Another Birthday

As a first quarter boomer, and this being the first quarter and all, sooner or later I had to have another birthday. Turns out it was this weekend. I'm now officially social security age. Woo hoo! However, there are some pluses to all of this. If push comes to shove, I could collect SS now. No plans to do so, however. Next, you get some nifty stuff. My bride got me t-shirt from the Mug-n-Bun drive-in in Indy. It was one of the early drive-ins, a basic root beer stand, kinda a precursor of today's Sonic. My first job was at Mug-n-Bun. Made a whoppin' 75 cents per hour, plus a sandwich and a root beer if you worked about a 4 hour shift or longer. Was a sophomore in HS. Some of you will remember these. I think a large root beer then was maybe a quarter - might have been less. But wait, that's not all. Wore the shirt to a family get together this afternoon with the kids and g'kids - always a good time. Our son had started cooking last night - smoked a pork shoulder and a couple of slabs of ribs. With the potato salad, slaw, beans, etc., it was quite a treat. Some of the best BBQ known to man - and we have pretty good BBQ in Texas. Kids got me a nice little table to put next to my recliner to hold the laptop and all the remotes. Even they think I've got too much stuff just sitting around. Probably right.

Then for dessert, we had the Midnight Delight ice cream cake from Cold Stone. You can read all about it at http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/cakes/signature_cakes.html

It looks kinda like this. I highly recommend getting one. The g'kids ate the little cylindrical chocolate things on top. By the time we finished dessert, they were wearing a significant quantity of the cake, and went directly from dinner to the tub. Also, another nice thing about this time of year here, we were able to have our dinner and dessert out on the deck.

All in all, a terrific day and well worth getting another year older for.

A Couple of Things to Do

Now that the weather has gotten really nice here on the South Coast, you'll be wanting to get out and do some stuff with the family. Here are a couple of suggestions.


Last spring, the bride and I drove up to Texas's linear state park, the Texas State Railroad. It's a neat trip, and the RR has an interesting history. It currently runs between Rusk and Palestine - about a 25 mile trip by rail. Trains run both ways, crossing at a siding in the middle. There's a 90 minute stopover before the return trip, so take a picnic lunch - it's better than just buying a BBQ sandwich at the snack shop. Check before you go - they can tell you whether they will have any of the steam locomotives running. We need to go this year again with the kids and g'kids. They are always in a tight spot financially, so go asap and give 'em a few extra bucks - it's a neat piece of Texas history. Good book from the gift shop (you knew there had to be one) - Steam in the Pines. It's the history of the RR - basically built by prisoners for prison industry. Give it a try. Check it out at http://www.texasstaterailroad.com/. You can get directions, etc. there.



Now for a real Texas culinary treat. We haven't tried this one yet, but I'm pretty anxious. A short (ok, maybe a couple of hours, but it looks worth it) drive up the road to Snook, TX (vicinity of College Station) takes you to Sodolak's, home of chicken fried bacon. Yup, that's right - chicken fried bacon. Served with a side of white cream gravy, although it has been suggested that a side of ranch or honey mustard dressing sounds pretty good, too. Since bacon is one of the best foods ever, this has to be great. Almost any food is improved by the addition of bacon. Well, maybe not ice cream or pumpkin pie, but aside from some desserts . . . Salad - better with bacon bits. Filet - better if bacon wrapped. Cheeseburger vs bacon cheeseburger - no contest. You get the idea. I'll have to learn how to add these directly (oh, that was tough - Edit Html, copy, paste), but here's the link to the Texas Country Cooking segment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfbTO0GlONU They should have "frequent eater" punch cards for this. Full card is good for an angioplasty. If you're a vegan, skip this.




And, speaking of things bacon, check out http://www.baconsalt.com/. I got some of this stuff about a week ago. I've tried the regular on popcorn (good), the peppered on eggs (good) and the hickory on a burger (good). Yup, all good.

Mulch & More - I Hate Plumbing!

Weekend update: I think the Scouts were short of delivery crews on Saturday. The mulch finally showed up about 5 pm - too late to actually start - particularly considering that No. 3 son, daughter-in-law and grandkids wanted to get together for fajitas, and the kids have to eat relatively early. So Saturday evening worked out well. Sunday, I drove into Houston to help No. 2 son (starting to sound like Charlie Chan, for those of you who go back that far - who'd you like, Warner Oland or Sydney Toler?) with a dishwasher issue. That went ok. Then he came up and helped me spread mulch. Went really quick - 37 bags, 3 cu. ft. each - in about an hour. Woulda taken me at least 4. Guess who did most of the work? Fixed my bride's bike tire, watched the grandkids a little, pretty good day.

One item left on the honey-do list for the weekend - fix a leaky bathtub faucet. Leaky faucets are pretty easy, right? Just turn off the water, pop off the knob, unscrew the valve from the valve body, replace the gasket, and then reverse the previous steps and you're done. Except the flanges were also all cruddy and splitting, etc., so thought I'd replace them, too. Had to shut off the water in the whole house - no shut-off valves on the bathtub lines. To shorten this up, it's impossible to get all the water out, so it continues to drain down (mostly on the floor) when the valves are out. Unscrewing one of the flanges, twisted and kinked the copper tubing underneath - didn't realize the whole valve body was turning. Back to the h'ware store for tubing and valves. There are now shut-offs in the lines. Good thing, because the connection to the cold water valve has yet another issue - read "leaks profusely." Hardware stores closed, and going out of town tomorrow. I think it's impossible to do a household plumbing job, no matter how simple, without this cascade of leaks and problems and multiple trips to the h'ware store. I truly hate plumbing.