10-14-2006 Cruisetoberfest IV

[usetheforceluke]

Well, it's twelve days to go before we leave to go to WDW.

By now, one of us would be on the third repack of our luggage (with sweaty palms) while the other one of us would be vaguely aware that there probably was something that we had to do for some reason or other for some upcoming event (Christmas maybe?) and wouldn't be the least bit bothered about it. I'll sort of let you sort out amoungst yourselves who should be who.

There's been a couple of bumps in the travel plan, however.

The first one is that The Resident Teenager did his laundry with an open permanent marker. Not only was it open in the washer but in was open in the drier also. This doesn't overly confront me because I did *my* laundry the day before he did his, but I discovered that permanent marker really isn't permanent on enamel surfaces and comes off on clothes. So he's been told to apply elbow grease and cleaner to both machines which seems to have slipped his mind so far. So it was off to Fiona's brother's house yesterday to do laundry. We'll probably have to do one more trip up there before we leave.

Her brother's place isn't that bad a place to visit because the two older kids (five and three) now think that I'm great because I taught them how to whack a ball, showed them the bats flying around their backyard and got in to a spitting contest with them. The three-year-old (male) can really really outspit his sister and he was quite pleased with himself.

The downside is that we had to spend a good portion of yesterday in the clinic because Fiona has some sort of facial pain (an infection maybe) that is painful. By the time we finished and got her prescription, most of Sunday afternoon was gone. We came home and she napped mostly.

The real downside to visiting the clinic is that I have to have a prescription renewed by their resident cardiologist, so I thought I'd book an appointment. The nice lady said sure. Tuesday at 1:15. I said o.k... what month? She said September. I said well, I can't wait that long, my pills run out in 60 days. She said, no, not next year, it's two days from now. I just looked at her.

Last time I saw this guy, I swear he was stunned I was still alive. I'm still trying to convince him I don't have chest pains but he insists I do despite having tests that he describes as 'normal'. He wants me to take some all day nuclear percussion test and I don't want to do it. Now I have to try to squirm out of this test and get my prescription renewed. I'm still amazed I got an appointment.

To top that off, we have to put away the garden furniture in the garage, but before we can do that we have to take back all of the empties to the beer store (courtesy The Resident Teenager and friends), turn a bushel of apples in to applesauce and two bushels of carrots in to the freezer.

I'm still thinking that there is something that I have to do however... something about packing something, somewhere.....

Jim.

 

[Viking]

We just watched 'Spanglish' - That was a nice movie!!!
Ok, retiring now - G'Nite

 

[Twinave]

Jim, What color was the marker? Just wondering.
Jennifer, Had a family reuion at WDW in Jan 1995. Great weather! Would do it again, but now have to work with kids school schedules.
Rosemary, You know you are always welcome here. No such thing as "my" thread.

First day in new clinic went pretty well. Lots of looking for stuff going on, lots of small changes to be made. And put in 10.5 hours, but we survived! Only a half day of patients on tomorrows schedule, so maybe I'll get out of there by 5 PM.

Kim, I would send you my mending, but I don't have any. My DH and DD know if it needs to be mended, do it yourself or throw it away. Once in awhile I make an exception, but for the most part I just don't sew. Hope you are feeling better soon.

New hurricane heading for the Gulf! Really getting tired of this stuff!!!

Eric, I also enjoyed Spanglish.

Night all,
Avé

 

[papa]

Jim we leave Saturday morning for our trip to WDW. This will be Katie's first encounter with the mouse. She will probably run like you know what when she see's him. The opposite direction. Mike

 

[Viking]

So let's hope that 'Rita' doesn't interfere with your plans, Mike & Kathy. This one looks nasty.

 

[bettemom]

Kim - hope the MRI scan goes well! Do you want me to send you some marking - that would keep you busy!!
Eric - that is a great saving each month!
Oh how I wish I could join you all in NYC - unfortunately school and finances don't permit!
Wendy

Hi Wendy,

OK, What is marking ?? By the way, Scotland is my mothers ( bettemom) and my most favorite place on earth to visit. We always talk of when we can go back again...

Bye, Kim

 

[WDWCrazzyCunninghams]

Mike, Cathy and Katie...enjoy WDW! Of course, I wish I was going too!

Kim, Get better soon! Do you enjoy cross stitch or needlepoint? Maybe that might help to keep you busy. I had to laugh at your gallon of buttons. You are one bored lady!


Eric, Congrats on the rent reduction! That should help pay for your gas! Our gas went down in price too. I think it's at $2.77 now. Steve filled up his VERY empty truck the other day and it took $85. That hurts! The pumps will only let you go to $50, then you have to reswipe your credit card. It always lets you do it...not like you have to wait. I don't understand why they do it that way. We almost ALWAYS have to swipe twice now.

For all of you who have switched cruises.....PLEASE continue to post here! I feel like I know you all and would miss seeing your posts!

Well, off to shower and take Daisy Doodle to the vet. She is due for her last set of booster shots and I think she might have a UTI. She has been dribbling in the house the last 2 days. I am curious to see how much she weighs now too! aw:

Have a wonderful day everyone!

 

[cdnmickeylover]

Rosemary please continue to post.

Hope you have a great trip Kathy & Mike -- seeing Katie's face will be amazing.

Nancy - thanks for the notice about Jim (Jesus). Oh well I really wanted to see him but I'll be content just to get there.

Kim - I'd love to send you mending but the only mending I have is my duvet cover which is a little big -- it was a little hole at first but since I don't particularly like mending it's now a big one.

Marker was black -- I was assured though that he put through a load of whites and it doesn't come off on the clothes but I'm not taking any chances since it does come off with Comet. He says he's going to clean it but well that's a teenager talking and he'll do it whenever. He's going to mow the lawn too at some point before it covers the house.

Facial pain is down a bit today so far, knock on wood. Yesterday afternoon was not good but last night was ok and so far this morning...

No packing done yet.

Back to work.

Fiona

 

[wendym]

Sorry Kim, but by "marking" I meant correction of pupil homework and test papers - I forget teacher speak isn't understood by everybody! I second the idea of cross stitch - I love that.
Just heard that Simon Wiesenthal has died - he is a real hero to me.
Wendy

 

[Viking]

Jim,
you better make sure that The Resident Teenager doesn't use any alcohol or terpentine to remove the marker: As a paramedic I once had to attend a guy who tried to clean a washing machine with paint remover after a similar occurence. He put some rags and terpentine in it and switched it on. Inside the machine a combustible gas mixture developed. That mixture was obviously ignited by a spark in the machine (The motor, the heater, or just a switch ), and the whole thing blew up like a bomb. That guy was lucky as he just suffered some minor bruises and was hard of hearing for some time, but I must say that the machine was clean - or at least the parts we could find were clean

 

[Viking]

Sorry Kim, but by "marking" I meant correction of pupil homework and test papers - I forget teacher speak isn't understood by everybody! I second the idea of cross stitch - I love that.
Just heard that Simon Wiesenthal has died - he is a real hero to me.
Wendy

I guess I've read too many English books as I knew what you meant with 'marking'
The death of Simon Wiesenthal dominated our Prime Time News as well. He was 96 years old!!! And he survived more than ten concentration camps. This is a part of our history even my generation is still ashamed of, but which we must never forget. As a teenager I visited Dachau, a concentration camp near Munich, which has been kept as a Museum and Memorial. IMHO every student in Germany should visit this place, Sachsenhausen or Auschwitz once during his/her schooltime. I did it with my youthgroup in 1980. We spent our autumn vacation in Munich and attended a seminar about Nationalsocialism/The Third Reich for a whole week. Unfortunately the teens nowadays don't learn that much about it, of course it's part of every history class, but seeing teh real thing really makes a difference.

 

[Viking]

I just installed a new printer for my notebook. This device can even print CDs and DVDs. I just toasted a DVD, then printed the label on it and it came out like a foctory-made one
Tomorrow I will get a new PC and two new 19inch flatscreens in my office We get new equipment every two years and our IT-guys are really quick when the time is up: Tomorrow around 8am they will pick up my old one, then mirror all data on it to the new one and bring it back within 90-120minutes -and our IT-guys are even so nice, that they let us keep all our downloaded funstuff and wallpapers on it

I also think that all our friends who left us should keep on posting here - after all it was one of them who started this thread

 

[usetheforceluke]

> the whole thing blew up like a bomb.

Sort of reminds me of a Darwin Award that I read quite some time ago.

Seems that this guy was using a variety of cleansers to clean his toilet. Unfortunately, it was a wrong combination. Later in the day, he sat down and was having a smoke. He threw the lit butt in to the toilet, and the gases ignited, causing a lot of burnt hair and toasting to The Important Bits.

When the paramedics arrived, they got him in to a guerney and then they found out exactly what happened to him. (I should mention that he lived in a hilly city - San Francisco sticks in my mind). They had to carry him down a number of steps to their ambulance, but because they were laughing so hard, they dropped the guy and he started rolling off down the street.

He managed to get through two intersections (with the paramedics chasing him) and they thought they were home free because there was only one more intersection to go, but he got plastered by a big truck.

Now, whether or not it's an Urban Legend or not, I remember reading the story and laughing about it for a couple of hours.

I was more circumspect about where I was putting my lit cigarette butts after that.

Jim.

 

[wendym]

Another reason for me to avoid washing clothes!
We invite Holocaust survivors to speak to our second years every year - not much longer that will continue. It is a subject that has always interested me since I heard Anne Frank's father speak. I have visited the Yad Vasham in Jersulem, Anne Frank's house and both Holocaust museums in LA and Washington DC - I think the important thing is we never forget.
Now off to do more marking - tomorrow we are bussing 1500 pupils up to our playing fields to take a whole school photo - not sure whether to pray for rain so it is cancelled or not!
Wendy

 

[papa]

Wendy there is a comprehensive high school about 1.5 miles from our home. It is a rather large school that has 4,000 students, 4 wings with it's own principal and a central office with the main administer. They have 70 school buses that transport students along with all those that drive. Needless to say we try not to be in the area when school let out.

Congratulations on the new drive and office computer system Eric.

Thursday is the first day of autumn and the temperatures are still 90 degrees F. 32.2 degrees Celsius for all of the rest of the world. Mike

 

[Viking]

Another reason for me to avoid washing clothes!
We invite Holocaust survivors to speak to our second years every year - not much longer that will continue. It is a subject that has always interested me since I heard Anne Frank's father speak. I have visited the Yad Vasham in Jersulem, Anne Frank's house and both Holocaust museums in LA and Washington DC - I think the important thing is we never forget.
Now off to do more marking - tomorrow we are bussing 1500 pupils up to our playing fields to take a whole school photo - not sure whether to pray for rain so it is cancelled or not!
Wendy

Wendy,
am I right to assume that 'When Hitler stole pink rabbit' is also part of your school's mandatory booklist? In my school it was mandatory for all English classes.

Mike,
it's not a drive I bought, it's a printer. But that printer has a special tray for printable CDs/DVDs. So I can print whatever I want on them. When I copy a movie onto a blank DVD and print the scanned label on it afterwards it looks like the real thing

 

[cdnmickeylover]

I've visited Anne Frank's house -- very interesting. First read her diary when I was around 13 so that hit close to home with me. One of the people in the office actually lived in Toronto after the war but at the moment can't remember which one. Heard them interviewed on the radio not that long ago and it was interesting.

My brother and I visited Dachau too. Very spooky when you think about what happened there but I agree that everyone should visit it or one of the other memorials once. They had a list of the different nationalities that were in the camp when it was liberated and there were two canadians listed. Made it more real for us at the time.

Fiona

 

[jeanneg]

Wow, I can hardly keep up with everything. Hope you're feeling better, Fiona, Kim and Ave. I will be traveling again tomorrow.....this time to Bar Harbor, Maine. John was invited to be a visiting professor, and since the invitation was also extended to me, i decided to join him. I have never been to Maine, so I get to cross off a second unvisited state this month. I think I can count the few that remain on one hand now, so we're getting there.
Is Laurarn sailing right now? I hope she has good weather at sea. I can't believe what is happening with all these storms. I never remember getting so far in the alphabet with names and we still have about a month to go until hurricane season is finally over.
I have been feeling very proud of myself lately. After years and years of being petrified of swimming, I finally learned how to do it. A month ago, I swam one lap and thought I was gonna die. Today I swam 40 laps without stopping and could have done more, but they began removing the lap lanes for aerobics class. It was never an endurance thing, it was all about the breathing...... something I just couldn't seem to accomplish. I am dreadfully slow: it took me about 45 minutes to complete the set which is roughly 4.5 times what it takes my daughter Jen, but I can't wait for her to come home now so I can show her my new skill. This is truly something I never thought I'd be able to do, and I'm so pleased for finally conquering the fear of putting my head in the water. Just thought i'd share that with you guys. Now if they only made Speedos in my size.......perish the thought!
Any news about the New York hotel yet? We need a show to see on Friday. Lennon will close this weekend and Wicked is going for $300/ticket which I will not pay......especially since the original cast is no longer appearing. We may just go to TKTS and see what half-price show we can catch that day. If all else fails, we wouldn't mind seeing Lion King or Phantom over again. Anybody have any suggestions?
If we're going to be a big group, we will probably need ressies for dinner. Both Carmines and Marchi's serve family style meals....anyone interested in dining there?

 

[Viking]

Jeanne,
congrats on your swimming endurance Swimming is not our sport. We had to do a swimming test over 400 meters (8 lanes) and then 10 minutes in front of the dive-boat. It was a piece of cake, but nevertheless it's not our kind of sports. Our gym has two pools:O ne for swimming lanes and one for aquarobics, but we've never been in either
No word on NYC hotels yet, but it seems to be tough to get a room right now. Two coworkers of mine will fly to NYC 10/21-10-30 and couldn't find a decent room in the $100-200 range Downtown. Now they'll be staying at the Ramada at JFK.

Edited to add: Family style meal sounds great to us.

 

[wendym]

Advice to everyone if they are ever mad enough to organise a huge photo - make sure they know the exact numbers involved. Seems one of our bosses forgot to add the Junior school into the total she told the photographers. So they built a stand to hold 900 people. So you can imagine the fun trying to place 1500 people and 100 staff!. We were 11 rows high with four rows of kneeling, sitting pupils - the oldest ones had to stand in the heat for 90 minutes but they did really well.
Mike - 1500 is a big school here. Most are at the most 1000 pupils - I too would avoid going home time!
Jeanne - congrats on the swimming achievement - that is marvellous. Mum and I both love to swim and we go to aquaerobics twice a week. Please pass on our congrats to John too on his professorship, that is wonderful.
Eric, "When Hitler stole pink rabbit" wasn't mandatory but it was one of my favourite books as a child and I read the whole series several times over. In fact when I broke my arm as a child I took that one into hospital - the Dr's couldn't understand my choice of book and made some sarcastic comment - my dad soon dealt with them!
Wendy