The DisFort's Chit Chat Cafe

[bama_ed]

Who would have thought. Fire Chief owns a crap ton of ladders.

Bet he's embarrassed to tell us how many he actually HAZ.

 

[Stratman50th]

Bet he's embarrassed to tell us how many he actually HAZ.

I know, right?

 

[Sjm9911]

Man , all this ladder shamming! Well my house is a split ranch, so I 9nly need a 24' and the 12' roof ladder for the house. And then their is another pile of stuff I needed for the old house. The old home was a 3 story house on a hill, so the back of the home was 4 stories high. This nessassatated lots of ladders to reach everything. This is in addtion to the 2 regular stepladders, folding stepladder and the multi gorilla ladder , and 2 smaller extention ladders I used for the camper awning. Then I have like 4 platforms for when I paint. So I probably only need 4 ladders and have a lot extra!

 

[Teamubr]

I don't think you even need a ladder for that house.

Jump up on the hot tub. Climb onto the lower roof at the left and you're there.

j

 

[bama_ed]

I don't think you even need a ladder for that house.

Jump up on the hot tub. Climb onto the lower roof at the left and you're there.

 

[4077]

First rides this morning... I let him take his younger brother first:

 

[jbrostek]

We are back from an epic 15 days in California. Most of you are not linked to me on Facebook, but I recapped each day in detail. I have the last and final post in process as I summarize the trip.

Melissa collaged a few of our thousand+ photos to capture some of the best parts. 15 days, 9 hotels, 935 miles driven, 200,000+ steps logged, very full bellies, and incredible memories!


San Francisco - Day 1 we were awake for 22 hours with travel and time change and started exploring the city. Highlights overall were the beautiful architecture, sea lions, Lombard Street, cable car, In-n-Out Burger, and Painted Ladies houses (involving a bit of transportation, walking, and miscommunication)


Santa Cruz we ventured into the Redwoods to do a high ropes course 30-80 feet in the air! Some of us overcame some fear and athletic abilities to all have a great adventure


Pacific Ocean! It was cold

especially in the northern part of the state. Laguna Beach gave us some beach time and warmer temps to at least wade in. Plus we got to witness an elaborate proposal set up and saw a national surfing competition while stopping for lunch in Huntington Beach


We used adventure labs and geocaches to help explore parts of cities we might not have wandered through. The big bucket geocache was in a park in SF, James is holding a really cool homemade geocache tracker the hider put together in Pacific Grove, and while it’s hard to see, the Hollywood Sign is between the girls holding a geocache at Griffith Observatory. We logged 20 completed adventure labs and 12 geocaches.


Melissa loved seeing landmarks in person.



We love Disney and having the opportunity to spend 3 days together in Disneyland and California Adventure was fantastic! Many highlights here including Lauren braving not only the Incredicoaster but riding it with me screaming and grabbing her leg and hand. Jessica and Melissa took a big ride break and went to an animation studio class together which was so much fun. And Melissa and I got to enjoy another “home” stay through DVC with many more years to come.


Two highlights were the Monterey Bay aquarium and the San Diego Zoo. Loved watching the sea otters play, swim, and cuddle together, especially after reading Odder this year which is set there. The Zoo had hundreds of animals over hundreds of acres that we exhaustively explored.


Two explorations were hiking in Big Sur (bottom right) and discovering the Tide Pools in Point Loma near Coronado Island/San Diego


LOTS of desserts! And lots and lots of really great meals which definitely countered the 80+ miles we walked


9 different hotels and James did a great job picking amazing ones. These were my top 3. The top picture was in Asilomar near Monterey and it was at a conference center in a state park. The room had 4 different beds and 3 different rooms for the bathroom (toilet, sink, shower). There was no tv but we made a fire and played games. The bottom left is Santa Barbara and there was a beautiful courtyard garden. Plus this hotel gave free wine, cheese, crackers, and cookies every evening! The last picture was in the courtyard in Coronado right down the steps from our Spanish style 4 room suite. The girls swam in the pool while Melissa and I enjoyed wine together for our last night.

 

[jbrostek]

One last picture to share. Sunset in Santa Barbara, we did a sunset kayaking tour.

 

[Sjm9911]

That's a lot of geound and places to see in a limited time. Looks like you all pulled it off and had a great time.

 

[bama_ed]

Awesome last pic (kayak sunset) there, James! Looks like a fabulous time. ED

 

[jbrostek]

@bama_ed It really was. With the route planning, picking hotels in areas we never been, we really did luck out without breaking the bank. It was a really fun trip and adventure.

 

[jbrostek]

Happy 4th all!!!

May you wake up tomorrow with as many digits as you did this morning….

 

[jbrostek]

Ahhh nothing like recovering from your summer trip by booking the next trip. Yup, we did it, booked FW for June 20-28 2025. This is an every other year WDW trip with a our close friends family and ours together. This would be the 4th trip together since our first in 2019 when the kids asked if we could do this again. We know it will be a blast, and may use some of the travel plans that @MrsPAHunter and I come up with for the trip down to the Dismeet to avoid that really long first day on the road.

 

[jbrostek]

Oh the first world problems. My now 10 year old laptop is dying a slow death and becoming less and less usable since the beginning of the year. With prime day on our heels, I been watching for deals. Well turns out there are some good deals to be had. I decided to cross over to the mac world for my personal PC. I been using a MacBook for 5 years for work/ It's fast, powerful and really does everything I need to do even with Microsoft 365. Even at home I use very little software that is windows only and the things I might need I can run in a windows VM on the MBP.

So here I am about to pick up a pretty sweet deal on a MBP M3 pro 14". Not an expense I planned on, but thanks to BB price matching Amazon, at least same as cash for 18 months so I can spread out the pain for the next 10-12 months and still pay no interest and pay it off early.

 

[friendofeeyore]

Long time ago Grumpy Aggie & I flew to San Diego (also did the zoo & lot of other things) then drove to San Francisco with stops in Los Angeles, Disney Land, Tonight Show. Santa Barbara with the seals & watched surfers. Toured The Hearst Castle. Had a great trip & many memories. Enjoyed seeing your wonderful California trip.

 

[garneska]

We took a little trip to Disney last week. All we brought home was Covid. We were there July 6 to July 11. We did not take the RV. We stayed at the Waldorf. While expensive cheaper than a disney deluxe hotel.

Sunday we went to MK in the evening for a fireworks desert party. Good view paid the money so i did not have to stake out a spot. it was worth it for the view but was a bit crowded getting out of the park. We finally managed to ride Tron. It was good but I like Guardians better. Tron was very very very short.

Monday we did Epcot. Stayed from 9:30 to 3:30 after that we were wiped out. The heat was intense. Tuesday we went to AK. We just sat down at Nomad Lounge when the sky opened up. We had rain the rest of the afternoon.

On Wed, Bert woke up and had Covid. We stayed in the room. I had a work meeting so not a huge problem. Though i was hoping to ride Gaudian's one more time.

Thursday we drove home. I even helped with the drive since Bert was sick. I did the middle section and he napped. I know it helped. He was a trooper.

Friday, he was a bit better which was good, because we took the RV into the shop to have the hydro hot looked at. Then on to see mom and the lawyer. With Bert sick and me around him the whole time, we both masked up. Thankfully only there a little over an hour. By friday night my throat was feeling funny.

Saturday we both felt like crap. I did not even bother to test. We took naps and did nothing. Sunday i was still down and bert was feeling better. It is now monday i am still down but the fever i think is gone. The congestion sucks and my throat hurts pretty bad, so i am still miserable.

I will try to get in the few pics i took the entire trip. one was our dinner on Saturday from Bull n Bear steakhouse. We got the tomahawk for two. the bone is pretty big.

 

[garneska]

 

[jbrostek]

@garneska bummer about catching the crud. We been lucky that have not caught it in a bit though did start to think we did after the CA trip. I hope you are feeling better as you posted. Hopefully the RV repair wont be too painful. Thanks for the pictures!!!

 

[bama_ed]

This weekend in July 2024 is The (British) Open at Royal Troon, Scotland.

Being several hours ahead, tv broadcast either start VERY early (weekends) or replay same day later for American viewers. The Open is the only one of two tournaments I will watch wall-to-wall as much as I can (the other being the Masters).

We went to Augusta to watch the Masters for several years in the 90s when tickets were not as hard to get. It's on my bucket list to get to St Andrews (home of The Old Course and see the 1st among equals of the courses in the Open rotation) like my brother and niece have done (on Sundays most weekends the course is like a public park - no golf played but towns people can walk to the beach, take pets, out, and walk the grounds (not play golf) except when there is the rare weekend tournament).

So if you call my house this weekend, chances are I won't answer or return your call till at least Monday.

Because it's The Open weekend.

Bama Ed

PS - the pic above is at St Andrews but this weekend The Open is at Royal Troon.

 

[jbrostek]

Couple years ago now we cut the cord and replaced our live TV needs with FuboTV. It was time because internet and TV was getting pricey at over 240 a month for a very basic package. Plus the time Fios offered a package for internet only with hulu/disney+ included for 60 a month. However, in the last year Fubo have lost over 19 channels we actually watch in the past year including Discovery, HGTV, TLC and more. So we went on the search for a new service.

After reviewing and comparing with multiple services we decided to give DirecTV stream a try. One bonus is they clearly allow you to stream from TVs outside your home without needing to eventually connect to your home network periodically. So far I been pleased with the picture quality, the apps for fireTV/sitck and roku are easy to use and navigate. The biggest hiccup was getting the roku to log in as they dont use the QR code method like all the fireOS related ones did. I found the best way to do that was to use the Roku TV app and send the password directly from my phone, and since that worked it was pretty easy.

The price is a little higher since we chose the ultimate package and added on the extra halmark channels (happy wife...and me..happy couch time). One thing to note, if you sign up at directv website they have two prices. One adds taxes and fees, however, I signed up at stream.directv.com and the price was flat with no add on fees. The price is starting out at 119 a month for the ultimate package and the add on package that included additional halmark channels was 4.99 a month, DireTV gave us a deal of 15 a month for for the first 3 months and rakutan had a 25 dollar cash back. So we will pay 109 a month at first, 125. once those run out. FuboTV was 105 even after loosing multiple channels including over 22 dollars in taxes and fees. YTTV is 77 with taxes, and an additional 5-10 a month for 4k access which is included with directv stream. Not cheap by any means, however, for us th cost is still close to what we where willing to pay and still a better deal then before we cord cut.

We are a week in and just watching the last items on our Fubo DVR we can't record on DTV right now. I have also been watching and recording on DTV to make the transition. I will let you know how it goes though figured I would share since I spoke about FuboTV long ago and now about to cancel it.