A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's 2:00 PM in San Angelo on Tuesday, December 10th, and the sun is shining. It's currently 44 degrees, and it's a beautiful day.

Normally, 44 is chilly to me, but not today. This is only the second day since last Thursday that the temp has climbed above freezing. I'm not used to the cold hanging around this long. Nights are still dipping below freezing, and will continue doing so for at least the next week, but the day time temps should continue to rise. Ice is still on the rooftops and on the north sides of buildings; we still have considerable ice in our front yard, which faces north. Usually our snow and ice melt the next day, but not during this cold spell.

I don't like the cold. I didn't mind it as much when I was younger, but I get colder now, it seems. We've been using our new gas fireplace quite a bit this past week. It's nice to feel its warmth on those cold, overcast days.

I don't envy folks who live in colder climates; they must be hardier than I am.

Old Man Winter Has Arrived, Part 2

It was just about 2 weeks ago that I posted Old Man Winter Has Arrived. Normally we don't get severe winter storms this close together, at least not in this part of Texas. But here we go again.

A front moved through San Angelo in the early morning hours, dropping temperatures drastically in a matter of hours. The temperature as I write this (9:44 AM on Thursday, November 5) is 32 degrees. The wind is blowing from the north at 18 mph, making the wind chill a frigid 21 degrees. Yesterday, the temperature reached a balmy 84 degrees. What a difference a day can make! Tonight the low is expected to fall to 24. The high tomorrow will reach 30 while the low tomorrow night will dip to 19 degrees. We have a 50% chance of precipitation later today, rising to 80% tonight. We should get some ice, perhaps even some snow.

We don't get that much frigid weather in San Angelo. Sure, we'll get some freezes and even a snow or two each year. But they usually are spread far apart and last for only a day or two. Having two cold snaps about 2 weeks apart is unusual. And this cold spell will remain at the freezing level for 3 full days, then level off to highs only in the 40s for the next several days. Very unusual.

But Donna is in the kitchen cooking up a big pot of beef stew, enough to last the two of us for several days. And last week I had a gas insert installed in our fireplace, so we have the fire glowing.

We opted for the gas insert instead of real wood because of convenience. In our fireplace, when you want a fire, just turn on the gas and fire her up. When you are finished, just turn it off. There's no fussing with building a fire, hauling in fire wood, cleaning out ashes, and all of that. I still enjoy a real fire, especially when we camp, but as we grow older, convenience becomes more important.

So, we'll sit back in front of our fire, savor our beef stew, and enjoy the cold snap. I hope all of you stay nice and warm.

Invasion of the All Night Gang

Ahh, Thanksgiving. Arguably my favorite holiday of the year.

When I was still a working chap, I eagerly looked forward to Thanksgiving each year. It served somewhat as a warmup for Christmas and New Year's.

We try not to travel during holidays anymore. There is simply too much traffic. And I never want to fly during the holidays. I don't like crowds, and I certainly don't like getting stranded when weather turns bad. Now that we are retired, we can travel whenever we want, so we opt to travel when others don't.

So, we plan to stay home during holidays from now on. So for this first Thanksgiving in our new house, daughter Courtney, son-in-law Michael, grandson #1 Xander (short for Alexander, aka the Godfather), and grandson #2 Camden (aka the Sheriff) came for a visit.

Camden is now about 4 months, so he is different each time we see him. He is beginning to develop a personality, but he still keeps everyone hopping. I can hear Courtney up with him at all hours of the night, and I laugh quietly to myself in a Bill Cosby satisfied sort of way.

I've revived a long tradition of ours this year, one I gave up a few years ago. Donna muscled me into buying a smoker. She wanted a smoked turkey this holiday. So, I set up the new smoker, tested, and got ready for Thanksgiving. Now, I take my smoking seriously. I begin the process about midnight. I get the fire going, add oak or mesquite wood chunks that have been soaking all day, fill a water pan with water, beer, and other flavored liquids, and put the turkey on. Throughout the night, I add more charcoal and more soaked wood. The turkey cooks over indirect heat and smoke and is ready for lunch on Thanksgiving. Now, I'm biased, but I absolutely love turkey cooked this way. And I'm not a big turkey fan. I normally won't eat turkey except when I've smoked it.

So, as I would get up periodically throughout the night to add more charcoal and wood to the smoker, I'd hear my daughter and grandson #2. As you've heard said before, the best thing about being a grandparent is that you can enjoy your grandchildren and then send them home. So, after a day or so, my life returns to a quiet normal, but the "All Night Gang" continues their late-night vigils of warming bottles and changing diapers.

Ah, payback is so much fun.

Another Online Tool for the Traveler

About a year ago, I posted an article about online tools I use when traveling. (See "Online Tools for RVers"). I've recently discovered something new I want to share.

While using Google Maps a week or so ago, I noticed a little feature I had not seen before. There's no telling how long it has been available, but I had never seen it. I was measuring the distance from two locations when I happened to see it.

One of my favorite features of Google Maps is that it allows you to get directions from Point A to Point B. When you first pull the program up, you will see this feature available in the upper-left corner of the screen. Simply click on the "Get Directions" button. You can then enter your starting point and your destination. When you do so, the new feature I discovered becomes available.

In the example below, I've entered San Angelo as my starting point and Austin as my destination. The program has returned 3 possible routes, each showing the distance and calculated time to travel that route. As you hover over each choice, that route will highlight in the right part of the screen, on the actual map. Just below the 3 options is a little button, which I have circled in red, that allows you to enter the 3D option. If you click this button, then Google Earth will load and will move you through your route from the starting point to the end point. In other words, you will get an aerial view of your route from start to finish.

For longer trips, it would take quite a while to watch the route play out, but for shorter routes, you can get a good visual of your trip before taking off. Yesterday, I put in a 99 mile route, and it took close to 10 minutes to follow that route, so this is not something you want to use with longer trips. But for shorter trips, it can be quite useful.

Another step forward in armchair travel. Onward!

Old Man Winter Has Arrived

There's an old saying that if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes. That has certainly proved true in my part of the country the last few days.

I write this early on a Saturday morning. On Thursday, the temperature reached a balmy 78. A front moved through West Texas later that day, reaching our area (known locally as the "Concho Valley") about midnight. Our high temp for Friday was actually recorded in the early hours of that day in the 40s. Once daylight arrived, the temp hovered in the low 30s throughout the day, a difference of about 45 degrees from the previous day.

Now early on this Saturday morning, it is still cold, with the temp hovering around the freezing mark. It will remain here throughout the day. Yesterday, we had a little moisture, even a few small specks of snow. It's still dark out, but I can see partially white rooftops in the neighborhood. We expect more wintry weather today (Saturday), tomorrow, and into Monday.

Donna made a big pot of soup yesterday. Mmmm! We have no place we need to be, so we are staying home for the weekend. It's nice to be in a warm house during cold weather as opposed to a travel trailer as we were last winter.

Going to the Dogs

Donna and I try to stay active. We like doing things, so I'm always combing the paper looking for something that might interest us. And we always enjoy doing something new to us, something we've never done before.

A week or so ago, the Concho Kennel Dog Club of San Angelo sponsored an AKC sanctioned dog show at Foster Coliseum. We love dogs and were looking for something to do, so it seemed a natural for us. We had never been to a dog show before but had watched several on television. So even though we had a rough idea of what goes on at a dog show, we really weren't too sure what to expect.

Foster Communications Coliseum is the main events venue in San Angelo.

The show began Friday and continued through Sunday. We drove out to Foster Communications Coliseum in north San Angelo, site of the show, on Friday afternoon and watched the obedience trials. This was a pretty intimate affair off in a side room. We were able to get up close to the dogs and mingle with some of them.

We returned to the show on Saturday morning. The main coliseum floor was partitioned into several areas where best of breed competitions were being held. Vendors were also located on the main floor. Although we spent most of the morning in the bleachers watching the individual breed competitions, we did wander through the floor area to get a close-up look at several dogs. There was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that we had seen from our seats that was being groomed, and we wanted to get a close look at her. She was, indeed, a beautiful dog.

East end of the coliseum, main floor. Fence in the front is edge of show arena, while vendor booths are visible in the background. You can also see a couple of cocker spaniels being groomed in front of the photography booth.

Woman waiting to show her cocker. If you look closely, you will see various dogs in the background being groomed.

A judge is looking over a group of schnauzers.

Poodles being groomed for their upcoming competition.

This is a good shot to show all the activity that goes on at a dog show. People in front center, by the trash can, are waiting to show their dogs. Notice their number arm bands. To the right of them are cages on a rolling platform. Grooming is going on everywhere. The little Cavalier we liked is just beneath the EZGO sign; you can see her standing on a table with her head turned. It's a busy place!

The main floor was a busy place. People were getting their dogs ready and moving them to the area outside where they were to show them. Others were doing last minute grooming on their dogs. Other dogs were in cages; either they had already participated, or their show time was a long way off.

It was an enjoyable outing, and it afforded us the opportunity to see lots of dogs of various breeds.

Movie Review: Last Vegas

If you're an old geezer, then you might want to check out Last Vegas. Donna and I recently saw this movie, and we enjoyed it. Now, it's probably not going to earn any academy awards, and the actors probably won't win anything, either, but it's a solid movie, with many clever scenes and well-scripted lines.

If you watch television at all, then you know the premise of the movie. Billy (Michael Douglas), Paddy (Robert DeNiro), Archie (Morgan Freeman), and Sam (Kevin Kline) have been friends since childhood. Known as the "Flatbush Four," they are now approaching 70, and Billy has decided to marry for the first time and invites his friends to the wedding in Las Vegas.

Archie and Sam provide most of the humor in the movie while the core plot revolves around Billy and Paddy. The usual age-related jokes are prevalent, but many have an original twist to them. The swimming pool scene with Sam near the beginning of the movie is a good example of such a twist.

On a serious note, the movie deals with emotions and subjects that most of us face as we age. How do we deal with loss? How do we take care of ourselves as we age without shutting ourselves off from life? How do we deal with those who care about us, yet don't understand what we are dealing with?

It's a fun movie, and a great way to spend a couple of hours.