’re getting together with our Alvin Opry group at our local Logan’s Roadhouse, and on Thursday we’re probably having lunch with Bonnie, a long-time friend and co-worker of Jan’s. Long-time friend as in the 1980’s.

Looking forward to both.

When I first met Jan 56+ years ago, she liked her steaks WELL-DONE. WELL-DONE as in burnt shoe leather done.

Over the intervening years, I gradually weaned her off ‘burnt’ and eased her down to somewhere around medium, or medium-ish, maybe. But she draws the line at anything ‘juicy’. And pretty much ignores me when I remind her about people liking a juicy steak.

Because she thinks it’s BLOOD!

But it’s not. It’s myoglobin.

People baffled after realizing red liquid that comes from steak isn’t actually blood

Those who don’t like rare steak often say it’s because they don’t enjoy their meat being “bloody” – but it turns out that the red liquid isn’t blood at all.

You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given that it’s a red liquid leaking out of a piece of meat that isn’t cooked all the way through, but you’d be wrong. And people have been left gobsmacked by the revelation, as they’ve spent their entire lives believing their steaks were still bleeding.

So what is the liquid? It’s something called myoglobin, which is the protein that delivers oxygen to an animal’s muscles. The protein only turns red when the meat is cut or exposed to air, and heating the protein can turn it a darker colour. This means that the steak you eat that looks “bloody” has actually just been cooked to a lower temperature, which makes the red colour of the myoglobin more vivid.

Jeffrey Savell, a professor of Meat Science at Texas A&M University, told HuffPost that animals with more active muscle tissues, as well as older animals, will produce meat with more myoglobin. Not only does this impact steaks, but it also explains why darker meat is found on turkey legs while lighter meat is found in the breasts, as the legs have more active muscle tissue so produce more myoglobin.

So eat up. It’s good for you.

I’m still working on Jan.