On July 12, 2022, I drove up to Elsa Frohman & Judi Grant’s house because the three of us were going to travel to Traverse City and beyond. We left the next morning after breakfast at a nearby diner. Our first stop at a road stop had some irate gulls with strong opinions.
I know, I know, summer’s more than halfway over and I’ve not posted a thing since February 29. Trina from the future’s gonna be ticked off at Trina from the past for neglecting her LJ. Well, Trina from the future, deal with it! 😉
Further to my last post, I did wind up getting the Samsung Galaxy S7 phone (gold colored). I had intended to buy it from AT&T despite the fact that they were selling it for more than all of the other phone companies. But they wouldn’t sell it to someone without a contract. I use a Pay-As-You-Go card and stuff $100 on it once a year. I don’t have any contracts. So I wound up buying it from Amazon. Got an international version (better innards, apparently) in the process. Love it. 🙂
In order to continue having fun during this 3-week workshop, I visited several of the Metro Parks in the Columbus area. One was just north of the hotel where I was staying. The other 3 were between the school where the training was and my hotel. So each afternoon after class, I’d go wander for over an hour in the woods (or gardens in the case of Inniswood). It was lovely. I also tried out different restaurants in the area. But I packed my breakfast for each day, and the lunches at the modeling workshop were usually fairly nutritious. So I managed to keep my weight pretty stable during the training.
The first hitch was how CyberPowerPC ships their PCs. They used UPS, but wouldn’t allow the recipient to make any delivery changes, not even with MyUPS. It was scheduled to arrive on a Tuesday when I was in Columbus. And I couldn’t get them to change the date till Friday. Thankfully I was able to get UPS to hold the PC at their shipment location in Piqua (thanks to Justin S. from CyberPower!) and thus picked it up on my way home from Columbus. Yay, I had a new PC!
I had also bought a second SSD hard drive from Amazon (sorry, newegg, they had it cheaper) in order to install Ubuntu on it. Only I discovered that I had no SATA cables. Of course nobody local sells SATA cables. Thankfully, a former student of mine works at the local Staples and he gave me a spare that he had (one of many) in the back. Ubuntu and I fought for quite a bit, but I finally got it to play nicely in my new machine. Files were transferred, a new backup drive was fitted and LuckyBackup software was run. Things were perfect! (Well, OK, turns out I managed to pick the ONE sound card that doesn’t and will never have Linux drivers. Gee thanks Creative! Thank goodness for (a) motherboard sound cards and (b) y-cables which allow me to have 2 sound cards connected to the same speakers.)
And then the second hitch hit… Before having the machine a week, I started seeing some weird flickering on the screen. At first it was just a little and only in Windows. Then World of Warcraft became completely unusable. Then I started seeing the glitches in Ubuntu. I did as much troubleshooting as I could (even tried to install the new card into my Old PC only to discover it didn’t have enough power cables to connect it) and then e-mailed CyberPower. They had me try something else, but when it failed, they sent me an RMA and had me mail the dud card back. The replacement arrived on Tuesday and I’ve not yet seen any glitching!
Only apparently Southwest wasn’t all that up on my plan to go. I was scheduled to fly out on Wednesday at 8:20pm, but Southwest’s servers were all wacky. I had no idea it was happening – the day before I’d checked in with no issues. The folks and I went out for dinner before we headed to the airport. I got to the counter and they told me the flight was cancelled and here’s an 800 number to call. By the time I got a hold of someone, my folks had picked me back up and were taking me home. I got another night with my kitties and resolved to call first thing in the morning.
Well, after 4+ hours on hold the next day (over 3 phone calls), I finally was able to schedule a new departure for that evening. The flight was delayed, of course, but we had some live music at the gate to entertain us. (Sadly, when the saxophonist was done entertaining us, we could once again hear the RNC on the telly.) Mum kept me company via text messaging, and eventually we got to take off. (Thursday’s issue wasn’t the servers anymore, but a really big ass storm over Chicago. Part of which Elsa had to drive through on her way to pick me up. Eep!)
Despite everything, I got to Judi’s new place. I helped her where I could (mostly in unpacking her remaining boxes and helping her to organize stuff). I explored the neighborhood during my morning walks with Patty. We tried out a restaurant that serves Dim Sum (which was very good) and her local sushi joint (also good). Elsa and I checked out the farmer’s market. And Judi got to keep her head down and sleep on her belly to help her retina reattach. Joy joy.
So August will start on Monday, whether we’re ready for it or not. I get one more trip before school starts whereupon I shall invade my sister for a long weekend. Here’s hoping there’s no emergency surgeries or downed servers or big ass storms. I’d like to get there & back again with little fuss. I intend to start working on getting my lessons ready starting this Monday (since I have decided to take July completely off, heh.) With our current bouts out hellishly hot days, I have all this time during the day when I don’t want to be outside (I do my walks in the morning), so working on lesson plans etc will be a good use of my time.
My final thing for this post will be to post the video that I made earlier today. I wanted to see how well my new PC can handle video editing. (Even *that* wasn’t straightforward! The video playback was so choppy. It took some research, but I found out that it was an AUDIO problem… Once I had the right settings in Premiere Pro, it worked a charm.) The video clips are from my various walks at the Metro Parks plus from Memorial Day weekend (with Elsa & Judi at the Lake) and some Lucy & Linus, of course.
I’ve been having a lovely visit with
Anyhoo, on this visit we’ve had Indian buffet, dim sum, and pub grub at a microbrewery (Reuben, cheddar ale soup, hefeveisen). Elsa had pre-made all of the other meals we’ve had in order to keep the joint clean for viewings by potential buyers. Arroz con pollo, chicken salad & Gorgonzola roasted red pepper soup, meatloaf (with mashed taters and broccoli), and even individual servings of oatmeal or Special K for breakfast. She also baked pineapple upside-down cake and peach cobbler. Oh, and we just finished pot roast, taters, carrots & onion. Yum!
Entertainment-wise, we’ve been to see Avenue Q at the Mercury theater. Great show! Also great to see what
Patty (Judi’s Pomeranian) joined us on our condo hunt today and will join us tomorrow because we needed her (and us) out of the flat for viewing (and open house tomorrow). She was very good today tho I missed out on seeing two of the condos in order to dog sit. So Patty and I took walks around the blocks. I suspect she’ll sleep well tonight!
I’ve had a blast so far and figure the rest of the trip will be as well. 🙂
Hello to you, longest day of the year! As I mentioned to one person today, “Welp, it’s all downhill from here!” The lady I mentioned that to said that she always felt sad to think that days will be getting shorter from here on out, but I said “that only means it’s closer to Christmas!” OK, so I’m one of those ANNOYING optimists. 🙂
Anyhoo, I’m been on Summer Break since May 30th, but have only just gotten around to posting a journal entry. Mom has mentioned a couple of times that it’s been awhile since I last posted something.
Since I last posted, I’ve been busy. Here are a few of the things I’ve been up to since May 3rd.
With my summer break in full swing by the first day of summer (or by midsummer if you prefer), I’m good to go for the remainder. Teachers start back on August 15th, so I have to get all of my biking/reading/walking/swimming/movie watching done by then! 🙂
Lillian (my new car, if you recall) and I have had our first Road Trip! One month after I bought her, I drove her to Holland, Michigan for the Tulip Time Festival.
Yesterday, after school, I loaded her up and drove north and west to Douglas, MI, where our hotel, the AmericInn was awaiting me. By “our” I mean mine and judiang and elsaf‘s hotel. I got there around 10pm and they hadn’t been there long either. In fact, they were just about to head out for a late (late!) supper. Since I had the new car, they let me drive and we attempted the road house “next door” but they stopped serving food at 10pm. The waitress there described where to find a Burger King, which we figured would still be open.
They were, the girls got some food in ’em (I’d stopped at a McDonald’s on my way up) and we returned to the hotel for bed. Whereupon none of us could sleep. Ah well!
This morning, we ate at the hotel and eventually got on the road to Holland. By following the signs to the Windmill Island, we eventually reached the place (using the concept of Limits to guide us to our destination. Let’s hear it for calculus!) It was still fairly early and the temperature was a bit chilly. The tulip flowers didn’t get the memo re: Tulip Time and most were no-shows. However, the highlight of the island was the windmill.
In 1964, the city of Holland bought a windmill from the Netherlands and installed it on what became called Windmill Island. It is a working flour mill and the miller is one of the few females in the biz. (Elsa and I walked past her while on our tour of the joint.) Though they didn’t have the mill attached while we were there, they did have the sails turning, which was nifty.
I picked up a sack of flour, a postcard of the windmill WITH tulips in shot, and 3 tiny bars of chocolate from the Netherlands. It wasn’t till after we’d left the island that I even saw any bloomed tulips. But downtown Holland fared better – they had some early risers in places. I suspect in another week or two, the place will be gorgeous.
We decided to try the Alpen Rose restaurant for lunch, and we chose well. Judi and I got the buffet and Elsa had a soup, sandwich, and potato salad. The food was all yummy (brat with kraut & mashed taters – very yummy kraut indeed) and the desserts were heavenly. Cream puffs & fruit tart for the win! We headed on to Centennial Park where the arts & crafts part of the festival was housed and wandered there for a bit. Now we’re back at the hotel resting and recuperating.
Oh, while at the arts & crafts area, I so wanted to purchase a t-shirt that someone had made. It had a cute applique cat on it, was only $13, and had the caption “My outfits not complete unless covered in cat fur” or something. But I couldn’t spend money on a t-shirt that didn’t have proper grammar. “Outfit’s” as in “my outfit is” not as plural to “outfit.” I sadly walked away regretting their lack of proof-reader. (This paragraph probably has an ironically appropriate grammatical error in it, just ’cause.)
I’d add some photos to this post, but the wifi is slow here & my images & videos from today are taking their time getting onto my laptop. Guess I’ll have to make a SECOND post for the images. Wow!
Today was the first day of school – whee!
My end of summer was really packed full of action & adventure, which is why I’ve not updated my journal in that time. I finished up my visit with Amy (more details later, I hope!) and the day after I returned,
Still, I decided I wanted to have something interesting in this post, so I’ve uploaded a short video that I filmed at Open Streets MPLS while visiting Amy. We rode bikes to Lake St and then got on Minnehaha which was blocked off to street traffic for about 20 blocks. While perusing the various things going on, we saw a group of tap dancers from Keane Sense of Rhythm demonstrating their craft and giving mini lessons to folks interested. I filmed them for a bit and have edited the video a little for your enjoyment as well. The song playing while they tapped was “Hey, Soul Sister” by Train.
Oh, and I just want to brag here – I was able to finish reading 30 books during the summer! I’ll update my summer stats at another later post (probably).
Dad sent me the photo he took at Erie which I loved in particular. It’s one of the five of us ladies enjoying the beach. I’m the one on the far left. Mum is beside me. I’m probably reading The Ripple Effect during this photo. I decided I wanted to make another Lake userpic, so this I have done.
I also figured I should continue my book, bike, and movie stats for the summer. I’m into the final weeks of my absolutely brilliant summer vacation. I’m very close to my personal goal of 25 books read and I expect to top that and then some before the kiddies return to our building on August 26th.
# of Bike Rides: 12 since the start of summer vacation. Just a short ride yesterday (under 4 miles) but a useful one where I had my seat adjusted a smidgen by the bike shop dude.
# of Books Read: 23 (with every intention of finishing #24 today – whee!)
# of Movies Watched: 24 (whoops – that took over my book total – and I should get another watched today)
Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King by William Joyce (which I borrowed from the library after watching the Rise of the Guardians movie)
Penny Arcade Vol 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots by Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins (eBook – part of a Humble Bundle eBook purchase)
Penny Arcade Vol 2: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings! (eBook – ditto)
A Crack in the Lens by Steven Hockensmith (another Holmes on the Range mystery from Hockensmith – library book)
2
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Vol 1: Save Yourself Mammal by Zach Weiner(smith) (eBook from same Humble Bundle as before)
Doctor Who: Ripple Effect by Malorie Blackman (eBook novella in honor of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, 7th Doctor & Ace)
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes (which I heard about while listening to the extras on Doctor Who: Persuasion, a 7th Doctor/Elizabeth Klein adventure from Big Finish – same author for both. Library book)
The movies continued (library DVDs unless otherwise specified):
Iron Man 3 (2nd run theater)
Quartet
Despicable Me 2 (at the Icon theater in Chicago with
Pacific Rim (at the Icon with Judi)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I realized I hadn’t seen when we saw a trailer for The Wolverine at the Icon)
X-Men: First Class (might as well complete the set).
The Croods (2nd run theater – saw same day as Epic)
Epic (see above)
RED (wanted to see it in case I go see the sequel now in theaters)
Les Miserables (first time ever seeing the musical)
Still doing well with movie and book picks this summer! (Though it is taking me quite a bit of time to get through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell… Need to renew it from the library.)
As promised, here are some photos that I took in Chicago and in Galena when
Elsa awaits the boat ride to see the Navy Pier fireworks.
Judi also awaits the fireworks on the boat. I probably had the same expression that she did that night.
Navy Pier at night.
Seeing this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago was even neater after seeing the 3D version at Troy's Sculptures on the Square exhibit.
From our second night time boat ride, the city of Chicago at dusk.
A shot from my morning bike ride. I'm probably 6 miles or so from Judi's place when I took this photo.
You can see my shadow (and that of the sign beside me) as I look over the Mississippi near Galena, IL. That's Iowa on the other side of the river.
The front of the resort we stayed in near Galena, IL.
We had to climb up to the top of the levy to get to this foot bridge to cross the Galena river and get to the town proper.
I never did get a good enough shot to really get a feel for how high up the stairs go in Galena. I think Judi got a nice one though.
A shot of Galena from atop the foot bridge.
From the size of this photo, you can't hardly see the caption on the statue, but it says "Grant Our Citizen." I had to get Judi to pose in front of it, of course.
I have returned home from my lovely Chicago trip to see
So when I last left off, we’d had Tapas and then it was time to return home and get some sleep. The next morning was, sadly, Elsa’s last day with us. But before she began her big long drive, she made us breakfast! (Yeah, I don’t get it either! But she loves to cook and we love to eat, so it works!) She made a lovely frittata with lots of fresh veggies and ham and cheese. Then we had the unenviable task of loading her bicycles onto her bike rack. Several hugs & good-byes later and she was off.
It was bloody hot yesterday, so Judi and I were carrying umbrellas as parasols and we took the bus to the Art Institute of Chicago. I purchased a ticket, the souvenir pocket guide book, and the audio tour. Then we headed off to see what we could see. Our main visits were the Impressionists, the British Museum loan, “American Gothic” and its neighbors, and finally the Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity exhibit. By the time we were done with that exhibit, we were ready for a late lunch.
Bennigan’s is just across the street, so we decided to eat there. I ordered fish & chips and draft Woodchuck cider. It was all very yummy. The beer batter on the fish was particularly good. And I like hard cider on tap – always a plus.
We then hurried on towards the Icon theatre to see Pacific Rim. It just seemed like the type of movie you want to see on The Big Screen. And it was. I was quite entertained and Idris Elba is very nice on the eyes. (And a good actor, too!)
After the movie, we returned to Judi’s so that she could walk Patty and so that I could see if there were any tickets still for Fireworks cruises. There were, so we ordered the 9pm tour (with fireworks starting at 9:30pm). Judi hired a cab to get us there and we arrived with time enough to fully peruse the Haagen Dazs store. I wound up ordering a Dulce de Leche shake (and Judi got a Mango smoothie). I also discovered that the reason our ice creams were so small the previous trip was that we’d ordered the kiddie size! Eep!
We were led astray by the boat dude and wound up being late to board the boat, which was boarding early (and took off early). Still, they did a nice architectural tour of the Lake-side buildings before it was fireworks time. I think we were further away in this boat than in the last, and the fireworks were more behind us than in front, but it was still nifty to see. Judi and I both missed the chill breeze we’d experienced on the Saturday cruise. It was still stupidly hot!
We got to the bus stop shortly before a bus arrived, and thanks to some confusion on the boarding passengers, we wound up getting on and getting seats. (Though we had a moment of being “THOSE PEOPLE” when Judi put her card in wrong or something and the bus conductor said she’d put her prescription card in by mistake. Turns out the advertising on her CTA pass confused us all. A cash payment and we were finally able to sit.)
Once we got off the bus, Judi got a craving for Buffalo wings, so we popped into Scout on the walk back to her place. She ordered the wings and I saw that Angry Orchard cider (my current favorite) was on tap. And then Judi bought my drink for me – yay!
After faffing about on Judi’s computer (trying to get it to go faster), we both eventually hit the hay. And subsequently both woke up early today. As I was lying in bed thinking of asking Judi if I could take her bike for a ride, she popped in to ask if I wanted to go for an early morning swim. So I went for a ride and Judi for a swim. I went the same path that Elsa and I had gone, but went further south (about 20 blocks further). I had hoped to go the whole length of the path or at least ride for 2 hours, but was pretty hot before I’d even ridden for an hour. I stopped at the north end of what apparently was Hyde park and then headed back. It’s a very pretty path, but has less shade than I’m used to. And can I repeat, it was bloody hot, even at 7am!
Once I was cleaned up and packed, Judi and I headed over to Yolk for breakfast. I’d not been to one before, but Judi remembered visiting the more northern branch some years before. I had eggs over hard, bacon, and French toast (and most of Judi’s grapes). It was all very yummy and so far has filled me up all day. We then parted company at the corner of Michigan and Roosevelt whereupon Judi headed home and I headed for the Roosevelt CTA station to take the Orange train to Midway.
After an uneventful flight, I got to my VERY HOT car and drove home. Sadly, my poor little air conditioner tried its darnedest to make my VERY HOT car less hot, but it’s like as soon as the cold air came out, it was converted to hot! 90 minutes is a long time to be driving like that. Whew! (Just imagine if I’d had no cool at all! Eep!) I got to the post office before they closed and also picked up two new books and a video from the library which had come in while I was in Chicago. So now I’m set for some relaxation time reading with my kitties! In a later post, I will publish some of the photos that I took on this trip.
First off, whatever you’ve heard from
Second, I forgot to write about our two recent Pool adventures when I did my last massive update.
The night we spent at the Chestnut Mountain Resort, Judi,
Then last night, we headed off to Judi’s complex pool (actually, the pool is very simple, not complex at all) which boasts a deep end that is 3’10”. However, this pool is atop an apartment building which overlooks the Metra line and is in view of the Field Museum. Since it is an outdoor pool, it was lovely laying back in the water and looking at the Chicago night sky. I even saw a few stars!
I started the night with a Tangy Mango Margarita (which made me drunk during another visit to the joint) and then we started our first course with grilled brochette of beef tenderloin, garlic potato salad, and duck confite (a favorite for Judi and me). They bring the stuff out as it’s made, so we’d eat a bit, chat a bit, then more food would come and we’d eat more.
Round two of our dinner was grilled shrimp with garlic lemon butter, stuffed mushroom caps, and crepe with goat cheese, spinach, pine nuts, and apples. Plus I decided to try their Passion Fruit Martini. This course was also a delight.
Round three, I decided I’d had enough booze (and I tried to convince Judi that I wasn’t drunk), but we got three more items. Chorizo and morcilla sausage, sauteed black mussels with bell peppers and tomatoes in a white wine rosemary sauce, and grilled squid with garlic olive oil. I’m not a big sausage fan, but I tried both sausages and they were pretty tasty. I didn’t have any mussels – just not a fan. It smelled heavenly, though. But the squid was yummy. (If you wondered who ordered which items, I always put them in Elsa, Judi, Trina order.)
Round four was dessert. With Elsa shooting for low carb, she opted to skip dessert, but Judi and I forged on. Judi had their flan of the day: white chocolate. And I had my favorite, their crema con chocolate, which is basically creme brulee with little chocolate bits inside. *sigh*
I love that I can enjoy such wonderful foods. And I’m glad that I’ve gotten lots of exercise this trip in order to counteract some (if not all) of these wonderful calories!