1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

1,000 Foot Ore Freighter, Soo Locks, MI

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Colorful Truck Sales, Weed, CA

Hollywood Sign

Hollywood Sign

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Mackinac Bridge, MI

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Pelicans, Grays Harbor, WA

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Out And About . . .

Slept pretty good last night, most of it out here on the sofa, and going into the bedroom for a couple of hours after Jan gets up. So I’m finally up about 10, which is actually my usual time to get up, pre-op.

Then after I strapped myself into my Victorian Corset, eh, Strait Jacket, eh, Back Brace, I had coffee and one of those pre-filled bowls of Raisin Bran Crunch. Just add milk.

Later, after checking with HEB that my muscle relaxer prescription was ready, Jan and I headed out, with our first stop at the Bay Colony USP store to drop off an Amazon return.

Then it was right next door to HEB for my prescription and a few things before heading home a stop off at Popeye’s for a couple of Spicy Chicken Sandwiches for linner, along with a Tres Leches for us to split for dessert.

Really good.

Getting home I tried out one of my new muscle relaxers, Tizanidine, and they do seem to work without making me extremely nauseous like my last ones. They do make me a little spacey, but in a nice way.

And they do seem to loosen up the tightness in my back.

Our daughter Brandi texted over the view from her hotel room out in San Diego. She’s out there for one of her company’s ‘work’ conferences starting next week.

Wonder how much ‘work’ is actually going to get done.


Thought For The Day:

According to the New York Times, as of 2018, approximately 15 people per year have been killed with AR-15 type rifles since 2007. But in the same time frame approximately 13 people a year have been killed by VENDING MACHINES turning over on them!

BAN ASSAULT VENDING MACHINES!
or
You can have my Snickers when you pry it from my cold, sticky fingers.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


September 21, 2009

When in Rome…

Today we planned to to drive the 15 miles over to Rome, NY to see if we can find where Jan lived when she was here in 1961-1962 when her father was stationed at Griffiss AFB.

But before we could get out of the park however, we got to talking with the couples parked next door to us. They’re from Wisconsin and were heading to Niagara Falls a few days before we will be there. Joni and Jan both collect moose stuff and had to compare collections.

And Mister had a great time exploring the inside of their rig.

We all had such a good time talking, we were both late hitting the road, so it was about noon before we finally headed out.

After stopping at Wendy’s for lunch, we drove over to where the Air Base used to be. The base closed in 1993, but parts of it have been redeveloped over the years.

It took a while, driving around while Jan tried to get her bearings, but we finally found Jan’s Junior High. Apparently now it’s an Upper Elementary School, which means it is 5 & 6 grades only.

It still looks pretty good.

Rome School 1

Rome School 2

And then after a couple of false starts, we found Jan’s old house, somewhat the worse for wear!

Actually a lot the worse for wear.

Rome House 1

Rome House 2

A developer had bought the housing in 2005, apparently hoping to refurb and sell them. Don’t know if it was the economy or what, but it looks like that fell through. Only a few units out of hundreds have been redone. And only one seems to be occupied.

But it shows what the places looked like when Jan lived here.

Rome House 3

Rome House 4

It was a kind of bittersweet time for Jan.

After driving around some more we stopped off at Walmart for a few things. While browsing in the Sporting Goods section, I noticed they finally had some ammo in stock, specifically 9mm and .25 Auto.

No .380 unfortunately. But it didn’t make any difference. I was going to buy several boxes of each, but found out they couldn’t sell it to me.

It seems that in New York you must have a permit to just OWN a handgun, not to conceal carry one. And without a permit, you can’t even BUY handgun ammo in New York state.

Oh well.

After Walmart Jan got a pedicure and then we headed over to Sylvan Beach to Eddie’s, a restaurant we’d seen the night before. We both had the spaghetti and meatballs. Good stuff.

Then it was home and in for the night.

Tomorrow we’re going to make a 400-mile round trip in our toad down to South Hadley, MA to visit our friend Joannie, pick up our guns that we had left in her care while we were in Canada, and also mail we had sent to her while we were on the road.


September 21, 2010

Cough, Hack, Wheeze. . .

Not much happened today. I’m still fighting off this cold, I think I’m on the downside, but I’ve been coughing so much, my chest hurts.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

Jan and I did pretty much nothing this morning except have coffee. Then about 2 pm we drove over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup. I hoped that by loading up the soup with some extra-hot jalapenos, it would help burn this cold out.

It couldn’t hurt, right?

Coming home we stopped off at Kroger’s for some groceries and were very happy to run into our granddaughter, Piper.

Piper At Chuys

Unfortunately for me, Jan got the only hug, since I didn’t want to take a chance on giving her what I’ve got.

She was on her way home from school before going into work at Sprinkles, a frozen yogurt shop in Webster.

We got back about 5 pm and settled in for a night of new TV shows, NCIS’s and Glee.


September 21, 2011

Mas Bellas Carretas . . .

It was raining again when we got up, but cleared up later in the morning. Unfortunately, though, it looks like we might also have some rain on Monday.

Jan and I headed out about 12:45 to have lunch at La Carreta. We really enjoyed it last night, so we decided to have lunch there today. Which we did.

We got back to the rig about 4 pm and took it easy until about 5:30 when a whole herd of us headed out to supper. The ‘herd’ consisted of Jan and I, Charles and Chris Yust, and Mike and Elaine Loscher, who just pulled into the fairgrounds this afternoon with their newly painted rig. Michelle at Phoenix Commercial Paint did a fantastic job.

For dinner, we decided to check out Bella’s Italian Grille on the shores of St. Mary’s Lake. And we had a great view of the lake too.

Bella Italian Grille

And even better, the food was delicious and the service was great.

Sara, our waitress, put up with us without ever losing her smile. And she even reminded us that as a party of 8, the tip was already included in the bill. Because of this I gave her a little extra.


September 21, 2012

Nice Slow Day . . .

Today got off to a slow start. I woke up early with a headache, took some aspirin, and then went back to bed. So when I finally got up it was almost 11. Almost half the day gone before I even got started.

Nice!

About 1pm I called Spartan Chassis about my tailpipe and fuel tank problems.

To catch up, the end of my chrome tailpipe extension had rusted out so I ordered a new one from Spartan a couple of months ago. But when I tried to replace the old one I couldn’t get it loose. The extension was inserted into the pipe coming out of the muffler and then a 4-inch clamp encircled it.

Well, for the last several days I’ve tried everything to get the old pipe out of the muffler pipe with no luck. I’ve tried penetrating oil, brute force with a rubber mallet and a length of galvanized pipe, and heating the outside of the pipe with a propane torch. Nothing worked.

I had assumed that this extension was the original one, but after talking to Spartan I don’t think so. According to Spartan the extension should not be inserted into the muffler, but merely butted up against the muffler pipe and then the clamp holds everything together.

So now I’m planning to just cut off the old extension flush with the muffler pipe and then clamp the new one on like it’s supposed to be. But it will probably have to wait till after we move this coming Monday.

My other question was about my partially collapsed diesel fuel tank, caused by a clogged fuel tank vent hose. He thought my idea about putting 5 to 10 PSI of air pressure had a good chance of working. Again I’ll wait till we’re at our next park.

About 5pm we all headed over to Batesville to get our Mexican Food Fix at Acapulco Mexican Restaurant. It had been recommended by a waitress at Skyline Chili, and boy was she right.

It was really good, and really popular, too. Within 15 minutes after we got there the place started filling up. Hopefully this will hold us for a while, since good Mexican can be hard to find up North.

Later, after we got home, Landon’s Aunt Sherry posted this photo of Master Landon at dinner tonight. Looks like he’s having Mexican too.

Landon Eating

On another note, I found this photo on Facebook and really got a kick out of it.

Scares The Hell Out of Me

Tomorrow we’re got to make the 85 mile trip to Dayton to visit the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the Wright Brother’s Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.


September 21, 2013

And the rains came . . .

and came and came and came and …

Well, yesterday for the first time since we got here, the bottom really dropped out. We had about 3.5 inches of rain in about 3 hours.

SC20130920-172949

Yep, that’s us under that blue dot right in the center. The real problem was that the storm moved over us and then just stopped. For 3 hours.

2013-09-20 17.53.26

Pretty soon it was just a lake all around us. But unlike our last heavy rain, the pea gravel I had them put down under our canopy kept us high and dry. So no mud.

Finally around 6:30 pm things cleared up and we saw some blue sky once again. But no rainbow, so I guess we’ve got some more rain in store down the road.

As far as today’s weather, it looks like Fall has sprung, or fallen, or something. Tomorrow, the 22nd is officially the first day of Fall, but it snuck in a day early. The high today was only 82 and tonight it’s supposed to go down to 63. In fact it’s 65 right now. And for the next few days the temps are pretty much 80’s and 60’s the entire time.

Nice.

Tonight we had another catered meal that they dropped off yesterday. Looks like Hell Fighters’ Kitchen is not around anymore since a new company, IPS, is handling the rest of the Completion. But it still was good.

We got two BIG plates of steak, grilled sausage, and BBQ beans, and as usual, we split one and saved the other one for later.

As far as the gate goes, things have really quieted down here. We had 94 vehicles day before yesterday, 105 yesterday, and then 88 today. Though I think part of it was due to the weekend. Much better than 300.

This Monday we start our 2nd month here, and from what we keep hearing we could be here for our entire 3 month stay. Hope so. We’re off the beaten path, but not too far. And we’ve got good cell and Internet.

And most importantly, Walmart is only 20 miles away.


September 21, 2014

‘Rockin’ the Bakken’ . . .

412 Rig at Night

and the Eagle Ford too.

First off, a Piper update. Here’s what Chris Facebooked about 6pm this evening.

We’re home! Several stitches, a few staples, some bruised ribs, a tiny bit of nerve damage (which should take care of itself with time) and Lord knows how many thousands of dollars later. On the upside, we finally had a family road trip!

LOL. Well, at least things ended on a high note.

For a recap of what went on yesterday, you can check here:  A Scary Night

Apparently the ATV the four of them were riding hit a rut in the road and it jerked them sideways, and the ATV rolled down an embankment. The two guys jumped clear, the other girl was thrown out, and Piper rode it all the way to the bottom, ending up with ATV on top of her, with the two guys having to lift it off.

The other girl had a bad compound fracture of her arm and had to be Lifeflighted. So in comparison, Piper got off pretty good. Luckily, she’s right-handed and the injury is to her left wrist, so it won’t interfere with school.

Saw an interesting article today called ‘Rockin’ the Bakken’, talking about all the money flowing into North Dakota from the Bakken Shale oilfields, and how the rig workers spend it. And of course it’s pretty much the same here in the Eagle Ford Shale here in Texas.

And it seems Jan and I are still working the Eagle Ford. I didn’t realize until very recently that where we are here 90 miles north NNW of Houston, is still considered part of the same Eagle Ford formation we were working 60 miles south of San Antonio for the last two years. Now that’s a big oilfield.

We’ve seen the same thing here in the Eagle Ford, with new rig workers coming in, riding with someone because they don’t have a good vehicle. Then a month later they show up in a $50,000 dually diesel pickup. Must be nice.

Well, the cows were back today but the sat dome survived.

Cow 2

Cow 3

My ‘fix’ seems to have worked so far. Jan said earlier in the morning two cows had walked right up and stuck their heads under the canopy, just checking things out.

After getting Linda and Piper heading back home with Piper’s boyfriend, Chris came by about 3pm to pick up Piper’s laptop that I had been cleaning the gunk out of. He stayed about an hour before finally heading home too.

Chris at Still Wagon

Probably glad to be off the road after all the back-and-forth trips to Piper’s hospital up here in Crockett.

Sonja and Lendel, Master Landon’s other grandparents, sent along this photo of their vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC

Lendel and Sonja

Looks like they’re having a good time. You don’t see that much water in Oklahoma.

The last few days have been pretty quiet here on the gate. We had 3 days with vehicle counts in the 80’s, with yesterday at 60, and today at 70. Very nice.

Tonight’s dinner was Red Beans and Rice with Sausage, and Corn Bread. It was dropped off for us by one of the rig workers this morning and it made a great dinner.

The Red Beans and Rice were delicious, but the CornBread was great. Not this stuff you get so many places that’s half flour, sweet, and has the texture of cake. CornBread should be made from coarse stone-ground cornmeal, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, and just enough sugar so the crust will brown. I will allow you to put some kernel corn, or jalapenos in it, and you can make it with buttermilk. But that’s it.

THERE SHOULD BE NO WHEAT FLOUR IN CORNBREAD!

If you want to put flour in it, call it something else.

It ain’t CornBread.


September 21, 2015

It’s awfully quiet over there . . .

Our frack has been down most of the last several days, and that’s fine with us. Hopefully we can stretch this out until the Sunday before Thanksgiving, since this is always when we head back to the Houston area for the winter.

When the frack crew is done here, they’ll move right down the road to another site, and it would be nice to move with them, but you never know. So we’d like to see this one last as long as possible.

Tomorrow starts our second month here, and they’re apparently a little over 1/3 done, so that bodes well, I guess. So the more downtime for them, the better for us, I guess.

But downtime doesn’t mean a lot less traffic though. The same workers come and go, with the only difference being the sand trucks. But the sand trucks aren’t really a problem anyway, since it’s the same guys in the same trucks, so we just flag ’em in and write ‘em down. Yeehaw!

The Priority Mail package I sent to the kids down in Friendswood finally got delivered today, five days late. But at least it got there. That’s something, I guess.

Jan and I have put out the word on the Gate Guard Facebook pages looking for a relief guard for 6 – 8 hours later this week. Our 48th Anniversary is a week from today, and we always try to get some time off for dinner and movie.

Shreveport is the closest big city, and only an hour away, so we’ll probably head over there for the evening.

Although our daytime weather is still in the mid 90’s, at night it’s dropping in the 60’s now. Enough so that I usually put on a long-sleeved shirt sometime during the night. So I guess it’s kind of half Summer, half Fall. Of course, when it’s down in the 30’s and sleeting in November, we’ll look back on this time fondly.

We needed ice, so I made a Carthage run this morning, with O’Reilly Auto Parts/ACE Hardware visits along the way, Coming home I made a Chicken Express stop to pick up lunch for us. Except it was more of a Fish Express stop since that’s what we both got.

Fried Catfish Fillets and Fried Okra for both of us. If that’s not a Southern meal, I don’t know what is.


September 21, 2016

Maybe You CAN Mess with Mother Nature . . .

Well, after my little rant the other day about where the heck Fall went, it seems like Mother Nature may have gotten back on track.

After another couple of days in the low 90’s, the temps start dropping, until Tuesday it’s supposed to be Partly Sunny with a high of 78 degrees and a low of 60. We’ll see now if that holds up. Supposedly there’ll be some rain mixed in among the intervening days, but you can’t have everything.

Of course the weather guy on the radio also said yesterday that it was going to be “Mostly to Occasionally Partly Cloudy”, so I don’t know how much he can actually be trusted. I mean, isn’t that the whole idea of ‘Partly’?

Here’s hoping.

The FedEx guy stopped in front of the rig about 2:30 today, delivering my new Yagi Wi-Fi antenna, but that was pretty much the high point of the entire day. It was all downslope after that, at least as far as antennas go.

I quickly got it mounted on the horizontal arm of the big window awning, pointing it down toward the trailers.

Yagi Antenna Mount

But that was where it stopped right then. Since I was on the gate until 6pm, I was going to wait until I got up at 10pm tonight to run the coax in the window and hook it up to the desktop.

I was really looking forward to seeing how much my signal level would increase. Would it go from the normal 2 bars to 4 bars? Or maybe even 5 bars! I was like an anxious kid on Christmas morning,

But all I got was the pink bunny suit with feet. Not a Red Ryder BB Gun in sight.

After hooking up the SMA connector to the desktop’s Wi-Fi card, I eagerly looked at the monitor.

And I had a grand total of 2, count’em, 2 bars of signal, which dropped to 1 bar even as I was watching.

I’m beginning to think that this entire area is just jinxed.

I mentioned last night that as of about midnight I had no 3G or 4G data on my phone, and my Hotspot wouldn’t connect to anything. Well I kept trying and finally about 2:30 it all started working again. The whole area is just flakey, I think.

I’m also beginning to think that I really do have a problem with the Wi-Fi card in my desktop machine. I’ve wondered about this before since even with a decent inside antenna, it couldn’t see near as many Wi-Fi signals as my phone or tablet, or even our Kindles. But I never followed up on it since it’s usually just connecting to the Cradlepoint router that’s six inches away.

So I quickly put in an Amazon order for this TP-Link model.

TP-Link Wi-Fi Card

TP-LINK N900 2.4GHz or 5GHz Dual Band PCI Express Adapter

Besides hopefully fixing my signal problem, it will also give me a 5GHz connection too. So more tomorrow night I guess.

This morning while Jan was on the gate, an NOV guy, one of the facilities support people, came by and gave us our very own garbage can.

New  Garbage Can

Before, I had to put on my hardhat and lug the bags about 75 yards to one of the big cans on the pad. So this is a lot more convenient.

And even better, when Jan asked him if there was a large dumpster or anything on site where we could get rid of our old TV, he said no problem, that he would take it. And he even went in the rig and brought it out for her.

Even more better, they did all this without waking me.

For dinner tonight Jan fixed us each a plate of her World Famous Gate Guard Nachos. Simple, quick, and delicious.

Gate Nachos

I give them 3 YUMS UP!

Tomorrow is Wal-Mart/Chick-fil-A day, and I also want to get a haircut. Luckily the CFA is in the Wal-Mart parking lot, so it’s convenient and good.


September 21, 2017

Like It More and More . . .

Today was another Clear Lake day, but this time with the added benefit of pouring-down rain most of the way down.

Because of the aforesaid rain, I left for home about 3pm instead of my usual 4. I did make a stop at a nearby O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to get some wire loom

Wire Loom

for the rewiring of my rig/toad lights using the new connectors that I bought.

5 Pin Light Connector

The loom is used to cover the wires to protect them from being abraded or damaged.

Getting up to Willis I made a quick stop at the Kroger’s for gas and a few groceries before getting home about 5:30.

Yesterday’s trip over here was the first time for two of my recent upgrades, the slide remote control and the rear A/C control. Well, I’m batting .500

The rear A/C remote worked perfectly, turning the unit off before I started up the generator, and then turning it back on once the generator is up to speed, saving walking back and forth.

The slide worked, kind of.

Pressing the ‘B’ button started the slide coming in . . . for a little bit. When it was almost all the way in, it suddenly started going back out, even with no buttons pressed. And then when it was all the way back out, it stopped. Again without pressing any buttons.

WTH?

So I tried it again. And got the same result.

WTH? 2

After doing this a couple of more times, I bought the slide in manually as always before.

I have no idea what could cause this, so it’s back to the drawing board, I guess. Don’t know if it’s a bad unit, or what.

We’re really enjoying our stay here at the Hillcrest RV Park in Punkin, TX.

Hillcrest RV Park Overhead

Level sites, good, solid power, great! water pressure, and even better, I haven’t been able to find anyone to pay yet.

The only strange thing is the 600ft driveway leading in from TX150. It is strictly a one-way road, so you better be sure that there’s not another rig coming in or out. Otherwise, someone’s backing up.

Tonight Jan and I watched the 3rd installment of The Orville and we like it more and more.

The Orville

The combination of serious story subjects injected with sometimes off-the-wall humor seems to be a perfect duo. Can’t wait for next week’s episode.


September 21, 2018

Now There’s Two Of Them?

I had hoped to get some stuff done around the rig this afternoon after work, maybe get the new rig’s house batteries installed.

But the closely-spaced rainstorms moving through kind of put the kibosh on that. So maybe tomorrow. Same thing goes for looking at my generator problem.

However we may get a break on our upcoming Florida trip, at least as far as needing the A/C’s on along the way. It’s a little far out for really accurate forecasting, but The Weather Channel shows that the daily high temps between here and Alabama looked to be in the high 70’s-low 80’s during our travel timeframe.

Hopefully it will hold. But we’ll be traveling early in the morning anyway.

The AC power supply for my  6 year old ASUS laptop has gotten kind of flakey so I ordered a new one from Amazon that came in today. And since my battery (the original one) was also pretty worn out, I added one of them too.

This new battery, at 7800 mAh, has about 50% more capacity than the old one.

New Laptop Battery

The perspective here makes it hard to see, but the new one holds the extra capacity by making it a riser tilting the keyboard to a better angle.

My new (replacement) front wheel hub cover also came in.

Spartan Wheel Simulator

So when I put the cover on, it might be a good time to check the oil level in my front wheel hubs while I’m at it.

As a follow-up to Brandi’s Big Green Backyard Lizard, seems like there may be more than one running loose.

Lizard at Brandi's

When Brandi posted the story on Facebook, someone alerted her to someone else who had lost their scaly green pet. But when Brandi contacted them, she found that hers wasn’t the missing one.

And when she posted the result of her call, someone said, “So there’s two of them roaming around out there?”


September 21, 2019

Some Sad News . . .

All the comments on yesterday’s blog about Climate Change, or the lack thereof,  were all very positive, with some nice comments. Thanks.

On a sad note, we got news this afternoon that my cousin, Anna Jean, had died today.

Anna Jean Marjorie Walter Jan

That’s her on the left., along with Jan, Anna Jean’s sister Margie, and Margie’s husband Walter, back in 2017 when we were visiting up in Athens, Alabama. She was always so vibrant it was hard to believe that she turned 93 this past July.

Although I always thought of her as my cousin, I was kind of curious exactly what relation she was to me. In working it out, she was my mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter.

And according to Google that makes her my First Cousin Once Removed.

She will be missed.

Jan and I headed out a little before 1pm to have lunch at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood. where we were meeting up with long-time friend/client Theresa. She was going to drop off her HP Envy laptop so I could upgrade the hard drive.

Her model came with a 200GB SSD drive, small by today’s multi-TB standard hard drives. But SSD drives offer almost instant boot-up and faster access to programs.

So, because she’s running out of room on her 200GB drive, she wants to upgrade to a 1TB SSD.

So I ordered a new one this evening from Amazon which should be here on Monday. In the meantime I’ll copy all of her data off onto an external HD for safety purposes, and then try to make a System Image of the old drive to then reinstall it onto the new one. We’ll see how it goes.

Our daughter Brandi is out in San Diego with her BFF Shawna having a Girl’s Weekend, with I think, a little work involved. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Brandi and Shawna in San Diego

That’s Brandi on the left with Shawna on the right.

Not much on the schedule for tomorrow, so maybe a nice quiet day.


September 21, 2020

TS Beta . . .

I got a couple of Amazon shipments in today, and I ordered a couple of more things for work that will be in tomorrow. And as I’ve noticed more and more, I’m getting Next Day delivery on the items.

I assume it has to do with the fact that Amazon is building more and more warehouses in the Houston area, including a brand-new one getting ready to open on the Sam Houston Tollway at 288. In fact Texas is second only to California in the number of Amazon warehouses.

Tropical Storm Beta (we’re into the Greek alphabet now) seems to be coming ashore around the Port O’Conner area southwest down the coast from here. With winds around 45 mph it’s not as strong as they originally predicted. And with a lot less rain as well.


September 21, 2021

One Last Gasp . . .

I mentioned a couple of days ago about our incoming winter cold front, with a week of day temps in the low 80’s and night temps in the low 60’s. It’s about time.

But summer had to have one last gasp today with a high of 95°, the warmest it’s been in a month or so. But now hopefully done for this year.

Jan and I headed out about 1pm, bound for Webster, and Snooze for lunch once again. And as normal, Jan got her Bravocado Toast,

Snooze Bravocado Toast 3

while I went a little different, with their version of Denny’s Ultimate Omelet.

Snooze 3 Egg Omelet

And although it was OK, it was no ‘Ultimate Omelet’. It was drier than Denny’s version, and apparently they don’t pre-grill the ingredients before they dump them in the eggs. Instead, they just go in cold.

Probably won’t have it again.

Next stop was at work to fix a couple of things that my client had ‘fixed’ this morning. If he would just keep his hands off stuff, or at least call me before he ‘fixes’ anything, my job would be a lot easier.

And lucky for me, he doesn’t read this blog.

After that we made a WalMart stop, we finished up with Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Cowboy Coffee.

Always delicious.


September 21, 2022

Budding Entrepreneurs . . .

Our daughter Brandi said that Landon, his BFF Sophie, and another friend, Adam, have started a candy delivery business at their school. They wrote an app, put it online, and take orders for candy to be delivered at school.

Landon found an empty, unused locker where the candy is left to be picked up after the payment transaction.

So let’s recap.

You’ve got kids at school selling contraband, collecting the cash, and then leaving the product to be picked from a dead drop.

What could possibly go wrong?

Sounds like something I would try.

Jan and I both really like our VivoHome Ice Machine.

Vivohome Ice Maker

VivoHOME Ice Machine

We make a gallon Ziploc bag full every other day which works out great for us. But the unit has one annoying feature, or maybe non-feature.

When the tray is full of ice and ready to be emptied, a red light comes on. But no beep or buzz to give you a heads-up. And since the unit sits behind me on the table, sometimes I don’t get tray emptied and in the freezer, until it starts to melt a bit. So I wanted to add an audio alert of some kind.

So rather that tearing into the unit, I decided to use a photocell to sense when the light comes on. And what I came up was this module.

Ice Machine Buzzer Relay Board

It comes complete with an attached photocell and a built-in relay to control a buzzer.

Ice Machine Buzzer Relay

I also ordered a 5v buzzer to go along with the setup.

I’ll keep you updated.


September 21, 2023

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s . . .

Another.

Today was a busy one, with first picking up a 2022 Toyota Highlander rental car for the next week, so we can put our Jeep in the shop. Our normal backup, our Dodge Dakota, has a blown tire, and this was just easier to do while we get everything fixed.

But before we left the rig for this, our front A/C died. It’s been making some noise for a good while, and finally today, it made a big ‘CLUNK’ and the fan motor locked up and quit. Luckily it’s a little cooler today and our rear A/C is ducted up to the front. So, with that, and a couple of fans, we were pretty comfortable.

Then about 1pm I drove over to the DPS office to try and get me Texas License, but was unsuccessful due to not having enough documentation with our park address on it.

We don’t get a bill from the park, just a text. And we don’t get a power bill or a water bill since they’re included in the rent. I did take in mail from my banks, but she said it was just junk mail, credit card offers, etc. I told her I don’t get statements from the banks, since it’s all done online So now I’ve got to figure something else out before Oct 5th when my SD license expires.]

Then around 2pm we dropped the Jeep off at Joe’s to let him work on a couple of problems.

Then after an HEB stop, it was home for the day.

Still thinking about what I’m going to do about the A/C. It’s only about 8 years old, so I may just replace the fan motor.

We’ll see.

 

 

 

Now With Less Crack . . .

I spent the night on the sofa last night with my feet propped up on our moose footstool, and had a good night’s sleep for the first time in the last few nights.

So far I’ve been able to get up and down, and in and out of bed with no problems. I wear my back brace all the time except for when I’m lying down. In fact it’s kind of nice to have it on since it restricts me from moving too fast and in the wrong direction.

When I was checking out of the hospital, I was asked if I wanted a prescription for muscle relaxers along with a painkiller. I turned them down based on my experience with them after my cervical fusion. I took one and it made me really nauseous. So I never took another one.

But I am getting a lot of stiffness in my back, not really pain, but just a tightness. So since they said they could prescribe something else, I thought I’d give it a try.

But after calling my request in, and telling them to send it to the HEB down here where they sent my painkiller one, they sent it to our old Kroger’s Pharmacy, our pharmacy from my cervical fusion. So it took some time to get that straightened out.

Later this morning, Jan removed the bandages from my two incisions, and was happy with what she saw, with no redness or oozing  However we were both surprised to see staples and not sutures.

This time with less crack.

So now along with my cervical fusion back in November 2021, I’ve got metal staples, cadaver bones, and titanium screws, brackets, and plates.

Sure seems like I’m starting to edge into $6 Million Man territory.

And now that my bandages are off, I’ll be able to take a shower tonight for the first time since last Monday. I’m sure Jan will appreciate that almost as much as I will.

When Jan goes down to HEB tomorrow to pick up my muscle relaxer prescription, I’ll probably ride along with her. Then maybe Popeye’s Spicy Chickens for lunch on the way home.

I’ve got a follow-up appointment with my Dr. on September 30th. Then I’ll see what he says about me going back to work.

Though so far, I’ve been able to do everything from home with no problem, so I may start back one day a week.

But as usual, we’ll see.


Thought For The Day:

I like life. It gives me something to do.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™


September 20, 2008

In Hyder, AK on our way back from Fairbanks.


September 20, 2009

Back in the USA…Again!

Today we finally get back to the USA…at least for this year.

The Grenville RV Park where we’ve been staying is right on the St. Lawrence River and it’s really nice.

Grenville 2

Grenville 1

Even Mister approves.

Mister on Guard

We left the park about 9:45 am, heading about 7 miles back in the wrong direction so we could have breakfast at the 730 Truck Stop Restaurant where we ate dinner last night. It was that good!

We normally don’t eat breakfast when we’re on the road, but this place was too good to pass up. And after a great breakfast, we finally hit the road about 11 am for the 165 mile trip to the Rome, NY area.

We went through Customs into the US a little after noon. It was good to be back.

We did have a small problem in that I got fussed at by the Border Agent for going the wrong way.

As we approached the border crossing the signs said Autos to the left and Trucks to the right. Now, when we came back into the US at Houlton, ME last week, the signs said Autos/RV to the left and Trucks to the right, so no problem.

But when we got to the crossing here, there were no other RVs so I didn’t have an example to follow. In the past, when I have had to go through toll booths and crossings that weren’t really meant for RVs, it was a very tight squeeze, in some cases my mirrors cleared the pillars with about an inch on each side.

So I took the safe approach and went through the truck side. Wrong.

We did have to go through the VACIS gamma ray scanner on our way out. This scanner X-rays the vehicle looking for hidden compartments and contraband. I guess they didn’t find anything because they let us go.

All in all, waiting in line and the inspection/scan only took about 15 minutes.

We arrived at The Landing Campground about 2:30pm and got set up. Even though there were a lot of trees in the park, I was still able to get a good satellite signal.

A couple of hours later we went to supper at Gary’s restaurant on Lake Oneida. Very good, and the lake view was great.

After we got back, we sat outside with Mister for a while so he could check out the area.

Then it was in for the night.

Tomorrow we’ll drive over to Rome to try and find where Jan and her family lived when her father was stationed at Griffiss AFB here.


September 20, 2010

Happy Birthday to Landon. . .

He’s one month old today.

Landon Sleeping in Blue

About 10 am Jan drove over to Kemah to get her cute little toes painted while I puttered around the rig. When she got back around 11:30 I made coffee and we just enjoyed the view.

About 2:15 pm we headed over to Webster to have Linner again at King Food. I’ve been fighting off a cold for the last few days, so I figured a batch of Extra Spicy Chicken with Hot Garlic Sauce, and Hot & Sour Soup might help burn it out.

Well, it couldn’t hurt.

We got back to the rig about 4 and that was it for the day.

Good TV tonight. The new season starts for How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement, Two and a Half Men, and Castle.

Sorry, there’s not much going on today.


September 20, 2011

The Little Cart . . .

Was up about 10 am this morning to a bright sunny day, much better than yesterday’s pouring rain.

After coffee and cinnamon bagels for breakfast, I spent the rest of the morning working on client Internet stuff.

Then after lunch I headed out

While I was out and about, I stopped by a local O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to see if they had some #53 bulbs. These are used in the floor lights in our rig, and they are apparently hard to find, since I had tried 3 or 4 other places with no luck. But when I checked online, O’Reilly’s had them in their catalog, so I was hoping the store would too. And they did, so I bought all 4 they had.

I hit about 8 places, got gift coupons from 1, and ‘Come back in the next couple of days” at the others.

Got home about 5 and about 5:30, Jan and I, and Chris Yust headed into town to have dinner at La Carreta, a favorite local Mexican place of ours. Charles, Chris’ husband was a little under the weather so he stayed home. He missed a great time. Jan and I both really enjoyed our meal.

And as usual, we sat there for over an hour just talking and laughing, and having a good time.

We got home about 7:30, just in time for more TV premieres.


September 20, 2012

Trains and Pl . . . well, just Trains . . .

Today was another fun day and we hit the ground running . . . well, walking briskly anyway. Our first stop was back at Jungle Jim’s Market for a few things.

On the spur of the moment, we saw a Jack in the Box and decided to grab a quick breakfast sandwich. But when we started to pull in we noticed police cars and policemen directing traffic into the parking lot, with a double line of cars going into the two drive-thru’s.

What’s up with that?

Jack Box

It turns out that this was the grand opening of the very FIRST Jack in the Box in the entire state of Ohio. I guess they don’t get out much here.

After we finished, we headed around the corner to our destination, EnterTrainMent Junction.

EnterTrainMent Junction is the largest indoor train display in the world. With two actual miles of track, 90 locomotives, and 1000 cars, the layout covers 25,000 sq. ft. in an 80,000 sq. ft. building.

The dream of Don Oeters, a Cincinnati entrepreneur and model railroad hobbyist, EnterTrainMent Junction is a family entertainment center focusing on trains, with something for everyone.

EJ19

Although EJ (EnterTrainMent Junction) is laid out using ‘G’ Scale equipment, most home layouts use one of the 3 sizes shown below. ‘HO’ scale is on the left, ‘N’ scale in the middle, and ‘Z’ scale is on the left. To give you some idea of the actual size, the ‘Z’ locomotive is only about 2 inches long.

EJ13

The ‘G’ in ‘G’ scale stands for Garden, because this scale is normally used outside in a garden or backyard.

The display is divided into 3 main areas, the early days of railroading, starting in the Civil War era, the Golden Age, centering around the 1940’s and 50’s, and the Modern Era. And the detail is just amazing.

Another thing that’s unusual is that they use real water on the layout.

EJ1

EJ4

The detail even extends to the lighted insides of the buildings.

EJ2

EJ6

The lighting cycles through periods of daytime and night, showing off the many lit interiors, but others are visible even in the ‘daytime’.

EJ12

The nighttime scenes are amazing.

EJ3

EJ5

EJ7

EJ8

There’s even a very realistic forest fire with dancing flames.

EJ9

The downtown area of the Modern City is fantastic. Most of the buildings are based on real structures, but from many different cities, like the Space Needle from Seattle,

EJ10

and this office building in New Zealand,

EJ11

complete with occupied offices.

EJ18

EJ14

EJ16

And of course, what’s a railroad without someone spray-painting graffiti on a railcar?

EJ15

This was our 2nd visit here at EJ, and it was fun to wander the aisles trying to take it all in.

If you’re in the Cincinnati area and have kids, or you act like kids most of the time like me, this is a must-see.

By now it was almost 5pm, so it was off to a nearby Red Robin for our burger fix.

Our last stop of the day was The Container Store. Jan was looking for some storage items, so I napped in the truck.


September 20, 2014

A Scary Night . . .

Or To Skid or Not To Skid . . .

Or The Cow Strikes Again . . .

Our son Chris called about 6 this evening with some scary news. We were expecting to hear from him because he and Linda were planning on coming up tomorrow to visit and pick up our granddaughter Piper’s laptop that I had been cleaning up.

But he said they were on their way up in this direction now because Piper was up kind of near here ATV’ing with some friends and there had been an accident and they were all being taken to the hospital in Crockett, TX, about 55 miles away, and on the east side of I-45. He said all he knew was that Piper was the least injured, but he didn’t know to what extent.

When he called I was just getting ready to go to bed, and since I knew it would take them at least 2 hours or more to get up to Crockett, I went ahead and tried to sleep, but without a lot of luck. I finally got up around 9:30 just as Chris called.

He said Piper was basically OK, just banged up, but she did have a hole in her wrist all the way to the bone. He said they were going to keep her overnight to be sure there was no damage to the tendons and ligaments and that they got everything cleaned out.

So I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.

As I mentioned a few days ago, they were originally supposed to skid our rig over to the new drill hole today, but I didn’t see any sign of that happening. Turns out it’s now scheduled for Wednesday. But we’ll see.

What I’m not quite sure about is how they’re going to do it. I was surprised to find out today that they’re skidding the rig closer to us and not away. It doesn’t look like there’s enough room between the rig and the edge of the pad to get the two cranes in place. But since we’re kind of looking uphill at the rig, the lack of room may be an optical illusion.

And of course, they might plan on having the cranes down here on the road and doing it that way. I guess we’ll know on Wednesday. Or not.

Well, the cow(s) struck again this evening. When Jan went in at 11pm to go to bed, she stuck her head back out and said DirecTV was down again. So I went around the front of the rig to check it out, expecting to find the sat dome on the ground again. But this time the stand was just tilted over and the wires jerked around.

I just wish the cows would pick up their feet (hooves), and stop tripping over the wires. This time I moved the sat stand up against the sewer trailer and then routed the wires up in the air through the trees. So unless some really tall cows come by, I should be OK.

Hopefully we’ll know more about Piper’s condition tomorrow.


September 20, 2015

It’s Back!

Well, the package I sent off via USPS Priority Mail last week finally showed up in north Houston today, five days after it left Shreveport last Tuesday. So hopefully it will be delivered tomorrow down in Friendswood, but you never know.

At least it’s not still lost.

I ordered my second Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm about 11:30 last night. What’s kind of strange is that I ordered the first one last week on Sunday and it got here Tuesday. I ordered this one on Saturday and it’s coming in on Wednesday.

So the later I order, the earlier it gets here? Does that mean that if I keep going, it will get here before I even order it?

If so, that’s got drone delivery beat all to hell.

The other thing I ordered was this.

Flashlight 900 lumens

KJL Cree LED 900 lumens Flashlight

Right now Jan and I are using an UltraFire 300 lumen flashlight to check tags as vehicles come in at night, but sometimes it’s just not enough. With all the bad roads these guys travel on, the tags get really chewed up.

Yes, literally, some of them look like they’ve been chewed on. Plus in many cases, most or all of the reflective stuff has been worn off, so you need a lot of light. And hopefully this will do it.

It also may help me give some of these guys a brief lesson in ‘bright’ lights. There are always a few that leave their high beams on, no matter what, so maybe now I can give them a little taste of their own medicine.

Of course, it may blind them and then they run me over, so I’ll have to think about it a little more.

A neat thing about this order is how I did it. I normally just stick things in my Amazon cart, and then at some point I place the order. But this time I told my Amazon Echo to place the order from me. And she did it perfectly.

I’ll have more info on the Echo soon, but I will say it’s one of my favorite gadgets of all time.


September 20, 2016

Going Back to Kansas City . . .

Well, Amber, our PO mail carrier showed up right on time today, with our Amazon order, but tomorrow may be the real test.

Last night I ordered this Yagi directional Wi-Fi antenna to try and resolve my Internet problems.

Yagi Wi-Fi Antenna

Yagi Wi-Fi Antenna

If I can get a consistently good signal from the Company Man’s system, then I’ll be OK. The problem right now is that sometimes I’ve got 1 – 2 bars, and sometimes I’ve got 4 bars, and the desktop in the rig can’t even see the signal. So this antenna, along with a 10 ft. cable will hopefully do the trick.

Anyway, because I ordered the antenna Next Day, it’s coming by FedEx, not the PO, so we’ll see what happens. Tony, the landowner here, says UPS and FedEx have both delivered to his house at this address, and his house is about a mile down the road past us. So hopefully it will work out. But you never know.

On the same subject, I’m beginning to think that the 3G problem here is not with my Wilson system but with the Verizon 3G signal. And if that’s true, it explains a lot about all the squirrely problems I’ve had.

I have always used the Open Signal App on my phone to point me in the right direction of the closest Verizon cell tower. And that’s how I knew in 2012, the last time we used the Wilson system, that we were hitting a tower over on I-37, 19.5 miles away. Open Signal even showed me the Lat/Long coordinates of the tower itself.

But things got strange when I did the same thing this year. First off, although OS showed me the direction of the nearest Verizon tower, it also said there were NO towers nearby. And although it gave me Lat/Long coordinates, it did not give me a distance.

Hmm!

But where it really gets strange is where OS thinks the cell tower actually is. Since it wasn’t telling me the distance to the tower, I thought I’d just type the coordinates into Google Maps and see where it was really located.

And suddenly the weak signal made sense, because according to OS, we were hitting a cell tower about 80 miles SW of Kansas City, MO. Now that’s a long-distance phone call. Something is screwy somewhere.

OS also gives me both the actual and the relative signal strength, which in this case was –111 dBm and 56%, not a good signal at all. I had been messing with the Wilson system, but at this point it was turned off, and I was just staring at the OS display while I was running through ideas about what the problem was, and what else could I check.

Suddenly the signal strength readings jumped to – 93 dBm and 100%, a good signal.

WTH?

Looking up at the top of my phone display, I noticed that it had dropped back to 3G mode instead of the normal 4G. And it stayed like that for a couple of minutes, when it then jumped back to 4G and –111 dBm.

WTH?

And as of right now, a little after midnight, I have no 3G or 4G data at all, even on my Galaxy S5 phone. And when I try to Hotspot it, I get either ‘Fatal Error: No Connection’ or “No Data Connection’. And it’s been that way for a couple of hours. But the phone call part still works just fine. So this may all be Verizon’s fault.

But as they always say when you call them, they’re working on it.

I still haven’t heard back from Colaw RV Salvage since my phone call last week about a replacement screen door latch, so I’ll try to give them a call again tomorrow.


September 20, 2017

It Was A ‘1’ . . .

Today was moving day for us, for the first time in 34 days, a new record for us at a Thousand Trails park.

But since we only had a 26 mile trip, we took our time. Though Jan was up at her usual 7am or so, I managed to sleep in until about 10.

About 10:45 we drove into Conroe to have breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel, something that’s become kind of a tradition for us. And after a nice leisurely meal, we were back at the rig and on our way about 1:15 with Jan following me in the truck. Didn’t seem worthwhile to hook up for this short a distance.

We pulled into the Hillcrest RV Park in beautiful downtown Punkin about 2pm and found the small office locked, but this note on the door.

Hillcrest RV Park It's a One

At this point the discussion started. Is that site 2J, or site 27, or even site 25?

I quickly figured out that they didn’t have any ‘J’ sites, and this was parked in Site 27.

Hillcrest RV Park Site 27

So what about site 25?

Well, 25 was vacant, but it was only 30 amp and we had asked for 50amp. But we decided to park there temporarily until the owner came back from shopping. I tried to go ahead and at least hook up to the 30 amp so we could shut the generator off, the main breaker to the pedestal blew. The local 30 amp breaker was just fine, thought.

So it was back to the generator to keep cool. When no one had showed up after an hour or so I started walking around the park looking for 50 amp sites.

After checking out about 6 sites toward the back, I headed back up front and found the elusive prize, a 50 amp site.

It was a “1”, not a ‘J’, and not a ‘5’, and not a ‘7’.

It was a ‘1’.

I mean, does that look like a ‘1’ to you?

Hillcrest RV Park It's a One

So here we are, happily ensconced in site #21.

Hillcrest RV Park Site 21

When I was down in Clear Lake yesterday, I picked up my new HP 4650 printer that had come in on Monday, but I didn’t set it up until this evening.

Although it’s noticeably bigger it still fits in place of my old one.

New Printer Comparison

And it was really easy to set up too.

One thing kind of neat is the swing arm that comes out to catch the paper as it is printing.

New Printer Swing Arm

Unlike most printers where you have to move it out yourself, this printer swings it out automatically when you start to print. Neat!

Tomorrow it’s back down to Clear Lake for the last time this week.

Hopefully.


September 20, 2018

Dodged A Bullet . . .

I mentioned yesterday that I had a dermatologist appointment this morning, and as it turns out, I’m really glad I did.

It seems that the scaliness on my head and nose that I thought might be eczema or psoriasis is actually actinic keratosis, a pre-cursor for Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

And long-time readers will remember that back in July 2014 I had a Squamous Cell removed from my head while we were up in Elkhart, IN. So it fits, I guess.

One thing kind of interesting is that, although I could feel the scaliness, it wasn’t really visible on my scalp, so it tended to mask the problem.

The doctor used a canister of liquid nitrogen to burn off about a dozen or so ‘hot spots’ on my head and nose that he saw today. But this doesn’t get rid of the real problem. So in November, after we’re back from Florida, I’ll have a procedure called PDT (Photodynamic Therapy) to head off any further complications.

They’ll coat my head with a chemical in the form of a liquid or cream, let it dry for 30 to 60 minutes, and then expose the area to a special wavelength blue light. The pre-cancerous areas absorb the chemical more than the non-cancerous areas, and when the light is used, the chemical activates and burns the selected areas out, leaving me with a somewhat severe sunburn for a few days. And I will have to wear sunscreen and a hat (which I already do) for a few weeks.

Then in another month, I’ll have to do it again. And hopefully that will be the end of it.

Afterwards Jan and I stopped off at the BayBrook Mall-area Starbucks. It’s Fall and her favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte’s are back, so it was a must-stop. Then we made a stop by Fry’s Electronics so I could look for a replacement connector for the foot pedal for Jan’s Viking sewing machine.

I didn’t find what I needed, but I did come across something that would certainly be useful during the coming Zombie Apocalypse.

Gerber Zombie Apocalypse Kit

And this Gerber set can be yours for only $300.

So Be Prepared!

After Fry’s, we headed over to East Star Chinese Buffet for lunch, and then on to Sam’s and WalMart for a few things, and then it was home for the day.

Wrapping up, Brandi posted photos of this visitor to her backyard this afternoon.

Lizard at Brandi's 2

Lizard at Brandi's

Looks like somebody’s pet got loose. Or maybe there’s a colony of them roaming around Cinco Ranch.

Of course, big green iguanas kind of run in the family.

JanAndIguana

Here’s Jan and her new green friends when we were in Puerto Vallarta in 1997.

I’ve heard they taste like chicken. Sounds like a perfect way for Lowell to try out that new big grill they’ve got.


September 20, 2019

Stirring The Pot . . .

On ‘Climate Change’

This being ‘Global Climate Strike Day’, whatever that is. I thought I’d jump in and stir the pot a little. Or a lot, depending on your point of view, I guess.

First off, NOAA, you know the US Government’s Weather Bureau, says that their new system of remote weather stations shows no warming since 2005

No US Warming Since 2005

“In January 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began recording temperatures at its newly built U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). USCRN includes 114 pristinely maintained temperature stations spaced relatively uniformly across the lower 48 states. NOAA selected locations that were far away from urban and land-development impacts that might artificially taint temperature readings.”

These new sensing locations were necessary because most of the old ones, some dating from the 1930’s and originally sited out in the open countryside, were now in built-up areas, next to office buildings, factories, and highways. All sources of localized heat. So NOAA decided to build a completely new system.

And that new system shows NO WARMING since 2005. So no warming in the last 14 years, and probably no real warming since the 1930’s. And this lack of warming matches up pretty well with the global satellite readings.

US Average Temp

Or how about these Global Warming ‘Facts’

Or how about the fact that ice cores going back 150,000 years show that CO2 levels lag temperature rise, and don’t lead it.

Carbon dioxide increases historically lag temperature increases. “In 1985, ice cores extracted from Greenland revealed temperatures and CO2 levels going back 150,000 years,” . . .  in 1999 it became clear that carbon dioxide rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003, we had better data showing the lag was 800 ± 200 years. CO2 was in the back seat.”

Or how about the fact that 95% of carbon dioxide emissions come from natural sources, and not man?

Less than 5% of carbon dioxide emissions are produced by man. Web searches turn up what seems like an endless list of stories and blog posts reporting that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached or exceeded 415 parts per million. This has been almost universally treated as the tip of an imminent disaster, as man has pushed greenhouse gas emissions beyond a dangerous threshold.

Or there’s a study by NASA almost 20 years ago that details how the main reason for cyclic climate change is the SUN. You know that big ball of flaming gas around 93 million miles away.

The sun’s rotation, orbit, and tilt, along with the earth’s rotation, orbit, and tilt says this:

If we had to sum the whole thing up in one simple phrase, it would be this: The biggest factor influencing weather and climate patterns on Earth is the sun, period. Depending on the earth’s position to the sun at any given time, climate conditions are going to vary dramatically, and even create drastic abnormalities that defy everything that humans thought they knew about how the earth worked.

For more on this idea, think about it like this.

What would happen if the sun suddenly DOUBLED its output? Think it would get hotter on the Earth?

What would happen if the sun suddenly HALVED its output? Think it would get colder on the Earth?

What do you think?

Earth’s climate has always been cyclical. Scientists have confirmed that over the 600 million years or so the earth had been almost completely covered in ice and snow at least twice, and maybe more. Called the Snowball Earth effect, these periods lasted at least 10 million years.

So what caused these?

On a most recent time scale, we know the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 years ago. During that one, almost half of the US was covered in mile-deep sheets of ice.

So what causes these repeated Ice Ages, and what causes them to go away?

Maybe the sun’s orbit moving further from the Earth due to these orbital variations?

And then moving back closer thousands of years later?

For more info about these orbital variations, check out this about Milankovitch Cycles

On an even more recent time scale, we have the Medieval Warming, the Little Ice Age, and even the Dust Bowl. The last one is a little controversial, but many scientists think that this is a possibility, and not the fact that farmers weren’t plowing the right way.

And recently, the ‘settled scientists’ can’t seem to keep their stories straight.

Back in the 1920’s it was Global Cooling.

Then in the 1930’s, it was Global Warming (i.e. the Dust Bowl, remember)

Next up, in the 1970’s, they ‘settled’ on Global Cooling again.

And of course, now we’ve circled back around to Global Warming again.

New York Times Climate Timeline

For more info on this, check out this article from 2006 called Fire and Ice.

Or this one entitled Climate Change Has Been A Routine Scare Tactic Since the 1930’s

Melting Glaciers

Complete with newspaper headlines.

And of course there are the ‘predictions’. Thought ‘wild-ass guesses’ might be a better description.

How about these?

1967 — Stanford University expert Paul Erlich predicted “time of famines” in 1975.

1971 — A top NASA expert predicted an “ice age” by 2021.

1988 — It was predicted that the Maldives would be under water by last year.

2008 — Gore said the Arctic would be free of ice by 2013.

2009 — Prince Charles said there were just 96 months left to save the world.

For some more detail on this, check out this article, complete with newspaper articles. Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions

fogs
And finishing up, here are the first 20 predictions from a list of 41 failed predictions.

  • 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
  • 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
  • 1970: Ice Age By 2000
  • 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
  • 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
  • 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
  • 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
  • 1974: Another Ice Age?
  • 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
  • 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
  • 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
  • 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
  • 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
  • 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
  • 1988: Maldives Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
  • 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
  • 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
  • 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
  • 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
  • 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
  • In fact, not one of these 41 predictions, made by these ‘leading Climate Changers’ has come true.

    0 for 41 is not a good record.

    OK, I’m off my soapbox. Feel free to jump in.


    September 20, 2020

    Been There, Done That . . .

    Jan and I have been watching a CuriosityStream show called The History of Home. And starting with Neanderthal caves, Indian pueblos, and mud huts, it segued to Versailles, King Henry VIII’s Hampton Court, and on to Hearst Castle and The Biltmore. Many of which we’ve been to.

    Hampton Court

    But as we were watching the segment on Hampton Court, Jan mentioned that our visit there was at the top of her Bucket List. I asked her if she’d like to go back, reminding her that during our grueling 13+ hour flight home from London, she told me that if I ever took her on a flight like this again, she’d rip my arm off and beat me to death with it, she looked at me for a long time, like she had to think about it, and then finally said “No. Been there, done that.”

    So I guess I get to keep my arm(s) for a while longer.

    The weather didn’t cooperate with my Helicoil installation plans today. Although the temps were great, just barely getting into the 70’s, the on-and-off heavy rains put the kibosh on that idea.

    And unfortunately, due to the probability of incoming Tropical Storm Beta, I’ll be lucky to get back to the project before Thursday, and maybe not until Saturday.

    We had dinner at Denny’s about 4pm today, and then decided to pick up some groceries at the WalMart next door since with the incoming storm/rain our normal Tuesday grocery run might not happen.

    I did notice that since we were at WM earlier this week, they’ve apparently given up on the one-way aisles thing. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to them anyway, but now all the stickers on the floor are gone too.


    September 20, 2022

    Outback . . .

    Jan and I were on our way up to the Woodlands about 10:30 this morning. We were heading for the Outback there to make our monthly get-together with Debi and Ed Hurlburt once again.

    The last time we ate at an Outback was in May 2018 for our son Chris’ birthday at the location across from Baybrook Mall in Webster. Then before that, it was in Palmdale, CA in April 2017.

    After we started with salads,

    Outback Salad

    Jan got her usual Alice Spring’s Chicken with double Veggies.

    Outback Steakhouse Jan 20220920

    I went with my usual Ribeye, pretty much my go-to steakhouse steak, along with the Steamed Broccoli.

    Jan and I both agreed the food was really good, almost as good as the company.

    Ed and Debi Hurlburt

    Since as usual, we were having so much I forgot to get a photo, I’ll just post this rerun.

    We were back on the road south by about 3pm, with a pretty smooth drive along the way, and finally getting home about 4:45 after a Kroger stop in Dickinson.

    A nice day with great company.

    Already looking forward to next month.


    September 20, 2023

    Is It Climate Or Just The Weather . . .

    As I’ve mentioned, tomorrow I’m going down to the DPS in Texas City to hopefully get my Texas Driver’s License. I think I’ve got all the documentation I need, but we’ll see. I’ve heard some horror stories about trying to prove you are who you are and live where you live.

    I have to get mine by my birthday on October 5th, which is when my SD license expires, but Jan has until the 25th.

    Since not much else happened today, I thought I’d pull forward this blog post from today in 2019.

    Very relevant still.


    On ‘Climate Change’

    This being ‘Global Climate Strike Day’, whatever that is. I thought I’d jump in and stir the pot a little. Or a lot, depending on your point of view, I guess.

    First off, NOAA, you know the US Government’s Weather Bureau, says that their new system of remote weather stations shows no warming since 2005

    No US Warming Since 2005

    “In January 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began recording temperatures at its newly built U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). USCRN includes 114 pristinely maintained temperature stations spaced relatively uniformly across the lower 48 states. NOAA selected locations that were far away from urban and land-development impacts that might artificially taint temperature readings.”

    These new sensing locations were necessary because most of the old ones, some dating from the 1930’s and originally sited out in the open countryside, were now in built-up areas, next to office buildings, factories, and highways. All sources of localized heat. So NOAA decided to build a completely new system.

    And that new system shows NO WARMING since 2005. So no warming in the last 14 years, and probably no real warming since the 1930’s. And this lack of warming matches up pretty well with the global satellite readings.

    US Average Temp

    Or how about these Global Warming ‘Facts’

    Or how about the fact that ice cores going back 150,000 years show that CO2 levels lag temperature rise, and don’t lead it.

    Carbon dioxide increases historically lag temperature increases. “In 1985, ice cores extracted from Greenland revealed temperatures and CO2 levels going back 150,000 years,” . . .  in 1999 it became clear that carbon dioxide rose and fell after temperatures did. By 2003, we had better data showing the lag was 800 ± 200 years. CO2 was in the back seat.”

    Or how about the fact that 95% of carbon dioxide emissions come from natural sources, and not man?

    Less than 5% of carbon dioxide emissions are produced by man. Web searches turn up what seems like an endless list of stories and blog posts reporting that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached or exceeded 415 parts per million. This has been almost universally treated as the tip of an imminent disaster, as man has pushed greenhouse gas emissions beyond a dangerous threshold.

    Or there’s a study by NASA almost 20 years ago details how the main reason for cyclic climate change is the SUN. You know that big ball of flaming gas around 93 million miles away.

    The sun’s rotation, orbit, and tilt, along with the earth’s rotation, orbit, and tilt says this:

    If we had to sum the whole thing up in one simple phrase, it would be this: The biggest factor influencing weather and climate patterns on Earth is the sun, period. Depending on the earth’s position to the sun at any given time, climate conditions are going to vary dramatically, and even create drastic abnormalities that defy everything that humans thought they knew about how the earth worked.

    For more on this idea, think about it like this.

    What would happen if the sun suddenly DOUBLED its output? Think it would get hotter on the Earth?

    What would happen if the sun suddenly HALVED its output? Think it would get colder on the Earth?

    What do you think?

    Earth’s climate has always been cyclical. Scientists have confirmed that over the 600 million years or so the earth had been almost completely covered in ice and snow at least twice, and maybe more. Called the Snowball Earth effect, these periods lasted at least 10 million years.

    So what caused these?

    On a most recent time scale, we know the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 years ago. During that one, almost half of the US was covered in mile-deep sheets of ice.

    So what causes these repeated Ice Ages, and what causes them to go away?

    Maybe the sun’s orbit moving further from the Earth due to these orbital variations?

    And then moving back closer thousands of years later?

    For more info about these orbital variations, check out this about Milankovitch Cycles

    On an even more recent time scale, we have the Medieval Warming, the Little Ice Age, and even the Dust Bowl. The last one is a little controversial, but many scientists think that this is a possibility, and not the fact that farmers weren’t plowing the right way.

    And recently, the ‘settled scientists’ can’t seem to keep their stories straight.

    Back in the 1920’s it was Global Cooling.

    Then in the 1930’s, it was Global Warming (i.e. the Dust Bowl, remember)

    Next up, in the 1970’s, they ‘settled’ on Global Cooling again.

    And of course, now we’ve circled back around to Global Warming again.

    New York Times Climate Timeline

    For more info on this, check out this article from 2006 called Fire and Ice.

    Or this one entitled Climate Change Has Been A Routine Scare Tactic Since the 1930’s

    Melting Glaciers

    Complete with newspaper headlines.

    And of course there are the ‘predictions’. Thought ‘wild-ass guesses’ might be a better description.

    How about these?

    1967 — Stanford University expert Paul Erlich predicted “time of famines” in 1975.

    1971 — A top NASA expert predicted an “ice age” by 2021.

    1988 — It was predicted that the Maldives would be under water by last year.

    2008 — Gore said the Arctic would be free of ice by 2013.

    2009 — Prince Charles said there were just 96 months left to save the world.

    For some more detail on this, check out this article, complete with newspaper articles. Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions

    fogs
    And finishing up, here’s the first 20 predictions from a list of 41 failed predictions.

  • 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
  • 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
  • 1970: Ice Age By 2000
  • 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
  • 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
  • 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
  • 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
  • 1974: Another Ice Age?
  • 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
  • 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
  • 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
  • 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
  • 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
  • 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
  • 1988: Maldives Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
  • 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
  • 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
  • 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
  • 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
  • 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
  • In fact, not one of these 41 predictions, made by these ‘leading Climate Changers’ has come true.

    0 for 41 is not a good record.

    OK, I’m off my soapbox. Feel free to jump in.