Our RV Adventures

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I was back at work today trying to wrap up a bunch of things before we go a-cruising this Saturday.

Leaving there about 1:30, I headed back down to our area for my PT session. Checking in at the counter, I waited for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes past my 2:15 appointment time before they finally came out and told me my appointment was actually tomorrow, Thursday, at 2:30pm.

WTH

My appointments are always on Wednesday at 2:15. I’ve never had any other date/time. Ironically, at my last session when I booked this one, I didn’t get an appointment printout that might have shown the problem.

They wanted to know if I still wanted to come in tomorrow, but I said No, since we have too much stuff still to do before our cruise.

Tomorrow we’re both getting our haircut, and then lunch at Los Rameriz Mexican for some good Mexican food before we travel to Mexico.

In case you think this is funny, having been in Mexico a number of time in my life, I can tell you that what we eat here as Mexican food, is nothing like what they eat in Mexico.

Of course, they don’t call it Mexican Food in Mexico. They just call it ‘Food’.

Then more packing, and repacking.

Our friend Chris LaClaire clued us in on Formal Nights on our upcoming cruise. She told us that Formal Nights are always on At Sea nights, and usually two nights. So for us, that would our 2nd night and our 8th night, but we’ll see.

Thought for the Day:

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 4, 2010

Linden Trees and Light Shows . . .

This morning got off to an early start when Jan and I left the lake house about 9:15 to drive back down to Fischer to pick up our friend Gina so she could meet up with everyone in Fredericksburg for lunch and get in some Landon time.

We got to Gina’s about 10:30, and then turned right around and headed for Fredericksburg, a little over an hour away.

When we got to Der Lindenbaum, our favorite German restaurant, the rest of the family was waiting at a table for us. We had a great meal of Wienerschnitzel, Jaeger Schnitzel, Bratwurst, German potato salad, sauerkraut, and their fantastic red cabbage.

It seems like we sat around talking all afternoon, but by 1:30 we were back on the road after a great meal. After dropping Gina off, I got back to the lake house about 4:30 just in time for a nap with my head on Jan’s lap. Just heavenly.

We thought we were going to see the Christmas Boat Parade on the lake along with some fireworks, but no lights, no boat, no fireworks. Apparently we were told the wrong date.

About 6 pm we headed out for dinner at Highlander Inn, a really good local buffet restaurant. Then after the meal, we walked next door to see Burnet’s Christmas Lights along Hamilton Creek. And this time Landon stayed awake and was fascinated by all the lights.

We got back to the house about 7:30 and settled in for the night.

Once again Chris and Piper played HALO on the Xbox for a while and then we watched our favorite Christmas movie “A Christmas Story”.

“Ralphie, you’ll shoot your eye out with that thing”

Tomorrow will end our short vacation here in the Texas Hill Country, and we’ll head back to Houston about 10 am or so, probably stopping off for lunch at Rudy’s Country BBQ in Austin on the way.

So more tomorrow from Dickinson Bayou.

December 4, 2011

Leftovers . . .

This morning got off to a fast start with a call from our son Chris. His truck was overheating and he thought he’d blown a head gasket, so he wanted our help in towing his truck back home. We decided to combine this with breakfast, so about 10:30 we met at Kelly’s Country Cookin’ in League City.

It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten at Kelly’s and I had forgotten how big their portions are. I had the Eggs & Chili, with Grits and a Biscuit. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the biscuit. They’re Huge!

The one I had was about 7” across and about 3” high. I was only able to eat less than half of it.

We got Chris’ truck towed home with no problems, and then Jan and I headed into Clear Lake to my client’s office for a little while. I finally convinced him to replace his main server so I’ll have to get started on that soon.

Getting back to the rig, I spent some time moving a few things down to the bays to clear out for the Christmas tree.

Later for supper, Jan heated up our leftover Chinese from King Food the other night. Chinese food is one of those, like Italian, that gets even better as leftovers.

December 4, 2012

Naked at Hooters . . .

For the first time since we got back to Houston, I did pretty much nothing today. No clients, no errands, no nothing. Just goofing off all day.

We did get a lot of rain off and on during the day which, along with the overcast skies, kept the temperature down which was nice.

Finally about 4:30 we headed up to the Hooters in Seabrook for supper. And luckily for me, it was Sexy Santa Tuesday, so the scenery was even better than normal. Gives a whole new meaning to who’s naughty or nice.

I always order my Hooters’ wings “naked”, which means there is no breading on the wings. Not only do I like the resulting crispy skin better, it saves a lot on calories. In this case, 10 “naked” wings have 660 calories, while regular wings have 1750 calories. A big difference!

I also ordered “all drums” instead of a mixture of drums and flappers. I just like them better.

Whenever we eat at Hooters I always remember my first visit to one. Somewhere around 2000, while I was working in Tech Support at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, we were eating at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood one night with Chris, Linda, and Piper. Piper, who was about 7 at the time, was eating onion rings, and holding one up, said, “These are good, but not as good as the ones at Hooters.”

Well, that brought the conversation to a grinding halt. What was our 7 year old granddaughter doing at Hooters? Turns out that she and her father sometimes had lunch there. She also said they had really good chicken wings.

Now we had never been there, so about a week later we all met at Hooters for dinner. I was surprised to see how many other families were there with kids too.

We’d been there about 15 minutes when from across the dining room I hear “Greg!”, and then a few seconds later I was getting a big hug and a big kiss on the top of my bald head from a Hooters girl. Of course Jan was very interested in this, and I could feel the cold wind coming my way from her direction.

But before I could really react, the girl said, “Cindy, come here! It’s Greg”. And soon I was getting another hug and kiss. By now it was getting downright frigid in there.

So I figured my marriage was probably over. But then I finally figured out who the two young ladies were.

It was Jennifer, and of course, Cindy, both students at the university where I worked. Jennifer was finishing up her Master’s Degree in Business, and a few weeks before she had come to me one night (I normally worked the night shift there) with a defective ZIP disk.

With tears in her eyes she told me it held the only final copy of her Master’s thesis that had to be handed in a couple of days from now. From her description, I told her it sounded like her disk was suffering from the infamous “Click of Death”, and said that I had a ZIP drive that I had modified that might be able to read her disk. I told her that I would have to take it home, and that she should check back with me the next night.

Luckily, I was able to recover the data and transfer it to a CD for more permanent storage. That got me a big hug and a tearful thank you for her the next night.

Cindy, on the other hand, was getting ready to take her CPA exam, and the hard drive in her Toshiba laptop had died, taking all of her study materials with it. And when her friend Jennifer heard about Cindy’s problem, she sent her to me.

I asked her the name of the folders she needed recovered and took the laptop home with me. I was able to recover the data from her dead drive by using the old “freezer” trick. This is where you place the bad drive in the freezer for about an hour and then plug it into the computer as a slave drive, and then power up.

If you’re lucky you will be able to get data off the drive until it warms up. After that, it’s rinse and repeat, until you’ve got everything you need. And luckily for Cindy, it worked this time too.

As the girts explained this to Jan, I could detect a distinct warming in the atmosphere.

Luckily for me.

So remember the next time you’re at Hooters, your “dumb blonde” waitress may be better educated than you.

But Jan still got some revenge. After we left Hooters, we stopped off at Kroger’s for a few things. As we were walking around the store, I noticed people looking at me and smiling.

Figuring it wasn’t my good looks and sparkling personality, I checked my zipper. By then I noticed that Jan had a sly smile too. Finally she told me to go to the restroom and check the mirror.

And there on the top of my gleaming, bald head was the reminder of my Hooters’ hello – two large, bright-red lipstick prints.

December 4, 2013

Picky, Picky, Picky . . .

Jan and I headed up to Webster about 10am to pick up our truck from Brock’s Car Care after they finished the repairs. We wanted to do it early since we needed to get the rental car back to Enterprise before noon.

And I will be really glad to turn in this Hyundai Elantra. It is undoubtedly the most uncomfortable car I have ever driven. I like the handling and response, but the seats are sheer torture. The seat backs are curved so that you’re supposed to sit back into them. But my shoulders are wider than the seat edges so that I’m either sitting across the front edges, or I’m sitting sideways half in and half out of the seat. On top of that, the seat backs don’t have a lot of padding so they’re not very comfortable anyway.

Plus there is a large barcode sticker on the bottom rear of the driver’s window that hovers right in my peripheral vision making me think there’s a car right beside me.

Yeah, I know, picky, picky, picky.

Like most trips to the mechanic, they found some other things that needed fixing. So, all told, I got two new front hubs, new tie rods, a four wheel alignment, a rear brake job, including rotors and pads, a new battery, and of course, the obligatory lube and oil change.

Then after dropping off the rental car we headed up to King Food for a lunch of Chicken in Hot Garlic with Fresh Jalapenos. Mmmm Good!

After lunch we drove over to the car wash to get 3 months of encrusted caliche dust off the truck. We can actually see what color it is now. Then heading for home, we stopped off at Kroger’s for a few things, and a couple of lattes from the in-store Starbuck’s.

Getting back to the rig, I started to unpack some things from the truck. The main thing I wanted to get out was the fabric top for our Coleman canopy. It was raining when we packed it away in a large garbage bag for the trip back to Houston and I wanted to get it open and dried out before it mildewed. I draped it across the truck for a while and the wind dried it out pretty quickly. Then I did the same thing for the tarp that we used for a windbreak on the gate.

I wanted to get all this done because the weather is getting ready to turn crappy. Today’s high was 80 but tomorrow night’s low is supposed to be 47. Then Friday’s high is forecast to be 52 and rainy.

A big change.

December 4, 2014

Turkey Redux . . .

If it’s Thursday, it’s Turkey and Dressing . . . at least at Cracker Barrel.

For our family Thanksgiving Dinner last Thursday, our son Chris whipped up a batch of his great Seafood Gumbo, which we all really enjoyed, but Jan is always jonesin’ for Turkey and Dressing. So much in fact, that we stopped off at the Conroe Cracker Barrel and picked up a Turkey and ‘Dressing’ Thanksgiving Dinner for her to have the next day while she was house/dog sitting for Chris, Linda, and Piper over Thanksgiving weekend.

But, ‘Dressing’ is in quotes because Jan didn’t get any with her Cracker Barrel take-out. She got the Turkey, she got the Ham, and she got the veggies, biscuits, and pumpkin streusel dessert, but no dressing.

Today was her day to make up for it. So about 3:30 we drove down to the next exit to have a Turkey and Dressing lupper at Cracker Barrel. And this time she made sure she got her Dressing

Finishing up at CB, we drove on down to the Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff, before finally heading home for the night. All in all, a very nice day.

I’ve had some more time to play with the Arduino computer kit, and have been working through the hardware/software projects. The hardware stuff is pretty basic, i.e., this circuit varies the flash rate for the LED by turning the potentiometer, but I’m more interested in the software programming part.

So what I do is go in and rewrite the software for each project to make it do different things, learning as I go. Always fun.

I’ve been reading a couple of good books lately, both by the same author, Steve Lehto. The first one is the story of the development of the rocket belt or jet pack. And there’s even a murder in this story. Even better, you can read this one free with Kindle Unlimited. A really interesting story.

The Great American Jet Pack: The Quest for the Ultimate Individual Lift Device

The next book is the behind-the-scenes story of Chrysler’s decades-long project to develop a viable turbine-powered family automobile. And despite what you may have read or heard, they did. Able to burn just about any fuel, from gasoline, diesel, and kerosene, to jet fuel, tequila, and perfume, the last version proved to be as good, or even better than anything on the road at the time. In fact 50 test cars were loaned out for 3 month periods to over 200 ordinary families that put more than a million miles on the cars.

Chrysler’s Turbine Car: The Rise and Fall of Detroit’s Coolest Creation

As it turns out the US Government pretty much killed the turbine car, but not deliberately, and probably not for the reason you might think.

A very good book, and a great read.

December 4, 2015

All Pumpkin, All The Time . . .

We spent last night at Brandi’s since it didn’t make sense to make the 90 minute trip back to Conroe and get home after 10pm.

Jan was up about 6:30 so she could ride along with Lowell and Landon at his school drop-off. This way Jan could scope out Landon’s school delivery system for next Friday’s repeat. Apparently there is a pretty involved, computerized procedure for dropping off kids at his school, all controlled with iPads.

This let me sleep in until around 9am. Yay!

Brandi was feeling a little better this morning, but still nowhere near up to snuff. Hopefully this bug will pass for her as quickly as it did for Lowell and Landon.

Jan and I headed back to the rig around 10am, with a bunch of stops along the way. First up was the Kroger’s for gas at $1.58, nice for us now, but not boding well for any gate guarding next year.

Then it was Tractor Supply Company for a few things, before we ended up at Chuy’s for lunch. Although we’ve never eaten at this one, we’ve eaten at several others around Houston, and it’s always good.

As usual we both got the Mexi-Cobb salad, with their Creamy Jalapeno dressing

Besides being delicious, it’s big enough that we both had half left over for supper tonight.

After lunch we headed over to the Katy Mills Mall area for some shopping. Our first stop was Tuesday Morning, Jan’s favorite Christmas card boutique. They always have high-end cards at deep discounts, so it’s her go-to place every year.

Next up was the Bath & Body Works store in the mall itself to pick up some gifts-to-be, while I had a nice little nap in the car. And with that taken care of, we headed back toward Conroe.

Getting into the area, we made a short stop at the Kroger’s for a few things, and along the way Jan came across her new pumpkin love,

Kroger’s New Pumpkin Flavored Whipped Cream

So now she can have Pumpkin Whipped Cream in her coffee that’s flavored with CoffeeMate Pumpkin Spice Creamer. I guess I’ll have to get her some of that Pumpkin Spice Flavored Coffee, so she can go all the way with it.

All Pumpkin, All The Time.

Getting back to the rig a little before 2pm, we both ended up taking a nap before we got back to catching up by binge-watching TV shows.

We can’t really watch all the new TV shows while we’re on a Gate, so we just record everything on our DVR and then start catching up later.

So far we’ve done Big Bang Theory, and we’re almost done with iZombie. Then there’s Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Fargo, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Major Crimes, Castle, etc. So we’ve a few to go.

About 6 we checked in with Brandi, and found her somewhat on the mend, feeling better, but still not great. So, hopefully by tomorrow.

We’ve got a busy week coming up. Sunday we move over to the Colorado River Thousand Trails for two weeks. Then Tuesday we’ll come back to Brandi’s where we’re getting together with Chris, Linda, and Piper, to take in the Zoo Lights, the Christmas Lights Spectacular at the Houston Zoo.

Then I’ll come back to the rig that night while Jan stays at Brandi’s. This will give me the couple of days I need to complete all my plumbing projects, i.e. toilet ball and seal replacement, lavatory faucet replacement, and cutting into the wall looking for my shower leak.

Then I’ll come back to Brandi’s Thursday night, Friday morning to do a repeat of Landon’s school drop-off while Brandi’s having her sinus surgery.

Then we’ll kill some time until the late afternoon when we’ll meet some friends in Pasadena for dinner and the Pasadena Opry Christmas Show.

So, a really busy week. So much for being retired and just kicking back.

December 4, 2016

Don’t Do It !

First off, I want to thank everyone for their kind words on my latest rant . . . eh, musing. Called “Frederick Douglass, The 3/5 Compromise, and Our ‘Racist’ Constitution” and now available as a stand-alone PDF file. you can find it under the Greg’s Musings tab at the top right of the screen. Thanks again.

Today was my last day (for now) at the Moczygemba gate. I say ‘for now’ because it seems like I keep cycling back thru these gates over and over. But the next time at this one, I hope it’s not pouring down rain. Because in this guard shack, when it’s pouring down outside, it’s also pouring down inside.

Well not as much pouring, as running out on the steel desktop and then waterfalling off onto the floor. It comes out from under the metal box holding the surveillance camera electronics on the left side of the tabletop.

I’m still not sure where the water was coming in. It wasn’t running down the wall, or coming in around the nearby window. But it was enough that I went through a roll of paper towels, and a stack of the towels from the potty trailer. But I still had to regularly sweep the pooling water out the door.

We only had eleven trucks in the gate today, most coming in between 6:30 and 7:30am. Supposedly they’re going to start fracking on Wednesday so today was just a lot of prep work to get ready.

If you use Google Chrome, and sometimes even if you don’t, you may be surfing the web and suddenly you this.

DON’T DO IT!

As Adm. Ackbar says,”It’s a trap!

In most cases it will not let you back up or get out of it, so just close the tab and move on. If you’ve already done this update, then you’re infected. You can find instructions online to rid yourself of the virus.

Wrapping up, there’s a new infection running through the Android/Google world that you need to check for.

Using an Android device, go here and enter your Google account email address.

https://gooligan.checkpoint.com

This will tell you if yours is one of the 1 million+ accounts that have been breached. Normally you will only have a problem with this if you’ve downloaded Android software apps outside the Google Play Store. But check it anyway just to be sure.

Let’s be safe out there.

December 4, 2017

It’s Probably Eyetalian . . .

Work today was pretty slow with nothing much going on, so I just took care of a few loose ends, and printed up some new ‘FRAGILE’ labels for our shipments.

Or you may pronounce it ‘FRA JIL E’. It’s probably Eyetalian.

I did discover a problem this weekend that could have been catastrophic under the right (or wrong) circumstances. We were set up to use iDrive’s Linux Server Backup Service on our webserver Or at least I thought we were.

When I finally got a replacement password from iDrive this weekend, I logged in and found that our service had lapsed 3 weeks ago, due to non-payment. The credit card on file with them had expired and they had been sending notices to the previous IT guy’s email account, which I still don’t have access to. (or ‘to which I still don’t have access’, in case you’re one of those dangling prep people)

So I went ahead and paid the bill, $374.62, for 2.5TB of backup storage to get things going again. Glad I caught it before things went south.

Jan and I finally got through all the slides, ending up with about 180 slides to possibly have digitized. We’ll make another pass to look at them again before we make a final decision.

Some of the slides are from a family vacation we took out west the summer of 1964 when I was 15. One thing that was hard to believe were photos of us driving on four-lane freeways in LA with only 3 cars ahead of us.

Another that was amazing was the fact that the adult General Admission to Disneyland was $1.60. No, that’s not a typo. Or for $4.95 you could get a 15 ride ticket book, that included your General Admission. Oh, and parking was a quarter.

The other thing is the fact that we visited places I don’t remember visiting, Virginia City, NV for one.  We were going through the slides and suddenly a slide showing this building popped up.

I thought I remembered it from Virginia City when Jan and I visited there in 2013. And I was right. It’s the Fourth Ward School. Then a little later we came across a ‘Welcome to Virginia City‘ sign. So I guess we were there and I just forgot it.

Finally, presaging last week’s, The Big Bang Theory, a guy in Wales threw away an old laptop HD in 2013, forgetting that it contained 7,500 Bitcoins, worth about $4 million at that time. He had mined them in 2009, saving the HD when he trashed the laptop, figuring the Bitcoin price would rise. But then over the years he forgot about it and the HD got trashed as well.

Now it’s worth $108 million. Ouch

December 4, 2018

I Feel Left Out . . .

About 1:30 Jan and I headed out for lunch and some more. Since it’s been a while we drove over to Los Ramirez right off FM646 on FM517. One thing that was interesting was watching a lady paint the Christmas decorations on the restaurant windows.

She was just setting up when we got there, and by the time we left she was finishing up all six windows. She started by going down the row of windows doing all the basic shapes of candy canes, wreaths, trees, bells, etc. Then, with the first panels now dry, she went back to the start adding in the details, and then did it again. She did a really great job in less than an hour. But unfortunately, after all this buildup, I can’t show you because I forgot to get any photos. Sorry.

Maybe I can run by there tomorrow.

Next up were stops at WalMart for more stuff, and then the next door Sam’s Club for the prescription that I couldn’t get this past Sunday. While I was there I asked about the problem with the Sam’s Club app.

You can use the WalMart app to scan your prescription bottle to automate your refills. But when you use the Sam’s Club version of the app and scan your prescription, it doesn’t read the prescription number, but instead just enters the store number. You can still enter the number manually so it will work that way.

The pharmacy tech said that several other people had mentioned the problem, but that their IT department said it worked fine. When I asked if anyone had actually checked it themselves, she hesitated and then said, “No.”

So, opening my bag I pulled out the bottle and scanned with the Sam’s app. And it came up with ‘0470200’ which is their store number.

“Oh.”, was her reply. “I guess we’ll call them again.”

On the gas price front, last Saturday Sam’s Club had regular for $1.79, at least according to Gas Buddy. At the same time Costco was still at $1.84. However today both Costco and Sam’s were at $1.81.

Don’t know what happened, but $1.81 is still nice. In fact as we were later leaving the Costco, Jan asked if I was going to fill up.

“No, it’ll just be cheaper later in the week.”

I feel left out.

I wanted my own blackmail email.

A friend forwarded me this email he received.

Subject: powerful backlinks for your site
From: “picrights.com” <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, December 04, 2018 3:01 pm
To:

From: picrights.com <[email protected]>
Subject: powerful backlinks for your site

Message Body:
Hello guys, I would like to make offer for you. Please buy my services from https://www.fiverr.com/seosupremacy or I will create negative porn backlinks to your website and get it removed from Google index. Please choose. I recommend that you buy my gigs to avoid losing business. If you order my gig, I will take your site to top and if no, I will spam it with porn links and get you removed from Google. I hope you understand the serious matter.

No only didn’t I get an email like this, apparently I don’t get the porn links either,

Bummer!

Since this was supposed being done through Fiverr.com, I passed it on to them, and quickly heard back that this was a complete scam and not coming through them.

I  figured as much, but wanted to send it on just to be sure.

Tomorrow Jan starts her eye drop’s routine, two different ones several times a day, in prep for her cataract surgery Thursday morning, with a checkup on Friday afternoon.

Then her right eye next week.

December 4, 2020

Torque Pro . . .

On the way home today,  I stopped off at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to pick up a new gas cap for our Jeep. I’ve been getting an occasional (every 4 or 5 days, or so) Check Engine Light and when I checked the code with my phone I got a P0442 error code. This translates to a small leak in the Evaporator Emission Control System.

And the most obvious fault is a loose or faulty gas cap. So after I retightened the cap several times and the error came back, so I got a new cap this afternoon and then cleared the code, again with my phone.

And now we wait.

As to how I read and clear engine codes using my phone, I use this OBDII Bluetooth adapter,

OBD2 Bluetooth Diagnostic Scan Tool, Mini OBDII Scanner-Check Engine Light Code Reader

And even better the adapter is only about $12. Much cheaper and more versatile than a standard code reader.

It plugs into the OBDII Diagnostic Port under your dash. Then you just use the free Torque Android app to interrogate your engine computer and display a lot of details with screens like this.

And for only $4.95 you can upgrade to the Torque Pro version which gives you a lot more options, including CO₂ emissions and Horsepower/Torque readings.

Check it out!

December 4, 2021

Happily Ensconced In Texarkana . . .

I had hoped we’d be on the road this morning by 8-8:30ish. Well I guess 8:31 qualifies as ‘ish’.

It was foggy as we left the rig, which morphed into rain spritzes by the time we turned onto US59N just south of downtown Houston. But it cleared up fairly quickly and we had a smooth trip up to Nacogdoches, pretty much the halfway point on our trip.

There we used the facilities, got coffee and gas, and swapped drivers, Jan taking over for most of the rest of the way. Then I took over again about 50 miles out.

We got into Texarkana about 2:15, and headed over to have lunch so that once checked into the hotel, we wouldn’t have to leave again. We had heard good things about Naaman’s BBQ, which as luck would have it, was right across the street from our Wyndham Gardens hotel.

And the ‘good things’ were correct.

We both got the small two-meat plate, with ribs and brisket.

The ribs were great, and the brisket was cut-with-a-fork tender.

And we just had to finish up by splitting a piece of their Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake,

The place is decorated in a little bit of everything, from ‘50’s diners,

to a fancy dining room,

And the ceiling covered in Christmas Balls was really something.

And now we know where we eating next Saturday when we come back through here on the way home.

Tomorrow: Branson

December 4, 2022

A Busy Week Ahead . . .

Today was another easy one, with a first stop at the office to drop off some parts that had come in, and some Christmas stuff for Jennifer and Dr. Heimlich’s wife.

Then it was on over to Texas Huddle once again for lunch.

We both started with salads,

and then Jan decided to get the Chicken Tenders this time.

She said they were really good.

I stuck with the same wings that I had last time.

And as usual, Juana, our regular server, took great care of us.

It’s a busy week ahead.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ve got my 1 year evaluation after my Cervical Spine Fusion last November. Probably I’m going to set up a consult with my neurosurgeon to talk about a possible lumbar fusion down the road.

Then on Tuesday we got our monthly Alvin Opry Group get-together at Saltgrass Steakhouse, though we’ll be short a couple of people due to Christmas stuff interfering.

Following up on the Opry theme, Friday night is the Christmas Show at the Alvin Opry. And some old friends are going to be there. Really looking forward to it.

Finally, on Saturday the Three Acre Truck Park is having their Christmas Market.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

Finishing up, I don’t know if this is Amazing, or Spooky, or Scary!

Or all three.

A while back, I posted this photo from Jan’s Senior Year in 1966.

So of course I had to colorize it.

My beautiful wife-to-be.

Then I did this.

And this.

The site that lets you do this is My Heritage. It’s primarily a Genealogy site, along with DNA testing. But it also has some neat video features.

Thanks for our new friend Melinda King for turning me on to this.

Check it out.

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I’ve mentioned HEB Supermarkets a number of times here on the blog over the years.

One of Jan’s favorite stores, HEB is a Texas grocery chain that’s been around since 1906. Started by H.E. Butts, (it’s easy to understand why he just called it HEB) the chain now has over 380 stores spread out over Texas, along with 80 or so in Mexico.

And I don’t know how they do it, but this past Monday, our Victory Lakes HEB had 17 of their 24 checkout lanes open, this along with 10 Self-Checkout lanes. And pretty much every checkout lane has a bagger person there, who bags your groceries and places them in your cart.

This compared to the Wal-Mart right across the Interstate that had 5 checkout lanes open out of 20.

But after our visit to HEB yesterday, I think I’m now Officially Old. For the 3rd visit in a row, the bagger person (one was a young girl) offered to take my groceries out to the car for me.

I laughed and said I figured that if I couldn’t get my stuff out to the car, then I wouldn’t be able to get from the car to the house, so they would have to follow me home to unload for me.

They demurred

Back in October 2021, during the WuFlu online sales surge, Amazon was building warehouses all over, including one over on Hwy 96 right up the road from us.

This while they already had an Amazon Warehouse right down I-45 in La Marque, only about 10 miles or so away.

And by the time it looked like this,

the sales surge faded away along with the Flu Manchu, and Amazon shuttered the building without ever opening it. And it seems to have stayed that way until recently.

When we drove by this past Saturday we found the parking lot full of cars, though nothing seemed to be happening with the building.

When we looked closer coming home, we saw that most/all? of the vehicles seemed to be new ones, especially Tesla’s. In fact, there were several rows of Cybertrucks all lined up,

along with other Tesla sedans. So at least the very large parking lot is getting used.

Brandi sent over this photo of Landon with his BFF Sophie’s goat.

And why does Sophie have a goat?

Apparently she’s taking an Ag course and part of that is to take care of this goat.

That’s Sophie’s arm and hair on the right side of the photo.

Nice looking goat. It looks like she’s doing a good job.

Finishing up, I got an email this evening from Royal Caribbean cancelling our Kohunlich Mayan Ruins excursion out of Puerto Costa Maya, our last port day on the cruise.

At first, I thought that maybe our reputation had proceeded us, but when I went back and check the Excursion list on the app, Kohunlich is no longer listed.

And when I checked the Kohunlich website, I found this.

So I guess it’s not us.

We’ll have to see if we want to replace it with anything, or just hang around the ship, or walk around the port area.

Looking through the RCL Excursion List, nothing else jumps out at us.

I will note that though RCL wanted our money upfront when we booked the excursion, they said they will refund our $171.98 within 10 – 14 days.

Why is that?

Thought for the Day:

You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. – The Third Man (1949)

And Now On To Today’s Retro-BLOGS

December 3, 2009

The Christmas Sweater…

Back blogging by popular demand!  Well, one demand, anyway.

Today I worked on getting two new computers set up for one of my clients. Then tomorrow I’ve got appointments with two more to look at their problems too.  And I’ve got some others to contact also.

It’s going to be a busy time, just like last year.

Tonight Jan and I joined three friends to see Glenn Beck’s “The Christmas Sweater” at a local theater.  But it was not a movie.  It was a live video feed, done the same way they show sporting events there.

I dare anyone to see this production and not tear up repeatedly.

It’s the story of Glenn’s early childhood and is based on his bestselling book by the same name.

Glenn’s father died of cancer when he was 10 and his mother struggled to keep the family afloat. I don’t want to give away any more of the story, because there’s kind of a double twist at the end.

It was shown at over 400 theaters around the country, and there will be an encore presentation next Thursday, December 10th.  You can go here to get more information.

Note that this story has nothing to do with Glenn Beck’s political views. Politics is never even mentioned.  It’s just a 12 year old’s story of love and redemption.

This is well worth seeing if you have a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

December 3, 2010

Tea-Licious and The Maxican . . .

We left Gina’s a little after 10 this morning heading about 65 miles north to Burnet, TX. We were meeting Chris, Linda, Piper, Brandi, Lowell, and Landon (also known as the kids) at the Tea-Licious Tea Room for lunch. The kids have been here since last night when they drove up from Houston, so they didn’t have far to drive to get here.

Tea-Licious is a great little restaurant right on Burnet’s historic town square, and we always make a point of eating there when we’re here at the lake.

Here’s Jan hogging all the Landon time, as usual. But he seems pretty happy about it, doesn’t he?

After lunch we split up, with Chris and I coming back to the lake house, while the rest of the family ran errands and picked up some groceries at HEB.

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing video games (HALO on the Xbox), napping, and walking down by the lake.

The about 5:30 we all drove over to The Maxican, (yes, that’s the way it’s spelled) our favorite local Mexican restaurant. This place is so good it has already outgrown its first location, and based on the crowd tonight, is well on its way to doing the same for this one.

As usual the food was great, and the company was even better. Here’s Miss Piper getting some time with Santa Landon.

After dinner we all drove about 10 miles south to Marble Falls to see the Christmas Light Show along the banks of the Colorado River. This is the second year we’ve done the show, and luckily, this year was shirt-sleeve weather, and not in the low 40’s like last time. Here are some photos of the lights.

Landon enjoyed the first few minutes and then decided it was time for a nap. That’s (l to r) Chris, Piper (barely), Lowell, Landon, and Brandi.

We got back to the house about 8:30, and everyone was pretty well pooped out. We sat around for a while, and then people started drifting off to bed.

And now I’m going that way too.

Tomorrow we’re going to drive about 60 miles southwest to Fredericksburg, TX to eat at Der Lindenbaum, our favorite German restaurant, and do some shopping at all the neat stores along Main Street,

December 3, 2011

Habaneros and Gumbo . . .

This morning started off with a flurry of calls from several clients needing help. Looks like I’m going to be very busy next week.

About noon Jan and I headed up to Kemah to visit our son at the Kemah Farmer’s Market where he’s got a booth selling his very popular Habanero Jelly, Apple Butter, and Banana Butter.

On the way we stopped off at Chick-Fil-A to pick up some lunch for him, and us. The market was busy and he was doing pretty good.

Leaving Chris we drove over to Half-Price Books so that Jan could look for a couple of things. Half-Price Books is one of our favorites because they have a little bit of everything.

Next up was a client’s office where I installed and set up Carbonite, the online backup system. Although not recommended for RV’ers who use AirCard, WiFi, or satellite Internet, if you’re using a land-based Internet service like cable or DSL, it’s the easiest way to keep your system constantly backed up for only about $60 a year. And no worries about onsite problems with fire or theft.

After finishing that up we headed back home for a couple of hours before heading back up to Clear Lake to meet Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, our other favorite Cajun place. Can’t get enough of their Gumbo and Boudin.

Floyd is Floyd Landry. He and his brothers started the Landry’s Seafood Restaurant chain and then sold it. He now has two restaurants in the Houston area and one in Beaumont, TX.

Floyd is about as Cajun as it gets, and his food shows it. Really good eatin’.

After leaving Floyd’s we drove across the parking to Tuesday Morning so Jan could pick out some more Christmas cards. Then after stopping off at our store room to pick up our Christmas tree, we went by Brandi’s to pick up our mail and then headed home.

December 3, 2012

A Tale Of Two Restaurants . . .

Recapping yesterday (Sunday), our away-from-the-rig time started in the early afternoon with me dropping Jan off at Brandi and Lowell’s so she could get some more Landon time while they ran some errands.

While she was doing this I spent the afternoon at two different clients upgrading software, cleaning the gunk out of a number of computers, and fixing some network problems. All things that are hard to do during the week when they’re open.

About 6pm, I met Jan, Brandi, Landon, Lowell, and Lowell’s sister Sherry, at King Food for our usual great meal. We like the fact that besides the delicious food, they have big round tables in the back that will seat everyone in the family, and also let us kind of corral Landon up. He’s at that point where he doesn’t like to sit in a high chair so this works out good.

We’ve been eating at King Food for 34 years now, and I like to tell people that we’re on our 4th owner. The present ones have been there the longest, and we’ve watched their kids grow up and head off to college, while our kids did the same.

When we started eating there, Chris was 10 and Brandi was only 5. And now they both have kids of their own.

Another tradition with us and King Food is that for about the last 30 years we’ve always eaten Christmas Eve dinner there. I think it originally started because Jan was working on Christmas dinner for the next day and trying to fix another meal in between just didn’t work. And King Food was one of the few places that was actually open on Christmas Eve.

And we’ll all be right back there this Christmas Eve too.

Today started out with more client visits and stop-offs at Home Depot and Lowe’s for a replacement for my under-sink water filter. They keep discontinuing the one that my system is set up for, but I think I’ve found a new one that will fit, but a little more research is needed.

My last stop was Brandi’s to wait for the mail to be delivered, so I won’t be a scofflaw anymore. My South Dakota car tags (and rig tags) expired on Friday and I’ve been evading the law ever since.

I ordered them online the 1st of November and they normally only take about two weeks. But they didn’t arrive at my South Dakota mail service until this past Saturday. But Terri at MyDakotaAddress put them right back in the mail via Priority, and the tracking number says they’ll be here today.

And they were. And I’m legal again.

Getting home, I picked up Jan and we headed right back out to try out a new restaurant in the area called The Herb Café & Market.

The online reviews were great, and the place lived up to them. Pretty much everything is homemade. They bake their own bread, make their own salad dressings, grow a lot of their own produce, BBQ their own pork, etc. What’s really nice is that it’s only a couple of miles from the park. We’ll be back.

Leaving the restaurant, we headed up to Chris’ to drop off the laptop and visit for a while with Chris, Linda, Piper, and meet Piper’s boyfriend, whose name I’ve suddenly blanked on. Sorry.

Then it was on to Wal-Mart for a few things before we finally headed home.

Another nice day.

December 3, 2013

Nice while it lasted . . .

When we first started RV’ing back in 2008 we always heard about the fantastic support from Fantastic Vent (Fan), never charging people for replacement parts for their products, no matter how old. And this proved to be true for us when I needed a new cover lift motor for one of the fans in our 1999 American Eagle. Even though the fan was 10 years old there was no charge for the replacement, not even shipping.

Then in 2010 when Atwood, the RV water heater people, bought them out I remember commenting, wondering if that level of support would continue.

Well, as it happens, it didn’t. The same motor I replaced in 2009 died while we were working the gate, but I waited until now to get it replaced. And the motor that was free in 2009 now costs $35.00 plus $12.95 shipping.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

After a nice, quiet day we picked up Judy and Dick Mott at their RV where they’re parked down at Latitudes RV Park down in San Leon. Dick and Judy have been blog readers for a while, and as it turns out, were gate guarding for Gate Guard Services at the same time we were, and only a few miles away from us. But we all had to come back to this area to get together. We had dinner at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood, one of our favorite local restaurants, and spent about 3 hours talking and learning how many friends we have in common.

All in all, a great time was had by all.

Brock’s Car Care called this afternoon and said our truck is ready to go. Told them we’d pick it up tomorrow morning. They had called earlier and said my battery wasn’t holding a charge, and they had to jumpstart it every time they needed to move it. So I guess I’m getting a new battery along with a new front end.

Oh, well.

December 3, 2014

Pines and Cuckoos . . .

Once again our stay-at-home day was interrupted by real life, or at least the need to get a couple of errands done.

Our first stop was to drop off some pants to be hemmed at a local Willis alteration place, before checking the Kroger’s across the street for Christmas trees, specifically a live Norfolk Pine Christmas tree for the rig. We had seen some there last week, but now they were sold out.

But while we were there we decided to have a Starbucks’ Chestnut Praline Latte, like the one we had the other day down in Webster. But this time I think the barista made a mistake and forgot to put the flavoring in, because what we got just tasted like coffee with warm milk. However, I didn’t take it back because by the time we sat down and tried it, there was a long line of customers and only the one girl/barista at the counter.

While we were sitting there drinking our milky coffee, I looked over at a display of noodles about 3 feet away, and saw the name ‘Essenhaus’ on the packaging.

Looking closer, I discovered it was a product of Das Dutchman Essenhaus, an Amish restaurant located in Middlebury, IN, between Elkhart and Shipshewana. We try to eat there at least once whenever we’re in the area, since they have great fried chicken and a really great selection of fresh vegetables. But I didn’t realize until now that they were marketing their products nationwide. Small world.

Our next stop was a local nursery known for their Christmas tree selection. But when we got there and asked about Norfolk Pines, the guy said they get asked for them all the time, but they don’t carry them.

What’s wrong with this picture?

A few days ago I stopped in at a Home Depot down in Houston and noticed in passing that they had Norfolk Pines, so we drove over to the one in Conroe to check them out. And we hit paydirt. Not only did they have good selection, and Jan was able to find one she liked, but even better, though it was labeled $19.99, it turned out to be on sale for only $9.88.

Merry Christmas to me.

Yesterday when I stopped off at the Barnes & Noble down in The Woodlands, I was specifically looking for my favorite computer magazine, MaximumPC. I’ve read it for years and have always been able to pick up the latest copy at Kroger’s, or Wal-Mart, or just about anywhere. But a month or so ago I realized I hadn’t seen it for a while. And I didn’t find it at B&N yesterday either.

At first I thought maybe they’d gone out of business, but checking their website showed they were still around and selling subscriptions. The only thing I can figure out is that Ingram, the big magazine distributor, has quit carrying them for some reason, but the website didn’t say anything about that.

But what the website did mention was a digital subscription, and it looked like a really good deal. I was able to get a 13 month digital subscription for only $10.99. That’s about 85 cents an issue vs. the $4.99 on the newsstand. A really good deal.

And every month the latest issue shows up in Google Play Newsstand on my phone or tablet. Once the January issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics are out, I’m going to subscribe to their digital editions too.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Model Railroader is available in a digital-only format.

December 3, 2015

Called on Account of . . .

a 24 hour bug.

Jan and I headed out for Brandi’s down in Katy a little after 2pm. We were going there to have dinner, take a Christmas lights hayride, and then spend the night so we can take Landon to breakfast and then school tomorrow morning. Brandi is having day surgery for a sinus problem, and she and Lowell need to leave to house before it’s time to take Landon to school. So Nana and Papa are filling in.

We didn’t need to be at Brandi’s until 4:15, but we had left early for two reasons. We wanted to be sure that we would miss the going home traffic that seems to start up about 3, and we wanted to make a Camping World stop on the way. CW is just a couple of miles on out I-10 from Brandi’s exit so it was a perfect fit.

I wanted to pick up a new step mat for our rig. I really like this Clean Machine one, but only CW seems to sell them. Not even Amazon carries them.

These mats really do a good job cleaning dirt and mud off the bottom of my boots, which have a pretty deep tread.

The mat is made from really heavy AstroTurf so it’s much thicker than any other mat I’ve seen.

We had one on our rig before the big blow-out this past May, but when they installed our new step, our old mat apparently didn’t make the cut.

After getting our new mat, we were at Brandi’s about 4pm, only to find out there’d been a big change in plans.

Brandi had some sort of 24 hour bug and they had put off her surgery until next Friday.

Landon came home from school yesterday feeling bad, and a few hours later, Lowell had it too. Aches and pains, fever and diar . . .  Well, you get the idea. But by this afternoon they were both feeling pretty much back to normal.

But then Brandi woke up with it this morning, so everything’s been pushed back. But since Landon was feeling better we still wanted to do the Christmas lights hayride that we already had tickets for.

Luckily, we still had time for dinner, so Lowell, Landon, Jan and I headed over Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro for our usual delicious meal. And for Brandi, we brought back a big bowl of Chicken Pho.

Hey, chicken soup is chicken soup, no matter how you spell it.

The hayride wasn’t as much fun as we’d hoped. We were sitting on hay bales on an open flat bed trailer with nothing to hold on to. And the driver drove like he had a schedule to meet. He rolled just about every stop sign where he didn’t need to stop for traffic, and pretty much kept to the 25-30 mph speed limit all the way, at least according to my phone’s GPS. All this meant that none of the 30 or so pictures I took of the lights were anything more than just a blur. Plus he almost dumped me on my rear a couple of times with his jack-rabbit starts.

All in all, not a really fun time. But Landon enjoyed it, so there is that.

December 3, 2016

Moczygemba and more Musings . . .

Today was my first day at a new gate called Moczygemba, and I even learned how to pronounce it . . . from a family member.

It’s ‘moxie gim ba’ with no accent on anything.

It was a slow rainy day, with only 7 people coming in and out. And it never got above about 55 so I was really glad I took one of my small heaters with me. So far I’ve found that the heater part of these shack’s AC units doesn’t work very well, but I was warm and toasty with my own.

Responding to some recent articles, I’ve come up with another one of my Musings, or maybe rants. You be the judge.

In the next day or so, I’ll post a cleaned-up version in the Greg’s Musings area.

Frederick Douglass, The 3/5 Compromise, and our ‘racist’ Constitution

Since the Electoral College win for Trump, I’ve seen a number of online articles about how the Electoral College is outmoded, outdated, old-fashioned, antiquated, obsolete, and even antediluvian, you pick your favorite, and that the EC should be scrapped and the Presidential Election should be decided by the popular vote.

But the most egregious are the ones saying that the Electoral College should be abolished because it, and the Constitution, are ‘racist’. So by extension, the Founding Fathers were racists too.

Those of you who read my previous screeds under Greg’s Musings, “The Electoral College – Why?” and “The 1960 World Series and the Electoral College” know why the Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College the way it is.

If not, go read those two articles and then come back.

We’ll wait.

OK, now.

So where does the whole ‘racist’ thing come from, besides the fevered imagination of some Beltway pundit? At this point, all the fingers seem to point toward the much-discussed “3/5 Compromise”.

The first ‘Constitution’, the Articles of Confederation, or more properly, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was essentially a war-time Constitution, drafted starting in July 1776. But it wasn’t sent to the states for ratification until in late 1777, and not finally ratified by all 13 states until March 1, 1781.

Things ran slower back then.

While the Articles did OK allowing the government to fight the Revolutionary War and conduct diplomacy with other nations, it quickly started unraveling at the seams after the war ended. Mostly because the Articles did not give the government much in the way of power, leaving the individual states in real control. For example, the government under the Articles could not levy taxes for money to actually run the government. They had to ask the states to ‘pretty please’ give us some money.

You can imagine how well that worked.

George Washington complained that Congress was paralyzed because nothing could be done without the states joining in. And they were never in any hurry to do anything. That’s why it took over 3 years for the Articles to even be ratified to start with. And even The Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War, laid around for months before it was finally ratified by all the states because several state’s representatives just didn’t show up to vote, and there was no way to make them.

Most of this foot-dragging ratification problem of the Articles was due to how much land some states were claiming out west. Virginia, for instance, tried to claim pretty much the height of the state all the way to the west coast, one long 2000+ mile strip. Because of all this contention, it was two years between when the 12th state, Delaware, ratified the Articles in 1779 and the 13th state, Maryland, finally ratified it in 1781. So even before Maryland got around to finally ratifying the Articles, people were already talking about a ‘new’ Constitution.

Finally in 1787 a convention of state representatives was called in Philadelphia to revise the Articles. But what happened was that they ended up throwing out the Articles and starting from scratch. And what they got was more arguing. And compromising.

In fact our Constitution is one big compromise. It’s interesting to read the records of the discussions and see how things went back and forth. Depending how it had played out, we could have ended up with a much different looking government than we have now, including as you’ve perhaps heard, making George Washington the King, and not the President.

So now we’ve circled back around to the ‘racist’ 3/5 Compromise.

Let’s start off with what it actually says:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

ARTICLE I, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 3

So let’s parse this out.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned …

‘Representatives’ refers to the number of seats that a state gets in the House of Representatives, based on the population.

‘Direct taxes’ refers to the original method of the U.S. Government to tax people. Basically a state was assessed an amount to be paid to the Federal Government based on the state’s population. So if a state was assessed $10 million, and they had a population of 50,000, then each person owed $200 to the state for their Federal taxes. Note this is not an ‘income’ tax. This ‘direct’ tax was the only way for the Federals to tax the people. This was one reason that much of the early government’s income was from tariffs and import/export fees on physical goods. This didn’t change until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, giving the government the right to tax income directly from an individual. Some would say it all went downhill after that.

Next –

‘. . . respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

So the number of Representatives a state gets in the US House of Representatives, i.e., the power it has, is determined by the population of the state. And this population is the number of free persons, plus the number of indentured servants.

It could be said that indentured servants were slaves, but for a limited time period, usually four to seven years. In many cases, they worked side by side with actual slaves doing the same work. But the actual life of an indentured servant could be all over the map.

It could be a young boy apprenticed to a tradesman, e.g. a blacksmith, a tailor, a silversmith, etc., for seven years to learn a trade. The tradesman got help in his business and the boy learned the trade and then could go out on his own. Or it could be a person in England who bound himself to a landowner in America in return for passage here for him, and perhaps his family.

Now the ‘excluding Indians not taxed’ part. What does this mean?

Well, your guess is as good as anyone else’s. The phrase was never really defined in the law. But the directions given to the census takers in that time took it to mean that Indians living on a tribal reservation were not to be counted. But ones who had taken up ‘white men’s ways’ (an actual phrase used) were counted. And there were a number of them. And many were very wealthy and owned black slaves.

So now we’ve covered the ‘free persons’, the indentured servants, and the Indians, leaving us with the ‘three fifths of all other Persons.’ In other words, the actual slaves.

First off, some background. The Founding Fathers were not racist, at least not in today’s terms. In fact they loathed slavery. If you don’t believe me, read the Federalist Papers. We had to in High School, but is seems that they’re no longer on the reading list.

Thomas Jefferson called slavery a “moral depravity” and a “hideous blot,” and believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation. All this, of course, while actually owning slaves, most of which he inherited. During his lifetime he only bought about 20 slaves, in most cases to reunite families.

George Washington also held slaves, and like Jefferson’s, obtained mostly by inheritance. In fact he inherited his first 10 slaves when he was only 11 years old. And although Benjamin Franklin owned slaves, he regularly published Quaker pamphlets and his own essays on the abolition of slavery. Then beginning in 1787 he served as President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

The problem that the Founding Fathers (FF) faced was that they didn’t know how to get rid of slavery without tearing the nation apart or devastating the economy. Jefferson said that maintaining slavery was akin to holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” To emancipate slaves on American soil, Jefferson thought, would result in a large-scale war that would be as brutal and deadly as the slave revolt in Haiti in 1791. And of course history proved him right.

But the Founders did try to abolish slavery, even if it was in baby steps. The Slave Trade Act of 1794 prohibited American ships from use in the slave trade, essentially limiting the trade to foreign-flagged vessels. While The Slave Trade Act of 1800 outlawed American citizens’ investment and participation in the trade, and even U.S. citizens working on foreign vessels involved in the trade. Violators even had their ships confiscated.

Finally in 1808 the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 prohibited the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States. It even regulated the movement of slaves from state to state via coastal shipping. Of course like today’s drug laws, it couldn’t stop the importing of slaves completely. But it did make a big dent in it, and drove it underground. A later change even instituted the death penalty for violations if arrested.

Yeah, yeah. We’re working our way back around to the whole 3/5 Compromise thing.

So we’ve established that the FF would have made slavery go away if they could, or even outlawed it completely which they knew they couldn’t. But they start nibbling around the edges as much as possible, as shown with the above Acts. But they actually laid the groundwork for the abolishing of slavery with Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the new Constitution, with the whole 3/5 of a person thing.

But note, that’s not what it says. The FF did not say that slaves only counted as 3/5 of a person. The 3/5 actually refers to counting 3/5 of the total number of slaves in the Census. Some might call this ‘a difference without a distinction’, but it was done for a good reason.

Strangely enough the FF would have been happy to not count the slaves at all. It was the powerful southern slave states that wanted to count the slaves just like free persons. Of course they still wanted them as slaves, but didn’t want to count them that way. The southern states wanted to count the slaves to give them more representatives in the US House so that they could protect slavery.

So the FF wanted to not count the slaves at all, and the southern states wanted to count them the same as ‘free persons’. If slaves were not counted at all the southern states threatened to pull out from the Constitution and go out on their own. If they weren’t counted at all, some of the powerful northern abolitionist-leaning states also threatened not to join. So the 3/5 Compromise was just that. A number that both sides, the abolitionist states and the slave states could live with. But it helped set the country on the road to ending slavery.

It was the old ‘carrot and the stick’ premise. As the southern states freed their slaves, then each freed slave would go up in representation value by two-fifths or 40%. And if the South refused, the northern states would theoretically hold the advantage in Congress and might possibly end slavery legally that much earlier.

But even with all this it still took a war to do it.

Now to Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a national leader in the abolitionist’s movement, and was noted for his fiery oratory and anti-slavery writings. He toured around the country, and later around the world, giving speeches and meeting with both pro and anti-slavery advocates.

Originally Douglass was told that the Constitution was a ‘pro-slavery’ document by his mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent abolitionist, social reformer, and suffragist. But when persuaded to look for himself, he quickly changed his mind saying that the 3/5 Compromise was “a downright disability laid upon the slave-holding states” that deprived them of “2/5 of their natural basis of representation.”

Wrapping up, I think people today tend to look at history through a prism of their own lives and experiences, applying their own values, and overlaying them on the past. And then criticizing the people in the past for how they lived, and how they looked at things.

The Cherokee’s had it right with their proverb, “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes”, or maybe moccasins, I guess.

Or my favorite from Harper Lee in To Kill A Mockingbird, “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Both profound AND creepy, so my kind of quote.

But by doing this with our past, we run the risk of having the same thing done to us by our future. Think about this.

Right now scientists are making great progress growing ‘meat’ in the lab. Beef, chicken, pork, all being cultivated. I mean, you can give a cow grass and water and get back milk and meat. So at some point we’ll be able to duplicate that process in a factory and we won’t need cows anymore. And ironically, this will very possibly mean that cows will go extinct, except maybe for zoos and ‘wildlife’ parks. Why would you keep one around otherwise?

And our descendants 200 years from now will look back in absolute horror that we once ‘ate’ animals, and talk about how ‘uncivilized’ we were back then and why didn’t we know better.

So where do you go to get measured for a skin suit?

December 3, 2017

Oh, Well . . .

Still working on my Direct TV problem, I put in a call to DTV to double-check on any possible problems on their end, though since the video/audio wasn’t being recorded, that seemed to eliminate DTV and the DVR.

After I finally got past Roger from Bombay, I talked to Will, a Tech Support guy who actually knew something. He suggested I try changing a couple video display settings, turning off Native mode, and setting Screen Format to Original Format.

This was about noon when I changed the settings and when we left the rig about 2:15 the problem hadn’t resurfaced. So we’ll see.

As I said we did head out a little after 2pm, heading up to the Potatoe Patch Restaurant on1960. Although in yesterday’s blog I said we were meeting Janice and Dave Evans, we were really meeting Debi and Ed Hurlburt who were driving down from the Lake Conroe TT to meet us.

I got Janice and Dave stuck in my mind, because looking back in the blog for the last time we visited there, so Jan could see what she had, it was Janice and Dave that we met there then.

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

I was expecting a lot of extra traffic due to the fact that I-45 was closed through downtown Houston because of construction. So we took the 610 Loop around to the Hardy Toll Rd. and then north to 1960, and it was smooth sailing all the way.

Jan and I both had the Chicken Fried Chicken with Baked Potato and salad. Really good, along with the great homemade rolls, fried okra, and fried green tomatoes they give out as free appetizers.

And as usual with Ed and Debi, we talked for almost 3 hours before we all finally headed home. Before we left the restaurant I checked the weather here in Santa Fe, and it said there was heavy rain and lightning.

But it only sprinkled all the way home, until we got in the League City area when it started pouring down. But even with that we were surprised to see all the flooded yards and streets as we got close to the RV Park, though lucky for us it had stopped by the time we got to the rig.

And checking my La Crosse Weather Station it was easy to see where all the flooding came from. They had had almost 4 and a quarter inches of rain in just those few hours. WOW!

Oh, well. After we got home and I was watching TV, the video/audio glitched several times, so the DTV display fix didn’t.

December 3, 2018

Got My Jan Back . . .

I spent most of the day at work replenishing our stock of instructional DVD’s, copying the ISO files to the DVD’s, and then printing up the DVD labels on Avery’s Design & Print program and pressing the labels onto the DVD with a label applicator.

I did order a new monitor for my desk at work today. I have two monitors, one for the webserver that runs the CentOS version of Linux, and my personal machine running Win10.

The webserver’s monitor died last week, and when I found a old one in the back storage area, it ran for about two days before it followed the first one into oblivion.

I found this one on Amazon, an Acer 19.5” monitor for $71, plus an additional 4 year Extended Warranty for $1.76. Should be here Friday.

Since this new one is better than the one I’m using on my Win10 machine, I’ll take the new one and move my old one over to the webserver.

I headed up to Katy about 3pm, wanting to get up there and back down here, staying ahead of the going-home traffic. And it worked pretty well.

Jan said Brandi, Lowell, and Landon got back about 12:30 this morning, completely bushed, but happy. They had a great time, and are already planning to go back in a couple of years.

Getting back to the Clear Lake area, we stopped off at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood for a dinner of a dozen Raw Oysters for us to split, Grilled Catfish for Jan, Shrimp Gumbo for me, and Grilled Veggies for both of us.

Coming home we saw a lot more Christmas decorations along FM646, including this yard that’s been lit up like this for a couple of weeks, the first one we saw.

As Jan said, someone owns a cherry picker crane. Very nice!

And when we got back to the rig, I was able to surprise Jan with the fact that I had decorated the rig while she was gone.

Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do it justice. The lights on the ground are cycling through 16 different patterns, as is the string draped between the window awnings. Plus there’s the large white-lit wreath on the front and the multi-color one hanging on the side.

Best decorated RV in the park. Of course it’s pretty much the only one.

December 3, 2019

Two More Days . . .

Today was a day of errands, so we were out the door about 12:30pm, trying to get a bunch of last minute stuff done before we leave for NYC Thursday morning.

VERY early Thursday morning.

Like up about 3am, our car service pickup at 4:30, at the airport about 5, with our SW flight leaving at 6:40am. With a flight time of 3:15 minutes we’ll get to LaGuardia at 10:55, losing an hour to the time change.

However our first stop this morning was Snooze for breakfast about 1pm. Then it was a stop by my client’s to pick up some Amazon stuff that came in, and also drop off our Christmas Cards in our Outgoing Mail box.

Next was a WalMart stop for stuff, and then a quick hair trim at my barbershop. Jan then did a Target and Old Navy shopping stop for some outfit stuff. Then we were homeward bound.

When I mentioned yesterday about taking the rig up to the Cummins dealer up on the north 610 loop, several readers wondered why we didn’t leave the rig there while we’re in NYC. We kind of thought about it, and even my client suggested it. But there was just too much of a time crunch.

Trying to arrange an appointment, get the rig up there, getting a place to stay and leave our stuff there would mean that we would be paying for a place for a week while we’re gone. It just wouldn’t work.

I did get some great info from reader Richard King who gave me the name and phone number for the RV Repair Manager at the Cummins place. Gives me a great place to start. But nothing’s probably going to happen until after the first of the year.

Jan and  I want to add a 6’ x 8’ storage shed on our RV site. But no one else has one here, and it seems like we remember something about that they’re not allowed.

But it can’t hurt to ask, right?

Right now he’s got 3 empty sites out of 17, and the 5th Wheel next to us is leaving in a couple of weeks. Plus a lot of other resident RV parks in the area allow storage buildings.

So to help out with his decision and show him what it would look like, I took this photo of the shed,

and this photo of our rig site,

and put them together for this.]

If I had wanted to take more time, I would have put an adjustment mask over the building to darken it down some so the brightness/contrast would match the rig photo more closely.]

I ordered Jan this new sweat shirt that, unfortunately, won’t be here for our NYC trip,

But Jan’s really looking forward to it getting here.

December 3, 2020

Cold, Wet, and Colorful . . .

Today was quiet, and cold. Very cold, at least for south Texas. It stay overcast all day, with a few sprinkles, and just barely made it up to 55°

So we just hung around the rig all day until about 3:45 when we headed over to Victory Lakes to have dinner at the Denny’s there. But I think the real reason Jan wanted to eat there so she could update her mask and earring collections from our favorite waitress, Staci.

Staci’s mom makes the masks and jewelry and Staci’s regular customers come by and shop. Jan was looking for Christmas-themed stuff and Staci had a whole full of stuff.

Here’s what Jan picked out.

Actually though, the one on the bottom right is mine.

Jan also picked out a pair of snowflake earrings that she really liked as well.

I’m not sure about ‘green’ snowflakes. I know to stay away from the ‘yellow’ snow, but I’m not sure about the ‘green’ stuff.

And today turned out to be a surfeit of Christmas earrings for Jan. Coming home we stopped off at the Santa Fe PO to pick our mail, which contained the new tags for our Jeep.

Also in the mail was another set of Christmas earrings, these from long-time friend, Phyllis Schell,

who sent these really cute Santa earrings to Jan.

And on the subject of car tags, it’s looking like soon there will be no more yearly trips to the DMV to renew your tags. It looks like Digital License Plates are coming soon.

You can apparently update your tags using your cell phone, and also use it to track your car.

Of course, I wonder how long it will be before people’s tags are getting hacked, with cuss words showing up, crooks changing the tags on their getaway cars, etc.

There’s always Unintended Consequences, no matter what.

December 3, 2021

Almost On Our Way . . .

I spent most of today wrapping up things at work, prepping for my being gone next week. Then coming home I stopped off at Costco to top off the Jeep.

Then we just waited for Jennifer, my client’s office manager to get home so we could go by her place and drop off Miss Karma. Jennifer is our go-to cat-sitter, and is the only person Karma has ever stayed with. We know she’s in good hands.

Our next stop was at the Santa Fe McDonald’s for dinner. I had been jonsin’ for a McRib, and Jan wanted one of their Chicken Sandwiches. Still good.

Then after a quick Dollar General stop, we finished up at Jack Box’s for a couple of Breakfast Sandwiches for tomorrow morning.g

We plan to head out around 8-8:30ish, with our overnight at the Wyndham Garden in Texarkana, the same place we’ll stay on the way back to Santa Fe next Saturday.

More From On The Road Tomorrow.

December 3, 2022

More New Friends and A New Record . . .

Getting back to yesterday’s fun.

We met up with long-time friends, Peri and Jim Dean, and his sister and her husband, Melinda and Chris King at Jimmy Changas at about 4:30pm, early enough to be the rush. By 5 or a little after, they’re on a wait.

Jimmy Changas seems to have become our new meeting place for getting together with old/new friends, since we were just here a couple of weeks ago with our new Canadian friend’s, Ron and Anne Fortier.

We’ve known Jim and Peri since we first met up in Las Vegas in 2011. They had been blog readers for a couple of years and wanted to get together while we were all there. And we’ve been getting together whenever we can ever since.

This time Jim, Peri, Chris, and Melinda are boarding a Carnival cruise this afternoon, taking them to Key West and the Bahamas. So since they were staying in Texas City, this was the perfect time to get together.

Jan and I both had the same thing we had last time, Jan with the Plato Soldado,

while I again got the Rio Grande.

We had a fantastic time getting back together with Jim and Peri, and getting to know Chris and Melinda.

We’re all RV’ers, and it was amazing how many of the same places we’ve all been to, and had a great time reminiscing about it all.

And we set a new record. We got there at 4:30 and didn’t leave until a little after 9pm. That’s more than 4-1/2 hours. And of course as we did last time, we well compensated Martha, our server, since she could have probably had 3 or 4 other groups at our table.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get together again when they get back from their cruise before they all head home.

December 3, 2023

KAS Kreations . . .

Today was an easy one, with lunch at Denny’s (or breakfast, anyway). And it’s amazing the omelets that you get when you tip the cook as well as your server.

Almost more than we could eat. I told Jan that if we ever tip Hugo the cook again, we’re going to need a bigger plate.

Next up was right down the Interstate to the Tanger Factory Outlet Mall. Peri Dean showed Jan her new Vera Bradley purse that she had just bought. And Jan, having kind of outgrown her smaller one, thought this one would be perfect for her.

So a quick stop at the Vera Bradley Outlet Store netted her this one.

She likes that it’s bigger and has a longer. heavier strap.

Yesterday, our Old Reliable 2004 Dodge Dakota truck hit 310,000 miles.

And of course, it’s got another 90,000+ miles being dragged around behind the RV that didn’t register on the odometer.