Archive for October, 2014

Mister Toad

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

IMG_0459.JPG

Here’s one of my most admired people: the lovable Mr. Toad. Joanne and I took his wild ride just the other day. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during last week’s trip to Disneyland, and part of my famous Statue and Vacation series.

We’re back from our cruise! We had a great time visiting Catalina Island and Ensenada and generally spending time aboard the ship. The weather was great, the food was great, the service was great, the excursions were great, the entertainment was great, and the company was excellent! Princess continues to be my favorite cruise line. Plus, I have now achieved the exalted rewards program status of Ruby! That’s way better than gold, as everyone knows. Sadly, Joanne is a mere Gold member. I pity her.

We spent two days at Disneyland afterwards and thoroughly enjoyed that too. Friday was very good – lines were short and crowds were smallish by Disneyland standards. Saturday was much more crowded, but we had a great time that day too. We had a very late dinner Saturday night at the Blue Bayou, which was very nice. After dinner, we rode the Pirates of the Caribbean one more time (our fourth for the weekend) and went home.

The fireworks show happened not too long before our Blue Bayou reservation. We were making a quick trip on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before dinner. Just before we got onto the ride, the fireworks started. The view from the ride platform was wonderful! And it was even better from the ride itself. It’s something that’s impossible to plan and amazing to see.

Anyway. My PhotoDocumentor seminar went very well indeed. John and I held it here in Las Vegas the two days before Joanne and I left for our cruise. Our attendees seemed to be positively impressed with the software and several of them purchased it. It’s very expensive, so I was gratified by how many people bought it. We’re thinking of holding another seminar but haven’t made a decision yet. In the meantime, I’m planning to be in Orlando for the AAFS conference in February.

Let’s see, what else has been going on? Oh, it looks like I’ll be going to Tucson the first weekend in November. Chris is going back to empty out his house and I think he could use the help. I’ll bring my Beloved Pickup again for hauling duties. He’ll be renting a U-Haul and taking all his stuff back with him, including his other car on a trailer. It’ll be good to see him again.

Paul’s coming to stay for two weeks starting on November 12. He will almost overlap Andy’s visit, which will be the 26th through the 30th. I’m looking forward to having so much company!

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: pig-smuggling cricket fan! Seaman Hornsby would be proud.

See you tomorrow.

Frankenmuth Visit

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

frankenmuth

Here are my mother and me on June 27th of this year, during my visit to Michigan right before we found out she had liver cancer. She was already sick when this picture was taken, it’s just that nobody knew it. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Bronner’s Christmas shop – one of her very favorite stores – in Frankenmuth, Michigan – one of her favorite places – and part of my famous Vacation series.

I’m so glad I made that visit and that my mom and I took that drive to Frankenmuth that day and did the other things we did. It was a fun, relaxing trip and the last time my mother and I had together before the final traumatic events of her life.

It’s been a couple weeks again. I guess I’m too busy enjoying my life to chronicle it. That’s good and bad. So let’s briefly chronicle recent events.

Joanne and I, accompanied by her kids Desi (and family) and Kristina (and friend) and my kids Mark and Andy, went to Big Bear Lake for a long weekend at the beginning of the month. The weather was beautiful, the place we stayed was beautiful, and it was a very nice visit. We visited Katie’s old house there, as well as that of her former in-laws. We also saw the place where Katie worked – it was walking distance from our hotel. We visited their Oktoberfest and found it to be expensive but enjoyable. A one-time visit was all we needed to see everything. On a sad note, the lake is at a disturbingly low level. They need a lot of rain in California! Also snow in the Sierra Nevada. Please attend to this problem, Loyal Readers.

Saw my good friends Dan and Debbie Yeckley from Denver the other day. They were in town for a few days and contacted me. Joanne and I met them at their hotel (the Main Street Station, which was surprisingly very nice and also not part of the Station Casinos empire). They’re looking and sounding very good and we had a very nice visit.

Mark appears to be doing very well with school this semester. Unbelievably, the semester is already just about half over! He has a mid-term exam tomorrow, in fact. Keep it up, Mark!

I signed up for a Coursera class a few days ago but haven’t taken any time to get it started. I either need to get moving on it or drop out and do it later. The subject is Game Theory, which isn’t really one of my interests. That may explain why I’m having a bit of a hard time getting started.

And that’s enough for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: breaking and entering monkey!

See you tomorrow.