Author: Steve

Rags beat up a dog today. Some neighbors wanted to come by and meet our
mellow cat. They brought their miniature dachshund. He got a little pushy
with Rags, and suddenly Rags was slapping him about a hundred times a
second. The dog started screaming, but Rags didn’t stop. He just kept
slapping him. He didn’t stop until Judy went over and picked him up. No
blood. The claws never came out. The dog got picked up too, but he never
quit shaking the rest of the time he was here. We may have a problem with Judy’s blood pressure. It’s high enough to
medicate when we’re in Colorado. She keeps it around 120 over 80. We find
her blood pressure seems to be related to altitude. Here we are at sea
level and it’s 86 over 50. I think that measurement reflects “just barely”
on the “are you alive or not” chart. We may cut back on the medication a
little while we’re here. We tried out the new version of Judy’s copilot navigator system on the
laptop this trip. Big improvement. A 3-D view of the road ahead. Much
better perspective. Improved routing through cities as well. It’s good fun
to have along. I have a follow-up report on fishing rods and waders. Remember at the end
of the summer, I finished with two thirds of a really nice fly rod, and
gore-tex waders with a leak in one leg? I wrote letters for each. We boxed
up each wounded fishing necessity, enclosed letters begging for mercy, and
shipped them back to their respective manufacturers. Results: Before we
left on this trip, we received in the mail, a brand new pair of gore-tex
waders from Remington, and a brand new three-piece four-weight flyrod from
Scott. Fantastic. My fishing arsenal is restored, ready for next summer. It was time to upgrade our cellphones before this trip, so we did. Loaded
the new software, plugged the phone into the laptop, and tried the new
cellphone internet hookup. It worked first try. This will make a good
backup connection for when we don’t have WiFi, and until we get a data dish,
as long as we’re within range of a cellphone tower. This internet connect
stuff is working better all the time. Better weather today. Calm. Sunny. Good run on the beach. Didn’t do
anything else. Oh yeah. Drank some coffee. Watched some birds. Watched
some football. Took a couple walks. Don’t know where the day went. Happy Sunday.

Thank you all for your contributions to the “name the lakeside road sign”
effort. The contest was won early and convincingly by brother Tom with:
Don’t drive dunk!
Thank you brother Tom.

The happy family at Becky’s house.
—–Original Message—–
From: Becky AlexanderSent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 4:40 PM
To: Steve Taylor
Subject: Christmas 1
Here are the first Christmas pictures. Tony and Taylor made Gingerbread houses yesterday. I need to get a
picture of Taylor with her finished product. Tony was proud of his. The other picture is of our hyper kids getting ready for bed last
night. Amazingly, they were all passed out by 10:00.

Merry Christmas everyone. Christmas Eve. Clouds. Wind. Light rain. Thunderstorm. Heavy rain. Ice
pellets. Then snow. Real snow! We’re here for the first white Christmas
ever recorded in South Texas. Up to six inches accumulation. Bridges
closed. Roads impassable. The local news channels are going bonkers. What
fun! A beautiful warm sunny Christmas day. Wandered the beach. Had dinner with
fifty other motorhomers, a dinner sponsored by the RV park we’re in. Back to our house to watch football. Conversations with the kids, and an exchange of Christmas pictures. Merry Christmas everyone, from the beach.