Our RV Adventures

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Jan and I had a nice, quiet Post-Christmas Day. I did take the garbage down to the dumpster using one of Jan’s new Christmas presents, an Outdoor Utility Cart.

Along with taking garbage down, it’ll also get used to take the laundry down also.

She also got a pair of these Octopus Earrings.

She said she can’t wait until next year’s National Octopus Day, coming up on Oct 8, 2025 to wear them. Though I would imagine she’ll wear them before then.

Probably tomorrow.

Of course, the big present for this year, that we gave to each other, was our recent 9 Day Western Caribbean Royal Caribbean Cruise.

We had been promised heavy thunderstorms, high winds, and a possible tornado. But like other promises from the U.S.Weather Bureau, this one didn’t pan out. All we got was some clouds.

Tomorrow looks to be an errand day, that will include lunch at Whataburger, complement of a couple of WB gift cards that Rob, our park owner, dropped off for us on Christmas Eve.

Thanks, Rob!

Thought For The Day:

Yikes!

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 26, 2010

Happy Boxing Day * . . .

* In the U.K., Boxing Day is the day after Christmas. One of many ‘origin’ stories says that this is the day that merchants gave boxes of food and fruit to tradespeople and servants as a form of Yuletide tip.

At 11 am it’s still 37 degrees here. It’s supposed to get all the way up to 46 today, and then back down to 31 tonight.

As an article in the New York Times said today, “Bundle up. It’s Global Warming.†Of course they blame the pretty much world-wide cold snap on the fact that it’s getting warmer.

Huh?

So, if it’s getting warmer, it’s global warming, and, if it’s getting colder, it’s global warming.

Yeah, right! Nothing like covering all your bases.

Jan and I never left the rig today. It was really nice to just sit around, read, nap, watch TV, and enjoy the view, did I mention nap?

And as part of enjoying the view, our friend the Great Blue Heron was back,

along with another beautiful sunset.

That was about it for today. Looks like things will pick up again tomorrow. We’ll see.

December 26, 2012

Happy Boxing Day . . .

After our morning coffee, I headed out to a client’s home office to set up the new computer that I got for her before Christmas. But I quickly ran into a problem when I tried to hook up her older model Sony LCD monitor.

The monitor only has a VGA input and the computer didn’t have one. Only HDMI and DVI. Or rather, it had both a VGA and HDMI output on the motherboard, but there were stickers on both ports saying “This Port Has Been Disabledâ€.

Instead of the motherboard ports, there was a separate video card with an HDMI and a DVI port. And of course, no VGA ports.

So it was off to Fry’s Electronics to pick up a new monitor so I could get back to work. I also picked up an HDMI cable since most monitors don’t include HDMI cables, though it did include a VGA cable. Lot of good that did me.

Then it was back to the client’s, and back to work. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning off all the junk that comes on new machines, and then started installing support programs like AVG, ZoneAlarm, SuperAntiSpyware, etc.

Finally, a little after 4pm, I wrapped up for the day and headed back to the rig, where I picked up Jan and we headed back out to have dinner at the Chili’s up in Kemah.

Then it was off to Wal-Mart for some groceries before heading back to the rig for the night.

December 26, 2014

A Tale of Two Christmases . . .

Christmas Recap:

We were up Christmas morning about 7am. Luckily for us, Landon’s not really an early riser. Unlike Chris and Brandi who were up at 5am, or even earlier.

Brandi did such a great job decorating the tree, I had to get a closeup.

Landon was in charge of distributing the gifts to everyone.

And here’s Landon’s big gift, a Ninja Turtles bike. His first bike, too.

Chris, Linda and Nigel showed about 10 am to spend the rest of the day. Chris and Landon spent a lot of time checking out some of the online games.

Landon also got a Mousetrap game and he and Piper had a lot of fun playing with it.

And here’s Piper posing with her puppy, Nigel. Nigel is a Syorkie, a Shi Zhu/Yorkie cross, and a real cutie.

Later in the morning, the tree was reset with the presents for all the family and friends coming over for the big party in the afternoon.

We had about 30 people there, with a lot of great appetizers and snacks for everyone.

Later in the evening they put out a Taco Bar, with ground beef, grilled chicken, salmon, shrimp, pulled pork, and all the fixing’s. And all really, really good.

Then it was time for the second Christmas for all the kids.

Everyone had a great time getting together and exchanging gifts. And as usual everyone pitched in to help clean up, so Brandi wasn’t left with a messy house.

Jan and I hung around until after 10pm, so we didn’t get home until almost midnight, so a long, but very fun day.

Today Jan and I headed out about 3:15 for lupper and some shopping. We were both hungry for a good burger, so we ended up at the nearby Culver’s. Jan got her usual cheddar mushroom burger, while I got the Double Pub Burger, and we both got a bowl of their delicious chili. But with a difference this time.

One of my Christmas gifts from Lowell and Brandi was some things from iBurn, a local store that specializes in ‘hot stuff’. And one of the items was this.

Here’s how it’s described on their website:

Tim’s 10 Pepper Flakes – This is pepper flakes on steroids containing; 3 variety of Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Pepper), 3 variety of 7-Pot, Moruga Scorpion, Fatali, Habanero and Scotch Bonnet. This stuff rocks and we know you will love it if you are missing that kick from your crushed pepper.

We both put some in our chili. I used about 4 sprinkles, which gave me about 5 or 6 particles of the peppers. Jan had a couple of sprinkles with about 2 or 3 particles making it into her chili.

Both of us agreed that based on a heat to particle ratio, this is the hottest stuff we’ve found so far. Tim’s 10 Pepper Flakes is now my ‘go-to’ hot stuff. And with the size of the bottle vs. how much I’ll use each time, this is a lifetime supply. Thanks, Lowell.

Leaving Culvers, we drove across the road to brave Wal-Mart on the day after Christmas. But it really wasn’t that bad, with only the checkout taking a little longer than normal.

Next up was the Lowe’s right next door. I found that the stainless steel hose that allows us to pull out the faucet handle on our kitchen faucet and use it as a spray nozzle, had started to leak so I picked up a new one.

Our last stop was at the Kroger’s across the Interstate to get gas for the truck. And I got it for 99 cents a gallon. Yep, 99 cents.

We recently bought a lot of Christmas gift cards from Kroger’s and got 4X the fuel points. This means that for the next 350 gallons or so, we get a $1 off each gallon we buy. And that goes for diesel too. Unfortunately you can only get 35 gallons at a time like this.

Tomorrow we head down to the Clear Lake area to try and finish up cleaning out our storeroom before the end of the year, then have dinner with Chris, Linda, and Piper tomorrow night.

December 26, 2015

Just in Time . . .

Jan and I did 1.03 miles today, staying just ahead of the rain. We’ll probably stay at this distance until we leave here and head back to Colorado River TT on Jan 3rd. Then we’ll bump it up, hopefully, to 2 miles or so over the next couple of months.

It was starting to mist when we headed out, but just as we getting back to the rig, it went from sprinkling to downright raining. So we timed that perfectly. Of course it only rained for about 10 minutes and then stopped.

It looks like the small heatwave we’ve been having the last few days is coming to a screeching halt. The high today was 77, and it’s going down to 71 tonight. But after a high of 73 tomorrow, the front comes through and it’s going down to 38 degrees tomorrow.

Then it’s low 50’s and low 30’s for the next 10 days or so. It’s going to be nice to actually have winter again.

Later, after our coffee and cranberry bread, I got back to work on re-installing Jan’s “Oh Sh$t Handle†right by her chair. If you missed the earlier posts. you can check it out here: Livingston Bound and BBQ

I first drilled pilot holes in each of the wooden dowel rods that I had glued in last week, but when I went to put the #14 x 2†wood screws in the handle so I could screw it in, I found a problem.

When I used a smaller screw to measure the length I would need, I apparently used the bottom hole in the handle. But as it turns out, the top hole in the handle doesn’t go into the wood as far as the bottom hole. So while the bottom screw extended out about 1â€, the top screw only stuck out about 1/2â€.

So while I went ahead and temporarily mounted the handle, I’m going to get a 2-1/2†screw to replace the 2†one.

When I get the larger screws, I’m also got to get a can of White Oak Pickling Stain to refinish all the handles.

But I was happy to see that the handle is now locked down very firmly with no movement at all. So once I replace the screw and re-stain the handle, I should be finished with this project and ready to move on to others.

There’s always others.

Before I finish this up, I thought I’d answer several inquiries where the handle’s name came from.

The actual name for the ‘Oh Sh$t Handle†came from a hilarious book called “Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own†by Doreen Orion. Jan read this book about the time we started RV’ing and adopted this name for the handle that’s right by her chair at arm level.

It’s what she grabs when someone cuts us off, or pulls out in front of us and then stops. But over the years, after a lot of use, she finally broke it off completely. And when that happened, whatever held it in place fell down in the wall, so I had to come up with a new way of mounting it.

Wrapping up, regular readers will remember how in the past I’ve had trouble with multiple hacking attempts trying to log in to this blog. But in the last couple of months, the attempts had dwindled away to almost nothing.

And since most of the attempts came from Europe, and recently stopped, it may be that this is the reason why. – Botnet Attacking WordPress Sites

Hopefully this will eliminate the problem once and for all.

December 26, 2016

If It Weren’t For The Rattlesnakes . . .

This might turn out to be a pretty decent gate.

But then I’ve only been told about the snakes secondhand. But the scrub brush terrain is perfect for them, so it’s quite possible. I’ll definitely keep my eyes, and my ears, open.

This seems to be a new gate that’s just getting started up, and coincidently it’s only a couple of miles away from our very first Marathon drill rig gate back in 2012.

Besides the snakes, the only other problem is with the Verizon phone and data service. When I got here at 5 pm the guard I was relieving said that he had no service inside and sometimes a little outside. And my phone showed pretty much the same thing. And of course no signal on my AirCard. Bummer!

I did make a call to Jan from outside with some success, but the voices were crackly. But then about an hour later I looked at my phone and had 3 bars of 4G and good data service. But still nothing on my AirCard.

So then I moved my AirCard antenna to a different side of the shack, rebooted it, and now I have good 3G data.

So now I only have to worry about the rattlesnakes.

Jan and I are to the point in our lives where we really don’t need more ‘stuff’, especially living in an RV. So our Christmas presents are pretty laid back. Like for her birthday this past October I got her a new electric can opener because that’s what she wanted. She said she was giddy.

So for Christmas I got her one of these Silicone Non-Stick Baking Mats.

You bake right on it, it spreads the heat evenly, and channels away any grease from the food. Neat.

For lunch today we had the second half of our Barth’s Christmas Turkey & Dressing meal.

All delicious, especially the green beans like I said yesterday. You can tell that their cornmeal mix is only cornmeal and not this half cornmeal/half flour mix that a lot of places use. Their cornbread ends up having the texture of cake. No, this is good ole coarse-ground cornmeal.

And we’ve still got two more meals to go because of the large portions.

I mentioned last week that we used the RV park’s free laundry to do some heavy rugs, and while we were there I saw this notice.

I can only guess that when times are slow in the ‘patch’, people start taking in laundry to make ends meet?

December 26, 2017

Merry Boxing Day . . .

Jan and I really enjoyed our day at home, feasting on some of the Christmas dinner leftovers we had.

We caught up on some TV shows we’d recorded recently and also got in a nice nap somewhere in there. Really nice.

I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on with Social Security next year. According to the letter I got from them, we got a 2% increase this year, which for me should be about $30 per month. But on my checks next year I’m getting $3 a month.

Now my first thought was, that as has happened in the past, the Medicare charge had increased. But according to the web, the Medicare Part D charge for 2018 is the same $134 it was in 2017.

So where’s my other $27?

Even stranger is the fact that Jan’s check, even with the 2% increase, will be exactly the same as last year.

What’s up with that?

Looks like the USPS is still working at their peak efficiency. Well, peak for them, anyway.

Last Monday I mailed off three Flat Rate Priority Mail envelopes; one to Athens, AL, one to Vernon, IL, and one to Ashville, NC. All three were supposed to be delivered by Friday, December 22.

But by the next day, tracking said the delivery date for all three had slipped to Saturday. And if that were how it turned out, it would have been OK. But no, that’s not what happened.

The two going to IL and NC did make it on Saturday, but the one going to the closest destination, Athens, AL, just disappeared for six days, somewhere between Houston, TX and Birmingham, AL, with no tracking whatsoever, only to show in Birmingham early this morning and to be delivered in Athens late this afternoon.

Great Service! /sarc

If you’re in the whole Alexa thing, you know, Alexa, Dot, Echo Show, etc., well you can now add a new device to that lineup – The Alexa Wand.

And even better, it’s free.

It’s pretty much a handheld Alexa, so you can ask it questions, interact with it, etc., just like its big brothers and sisters. But it’s optimized for adding things to your shopping list, and even ordering items directly from Amazon. It even has a built-in bar code scanner for that purpose,

It’s $20, but when you make your first order through it, no matter what, you get an instant $20 credit.

Check it out.

Jan and I have gotten to the point that we don’t give each other much in the way of physical things for Christmas, but instead, things like our Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets a few days ago. But this year I got her a small item, almost a gag gift. But it turned out to be one of her all-time favorites.

It’s a LumiLux 16 Color Motion Sensing Toilet Bowl Light.

When you walk into the bathroom in the middle of the night the light switches on for two minutes and starts cycling through the 16 colors. Or if you like you can set it for your favorite. And it makes it easier to find in the dark.

Jan says she likes all the colors, even the bright red that she says makes it look like the Bowels of Hell.

Bowels, get it. Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink.

December 26, 2019

Boxing Day Notes . . .

After a quiet post-Christmas (Boxing Day) morning I spent some time trying to figure out why our new Samsung TV won’t see my computer, since my old Samsung TV had no problems with it.

It has 3 HDMI ports and I can put my DirecTV DVR to any of the 3 ports and the TV recognizes the DVR and shows the video. So I know the ports are good.

But though the TV recognizes the PC as a PC on any of the 3 ports, it only shows a blank screen. I’ve swapped the cables around with no luck either.

The cable that works fine on the DVR still doesn’t work on the PC, and the HDMI cable that doesn’t work on the PC works fine on the DVR.

So I thought maybe there was a problem with the screen resolution I’m using on the PC. But, according to the 177 page for the TV, (Yes, a 177 page manual!) the 1920 x 1080 60Hz should be acceptable to the TV.

So I got on Samsung Support Chat and told them my problem. But as usually happens they had to read from their script, completely ignoring what I had already done. I don’t think they even read it.

But I finally ran out of time before we left for lunch, so I’ll try again later.

While we’re on the subject of Samsung, I’m thinking maybe it’s about time to think about upgrading my phone since I usually try to upgrade every 3 new models.

I got a Samsung S5 in 2014 while we were in Elkhart, and then upgraded to an S8+ when we were in Las Vegas in 2017. And now the S11 is coming out next February.

It seems to take at least 3 iterations before there’s enough improvements to make it worthwhile to spend the money to upgrade to a new phone. But this one has a lot of great new stuff.

Like:

• 5G Support
• A 108 megapixel camera
• A Ultra Wide Angle Lens
• A Telephoto Lens with 5X Optical Zoom
• A 120Hz AMOLED Screen
• And a Whopping Big 5000mAh Battery!
• Sounds like it will be a worthy upgrade.

  And Jan’s happy because she’ll get my hand-me-down S8+.

  ---

  December 26, 2020

  Christmas Day 2020 Catchup . . .

  Jan and I left the rig about 8:45am Christmas morning on our way up to Brandi’s in Katy for our family Christmas

  We were going up so early because Brandi had promised us a very special breakfast. And it was.

  

  Challah Bread Crème Brûlée French Toast and

  

  Maple-Infused Bacon, as well.

  And continuing with the Maple theme, we had Bourbon Maple Syrup to put on the French Toast.

  

  All well worth getting up that early.

  As usual Brandi and Lowell had done their usual beautiful job of decorating the house. And it’s different every year.

  

  

  

  

  And even outside.

  

  

  But when Jan saw this Advent Calendar hanging on the wall between the kitchen and the living room, she teared up. And it has a lot of family history, over 50 years worth, in fact.
  
  

  My mother gave this to Jan for our first or second Christmas together, and somewhere along the line it got passed on to Brandi, probably when we started RV’ing in 2007. But apparently it then got tucked away until this year, when Brandi rediscovered it and pulled it out.

  Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, 4 of the little ornaments disappeared. So wanted to surprise Jan, Brandi asked her mother-in-law Sonja to make new ones. So the calendar is now a fusion of the White and Morrison families.

  But what really made the calendar even more memorable was the fact that Jan remembered during the Christmas of 1974 when she was working on it, and she looked up to see Brandi stand up all on her own and walk for the first time, from one side of the living room to the other. Don’t think she’s slowed down since.

  Memories!

  We all sat down for Christmas dinner about 5:30, and as usual when Brandi cooks, it was not your typical ‘pedestrian’ meal.

  We had Spare Ribs done in their smoker, BBQ’d Pork Belly chunks, an Asparagus and Cheese Casserole, and a Crawfish Etouffee Casserole, courtesy of Sherry and Steve. and Baked Beans from Jan.

  If that doesn’t just scream ‘Christmas Dinner’, I don’t know what does.

  

  From left to right, we’ve got Jan, Lowell, Brandi, Master Landon, Steve, Sherry, Lindell, and Sonja.

  A really great meal.

  And of course, Jack and Baxter didn’t want to be left out either.

  

  Apparently not enough Christmas dinner found its way to the floor to satisfy them, so they came begging.

  Finally heading home about 7, we checked out some more lights along the way.

  

  

  Just beautiful.

  Well, that about wraps up Christmas at the White/Morrison households, or at the Houston/Oklahoma part of it. Next weekend we’ll be getting together with the Texas Hill Country part of the White clan.

  Can’t wait.

  ---

  December 26, 2021

  Happy Boxing Day 2021 . . .

  With all the food we brought home yesterday, both from our meal at King Food Christmas Eve and leftovers from Christmas dinner, we decided to just hunker down at home today. So we never left the rig.

  Nice and quiet.

  Not only did we all get a lot of nice gifts yesterday, but so did Brandi and Lowell’s dogs, Baxter and Jack. They got a Furbo Dog Treat Dispenser.

  

  Furbo Dog Treat Tosser with Camera

  Not only can you see your pets and toss them a treat, you can also hear them and talk back to them.

  Online several people wanted to know if you could use it for cats. Some said that they had tried, but the cats tended to just eliminate the middleman by jumping up on the counter and knocking the Furbo off onto the floor, and waiting for the treats to fall out.

  Smart cats.

  Several readers wanted to know what a hoverboard was, like the new one Landon got for Christmas. This is a hoverboard.

  

  You balance on it and lean in the direction you want to go. You can go forward, backwards, and even turn in place. And Landon rolls around the house like he was born riding it.

  Last Tuesday I put a couple of Priority Mail envelopes in the mail, one going to Athens, AL, and one to Vernon, IL. Containing gift cards for cousins and nieces, the one going to AL was supposed to arrive by Friday the 24th, and the IL one by Monday the 29th.

  However the one going to IL made it early and arrived by Friday. But the AL-bound one ended up in FL, orbiting around between Lakeland, Tallahassee, and Orlando for 3 days before finally heading back toward Athens.

  It should be delivered tomorrow. But we’ll see.

  This is post-Christmas day in Houston, TX.

  

  ---

  December 26, 2022

  Dog Gone Wrong . . .

  

  Recapping yesterday:

  We got to Brandi’s right on time at 9am, and very quickly gathered by the tree in the living room to open presents after Landon handed them out.

  

  

  

  One of Jan’s favorite gifts was this flamingo that our son Chris carved and painted for her.

  

  Really great!

  Later Chris whipped up a big pot of his famous gumbo.

  

  He spent some time working on off-shore oilrigs out of Louisiana and a Cajun taught him how to make a great roux, the secret to great gumbo.

  And along with all the other delicious eats, we spent the afternoon munching and grazing.

  As I said, my afternoon was spent assembling Landon’s big Christmas gift, an Ender 3 Pro 3D printer. And finally about 4pm I let Landon press the switch and we watch it boot up with no problems.

  Whew!

  After a couple of false starts due to the bed height not being correct, we started a 6 hour print of a piggy bank. When Jan and I left for home it looked like this.

  

  And when they went to bed, it looked like this.

  

  And when they checked it this morning, it looked like this.

  

  

  But then this morning they started another print, a dog, and then left for lunch. But all did not go well while they were gone. And when they got back it looked like this.

  

  From the look of things, and where the dog is positioned on the bed, it came unstuck from the bed and moved around. But when all the spaghetti was cleared away, it looked like this.

  

  So it got pretty far along before it broke free.

  Apparently this is a common problem with several different solutions.

  More fun to follow.

  Jan has had an ongoing battle with one of the three washers ( well, really two, since one’s already been dead for a while) in our park’s laundry. Every now and then it works just fine, I think just to keep her off balance, but mostly it lights and then just sits there and does nothing, until eventually just shutting off.

  So this morning when she came back to the coach using some very naughty language, I decided to take a look at it in person. And after putting another $4 ($2 x 2) I discovered that the real problem was that the door lock solenoid seems to be out of alignment, and when door won’t lock, the washer won’t start. But if you wiggle the door handle just right, sometimes, sometimes it would start.

  So I texted Rob, our park owner, to let him know, and he said he’s planning on replacing all three front loaders with top loaders this year due to all the problems he’s had with the front loading ones.

  Jan’s 7†Kindle Fire up and died yesterday, so after checking it out and administering last rites today, I ordered her a new one about 1:45 this afternoon. And it showed up at 4:15pm. Now that’s service!

  Looks like our cold snap is pretty much over with temps in the mid-70’s by Wednesday and lows in the 50’s, so I hooked us back up to shore water this afternoon, until the next freeze.

  ---

  December 26, 2023

  My Bucket List . . .

  When we were coming home from Conroe last Thursday, just as we were merging onto I-45S, we saw this semi go by. With a definite problem.

  

  

  But based on his speed he had no idea what was happening. So we followed him for a minute or so, staying the lane to his left, since chunks of tire were still shedding off.

  Finally when he showed no sign of slowing down or pulling over, I sped up to come up beside him so Jan could signal him. When she finally got his attention she kept pointing the rear of the trailer and mouthing ‘Tire, Tire, Tire’. He seemed to get the message and slowed down. And I saw in the rearview mirror that he was pulling over.

  Jan said that when she looked up at him, he was laughing and talking to someone, so he probably had no idea what was happening. Probably ruined his whole day.

  Almost certainly going to need two new wheels and two new tires. Probably looking at $3000 to $4000.

  Ouch!

  ---

  Too Close To Home –

  This past Saturday, about an hour after we left our local Victory Lakes WalMart, the police got into a shootout with a car thief there, killing him when he turned on police while holding a gun.

  Man shot, killed by officer in League City Walmart parking lot was suspect in Houston vehicle robbery

  Besides not being there when bullets were flying, Jan and I really lucked out by not being stuck there when the police locked down the parking lot for several hours, with no cars allowed to leave or enter.

  Dodged a bullet, so to speak.

  ---

  Finishing up, I think everyone has a Bucket List.

  Here’s mine. I’m up to #4.

  

   

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Thought For The Day:

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas !

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

from Jan and Greg White

Jan and I got up this morning a little before 9 to find that the combination of heavy rain and high winds (very high – according to Weather.com – “winds at 31 mph, gusting to 47 mphâ€) had once again knocked the satellite dish off target, because the stakes holding the base down started pulling out of the soggy ground. Oh, well.

We left the rig about 10am, heading up to Brady’s Landing, a beautiful restaurant on the Houston Ship Channel next to the Turning Basin.

We’ve been eating here as a family on either Thanksgiving or Christmas for a number of years. They have a fantastic buffet with pretty much everything you can think of – fresh seafood, turkey, ham, roast beef, chicken, pork tenderloin, breakfast with omelets and waffles, vegetables, fruits, salads, and wonderful desserts, including large fresh strawberries and a chocolate fountain for dipping.

I’m starting to drool again, and I’m still stuffed to the gills.

Linda was being camera-shy, but I did get this picture of Piper, Chris, and Jan while we were there, with Miss Piper showing off one of her Christmas presents, the dress you saw her holding up last night.

We finally left Brady’s about 12:30 and headed home. After we arrived, Jan filled the bird feeders while I re-aligned the sat dish, though I don’t know how long it will hold with these winds. I’m starting to see why one of the rigs around here has his dish held down with 4 big concrete blocks. And I may do that next year.

We didn’t have this much trouble here the last two years, but we were parked facing in a different direction and the rig blocked the sat dish from the worst of the wind. But here the wind hits the dish head on coming off the water.

The push-pin at the bottom is where we are parked now. The one up and to the right is where we were the last two years.

We had thought we were in for the night, but about 5:15 our friend Maria Sutton called to see if we wanted to meet them and some more friends at the IHOP up the road in Kemah.

Well, Jan was in her jammies, and I in my cap (to keep my bald head warm), and had just settled down for a long… oh…wait. Sorry, wrong story.

Anyway, we got dressed and headed out. The place was pretty busy because it was one of the few places open, and the service was slow, but we had a great time anyway. And got a group picture out of it, too. (l to r) Bob, Maria, Jan, Me, Connie, and Herman.

We got back about 7:30, just in time to once again align the sat dish. Whoopeee!

I’m starting to think that, cheap as I am. spending $1,500 or so, for an automatic dome dish on the roof is looking better and better.

Getting home, I fixed another pot of the great coffee that Chris and Linda gave us, this time “Southern Pecanâ€. Just as great as last night.

That about wraps it up for a great Christmas Day. It’s supposed to go down to 31 degrees, and at 10pm it’s already 38. So, a nippy night, indeed. Thank goodness, for heated mattress pads.

December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas to All . . .

Our morning started when we left the rig a little after 10am. Well, we left the rig, but not the park. The battery in the truck was absolutely, completely stone-cold dead. Not a peep when I turned the key.

Luckily the toad is parked right next to the battery compartment in the rig, so it didn’t take too long to drag out the jumper cables. But since the battery was completely dead, it took a few minutes to get enough charge into it so the engine would turn over and start.

The battery’s only a couple of years old and I’ve had no indication of any problems with it. The only thing I’ve done differently is last night I left the power cord of my new Garmin GPS plugged in.

For a normal power cord this wouldn’t make any difference, but this is not a normal power cord. It also contains an FM Traffic Receiver. This receiver picks up traffic data that can be displayed along your route to show you traffic conditions ahead, i.e. congestion, wrecks, detours, etc. I assume that as long as the cord is plugged in, the receiver is active.

I’ll know more tomorrow when I try to start the truck again.

Finally about 15 minutes later we were on our way up to Brady’s Landing to meet all the kids.

It’s really good to have the whole family together for Christmas.

While we were eating Brandi showed us pictures of Landon with the new tricycle that Santa brought him this morning. He’s pretty happy with it.

After finishing our great meal we all headed our separate ways to spend Christmas Day. Brandi, Lowell, and Landon headed out to Katy to spend the day with her BFF Shawna, and her family. The rest of us just headed home.

Everyone waited around to see if I would need a jumpstart, but no problems. I still think it was the Traffic Receiver, but I’ll see tomorrow.

On the way home we stopped by Brandi’s to pick up some laundry and let out Kitty, their 105-pound Black Lab. She was very happy to see us.

We got these pictures of Jan’s sister Debbie’s family. From left to right, that’s Debbie’s daughter Christina, daughter Tana, Tana’s daughter Gwen, daughter-in-law, Laura, her daughter Ella, her husband, Jason, and their other daughter, Avery Jane.

Our Christmas afternoon consisted of a very nice nap and then a light dinner of potato skins, Jan’s Sausage Balls, and some of Chris’ Habanero Jelly spread over cream cheese, and used as a dip for crackers. For dessert we had a selection of Jan’s Christmas cookies, along with coffee made with the fresh beans and bean grinder that Chris and Linda gave us for Christmas.

All in all, a really great Christmas Day.

And Jan and I wish everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas . . .

Well, the incoming cold front made itself known early this morning with 40 to 50 mph winds rocking the coach about 6am.

The high yesterday was 78, and the low last night was 68. But today the high is supposed to be 74 with a low of 31!

BRRR!

About 10:30 Jan and I headed over to Chris and Linda’s for Christmas dinner. Jan fixed a delicious corn casserole and deviled eggs.

As far as the eggs, we decided to try a different way to hard boil them. We BAKED them in the convection oven.

According to the Internet (and everything on the Internet must be true, right?) you can hard boil eggs by putting them on a rack in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes, and then dumping them in an ice water bath. It worked pretty well, but a few egg whites had a partial brown discoloration, I think because they cracked.

The other problem was they were very hard to peel, but I don’t think this was because they were baked. Both the Internet and our daughter-in-law Linda said the fresher the eggs, the harder they are to peel.

And these eggs were very fresh. They were being loaded in the cooler as we were taking them out. Most websites say to buy them a week ahead of time and then boil them, We’ll try that next time.

Linda fixed a great meal with a spiral ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry gelatin salad, and delicious yeast rolls. And of course, a heavenly butter pecan cream cake.

After that fantastic meal, and fighting off a nap attack I spent some time cleaning up Chris’ computer and hooking up a new laser printer. I also set up Google Cloud Print on the machine, and then on Piper’s iPad and Chris’ Galaxy SIII.

This way Piper can print to her home printer from anywhere she has Internet access.

Forgot to mention that Santa brought Piper a new bike this Christmas. Apparently they’re bringing back bikes in the retro style that look like they were built in the 50’s.

Since Chris had to go into work tonight, Jan and I headed home about 4pm, still fighting a lot of wind. And the temperature was distinctly cooler than this morning.

And it just got cooler all afternoon. And then the bottom dropped out. At 6pm it was still 70 degrees here at the park, but by 8:30 it was 40.

That’s quite a drop. And it’s supposed to go down to 31 tonight.

More BRRR!

December 25, 2013

Ho, Ho, Ho . . .

Lucky for us, Landon didn’t get up until almost 7 this morning. I reminded Brandi that she and Chris would try to get up around 4am, and we’d make them stay in their rooms until at least 6. So Brandi was getting off easy.

Here’s what Landon saw as he came out of his room.

At first he was kind of overwhelmed, but quickly got in the mood and started going through the packages.

What was funny is that, at first, Landon didn’t really want to have anything to do with the Kawasaki 4 Wheeler. He went through everything else first.

In the middle of all this, the Ghost of Christmas Present, in the form of Miss Piper, passed through the scene on her way back to the sofa where she’d been residing all morning. Then a few minutes later, she gave it up and went back to bed for a while.

Finally Landon began to show interest in his new 4 Wheeler.

Then about that time, Landon realized that I was taking his picture and raised his shields to protect himself from the camera’s deadly rays.

But then it was back to his new toy.

Here you can see his old and his new 4 Wheelers. Quite a size difference.

Finally, it was time for him to strap on his crash helmet and hit the track, er . . . street. His helmet also came with knee pads, but he refused to wear them.

How did we ever survive as kids without helmets and knee pads?

Then it was out onto the street and down to the park.

Of course, Mommy, Daddy, and Miss Piper were along as the obligatory pit crew.

Later, about 12:30, Miss Piper, Jan, and I headed back down to Clear Lake. Then stopping off at Chris and Linda’s to meet up with them, we drove over to the Luby’s Cafeteria across from Johnson Space Center to have our Christmas dinner.

We were kind of afraid that they might be really busy, being one of the few places open on Christmas Day, but were happy to find them no busier than a normal Sunday, and we only had to wait about 5 minutes before we were going down the line.

The food was really fresh and really good, and we got a couple of turkey and dressings to go, because Jan insists it’s not a real Christmas dinner unless you have leftovers. So we got our leftovers to go.

Jan and I got back to the rig about 3:30, and after we got unpacked, naps seemed to be in order, rounding out a really nice day.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas to All . . .

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did this year.

And in the spirit of giving, I’m giving myself the night off from blogging.

After spending the night at Brandi’s last night, we didn’t get home tonight until almost midnight.

So I’ll be back tomorrow to give you all the latest Boxing Day news.

And so, to all a good night.

December 25, 2015

Happy Boxing Day Eve . . .

Jan and I were up about 8am this morning, not to see what Santa brought us, I mean, no chimneys in the rig, right? No, we were up so we could have coffee and a few sausage balls for breakfast before we headed out for our daughter Brandi’s down in Katy.

On the road by 9, we made a quick stop at the Chase Bank ATM before joining I-45 south. There was probably less traffic than I’ve ever seen on Houston freeways during the day, or the night time, either. So it was an easy trip and we made good time, getting there about 10:30.

Getting the truck unloaded, we found Santa Claus had already come and Landon was deep in the wrapping paper playing with his new stuff. Even Miss Kitty got a new toy from Santa.

Landon was in charge of handing out the presents under the tree as Brandi gave them to him. At one point he ended up with a present for each of his grandmothers in his hands at the same time.

He ran out to the middle of the living room, looked back and forth, and then ran back to Brandi and said, “I’m confused. There’re too many grandmas.â€

As far as Jan, Santa Greg brought her a new Amazon Fire. It’s amazing how much lighter, thinner, and faster this new one is over the old one we bought in 2012. And of course she’s going to need a new cover, so once she picked one out, I ordered it right then. This time, rather than the normal black, blue, or red, she went with something a little more colorful.

One thing I noticed is that apparently Amazon has just shut down all shipping until Monday. Normally if I order something on Friday evening, it will ship on Saturday and I’ll get it Monday or Tuesday. But now, nothing will ship until Monday, even if you select One Day Shipping.

Another thing I discovered with this is that there is apparently a new name for imitation leather – ‘Vegan Leather’

Funny, I thought all cows were vegans.

Chris, Lowell, and I received Air Swimmers. These are helium balloons shaped like fish or birds.

Chris and I got these.

A Shark and a Clown Fish. Should I feel insulted that I got the Clown Fish?

And Lowell got the Angry Bird from the Angry Birds game.

Here’s Chris with his.

And here’s Lowell with his Angry Bird.

Filled with helium from a small tank, and remote-controlled, they have a moveable weight system that heads them up or down, and the tail flips back and forth like a real fish to provide propulsion.

Really neat, and fun to play with. But I wouldn’t really know.

Because I was the last to put mine together, and Chris’ ginormous shark bogarted the rest of the helium, there was only enough left in the tank for me to inflate mine just enough so that it would hang upside down just like a real dead fish.

I wonder how long before it starts to smell?

About 1pm, the food was laid out buffet-style and we all dug in. Turkey breast, Spiral-Sliced Ham, Cornbread Dressing and Turkey Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Candied Yams with Marshmallows, Scalloped Potatoes, Corn Casserole, Baked Potato Salad, Cranberry Salad, and probably a few others I missed.

But it was all really delicious, and we ate until we hurt. Or maybe that was just me. But I did hear others moaning and groaning, so maybe not. And it seems like a lot of people disappeared for naps. Or was that just me too?

We got back to the rig about 7pm, bringing home a lot more food than we took there. So we’ll be having delicious leftovers for a while. Nice!

So another really nice Christmas can be marked off the calendar for this year. Hope all of you enjoyed your Christmas as much as we enjoyed ours.

Merry Christmas from Jan and Greg White

December 25, 2016

Merry Boxing Day Eve . . .

Last night ended up being very quiet on the gate with just the two vehicles coming in that I mentioned in last night’s blog.

And tonight looks to be even quieter with probably no one coming in at all. I’m not sure when they plan to start back up tomorrow, so some people could start to wander in early tomorrow morning, but I’ll be gone at 5am so I may not see any of it. The rigs I know that did shut down, including the gate guards, don’t start back up until 3pm Monday afternoon. So I guess we’ll see.

My Christmas morning started off with coffee about 11 after I got up. Then around 12:30 Jan heated up and put out the Turkey & Dressing dinners we picked up from Barth’s on Friday. What we didn’t realize was that the portions were so large that we just split one dinner and had more than enough for the two of us. So we have the second dinner to split tomorrow. Nice!

And as usual it was all delicious, especially the green beans. They’ve never been on the buffet so this was our first time trying them.

Then we capped off the meal with Pumpkin Pie about 4pm right before I came into work.

Right now on my schedule I’m home and in bed by 6am and then up about 11. Then after coffee and lunch, I grab a couple more hours of sleep before I head back to work around 4:30. But if the new gate I start tomorrow night looks to be somewhat more long term, then I’ll just sleep until 1 or so, and get up and stay up. So we’ll see.

Unfortunately this new gate is a little farther away than any of our other gates, about 30 minutes rather than the 15 or 20 minutes for the others, so a little longer trip, but not bad.

Landon got to play in the snow this week. His church had a snow machine set up for the kids to play in.

Looks like he was having fun.

Don’t know if it bodes well for business in the Oil Patch, but gas prices jumped 11 cents a gallon a couple of days ago while diesel went from $2.14 to $2.27, a 13 cent jump.

Of course it may just be for Christmas travel so I guess we’ll see in a few days. But there is this article saying things are looking up in the Patch, so here’s hoping.

Texas Oil Boom Now

December 25, 2017

Family Traditions . . .

First off, Jan and I want to thank everyone for their many Christmas Wishes. We hope y’all had a really nice Christmas and have a great New Year!

Finishing up last night’s visit to the Houston Magical Winter Light’s, we got here about 6pm and found it even more amazing close up, starting off with these two lovely ladies.

The whole area is made of these ‘set’ pieces, with many different themes.

Jan especially liked the dinosaurs which are about 50 feet tall,

as well as this Chinese dragon.

The detail on these is just fantastic.

The lights and decorations here are really something, and well worth a visit. Besides the lights they have a complete carnival ride area for the kids.

It’s open through January 2nd.

The only suggestion I could make is that it would be nice if they scattered more benches around other than in the ride area. Us old folks would appreciate it.

This morning we were on the road about 9:15 heading up to Katy and Brandi and Lowell’s.

Brandi has two trees, this smaller one at the front door,

and this larger one in the livingroom. Somehow I forgot to turn on the lights before I got the photo.

The cute redheads are Zoe and Zander, Lowell’s niece and nephew, who are here with their mother Grace from San Diego. The cute blonde, of course, is Miss Piper.

Landon’s showing off his Magformers with a heart he made, kind of like large Legos, but they’re magnetic.

The Christmas dinner spread was as delicious as usual, and bountiful enough that there was plenty for everyone to take home.

This was Landon’s big gift, a Nuvison 10 Duo Draw.

It’s a 10†Windows 10 laptop with a touchscreen that you can drawing on with a stylus. Plus the screen detaches for use as a tablet just like the Microsoft Surface Pro. Brandi got a really great deal on it from Costco.

I ended up bringing it home with me to finish setting up. Since it was several months old, it’s got hours of updates to download and then finish setting up. Landon was OK with it since he has so much other stuff.

Tomorrow’s going to be a nice stay-at-home recuperation day, that we’re really looking forward to. Then it’s back to work on Wednesday.

December 25, 2019

The Good Stuff . . .

Jan and I were out the door about 9:30 this morning heading up to Brandi’s in Katy for our Christmas family get-together. Along the way, we made a quick stop at the local CircleK for some coffee, since they had Jan’s favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte.

I was surprised to see that they had new coffee machines, ones that grind and make your coffee to order.

Each machine has 3 different coffee flavor/types, so you have 9 choices. I guess it works kind of like a large Keurig machine. But it does make good coffee. And it‘s always fresh.

Then we made a 2nd stop right down the road at our storage room to pick up Brandi’s suitcase to take back to her. Then it was on up to Katy.

We got there and found Brandi’s home as beautifully decorated as usual. The big tree and the living room,

and the nicely laid-out dining room.

Jan commented on the beautiful garland underneath the TV stand and found out Brandi had made it herself.

Right after we got there Brandi heard me coughing, and knowing about my stuffy head/hearing problem, gave me a Sudafed.

This was the Good Stuff. The locked up behind the counter, sign your life away to even look at the package, promise not to make meth with it, stuff.

So I took two, hoping for the best.

Then while I was setting up Landon’s new laptop, Lowell gave me a couple of ounces of this.

94 Proof Stranahan’s Snowmelt Single Malt Whiskey

This too, is the Good Stuff.

Aged for at least two years, made from high in the mountains snow melt, and only sold for one day a year, people line up and camp out in freezing weather to buy their two-bottle allotment.

Lucky for Lowell, he has a friend out in Colorado who buys it for him.

Now in hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to mix Sudafed and alcohol, and I don’t know which good stuff it was, the Sudafed or the Whiskey, or both, but as we were all walking into the dining room all of a sudden I felt a Snap! Crackle! Pop! in my right ear . . . and I could hear again.

It’s A Christmas Miracle!

We had a great meal, and a great get-together.

From the front on the left, it’s Landon, Brandi, Jan and me. And from the front on the right, it’s Lowell, Lowell’s sister Sherry, and Sherry’s friend Steve.

And through the magic of Paint Shop Pro, I also took the photo.

When we got there Landon was riding all over the house on one of those Hoverboard Electric Scooters that you’ve probably seen.

And we were surprised to see that Landon was riding it like he was born on it. He could turn, reverse, rotate in place, and stop, all without falling off.

Since I hadn’t seen it before, I assumed it was a Christmas gift, so I asked if he had been practicing on a friend’s or something.

Lowell said, No, he just got on it and took off, and that they were surprised too. In fact he even served everyone with dessert at the table, carrying a plate in each hand, and never a bobble.

Impressive!

December 25, 2021

All in All, A Really Great Christmas!

Unlike our kids, Chris and Brandi on Christmas morning, when they were up at 5am, Landon stayed up late and then slept in until a little before 9am.

Nice for all of us.

Landon may have been kind of blasé about Christmas because he thought he had already gotten his big present, his new computer system.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

While we waiting for him to wake up, Lowell got a roaring fire going on the TV,

and we had coffee and some of the Keto Blueberry Muffins I picked up from Gator’s yesterday.

But as soon as he was up, we were all in the living room for the Ceremonial Shredding of the Wrapping Paper as everyone opened their presents

Everybody got a lot of nice things.

Jan loves the warm shawl that she got from Linda, while Brandi and Lowell gave us two subscriptions to Storyworth, the service that asks you questions about your life, and then compiles them into a book at the end of a year.

Really neat.

And of course I appreciated the Amazon gift card I got from Chris and Linda too.

But to his surprise, Landon scored big too.

He got a new hoverboard to replace the one he got 2 years ago. He wore that one out after he outgrew it. So he was thrilled to get a new one.

But the big one, the one he was not expecting at all, was his first cellphone, an iPhone 12. Brandi said he was pretty much the last one in his group to get one.

And since Brandi gave us his number ahead of time, he had a bunch of Merry Christmas texts to start off with.

Later Brandi got started on Christmas dinner by putting a couple of Beer Can Chickens in their big Traeger smoker. And they came out looking like this.

And they tasted even better than they looked.

Along with the green beans, grilled potatoes,

and the really delicious Hatch Green Chile Beer Bread.

A fantastic meal.

Later, about 2:45 we packed up and headed back to Santa Fe, and a very angry Karma who wondered where we had been.

All in all, a really great Christmas!

December 25, 2022

Printing A Pig For Christmas . . .

First off, Merry Christmas to Everyone from Jan and me!

I’ll talk about all the fun we had today getting together, opening presents, and eating delicious food in tomorrow’s blog, but I want to talk about all the fun I had today.

I loved all my presents, but my best one was getting to assemble Landon’s new Ender 3 Pro 3D Printer.

And though it was a lot of fun, it was frustrating at times due to gaps in the pictorial instructions. No words, just pictures.

But after having to reverse course a couple of times, I finally got it put together and then let Landon flip the switch to turn it on.

And, amazingly, it booted right and was ready to go. Scrolling through the sample files on the MicroSD card, I decided to print the Pig

So, pressing the Start button, off it went.

And after an hour or so, I had this.

About this time we headed home, but Lowell kept me updated. And after 4 hours it looked like this.

And after the full 6 or so hours of printing, it should look like this.

A 3D Piggy Bank

I’ll let you know how it goes.

FWIW I’d be getting one of these if I had a place to put it.

December 25, 2023

And To All A Good Night!

We headed out about 10:30 this morning to get Caramel Mocha Lattes at our local Cowboy Coffee. We noticed when we were by there this past Thursday that they were going to be open a few hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So we wanted to give them some support. Plus when we were down in Cuero a couple of weeks ago, Jan got hooked on McD’s Caramel Mocha Lattes.

And though she thought McD’s were great, she says Cowboy Coffee’s are even better.

After a nice, quiet afternoon Jan started getting out the Turkey & Dressing stuff about 5pm, our Cracker Barrel dinners,

along with Broccoli-Cheese Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, and Cranberry Sauce

Delicious!

A really nice day.

Following up with Landon’s 3D printer output.

First up is this 8†tall Gorilla.

And then a two-part Crawfish in A Shell.

Egg Man

But the most amazing one is this Mecha Gorilla.

It’s about 14†tall and fully articulated. Everything moves.

This looks and feels like a $60 toy from Amazon. Took about a day to print.

Next up is a fully articulate Rattlesnake Landon printed for me, complete with working rattles.

And Jan’s new favorite, a moose.

Another great Christmas with our wonderful family.