Just Another Day at the Donk Store

I've been working on the 1950 census project at FamilySearch. They used OCR to read all the docs into their system, and volunteers are checking the entries against the images to make any required corrections. In one doc, the software had erroneously read one person's place of employment as "Retail Donk Store." 

 

I could NOT. 

Stop. 

Giggling.

No wholesale. Retail donks only.

 

I don't even know what a donk would be, but it cracks me up. (It was actually "retail book store.") 

 

Also from my genealogy activities... I was telling Jeff about the evolution of the German name "Koch" through the last couple of centuries in the US. There are still Kochs around- some pronounced kawch and others coke, but many families switched long ago to the Americanized "Cook." I told him I wasn't sure what koch actually translates to in English- maybe "chicken?"

Turns out it translates to COOK.

 

Bwahaa. Thanks, Google.

 

Yadda yadda... Well... Gotta get back to my job at the donk store. 

Yep. Still hilarious.

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Weekend

KathyL and I went shopping at the Hill Country Galleria yesterday. Superfun! Spent most of our time at HomeGoods, filling two carts with all sorts of amazing stuff there. My advice is to shop at regular stores before going to the discount store. We started at HomeGoods and then were hesitant to spend money on regularly-priced items everywhere else. Ha!

 

J and I watched "The Big Conn" on Apple TV+. It's not the best documentary ever, but the story and people are interesting enough. The producers never seem to be sure whether they want to present an amusing tale of a kooky Kentucky lawyer, or move you with the sad stories of people who were screwed out of legitimate disability claims. A quite disjointed story. The musician Mason Tackett is the BEST though. He should have his own television show. He is affable and hilarious, popping in every so often with his entertaining commentary.

 

Stanley Tucci's "Searching For Italy" show on CNN is one of my faves. So glad it is back for a second season. It is beautiful and interesting, and reminds me how much I would love to spend a month in Italy. Also, "Somebody Feed Phil" is making a return on Netflix for Season 5 on May 25! YAY! World travel food shows rock.

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Layne's, Cane's and Washing Fences

 I power-washed part of our fence this weekend.

About three-quarters of the way down the line, our next-door neighbor came over to impart the required teasing of a neighbor washing their fence. At that moment, I thought I was just soaking wet from all the water, when I glanced down to see instead, I was literally covered head-to-toe in black fence dirt, or whatever fence dirt actually is. So gross. 

 

The next time we meet, no matter what I look like, I will be a thousand times more presentable. So there's that.

I don't know why this is on my mind today, but we have an ongoing discussion in our household about Layne's of College Station (now franchising near you, but not me sadly) vs. Raising Cane's. Other than Layne's obvious College Station superiority and the fact that it was established prior to Raising Cane's, these two restaurants are the same to me. The menus are the same. The fabulous sauce is the "thing" about both restaurants, and it is... the same. If you ask Jeff and Lolo, they insist that Layne's tastes far better.

 

I looked up the copycat recipes for both sauces and they are slightly different ratios of the six exact same ingredients. Buh-bam!

So, Layne's if you have access to one. Otherwise, Cane's is a virtually identical stand-in.

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Mini Vacay

First vacation since the pandemic started! Whee! 

 

J and I did a little San Antone trip- mostly restaurant experiences, since we've pretty much covered the San Antonio area over the last three decades or so. I also introduced him to La Panaderia and their friggin' amazing tequila almond croissant.

We did go to Fort Sam one afternoon to visit the US Army Medical Museum and the Quadrangle. You have to do a few cartwheels to get on base these days, but the stop at the visitor center prior to entry is relatively painless. You need a driver's license, proof of car insurance and a photo of your car registration sticker to get a pass. 

 

The outdoor area of the Quad is so pretty! There is a story (not true) that the deer were introduced to the space when Geronimo and other Apache prisoners were there in the late 1800's, so they could hunt and eat them, since they didn't like the army food. The Quadrangle is a large space, but not THAT large. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel! Ha! 

 

There were no deer around when we were there. It's a closed space, so I'm not sure where they were hiding.

 

There is a very dense population of large birds, including tons of regular and white peacocks, along with geese and ducks. Since you can feed them, they will approach you, curious if you have something for them. They're slow though, and not aggressive. The peacocks are so loud. Oh, and keep an eye up, because PEACOCKS ARE IN THE TREES, Y'ALL.

I was walking under this gigantic tree when a squawk came from overhead. There were a few up there at the time. Freaky! I had no idea they hung out in trees.

 

The small Fort Sam Houston Museum is in the Quad, and worth a walk-through as well.

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Wordle

I've lost my Wordle stats twice now, with my fickle taste in web browsers. When I researched how to fix/retain them, I found out you can actually set them to anything you want with a minimum of effort. Eh. Anyway, here are my latest real stats for the last 23 games I played (in Firefox- lean and mean, but doesn't work best with my genealogy tools):

 7-7-7! Very well distributed today.

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Which Way to Llano?

For my birthday last weekend, we took a long drive out Hwy 71 up to Llano and Mason to see wildflowers. Just fyi, there were hardly ANY. Always a nice drive though! Great views of valleys and hills, just no flowers this year. It happens. Meh. (Plenty of flowers here in the ATX. It is green here, but serious drought time out west.)

On the trip, Siri, who isn't known for her regional dialects, decided to wow us with her newly found Spanish accent, and called Llano "yah-no." *wild applause* Unfortunately, in this case, it's... not actually yah-no. It's lanno, y'all! 

 

Nice effort, though.

We took a little internet-specified "wildflower drive" around the Mason metropolitan countryside, and towards the end we approached a crossroad. I pulled out my phone to check the map, to see which direction we needed to go to get back to Llano. Jeff pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped. I fiddled around for two or three minutes within the map app (it kept zooming in and out too far- GAH), when finally I was able to see that we needed to turn left ahead.

I put away my phone, looked up, and:

Ha!!

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Oscars So Weird

I didn't realize Will Smith's feelings were so delicate that he had to slap the crap out of a comedian making a joke. That is jackassery at it's finest. And why didn't the Oscars folks remove him from the venue? SO weird. It is the very least they could have done. I guess A-listers are just allowed to assault people on live television now?

 

And the nerve of the Oscars to try to get President Zelensky to speak at their event. This show is celebrities giving each other awards for entertainment. It is not the UN. Like the amazing Wanda Sykes said, "He's busy right now... Know your lane." Yeesh. Again- SO weird.

 

Anyhoo... here's a text conversation I had this morning:

 

Me: ...GIRD YOUR LOINS!

Lauren: what hahaha

Me: something people say to warn of impending doom. maybe from a movie? not sure

Lauren: sounds like something from Monty Python

Me: it does

Me (after googling): "This expression comes from the Bible (Proverbs 31:17) and originally alluded to tucking up the traditional long robe into a girdle (that is, a belt) so it will not hamper physical activity."

Me: new show! Bible or Monty Python?

Lauren: lmaooooo

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Slow Motion Fall

I was at the grocery store Monday morning, heading out to my car in misty rain, when I slipped on a painted arrow on the pavement. I managed to hold on to the cart handle with both hands, so I sort of slow motion fell onto my knees, scraping my shins on the ground. 

 

I would have been less embarrassed to have fallen flat and knocked myself out.

 

Lauren, Troy and Jaxon hung out last Saturday night! Jaxon was visiting from teaching English in Japan and Troy came down from Dallas. So great to see the old besties together again. I'm so glad Lolo felt well and was able to see them.

We had friends over for dinner last night, and we were talking about if you remember your childhood phone number. It reminded me that my family's Houston phone number, when my dad worked at NASA, happened to be one digit off from the main number to the Johnson Space Center. We got calls every day for them! I actually remember both numbers. We would answer "hello" and the person on the other end would be like, "Is this NASA?" We would say, "No, their number is 483-0123." (Just checked, and their number is still 483-0123. Awesome.)

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Ukraine

Heartbroken over the war in Ukraine. It's difficult to find a balance of watching enough CNN to be aware of the daily details, while not watching so much as to be completely absorbed in it. 

It's incredibly ridiculous in the modern world for one jackwagon individual to cause so much death and destruction. It's frustrating that we can't do anything militarily without risking world war. So glad to see companies participating in cutting Russia off temporarily, along with government sanctions. If these are the only measures we can take at this time, more companies need to get on board.

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Accidental "Login with Google" Triggers Blizzard of Spam

I have an ancient "trash" email address at Outlook (formerly Hotmail), that I use for shopping, email lists and any organizations/businesses I don't trust to keep my email address to themselves. I keep my "real" email address at Gmail protected, using it strictly for friends, work and the very few organizations/businesses I trust not to share or sell my email address. That system has worked fabulously forever. Until the following experience, I had years of literally zero spam emails at my Gmail address.

I was directed to Pinterest from some search results several weeks ago. My browser asked if I wanted to login using Facebook or Google (which has always annoyed me and turns out can be turned off- see below) and I accidentally clicked the 'Login with Google' option.

NEVER DO THAT.

When you choose the Google login option, it automatically gives that website your Gmail address (and your name and profile photo). Ever since then, I have been barraged with every type of spam in my inbox at Gmail. 

I actually had a Pinterest account that I could have logged in with that day, but nooooooooo... 

I deleted my Pinterest account. My next move will probably be deleting my Gmail account and starting a new personal email. Such a pain.

I deleted my Facebook account a while back, so I don't know how to remove prompts to log in using Facebook. To turn off suggestions to log in with Google:

1) Go to your Google account

2) Click on Security in the left sidebar

3) Under 'Signing in to Other Sites' click on 'Signing in with Google' 

4) Turn off 'Google Account sign-in Prompts'

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