Category: LiveJournal

The Cruise Begins

Today was the first day of our cruise. We got up at 4am and then dad drove mom & me to the Dayton airport. When we went to pay for our checked bags, I admitted to the lady that I’d tried to pre-pay online and wasn’t successful. (Tried 3 times, in fact.) So she went ahead and didn’t charge us! How nice! The rest of the day was in that vein, actually.

Our flight to Houston was actually a little early. (Imagine, Dayton to Houston to Ft. Lauderdale… Airlines are wack!) We walked & trained the length of Houston airport to get to our connecting flight, which was delayed. Then we got breakfast at one of the restaurants in the food court near us. Eggs, bacon, and croissant. Apple juice for me. Not too bad, price or flavor.

While we waited for our flight, we talked with a nice man from Tennessee who has lived in Texas for the last 28 years. We also talked with a newlywed couple who were going on a Carnival cruise for their honeymoon. Which departed an hour before ours. (They’d missed their first flight to FLL due to an error on their end. We’re hoping they got to their cruise on time!)

When we got to FLL, the cruise people were at the bottom of the escalator. After we waited an age for our luggage, the cruise lady directed us to a bus which had been waiting on us. The bus picked up a few more folks, then we headed for the Princess area of the docks. The Emerald Princess was bigger than the other two ships at port. We got through immigration quickly and were on board in time to take part in the fire drill.


Our ship, the Emerald Princess.

judiang and elsaf were already aboard when we arrived. They have the room next to us. We’re on the Emerald deck, which is deck 8. Our room is E317 and despite having an “obstructed view” it actually has a nice view of the sea (overlooking the lifeboat). I was just expecting light. Mom says the bathroom is bigger than the one on the sleeper train that she & dad were on. It’s small, but not as small as is possible.


Our view from the stateroom.

After we were drilled, we returned to our rooms, then headed to the Neptune deck for the launch party. Judi and I danced (poorly) but didn’t win anything with the raffle tickets we got for dancing. Mom and I purchased expensive fruity rum drinks ($8.95 + 15% gratuity – I think I’ll refrain from booze for the rest of the cruise!) The drink was tasty, however.


Judi and I dancing. (We ain’t got rhythm!)

Folks watching the launch. (The busiest the deck was all trip.)

Mom and I found our way to the Lotus Spa to turn in raffle tickets for that, and wound up buying the VIP Thermal Spa package where we can visit the Thermal Spa any time during the cruise. It was $150 for a couple. We felt it would be worth it. (Now we KNOW it will be worth it.)

Due to a conflict in shore excursions, mom, Elsa, and I had to cancel the Conch World tour so that we can do our snorkeling adventure. Judi will have to let us know just how tasty conch is. I did the cancellation and returned to the room in time for us to head for dinner.

We ate at the Da Vinci dining room. I had spring rolls as appetizer, followed by frozen soup (piña colada with pineapple dots), and prime rib w/ tater, grilled tomato, and bean greens. They cooked the prime rib with rosemary and served it with a horseradish sauce. Very tasty. Dessert was good too, floating islands in vanilla cream (meringue in cream). If they offer that again, I’ll probably order it.

After dinner, we returned to Lotus Spa so that Elsa could join in on the VIP Thermal Spa (Judi had bought a single pass when she was in getting her teeth whitened.) Soon after, Judi, mom and I took advantage of said spa. The warm ceramic beds are nice, as is the sauna. We also partook of the hot tub/jacuzzi at the adults only pool in the spa. Very, very relaxing.

I was still restless and wanted to explore the ship. Mom decided to come along. We wound up only exploring deck 7, the Promenade. Then we went to the Welcome to the Cruise show at the Princess theater. They introduced the entertainment team, who were entertaining, and then they had a comedian. Forgot his name atm. [Phil Tag.] He was quite funny. Hope to see his full show tomorrow night. Hope they find his luggage! (He says Delta stands for Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive. Nice to know that before we fly back home via Delta….)

It’s almost midnight, so I’d best get to bed. I’m tired & mom’s already asleep. Busy day tomorrow!

Lucky Lucky Lavender, my foot!

Well, actually, it’s Dim Sum Plum on my feet and Lucky Lucky Lavender on my fingers…

In anticipation of the cruise that we’re going on starting Sunday (wow, already?!?), mom and I went to get our toenails & fingernails dun up purty. Miami Jacobs college has a beauty salon/spa thingy within walking distance of mom’s place, so after the Tastefully Simple party at M&D’s complex last night, I spent the night. And this morning, mom & I walked to the salon for our pedicures & manicures.

Although I have put fingernail polish on myself before (and I think someone else), it’s been years & years. And I’ve never gotten a manicure or pedicure. So today was quite a treat. But due to my lack of experience, I boogered up my fingernails on several occasions. Before we left the salon, I screwed up both thumbs and my right pointer finger. They fixed ’em and mom & I headed out.

Except… Well, they had this dish of peppermints on the desk. I was quite sure I could reach in and get one without screwing up my nails… And I would have been successful, too, had one of the peppermints not jumped onto my right pointer finger. I was too embarrassed to have them repair it, so mom squished it as best as she could when we got home, but we decided if we could find some Lucky Lucky Lavender O.P.I. nail polish, I’d buy some. (The salon was on their last bottle & almost out as it was.)

We did a bit of shopping at Kohl’s where I found a more formal looking shirt & some dressy t-shirts for the cruise. And at Kroger, we found some Lucky Lucky Lavender (after trying 2 other nail shops to no avail). Mom fixed up my nail & went outside to relax & read. And before 5 minutes was up, I’d boogered it up again! I wasn’t trying to, it just happened!. So she tried again, and this time I managed to avoid touching it before it had dried completely.

Basically, I suck at fingernail polishing! (Toes, OTOH, seem to be just fine.) We’re taking the LLL & Dim Sum Plum on the cruise with us, in case we need to reapply during the cruise. Hopefully not…

I imagine my communication once the cruise has begun will be sporadic at best. I’m still debating whether to take my Dell Mini on the trip (I’d like to keep a diary of the trip and that would be an easy way), but even if I do, wifi likely costs moolah onboard so I won’t get on often to update. No idea if my cell phone will work abroad, so might not even be texting tweets. (But if I can, I will. Even if they are 50 cents each.)

So y’all have fun this week! I know I’m going to!

Eventful Weekend

Today I was terribly unproductive. But I guess that’s OK, because I’ve been very productive of late. I was at school until 8:30pm on Thursday and managed to pretty much finish the moving, packing, and sorting that needed doing. Friday, we had our last day of school for the year and the last school day in the original building. I even had the kids do a lab! (Chromatography, using graduated cylinders I was selling at the auction. Heh.)

At quarter til 11am, the band marched through the halls (for the last time) collecting students as it went through all three floors. They led us all out to the front yard, where, in a sea of red (everyone got t-shirts for the day), we watched as the elementary kids filed out after us. Mr. McBride said a few words, we sang the alma mater (quietly since most kids don’t know the words – heck, I only know the first two lines and the last two lines…) and then we dismissed. The teachers then headed for Indian’s Pizza for lunch (courtesy of our principals – yay!) When I returned to the building, I finished the last of the packing & moving, taking my last cart down to the temporary storage before 1pm. Then I spend the rest of my teaching day staging equipment for the auction.

When the principals told us we could go, I headed home and got myself ready for the Relay for Life event. Mom’s workplace participates in this every May to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I had told her that I could actually join her for the first time (it never worked out in the past). Mom’s group, the UVMC Lab, treats it more like a Marathon than a Relay – they arrive at the start & stay til the end. And try to have someone walking at all times (not always that easy to do!) Dad fed us spaghetti and then mom and I raced off to the Miami County Fairgrounds to get cold and wet. (After all of our perfectly golden days, we had a cold front coming through that night).

I’ll tell the rest of the story in pictures…

The Survivors March
The Survivors March

Before the rest of us began the relay, they had the Survivors walk first. The number of purple shirts was substantial – our party was half purple & half white (or red in my case).
UVMC Lab
UVMC Lab

The UVMC Lab team. About half of this crew stayed the night.

Daisy Dude
Daisy Dude

UVMC Lab’s entry to the Miss Relay competition (where men dress up as ladies and wander the fairgrounds looking for donations) was Daisy Dude. (S)he won, hands down! (Collected $379 in under an hour!)
Daisy Dude, interviewed
Daisy Dude, interviewed

I couldn’t resist including this photo cuz you can see the belly fur in it. Heh.
Luminaria
Luminaria

At 9pm, they turned off the lights and we got to see the luminaria stretching through the hall. (The original shot was centered, but someone walked in front of me. I’d’ve left ’em in, but they were way blurry.) Also at 9pm was the torrential downpour so loud it drowned out the speakers. I was sooooo glad we were inside that building rather than in a tent!
2am
2am

We were only somewhat lively at 2am. The 5am shots were even less flattering than these. We had 2 UVMC Lab co-workers who saved us during the night. Around 1:30am was the McDonald’s run, then around 5:30am the Tim Horton’s run. Yay for co-workers willing to get up at weird hours to do our bidding!


Mom and I didn’t stay til noon like some of the UVMC Lab team. We had an auction to go to. So around 6am, mom drove us back to her place where we showered. Then we went to the UCC just down the street from my house where they had pancakes, sausage, and eggs for breakfast. Yum. Then on to the school. Mom found a bulletin board that would work great at her workplace, and I wanted to bid on my chalkboard. And since it was in better shape than mine at home, my office chair.

The auction began at 8am. We were there before 9am but they were only done with about 3 rooms. (They started on the 3rd floor.) Earlier in the week, Sam, one of the auctioneers, said his goal was to be down to the first floor by noon. And he actually did a pretty good job. By 12:30pm, he was down in my lab selling equipment. Dad had since joined us and he was having a great time talking to former students and friends. I called Amy to wish her a happy birthday and it was probably one of my loopier phone calls.

Many folks (including my sister) were VERY disappointed to find out we couldn’t sell the tables from my classroom. The Asbestos Abatement people said we couldn’t sell ’em cuz they contain asbestos. Although they aren’t dangerous to sit at & learn science, we have no guarantee that people won’t try sanding the tops to smooth out the gashes from years of graffiti and later suing the school for lung cancer… Still, there was a lot of stuff for sale. And thanks to someone writing the story on the chalkboard of me writing on the chalkboard when I was a little girl (and no, it wasn’t me or my folks who did this), no one bid against me on it. Got it for $5 (and probably could have gone down to $1, but I figured Sam needed to get something for all his work). Also got my chair for $5. 🙂 (Mom earlier had won the bulletin board for $1.)

After we got the boards down (thanks to some stranger for unscrewing my chalkboard support) and loaded up in dad’s truck, we went home. And by 5pm, I was in bed. Slept til 6am (with the occasional pee break). Felt excellent Sunday morning. So I decided to treat mom to lunch at Red Slobster. And figured we could shop for cruise clothes too. Got several outfits, a swimsuit cover-up, and new shoes. If I’m not used to the shoes by Saturday, they won’t come along. After I got home, I took a walk to the school and took photos of the aftermath. Anything that could be sold was sold (or will go down with the building). And when you look at the photos, I think you’ll be impressed…



Trash 80
Trash 80

Newton’s first computer – the TRS 80. And apparently no one bid for it. It was still there when I returned on Sunday to survey the damage.
Auctioning Lab Equipment
Auctioning Lab Equipment

Dad and I sorted all of the lab equipment into 3 groups: keep, sell, pitch. These folks are bidding on the “sell” stuff.
Aftermath
Aftermath

The day after the auction, the lab looked a lot emptier!

Aftermath - Extreme Edition
Aftermath – Extreme Edition

My room fared better than some… This one lost floor, ceiling, and walls! 🙂


Moving Right Along

First off, thanks to dad for all of his help in sorting lab equipment and today packing stuff. One of the English teachers came by today and helped by unhooking the computers in my lab & wrapping glassware. She rocks! My student assistant (well, because the rest of her class were seniors) has been a great help as well. So yay for people who can help!

I got home tonight around 8pm. The only breaks I had were lunch with dad at McDonald’s (yay Big Mac & fries!) and then a short stop home to change clothes after school was let out. The rest of the time I was either teaching, teaching & packing, packing, sorting, or moving stuff down to the girl’s varsity locker room where the science & art teachers can store stuff (like chemicals) over the summer rather than have ’em packed in the storage pods by the movers. (I’ve got tons of boxes already there and dad and I packed several more today.)

Once dad left, I had lots of times of “oh crap, forgot that!” and finished moving my chemicals to the temporary storage. I think I’ve got everything either packed, moved, ready to move (on carts), or ready for selling. I finish tomorrow while the students work on chromatography (the last lab of the year – yay!) My checkout time is 10:15am and I think I’ll have what I need done for that. I do want to stage stuff for the auction and will be utilizing my 2nd period study hall kids for that. Lucky kids!

Anyhoo, tomorrow’s the last day of school. Saturday is the auction. I hope to bid on (& win) my chalkboard. I want to put that up on my wall in the basement. I think I’ll also bid on my teacher chair – it’s in better shape than my office chair. The auctioneers are going from room to room, starting with the 3rd floor. I feel for those auctioneers – they’re gonna be hoarse before the day is out!

Apologies to folks who’ve been responding to my posts but haven’t been getting responses from me. Freedom is just around the corner! Then I can actually think of something other than Masters theses and packing glassware! Yay! (Oh wait, there’s a cruise in there too… But that’s a good thing.)

Not raving, but drowning…

Although my thesis is done & defended, I’m still drowning here in Stuff To Be Done. Haven’t even started looking at the Getting Thesis Published stuff yet. Mostly been worrying about packing for the move, getting ready for the town garage sale (that was yesterday – sold lots of stuff & took that which didn’t sell to Goodwill today), and avoiding grading papers (I’m very good at that, apparently). Plus World of Warcrack has my soul again.

So anyway, last weekend I dropped my camera during a tour of the new school building. It no longer can detect memory cards. (It was my first digital camera, only 3MP, and has had a good life. To be honest, I was more worried about the XD card in it. Which was OK – photos have been saved off of it thanks to a universal card reader of dad’s.) So I decided to order a new one. After my research and a chance to hold one in my hand, I ordered a Canon A1100IS (in green!) and it arrived this week. Love it so far!

While in an ordery mood, I also decided to finally buy a Blu-ray player. Went with LG’s BD570 which has Wi-Fi and a USB port. I decided to do this since NetFlix steaming has been fun so far (via the Wii) and I’d like to be able to stream high def content too. The Blu-ray player should arrive tomorrow.

The day before my camera arrived, my graduation present for myself arrived – Adobe CS4 Web Premium. I ordered it the day CS5 was announced, so I’ll be getting a free upgrade to CS5. 🙂 Let’s hear it for academic discounts!

I just looked at my calendar for this week and it gave me the shivers. So much to do and so little time! But it’ll happen. Somehow I’ll make it happen. (It’s good that the seniors are done for the most part – I’ll have those periods to pack & get caught up on grading and all that jazz.) The new classroom/lab is gonna be so worth all this hassle!

Defended!

As I just tweeted, like planet Earth, my thesis IS DEFENDED! 🙂

Apart from a bit of “oh was I supposed to call you?” going on at the start, I connected with my adviser and his consultant (who’s the director of the Science and the Public program). I presented an Impress presentation (think open source PowerPoint) and then answered questions. They want me to have the university publish my thesis and even suggested sending an article or two to Science and Children, a journal for intermediate level science teachers. Woohoo!

It was rather fun. I did the presentation on mom’s laptop since she’s got an onboard webcam. I did it in dad’s den with his bookshelves as the background (excellent background). And afterwards, the folks and I went out to celebrate with some etouffee and bread pudding at LeDoux’s. Since LeDoux’s is one of the few restaurants too far away to walk, we went for a walk after supper. Now I’m home and still a bit high from the experience. Woohoo!

Glorious Weather

After a winter that decided Snow was In this year, we now have a spring that thinks that Decent Weather is In. I be liking this spring! (I liked the winter, too. Heh.)

I’ve been enjoying the lovely weather these past couple of weeks. And it’s currently looking like next week will be a nice one, too. It’s allowing me to take nice long walks around town. And today, I went to Troy and mom and I walked from her place to downtown. Took about 45 minutes to get to the Night Sky Cafe. Excellent walk.

Dad was in a phone meeting (not a meeting about phones, but a meeting on the phone). So mom and I ordered iced coffee drinks (mine sans coffee) and an appetizer while waiting. Dad arrived during the appetizer. Then we had lunch. Thanks to rereading Thud! I wound up with a craving for a wonderful BLT. (Vimes gets a BLT with lots of B and very little L & T – the best kind there is – so I got all BLT-wishy last night.) Ordered a half sandwich and a cup of broccoli cheese soup. Yummy yummy.

Mom and I decided to walk back (despite being completely full) and we found a short cut that got us home in 35 minutes. Lovely walk, gorgeous weather, pretty town.

After lunch, I fiddled about on mom’s laptop getting ready for my MASTER’S THESIS DEFENSE! Yes, I’m finally gonna finish this sucker! Wednesday at 4pm (technology willing!) I’ll be Skyping to my university and defending my thesis. So, um, I guess I should write my Powerpoint-style presentation or something… (I’ll use OpenOffice.org Impress instead.)

I now have a Skype handle, though I’m probably not going to be on Skype much beyond this defense. (Unless I decide it’s a Must Have. I think for a Must Have it ought to be something more Open Source-y.) Still, if you want to know my Skype handle, lemme know and I’ll share it with ye. (It isn’t what you think it is, most likely.)

Tomorrow should be another lovely day, so when I’m not doing laundry, cleaning house, or working on my presentation, I’ll be talking walks through town. 🙂

The 2010 Chili Champ!

To my great surprise and pleasure, I wound up winning tonight’s Chili Cookoff. (See photo of trophy below.) There were 5 chilis in the running. They were all tasty (as usual – we haven’t had a lousy one yet in the years I’ve been coming). But in the end, mine got the most votes! Go me! I think Gary was a little miffed that I beat him. (It’s one thing, he said, to be beaten by someone his own age, but to be beaten by a younger person…) It helps that Moe didn’t have her 6-time winning recipe there. (Apparently she agreed not to enter the contest if Gary did a long-term sub for her husband earlier this year. Heh.)

Still, to put me and Moe in our places, we played 2 games of pool against Gary and Garry and lost both of them. Then Michael and Moe tried against the two Gar(r)y’s and lost as well.

We all had a lovely time at Gary & Marcia’s and I am stuffed to the gills with not only excellent chili, but also fabulous desserts. Mmmmmm!

Winter Lashes Out

Had I known mom had to work yesterday, I wouldn’t have been as surprised when we got the call that school was closed. Just about every time she worked in February, we wound up having bad weather & closed school. I really need to talk with her about what “retired” means. 🙂

So we’ve already filled up all of our days before May 7, which is our last day or bust. I’m guessing we’ll be going in on a Saturday in a couple of weeks. But that’s not an official word from the superintendent, just me speculating.

It was an interesting morning, weather-wise. It had rained all afternoon and evening on Thursday, then the temperature dropped into the upper 20s F. And then the rain turned to snow. There was a substantial layer of ice all over the roads and sidewalks with a light dusting on snow when I got up. We were called around 5:30am that we had a 2-hour delay, so I got up an hour later than normal. But then while I was finishing breakfast, we got a second call. And I’m glad we did – those roads looked nasty. (Mom says the drive into work was not pleasant.)

I enjoyed my day yesterday and spent a good deal of it being geeky and fixing up my album art in my MP3 collection. I also added a large number of CDs to the collection – my early Bernice Summerfield stories (seasons 1-4), the Excelis quadrilogy (I had forgotten about that!), and the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III audios as read by David Tennant. (Bought the CDs a couple of weeks ago, but hadn’t ripped ’em yet.)

So now I’ve got nearly 60GB of MP3s in my collection. And that’s still not all of the CDs that I own. But many of my Big Fish CDs won’t be ripped. All of McCoy are, of course. Docs 5&6 have a few. The only Doc8 audios I have as MP3 are Zagreus and the first ep of Company of Friends (which I bought on its own for 99cents cuz it’s the only ep with Bernice in it.) I love that Big Fish now offer the Doctor Who audios as MP3s for about half the cost of CDs. Wish they’d do the same with the Benny audios!

In just a few minutes I’ll be heading off to a Chili Cookoff party. I’ve got a pot of chili cooking right now. The Chili Cookoff is always a hoot. The parental units will be picking me up (and presumably dropping me off after the party) soon. So I guess I’d best put on my best party t-shirt!