Our RV Adventures

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We woke up to blue skies and fairly calm waters this morning,

much different than yesterday morning. And with much less rocking and rolling.

And looking at Google Maps on my phone showed us closing in on Galveston,

After breakfast at the Windjammer Buffet this morning, I got a White Chocolate Mocha at the Café Latte-tudes and then we sat around and people-watched for a while.

Jan also picked up a couple of Chocolate Croissants for us to have for breakfast tomorrow morning before leaving the ship.

Then around 1pm we were back at the Windjammer for a light lunch, after which I came back to the room while Jan checked out some of the many areas around the ship.

Around 5pm we met up with our tablemates for one last meal together.

Jan and I both started out with Shrimp Cocktails,

before Jan got the Spaghetti Bolognese for the second time, saying it was really good.

I, as well as everyone else at the table, had the Autumn Turkey Dinner. Also really good.

Finishing up, Jan tried out the Black Forest Tart,

Looks like the cherry tried to make a break for it.

Since I like it before, I again got the Warm Apple Cobbler with Ice Cream.

Yumm!

Then toward the end of our meal, Santa Claus showed up for all the kids.

.

I was surprised to find out that Santa has an Indian accent.

Who knew?

And this is the last picture of our group, after which we exchanged numbers to keep in touch.

We had our 3 bags outside our door this evening, before the 10pm deadline, so we don’t have to worry about dragging them off the ship.

We have to be at our departure station at 8:10am tomorrow, which is why we didn’t want to have to worry about getting breakfast first.

Supposedly everyone has to be off the ship by 9am.

Thought For The Day:

Some days I may seem cool as a cucumber, but inside I’m like a squirrel in traffic.

And Now On To Today’s Retro-Blogs.™

December 15, 2010

High Winds and Spicy Chicken . . .

Today started out with us trying to keep the coach tied to the ground, or at least it seemed that way. We had a 45-50 mph wind directly from the south. The only redeeming factor was the fact that it was hitting the coach head-on, and not from the side.

But that meant it was very hard to get the coach door open. I had to lean out and put all my weight to hold it open so Jan could get out. And then try not to let the door slam back on me.

Even the birds were hunkered down, and note the angle the bird feeder is hanging. One time I saw it almost horizontal.

Jan and I left the rig (or blew away from) about 1:15, first heading over to the Wendy’s in Dickinson for a lunch of Spicy Chicken Sandwiches. Then it was on up I-45 to Sam’s Club to pick up a prescription.

Next, we went right next door to Wal-Mart for more ‘stuff’. Everyone needs more ‘stuff’ at Christmas time.

Leaving there we stopped off at Brandi’s to pick up some more packages that had come in.

Then, next it was Wells Fargo to get a problem fixed with my new VISA debit card. They messed up the setup and although it would work as a VISA card and as a debit card, it would not work as an ATM card.

Next on our list was a visit to the storeroom, and finally the PO to drop off the last of the Christmas cards.

A busy afternoon.

But finally it was close to 5pm and time to head over to Seabrook to Mario’s to meet Chris and Linda. An extra bonus was Miss Piper showing up with her friend Porter.

After dinner, we got back to the rig about 6:30, and the first thing I had to do was get the satellite dish re-aimed. The high winds had moved the entire mount even though it was staked to the ground. The winds have slacked off so hopefully, it will hold for a while.

December 15, 2011

Thank you, Malcolm . . .

I headed out this morning a little after 11 to take another pass at the AT&T fiasco. My first stop was Fry’s Electronics to pick up a new DSL modem. AT&T Tech Support said that the problem was with the new modem they had just replaced, and wanted my client to buy the replacement.

When I asked if we could get our money back if that didn’t fix the problem. They said No. So I picked one up at Fry’s because I knew that after I showed AT&T that the modem wasn’t the problem, I could return it.

And, getting to the client’s house, I plugged in the new modem and No, that didn’t fix the problem.

Surprise!

So back on the phone to AT&T I went. And lo and behold, I found Malcolm. Malcolm may be the only person at AT&T with any skills or common sense.

More importantly, he actually listened to what I was saying. I had asked last week if this DSL account was still set up to use static IP’s. I was told they no longer had residential accounts with static IP’s.

Static IP’s date back to the days before home routers were common. IP addresses are those strings of numbers you occasionally see on the Internet like 192.168.1.254. Every computer on the Internet has a different unique number. It’s like your computer’s phone number.

If you wanted to have more than one computer on your DSL line before routers, each computer was given a static IP address from the phone company. I knew this account was originally set up with static IP’s, and I knew that could cause problems if they didn’t realize that.

But when I mentioned this again to Malcolm, he actually looked it up, and found it was a ‘legacy’ account and it was still set up for static IP’s. Once we knew this, AT&T configured things correctly on their end, and in 5 minutes I had Internet again.

Well, 5 minutes and 6 hours, anyway.

I’m really glad that’s done.

About 5pm this afternoon we picked up Dennis and Kathy Brophey and headed up to Seabrook to Tookie’s for dinner. They had seen my blog comments about it and wanted to give it a try.

And they both said they weren’t disappointed.

Really good, as usual.

Coming back to the park we got a tour of the cabinet modifications Dennis and Kathy made to their Revolution LE. Really nice.

But it’s given Jan ideas. And that always means more work for me.

Came across an article on Yahoo about a place in Cambridge MA that serves really hot food. The dish is called Pasta Plate from Hell and one diner said this about it, “Pain. I can’t breathe. I can’t talk,” he said. “It tastes good at first. Now I can’t taste anything,”

Sounds like my kind of place.

December 15, 2013

Jan’s Favorite Christmas Song . . .

Jan’s Favorite Christmas Song is ‘Mary, Did You Know” and she has just about every different version of it, but this version is her new favorite. Even better, the little girl’s name is Noelle. And her voice is amazing.

Noelle

R.I.P. James (Butterbean) Carpenter

Joyce Carpenter let us know this morning that her husband, and our friend and long-time blog reader, ‘Butterbean’ Carpenter was killed in a car accident this past Wednesday, Dec. 11th.  We had been corresponding with him for several years, and finally got to meet him and Joyce in February 2012 when we got together at the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, TX.

Our daughter Brandi even designated him Landon’s “Honorary Uncle”.

He will be missed.

Jan’s been putting out feed for the birds and they finally found it, especially the Monk Parakeets.

She’s even putting out carrots for the bunny rabbit that shows up at night.

In other animal news, I was going to throw away the box my new printer came in, but Mister had another idea.

Apparently, it’s his box now.

RV’ing New York City

Want to check out New York City without paying for an expensive campground? Just park your RV on the street like these people do. I think your biggest problem might be coming back to your rig and finding it up on blocks and all your tires gone.

The tide was out today and that’s when all the seagulls show up to dine on the many tasty treats that are revealed.

Tomorrow’s going to be a movie day. We plan on having lunch at King Food and then catching the 1:30 showing of Ender’s Game. Then sometime in the next couple days we also plan to see Thor: The Dark World. Both of these have been out since the first part of November, while we were still on the gate, and we want to see them before they’re pushed out by the Christmas movies.

Today we spent a good while catching up on the new Fall shows we DVR’ed while we were still on the gate. So far we’ve caught up on Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Big Bang Theory, Two and A Half Men, and now we’re working on Agents of SHIELD. Next up are Nashville, Person of Interest, Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon A Time in Neverland, Castle, Mentalist, and Bones. Hopefully we’ll be caught by the time all the new episodes start back up.

Since I started out this blog with a song, I thought I end it with one too. This is Jase and Missy Robinson of the Duck Dynasty crew singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Missy has a great voice, and Jase is not too bad either.

Check it out.

Jase and Missy Robinson

December 15, 2014

“As God is My Witness . . .”

First up this morning, Donna Huffer and Bob Parker showed up for their goodbye hugs before they headed out for Rockport down south. Looks like we’ll catch up with them again in Tucson at the Escapade the first part of next March.

A little while after that, Jan and I left on our 85 mile Austin roadtrip about 10am, heading for the Gone With The Wind exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center located on the University of Texas campus. But our first stop was the big Buc-ee’s in Bastrop for breakfast kolaches, coffee, and a bathroom break. We got to the Harry Ransom Center a little before noon, and luckily found parking about a block away.

The exhibit which filled a number of rooms, and consisted mainly of photos, telegrams, and letters, to and from studio executives, actors, attorneys, and censors. You follow the story from the book’s publication in June of 1936 though the film’s debut in December 1939.

David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000, the most ever paid for film rights at that time, and spent the next 3 years trying to get the movie made. While he was trying to raise the money, he was also trying to find his ‘Scarlett’, which proved a much more daunting task than Selznick originally thought. Over 1400 actresses around the country were auditioned, both known and unknown. Some of the known were Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford, Susan Hayward, Lana Turner, Norma Shearer, Miriam Hopkins, and Katherine Hepburn. The problem with many of these established actresses was their age. Scarlett is 16 at the beginning of the movie and 28 at the end, and a lot of these women were in the 30’s, and would have a problem playing a 16 year old girl.

But in the end, it all came down to 4 finalists: Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivian Leigh. Paulette Goddard was actually Selznick’s first choice, but Goddard was pretty openly living with Charlie Chaplin at the time, and Selznick was afraid of the bad publicity.

As it turns out, the eventual choice, Vivian Leigh, was a dark horse, last-minute candidate. Although Selznick had known about her for over a year, she was already signed to other projects and wasn’t available. Then in the last 48 hours, her other movie fell through, and she was available. So she got the role.

Strangely enough though, two complete unknowns were offered the part of Scarlett O’Hara earlier. Both girls, found in the auditions done around the country, turned the role down. One of them, Adele ‘Billie’ Longmire, from New Orleans, was offered the role in 1938, when she was 19. But her parents would not let her go to New York for a final screen-test and contract signing. Plus she objected to the long-term contract she was offered, as did the second girl.

Longmire went on to make a number of movies with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, a lot of TV from The Long Ranger to I Love Lucy, and was well-known enough at the time to have been profiled on This Is Your Life in 1953.

One funny thing about the casting of Vivian Leigh, was that a number of Southern groups and associations were insisting that a southern girl be cast as Scarlett. One organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was particularly insistent. But when Leigh, who was from England, was cast, they said that was OK, just as long as it wasn’t some ‘damn Yankee’.

Jan and I spent a lot of time reading through all the correspondence covering the walls, and two things stood out from this.

One was the fact that telegrams were apparently the email of the time. I counted as many as eight back-and-forth telegram conversations between Hollywood and New York in one day. Some of them less than one hour apart. This was when some guy on a bike would show up at your door with the telegram, you’d read it, write down your answer, and he would take it back to the office to be sent. And then the same on the other end.

Second was the content of some of the studio letters and telegrams. I’m sure you’ve read lately about the North Korean’s hacking Sony and releasing the the emails between studio executives, revealing the many ‘snarky’ conversations about actors, actresses, and other executives.

Well it was exactly the same back in the 1930’s. Actresses were called ‘mental midgets’, actors were ‘drunks’ and ‘lechers, and other executives were ‘liars’ and ‘adulterers’. And that was just the nice things they said.

People never change.

Another interesting part of the exhibit were the letters from the ‘Hays” board censors listing the things that should be taken out of the script. I had always heard there was a lot of controversy about the ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ line, but I did not find anything in the letters about that iconic line. Instead there were a number of complaints about the childbirth scenes and the wounded soldiers, but I was surprised to find out that the censors had a problem with Scarlett’s ‘As God is my witness’ line and wanted it taken out. Obviously, they didn’t get their way.

The other part of the exhibit was a number of the actual dresses worn by Vivian Leigh in the movie.

Very elegant

This one was the dress that Scarlett wore for her first wedding at the age of 16.

I’m sorry, but this one is just ugly.

This one was a robe Scarlett wore while sitting out on the porch.

One thing unusual about this one was the colors. When looking at the dress on exhibit, you really can’t see much difference between the fur and the dress, just a little when the light is right. But the camera (no flash) sees the dark purple part of the robe completely different.

And, of course, no GWTW dress exhibit could be complete with the iconic ‘Curtains’ dress.

This dress, made by Scarlett and Mammy from the curtains left in Tara’s shambles, showcased Scarlett’s indomitable will as she wears it to plead with Rhett Butler for the $300 she needs to pay the taxes on Tara.

And, of course, you can’t talk about the GWTW ‘curtains’ dress without mentioning Carol Burnett’s version in ‘Went with the Wind’.

Carol thought it looked better with the curtain rod still attached.

Five things you probably didn’t know about Gone with the Wind:

1. Scarlett was originally named ‘Pansy’.

2. Tara was originally called Fountenoy Hall.

3. Margaret Mitchell, GWTW’s author, was a cousin by marriage to ‘Doc’ Holiday, the gunslinger (and sometimes dentist).

4. The original title of GWTW was “Tomorrow is Another Day”, the last line of the book.

5. Margaret Mitchell was hit and killed by a drunk driver in Atlanta in 1949 as she crossed Peachtree Street.

December 15, 2015

Found It!

and fixed it . . . I think.

It was really nice this morning to have absolutely nowhere to go. We’ve been on the go so much it seems lately that it was nice to just sit outside for a while with our coffee and pumpkin/cranberry bread, and contemplate doing nothing at all.

But of course, that never seems to last long, now does it?

Coming back in the rig, Jan got on the phone to firm up the last of our medical appointments for this coming February. Since we’re both Medicare, our appointments have to be one year and one day past last year’s. So this means that our dates are gradually creeping forward. So I guess if we RV long enough, we’ll end up seeing the doctors in April or May. So to avoid this, Jan keeps track of last year’s dates, and tries to schedule this year’s just one day later to help avoid too much creep.

Then I got on the phone with Thousand Trails to check out another membership that I’m thinking about buying. It’s a Platinum level, with 21 days in, park to park, with unlimited free days. Unfortunately it doesn’t add any more parks to what we already have. So I’ll probably keep looking around.

A little later in the afternoon, I got back on my shower leak problem. Since the carpet was damp again, I knew the leak was back, so I got the flashlight out and checked the bottom opening that I made last week. Looking around carefully I found a lot of wetness, but nothing to indicate where it was coming from. So my next step was to do something I had planned to do last week, but ran out of time. I turned the water on in the shower.

When I had looked at this problem in the past, the carpet seemed to be just as wet when we were gone for a few days and taking no showers as when we were taking two showers a day (1 each). I figured that this meant the leak was on the supply side to the shower and not on the output to the shower head.

I was wrong.

With the shower water running I got back down on my hands and knees to look in the bottom opening again. But even before I got all the way down, I could hear dripping, actually running water. But it wasn’t leaking down at the bottom. It was coming from higher up, by the faucet.

So getting back up (with a lot of creaking and joints popping, I uncovered the access hole I had cut directly behind the faucet itself. And this is what I saw.

Not just a drip, but an actual stream of water.

Looking at the volume of water leaking out, it was obvious that not all of this water was coming out on the rug. Otherwise we’d have been splashing around in the bedroom after every shower.

So it seems like most of this was just dripping down into the water bay right below, and then out onto the grass through the drain holes.

Turning off the shower water, I tried to turn the plastic fitting, hoping it was just loose, but it wouldn’t budge with my fingers.

I couldn’t just be that lucky this once.

About now it was time to head out for dinner and a Wal-Mart run up in La Grange so off we went.

Every time Jan and I make this trip up to La Grange I always thing about the time we visited the fabled Chicken Ranch, aka The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

You can read about that in this blog from December 2014, as well as a number of other neat places to visit in this area.

I had been wanting to get my McRib fix before they go away, so we had supper at McDonald’s first.

Several little-known McRib fun facts:

1. Chicken McNuggets and the McRib were invented by the same European Chef. (Who knew that McD’s head of food development was a European Chef?)

2. The McRib was invented because when Chicken McNuggets first came out, McD’s could not buy enough chicken fast enough to meet the demand. It just didn’t exist. So the McRib was rolled out to take the ‘heat’ off McNuggets.

3. McRib’s come and go based on pork prices. They normally dip in the fall, which is when the McRib is pushed out again. Then over the next few months, McD’s enormous purchases of pork drives the price up, and the McRib is pulled off the market.

After our Wal-mart stop, and getting back home, I took another look at my leak problem. Turning the shower water back on, I used an inspection mirror to check the underside and back of the connector, but didn’t see any sign of a crack or break. But it kind of looked like the water was coming out of the back of the nut.

So turning the water back off, I used a pair of locking pliers to loosen the plastic nut and back it all the way off. Two things I noticed were that, unlike the other connections, this one had no Teflon tape on the threads, and it also looked like the washer inside the nut might be crushed or disfigured.

But tonight I wanted to see if I could maybe stop the leak, or at least slow it down substantially. So I wrapped the threads with Teflon tape and tightened the nut back on as tight as I could with my fingers using a rag over the nut. It can be risky to use pliers for this because it’s very easy to use too much force and split the nut. So hand-tighten only.

I then turned the water back on and watched for a few minutes, and saw no leak at all. But to be sure, I put a plastic bowl under the joint, and let the shower run for 45 minutes.

And this is what I had.

By dripping water into another bowl for comparison, I figured out that this is about six drops. Not bad, especially since none of us takes a 45 minute shower. Or at least not a hot one, anyway.

So I won’t declare this officially fixed, but at least it’s taken care of until I can try and get a new compression washer, or rebuild the connector.

Wrapping up, here’s a McD’s non-McRib fun fact.

McDonald’s is the largest toy distributor in the world, just due to the ones included in every Happy Meal.

December 15, 2016

Scams and Hodgepodges . . .

First off, I want to thank everyone for their kind words about my recent addition to Greg’s Musings, “The Dakota Access Pipeline – Pipeline Politics”

I’ve posted a cleaned-up PDF version over there that you’re welcome to pass around as you see fit.

Next up, “When did Global Cooling become Global Warming become Climate Change.”

And on the subject of climate, also called ‘Weather’, it’s going to a real roller coaster ride on the temperature scale over the next few days. Today it was 68°/53° and tomorrow it’s supposed to be 74°/64°

Then reaching the very top of the hill on Saturday, it’s going to hit 80°. But then comes the steep drop-off, all the way down to 33° Saturday night. Then Sunday it levels out a bit with 42°, before that final drop at the end down to 28°.

In other words, typical Texas winter weather.

I always wondered if Jan had a past before I met her (of course she was only 19), but I didn’t know she had ‘naked pics’ out there.. Why am I always the last to know?

Here’s an email we got.

Just another phishing scheme going around, but the first one I’ve been tempted to open, but in a sandbox environment, of course.

In addition, if you have a Yahoo. com email account you probably received an email recently concerning a data breach. Yahoo Data Breach

Over 1 Billion, yes, Billion with a B, Yahoo.com email accounts were hacked. But I’m not sure how worried they are about the hack since it happened back in 2013 and they’re just now getting around to telling us.

Wrapping up, also be aware of a new Amazon hack from an email subjected, “Your Amazon.com order cannot be shipped.”

Needless to say, it’s not from Amazon. They don’t even know if you’ve ordered anything. They just send out millions of emails and the Law of Large Numbers guarantees that hundreds of thousands of them have Amazon shipments in progress.

We had another big flare at the site last night, but with the wind, it was blowing horizontal.

I keep meaning to bring my Panasonic camera with me to get some better pics.

Jan made up a big batch of what I call Hodgepodge Beef Soup. Please don’t ask for the recipe because Jan has no idea what’s really in it. She just threw it together.

She started with 1-1/2 pounds of beef stew meat, some beans from some long-forgotten bean soup package, carrots, a large box of beef broth, some shell pasta, a container of Campbell’s Slow Cooker Tomato-Basil Bisque, a can of diced tomatoes, the obligatory can of Hot Habanero Rotel tomatoes, and some condiments here, with some spices there.

Really delicious. But maybe not repeatable.

December 15, 2017

New Friends and Mexican Breezes . . .

I spent most of the day working on a lot of online and paper catalog corrections at work today, keeping me busy enough that the day was over before I knew it. Nice day.

Gas prices are still drifting downward, with an 8 cent drop just in the last week, now at $1.93 a gallon.

My new HDMI cable came in today to replace the flakey one that connects between our Direct TV DVR and our Samsung TV.

I got the heavy-duty, gold-plated one so I hope it will last longer that the old one.

One of our readers commented that the Grimaldi’s in Tucson that I mentioned a couple of days ago was closed when they tried to visit recently.

Turns out they closed right after Thanksgiving because they lost their lease. Or as the article says, they failed to negotiate a new one. Which probably means that the landlord jacked up the rent more than they were willing to pay.

Which must have been a lot since the location was one of the most popular ones in Arizona. They say they will be reopening at the new location sometime late next year.

About 5:15 Jan and I drove over to the La Brisa Mexican Restaurant  on 146 in Bacliff to meet up with blog reader’s Jan and Dale. They’re staying at an RV park down in La Marque and wanted to get together to meet.

We had a great time, great food, and hopefully we’ll be able to do it again soon.

Karma hasn’t had an update recently so here she is.

For a half-feral stray, she’s turned out to be a pretty good kitty.

December 15, 2018

OK, Who Squealed?

I spent some time this morning setting up a laptop for my client’s wife. Her old one, with a Pentium CPU and running Windows XP, is on its last legs. And I’m glad it’s finally dying since I’m getting tired trying to keep it running.

Jan and I headed out for lunch and more about 1:30. Originally we were going to have lunch at the Monterey’s Little Mexico up in Alvin, but right before we left Jan saw a TV ad for Pizza Hut. So that became our lunch destination. No, not Pizza Hut, but our all-time favorite pizza place, Grimaldi’s, and our local one at Baybrook Mall.

We first ate at a Grimaldi’s in 2009 when we were visiting New York City with our daughter Brandi, and our granddaughter Piper. We ate at both Grimaldi’s and Lombardi’s, the two places in NYC that claim to be the originators of pizza there in the first few years of the 1900’s. And we liked Grimaldi’s the best.

So we were very happy when we later found that Grimaldi’s had started to open locations around the country. And everyone we’ve tried around the country was just as good as the original.

One thing we learned early on at Grimaldi’s is that unless you have at least 6 people, never order the Large salad. Because the Small one will feed 4 people with a serving each, or two people with large servings.

This is how much is left in the serving bowl after we both had a serving. So we each had two. Unfortunately they don’t have a Tiny one. Small is the smallest they have.

For pizza we got a medium with Pepperoni, Mushrooms, Italian Sausage, Meatballs, and Jalapenos, pretty much our standard order.

Really good as always, and we had some to bring home. Afterwards we made a quick walk up into Baybrook Mall proper so Jan could pick up a couple of gift things at that Bath & Body Works.

Then it was on back up the road to the Wal-Mart for some groceries and some gift cards, the penultimate of the Christmas presents. Next up was a stop at my client’s to pick up a couple of packages that had come in today, before a final stop at the League City Kroger’s for the absolutely final, the ultimate of the Christmas gift cards.

For some reason, WalMart does not sell Amazon gift cards. I mean, why wouldn’t they sell products encouraging you to buy stuff from their biggest competitor? But luckily Kroger’s does.

OK. Who squealed?

In last night’s blog, I pointed out that it didn’t make a lot of sense that someone would go the trouble of getting a domain name and setting up a website area in order to sell their house, and then advertise it with a sign like this.

Well, this afternoon when we drove past, the sign was gone. But the website is still live with no indication that the place sold.

So I figure one of our readers called the phone number on the site and told the guy what I said. So, come on, fess up.

Who did it?

December 15, 2019

Semi–Well . . .

As I mentioned yesterday, Jan says that I don’t do nothing well. So I guess I did a lot less today, so maybe ‘semi-well’, anyway.

So, other than wandering around on the Internet and checking out some ideas for a change on my client’s website, along with dinner at Black Bear Diner about 3:30, was about it for the day.

Really nice!

Although it seems to have been a false alarm, I was concerned to see that our new Samsung 43” Smart TV, which was supposed to be delivered to my client’s office tomorrow, was out for delivery today via FedEx.

When no one is at the office.

And based on past experiences, I was not really reassured that they wouldn’t just leave it propped up against the front door. It’s certainly happened before.

But it was listed as being delivered by 8pm, and it’s now almost 9, so maybe I dodged a bullet. We’ll see tomorrow, I guess.

If some of you are Migraine sufferers like Jan is, you might interested in this article. It turns out that exposing yourself to green light seems to reduce the frequency and severity of migraine attacks.

Green Light and Migraines

A lot of people seem to have had good luck with it. And it’s cheap and you don’t need a prescription. Check it out.

You might also want to check out these Aculief Acupressure Clamps. They clamp onto the web between your thumb and forefinger, and are said to relieve/reduce migraine pain via acupuncture.

They’re not really expensive, and they have a money-back guarantee. I ordered Jan a set so we’ll let you know.

Also, if you’ve been thinking about getting an Amazon Echo Dot, check out this deal.

Echo Dot Deal

You can get a 3rd Gen Echo Dot for only 99 cents.

Well, actually it’s $8.98. But that’s still about 1/3 the normal price.

So what’s the catch?

You get the Dot for 99 cents when you sign up for a one month trial of Amazon Music Unlimited for $7.99. It will be set up for Auto-Renewal, but you can just cancel it at the end of the month.

However, Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to over 50 million songs, ad-free, so you might decide you want to keep it.

So check it out.

December 15, 2020

Fish And Coffee . . .

Jan and I headed out for the afternoon about 1pm, stopping for lunch at Dickinson Seafood once again.

Blackened Catfish and Shrimp with Grilled Veggies, and a salad.

Delicious, and only $8.59 on the lunch menu. A great deal.

Then it was on up I-45 to the Home Depot for a storage bin and a 1/4” Push-On End Cap to seal off a leaking ice maker line that’s not used anymore.

Then after a quick WalMart stop, we headed back toward the rig, but couldn’t resist a Cowboy Coffee stop

for hot Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Perfect on a cold winter day.

December 15, 2021

What A Country!

Sunday, December 5th

Catching up on our recent Branson visit.

Well, we made it to Branson this afternoon by about two o’clock pm. Nice, smooth trip up from Texarkana.

We first went by and picked up our tickets that we bought online from one of the many discount places. and then had a lunch special at Famous Dave’s, one of our favorite barbecue places.

By the time we were done it was three o’clock and we could check into the hotel.

We were going to be staying at the Twelve Oaks Inn right off the west end of the US 76 Loop, and convenient to everything.

Turned out to be a very nice privately owned place with nice rooms and friendly people.

After resting up for a couple of hours we headed out for the first show of our week in  Branson, Yakov Smirnoff.

Unlike most other theaters, Yakov’s is not on the main Strip, but up north of town.

Besides seeing Yakov in Galveston this past July, we also saw him when we last visited Branson in November 2011, so we definitely wanted to see him again.

Having lived in the Soviet Union until he was 26 when he and his parents managed to get out. There he was an art teacher, as well as a ‘licensed’ comedian.

Yes, in Russia all comedians have to be licensed. And all their jokes have to be approved by a committee. No wonder he wanted out of there.

Besides talking about humor, laughter, and relationships, his act is overtly patriotic.

As Yakov says, “What A Country!”

A really great show!

December 15, 2022

Rebooting . . .

Jan and I were on the way up to the Spring area to meet up with long-time friends, Debi and Ed Hurlburt at the El Palenque Mexican Restaurant, a regular meet-up location for us. Really good.

But our first stop was at the CircleK right out on Hwy 6 for gas. A good deal at $1.39.

But a problem because all their pumps had hung up rebooting the credit card system and you had to pay inside so they could turn the pump on.

At least it’s not running Windows.

The run up to Spring today was probably the smoothest we’ve ever had on one of these trips, with no real slowdowns at all. And as it turned out, it was the same later when we headed home.

As before, Jan had the Rancho Grande, a Chicken Breast with 3 Shrimp, and all the usual accessories.

I got the Palenque Sample once again, with a little of everything.

The food was great, and the company was even better. Always is.

And we both had leftovers.

And as usual it was almost 3 hours before we finally said our goodbyes, already scheduled for next month, of course.

I mentioned a couple of blogs ago about some of our local Mexican restaurants moving away from the traditional Mexican décor to a more industrial look. But apparently El Palenque hasn’t gotten the message.

Coming home we made a quick stop at the El Dorado WalMart for a few things before getting home about 3:45pm.

Another very nice day.

December 15, 2022

I’m Rich, I’m rich!

Jan and I have been trying to schedule all of our upcoming Christmas stuff, starting with our monthly get-together with Debi and Ed Hurlburt next Thursday, this time at the Torchy’s Tacos up in Conroe.

Then moving on to Christmas, because of various work schedules, we’ll be doing our family Christmas get-together on Sunday, Christmas Eve this year. Which will push back our Annual Christmas Eve dinner at King Food to Saturday, Christmas Eve Eve.

Then the Thursday after Christmas we’ve got our Alvin Opry group get-together, at Saltgrass Steakhouse this time.

I got a letter from Social Security yesterday alerting me to the fact that my SS check will go up by a whole $47 per month next year. That’s a 3.2% raise

Yee Haw! I’m Rich, I’m rich.

Of course, it would have been a $57 raise, but Medicare went up about $10 too.

The Government Giveth. The Government Taketh Away.

This was a real problem for me all during my childhood.

And as Jan will tell you, it’s not a sure thing that I’ve outgrown this.