| working |
[13 May 2008|10:07pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 tired |
] |
Another good day at work. I have not really had a bad one yet and I'm about 3 months in so that's good.
Since moving we have seen "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", "Prom Night" and "Baby Mama" at the theatre. I liked them all but can you tell that I always let my kid pick the flicks? I turned off the netflix account because we just had not used it since we arrived in Cleveland. We walk to Severance every Friday night and see something. I was pretty mad last Friday because we got a smaller popcorn than usual and the container leaked and butter got on my new shirt. Ack! I hate that.
Bedtime. I try to get to sleep before 11 these days and get up by 6. I seem to need more sleep than I did in AR. Completely different lifestyle. I have not been to the gym since January so I need to start doing that. There is one at my job and I don't have to pay so maybe I'll take advantage of that starting next week. We have been walking every night, thought, anywhere from 2 to 8 miles depending on how much time we have, weather, etc.
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| cavs |
[12 May 2008|11:22pm] |
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mood |
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 lethargic |
] |
The Cavs are doing great... the Indians were just OK tonight...
We moved back to Cleveland in January.
I am working at Tri-C Corporate College. They said the job market here was tough but I had 2 interviews my first week here and got both jobs. I worked one, for an autism awareness/education organization, for 2 weeks then this corp. college thing made me an offer and the benefits and pay were way better.
I'm still working on my doctorate via distance leanring with Univeristy of Arkansas so that's nice that I can keep doing that. We're living in South Euclid. Doug is still keeping his business going and also working at the Cajun Grill which is really fun for him. My mom is living with us and she's doing really well. She's 70 now. whew.
Mik did not come with us initially but changed her mind REALLY quick and flew up during my 2nd week at CCC. She's homeschooling so basically she's taking it easy which is fine with me. The dogs love it here and so do we. The cats, formerly hunters of the highest degree, will not go outside. It's really weird!
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| B-ball 2007 |
[12 Nov 2007|12:00am] |
Tomorrow is the first game of the season for Mikkayla. 9th grade team, which they call Jr. High Team here. That's weird to me because Jr. High where I come from is 7th and 8th grade. Well whatever. Next year she'll be varsity.
She is in PT for her shoulder. We thought she owuld be out the season for shoulder or rotator cuff surgery but it will just be PT. Also they discovered she has 27% spine curvature so she'll need ot be fitted with some scoliosis-correcting device.
But tomorrow- first game of the season- and she's the starting point guard- and it's an away game at Gr. Forest- and YEAH I'm about to come unglued with excitement.
I finished my later years sexual identity paper and submitted it today. whew. Just a couple more htings to do then a few weeks off. For good behavior or whatever.
:)
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| friends |
[07 Nov 2007|09:56pm] |
School is ok here--- plugging along. I have a team project and my teammates are a middle-eastern woman, who barely speaks English and a lady from Hot Springs who is nice and is very smart but never had a research class or maybe it's just been a long time... it's rough going but I'm learning a lot and, surprisingly, I have a lot of patience and I enjoy teaching them what I know.
My diversity project is titled "Sexual Identity, Gender Development and the Later Years". I can't wait to finish it and show it here. I am just starting my lit review in the other class.
My friend, Jerry, was sick recently and scared the bejeebies out of me. They still son't know what was wrong. Doctors freak me out. Aren't they supposed to dagnose stuff?
His boyfriend, Mike... must be so upset. He crashed his car. I'm glad the timing was right and he only crunched the car and not his head! owie. The other car was damaged really bad. I wish things would always be happy for these two. Or at least most of the time. They deserve a big break. Really good people.
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| virtual cruising |
[24 Oct 2007|11:50pm] |
I'm working on a virtual cruise. I'm using the dimension x gaming engine and Sun Netbeans.
Iy has a working pier, entrance to ship, purser's desk where you can select a room key but it needs work... The last rooms I have worked on to North, West and East of the stairway right now are the pool chat (which works), the excursion desk (no excursions yet) and stairway to explore the ship (that will "some day" branch off to public rooms, etc) I'll post a link soon.
Eventually I hope to use this platform to create something I have in mind for my dissertation. So this is all practice for that.
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| September |
[26 Sep 2007|12:50pm] |
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mood |
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 busy |
] |
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music |
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quiet |
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Wow- September is going by fast!
I am deep into this semester and almost have my first paper written. It's a personal development project for Adult Learner- Later Years and it's a book review about transpersonal states. I'll post it here after it gets reveiwed by the instructor.
My journal writing paper is published on the Education Resources site at ed.gov now.
On to more important matters- Dick won BB8 so that was great. I likes watching Daniele get whipped like that and by her own dad, it was priceless.
I watched to season premier of the Bachelor (why, I dunno!) It was as dumb as ever. I have been recording Beauty and the Geek and ANTM for my daughter but we haven't been doing much tv on the weekend. She's doing great in volleyball, they won at home Monday and at Prairie Grove last night. They play Gravette at home Thursday and I'm going to that. She's such an awesome player. Even better than b-ball.
She has to build a boat for science class and it's kicking her butt trying to follow the specs and get all the points. 10 points for 12" length, 10 pts. for 6" width, 10 points if it holds 10 lbs. Well, we can do the length and width but it sinks above 3 or 4 lbs. so she'll get partial points for that part. It cannot be made out of plastic. She got a few points for naming it (The Sinker lol) and the class will vote on each one for creativity points. She'll do ok.
Oh- she's also on student council this year. Busy, busy!
Watched some movies recently:
Kiss Me Guido 4 stars
May 5 stars
Jackson Pollock 4 stars
This Boy's Life 3 stars
Black Snake Moan 5 stars
Hustle and Flow 5 stars
Small Town Gay Bar 4 stars
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| The final 3 |
[12 Sep 2007|08:30pm] |
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mood |
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 content |
] |
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music |
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GH on tivo |
] |
Danielle, Dick and Zach. I will just hate it if Zach doesn't make it to the finals. If he can win HOH and take Dick with him, that will be great.
I actually scratched two of the assignemnts for this semester off the list today- social bookmarking task and emotional intelligence activity in the MI class. Hurray! I am about 50 pages from finishing the book for the first review in the LY class. Progress!
Not much going on. Went to the gym yesterday and worked out hard. My arms and legs are killing me. The change in weather is awesome. Highs of 72 and night lows in the high 50's. NICE!
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| Double eviction |
[07 Sep 2007|08:42pm] |
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mood |
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okay |
] |
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music |
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none |
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I tivo'd Big Brother last night and they finally had a Fast Forward episode where a whole week was played out "live" in one hour. Double eviction night! Jessica went home, leaving Jameka. Then Dick won HOH, put up Jameka and Eric, and Eric went home. I don't even remember who won POV--- Danielle? NO it was ZACH. He did not use the veto power.
It was such a fast hour. Anyway, the final 4 are Dick, Danielle, Jameka and Zach. Interesting. Doug picked Dick to win on the first night so that would be cool but I don't think anyone in the jury house would ever vote for him.
I'm reading Creativity, Spirituality, and Transcendence: Paths to Integrity and Wisdom in the Mature Self. I need to review it. Also I am reading another book about emotional intelligence, this makes the second one, and it's really good, too. But so much reading is killing me. I will have to stop wearing my contacts to bed and maybe wear glasses for 1/2 the day. My eyes are feeling pretty strained.
Almost time to shut this light off and go home. I came in late, like almost 3:00 and I need to leave by 10 so I can walk my dogs. And hang out at home and sip some crown. We bought a 3 liter bottle on the ship and it was duty free, which is really nice, but also a size that they don't sell in the U.S. so that makes it extra special. Mikkayla collects the bottles and the largest one she has until this one is a 750 ml. She is going to freak out when she sees the size of this thing!
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| Home again |
[06 Sep 2007|10:09pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 mellow |
] |
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music |
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insects chirping- door is open |
] |
What a fun trip. The 2 days in New Orleans were fantastic. We ate at Coop's and also at Mulate's. YUM! I had dark dry cider and sausage and rabbit jambalaya at Coop's and then diet coke and red beans & rice at Mulate's. The guys mostly had crawfish and stuff like that. We had the pool and hot tub to ourselves on the roof of the Hilton in the garden district. The lady who bought Mikkayla's clarinet on ebay picked it up the first day so that saved me shipping costs which was nice. We also ate at a TexMex place called Lucy's for Retired Surfers or something close to that. It was delicious. We spent some time in the French Quarter but it rained so we went awning jumping back up the road to the hotel and never made it to Bourbon street. Definitely next time.
We went to Harrah's and won $77 on slots that we took to the ship casino and then won over $200 like four times. We just kept winning. We definitely came home with more than we started out with in cash. That was really nice. The casino bar and the piano bar were fun. Karaoke- we watched for like 10 minutes in the Forum and it sucked. Both comedians were funny and Mr. Magic was there and he was great. Percy Crews we had seen on the New York to Halifax cruise but he was still funny. His mother died the week before and that was a really sad thing he mentioned.
This was the 7th cruise for us and we decided not to do the dining room- just all casual eating venues this time. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the cruise even more. It turns out I hate being told when and where to eat even when the food is great. We worked out in the gym twice onboard, used the sauna and steam room daily, never used the elevator and each weighed about the same when we got home. We ate constantly. The deli was awesome. Fruit and cereal and yogurt for breakfast except one day we had bacon and pancakes. I loved the desserts but Chris said they sucked. He likes realy decadent, rich stuff and I like light, fluffy stuff which is what they mostly had. Doug stuck with frozen yogurt mostly. I indulged in bread at every dinner. We sometimes had 2 lunches and 2 dinners.
We drank a few drinks most nights on the ship. The bartender knew Chris and Doug's names and folio numbers and all of our favorite drinks. Me and Doug stuck with the usual Crown Royal straight up with coke and diet coke chasers and Chris had lots of that plus Jim Beam is his new best friend. $1.25 cheaper for each double, he said. At the rate he was going, probably a good idea. Our onboard charges were not too bad. Carnival gave me a $50 credit and never did apply the credit to the other 2 accounts like they should have. Oh, well. I think we all stayed well under our spending limits.
Really, REALLY a great trip... now no more cruises until next summer... unless a super great deal is emailed to me.
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| Big Brother 8 results |
[24 Aug 2007|09:20pm] |
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okay |
] |
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music |
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GH |
] |
Dangit- Jen was voted out and Jameka is still there. Jameka is BORING. Dangit.
I spoke with one of my professors today, the one who suggested I submit the disadvantaged adults paper, and she is adding a section to the paper about implications for HRD and then we'll submit jointly. Hurray! So I sent her what I had and quickly unsubmitted and she'll resubmit when her part is done. This will be great. I'll post the finished product here when I get back from our trip.
On my list, also, is to get the roof fixed when we return. Well, a little too late maybe. I would have done it by now except we had plans to rebuild a new house entirely, but those plans were recently scrapped in favor of repairing what we have now. So, anyway, tonight I was reading and took a break to go work on the hem for the dress I made for Lakkyn. When I got back, apparently it had rained HARD for 10 minutes or more and my text book was open RIGHT where the leak is so... I spent the next 30 minutes blowdrying chapters 9 and 10. Nice. This after a month long drought that had us under a county-wide burn ban. Gah!!!!!!!
Meanwhile, I had set the iron down in the kitchen right by a loaf of bread and plastic melted onto the iron face. Screw it- I'm throwing that iron out and I'll get a new one when I get back. No way am I peeling that crap off the iron. Anyway, it's been a weird evening like that.
Mikkayla is only coming tomorrow long enough to get some money. She's spending the night with a friend and going to Celebration City on Sunday. The teen years will be rough for me. I don't think she will want to spend as much time with me anymore. Incidentally, I'll get my Ed.D. the same month that she graduates from high school.
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| More papers |
[23 Aug 2007|08:43pm] |
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mood |
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mellow |
] |
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music |
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Y&R, DOOL, GH on tivo |
] |
Here is my paper "Learning Motivation Level Differences Between Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers and Differences Related to Gender".
I decided to post this because it was a lot more work than the lit. review I posted earlier, although not as good, I think. Both topics interest me. I may rewrite this one some day for publication as well.
Both papers are formatted APA, not formatted for submission for publication.
We worked out for an hour then came home and I hauled trash down, walked the pups and made a salad while Doug grilled ribeyes and veggies outside. Almost 100 degrees again. I'm tired of this!
Big Brother is on later, like almost 1 a.m., because of the football game- poop! I'll wait up. I hope Jameka goes home.
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| Thursday again |
[23 Aug 2007|04:38pm] |
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mood |
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 cheerful |
] |
The weeks are going by too fast. The months, too. Monday we leave for NOLA to meet Chris and have 2 days there then board the Fantasy (my 3rd time on the ship) to Cozumel. We took him to Nova Scotia on the Victory last year and this time he wanted a warm-weather vacation. So, 2 nights in New Orleans then 4 nights on board the ship. This is our 7th cruise and we decided that just this once we are not doing the dining room thing for dinner. Maybe a couple lunches but other than that, completely casual. Yay! Less to pack. I'm all about packing light.
I've been reading for my classes and have another fourteen books coming by the time I get back. I love the vendors at amazon.com. I saved almost $1000 on these books. This semester I have to concentrate on Multiple Intelligences and write a few papers about older adult development. I am thinking of choosing sexual preference or women as my focus... I have it narrowed down to those two areas based on my interests.
I submitted my paper, "Journal Writing for Improved Learning and Classroom Relationships in Public Schools: Applications for Disadvantaged Adults" today. Maybe I'll present at the conference in February. That would rock. Anyway, there is the link for anyone interested.
Oops- time to hit the gym!
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| netflix |
[20 Aug 2007|09:16pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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calm |
] |
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music |
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Days of Our Lives- tivo! |
] |
Here are our most recent netflix returns and how we rated them:
I especially recommend Dogville, Chrystal and Gummo. Watching tonight- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Coming tomorrow- Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (lol) and later this week Small Town Gay Bar.
Soylent Green 4.0 Stars
Chrystal 5.0 Stars
Strangers with Candy 2.0 Stars
Dogville 5.0 Stars
Eragon 5.0 Stars
Roots: (7-Disc Series) 5.0 Stars
Syriana 3.0 Stars
Desperate Housewives: Season 1: Disc 1 (6-Disc Series) 5.0 Stars (mever saw this on tv- not bad!)
Steal This Movie! 4.0 Stars
Thumbsucker 4.0 Stars
Blue Velvet 5.0 Stars
Lost Highway 4.0 Stars
Gummo 5.0 Stars
Paris, Texas 5.0 Stars
Mulholland Drive 4.0 Stars
The Straight Story 5.0 Stars
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| catching up |
[20 Aug 2007|03:05pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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cheerful |
] |
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music |
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Doug's tap-tapping of the keyboard |
] |
I'm about to read all the jumpyfox and martes posts from the past SEVERAL weeks. It's been forever sice I logged in.
News: my M. Ed. is complete- somehow I made it through the FAST summer semester classes and the comprehensive exams.
More news: I also made it through all the steps in the doctoral program application process and after the final step, interview with admissions committee, I am in! So as I move closer to completing the Ed. D. in Workforce Development I promise to log in to my live journal much more often.
I will be researching in the areas of the aging U.S. workforce, older adults and leisure-time learning as well as online learning, women and technology in learning and native american participation in adult education. Lots of research interests! I have a great advisor who is a technical writer with many of the same research interests so that is SOOOOO helpful to me.
So now I must go read the live journals of my friends and see what they have been up to! Also found some posts I made offline for later posting during our Alaska cruise so going to load them here now!
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| Back in Seattle |
[21 May 2007|12:46pm] |
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mood |
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impressed |
] |
We are about to board our plane for KC--- just off the Sun yesterday. It was the cruise of a lifetime. I hardly think any will top it in the future. You will enjoy yourself if you book this cruise! The ports of call are amazing. This is the first time I have been impressed. We'll do it again!
Best things: Ketchikan Totem Bight tour, Ketchikan in general, Skagway especially the Red Onion Saloon, Tracy Arm. Ship best things: everything except welcome-aboard enterainment: I hope you have more luck on your sailing but the rest of the entertainment was good and especially the comedy was funny. All of the food was great! I cannot believe how much more we enjoyed the food than on Carnival and RCCL which have always been great but this was excellent, although Princess portions seem WAY too big. I asked for 1/2 each time and the waiter laughed The service ship-wide was incredibly good and if anyone on Caribe deck has Teody (not Teddy- different guy!) for room steward, you are lucky. What a great guy. He is from the Phillipines and new to the ship.
See Jose for Mojitos! He is fun, fun, fun! I think you will have a blast! Don't miss Sterling and Verdi's. The lasagne is incredible and the pizza-- mmmmmmmm!
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| Skagway |
[17 May 2007|03:24pm] |
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mood |
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jubilant |
] |
Skagway is awesome! Do NOT miss the Red Onion Saloon and bring a camera.
Weather today was 40-50 degrees and breezy.
This ship is NEVER crowded except some lunch time buffet stuff. It's a REALLY great ship. I'm ready for our day at sea!
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| Live from the Sun Princess |
[14 May 2007|09:30am] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
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Arriving in Seattle was great. Flight in Sunday at 11:30, grabbed luggage and cab ride then at pier by noonish. Cab ride 28 + tip.
Met by luggage people- optional to hand it over and get right in check-in line or stand in LONG line with your luggage THEN get in the shorter line. That was a no-brainer for us. Not for everyone, though.
Check-in- filled out a card saying no diarhea and vomiting this week, handed over boarding pass, credit card, passport to Ruth (best damn check-in lady ever!) and on the ship by 12:30. Cabins were ready! Very nice inside cabin, probably nicer than most suites on RCCL and Carnivl than we have seen. Not bigger, but "nicer". Adequate room for us, we're not big but had tons of luggage and no problem unpacking and storing which occurred about 3:00 when our luggage arrived. Meanwhile, we went to the buffet lunch.
Lunch- well, I have no idea why anyone on this board ever complains about that buffet. Many selections, even between the two of us sampling tons of stuff, we could not manage to try everything. We rated it as a buffet a 9, as a general lunch venue, a 7.
By now we were tired! We had not slept except for the 3.5 hour plane trip since Friday night. So we went to the cabin, napped a few minutes, unpacked, did muster, explored the ship, dressed for dinner and had a cocktain the Wheelhouse. NICE bar. We loved it.
Dinner: excellent prime rib, Doug loved his pornici mushroom soup and my beef broth with wild rice was maybe the best soup I have ever tasted. After the first 3 courses, we did well to eat 1/2-3/4 of our dinners. GREAT service by Janet and Celso. We had a table for 2 and this is what we requested. We'll be happy all week, I know it.
I have to say we did not like the welcome aboard show ut everyone else on the ship did so don't go by me. We're just really funny about cheesy entertainment. You should have seen us looking for an escape route. But the bloody marys in the Princess theater were excellent. Hey- also get a strwberry marguerita and a gin & tonic made with Bombay, both we had at the Wheelhouse.(Doug says splurge for the Bombay!)
This morning we cancelled our order for room service placed last night because we got up too early. Then we went to the Horizon for breakfast and it was good! Again, I don't understand the negative comments I have read here about the food. And we're picky! We love good food.
Internet cafe--- great and many, many computers available. Wireless only available on deck 5.
Gym--- one of things we cruise for is fitness activity and this gym is too small for us to do our complete workout. Great treadmill and equipment just not enough room for free weight lifting and solid ab work. I will try to take hand weights into the aerobic area tonight or tomorrow and see what happens. That room looks big and empty. They should rethink their space usage.
No locks on the changin room lockers so Doug prayed not to habe to return to the room nekkid after his sauna. LOL
Oh yeah- hand sanitation is EVERYWHERE!
More later!
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| Alaska |
[28 Apr 2007|08:55pm] |
Just 2 weeks from tonight I'll be shutting down the house for our trip to Alaska. We'll be driving to KC, MO to fly to Seattle and board the ship there. Here is the itinerary:
Day Port of Call Arrival Departure
Sun, May 13 Seattle, Washington -- 4:00 pm
Mon, May 14 At Sea -- --
Tue, May 15 Ketchikan, Alaska 6:30 am 4:30 pm
Wed, May 16 Cruise Tracy Arm 6:00 am 10:00 am
Wed, May 16 Juneau, Alaska 1:30 pm 10:00 pm
Thu, May 17 Skagway, Alaska 6:00 am 5:00 pm
Fri, May 18 At Sea -- --
Sat, May 19 Victoria, British Columbia 5:00 pm 11:59 pm
Sun, May 20 Seattle, Washington 7:00 am --
I'm pretty excited. Just the 2 of us so that will be nice. And we'll be cave dwellers this time (inside cabin) to facilitate restful sleep. Plenty of cozy nooks on the ship to find a chair, a heated blanket and watch the scenery when we are awake. I'm going to do a cruise critic "Live from the Sun" post and I'll copy it here.
So much to do to get ready!
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| Jerry |
[01 Apr 2007|02:33am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 depressed |
] |
Well, me and Jerry did our thing in E.S. several weeks ago as planned and it rocked. We were bad, bad, bad. BAD! Bad ass. Anywho... he had a mild heart attack while I was down with the flu a couple weeks back. I'm not good with this. At all.
I have written email to 3 mutual friends this week about it and geez, I dunno what else to do really. I called him and we talked. I remember to say "ily".
Roz, if you are reading can you ask Ben to drop me a line? I miss him. And you, too. And Marie maybe? I'd like to hear from all of you. Email or whatever.
*sigh*
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| I'm the genie |
[19 Mar 2007|04:23pm] |
What Disney character are you?
My Results:
Genie
You're unique, comical, and just a joy to be around. You make the wishes of others come true by putting a smile on their faces.
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