It’s Official . . .

Since Jan’s sore throat wasn’t too much better this morning, she made a doctor’s appointment for 10 AM, and $300 later, we found out she has

wait for it . . .

wait for it . . .

wait for it . . .

“THE CRUD”

Yes, it cost $300 to find out Jan has a bad cold.

After dropping the prescriptions off at Sam’s Club, we headed over to The Egg & I to have breakfast at one of our favorite places. One thing we like is that they have a number of favored coffees available, including a great Toasted Hazelnut.

Jan always orders the Blueberry Pancake. Yes, I said Pancake, not Pancakes.

This is why.

It covers 3/4 of the plate!

And they also make the bacon just like she likes it.

She calls it ‘Glass Bacon”. Because it shatters when you touch it.

Leaving breakfast we drove over to a client’s office to check out closing the books for the end of the year. Then it was on back to Sam’s for the prescriptions.

After that it was back to the rig for the day. And the night.

We had originally planned to get together with some friends for New Year’s Eve, but with Jan still under the weather we’ll stay in tonight.

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Thought for the Day:

Failure is not an option!
It comes bundled with Government!

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No Better, But No Worse . . .

A number of you have been doing your Amazon shopping through our blog, and your support is much appreciated.

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Brandi sent over this photo of the final wrap-up of Landon’s Christmas. Originally Lowell, Brandi, and Landon were going up to see Lowell’s parents in Oklahoma the day after Christmas, and Santa had left Landon’s Hug Me Elmo there waiting for him. But plans changed so Grannie and Papa sent it down here to him

Looks like they’re going to be inseparable.

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And while I’m on family photos, here’s one of Zoe Nadeau, our daughter Brandi’s husband Lowell’s sister’s daughter’s daughter.

Hope you got that. There’ll be a short quiz afterwards.

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Jan’s still under the weather, but not really worse. She still has the sore throat, but it doesn’t seem to have gone any further yet.  But just to be sure, if her throat isn’t any better by tomorrow, I’ll take her to the Dr. to have it checked out.

About 3 PM I headed out for some Chloraseptic Throat Spray from Kroger’s and a big batch of Chicken Tortilla Soup from Monterey’s Little Mexico.

Chicken Soup is good for a cold, right? Even if it does have tortilla strips and jalapenos in it, too?

Jan says the Chloraseptic Spray seems to help so we’ll see about tomorrow.

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The temp never got out of the 40’s today, with 30’s set for tonight. And it looks like it will stay that way for the next week or so.

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Later this afternoon Jan and I were watching one of those Mega RV Shows and saw this one.

It’s called the Decoliner, and has been described as what Flash Gordon uses on his vacations.

Although it looks like it was built in the 30’s, it’s a recent Randy Grubb creation. Handcrafted from aluminum, and built on a 1973 GMC Motorhome chassis, combined with a 1950 White Truck cab, it has that full-on Art Deco look.

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And, yes, it can be driven from inside the cab, or from the flying bridge up top.

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Here’s a short video that explains more about it, including how the remote steering works. Sure wouldn’t want to be driving it up top and hit a bump and that telescoping link come loose.

Decoliner

And it can be yours for only $500,000.

Got some good news from Amazon on the Kindle Paperwhite I recently ordered. Originally they said I would not receive it until the week of Jan 6-10. But now it should be here Saturday the 4th.

And it’s now shown up in my Kindle device list on Amazon so I can already send books to it, even before I receive it.   Neat!

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Thought for the Day:

There is no power the state will not abuse.

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Kindles, New and Old . . .

Today started out as sunny and beautiful, but we didn’t have a chance to sit outside with Mister and our coffee because Jan was waiting for our granddaughter Piper to come and pick her up for their Girl’s Day Out with a movie, lunch, and Mani-Pedi’s.

Piper showed up about 11 AM and she and Jan headed up to Webster to see “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, starring Ben Stiller. Later at dinner, they both said that they really enjoyed the movie, although neither Jan or Piper had ever read the original Thurber short story, so they couldn’t say how closely the movie followed the original story. The 1947 movie version staring Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, and Boris Karloff. didn’t either. The reason is that many (most) of occurrences in the story are very dated, and probably wouldn’t make sense to today’s moviegoers.

Back at the rig, MIster did get to spend most of the day outside in the sun while I caught up on a bunch of small jobs and cleanup chores around here.

Since Jan already has her Kindle Paperwhite, and mine is on order, we really don’t need our original Kindles anymore, so I spent some time deregistering and resetting them to the factory defaults. This brings them back to new out of the box condition so they can be re-registered under a new account.

I did this because we’re going to give them to Chris and Linda for their use. They have their iPods for Kindle books, but these are lighter and work better in bright sunlight. Hope they enjoy them as much as we have.

About 4:30 I headed up to Webster to meet up with Chris, Linda, Piper, and Jan at the Buffalo Wild Wings. Love their Mango Habanero sauce. Sweet and very hot.  But BWW was not to be. Getting there about 5, I was told that there would be about an hour wait.

Huh?

What’s up with that? The place looked pretty full but there was only about 6 people waiting for a table. Then I realized that there were football playoff games today, and since BWW is primarily a sports bar, people had been camped out all afternoon there, watching football, eating wings, and drinking beer, emphasis on beer.

So after a short conference in the parking lot, we all headed right down the street to eat dinner at Zio’s Italian Restaurant. We used to eat here all the time, but for some reason we haven’t been in a good while. Dinner was good, and it’s always fun to spend time with family.

The only downside is that Jan seems to be coming down with something. She woke this morning kind of congested, and by evening was starting to feel kind of ‘iffy’ with a bad sore throat.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

Lowell sent over this photo of Landon playing in the park, telling his daddy how to climb from swing to swing. Seems to be pretty insistent about it.

Not sure what’s going to be in store for tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes with Jan.

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Thought for the Day:

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It’s All Nick’s Fault . . .

I got tired of borrowing Jan’s Kindle Paperwhite every time I want to read at night, so I ordered one of my own last night. But I guess Amazon must have sold the heck out of Kindles for Christmas because, even with Amazon Prime, I not going to get mine until sometime after Jan. 6th.

Bummer. Guess it’s back to Jan’s for a while.

About 10 AM Jan and I headed out for our walk around the park, starting our coffee brewer going before we left. Getting back, Jan fed the birds and we (and Mister) sat outside and enjoy our coffee, our muffins, and our view of the bayou. Nice.

Later in the afternoon we did our first vacuum and seal with Jan’s new FoodSaver. She had stocked up on fresh cranberries and wanted to freeze some so she could use them later in the year when fresh ones weren’t available.

So we cut a slit in the original bags so the air could escape and then put the bags in FoodSaver bags and gave it a try. And it worked perfectly. The bags were sucked down to a hard lump, and  should keep for a good while in the freezer.

Originally Jan and I had planned to stay around the rig all day, and then finish off the Turkey Leftovers we brought home from Luby’s on Christmas Day. But Nick just had to go and tell me about how good the hot dogs were at Five Guys where they ate yesterday. So about 4 PM, I couldn’t stand it any more, so Jan and I headed over to the Victory Lakes area to have dinner at Five Guys.

Nick was right about their hot dogs (with bacon, cheese, mustard, relish, and onions), but he forgot to remind us not to get the large fries. They have three sizes: Little, Regular, and Large.

They really should be called Single, Family, and Mob. Since we were only getting one order to split between us, we figured we wanted the large order.

WRONG!

We pretty much got a grocery bag full of fries. More fries than we could eat. In fact, after we had eaten all we could hold, (and more) we had more fries left than we had eaten. In fact, I’d swear that we had more fries left than we started with originally. I think they were reproducing down there at the bottom of the bag. We couldn’t keep up.

We had so much left that Jan brought the bag full home to feed to the birds. I know seagulls like French fries. We’ll see about our other feathered visitors.

Tomorrow, Jan and our granddaughter Piper are going to have girl’s day out with lunch, a movie, and mani-pedi’s. Sounds like fun, and I’ll get some ME time.

Piper is going to pick Jan up here at the park in the morning,  and I’ll meet up with them, along with Chris and Linda, for supper later in the evening.

Sounds like a nice day for everyone.

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Thought for the Day:

                                                  Women Shop. Men Buy.

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Hot Coffee and Hot Peppers . . .

After last night’s checkout with a K-Cup, I did an 8 cup pot using our new Hamilton Beach Flex Brew 2-Way coffee maker.

Hamilton Beach 49980A 2-Way Single Serve Brewer and Coffee Maker

And it was just as good as last night. We’re really going to enjoy having the convenience of doing single cups or full pots.

We didn’t sit outside with our coffee and muffins this morning, because with no sun and 55°, it was cold so, we stayed inside.

A little later we checked out Jan’s Christmas gift that she’d been wanting – A FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer.

FoodSaver V2244 Vacuum Sealing System

She’d been wanting one for a while, and since she was on Santa’s very naughty list this year, he fulfilled her wish.

Although this is their smallest model, it does everything the bigger ones will, including sealing jars. We had a lot of fun fooling around with it, just sealing up different bags of chips and other stuff, and also watching some YouTube videos about it.

My present was something I’d also been wanting, a Chia Willie, And believe me, I need a plant that’s hard to kill.

Chia Willie Duck Dynasty Handmade Decorative Chia Pet Planter

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Friend and Blog Reader George Stoltz sent over this article on the latest entry in the hot pepper wars.

This is the latest winner, the Carolina Reaper. They just look evil.

A batch of these clocked at 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Unit, with an individual pepper rated at over 2.2 million. SHU.

Sounds tasty to me.

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Jan’s sister, Debbie, sent over this photo of her kids and grandkids.

From left to right, that’s daughter Tana, her boyfriend Curt. son Jason, his wife Laura, daughter Christina, and Tana’s daughter Gwen.

Down in front, it’s Ella, and Avery Jane, and Laura’s holding the newest addition, Annisten. A really cute group.

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Wrapping up, for all of  you complaining about your nasty weather this winter, check out Fairbanks. AK today. It was –49° this afternoon, and looked like this.

Now, stop your whining.

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Thought for the Day:

Doubt that the government is screwed up, no matter who’s in charge.

They already have proven they can’t even run a cat house. Remember the Mustang Ranch fiasco in Nevada after it was seized by the IRS? They couldn’t make a profit selling sex and liquor to a bunch of horny guys with cash in their pockets. But we trust them with running our lives.

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Happy Boxing Day, Again . . .

We started out this post-Christmas morning with a 3/4 mile walk around the park. Over the next week or so, we’ll work our way up to 2 miles every other day. The Runkeeper app on my phone makes it real easy to keep track of our walks. In fact, if you set a schedule of walking every other day and then you miss a day it nags you with a message that you missed your walk.

Before we left for our walk we let Mister outside on his lease, and he immediately found a nice spot in the sun and zoned out. Getting back, we joined Mister outside and had our coffee and muffins while we watched Mister and the birds at the feeder ignore each other.

About 1pm I drove down to the office to settle up on the next month’s rent, but found that they don’t open for the afternoon until 3:30 Wednesday through Friday, so I get to keep my money for a few hours longer.

Yesterday at Brandi’s, after all the presents were opened, and the wrapping paper cleaned up, I had a chance to play with a couple of my helicopters. First up was my new Invert X model. According to the box it will fly inverted.

What you don’t find out until you open the box is that unlike other, usually more expensive models, it will not go from normal flight to inverted flight and back to normal. Instead, when you want to fly inverted, you must remove all four blades and swap them around. And then back again to return to normal flight.

A real pain in the rear.

Even worse, it means that flying inverted, you cannot land it normally, but instead you have to grab it out of mid-air unless you want to try to land it on the spinning blades. Bummer.

But I decided to give it a try in normal flight mode. And it wouldn’t.

Fly, that is.

It would set there and the rotors would spin like crazy, but it would not lift off. So I put it aside and got out my Globe Helicopter and had some fun with it. And as it turned out, Miss Piper is pretty good pilot.

After a few minutes of practice she had no problem steering it around the room. The 16 foot ceilings in Brand’s living room makes for a real nice flight area. You just have remember to turn off the ceiling fan.

I have a 3rd one that I didn’t bring with me to Brandi’s. It’s a very nice quad copter, but with 4 exposed blades it’s probably not a good idea to fly it around a lot of people.

So back at the rig today, I got the Invert X back out to take a look at it and see if I could figure out why it wouldn’t fly. I had an idea and it turned out to right.

I can only assume that my helicopter had been bought by someone else and then return to Fry’s because it wouldn’t fly. And as I thought, the reason it wouldn’t fly is that someone had misconfigured the blades. The blades had been set so that they cancelled each other out, so it was generating no lift whatsoever. It would just sit there, whirling away.

Getting the blades set right revealed a very nicely flying machine, if only right side up. And I doubt I’ll ever fool with trying it inverted because there’s really no challenge if you can’t switch back and forth in flight.

About 4pm Jan and I headed out up to Webster to meet some friends for dinner. On the way, I stopped off at the office to settle up for our next month here. The park manager, Lauralee, said the 90 new sites should be up and running this coming March or April, depending on the weather.  Should make it easy next year to get another good site here.

Before meeting our friends, we stopped off at Sam’s Club for a few things. And I got new toy. If you can call a coffee maker, a toy.

This is the Hamilton Beach FlexBrew 2 Way. It is both a standard 12 coffee maker. and a K-Cup single cup brewer.

And it was only $79.

And even better, it not only handles the K-Cup coffee cartridges, but comes with an adapter so you can use your own ground coffee in the single cup brewer.

Neat!

We met our friends at 5:30 at Barcenas Mexican Restaurant, one of our favorite local Mexican places. We used to eat here all the time because it was right outside our subdivision when we lived in our Sticks and Bricks before we started RV’ing. We had a great time catching up with Bob and Beth, and a great meal to boot.

On the way back to the rig, we made a stop at Wal-Mart for a few things, and I picked up a box of Folger’s Hazelnut K-Cup packs to give our new coffee maker a try when we got home.

Jan didn’t want any, but I fixed a cup of coffee and it was really good. As good as a full pot from our old Mr. Coffee.

I think we’re going to like this.

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Thought for the Day:

Remember, a wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf.

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Ho, Ho, Ho . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then it was back to his new toy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas to everyone.

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Thought for the Day:

“Just because it’s a conspiracy theory, doesn’t mean it’s a CRAZY conspiracy theory”.

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Merry Christmas from Jan & Greg . . .

Waiting for Santa . . .

This is what Landon has waiting for him tomorrow morning. He’s really going to enjoy the Kawasaki 4 Wheeler.

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Jan and I headed out for Webster a little after 4pm to meet the rest of the family at our Christmas Eve traditional restaurant, King Food. We eaten here as a family every Christmas Eve for over 20 years.

This year since our son Chris has to go into work after we eat, we exchanged some presents while we were at the restaurant. And as usual the food was fantastic and we had a great time. Unfortunately we were having so much fun that I forgot to get any pictures of the gaiety so you’ll just have use your imagination.

Wrapping up at the restaurant about 7, Chris and Linda headed home, as did Sherry, Lowell’s sister. Brandi, Lowell, Landon, and Piper, as while as Jan and I headed up to Katy to spend the night with them so we could watch Landon open his presents and see what’s under the tree for him. Sherry will come up tomorrow to be with us too.

Since Chris has work tomorrow, and we’re more widely separated now with Brandi and her family living up here in Katy, we decided not to do our usual Christmas Day Buffet at Brady’s Landing, but instead we’ll all be on our own.

Jan and I will probably try to grab something at Luby’s, a local cafeteria chain that’s open tomorrow. Jan’s gotta have her turkey and dressing one way or the other. And remember what she always says: If it’s not cornbread dressing, it’s not really dressing. It’s just soggy bread.

So, to finish up, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

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Santa and Miss Claus . . .

First up, here’s Landon’s visit with Santa this year. Lowell said that he marched right up, sat down in Santa’s lap, and told him that he wanted a Hug Me Elmo and Stuffies (the stuffed animals with hidden pockets). This is one kid who knows where his presents come from and is not afraid of Santa.

Maybe it helps that his PaPa kinda looks like Santa.

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Our day started this morning with lunch at Jan’s new favorite place, Twin Peaks. She had her usual Chicken Ranch Sandwich, while I upgraded from a cup of the Venison Chili to a full bowl. I had the cup last time and it was really good.

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I decided to stay in the Appetizer part of the menu and also got an order of  Average Joes. These are mini jalapeno-cheese brats slathered in spicy mustard and garnished with onions and fresh jalapenos. Very, very tasty.

I’ll definitely have both again. But next time I’ll just have the cup of chili again. The bowl, along with the Average Joes, meant I was too full for the Bread Pudding dessert. And that’s just sad.

And of course, it wouldn’t be right to not have a picture of Miss Claus, our waitress Lauren.

We asked for Lauren again this time because she took such good care of us last time. We had to wait about 10 minutes for her to have an open table, but it was worth it. She even remember what Jan ordered last time and how she wanted it fixed.

And she’s cute to boot.

This sign in Twin Peaks confuses a lot of people apparently. When they ask where the restrooms are, they’re pointed in this direction. But then they just stand there and look at the sign.

But then they finally sound it out, smile, and go in.

But then they’re confused again.

Because one door says: Sit2P

and the other one says: Stand2P

There’s just no helping some people.

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Leaving Twin Peaks we went right down the road to one of my favorite places, Fry’s Electronics. My purported reason was to look for a new laptop for a client, but somehow I only left the store with a new helicopter.

I just had to have this one because it will fly inverted as well as right side up.

Santa came early this year.

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Thought for the Day:

The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case examining whether sectarian prayer should be allowed at government meetings. Ironically, they opened the Supreme Court session with a prayer, just as they have every session since 1789.

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