Back!

Wow, well...it's been a long, long, long time since I've blogged. It's not that nothing has been going on, it's just that I have not been very motivated to write and I have been very, very busy.

Here are a few key points from the past several months:

• I got my private pilots license
• I changed flight schools and am now flying in Spruce Creek. It's closer, cheaper and I really enjoy my instructor. He has a lot of real world knowledge and seems to make the instrument training more understandable and manageable.
• I passed my instrument written exam and have just a few more hours before my check ride
• I went on holiday to South Africa...now my favorite place I've traveled to...so much so that I'm going back in 2009 and might possibly buy a house there.
• My grandfather passed away. It was expected, but not really...if that makes any sense. It was also a long, short road. Regardless...I'm sure he's much happier than he was living with a body that was deteriorating and not allowing him to live life as he wanted.

As I mentioned above, it's not long before I get my instrument rating and then from there I will finish up my commercial rating. I think I will probably finish up with everything in January. From there I will have to find some way to build hours in order to get a 'real' flying job. Most people become flight instructors, but this is plan B for me (anyone who has ever driven me around in a car can understand why I might not be too happy being passenger in a helicopter being flown by someone who has no clue what they are doing). At this point I'm hoping for a job flying tours or maybe photo flights...hell I don't know...anyone know someone with a helicopter that might give me a job??

Oh, I'm quite excited about my flight yesterday. It might not seem like much, but I landed at Daytona International Airport at max speed (90k) solely by instrument (ILS)...not looking past the control panel until I was approximately 20ft off the ground. This was the first time I've flown the heli that fast so the approach was a bit more intimidating than normal. I did good though. :o)

Today is NYE so Happy New Year to everyone! Ian's mom will be landing this afternoon for her long weekend visit. We will be going out to the Ranch for a sleep over. Mary Beth is preparing a big Moroccan dinner. Then on Thursday I will be taking my grandmother to a block party/meet and greet in her neighborhood (fun, fun).

I'm looking forward to a very productive 2009. I have lots of things in my life that I want to work on and improve. I know that the resolutions are always the same and usually short lived, but I'm going to try harder and actually ask my friends for help. I'm not a strong as always thought I was.

So, here's to a good new year!! Much love to all!!

The long journey home

It’s Monday morning here in Sydney. I’m sitting all alone in my hotel room. I actually had a place to stay last night with one of Ian’s friends, but after the long day of driving and flying I was not feeling very sociable so I got a room. As it turns out I may have completely hosed myself. If I can’t get in touch with Mark Kirkby’s wife, Sandy, before check out time I’m going to have to stay another expensive night here in the hotel. Sandy is at George’s house today and will be my only way into the house. Since I have a ton of luggage I will either need to be stationed here in the hotel or at George’s place. I catch my flight home tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 10:50am. From here I have another layover in China (I won’t be leaving the airport this time) and then another layover in LA. I arrive bright and early (6am) into Orlando the morning of the 5th. I will be taking DOTS back to DeLand and then back to work.

Our last day in New Zealand was filled with wild life adventures. Our first stop was the Royal Albatross reserve. We were lucky enough to be there during chick season. There were two nests within view distance of the observatory. We were even luckier to see a parent feeding one of the chicks. I forget how old the chicks were, but at their age the parents only come back every couple of days to feed their young. One of the parents just happened to arrive as our group did. Ian may have some good video, but my pictures didn’t turn out that great because of the distance. This is a blurry picture of the Albatross chick and parent...


Our next stop was Bushy Beach where there are some Yellow Eyed Penguin nests. This beach is not a reserve…it’s just a place to hopefully view the endangered penguins as they come ashore after their long day of feeding out at sea. We were lucky enough to see 5 penguins…none close enough to get a good picture, but enough to say, “hey, I’ve seen the endangered yellow eyed penguin in person!!”. This is a picture of a penguin behind a plant (seriously)...


Our final encounter was with the blue penguins. This wasn’t a reserve, but also wasn’t a random place for viewing either. This is an area where the penguins come ashore about the same time every night to next. There are well over a hundred birds and they are very predicable so the country built a grand stand of sorts for viewing. The penguins have become quite accustomed to this so they are not turned off by people. Ian and I got there a tad early so we were a little anxious by time the first “raft” (this is what they call each group of birds that are traveling back to land together) of birds came ashore. There were maybe 20 birds that came ashore. They made their way up the shore, across the road and under the fence to their nesting boxes. The neighborhood chicks as well as some friendly neighborhood rabbits greeted them. We stayed long enough to see two rafts come ashore. Apparently there are nearly 300 birds that nest off the shores in this area. On our way back to the camper van we saw a stay penguin or two making their way across the parking lot…how freakin’ cute!

Oh, I just wanted to add a few animals to the livestock list. They also farm Elk, Alpaca and Ostrich. None of which I got pictures of, damn it.

Our trip to New Zealand was awesome! Did I mention that we didn’t have enough time?? I could probably spend a month there and still not have enough time.

Send warm thoughts

to China! This is where I will be spending 15 hours in a couple of weeks, "Worst Winter Weather in 5 Decades...".

Then again, I might not even make it to Guangzhou...China Southern Airlines has totally screwed my tickets by cancelling 2 of my legs (both legs out of Guangzhou). I think it's a conspiracy to keep the cold wussy Western woman hostage in a non-English speaking communist country!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Tequila and Turquoise Jewelry

Our trip started out like the Fockers…everything fell in to place perfectly. A nice guy that I met at the bar saved me a good seat on the plane (we flew South West, which does not assign seats). We had a few cocktails and played cards for most of the long flight (South West does not offer movies on their cross country flights). My flight left about 40 or so minutes late, but we made up some time in the air and landed just a few minutes after Erin’s plane…she was waiting for me when I disembarked. We got our luggage unusually quick and made our way to the rental car counter where there was no line. The grumpy faced attendant that started to help us decided to go on break mid-way through our rental process and turned us over to Bernadette. Bernadette happily upgraded us from our mid-sized reservation to a brand new PT Cruiser Convertible!! Hell yeah!!


The ride from the airport to the B & B was absolutely beautiful! Living in Florida I forget how amazingly stunning mountains are. I think I like the scenery of the dry high desert over the lush green foliage of humid Florida…or maybe it’s just the change that I like. I do like the architecture in NM better than Florida – everything is Adobe style. Apparently it gets quite cold there and rarely gets too hot so the Adobe is designed to hold heat. Our Innkeepers said that they rarely have to turn on the heat in the winters.

Our B & B was located in a remote area outside of Santa Fe. The house was gorgeous…the pictures on the internet did not do it justice! They have an indoor pool that was built as part of the living area. Just off the kitchen was the patio and pool area. The back wall was all glass looking out over the vast open desert…not a single house in sight.


Fortunately, Erin and I have two very important things in common…we both like to drink and we both love good food! It seems that every day was planned around our meals and every outing included a bar break. People in New Mexico are very passionate people. It became apparent early on that they are very passionate about Tequila…I learned a few things about Tequila that I didn’t know, one being that they do not like Tequila that has color – all the good Tequilas they serve clear. I also never knew that there were so many options and brands of Tequila (none of which are available anywhere near me here in FL). We had some fabulous Margarita’s and I was introduced to Sangrita. Sangrita is a spicy, tomato based sidekick for Tequila. The Tequilas are so good that they are often consumed by sipping rather than mixing in a drink. The Sangrita makes for a nice chaser.

The other thing that the people of New Mexico are passionate about is Turquoise and every jeweler thinks theirs is the best and they will take 30 minutes out of their day to tell you why. Within the first hour of our first adventure we had seen enough Turquoise jewelry to last a lifetime! Erin actually gave in a bought a few pieces…all I bought was a cheap pair of earrings that just happened to match the dress I was wearing that day.

Because I’m a bit of a Negative Nancy I have to briefly touch on one major downfall of our trip. It was freakin’ HOT!!! Yeah, I know it’s the desert, but no one…not the stores, not our B & B, no one has a/c. Apparently it never gets THAT hot there. I know that people use the “but it’s a dry heat” excuse, but I’m not buying it!! I felt like I was cooking in an oven. I guess I’m strange, but I like the humidity. Remember earlier when I mentioned the architecture and that the Adobe holds heat?? Well, we were literally sleeping in a clay oven! There was no place to go to get cool.

We had tons of fun though! We went hiking at a National Monument called Tent Rocks. The area was so beautiful...so much more than any picture can portray. I'm glad that we decided to go!














We went to a town called Madrid that was featured in the movie Wild Hogs. It's an old hippie town. Lots of shops, but not much more. From there we went to the town where Young Guns was filmed. This was a bit of a disappointment, just two short blocks of old west looking buildings...no shops or restaurants, but one very scary looking bar (we opted to avoid this one).

Sunday was spa day. Erin found this awesome spa up in the mountains called Ten Thousand Waves. We both had fabulous massages and a relaxing visit.

All in all our trip rocked!! I could totally see myself living there (except for maybe the winters). Highly recommend it as a vacation spot...any season (well winter only if you enjoy skiing/snowboarding).

Windjammer

Our vacation was fine...much better in retrospect than it was while I was actually there. Sorry it's taken so long to blog about it...not really been motivated to write, but here are the cliff notes.

I'll start with the bad...there was a lot of down time with absolutely nothing to do on the ship. The boat was only allowed to stay in Costa Rica for 5 days so when we boarded we had one day at port then had to sail down to Panama to get out of the country then come back. That was about a day and a half. The activities director on the boat was lame and didn't have anything going on during the day on the boat. I'm not much of a lay around in the sun kinda person (especially since it was hell hot there) so I found myself bored.

Next, our room lost it's a/c and since it was hell hot sleep was impossible. It took them 2 days to finally move us to a new room. This room was smaller and on a lower level on the other side of the ship, also, it was a used room and had a soppy wet floor. This wasn't too terrible because it was cold in there. The next morning our steward asked us to move our baggage and when I told him about the floor and asked for a different cabin he told me that we could keep our stuff in the other cabin, but had to pack it all up. So, we slept in one cabin and then had to make the "walk of shame" from one end of the boat to the other in our jammies with bed head back to our other room to get our clothes and shower (not to mention we were now living out of a packed suit case).

We had grand plans of scuba diving, but the scuba guy seemed more interested in getting "some" rather than fixing the problems we encountered with the dive dingy. Apparently it got a hole in it and he wasn't able to fix it. Some how, though, it was fixed by the last day of the cruise...whatever. So, no diving.

We were rarely in a place that was deep enough to dock at so we were shuttle boated from the ship to our ports. We found ourselves, on several occasions, waiting up to 45 min in the hell hot sun to get picked up and returned to the ship after our excursions.

The travel time from the port to the excursions was usually an hour or more one way (our white water trip travel time was 5+ hours round trip, plus 2 hours of rafting)...this left little time to do more than one activity or explore the ports. We got totally hosed on the white water day because that was the port with the most stuff to see. There was a place that we wanted to have dinner at, but because of the 7 hour tour plus nearly an hour to get picked up we had to forfeit the dinner :o(.

OK - to the good...We met some really cool people, everyone on the boat were great! I guess mostly cool people go on windjammer...LOL. Costa Rica is gorgeous!! I'd love to go back and see more of the country. The food on the boat was mostly good. The excursions were mostly good...we did the canopy zip line tour and got rained on, we did a waterfall hike and just missed getting rained on, white water rafting with more rain (my favorite adventure) was kick ass!! The rapids were class 2 - 4 and the drive to the put in was class 4 -5!! Kayaking, snorkeling and most importantly, DRINKING! :O)

I have a ton more pics that I will try to put up later, but here are a couple from our adventures...first, zip line tour...second (obviously) our kick ass white water rafting trip. We plan to make a trip to GA in the near future for another one if anyone would care to join us.



















I wouldn't personally recommend the Windjammer cruise, but the majority of the people on our boat were repeat customers, who told us to give it another try. I'm reluctant to spend the money but have sent a letter to Windjammer in hopes of getting a discount to come back and try again.

Bon Voyage

Well, the time has finally come...Ian and I leave for Costa Rica tomorrow!! We'll be on the boat for 7 nights traveling to 4 different areas along the coast. We're hoping to get some much needed R&R as well as some fun excursions. There are some cool tours such as a rain forest canopy zip line tours and a white water rafting trip. There are also water sports at each stop. The only possible down fall is the fact that it's Green (aka rainy) Season. :o( I've been keeping my eye on the weather and this is what we have to look forward to:

Regardless of the weather we're still going to have fun and make the most of it!! Will send out pictures when we return.

Forgive and Forget

All I can say is THANK YOU Billy Joel for being an addict and hitting rock bottom during a tour with Elton John. Yes, you screwed me out of (what I thought at the time was) the concert of a lifetime…but I have to admit -- I was wrong. Everything happens for a reason and you were just a small piece in a big puzzle. I have now let bygones be bygones…I forgive you and I no longer carry a grudge (Thanks to Ian and Hannah!).

Bright and early this past Saturday morning I began my whirlwind trip to Vegas to see Elton’s Red Piano concert at Caesar’s Palace. I have to say that initially I did not think that this was going to be worth it…exactly 24 hours in Vegas and 13 hours of travel time just for a concert (I left my house Saturday morning at 6:15am and walked back in the door at 11pm Sunday night)…whew, double whew for someone who doesn’t like travel time that much. My concerns grew even more when our quick little lunch cost $77 before tip!! (2 sushi rolls, 2 small Saki’s and 2 green tea’s). Holy crap! I thought food and drinks in Vegas were meant to be cheap to lure all the gamblers…guess I thought wrong!

After meeting up with Hannah and grabbing lunch we decided it was time to try our hand at some video poker and take advantage of the complimentary drinks. We had just over an hour to play before getting ready for the concert. While we were playing Kelley met up with us - she planned to join us for dinner then show us some of the town after the concert. Video poker was fun! I think we got Kelley addicted and I think I've now become addicted to Justin's Play Station version (played for hours while Denise was doing her photo shoot).

Our dinner was fabulous! Wonderful food, great wine and good company. Hannah picked this awesome restaurant with a Hawaiian flare. My first course was to die for...this Ahi tuna roll thingy. Second course, a rock shrimp salad; main, sesame crusted Mahi Mahi; and a yummy dessert trio that I could barely even try because I was so stuffed.

After dinner we made our way to the concert hall. I STILL can not believe that Ian and Hannah scored 3rd row seats for us!! We were right on the end too, so no squishing through people for bathroom breaks, etc. We met these two really nice guys sitting next to us and started yapping about the concert, which led to how much we all paid for our seats. These guys got their tickets through a scalper and saved a ton. They also mentioned that the scalper told them that the first 3 rows got to get on stage with Elton. I laughed and said they got sold a line! There were at least a 1/2 dozen bouncers lining the stage shoving people away who got too close...there's no way they would let 50 to 100 people up there that close to Sir Elton John!!

The concert was absolutely amazing! Elton was funny and personable, the props were unique (there were evil menacing inflatable boobs lurking above our heads) and meaningful (there was video on a large screen behind the stage that almost brought tears to my eyes). The song choice was great...I even grew to like songs that I had not cared much for in the past. This was the best concert I've ever been to and I highly recommend it to everyone - even if you don't like Elton so much...you will walk away loving him!

Near the end of the concert one of the guys sitting next to me leaned over and said, "see, I told you so!" I thought he was talking about the unique props because he mentioned that earlier as well, so I shook my head and said yeah...just as I was turning to look back on stage one of the bouncers was waving us up!!! No FREAKIN' way!!!! Yes WAY!! We got to get up on stage and dance around the big red piano to "Saturday Night"!!! We couldn't believe it!! What a great Birthday present!!!

After the concert Kelley took us to Mandalay Bay to a cool balcony bar to see the night scape of the city. The bar was pretty amazing, the bathrooms...even cooler! There were a couple of stalls that the entire back was was floor to ceiling window so the john looked out over the city. There were some other neat bars in this hotel so if I ever go back I'd like to stay there.

From there we went back to the room to crash...we had to get up relatively early to catch our flight home. Whew...what a fun, exciting, whirlwind of a trip!

Costa Rica

Only 5 years in the making!! We are finally taking our Windjammer cruise! Destination - Costa Rica. I've been wanting to see Costa Rica for years now...have only heard great things about the country. It looks like there is going to be a ton of adventures to take while we are there, a 4-hour white water rafting trip through some remote back country areas, a zip line tour of the forest canopy, yummy island food, snorkeling, scuba diving (maybe) and of course fruity tropical drinks!!

Baring no hurricanes, illness or deaths (I know, morbid thought, but it happens) we will be traveling July 7 - 14. I need a workout plan to get me in a bathing suit by then...any suggestions??

** ELTON **

I totally love Elton John! I have for a very long time. Several years ago I bought tickets to see Elton and Billy Joel in concert together – only to find out a few hours before the event that the show had been cancelled due to Billy Joel being ill (yeah right…hung over or strung out was more like it!). I have since held a strong grudge against Billy (hence my previous comment).

Yesterday, on a routine visit to my grandparents, I walked in to Ian sporting a crazy top hat and a spot with my name on it at the dining room table. Ian, with his best (a little disturbing, I might add) game show host voice invited me to have a seat, as this was Final Jeopardy.

The answer to the Final Jeopardy question was obvious and my grandparents made crap up so I was set to win. When I won Ian ran into the bedroom and came out with a big sign saying I had won round trip tickets to Las Vegas! Next, grandpa went into the room coming out with a sign saying I had also won a night in a Deluxe Suite at Caesar’s Palace along with a gourmet dinner at their 5 star restaurant. Finally, grandma went into the room and came out wearing a silly hat, doing a jig, singing and bearing a sign that said the final prize was…wait for it...3rd row seats to see Elton in concert…did you get that?? 3rd row!!!!!

Not only do I get all of this, but I get to share it with Hannah!! She will be accompanying me on this whirlwind weekend of snazzy hotels, fine dining and ELTON JOHN!!!

Whoo hooo!! Happy Early Birthday to me!!! And thanks to my hunny bunny for making it all possible! We leave on May 12th!

Planes, trains and huge shipyards

Well, I survived the bitter temperatures in NY and CT…and I hate to admit it, but it wasn’t all that bad! I mean it WAS cold (9-degrees on Friday with a wind chill of neg 14 and 30 on Saturday) but I found myself not whining as much as I expected. The colder climates are much like Florida only the opposite (duh) – but what I mean is, down here we dress for 90-degree temperatures but freeze our asses of anytime we enter any business or restaurant. Up there you dress for sub zero temps and end up losing 5 pounds in sweat whenever you spend any time in doors. I spent much of Saturday walking around with my coat, hat, and gloves in my arms.

I usually have terrible travel luck…flights delayed for hours, missing connections, flights cancelled, etc. My flight up, however, resembled that of “Meet the Parents”. Everything was on time (early even) and on both legs I had an entire row all to myself…no screaming children or fat people spilling into my space. This wasn’t the case on the trip home though…will
wrap up this blog with that story.

Friday in NY was fabulous (and fabulously cold and windy – which meant much time indoors and underground). We had a most magnificent 2+ hour lunch at Asiate at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (notice the “Wall of Wine” comment! Definitely my kind of place!! Hehehe). The food was wonderful and view spectacular! From there we went shopping at NY’s 6 floor Macy’s. Neither Hannah nor I are big shoppers so that was short lived; we decided that our time would be better spent in a neighboring Irish Pub. Hannah and I met 2 very nice Irish gentlemen…one of whom is opening his own Pub in NY in March. (I will be planning a trip in the warmer months to check it out.) From there we met Joe for dinner at Samba Sushi. Here we dined and drank the night away waiting the DJ to start up. Either there was no DJ as promised or we missed him to catch the last train out of the city :o(. Hannah and Joe live in CT, which is an approximate 1-hour train ride from Grand Central Station. We are not sure, but almost certain that the train ride was much longer than that as we all fell asleep and missed our stop! At approximately 1:30a we found ourselves at the end of the line. This was the last train of the night so we had to take a cab to get approximately 40 miles back to our stop when Joe had left the car (most definitely not a cheap mistake – but rather amusing!).

Saturday we went to see the shipyard where Joe works…he is the project manager over the building of some massive luxury ships. I really had no idea the scale of these vessels until we entered (sporting our fashionable hard hats) the enormous hangar where his most recent 140+ foot catamaran is being built. This thing is ginormous!! I don’t really have the words to say how spectacular and amazing this construction is. It’s hard to believe that it’s all fashioned out flat sheets of aluminum. From there we went to a cute little town for window-shopping then to the grocery to get ingredients for a yummy tapas style dinner.

Sunday was my journey home day. The flights were not all that bad…first leg only delayed by 20 minutes. Second leg on time, but even though I pre-booked an exit row isle seat I found myself in the back of the bus squished in a middle seat between two rather large men (one of whom was quite the talker – thank God for iPods and good books!). When we landed I made my way to baggage claim to get my suitcase and head home to hug my very missed kitties. I stood there for what seemed like an eternal amount of time when I saw the big blue block that signified the end of the luggage line. WTF?? Where’s my bag?? My planes were all on time and I even have a 2-hour lay over in ATL (plenty of time to get my bag to the new plane). There were several of us looking around helplessly for answers so we found out where to submit our complaint and got in line. The complaint office was empty and we were told that there were some cancellations and that all Delta representatives were helping rebook those passengers and would be over when that debacle was over. 45 minutes later a security guard came over to tell us that it would probably be best if we all went home and came back tomorrow. I was worried that my luggage (containing every toiletry and hair care product that I own) might be lost for good so I called Delta’s help line as I was leaving the airport. An hour later I’m still on the phone and the customer service rep is telling me that there is going to be a charge to deliver my bag to my house when it arrives because I did not fill out any complaint paperwork at the airport itself!! WTF? No way am I going to be charged for any of this! So it was back to the airport Monday afternoon to get my stuff :o(. My bag arrived about 30 minutes after my arrival to the airport, which is not so bad…but the morning at work I felt like a grease ball. I have been blessed with unfortunate hair…it’s wavy, curly, frizzy, whatever you want to call it - without a hair dryer or flat iron I look like little orphan Annie so I was not about to wash my hair before work…not to mention the temp outside was in the 30s!

All in all it was a wonderful trip…Thanks Hannah and Joe!!!!!!

Fridged N.E.

Well, tomorrow I leave for Restaurant Week in NYC! I’m meeting Hannah and Lara for the amazingly yummy 5 star food of New York. The only major downfall I’m seeing is the fact that it’s going to be in the teens in the city with the possibility of snow. Here’s the report Hannah emailed me:

AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT WILL PUSH THROUGH THE REGION THURSDAY AFTERNOON...PRECEDED AND ACCOMPANIED BY SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS WHICH COULD LEAVE A QUICK COATING TO AN INCH OF ACCUMULATION. THE FRONT WILL ALSO USHER IN THE COLDEST AIR MASS OF THE SEASON...WITH LOW TEMPERATURES THURSDAY NIGHT RANGING FROM 10 TO 15 OVER MOST OF THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA...LONG ISLAND AND COASTAL CONNECTICUT...TO 5 TO 10 ABOVE OVER INLAND SECTIONS. THE ARCTIC AIR IN COMBINATION WITH GUSTY NORTHWEST WINDS OF 15 TO 25 MPH LATE THURSDAY NIGHT WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILLS OF 10 TO 15 BELOW OVER THE LOWER HUDSON VALLEY AND SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT...AND 5 TO 10 BELOW ELSEWHERE.

THE MERCURY WILL STRUGGLE TO REACH 20 DEGREES ON FRIDAY IN AND NEAR NEW YORK CITY...AND WILL LIKELY REMAIN IN THE TEENS ELSEWHERE...WITH THE GUSTY NORTHWEST FLOW KEEPING WIND CHILLS BELOW ZERO EXCEPT LATE IN THE AFTERNOON IN AND NEAR THE CITY. WHILE WINDS WILL DIMINISH BY FRIDAY NIGHT...SKIES WILL REMAIN MOSTLY CLEAR IN THE EVENING...WITH EVENING LOWS NEARLY AS COLD AS THOSE OF THURSDAY NIGHT BEFORE SLOWLY RISING LATE AT NIGHT. WIND CHILLS WILL REMAIN BELOW ZERO ACROSS MOST OF THE REGION FRIDAY NIGHT.

Some people might be excited about the possibility of snow…me, not so much! I’m a true Florida girl when it comes to weather and probably the biggest cold wussy that you’ve ever met!! Our original plan is to spend the entire day Friday in the city - I'll let you know how that turns out!