Family Christmas traditions get handed down from generation to generation. What I have found is that each new generation takes some of the old and then adds their own new tradition.

We added puzzles. Each year we have one table that becomes the puzzle table. Recent years have found us solving puzzles from Liberty Puzzles in Colorado. These puzzles are amazing! Wooden puzzles with whimsical pieces in different shapes that fit into the overall theme of the puzzle. This year, the one you see above, A Whimsical Map of San Diego, is our puzzle. Why in the world would someone from Texas want to solve a San Diego puzzle? Glad you asked. I have been going to San Diego, more specifically, La Jolla, since I was 5 years old. Next year will make 60 years. Wow, it amazing to even write that. My Grandparents had a house there and my parents took us there from that tender age. The changes over that timeframe have been drastic to say the least. How about no Interstate when we first went there. Yup, that’s a long time ago.

My wife brought her family tradition of sausage cheese bread. Oh my, it is awesome! Cheesy, bready, sausage goodness on Christmas morning. Mind you, I pay for it for a month trying to work off the extra calories, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. She always makes two of them. One usually gets demolished on Christmas morning or the next day. The other can sometimes make it all the way to New Year’s Day, depending on how many family members are home.

My mom always made toffee. Talk about buttery, chocolatey goodness. This is it! The weather has to be just right to get the toffee to setup correctly. Standing over the stove with a candy thermometer, waiting for the right temperature, then pouring it out and smoothing it out to just the right thickness. Not too thick and not too thin. Then adding chocolate chips to the hot toffee and spreading it out. Chopped pecans are next. Then the hard part. Waiting for it to harden in the fridge. Break it up, put it in tins for friends and eat my fair share. It is heaven! One of the best parts is using the small broken pieces of toffee, chocolate and nuts to top ice cream with. As if ice cream alone wasn’t good enough.

Then there is the cheese ball. Cheddar, blue cheese, cream cheese blended into the perfect mixture and then formed into a ball. Did I mention that the cream cheese had horseradish blended into it and then tops the ball? Or the paprika and chives on top. The only thing missing are the crackers to enjoy this. Oh look! There are some Bremner wafers! How did you know?

Did you make cookies and decorate them for Santa? Better get to it! Sunday night will be here before you know it. We have a special Santa plate for them. You might have one too.

The stockings are all hung by the chimney with care but that won’t be the case Christmas morning when they will have been laid safely on the ground because those little hooks won’t hold them up once there are filled. I remember getting fruit and nuts in my stocking. Now we tend to put chocolate and small gifts in them. It’s always fun to take a break from opening gifts and go see what is in mine.

My kids are all old enough to drink but I still make them wait at the top of the stairs so I can video them coming down stairs. Some traditions are too old to stop. There will be little munchkins soon enough to video. Won’t it be fun to show them their parents coming down on Christmas morning?

Does anyone else find that when the crowd is older that Christmas morning starts a lot later and a lot more relaxed> Okay, I’m not that relaxed because I want to get down to business so the break for something to eat can be a little troublesome for me. What traditional breakfast items do you have? We have started getting Kringles and someone always sends us a coffee cake. Are we really stopping to eat?

These are just a few of our traditions and I know you have plenty to share too. Let me know what they are and we may have to add them to our list.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I have an annual service plan for my Model S. That is all the maintenance that is required. Last year, I got a Model S P100D as a loaner. Many of you may know that this car is probably the quickest car from 0-60. Quicker than even the super cars. Ludicrous mode = 2.8 seconds, I believe. One thing I do know, 0-60 in it never got old. Relax, I only did it a handful of times, like only when the car had come to a complete stop. You know, once or twice.

So, this year, I was excited to see the guys roll up in a Model X as I hadn’t had the chance to even sit in one. The Model X is Tesla’s SUV. While it isn’t any longer than the Model S, it is much bigger inside and feels it.

The rear doors are called Falcon wing doors. (I had called them pterodactyl doors, which I like the sound of better.)

This is a 90D which is still ridiculously quick. I think it shocks other drivers coming up when you turn pull out and then accelerate away from them. Amazing for such heavy cars. 4.8 seconds which puts it a little slower than a Porsche Cayman S, but much faster than any other SUV out there.

The back seats don’t have as much room as in my Model S but then I have the driver seat pretty far back. This one has the 6 seat option (a seven seat model is available which benches the middle seats). You will only want to sit in the back 2 seats if you are less than about 10 years old though. But there are 2 additional cup holders! So it has that going for it! Not unlike my old 911T (but no cupholders in that one). Those rear most seats will fold down to give you a reasonable amount of trunk space.

Now for the part that I find the nicest part of the cabin. The front windshield extends to over your head. It’s like being in a fighter cockpit. It’s just an amazing view. Tesla calls it Panoramic and indeed it is. You’ve never experienced anything like it in a car unless you were in a convertible.

Of course, this has the requisite Full Self-Driving hardware. I don’t know how to enable it or use it and frankly, the thought is a little disturbing. I think in the next 10 years, self-driving will be common place but until then, I’ll go slow and hands on, thank you.

Look at these other features:

• 295 mile range (probably less given my experience in my Model S)
• Active safety technologies, including collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking
• Electric All-Wheel Drive for maximum efficiency and traction
• Smart air suspension with GPS memory for automatically raising and lowering ride height (how I wish I had this in my car!)
• Front trunk with room for luggage, a golf bag, or two strollers (golf bags, check!)
• 8 year, infinite mile battery and drive unit warranty
• 4 year, 50,000 mile limited warranty

Yes, this is a pretty cool car. I remember seeing it for the first time when Elon Musk was in town to lobby for open sales here in Texas and it looked cool then but driving and experiencing it is the clincher. No I’m not going to buy one but I am on the Model 3 waiting list and it is supposed to be even more advanced than this at about half the cost (before upgrades).

I had to share. Mine car will be back before I know it so I think I’ll go drive around.

Luego amigos!

Yesterday was Day 1 of my Juice Plus 10 Day Shred. I love this way of getting back on track and believe me, after a summer of travel and over-eating, I need it! (over drinking didn’t help either, but I wasn’t going to miss fresh Guinness in Dublin! or single malt whisky in Scotland! Or, oh heck, you get the point.)

The Shred is simple, cut out a few things (sugar, alcohol, dairy, bread), eat more of the right things and at the end of 10 days, I will have lost weight, feel better and look better. How do I know? I’ve done several shreds in the past and each time, it still works. I have a JP Complete smoothie each morning, then a normal lunch and sensible dinner. Stop eating by about 7pm and add a workout every other day and voilá, results. I can do just about anything for 10 days and this isn’t that hard. When my better half is out of town, I’ll add another smoothie for dinner. I add more frozen fruit and it turns into almost an ice cream dessert.

I like to mix this with coconut, almond or soy milk with frozen cherries. Put it in the Vitamix and let her rip! A filling meal that holds me over through a round of golf. (I think I actually play better after one of these. Odd. I guess good nutrition will do that for me.)

So, how was Day 1? Not too bad but I felt very full in the evening. We had a JP potluck with all Shred friendly dishes and I ate too much pasta and potato salad. The homemade hummus, 3 different kinds, was killer too.

This morning (day 2), I felt pretty good. Only 9 days to go and I’m looking forward to it. Actually, looking forward to the results.

Time to head to Orange Theory for an afternoon workout. I should have gone more than once last week, but golf got in the way. Darn! That’s my excuse for Monday (Labor Day) too and I’m sticking with it.

Stay tuned for more blow by blow.

Time for a restaurant review.

Several new restaurants have opened near us in a new shopping center called the Oaks. The HEB anchor has a cafe in it and the center has a new sushi restaurant, pizza place, Subway, ice cream store and this place; Mad Greens.

Let me outline the concept. It is a salad place where you can order one of their pre-designed creations or create your own by pointing out what additions you want from proteins, veggies, cheeses and dressings. They also have wraps, paninis, soups, juices, etc. What a great idea! Custom, fresh salad made right before your eyes. Yum!

We have been there a couple of times. Our first two visits were pleasant. My wife had a custom salad and I had a panini on our first trip. Both were tasty and fresh.

Our second visit, we both had create-our-own salads. This takes a while as you have to wait for the young attendant to come get the bowl with your choice of lettuce, then add small scoops of your desired ingredients, dressing, toss and serve. Lots of good choices. Simple!

So what could possibly go wrong with this concept? An interminable amount of time standing in line while the salads ahead of you are prepared. That was the kink tonight. I just wanted to cruise in, grab a salad and be on my way. Not to be.

There were only 6 people in line ahead of me so one would think it might go fairly quickly. Nope. 2 young salad ninjas can only crank out about a salad every 3-4 minutes. There are other employees, but making salads isn’t part of their mandate. There is one taking orders who then puts the requisite amount of chosen lettuce into a stainless bowl with tongs. She was efficient and had her job done with bowls backed up on every flat surface.

Then there is the manager at the end of the line taking payment. He does a lot of standing around as there is very little action at his end of the line. I think there are a couple others in the back working on preparing ingredients, but you really don’t see them, and tonight, they let the line down by not having some sort of chicken or piri-piri protein ready for 3 of the 7 salads ordered ahead of me. One of the preparers disappeared in the back in search of the missing ingredient while the other preparer looked puzzled at the other 2 salads also needing the missing ingredient. Apparently, the show cannot go on without the ingredients in the proper order. Why not add the rest of the ingredients while waiting for the missing protein? Good question. Mister manager, at the end of the line, was dutifully manning the cash register. Of course, no one was in front of him ready to pay as we were all backed up at the beginning of the line.

By now, besides the 6 people ahead of me, there were about 8 people behind me. I had been in line for over 10 minutes and they had cranked out 2 salads. The production had ground to a complete stop as the missing ingredient was still MIA. Since I had ordered a wrap, I thought that maybe it would be prepared in the back kitchen. Wrong. It would wait in line with the rest of the salads. I found this out by asking the cash register ninja who seemed surprised anyone would walk down the line without a salad quickly coming right behind. Well, I like a long queue as much as the next guy, but I got tired of standing in a non-moving line so I excused myself, cancelled my order and left.

What is to be made of all this? Two okay experiences with good food and one disaster, I mean, kink. I’ll give it one more shot but if it is anything like tonight, I don’t think they will last long as the novelty wears off. (but hey, does standing in line ever really get old?) Get production up to speed or figure out a way to get the entire order in so you don’t have to stand there forever and maybe it will last. A tasty, fresh, custom salad. Yum!

I just had a thought. What is lunchtime like? Oh my. Scary. Very scary.

The other new restaurants deserve their own reviews and I’ve tried all of them, except Subway, which, mercifully, is fairly predictable. More to come.

It has been a month since the tremendous rains that caused flooding in central Texas. Lake Travis, which was 50 feet below normal only a few months ago, is now 100% full. During the rains, it went to over 106% full and necessitated the opening of 4 floodgates. Here is a picture of our dock, about 3 feet underwater, as a result of the opening.

If you read my previous post about the flooding, you can see a swim ladder on the left side of the picture which is completely underwater in this one. You will also see that the boat, that was in the slip, is now tied off and floating downstream. The picture above stayed this way for nearly 2 weeks.

So what happens when the flood waters recede you might ask? A muddy mess is what is left behind.

Had I been quicker, I could have been on the dock, sweeping mud into the water with a broom as the last of the flood waters washed over the deck. Alas, I was not quick enough and I spent the better part of 4 hours washing mud off. Hot, nasty work.

Things are pretty much back to normal. There are still some areas of grass that are just now rising above the muck but all in all, we survived it pretty much unscathed.

While we have had some rain over the past week, I think we are now headed into our next drought as that’s the way life is in Texas. Feast or famine, drought or floods. More drought than floods though.

What do you get when you ride in an open cockpit biplane? A thrilling ride, that’s what!

I nearly let this one slip away. How many times do you get a gift certificate for something and then either forget about it, lose it or just never take the time to use it? That almost happened to me. My wife gave me a gift certificate for a biplane sightseeing tour of Austin for Christmas. I set it on a shelf in my closet and on the occasion when I would see it, I’d think, oh yeah, I better book that. Winter, even in Texas, can be cold and I let time slip away until a week or so ago when I remembered that I had better get on it. My certificate was due to expire on June 30. I didn’t let that happen and am I ever glad I didn’t! What fun!

Here I am with my son, Travis, about to climb aboard a Waco YMF-5 biplane, for our 20-minute flight over Austin.

We only look close in the picture. In the cockpit, we were really scrunched together but that didn’t come close to wiping the grins off our faces. We each had a GoPro to shoot video from the cockpit and there were 2 other GoPros shooting video of us and the plane. We have a lot of editing to do to cut all that footage down to an enjoyable video.

Our pilot, Robert Whiteside (Capt. USAF-ret.) graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 2003 before becoming an active-duty Air Force pilot. He was assigned F-16s out of pilot training and traveled to Aviano Air Base, Italy as his first duty station. Robert also flew the U-28A for Air Force Special Operations Command, executing surveillance and reconnaissance missions for military special forces. A decorated combat veteran, Robert has 9 deployments and 480 flying missions in hostile territory as both active-duty and civilian contract pilot. Rob is a great guy and I am honored to have had him as our pilot.

The Waco YMF-5 was originally produced in 1935 and is currently the only open cockpit biplane in production. As you can see, it is a beautiful plane with a 7 cylinder, 300 hp, radial engine. Those cylinders are huge! (I still want to fly in my personal biplane favorite, a Pitts Special)

Flying in a taildragger is a different experience. The pilot sits in the rear cockpit while we sat up front, side by side. The upper wing is right over your head so climbing in is a bit of a challenge. Taxing requires S-turning down the taxi way to see where you are going. Take off is smooth as silk with the tail lifting off at 40 mph and then taking off when we reached 60 mph. It was hot, which usually means lots of bumps, but it wasn’t bad at all. As we cruised our way to see downtown, we had great views of central Texas. Lower and slower beats the airlines for sightseeing.

We got to experience 2g turns, the first was unexpected. I guess I should have been paying more attention. I was too busy enjoying the view as I was squashed into the seat. We circled over downtown, saw UT, Auditorium Shores, Lady Bird Lake, Barton Springs and everything in between. It was fun seeing things from the air that I have driven around on the ground so many times. Think Camp Mabry.

It was over way too soon but I am so happy that I got experience the flight. I may even have to do it again and take my wife. Maybe a sunset flight. I like the sound of that!

I’ll post a link to the video once I have it edited. They will edit it down for you, which I may go back and take them up on.

Go have Rob give you a ride. Support our veterans and have the time of your life. http://www.austinbiplane.com  Nope. I have no affiliation nor receive any remuneration.

The torrential rains experienced in Central Texas are continuing to fill the Highland Lakes. Lake Travis feeds Lake Austin and the LCRA, Lower Colorado River Authority, have been generating electricity and passing water from Lake Travis downstream through the turbines. A couple of weeks ago, they opened 1 floodgate on Mansfield Dam for 2 days but have now opened up 3 floodgates which put our fixed dock (which all docks on Lake Austin are) under a foot of water.

10 years ago, the LCRA opened an unprecidented 5 floodgates which brought the water level to the bottom of the paddleboard. It was that way for 6 weeks.

While we prayed for rain as we were in a 5-year drought, enough is enough. Of course, when this bout of rain is over, we will head into our next drought as that’s just the way it is here. Meanwhile, forecasts call for heavy rain tomorrow and Thursday. I can hear thunder as I write this. Let’s hope the forecasters are wrong. We need to dry out.

Now our prayers are with those killed, missing and sustaining life-altering flooding. What you see above is nothing compared to what they are going through.

It has been a very long time since my last post. I have thought about it a number of times but then something else will get in the way. So, what spurred me to action this now? I have recently been creating a different WordPress site for an entirely different reason and wondered how I was to log into each of them. A hacker attempted to hack my new site within 12 hours of putting it up. A crazy Russian hacker has now tried it 3 times from the same URL. I’m glad the security software I have on it has stopped him so far. There is a paid version which I may go ahead and buy which will allow me to block countries.

This site is hosted on WordPress while the other is hosted on another server which allows me to add plug-ins. I really like that ability. Doing both is allowing me to see what I like and what I don’t like in each installation.

I created a Facebook page for this and now I will see how to tie the 2 together. For those of you that have been doing this for years, it may sound trivial, but it is fun learning new skills.

The new site may cause me to break out my big whiteboard to flow chart the whole process as there are lots of steps in putting things into the new site that aren’t required of this one. This all sounds really vague, I know, but later I will be able to share what I’m up to.

There is another project on the horizon which may give me lots of learning opportunities as I need to import a site from another server. I have a zip file of all of it but no idea what to do with it. If I recall from my website design days, we could just change the name server to the new server and all was right with the world. I may try that first and see how it goes.

Updates sooner than later. Thanks for stopping by.

UPDATE: Thank goodness that WordPress does incremental drafts. While trying to find an image in Photos (which is still a mystery) Chrome locked up and I had to force close it. There are frequently complications. I was going to use the word “always” but successfully avoided it.

Have you ever wanted to accomplish something and seemingly everywhere you turn, there is a new task you should complete? That about sums up my slow progress with this blog.

I bought one of the books for WordPress (for Dummies, of course) and managed to start several YouTube WordPress videos, only to stop part way through to make a note about this or that or see that they recommend using another hosting service, blah, blah, blah. So I started a diagram to help me see what all I want to do.

As I thought I was making progress on my own, I ran into stumbling blocks.

I wanted a professional looking theme, so I chose one of the free ones from the WP site and uploaded a picture. What resulted was not what the theme looked like, but a small picture (which I had uploaded) above my name. Try a different theme. Seemingly no difference. Then a third theme, with a picture already there, and voila!, It looks like the theme picture. One step of progress!

The theme doesn’t have two columns of Comments, Recent Posts, Archives, etc., but mine does. Hmmm. Maybe not totally solved yet. Note to self: Finish a video or the book. Pick one.

Then I looked at plug-ins. The WP for D book said to always use a spam plug-in, so I added that. Then as I was watching one of the WP YouTube videos, I thought I would add another one. Clicking on plug-ins didn’t do anything. After trying it several times, I read that I must download the plug-in before trying to install it. Silly me. I thought clicking would bring up a nice list of available plug-ins. I’ll report later whether the new method actually works.

One of the videos showed checking a box to be sure all the software and plug-ins are updated. No such option available in my version. Does WP change so frequently that what was an option only 4-5 months ago is now gone? No wonder they wanted me to check the auto update. Maybe that is the only option and as such, is no longer an option.

So, circling back to the rabbit trails, as you can see above, there is a logo to be made. A YouTube intro, outro and, oh yeah, a custom thumbnail for each video. Gotta add that to my diagram. And since I may do a few unboxings, what’s in the bag, etc. kind of videos, then I need to have some kind of Amazon Partner thing for what ever minuscule amount is sent to the referring partner.

Then there is the app to send postings to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, social-app-of-the-month at the same time. This is a lot of work! I’m ready for the fun part to start! (Quick, what is the fun part again?)

Adios muchachos, hasta próxima vez. Until next time.

mattsb99

One would think that a guy who had a website design company and has been using PCs since the 80’s could figure this out, but alas, I have struggled. Maybe I should just be using HTML. No. Not a good idea.

So here I sit in Barnes & Noble with an iced coffee and 2 WordPress books. If I didn’t fall asleep each time I start to watch a YouTube video, I would do that instead. Frankly, the books put me to sleep as well, therefore, the iced coffee.

This is just a get started post. I have plenty to tell and relate about golf, travel, guitars, music, photography and philosophical ramblings. Hopefully, I won’t ramble as much as this first post.

I’ve had two great golf trips this year, Scotland and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. I’ll bring those to you soon.

I’ve been thinking about YouTube, vlogging, blogging and all the other apps that seem to make up that realm and am somewhat overwhelmed. I suppose it is best to just start somewhere and then fill in the blanks as I go. My hat is off to the ones that started this years ago and have built up followings. My aspirations aren’t that high but putting stuff out there should be fun. Consistency is the challenge. I suppose it is a challenge for everyone.

That’s about all I can manage from this iPad keyboard so until next time, thanks for stopping by.