Sanibel Island FL

My friend, Karen, has invited me to go to Sanibel Island with her and her family! Beaches, shelling, swimming, food, sun! Yes!!!

Now to get through the 4 months until the trip!

Cracker the Mule and Gianna the Princess

My vacation started at 7:50 am May 23rd when I boarded the Southwest plane bound for Phoenix, AZ. A week filled with family, birthday, my niece and fun all around.

After I stepped off the plane and rounded up my suitcase, it felt fantastic when I stepped outside to wait for Mom to pick me up. No humidity and sunny skies! Oh yeah! I could breathe. Once Mom picked me up in her new red Mitsubishi I got to see my niece in person for the first time. She was asleep though, so I just had to watch her. I met her mom, Destiny, and she's really cool. Seeing my little brother (not so little anymore, 24!! Ack!) was awesome too, since I don't get to see him too often.

The first thing on our list was getting to the Grand Canyon. We set off for the huge rift in the land right after I was settled in the backseat of Mom's SUV. The scenery on the way up there is so beautiful! I navigated Mom to Desert View, the eastern entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park. I figured it would be better than going to the main area first and then backtracking to get to Desert View. It was fantastic! I will post pics when I get them uploaded from my camera. The tower there at Desert View is so cool! Unfortunately they had the very top outside observatory closed due to the lightning and storms in the area. I sooo wanted to go up there! We stopped at the gift shop on the way back to the car and had lunch before we loaded back up to go to the main park. It started hailing on the way back to the car and my niece didn't know what to do when she was getting lobbed with the mushy ice in her stroller. She didn't cry but she had this look on her face that was hilarious. It was great! Her daddy started running with her stroller and she was laughing and loving it. We spent some more time over at the main park taking pictures and walking around.

Mom had gotten a room in Flagstaff for the night and so we headed off in that direction around 5 pm or so. Flagstaff is so beautiful. I loved the scenery we passed as we headed down the highway. After getting to the hotel and checking in we start hunting for somewhere to eat. We ended up at this restaurant, I can't remember the name, but it was a steakhouse close to the hotel and the food was good but the entertainment was overwhelming. The place was set up like an old western saloon right down to the stage for singing and performing. And, yeah you guessed it, the wait staff got up there and sang and danced. It was loud. I don't think I would have minded it so much if I had been able to hear Mom, who was sitting to my immediate right, talking to me. I felt like I was at a concert because I couldn't even hear the people around me talking let alone even order our food in semi-normal tones of voice. We had to practically shout at our server to order our dinners and drinks. It was ridiculous. I wanted to go find the volume button, but unfortunately there wasn't one. The food was good though.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and, though it was a little chilly, I wanted to go for a swim. Destiny was brave enough to go with me, though my brother, Brandon, wouldn't get in. It's too cold! he said. Destiny didn't get all the way in, but I wanted to swim so I said to hell with it and jumped in. It was a little chilly walking back to the room dripping wet with the hotel towel wrapped around me. But it was worth it.

Back in the room we got Gianna, my niece, ready for bed and we all just hung out, watched TV, and talked. The next morning we went to have breakfast at the buffet in the hotel and it was surprisingly good. Gianna ate like there was no tomorrow and we all had a good breakfast. After breakfast we headed back to the valley to get ready for horseback riding. I had booked all four of us for a 3 hour horseback ride at Spur Cross Stables in Cave Creek.

We got there on time after leaving Destiny's sister home with Gianna and filled out the requisite forms, then they lined us up for our horses. Brandon was in front, Destiny second, Mom third and I was put last because I had the most experience out of all of us. Brandon got a horse, Destiny got a horse, Mom got a mule named Hershey and I got a mule named Cracker. I was mad. I wanted a horse. I asked if I could have a horse but they wouldn't let me. I was stuck with Cracker. Fitting name, I would think later. After we've all mounted up and started out in a line after the guide, Cracker decides he doesn't want to be last and cuts in front of Mom's Hershey. Lovely. I should have known this animal was going to be trouble right from the start. He did fine until about halfway through the ride and decided he was just going to go at his own pace and to hell with how much I kicked him or squeezed him to go faster to keep up with the group. The guide handed me a sharp branch at some point and told me to poke him in the hind quarter with it if he started lagging again. That had about the same effect on him as squirting a water gun at the ocean. He didn't care. It was at that precise moment I remembered why I hated mules so much. They're stubborn. This one seemed more so than others I'd had to deal with. The mule was a pain my ass. I knew he was going to be, too. The rest of the ride passed slowly but surely and I resigned myself to watching the scenery and trying to keep my mule caught up with the horses. Mom's Hershey just kept pace with Cracker. All in all, it was a fun ride but I would have preferred a horse to Cracker. We fed our animals their carrots from the canvas bags we had been toting around with our water and stuff in them when we dismounted back at home base. I was never happier to see the rear end of a mule before. Brandon remarked to me on the way back home that it sucked because the ride was my idea and I got the short end of the stick. I shrugged and said maybe next time I'd get a horse.

Back home we grabbed dinner and relaxed.

Monday for Memorial Day we took flowers to my grandpa and grandma. He was a WWII vet. The cemetery was full of people and Mom was worried we'd get stuck there for a long time but the line in wasn't really bad. I miss them both so much. I wish they had been able to see their great-granddaughter before they passed.

Wednesday was my birthday and my aunt and uncle had a cook out party for me. Mom forgot my cake and birthday card. She said, "At least I remembered the presents." My response, "Well, I would hope so since you forgot everything else." With a grin of course. I had to pick out my own birthday cake at Walmart before the party. It was funny. My uncle cooked bratwursts, hamburgers, and hotdogs. Mom and I made punch, not kid friendly of course. It was my birthday! It was good but I think we should have left out the sherbet because it looked really gross when the sherbet melted. After dinner my aunt got the cake out and lit candles for me. Everyone sang Happy Birthday in English and Italian and I blew out the candles. After we all had cake all the kids got in the pool. Brandon and I joined them and we brought Gianna in with us. Brandon was throwing the younger kids and when he was done with that he took Gianna. Poor little thing, he dunked her and she did not like that. She started crying after the second time. She looked so cute in her little bathing suit.

The rest of the week was relaxation and spending as much time with Gianna, Mom, and Brandon as possible. Mom and I took Gianna with us to dinner one night at IHOP while Brandon took Destiny to work. It was good and she was such a good baby. She's a little piggy, too. She ate a whole cup of yogurt, some of Mom's strawberry french toast and scrambled eggs, and some of my fries. Then ate some snacks when we got home. I think she has her daddy's metabolism. The little shit.

Mom took me to her work one day to meet someone who wanted to see me but the lady wasn't there. Mom works from home now so she rarely has to drive into the office. She signed me in and we walked around and visited some peeps she works with. Mom's friend Barb thought Gianna was mine and told me she was beautiful. I laughed and said yeah she is but she's not mine, she's my niece. I wish she was! Brandon cut in line! It was my turn, dammit! We had a good visit with some people and then Mom and I went shopping at Arizona Mills. I love that place! It's huge and we don't have huge outlet malls like that here in Texas. Mom and I stopped in a baby clothing store and they were having a huge sale. 60% and 70% off things! Mom bought all of Gianna's Christmas stuff that day! It was funny. I bought her a couple of cute little outfits.

On Friday, me, Mom, my aunt, my two little cousins, Gianna, and my aunt's friend and her daughter went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park. It was a blast!! All of the kids had a great time. We had lunch when we first got there and the kids had boxcar meals. The boxes were shaped like little train boxcars! It was cute. We all rode the train a couple of times and saw prairie dogs and bunnies on the second trip. The kids went nuts over the little prairie dogs. The kids wanted to ride the carousel so we got them on and I took Gianna on for her first pony ride. I set her on the seat and she held onto the bar. She loved it, until the carousel pony started going up and down. I think she got a little scared when it did that. She held on until it stopped though, she was just a little fussy. I think she would have been OK if the pony hadn't gone up and down because she was loving it when we were just sitting still. After everyone was done riding the rides, we went and had ice cream. It was good stuff! A very fun day!

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner one night for everyone. Destiny was at work, but everyone else loved it. Well, Gianna didn't like the meatballs but we think it was just the texture of the meat. It was good, if I might say so myself!

Vacation ended all too quickly because it was Saturday way too soon. I wanted to call Mom and tell her to turn around and pick me back up after she dropped me off and I'd stay for another week. I could have and probably should have, I needed another week of vacation. If I had thought about it I would have done just that. Oh well, I'll make up for it in February when John and I go out there for a couple weeks. I can't wait for Gianna to meet him. I can't wait for another vacation out there! I had so much fun!

Bubbles!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, Spring is definitely here, as evidenced by the sun being out all the time, the trees getting little tiny leaves, my grass beginning to grow non-stop, and the minor cold I picked up on Monday. I just cleared out my closet as well, putting away those long sleeved shirts and hanging up the sleeveless and short sleeved, lighter counterparts. One thing I don't like about Spring and Summer are the bugs, especially here in Texas. Y'all, we have some bugs that would blow your minds, let alone even getting near the things to kill them.

But what I've always loved about Spring and Summer is....bubbles!!! I remember when I was little my brother and I would run around outside with these huge bubble wands trailing huge, long bubbles behind us. I still love to do that! I was always disappointed when the little bottles of bubbles that you got at the store for like 10 for $1 ran out. There was never enough bubbles in there!! I remember one time my bro and I dumped all the bottles into a container and went nuts. I mean how else were we going to get our huge bubble wands full of soap to blow bubbles with??

Now I don't have to worry about running out of bubble solution. Thanks to Marie over at Make and Takes and her homemade bubble recipe! I will have to bring this along with me to Phoenix and show my niece a new experience with bubbles!

Bubbles!!!!!!!

They Grow So Fast!!

I received a package from my mom yesterday and was excited to see what was inside. I knew what it was because Mom had called me and told me that she was sending it. It was recent pictures of my niece, Gianna, who I'm going to visit over my birthday in May! She's grown so much!! Mom had sent pictures of her when she was a couple of hours old and looking at those pictures and then looking at the new ones is just amazing. I can't wait to see her!

Isn't she just a cutie??!! I love her in her little walker contraption thing! (These pics aren't the most recent, but too cute anyway!)

What's Your Mantra?

Times are tough. No one has to say it out loud, we all know it. These are times when we all need mantras. Mantras are words that you live by. Words that help you see over whatever it is you're battling. We need to repeat them to ourselves over and over so that we don't lose sight of what is really important. But there is something to having a mantra for everyday.

I have several mantras for everyday use. One I use most is, "One day at a time." I used to always worry about what I was going to do in the future. Or where I was going to be in five years. I suddenly realized that while I was worrying about the future the present was becoming the past and I had missed it. "One day at a time" helps me through the rough patches. Helps me see that if I live the best way possible for that one day then I can do the same thing the next day. I don't let the small battles pile up, I work through them and once they are over for the day I move onto the next day's battles. One person tackling a huge problem never works.

Another is, "Just take the first step." This one helps me realize that it only takes one step to get a job started. If I'm struggling with something this is an oft repeated phrase to myself. It also helps me realize that I don't need to see the whole trail at the start of the journey. Sometimes you stumble upon better paths than the one you started on. In the end I always wind up where I want to be.

So, what's your mantra? Do you have one?

Here are some famous mantras and quotes to help inspire you:

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.”—Eleanor Roosevelt

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." ~Jonathan Kozel

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." ~Theodore Roosevelt

"Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped." ~African Proverb

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." Chinese Proverb

A Cross-Country Journey and How We Survived

For some reason I found myself thinking back to when almost my entire family moved from Reading, Pennsylvania to Phoenix, Arizona. When the trip was over and we finally, finally reached our destination I think we all agreed we could call it the trip from Hell.

I'll set the scene. My mother's parents, my mother's brother's family (including two adult children and a baby grandchild), my mother, father, little brother and myself all driving in a caravan across the country. We had three huge moving trucks, the biggest ones they had, each with a car tower, my mother's Plymouth Sundance (the piece of sh*t), my Nana's old Dodge Ram pickup with a camper trailer attached, and I think my aunt's vehicle. I'm riding with my mom, my brother is riding with my dad in the moving truck, my cousin with the baby is in the moving truck with her husband, my uncle is driving their moving truck with my other cousin riding shotgun, my aunt is driving her car, and my Nana is driving the Dodge Ram with the camper.

The first attempt we make to break out of Penn State is foiled by a vehicle fire. My uncle was the first one to notice this. My Nana is in the lead with the pickup and camper, and my uncle is driving behind her. My uncle notices smoke coming from inside the camper and instantly pulls into the hammer lane next to my Nana. Nana has no idea what's going on but finally pulls over to the side of the road after my uncle waves frantically for a minute or two. Someone had the brilliant idea to use short band walkie talkies between us for better communications within the caravan. Which was a great idea except we were short by one radio. Nana didn't have a radio. Hence, the yelling and waving by my uncle. We all make a mad dash for the side of the road and my uncle gets the small fire put out before it can do any major damage to the camper. With that potential catastrophy handled we set out on the road again.

A short while later, we are on the side of the road again. This time it's a fan belt in the Dodge that has stopped us. My Nana had noticed this time because smoke had come barreling out of the hood when the belt snapped. Unfortunately the next town was 30 or so miles away and the Dodge was out of commission until we could get it fixed. It was already late in the afternoon and we were all hungry and tired. My uncle and aunt drive to the next town to find a fan belt for the truck while the rest of us wait on the side of the road like a broken down carnival troupe. A while later my uncle and aunt are back and my uncle gets the truck fixed and we start out again. Keep in mind we are still in Penn State and not even close to the state line.

We drove for a little while longer and everyone decided that it was time to call it quits for the night. Which was a great idea except it took us two hours and three towns to find a motel that had any vacancy. It took us two days to get out of Pennsylvania, when it should have only taken 6-8 hours tops. I knew then it was going to be a rough trip.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped to eat at a McDonalds. This had to be the worst McDonalds I've ever eaten at. Here's the things that went wrong at this particular establishment:
-It took forever to get our food
-My PopPop had ordered cheeseburgers and gotten hamburgers
-When PopPop took the food back to the counter he got back cheeseburgers with no meat
-My brother had ordered chicken nuggets and gotten a hamburger
-I had ordered a cheeseburger and gotten a chicken sandwich
-My mom had ordered one of their specialty burgers and gotten a double cheeseburger
-My dad got us kids little ice cream cups and the expiration date on the bottom was already past
-Of course we had already eaten the ice cream when I discovered the expiration date

Another time we stopped, this time for gas, turned into the worst fuel stop I've ever seen. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie RV with Robin Williams, but there is a scene in there where he drives around the block of the gas station time and time again because he doesn't really know how to back a RV up. That was us with the moving trucks. Someone had the brilliant idea to stop at a small gas station instead of trying to find a larger place like a truck stop or something. It was rather funny to watch my dad, my uncle, and cousin driving around the block again and again because they couldn't back up to the fuel islands. What wasn't funny was when my dad tried to back up the moving truck with attached car tower and ended up catching the front bumper on one of those concrete barrier posts by the gas pumps. They don't give. The bumper ended up being pulled halfway off the truck and my uncle and dad had to spend a while trying to push the bumper back.

We had to take several detours. One was in Missouri because there was a flood. I remember driving by the big arch and the water was halfway up the thing. Another detour was in Oklahoma.

All together the move took 12 days from start to finish. It was long, tiring, and when we finally got to Phoenix and crashed at my aunt's house I told my mom that we should never move again. I don't know how all of us survived that ordeal without taking each other out. Maybe it was the collective determination to get to the destination. Maybe it was my PopPop yelling that we were going to get to Phoenix no matter what! Maybe it was the horrifically funny ordeal we all endured at the McDonalds on the way.

Why I Never Have Been or Never Will Be a Verizon Wireless Customer

I'll start off with a little math lesson for y'all. Bear with me, it's easy fourth grade math.

OK...

Multiply .002 by 35893...you get 71.786.

OK...

Now what if I tell you that the .002 is cents and the 35893 is a data measurement of kilobytes. This would mean that the resulting product of .002 and 35893 is 71.786 cents per kilobyte.

OK...

What would 71.786 cents be in dollars?

This is simple math as well...

Divide 71.786 by 100 because there are 100 pennies in one dollar.

The resulting quotient is .71786 cents or $.71786. See the decimal point in front of the numbers? Do not be confused by the dollar sign...that is simply a semantic of the US monetary system.

OK...everyone got that little math problem?

Can anyone tell me how not one, not two, not even three, but several grown adults cannot figure that simple math problem? With several simple examples to help out the reasoning? My favorite...if you sold your car to me for $20,000 (dollars) and I brought you 20,000 pennies for the sale of the car, you would tell me to go F--- myself.

Listen to this audio of George Vaccaro's call to the Verizon Wireless Customer Service center.
http://xkcd.com/verizon/
I have to warn you, it's painful, you will want to throw your computer, you will want to beat the reps over their heads several times with your keyboard, you will want to scream at the monitor It's fourth grade math, you nut f*cks!! It's not that difficult! Google it for Christsake!!
At least that's what I wanted to do while listening to a very patient George try to reason with the idiotic people on the phone.

You can find George's blog here. The trouble this poor guy had to go through, and is still dealing with as far as I can tell, is so absolutely frustrating and insanely stupid that you can't help feel hopelessly sorry for him. I mean if they can't do simple math what the hell else are they messing up on people's bills?

My head seriously hurt after listening to the MP3 and reading George's blog about this. It's one of those things where you shake your head and say, "Oh...my...God." All the while dumbfounded at the idea that it's possible to think that .002 cents is the same as .002 dollars.

George isn't the only person to have suffered from the complete incompetency of the CSR department of Verizon Wireless. Peter writes this about his experience with the Verizon CSR department.

Unbelievable that these people really think that .015 dollars is the exact same amount as .015 cents!! Maybe those shows like Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? are onto something...

I understand that what the CSR department should be saying is .015 dollars per kilobyte, but that is not what they are saying! $.015 would equate to point-zero-one-five dollars per kilobyte in words, not point-zero-one-five cents per kilobyte. And just to reiterate the fact that they are still getting the rate quote wrong on the phone, I called the 1-800 number for Verizon and specifically asked for the data rate for cell phone coverage in Canada and the CSR said point-zero-zero-two per kilobytes. When I asked point-zero-zero-two what per kilobyte, she responded with point-zero-zero-two cents per kilobyte!

Holy cow, save us from the idiots!

The Computer That Ate My Weekend

The new hard drive for my computer arrived last week and I didn't have the time to install it until this weekend. (They tell me I have to come to work to get paid...) Saturday morning I began tackling the breakdown of the computer and getting the new hard drive installed. Basically I had to format and install the new hard drive, copy the data from the old spare hard drive onto the new hard drive, then erase the old main hard drive and copy the data from the old spare drive onto the old main drive to act as the current spare drive.

It took the better part of the weekend because Windows takes so long to install, plus I have a ton of other programs that I use and all of them had to be reinstalled on the new hard drive. The one thing I forgot to do was backup my music. So the five hours I spent ripping music to my computer a couple weeks ago was a complete waste. The computer got a good cleaning and new hardware and is now happy and working perfectly. Hopefully, I will not have to pull it's guts out for a long time now.