Our RV Adventures

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Getting up to Webster this afternoon, I dropped Jan off at Changes, a local resale shop, so she could shop for some things for our cruise, and she found a very nice sweater and a pair of dress pants that she really liked. So she’s happy and says she’s all set for cruising clothes.

While she was shopping I drove over to the office to drop off some orders that had come in here at the rig.

Then it was on over to long-time favorite King Food for lunch once again, a place where we’ve been eating since December 1978. As I’ve said before, we’re on our 4th owner and it’s just a delicious as 40+ years ago.

Then we came back down to our area for our weekly HEB visit, just a little late.

I did go ahead and make our Uber reservation for our trip down to the RCL Terminal this coming Saturday morning. I chose the $50 UberXL version since we have some luggage. Much better than the $270 Action Limo version.

I did notice something new on the Uber app. You can both tell it what time you want to be picked up, or tell it what time you want to be at your destination. So we scheduled our pickup here at the RV for 10:15, which according to the app, should get us there about 10:55am.

Our scheduled boarding time is 11:30 – 12:00, so this should give us time to get dropped off and our luggage checked it. Plus we’ve been told that often you can board before your actual time, so getting there a little little should work out OK.

Later this afternoon, I made Jan and I reservations at the Chops Grille Steakhouse for dinner the first night of our cruise. Based on all the YouTube cruising videos we’ve watched, we were told to avoid the Windjammer Buffet the first night since everyone seems to go there then. Instead they said to hit the buffet for lunch before the ship sails at 4pm, and then book one of the extra-cost specialty restaurants for dinner.

The one thing I haven’t been able to find out is what night is scheduled for ‘Formal Night’. I don’t know if it’s always the same night on every cruise, or does it varies from cruise to cruise depending on length.

Maybe some of our regular-cruising readers will have some ideas, or how to find out what night it is.

Thought for the Day:

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 2, 2010

Great Steaks on the Guadalupe . . .

This morning started out with some of Gina’s great coffee and more catching up on things. Then about 10:15 Gina and Jan took two of the cats, Jonesy and Beau Kitty, down to the vet in nearby Sattler for some shots and micro-chipping.

Then after they got back we drove over to Milagro’s, our favorite local Mexican place. Their chips and salsa are top of the line and everything is seasoned perfectly. I had a taco salad and a bowl of chicken tortilla soup, while Jan and Gina split an order of bean and cheese nachos and a taco salad. They have a fantastic Blackberry Habanero Vinaigrette salad dressing that I have to get every time we go.

Getting back to the ranch after lunch, Gina decided it was a good time for a nap, while Jan and I drove back down to Sattler. I wanted to stop by the Wells Fargo to get a new debit card, and then go across the street to the Ace Hardware to get some supplies to complete Gina’s Honey-Do list.

After we got back from Sattler, Jan also thought it was a good time for a nap, while I worked some on the Honey-Do list.

Then about 5:30 we all drove over to Gruene (pronounced ‘Green”) to eat dinner at the Gruene River Grill, a steak place Gina had been to once before.

And boy was it good. Gina and I both had the Balsamic Ribeyes, and Jan had the Grilled Sirloin with mushrooms. All came with roasted new potatoes and very al dente green beans. These were great pieces of meat.

Although it was hard to tell at night, the restaurant overlooks the beautiful Guadalupe River that winds all through this area, and they have a lot of decks and tables for outside dining.

This is a place we’ll have to go back to.

We got home a little after 8, and then while Jan and Gina watched TV, I finished up the Honey-Do list, and cleaned all the ‘Gunk’ out of her computer.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow Jan and I head about 65 miles up the road to Burnet to meet the kids for a long weekend on Inks Lake. Should be fun.

December 2, 2011

BBQ and Square . . .

After an enjoyable morning of coffee and doing nothing else, our son Chris called about 11:30am to see if we were home. He and Linda were coming by to borrow my Square credit card reader.

If you ever need to take a credit card, even only occasionally, and you have an iPad, iPhone, or an Android phone, the Square is for you.

Your account is free, the reader is free, and they only charge 2.75% and no transaction fee. That’s cheaper than some of my clients get with their regular merchant accounts

It’s very simple to use. The reader plugs into the earphone jack on your device, and after running the app, you just enter the amount and swipe the card.

In 12-36 hours the money shows up in your bank account and you get an email telling you it’s there. When I did a test using my own credit card one afternoon, the money was there the next morning.

Anyway, Chris makes a very popular Habanero Jelly, and now Apple Butter and Banana Butter. He’s going to be selling it at the Kemah Farmer’s Market this weekend, and although most people pay cash, he wants to be able to take credit cards if necessary. He signed up for a reader a few days ago and already has his account set up, but his reader hasn’t come in yet.

About 1pm I headed out for an afternoon of mostly errands, with a little client stuff thrown in for fun.

After a drive-thru at the bank, I stopped off to pick up a Houston Chronicle. Not for the news. Who wants day-old news when you’ve got the Internet?

No, I wanted the Fry’s Electronics sales ad that always comes in the Friday edition. I’ve got a number of client projects in work, and I want to see what Fry’s has to offer.

My next stop was to check in with a client. I’m trying to get him to upgrade his main machine before we leave in a couple of months. His old machine is about 4 years old and due for an upgrade.

Coming home I stopped by the dry cleaners to pick our summer bedspread that I dropped off the other day. When we’re back here in Houston we have a heavier one for the winter, and then switch back to the summer one right before we leave.

Leaving the dry cleaners I dropped off the clean one at the store room until we’re ready to leave.

Later, a little before 5pm Jan and I headed over through Dickinson to I-45 and then north up to Spring Creek BBQ, one of the best (or at least the closest, best) rib places in this area. And their sides, BBQ Beans, Green Beans, Corn on the Cob, Mac ‘n Cheese, Potato Salad, Cole Slaw, and fresh, hot, homemade rolls, are also hard to beat. And the sides are all you can eat, too.

Really, really, really good!

December 2, 2013

Back to ‘Normal’

Today was really our first ‘normal’ day back here at Galveston Bay RV Resort. We had lunch at Monterey’s Little Mexico for Chicken Tortilla Soup and Beef Fajita Nachos. Then it was off to a client’s house/office out in the country. Like many of my clients, these are also long-time friends. In fact they used to live right down the street from us and our daughters grew up together.

In this case, Tom’s computer, one that I built for him in January 2007, is still going strong. But it has been made obsolete by time. He uses it mostly for customer emails and shipping UPS packages using their software. But the latest version of UPS Worldship no longer supports the OS, Windows 2000, running on this computer. And although the computer could be upgraded to run a newer OS, it still would be a 7-year-old computer.

So we’re going to replace it, probably with a laptop, since they’re traveling more now. He’s also going to have to replace one of his printers, an older model that HP didn’t support with Win7/Win8 drivers.

I’ll get back to him later this week with several laptop ideas for him to select from and we’ll go from there..

Our next stop was a Starbuck’s for a Pumpkin Spice Latte for Jan and a Cinnamon Dolce Latte for me before heading to the Chase Bank next door. They sent me a new VISA debit card to replace my old one because they received information that my old number may have been compromised. I haven’t noticed any problems but why take a chance. I just needed to run it through the ATM to activate it.

Then it was off to another client to check in and get some idea of any upgrades he wants while I’m here.

Our last stop before we headed home was at Tuesday Morning so Jan could check out their Christmas card selection. She says they always have the most unique cards at the best prices.

Getting home about 4pm, it was time for a nap.

And it was a good nap.

December 2, 2014

DUMBO Pizza . . .

As I figured yesterday, our stay-at-home day today, became a going out shopping and eating day.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But before we left I talked to Galveston Bay RV Resort to see how things were coming along with getting their new sites open, and it’s looking good. Turns out they’re now hoping to have them up and running by Dec. 15th. Here’s hoping.

We left the rig about 1pm, heading for the Fry’s Electronics down in North Houston. I came up with a couple of more projects based on the Fry’s Christmas Sales email alerts that I’ve been getting, and we won’t be back down to the Fry’s in Webster until this weekend.

It’s been 10 years or more since I’ve shopped at this Fry’s, but since the layout is pretty much the same as the one in Webster, I found everything I was looking for, and of course as usual, I found several things I didn’t know I was looking for, but apparently really needed. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.

The other advantage to this Fry’s is that coming back home, we pass right by the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria located in the Woodlands. Grimaldi’s has been our favorite pizza place since we first ate at one with Brandi and Piper when they visited us up in New York in 2009. We ate at the original Grimaldi’s located in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area of Brooklyn. It was the best pizza we’d ever eaten, so we were really happy when a couple of years ago our friend Lyn Cross alerted us to the fact that they had started opening Grimaldi’s around the country.

Since then we eaten at Grimaldi’s all over, including two in Houston, two in San Antonio, one in Tucson, and one in Gilbert, AZ. And probably a couple of more we’ve forgotten about.

As usual, we started out with the Small Salad, which despite the name, is large enough for both of us to have two servings.

Then it was on to the large 18” pizza, with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Italian Sausage, Meatballs, and Jalapenos. Besides the crust made with New York water and cooked in a coal-fired brick oven, another thing that makes this pizza unique is that the mozzarella cheese is laid on in slices, and not shredded cheese just sprinkled on.

We always get the large so we’ll have plenty of leftovers, as this pizza heats up great.

Heading toward home, I made a quick stop at the nearby Barnes & Noble for me, and a drive-by checkout of the location of  The Container Store for a later visit for Jan.

Lowell sent over Landon’s school pictures that just came back.

This kid should be a model.

December 2, 2015

Boo Yah x 2 . . .

After our coffee and pumpkin bread this morning I got back to work on a problem with my NEW BLOG – COMING SOON! ©®™.

Yesterday I upgraded the Jetpack plugin, and somewhere along the line it went terribly wrong. When the update was finished, instead of going back to the blog, I  got a screen that said the blog was undergoing maintenance and to try again in a few minutes.

And when I tried again in a few minutes, still no blog. Just a red and black screen that said “500 – Internal Server Error”.

Rut Roh!

I decided to wait for a while to see if it would straighten out and went on to some other projects.

For lunch Jan heated up the last of yesterday;’s chili. Rather than crackers, we tear a corn tortilla into small pieces in the chili before we put it in the microwave. Just as good as yesterday.

Later in the afternoon, I got back on my dead new blog problem. I went in the back door through my Godaddy account and made a complete backup of the entire folder that holds the website. I’ve done a lot of custom css programming on this, and I didn’t want to lose it if I had to wipe things and start over.

My first thought was to see if I could just reinstall WordPress on top of itself, hopefully correcting the problem. If I did this I wouldn’t lose my css mods, but I would have to reset a lot of things to get it back to where I was to start with.

What I really wanted to do was to deactivate and delete the Jetpack plugin since that’s where the problem seemed to start. But since I couldn’t get WordPress to run I couldn’t use its Dashboard to do that like I normally would. But I finally figured out how to do it through the Godaddy backdoor

And once I deactivated the Jetpack plugin, I was able to bring up the website again. Then I was able to log in and use the WordPress Dashboard to delete and then reinstall Jetpack. And this time it all worked with no problems.

Boo Yah!

With that problem fixed, I moved on to the problem on this blog a couple of days ago. I was trying to correct the fact that when I originally exported all the files from my old blog and imported them here, for some reason only the last ten days of June 2014 came over.

I repeated the export/import thing several times on just that month, still with no luck. So I came up with a ‘cunning’ plan to just copy and paste each of the missing 20 days from the old blog to the new one, one day at a time. This of course resulted in the people who have email subscriptions to this blog receiving year and a half old copies of blog posts, all within a few minutes. Luckily I was made aware of the problem after I had only done four.

So time for a new ‘cunning’ plan.

My next idea was to export the month of June 2014 from the old blog to my new COMING SOON blog, and then export from there to this blog, thinking maybe that this would work.  So after I got my faulty Jetpack plugin update problem fixed, I gave it a try.

And Boo Yah! again, this time it worked.

So another problem crossed off my list.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading down to Brandi’s for dinner,  and later a Christmas Lights hayride with Landon. Then we’ll spend the night, and Friday morning we’ll take Landon out for breakfast and then to school.

Besides the obvious ‘fun times with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon’ reason for this, the other one is that Brandi is having day surgery Friday morning for a reoccurring sinus problem, and Lowell and Brandi will need to leave for the hospital before it’s time to drop Landon off at school. So it’s Nana and Papa to the rescue.

Since we’re heading down to Brandi’s, we want to take our Gate Guarding bin with us to keep in their attic. We store this Gate specific stuff so we don’t have to carry it around all year, and this is a good time to get that taken care of, and it gets the bin out of the coach.

So I needed to get our Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm systems cleaned up and stowed away in the bin. Not really a problem, but since the traffic sensors were buried in the roadway, they were still covered in mud, and in a plastic bag stored in the back of the truck. So I had to get them out and washed off, and stowed away with the rest of the stuff.

For dinner tonight Jan heated up our leftover Grimaldi’s pizza from our Monday night visit.  Still delicious.

We’re really looking forward to tomorrow night.

December 2, 2016

Hazelnut Coffee and Pumpkin Pie . . .

We enjoyed a nice, quiet, gloomy, rainy morning with our Hazelnut coffee topped with whipped cream. Just perfect for this time of year.

And of course Miss Karma gets her share too. The whipped cream, not the coffee.

Then about 1:15pm we headed out, first for the Chicken Fried Steak/Fried Catfish lunch buffet at Barth’s. Really good as usual, along with Hushpuppies and Fried Okra. They also had Mac N Cheese and Pinto Beans, but I’d rather fill up on steak and catfish and not Beans and Mac N Cheese.

Then it was off about 10 miles north to check out the location of the new site that I’ll be working for two days starting tomorrow morning at 5:30am. I’d rather have problems finding it today, and not tomorrow morning in the dark.

Last night I had checked out the location on Google Maps aerial and then grabbed the GPS co-ords to enter in my GPS. And, this time at least, the GPS took me right to the correct gate.

BTW I learned a trick with Google Maps a while back that I thought I’d pass on. Of course it’s very possible that everyone else already knows this, but I’ll pass it on anyway.

I regularly get directions to find a certain FM (Farm To Market)  road or a CR (County Road) leading to a gate. And if you have no idea where to start, it can be a pain tracking it down. But if you just go to the general area in Google Maps and type in the road name, i.e. CR 169 or FM1353, it will take you right to the road.

A Big Help.

On the way home we made a Wal-Mart stop for a few things. Strangely, it’s always just for a ‘few things’, but it never seems to end up that way. In fact before we left the rig today, Jan was working on her list and I noticed she had two different pieces of paper. When I asked her why, she said, “Well, this one is today’s list, and this one is next week’s list.”

So that’s the problem. Too many lists.

Last up was a quick stop at HEB for a Pumpkin Pie refill.

Finishing up, I thought I’d give you an update review on the

iKross 2-in-1 Tablet and Cellphone Extended Cup Mount Holder

that I got from Amazon on Black Friday.

I got a chance to try it out on our San Antonio Trip yesterday, and I really like it. It’s very sturdy and locks into the cupholder very tightly and will not come out until you release it.

It works both with my tablet to run Waze

and my cellphone to find local places.

And it even makes a great hat rack.

A Triple Threat.

December 2, 2017

Running In OverDrive . . .

As far as the Direct TV problem I’m having with the video/audio blanking for 3 or 4 seconds intermittently, it’s still kind of up in the air.

A number of blog readers commented that they’re having the same problem with Direct TV, and even Dish. But I’m now looking in a different direction.

Last night I was watching a news show and during the last five minutes, the video/audio flash 3 or 4 times. But when I went back and looked at the recording, the flashing wasn’t there. Now because of the way a DVR works, it looks like the problem is actually probably with my TV.

On a DVR the satellite signal comes into the DVR and is fed through the HD and then out to the TV. This is why you can be watching a TV show for an hour, click the Record button in the last 5 minutes, and have the entire hour recorded on the HD.

So if the video/audio glitching was coming in from Direct TV, then it should also be on the recording. But in 3 different tests, the problem has never shown up on the recordings.

I’ve got another test I’m going to try tomorrow that hopefully will narrow it down more. I’ll keep you updated.

Jan and I headed out about 2:15, first heading over to the Kemah area on TX-146 to have lunch at Stomp’s Burger Joint once again.

As much as we like Whataburger and Five Guys, Stomp’s is at a whole ‘nother level.

Where else can you get two 8 oz. 100% Angus Beef hand-formed patties?

And in my burger’s case, the Hog Wild, bacon is also ground into the meat.

It really doesn’t get much better.

Leaving Stomp’s we drove up through Kemah and Seabrook to check out all the new stuff being built in the area. Then it was on into Webster so Jan could get a question answered about the OverDrive app that she uses to check out books from the Harris County Public Library on her Kindle Fire.

She used to be able to suggest e-books for the library to obtain for readers to check out from within OverDrive, but somewhere along the line that menu item disappeared. Turns out that you now have to go to the website to ask for new books.

With that taken care of, we took the long way home by heading down to La Marque to the Buc-ee’s to pick up some Cranberry and Blueberry Muffins for upcoming breakfasts.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re driving up to the FM1960 area to meet Janice and Dave Evans at the Potatoe Patch Restaurant. It’ll be good to see them again.

December 2, 2018

It Gets Crowded In The Bathroom . . .

At least that’s what Jan said to me this morning, concerning her ongoing Adventures In Pet-Sitting.

Apparently the two large dogs, a 100+ Black Lab, a slightly smaller Black Lab/Akita? Mix, and Mooshe the cat, follow her everywhere she goes, even to the bathroom. And they get very upset if she tries to lock them out.

I told her that they’re probably following her around trying to figure out what she did with their ‘real’ family.

And speaking of the ‘real’ family, they’re expected home from Disney World around midnight tonight, and then I’ll pick up Jan tomorrow afternoon, and bring my baby back home.

I headed up to the Clear Lake area about 2:30 for a couple of errands. My first stop was at my client’s office to take a look at a problem with the Shipping computer. It’s the only one that uses a WiFi connection rather than a CAT 5 Ethernet cable, but for some reason it had fallen off the network.

The Office Manager called me late Friday afternoon to let me know about the problem. She had already checked out the usual suspects, like unplugging and re-plugging the WiFi USB dongle, trying a different USB port, and rebooting. All with no luck.

I keep a couple of spare WiFi dongles just for this reason, but a new one didn’t fix the problem. So I clicked the ‘Network Troubleshooter’ and let it go to work.

First up, it told that the Ethernet connection wasn’t plugged in.

Well, duh!

But then after a few seconds, it also told me that the WiFi adapter was disabled, and asked did I want to repair it?

Well, duh!

I’m assuming the problem was really with the USB WiFi interface and not the hardware dongle itself, since a new one didn’t help. but in a few seconds it said it was fixed, and it was.

The ‘why’ is the part I don’t understand, since it was working and then it wasn’t. So I’ll have to keep an eye on it in case it reoccurs.

With that taken care of, my next stop was over at the WalMart for some groceries, and then next door to Sam’s to pick up a prescription, only to find that the Sam’s Pharmacy is now closed on Sundays. Bummer!

I got home about 4:45 to find Karma waiting semi-impatiently to be fed. She knows her normal feeding time is 4pm, and she can apparently tell time really well, Or at least her stomach can.

She will be sound asleep in the front windshield, and then about 5 minutes to 4, she’ll jump down, and then walk over to where one of us is sitting. She’ll then sit down and just stare at us, never blinking, never looking away.

Spooky!

I was wrong. And certainly not for the first time or the last. But this was a simple math mistake, so jeez! But then none of you caught either, so I feel a little better.

In last night’s blog, talking about the oil capacity of our rig’s Cummins 350 ISC engine, I said this.

My engine holds 26 quarts of oil, or 4½ gallons.

And of course, it’s 6½ gallons, not 4½.

Wrapping up, I have no idea why all the paragraphs were triple-spaced in last night’s blog. So we’ll see how tonight goes.

December 2, 2019

Sweetie’s Home . . .

All’s happy in the White household again. My Sweetie’s back home. I drove up to Katy to pick her up yesterday afternoon, and with perfect timing, arrived just a few minutes after Brandi, Lowell, and Landon got home. And since we hadn’t had Mexican in a week or so, we stopped off at Los Ramirez. Mexican Restaurant once we got back to the Santa Fe area.

And I guess I could say we had a good run at Los Ramirez. They had big signs on their windows saying they had ‘New Menus’. And they did.

But no new menu items stood out. What did stand out was the price increases.

Jan’s favorite Pechuga Rellena,

went from $10.99 to $12.99.  Not bad really.

But the one that hurt was my Beef Fajita Taco Salad,

which on the Lunch Menu was previously $5.59. A really great deal.

But the ‘new’ price is now $9.95.

OUCH!

But still a pretty good deal, just not a great deal anymore. Of course we’ll still go back.

Today was really busy, due to missing a bunch of days, first for our Kingsland trip, and then the rig breakdown and repair. And then of course we’ll leaving for NYC in a couple of days. So a lot of catching up was needed, as well as prepping for our trip.

And in more trip news, it looks like there’s a good chance that we’ll have a White Christmas in NYC, with multiple inches due in the next day or so, while it should clear for our flight up there on Thursday.

The best of both worlds.

Catching up with some of the many oil leak comments, a couple of our readers suggested to add a dye to our rig oil to see if I can see where it’s leaking from. I did think about this, but because of the way the oil is just blown all over I’m not sure I could really see exactly where it’s leaking from. But I’ll keep it in mind.

Several people, including Jan, thought I should get back in touch with Dix Diesel Center to complain that they didn’t fix the oil leak. But here’s the problem with that.

Let say I do call them. If I were them, I would ask me to bring the rig back so they could look at it again. But now we’re looking at a 350 mile round trip and another expensive multi-day hotel stay.

Plus they would almost certainly run into the same problem I did. The only way to test to see if the leak is fixed is to hook up the toad and tow it for 50 miles or so. For example, when I moved the rig over to the River Bend RV Park after I picked up the rig from Dix, a distance of about 3 miles, I saw no sign of any oil leaking. And I checked.

So let’s say I just call them and ask for my money back. Again, if I were them, I’d ask me to bring the rig back so that they can confirm that the leak wasn’t really fixed. I mean, maybe I’m just trying to con them.

And the testing is a major problem, since the leak only seems to occur when we’re towing.

And this fact complicates my thought to just bite the bullet and take it up to the Cummins dealer north of Houston, and then stay in a residence hotel down here. But unless we leave them the truck, how do they test it?

I guess we drive could back up there every time to try it out, but that would be a PITA, for sure.

So, as I said, I’m still thinking about it.

December 2, 2020

Old and New Friends . . .

Jan and I were on the road about 10 am, heading down to Galveston, in the pouring rain. We were meeting up with Jim and Peri Dean and a couple of their RV friends, all over from San Antonio for the week, staying at the Galveston Island State Park.

They said they wanted Breakfast/Brunch so our first (and only suggestion) was the Sunflower Café and Bakery on 14 St.

Crossing onto the Island was ‘interesting’ to say the least. There was so much wind that the bay was just one big whitecap, and a couple of times I almost changed lanes without turning the steering wheel.

Fun!

Being a Wednesday we got seated immediately and a few minutes later Jim and Peri showed up, along with new friends Bob and Susan.

We had a great time getting to know them, comparing places we’d all been to, and places we still wanted to go to. Apparently Susan has a very long Bucket List.

Jan, Peri, and Susan all went with the Pumpkin Belgian Waffle,

while I got the Sausage and Grits. Good, but not quite as good as the Shrimp and Grits at Snooze. The Snooze version is much more flavorful.

Bob got a Fried Flounder Sandwich, and I lost track of what Jim had, but we all agreed that everything was delicious.

And of course, Jan, Peri, and Susan all had to visit the Bakery for some take-home goodies.

And as usual when RV’ers get together, we were there just talking for several hours, almost 3, actually, until Bob and Susan finally had to leave for a business call.

We had a great time seeing Jim and Peri again, as well as getting to know Bob and Susan. All nice people, and hopefully we’ll see them again soon.

I had been wanting to get a service manual for our new (to us) 2003 Jeep Liberty Sport. Of course, I thought about the standard ones, the Haynes and Chilton ones, but I’ve never really been happy with these.

They always seem to tell me a lot about things I already know, and very little about things I want or need to know. But I was resigned to getting one or the other (or both) but then I came across this one on Amazon.

It’s an original factory service manual, and it was only about $10 more than the Haynes version.

I remember back in the 70’s and 80’s when you bought a new car there was always a coupon in the back of the owner’s manual so you could order a copy of the factory manual,  but that went away sometime in the 90’s. And anyway I imagine that the manuals are all on DVD’s by now.

But I really lucked out finding this one.

December 2, 2021

Wash Day . . .

We left the rig about 12:30 this afternoon with a list of things to do before we leave for Branson on Saturday. But first up of course was lunch. This time at Pho Barr once again.

As before we started out with a couple of their Grilled Pork Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce.

Then while Jan got her usual Grilled Chicken Vermicelli Bowl,

I got the Filet Mignon Pho Bo. I mean it is a Pho place, right? It’s right there in the name.

All really delicious. We’re really looking forward to the one in our area opening.

Then it was off to get my haircut before our trip. Which of course didn’t take long.

Heading back toward home, we made a stop at the Blue Wave Car Wash to get our Jeep all spiffy for Branson.

Next it was across the for a few things from WalMart for our trip. Finally coming home we stopped off at the PO to drop off our Christmas cards. Jan had pushed to get them done before we left so they wouldn’t be hanging over her when we get back.

Tomorrow, a lot of last-minute trip stuff.

December 2, 2022

Old Friends And New . . .

And A New Record.

But more tomorrow night because it’s late and I’m tired.

December 2, 2023

Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

Lunch today was at Twin Peaks, with both of us getting something different.

Jan got a cup of the Green Chili Chicken soup,

and an order of the Chicken Tenders.

While I got a bowl of Brisket Chili, which I had gotten before,

and an order of the Spicy Thai Ribs, something I haven’t had before.

But I will have them again. They were really good, with a crunchy outside crust and a moist, juicy inside.

Jan and I both had some leftover, so we got a personalized take-home container from Sylvia.

And speaking of Sylvia, here she is, along with her friend Bridget.

In case you’re keeping score, that’s Sylvia on the left and Bridget on the right.

And as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the servers there think we’re Sylvia’s grandparents, since we always ask for her. And we’re old.

Finally getting our goodbye hugs, we headed back down to our area for our weekly Wal-Mart stuff, and then home, only interrupted by a Cowboy Coffee stop, where we got a chance to talk with Theresa, the owner.

Theresa decorates the place for every holiday, and she went all out for Christmas this year.

Another nice, but dreary day.

You may have heard about COP28, the big Global Warming conference being held in Dubai this weekend. But it seems a lot of attendees got stuck in Munich, Germany on the way there.

‘Literally’ stuck.

As in ‘frozen to the runway’.

“Private jets in Munich on the way to Dubai global warming conference are literally frozen on the runway, which has turned into a glacier,” said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist and former NOAA chief scientist.

Of course, it’s not just Munich, it’s over 60% of Europe covered in snow, the most since 2010.

Don’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor!

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The recent Thanksgiving holiday kind of messed with our normal weekend schedule, so instead of Denny’s and HEB today, it was Denny’s and Wal-Mart

HEB is now tomorrow.

And while we were at Denny’s this afternoon, we had to confess to our regular server, Angie, that we had cheated on her yesterday with another restaurant, i.e., our breakfast at IHOP with our friends Debi and Ed.

Luckily for us, she forgave us and brought out our omelets.

* * * * *

Finishing up, I’m sure you’ve seen those fireplace videos on YouTube, you know the ones with all the nice colors and none of the heat. Well, NASA has their own version, complete with sound effects.

The 8-hour video is from the November 2022 Artemis 1 launch to the moon.

Check it out.

Thought For The Day:

Self-respect: that secure feeling that no one, as of yet, is suspicious.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 1, 2010

You learn something new every week . . .

First off, we’ve got a great photo of Master Landon going to visit Santa at the mall in HIS Santa Suit.

Brandi said that, unlike a lot of kids who cry sitting on Santa’s lap, Landon started laughing out loud when Santa tickled him under his chin.

Now what did I learn new this week?  Two things.

First, I CAN lose two credit cards in one week.

I mentioned the other day how I somehow lost/left my credit card in a Wal-Mart. I’m still not sure what happened. I swiped my CC and remember putting it back in my billfold and then taking my cashback and putting it in my billfold. I can only guess that the card fell out. But I got it back the next day from Customer Service, and I’ve been checking my account, but no unknown charges have come through. So, no harm, no foul.

The second thing I learned is that when an ATM now takes your card, it doesn’t keep it.

It SHREDS it!

Yesterday, I stopped at a Wells Fargo to deposit a check from a client. These new ATMs have a feature where you can just stick the check in the slot and it reads it and deposits it. No deposit slip, nothing.

But, unlike any ATM I’ve used recently, this one took my card. Every other one I’ve used recently you stick your card in the slot and then pull it back out. So I was surprised when this one just sucked my card in.

Then I had trouble getting the ATM to take my check in the slot. The little door wouldn’t open. Finally, after cancelling the deposit, and then telling it again I wanted to deposit a check, it worked.

But I was already running late for my next appointment, and in a hurry, I forgot my credit card was still in the machine, and I didn’t realize it was missing until last night at dinner. And then I remembered what I had done.

So I thought no problem. I’ll call the bank tomorrow morning and we’ll run by and pick it up on our way out of town.

WRONG!

When I phoned the guy at the bank and asked if I could come by and pick it up, he just laughed and said “Well, you can, but it wouldn’t do you any good. It’s in about 500 little tiny pieces.” Apparently the banks don’t service the ATMs anymore. The armored car companies do, and to keep anyone else from getting your card, the machine just chews it up.

Who Knew?

He said I could come by any Wells Fargo and they can issue me a new card instantly. So I’ll do that later this week.

Before we left for the Texas Hill Country this morning I got these great photos of the Bayou and some wildlife.

What’s hard to see in this first shot is the bird on the piling right in the center of the photo.

A little tighter shot shows it’s a Great Blue Heron.

And here’s an even closer on it. A beautiful bird.

And here’s an Anhinga, another local water bird. It’s low tide and he’s sitting on part of a submerged boat.

We got on our way to the Hill Country a little before 10, first stopping at Chris’ to drop off some paperwork, and then we headed up I-45.

We got to Fischer, TX about 2:30 pm, after making our usual stop at the Buc-ee’s in Luling for a bathroom break. We had come up to visit for a couple of days with our friend Gina who lives on a 600-acre cattle ranch near Fischer.

After catching up on things, about 5 we headed out for supper over in Wimberley, a nearby small town. We wanted to eat at the Cypress Creek Cafe, which had now reopened.

But before we even got in the restaurant, Jan found a moose at the gift shop next door. At least I think it’s a moose.

In the restaurant, and looking at the menu, I noticed they had Buffalo Wings in Mild, Hot, Very Hot, and … Devil’s Breath!

And yes, it was printed in red with the exclamation point. And after the name it had “Signed Waiver Required”. Then underneath it said it was made with Ghost Chilies, the hottest peppers in the world.

I had to have them.

The Ghost Chili, or Bhut jolokia, or Naga jolokia, has been rated between 855,000 and 1,041, 427 Scoville Units, the heat rating for chili peppers.

By comparison, Tabasco Sauce rates at 2500 – 5000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units), and regular jalapenos rate at 5000-10000 SHU.

And they do make you sign a waiver, but you don’t get a certificate like you do when you have the Atomic Wings at Quaker Steak and Lube.  Bummer!

And to add insult to injury, when they bring out your platter of 12 wings, they sprinkled them with red pepper flakes. Oh Boy!

The waiter said they came 6 to 8 to an order, so I also got a bowl of tortilla soup, while Jan got the Chicken Fried Chicken and Gina got the Chicken Fried Steak.

But 12 wings turned out to be too much food with the soup. Jan ate one or two wings and I ate 6, along with my soup, so we had 4 to take home.

Now for my review. They were hot, but I’m not sure it was hotter than the Blazin’ sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings, nor as hot as the Atomic Wings at Quaker Steak.

What was funny is that it was a different kind of heat. It did meet my two main criteria for hot stuff…the top of my bald head starts sweating and my nose starts running, but it didn’t make my lips burn like the new XXX Obscene sauce at Hooters. They tingled, but my lips didn’t burn for several hours like with the XXX.

But all in all, it was an interesting experience. I’d always wanted to try Ghost Chilies, but this is the first place I’ve seen them on the menu. I’d have them again.

Getting back to the ranch we found Gina’s raccoons waiting for us on the porch. There were three babies who came running over to me, sitting up on their hind legs wanting to be fed. I got this photo of one trying to figure out if my shoe was food. At least I hope it was my shoe and not my foot.

A little later Jan sat out with Gina as even more came in to be fed. Gina said she’s had as many as 20 at one time.

She puts out large pans of dog food and water. These two appear to be washing up before their meal.

And they really like peanuts. Here’s Gina hand-feeding one of the babies.

That’s about it for today. More from the Hill Country tomorrow.

December 1, 2011

UPS and King Food . . .

This morning after coffee I was feeling really industrious, so I decided to wash several months of road grime off the truck. I don’t want to take it through a car wash until I get the window fixed, so I get to do it by hand.

About 1pm I headed up to Brandi’s to pick up my client’s two UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) units that finally came in. When I checked the tracking this morning, it said the package was out for delivery at 3:19 am.

3:19 am?

This is the email our son-in-law Lowell sent concerning my package.

A Large U-Haul truck with 2 uniformed UPS guys squeezed into the cab that was full of dozens of boxes parked in front of the house at 11am. Both guys got out & unloaded about 50 boxes from the rear of the truck into the street in front of our mailbox looking for the packages for this address. They came up empty-handed & re-loaded everything to head to their next stop. They will be back waaayy laaaateerr today once they come across the pkgs destined for our house.

Guess we now know the meaning “External Factors”

But as it turns out they came back a little later with my package, so after picking it up I headed over to my client’s to install their new UPS units.

One install took a lot of time due to the fact that the plug was behind a ‘ginormous’ cabinet that I had to take a bunch of stuff out of, and off of, before I could move it. And then of course put it all back in the right place.

But, hey. I get paid by the hour.

After finishing up, I headed home, and then a little later, we picked up Dennis & Kathy Brophey from their site and headed up to Clear Lake to have dinner at King Food.

We had a good time getting to know Dennis and Kathy, and the usual great meal from King Food.

After we left the restaurant we drove around and showed Dennis & Kathy the area, finally getting home a little before 8pm

December 1, 2012

Burning Chrome . . .

Our son Chris came over about 11 to fix my stuck tailpipe problem.

To recap, my rig’s chrome tailpipe extension rusted out and while we were at the Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN, back in September, I decided to install the new one that I had actually ordered while we were gate guarding. But I ran into a problem getting the old one off. It had been jammed into the muffler pipe so far that I was unable to get it out. I tried penetrating oil, banging on it, heating it with a torch, etc., all with no luck. So I decided to put it off until we got back to Houston.

And with the right tools it just took a few minutes. My son used a Sawzall reciprocating saw and a metal cutting blade to quickly cut the old extension off flush with the muffler extension. Then he put the saw blade into the muffler pipe and cut a slot into the remaining piece of the extension.

After that it was easy to use a pair of pliers to twist and remove the old piece.

Then it was just a few minutes to clamp the new extension into place and the job was done.

By now it was time for lunch, so Jan, Chris, and I headed up to Bacliff to have lunch at Stomp’s Burger Joint, probably our favorite local burger place.

Stomp’s has some of the best burgers around, and is always crowded. And in addition, their onion rings are fantastic. I don’t know what they do differently, but they’re like no place else.

After lunch, and saying our goodbyes to Chris, Jan and I headed into Webster for a couple of errands.

First stop was to pick up some pants I had altered, and then it was on to Lowe’s to get a new toilet seat for the rig.

The old one had the finish coming off in a couple of places so we wanted to get a new one. Jan said the finish is coming off because of all the hot, spicy food I eat. And she might be right.

Our last stop before heading home was Half Price Books for Jan to look for a new calendar.

Then it was back to the rig for the night.

December 1, 2013

Resting Up and Wrapping Up . . .

Today was pretty much a rest-up day from yesterday’s Texas Renaissance Festival visit. Actually we seem to be doing a lot of resting up lately. Resting up from 3 months on the gate, resting up from Thanksgiving, resting up from . . . Well, you get the picture.

But we were rested enough to want breakfast this morning so about 10:30 we headed out for the breakfast buffet at La Brisa right up the road on 146. They have one of the best breakfasts around with a combination of American and Mexican dishes. Great!

Afterwards we drove around for a while to check out changes in the area before heading over to Chris and Linda’s to drop off some of Jan’s sausage balls that we forgot to give them after Thanksgiving.

Our granddaughter Piper told us the other day that she’s still on course for her medical education. January 14th she starts a 10 week course to become an EMT. Then next it’s on to Paramedic school. She then plans to use her employment in these fields to help fuel her further schooling. They will also count as clinical hours during these classes.

Sounds like she’s really got her career on track. And beautiful to boot.

We also heard from Jim and Linda Mossman, the couple who took over our gate when we left November 23rd. Sounds like they’re not any busier so far than we were. You can check out their blog here: Jim and Linda’s Travels. I’ve also added their blog to the blog rolls here.

I’ve been looking over our travels this past year, which completes our 6th year of full-timing. We did 7,779 miles this year for a total of 60,386 miles for the 6 years.

This means our coach, a 1999 American Eagle,  now has a total of 124,897 miles on it, and so far she’s still going strong. (fingers crossed). Our toad (truck) now has a little over 208,000 miles on it, 107,000 that we put on it since we bought it in the fall of 2007. Of course this doesn’t include the 60,000 miles it’s been towed behind the rig, mileage that doesn’t get recorded on the truck’s odometer.

All in all, a nice year, and I think we’re all ready to go again next year. Well, the truck’s in the shop, but I’m sure it’ll be ready too. (Well, I hope.)

Tomorrow it’s time to get back to work with a client visit or two. Hopefully we’ll also hear something about the truck from the shop.

December 1, 2014

I Don’t Feel So Bad Now . . .

Catching up on Sunday:

After a long night spent fighting Walker the Dog for space on the couch, I woke up tired. He would curl up at the bottom and then slowly stretch out until he was taking up most of the sofa. and all of the blanket. Once when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I came back to find he had worked his way under the blanket until he was completely covered. So when Jan got up about 7am, I went in and got a couple of hours of sleep on the single bed where she’d been sleeping.

When I finally got up about 9:30 Jan and I headed out to have breakfast at The Egg and I, our favorite local breakfast/lunch place. Besides the good food, they have a really great Hazelnut coffee to go with it, so it’s always a go-to breakfast place for us.

After a great breakfast, we drove over to Tuesday Morning so Jan could pick out Christmas cards. She’s always found the best deals on high-end cards there, so it’s the first place she checks.

Next it was my turn with a trip across the Interstate to one of my favorite places, Fry’s Electronics. I could wander around in here for hours . . . and have a few times. But this time I was here for something specific, a microSD card for my latest toy.

It’s a remote control quadcopter, only about 5-3/4 inches from blade tip to blade tip. And even better, it has an HD quality video/still camera built in. And even better, better, is the fact it only cost me $9.95. Which is probably why it didn’t come with a memory card, and I had to supply my own.

I got this quadcopter at RadioShack, where originally it listed for $79.95, but they had it on a Black Friday Sale for $34.95. But I had a $25 off coupon on any purchase of $35 or more. So I also bought a battery for $1 to get me over the $35 limit.

They tried to sell me microSD card for it, but it was way too expensive. Which was probably the idea they had in discounting the quadcopter.

But while I was in Fry’s getting my memory card, I found another new toy.

Another quadcopter. But while this one doesn’t have a camera, it is kind of special . . . It’s only about 3 inches blade tip to blade tip. Here’s a comparison.

And this one was only $12 with a $10 mail-in rebate. I wonder how much smaller they can make these.

By the time we got back to the house, Chris, Linda, and Piper showed up from their trip, so after getting hugs and goodbyes, Jan and I headed up to Brandi and Lowell’s to pick up our mail and have dinner before we headed back to Conroe and home.

We decided not to all go out for dinner, but instead Lowell and I went to bring back sandwiches from Phillies Cheesesteaks, which actually is right next door to Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro, our favorite place there.

And these Cheesesteaks are the real thing. The guy who owns the place used to work at Pat’s in Philadelphia, which is one of the two places claiming to be the originator of the Cheesesteak, the other one being Gino’s, which is right across the street from Pat’s.

He started out trying to find a local bakery that could duplicate the sandwich rolls from Philly, but had no luck. So for a while, he flew in flash-frozen rolls from there, but now he brings in frozen 5 gal buckets of dough and has a local place bake them fresh. He says that they taste as good as back in Philly, and the many customer reviews on Yelp and other places seem to agree.

And for our part, the Cheesesteaks and Cheese Fries we got were really great. Another place to go back to.

After getting our second round of hugs and goodbyes and collecting our mail, Jan and I headed back home a little before 7pm. I was happy to see that our South Dakota tag stickers had come in, since the ones on the truck and the rig expire today.

We got home about 8pm, both glad to be able to sleep in our own bed, with me very happy that I don’t have to fight a dog for the blanket.

Now to today:

After our morning coffee and muffins, Jan and I headed out for lunch and some errands, with our first stop being the Conroe Sam’s Club to drop off Jan’s prescription for Anastrozole, her replacement for the Tamoxifen breast cancer drug she had so much trouble with. We’ll see how this one does.

Next, with the dreary, rainy day, Jan decided she wanted a bowl of her favorite Creamy Tomato Soup from the Twin Peaks ‘breastaurant’, about 10 miles south on I-45. And who am I to tell her ‘No’.

We’ve only eaten at the Twin Peaks down in Webster, so we were surprised to see how much larger this one was.

It’s two story, and really nice inside, with every booth having their own TV screen. Jan, of course, got her Tomato Soup, and I got my usual Venison Chili,

and we split an order of the Pulled Pork Sliders.

One thing I quickly noticed about the Venison Chili was that the meat was not finely ground. It was much chunkier than the Twin Peaks in Webster, so I asked our waitress about it. She said each restaurant grinds their own venison, and the manager here likes it chunky like that. And he’s right. It really is better.

Leaving Twin Peaks, I saw something that made me feel not so bad about my little ‘Oops’ the other day at the Escapees Park in Livingston.

I’m not exactly sure how he managed to do this, but at least I had the excuse that I was backing up at the time.

He did this going forward. And I bet he didn’t expect to have it spread all over the Internet, either.

After a quick stop at Home Depot for a few things, and then Sam’s Club to pick up Jan’s prescription, we were home for the day.

Tomorrow will probably be a stay-at-home, rest-up day. But then again, it might not.

December 1, 2015

Drones and a Slingshot . . .

I awoke this morning to the delicious smell of a big batch of Jan’s Chili simmering in the Slow Cooker, foreshadowing a great meal later today. Only a couple of other things are better to wake up to.

Although the rain seems to have gone away for a few days, it’s leaving behind weather in the 30’s for a while. Probably have to break out the 2nd heater here in the rig.

Of course it could be worse. We could still be sitting outside on the gate wearing gloves, three shirts, and a hoodie sweatshirt, surrounded by four heaters.

Later in the morning I put in a call to the Escapees office up in Livingston. Yesterday, Cyber Monday, I had tried to sign up for their ‘3 year membership for $100’ special, but their website wouldn’t let me make the purchase.

I had the offer in my cart but when I tried to log in and pay, it wouldn’t let me. It first said my username and password didn’t match. But because I used RoboForm to store and retrieve my passwords, I knew this wasn’t possible.

So I next clicked on the ‘Forgot Password?” link and entered my email address. But when I clicked ‘Send’ the system told me my email address did not exist in their system.

Well then, why did they send the ‘Renew Your Membership’ to that ‘non-existent’ address?

So my next option, since I was not ‘in the system’, I thought I would just Register all over again. But when I tried that I was stymied once again.

The system then said that my ‘non-existent’ email address, the one that didn’t exist in their system, was already registered in their system, so I couldn’t register under that same email address.

So I called to see if they could get it all straightened out. At first they had problems too, but finally, by erasing everything in their system concerning me and my membership, they were able to manually reenter all my info and get me set up again.

And they were nice enough to let me still have the Cyber Monday special price.

On the subject of the Escapees, the next Escapade, the 56th, is up in Essex Junction, VT next July, and as it stands right now Jan and I will probably be giving our Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit seminar once again, just like we did this past March in Tucson.

Hope you can be there too.

A few days ago we followed one of these 3 wheel bikes, a trike, coming into the park.

Really neat looking.

Then yesterday, dropping off the trash on our way to The Woodlands, we saw where it came from. Looks like a nice custom-made trailer.

A little Googling showed it was a Polaris Slingshot SL, from Polaris of snowmobile/ATV  fame. With 173 hp., a backup camera, and a six speaker stereo system, it’s got a little of everything. Even Bluetooth.

And as Sheldon says, everything’s better with Bluetooth.

Personally, I think for $25,000+, it should have a removable roof or top of some sort for bad weather. But that’s just me.

I’ve been following the latest news on Amazon’s newest delivery methods. Houston is now on the list of cities where their One Hour / Two Hour delivery service, Prime Now, is now available. Unfortunately it’s not in any zip codes where I get packages here yet, But soon, I hope.

Of course the method everyone’s talking about is their much-vaunted Prime Air drone delivery service. For more info, check out this humorous video that explains how it’s supposed to work.

So we may see Amazon drones overhead any day now. Of course, some people have described this as ‘Skeet Shooting for Presents’.

So your Christmas may depend on how good a shot you are.

December 1, 2016

McGriddles and GaGa . . .

Jan and I were on the road for our day trip to San Antonio a little before 10am. But our first stop was the Dollar Tree in Floresville.

Jan was looking for a couple more large clamps that she originally got at the Dollar Tree in Conroe, TX. But with no luck, we drove to the other end of the strip center to check out the Dollar General. But we struck out there too.

So giving up for now, we segued over to the McDonald’s right next door for some breakfast. I tried the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle this time instead of my usual BE&C Biscuit. Thought the McGriddle was OK, but a little sweet for a breakfast sandwich, at least for my taste. I still like the biscuit version better. McDonald’s does do good biscuits.

Our next stop was the Sam’s Club on I-37 just inside the 410 loop for several things. Most important was a new set of frames for my eyeglasses. I manage to break, bend, twist, or sprain a set about once a year, so it’s lucky that Sam’s has been selling my same frames for over ten years. So while we’re at Sam’s I just drop off my old glasses at the Optical Dept., do the shopping, and then come back in 30 minutes to pick up my glasses, all nice in a new pair of frames. And it’s only about $50, well worth the price.

Then when we went to check out I was told that I needed to renew my membership since it expired Nov. 25th. I knew this wasn’t right since my membership always renews in May, and I had renewed it at the Conroe Sam’s around that time. Then I remembered that there had been a problem with the renewal

Turns out the store manager was taking care of it, and got confused since I was bumping my membership up the Business Plus at the same time I was renewing. He took almost 30 minutes to get it done and finally told me that he wasn’t going to charge me at all.

But as it turns out he still apparently messed up because he only managed to renew me for 6 months, not the full 12. When I asked them to go back in my history to confirm that my renewal date has always been May, they saw the problem since they don’t actually offer 6 month renewals. With that straightened out, our next stop was the nearby Target for a few things that Jan needed.

By the time we finished it was 1:15 so it was on down I-37 to the Alamo Quarry theater to make the 2pm showing of J.K. Rowling’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. The first of five Harry Potter prequels, it tells the story of how one of the magical books mentioned several times in Harry Potter came to be.

We both really liked the movie, which was in 3D. Great characters, great effects and a good story. The 3D was also very well done, with none of the ‘dodging the spear thrown at you’ stuff you sometimes see. But you would swear that the butterflies flying in front of you were only about 12 inches from your face, and you should be able to reach out and touch them.

If you liked the Harry Potter books and movies, you’ll like this movie.

One thing that happened right before we walked into the theater to sit down is that the alarm, and I do mean alarm, went off on my phone. I have a very LOUD ringtone set to alert me about a text from Todd, our SiteWatch supervisor, because it usually means a gate job.

In this case it was a new gate, and a change. Originally I was supposed to work at Davila 5 on Sunday. But now I’m working Saturday AND Sunday at another gate. One called Moczygemba 1H.

So now I have a question. Why don’t people with somewhat normal names have gates named after them? Now usually the name has some reference to the landowner, or the mineral rights owner. But what’s with these names?

So far this year we’ve been at

Solge Kinkler 5
Brysch Jonas
Davila 3,4,5
Davila 5,6,7 (Still don’t understand this one.)
Zaesle Eckols 2

and now
Moczygemba

So how come no Jones Smith 1,2,3 or Johnston 3H, 4H, 5H?

When the movie was over, we made the 10 minute drive over to the Magic Time Machine to meet up with our long-time friends Jim and Peri Dean.

They read in last night’s blog that we were going to be in San Antonio today and hoped we could get together. So Jan asked if they wanted to meet us at Magic Time Machine, and they said yes.

Jim and I both got the Ribeye,

while Peri and Jan both got the New York Strip. And a good steak was had by all.

For blog readers that may not know, Magic Time Machine is character theme restaurant, where all the waitstaff dress up like characters from books, TV, movies, or entertainment.

In the past we’ve had Wonder Woman,

and even the Joker,

so you never know who (or what) you’re going to get.

But tonight we had Lady GaGa as our server.

She was probably the best server we’ve ever had there. She took really good care of us, got all our orders perfect, and she sings good too, giving us a couple of song and dance numbers.

We were having such a great time they literally had to sing us out the door.

Hopefully we’ll get to see Jim and Peri again soon.

Tomorrow it’s the Chicken Fried Steak Fingers/Fried Catfish lunch at Barth’s, a few things at Wal-Mart and HEB, and then we’re going to drive out to this new gate so I won’t have to try to find it in the dark at 5:30am Saturday morning.

December 1, 2017

House Crunched and Legacy Boxed . . .

I spent almost all of today entering a lot of new products into the website and the catalog. A lot of new stuff came in yesterday so I had to take photos of each one, write up descriptions, get a catalog number assigned, and then get it all entered online and in the catalog.

The website part is actually pretty easy, but with the catalog sometimes I have to find room by moving other products around, hopefully without adding pages which would shift things around in the Index.

Coming home I stopped at the Victory Lakes HEB for gas at $2.08/gal. It’s nice to see the price creeping down, since it was $1.99 or lower right before Hurricane Harvey.

Back at the rig, Jan and I headed right back out to have dinner once again at Pho 20. Since it’s so close it’s become our ‘go-to’ place for a really good meal.

As we’ve done previously, we both started out with the House Crunch Salad, but rather than sharing as before, we decided we each wanted our own.

Then it was on to an order of their Shrimp Spring Rolls, but with their really hot ‘J’ sauce instead of the usual peanut sauce.

Jan  said she’s working her way through Pho 20’s chicken dishes, this time their Hibachi Chicken with Ginger and Mustard Sauce.

So far she’s had the Orange Chicken, Curry Chicken, Lemon Grass Chicken, and the Chicken Vermicelli Bowl, so she’s off to a good start. Next up, Teriyaki Chicken and Sesame Chicken.

I, of, course, am still stuck in my Jalapeno Chicken rut. But a really good rut it is.

After we got settled in at home, we went through 2 more carousels (160 slides) of our old slides, winnowing them down to the ones we want to have Legacy Boxed. At this point it looks like we have maybe 2 more carousels worth to go. Then I can get started scanning all the old photos we have.

On the repair front, I’m working on two problems:

I think our PowerMax power converter is slowly dying. It seems to only be putting out about 12.3 volts. If I turn it off, it will come back up at 13.2 volts, but then quickly drop off to 12.3 again. I bought the unit through Amazon in December 2014, which comes with a 2 year warranty. Which would mean that I was out of luck warranty-wise, but I bought an additional 2 years for $9.95. So I’ll fool with it a little more and then contact Amazon.

My other problem is with Direct TV, maybe. Recently when we’re watching TV the video will just go black for 3 –5 seconds, with the audio going away as well. The first thing I did was to swap inputs between the Direct TV DVR and our computer. But the problem was still around, so it’s not the TV inputs, but it still could be the TV itself, or the DVR.

To narrow it down, tomorrow we’ll keep the TV on the computer video and see if the problem occurs then.

I’ll let you know.

Hopefully a quiet weekend is in store.

December 1, 2018

Too Close . . .

Well, that didn’t work.

I lifted up the bed this morning, removed my Endoscope, and then tried my ‘Wyze Cam on a stick’ idea. And although I did get pictures, they weren’t of much use because I couldn’t the camera far enough away to really make out what I was seeing.

The frame rail is only about a foot from the oil filter mounting so I couldn’t move the camera any further away . I had more leeway back and forth, but then where I wanted to see was blocked by other engine parts. So now I guess I’m back to square one.

Just as soon as I figure out where square one is.

When I mentioned yesterday that I would lose about 2 gallons of oil every 400 miles or so, one of our blogs readers commented that surely I must have meant ‘quarts’ and not ‘gallons.’

Nope, it’s GALLONS.

My engine holds 26 quarts of oil, or 4½ gallons. So if it were only 2 quarts low, I wouldn’t even notice it. And even being 1 to 2 gallons low, the only thing I notice is that my oil pressure drops from the normal 60-62 psi down to around 55-57.  According to Cummins, as long as it doesn’t get below 50 psi, no problem. Just don’t go any lower. LOL.

I have a new hobby. It seems like I regularly get phone calls ‘spoofing’ a number close to mine, only differing in the last 4 digits. Now normally I just ignore these and they go away, never leaving a voicemail. But a couple of days ago, I decided to try a new tack.

I answered the call with “Investigative Task Force, Fraud Division. Go for Jackson.”

All I heard on the other end was, “Ah . . . Ah . . . Ah . . . ‘Click’

Kind of reminds me when, back in the early 80’s, I was spending two weeks of every month out at the White Sands Missile Range, the location of the backup Space Shuttle Landing Site for the first half dozen or so missions.

On one of these trips, Jan called and said she was getting obscene phone calls late at night. So I asked, “Anything interesting?”

“No. Kind of boring, really. He’s not very good at it. Too much heavy breathing. But he’s calling at 2am and waking me up.”

Thinking about what to do, I remembered the new phone services we had signed up for a couple of months earlier, i.e. Caller ID, 3-Way Calling, and Call Forwarding, and thought that might be a solution.

I told Jan to look up the non-emergency phone number for the Galveston County Sheriff’s Dept. and then when she goes to bed to forward our number to the Sheriff’s number. And of course, don’t forget to change it back in the morning. So she did.

Some of you may remember that when you did this, and you were home when someone called, you would hear a half-ring before the call was actually forwarded. She said she heard two separate half-rings the first night, one the second night, and no more after that.

Problem solved.

While we’re on the subject of phone calls, while I was getting gas at Costco yesterday, I got a call from a client who I hadn’t heard from in 15-20 years. Or so I thought, since her name came up from my Contact list.

But when I answered it,  it wasn’t Marcela. Instead it was Charity at Bay Area Surgicare concerning Jan’s upcoming cataract surgery next Thursday. Guess the number got reassigned sometime in the past.

And following up getting gas at the Costco for $1.84 yesterday, today Sam’s Club one-upped them with $1.79. Wow!

How about that!  A four-subject connected segue.

December 1, 2020

A Two Heater Night . . .

Last night was our first really cold one here, all the way down to 34°. Well, I know that’s not cold for a lot of you, but here it’s pretty chilly.

Pretty much a two heater night, so I plugged in our 2nd Lasko heater to keep the coach from getting too cold overnight. I normally set them both for about 60°. Then it’s pretty quick to warm things up in the morning.

And it looks like we’ve got a string of 30’s and 40’s coming up for the next week or so. Well, we’ve got two more smaller heaters in our storage room if we need them.

Jan and I headed out about 1pm for lunch at Dickinson Seafood again. Blackened Catfish, Grilled Veggies, and a Side Salad.

Always delicious.

Then after a WalMart shopping sojourn, we headed home, with a stop by Cowboy Coffee, for, well, coffee. At least for me.

A Large, Large, Cold Blended Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Latte.

A real frou frou drink, but really good.

Jan tried a Chai Tea with Steamed Milk for the first time and really liked it too.

Tomorrow morning we’re heading down Galveston to have breakfast/brunch at the Sunflower Café, a favorite of ours. We’re meeting up with long-time friends, Jim and Peri Dean, and another couple to be named later.

Really looking forward to it.

December 1, 2022

It Doesn’t Sound Good . . .

Lunch today was at Twin Peaks once again with our fav server Sylvia. Jan got her usual Chipotle Chicken with Double Broccoli.

I got the same thing I got last time, a bowl of Brisket Chili,

and an order of their Mini Crispy Beef Tacos.

And of course, big goodbye hugs from Sylvia.

Then it was on up to the Kroger’s on El Camino to pick up a couple of prescriptions for Jan, and then a WalMart stop before getting home about 4:45.

The replacement switch for Jan’s cordless vacuum came in today, a day early. And the repair itself took about 30 seconds.

I just had to switch the two leads to the new one, press the switch, and it worked.

However it took me about 30 minutes to get all the parts crammed back into the case and the screws in. There wasn’t a lot of room in there.

I finally got a call yesterday afternoon from Roland, the guy who’s looking at my Jeep, and it doesn’t sound good.

Both the Jeep engine, and the possible repair.

He said that they got it started and it’s got internal problems, more than just a problem with the head or head gasket.

And it that’s what they actually find, then we’re looking at rebuilding the engine. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Tomorrow we’re meeting Peri & Jim Dean, and his sister and BIL at Jimmy Changas for an early dinner.

Really looking forward to seeing them again.

December 1, 2023

The End Of An Era . . .

It seems that almost all the magazines of my youth have faded away.

I devoured each monthly issue of magazines like:

Mechanix Illustrated

Popular Electronics

Radio Electronics

Electronics Illustrated

And now Popular Science is gone. At least in magazine form.

Publishing monthly starting in 1872, it does live on at websites and in podcasts.

This leaves only Popular Mechanics still standing.

I still remember in late 1974 receiving the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, highlighting the Altair 8800, the first, real home computer.

And I was hooked. Having spent a semester programming on an IBM 360 in Fortran at Vanderbilt University in 1967, I was anxious to get back to computing.

And that started my life on a new career path that continues to this day.

And it looks like an era may be ending for Jan and I. Buried in an article about Titusville, FL where we met in 1967, and talking about the demolition of the Searstown Mall there, was this paragraph.

The two other locations slotted for redevelopment back then were the Miracle City Mall—which was transformed into the outdoor retail hub Titus Landing several years back—and a patch of land on the west side of U.S. 1 just south of State Road 50 that the city hopes could one day become condominiums.

That ‘patch of land’ is almost certainly the former location of Florida Wonderland, the somewhat seedy amusement park where we first met when we were both working there.

Searstown Mall was only a year old back in 1967, and Jan and I went there often on dates, especially the Lum’s Restaurant out in front. Lum’s was known for their hot dogs steam-cooked in beer. Yuumm!

And now it’s all gone.

Tomorrow we’re having lunch at Twin Peaks, our first time in a while. Our favorite server, Sylvia said she’s looking forward to seeing our Christmas sweaters.

‘Sweaters’?

It’s supposed to be 75° tomorrow. How about Christmas T-Shirts?