Phannie

Phannie
Photo taken near Monument Valley, Utah

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Corpus for the Day

At Gulf Waters RV Resort, Port Aransas, Texas…

We drove over to Corpus today, not only to look around, but also because I needed to send some financial information to my accountant, Kent (can't remember his last name, but he does taxes in his spare time when he's not cleaning out septic tanks. His motto: "You dump, we pump.") Kent doesn't always smell too good, but he sure knows how to snag a refund. He makes filing easy for me, saying I don't need to bother looking at the return--just sign it, he says.  

(Note to readers: In case someone may have the IRS on speed dial, you should know that everything about Kent written above, except for his name, is pure fiction.) 

The financial information I needed was available online, but the security features of the site wouldn't let me download the document to an electronic file.  It had to be printed and scanned, but I don't have a printer/scanner in Phannie.  Or, at least I didn't until today.  I had stopped at a Fedex Office store to use one of their workstations and printers, and I got it done, but not without paying 50 cents a copy plus 30 cents a minute to use the computer.  By the time I had finished, I had burned through about nine bucks, which ticked me off because that was a goodly percentage of what a new basic printer/scanner would cost!

Now this is not the first time I could have used a printer or scanner in Phannie, so I was able thereby to convince myself that this was evidence of a pressing need. Besides, I would teach Fedex a lesson by depriving them of my nine bucks next tax season.  Never mind that what I spent for the printer would pay for Fedex's service for the next ten years or so.  (I wasn't very good at math in school.)

I found an appealing little wireless HP Deskjet 2540 on sale at Best Buy, and snapped it up. (It works great.)




Continuing yesterday's restaurant reviews, we were a bit hungry for asian food today, so we stopped at Thai Cottage, just off South Padre Island Freeway.  Big mistake! This was the worst Thai food  ever.  I won't say how bad it was, but I had to remind myself that arson is a felony, and I don't think I would like prison.  We took only a few bites before paying the tab and running for the door, noting with some degree of hopefulness that the building would probably not withstand a hurricane.
Thai Cottage (Please call in an air strike!)

Nearby was the Bamboo Garden, an old-school Chinese restaurant (no photo).  We stopped in and decided to share just one dish from the lunch menu, just in case we might have found another dud.  We did, and it was.  The wonton soup had a slight taste of dishwater, the egg roll was tough and tasteless, and the Hunan chicken was way overcooked with a too-sweet sauce.  We left most of this food on our plate, too, but between the two restaurants, we had enough bites, we thought, to hold us until dinner.

Dinner was at Texas Flame Steakhouse in Corpus.


We thought this deserved about two and a half stars out of a possible five.  Our steak (we generally share) was perfectly cooked over mesquite coals--so they say--and very flavorful.  We weren't impressed by the french fries, unfortunately, which were mushy.  Not sure how they could mess those up, but they did.  The prices were fair, and the place wasn't as frenetic as, say, Texas Roadhouse, where it is almost impossible to carry on a conversation because of the noise.  We may give Texas Flame another try sometime, but I couldn't give it a recommendation at this point.

After this, we toured around downtown and left via the bay bridge to Aransas Pass.  It was a good day, even though a bit cold and damp.  Tomorrow will be nicer, according to the weatherman.

2 comments:

  1. We had an older HP printer but it wouldn't work on Kathy's Windows 8.1 laptop. Happy to report that the HP Deskjet 2540 we got at Walmart works on all our computers and didn't break the bank.
    We've hit quite a few restaurants like you're describing and those are the ones we don't mention.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ahhh, you are bringing back memories of my years in Portland, TX. Wish I were there instead of here! Thanks.
    Don in Okla.

    ReplyDelete

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