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.

It's been real...

I'm very sad to announce that Sadie has been sold. I totally love the idea of her but, not being able to work on her myself...she was no longer practical.

The guy who is buying the car seems awesome! He even sent me a list of what all he intends on doing with the car...check it out:

~ I fully intend to insure it as an antique auto. (Limited driving)

~ It will be a secondary car for me, not a primary means of transportation.

~ It will be stored in a Garage with a tonneau cover when I come back to Iraq after leave in August.

~ I am going to send it to a restoration sepcialist in Lincoln, to have it re-painted (original color), and have the chrome buffed and cleaned.

~ I'm not sure that I am going to be able to bring it back to mint condition, but I will try to get it as close as possible.

~ Once I return back to Iraq, I am going to have my dad and cousin listed on the insurance. I will then be able to have one of them take it to various places for me sporadically for restoration. I'll look at the dash, but it may be something that I want to have done by a shop.

~ I'll of course have the window realigned.

~ I'm not going to do anything weird to it like put stupid wheels or a weird paint job on it. I prefer cars in their original state.

OK - so he had me with the last comment!! I think she would totally throw another rod if someone put stupid spinner wheels on her!! He wants to love her and squeeze her and call her George.

I do have to say that I am going to miss her. We've had our ups and downs but I did love driving her - the wind in my hair, the whistles and honks, burning my ass on the seat when she sat in the sun too long...ah, those were the days.

Anyhoo...I should have the check on Monday. As long as it clears the bank a shipper will be scheduled to pick her up on Thursday. Anyone up for a final spin???

New Car :^O

Well, I finally found the car that I was looking for. I have ordered (it won't be here till the end of the month) a 2007 Toyota Prius, Silver Pine Mica w/Bisque leather interior. What a pain in the ass it was getting this car. It took 3 dealerships and several weeks. But I think I will be happy with it. According to the Toyota website, I will save $2300+ a year in fuel!! To me, being a paranoid passenger, it's totally worth it!

It will have all the bells and whistles (except the NAV system, which I don't think that I'd use anyway...would be more for the entertainment of my passengers - sorry Ian).

Looking forward to picking it up!

Now, anyone want to buy a '64 Thunderbird Convertible or '95 Honda Civic??????????

A couple of freakin' wussies!

I just got these cool new automatic cat feeders so that when I go on vacation the cats will not eat themselves to death. (side note: also so that at 6am when Pita gets up he will be occupied with food rather than meowing incessantly till I get up.)

So, I got up promptly at 5:58 this morning to monitor the automatic feeders (setting was a chore to get them to feed simultaneously, but I had Justin program one while I did the other...they are about 2 secs off!! Awesome! Thanks). Would you believe that it scared the crap out of both the cats???!! Pita was a bit more ballsy than Madi and ended up chowing down within 5 min or so. (Madi went ape shit and scratched the crap out of me when I tried to put her down in front of the food). I can't believe them...both of them had their paws up in there trying to get the food yesterday when I set the damn things up...now, the food finally comes and they run like a bunch of pansies!!

Will never understand cats....but I do LOVE them :o)

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!

Great Escape Artist

His name didn't happen by accident...PITA is a complete and total Pain In The Ass! A very intelligent PITA, but a PITA none-the-less.

This started a couple of weeks ago when I kept finding the back door ajar. I couldn't quite figure out why because if I pulled it securely tight I couldn't just push it open...the handle actually needed to be turned. One evening we came home to the back door wide open and Madi sitting on the back porch checking out the sights (PITA was in the bedroom looking out the window as if he had no clue as to what was going on). The next morning I caught PITA jumping up and grabbing on to the leaver type door handle, putting all his weight into it in order to open the door. I was a little agitated, but very impressed with his ingenuity. Needless to say, I had to replace my door knob with one that requires opposable thumbs to operate.

This past Friday evening I'm sitting in the living room chilling before my trip to Vegas when I see PITA run across the living room with a lizard hanging out of his mouth. Luckily, the lizard was still alive and given his freedom back by returning him to the great outdoors. Not five minutes later I hear an unrecognizable noise coming from the bed room...as I get up to investigate I see PITA run across the living room with another lizard hanging from his mouth. The first thought that goes through my head is that my Florida room has some how become overrun with lizards. This can not be happening...I don't like lizards! especially dead, bloodied ones!! As it turns out, however, this is the SAME lizard that was just set free mere minutes earlier!! Well, looks like the great escape artist has found a new way out...through the accordioned partition between the window sill and my a/c unit!! He just busted right through, went outside, reclaimed his lizard and brought it back inside to play with!!

Thinking quickly, the hole was covered with a cookie sheet and duct tape (what can't it do??). Now I just need to come up with a more permanent solution and/or a cat door :^O (which goes against my beliefs in keeping the kitties home safe and away from dogs, bears and tire danger - Kolla IS moving back to DeLand).

Irregardless...he's a crafty little bastard that makes me shake my head and smile.

Stay tuned for my Vegas adventure!!