This makes me smile every time. University of Washington basketball coach Bo Ryan does the Soulja Boy on court. Thanks to YouTube and Keith at BagOfNothing.com for giving hip senior citizens a chance to showcase their skillz.
November Rants and Raves
- Rave: MovieQuotes.com. If you need a good way to kill some time and love movie quotes like I do, try the quote game. My sister and I interact exclusively through quotes from ten 1980s movies. OK, not quite, but close.
- Rant: Fog in Islip. Why can’t they add a CAT III approach at KISP (Long Island-MacArthur near Islip, New York)? Southwest had to cancel several flights yesterday due to thick fog, while we could have landed safely at several other airports in the northeast under the same conditions. With a CAT III approach, we can land safely with as little as 700 feet of visibility. To be fair, there might be a technical reason preventing such an approach, such as an obstacle or lack of room for the required lighting system.
- Rave: Smartphone Syncing. I like my new Blackjack. I loaded my Dec work schedule and events into it and synced it with my home PC. Then I reversed the process, loading my Jan and Feb work schedule into the PC, and then syncing it into my phone. That rocks.
- Rant: Ethanol. The government has apparently decided that ethanol is one of the best answers to our dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, ethanol is inefficient and expensive to produce and difficult to distribute, and it is driving up the price of many items that use corn during production (milk, for example). Adding ethanol to gasoline actually reduces your fuel economy. For more info, check out this article. I’m no energy expert, and I realize there’s no easy answer to our energy problems, but I don’t think ethanol is going to save us. Think hydrogen, people!
- Rave: My Family After getting to see most members of my extended family and in-laws over the Thanksgiving week, I must say how thankful I am for all of them. My family is no more perfect than any other, and we have plenty of interesting stories, but they’re overall good folks, and somehow we all manage to get along and have a good time together despite all of our little quirks and differences in personality. I actually look forward to seeing my family during the holidays.
New Toys!
Some of my loyal AndyBox.com readers already know about my long-standing resistance to texting (sending text messages via cell phone). In my (warped?) world, it’s OK to spend $45/month on high-speed Internet access or $25 for a special bottle of wine, but 15 cents to receive some friend’s or sister’s text message was simply unacceptable. So I generally ignored them. I sent my first text at my high school reunion in October on a friend’s phone, and it took over a minute to get all the letters right and figure out how to work it.
I am happy to announce that those days in the Box household have passed. Jenny’s phone wasn’t working well, we were both eligible for discounted phone upgrades, Jenny wanted texting access, and I was tried of being jealous when my friends pulled out their smartphones to look up sports scores and check their email. So Jenny got a cool phone/MP3 player/radio/camera/pedometer with a good texting plan, and I got a Blackjack smartphone with texting and some Internet bandwidth. I’m loading my work schedule, CARES events, and personal stuff. We’re now officially wired. Text us sometime!
I’m going to beat Hubby to this one
So, officially, we had our first event last night – which was staying late at the apartment clubhouse to let people come by and pick up packages after they got off work. We had a few people come through, and we met a few in the fitness center, so it was pretty slow most of the time.
Andy and I decided to play pool while we were waiting – hoping that people would think that they could stay and have fun. We found out that we are the WORST pool players in the history of the sport. Actually, I’m the worst pool player – Andy could do ok, but neither one of us is going to be on ESPN any time soon. However, we should get lots of practice since we’re going to be in there every Tuesday night! If you’re in the area, come visit us!
The Wonderful World of Disney
We really did have a wonderful time at Disney World, and I’ll try to stick with the highlights! We hit all 4 parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Disney-MGM Studios) over 6 days and fit in two rounds of mini-golf (with at least two holes-in-one!), tea at the Grand Floridian, shopping at Downtown Disney, and some great piano music at Jellyroll’s. We managed to get at least one food item or wine tasting from every country at Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival and liked the vast majority of them, especially from Canada (cheese soup and maple-glazed salmon, mmm….). As a birthday present for me on Tuesday, NASA launched the space shuttle so I could see it from Epcot (I got a few pics!) right before our fabulous lunch at Coral Reef, a restaurant with a huge aquarium inside. Our birthday and anniversary buttons earned us free desserts and lots of congratulatory comments. I learned that Mickey, Minnie, and many other characters are quite short (to be accessible and non-threatening to kids), which makes tall people like me look funny getting their pictures made with them. I decided not to get my picture taken with my girl Ariel (the mermaid princess) because, well, that’s kinda creepy. Jenny and I enjoyed great thrills in the Studios riding Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and the Tower of Terror. I took over 500 pictures! Using night-vision glasses, we spied on African animals one evening at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I even saw a 10-foot-tall Transformer made of Legos. Disney does an amazing job of adding magic to EVERYTHING, from the parks to the restaurants to the shopping and even the parking lots. Many rides make the wait more enjoyable by adding a preliminary video, interesting displays to read, a 4-piece horn ensemble, or even an interactive game for the crowd to play. The rides at Six Flags might be better for pure thrills, but nobody does theming and atmosphere like Disney. What a trip!
Up and Running, and Running, and Running…
We are moved in! We love our new place, and most of the rooms are somewhat presentable. We moved much of the stuff into the Pit of Despair, aka the guest bedroom, so that the rest could look nice. Holly and Jedda have both moved in. Our Internet and cable TV are connected. We’ve met most of the staff and our next-door neighbor. Our bodies have mostly recovered from the move, and we might even visit the gym this week! The November events calendar went out to the residents on Friday. Our first real event is Movie Night in the clubhouse on Wednesday night. Although we still have much to do, it’s starting to feel like home. It will probably seem more real once we start meeting more residents this week. There are lots of dogs, so we’ll definitely try to have some dog events in future months. I’m also back at work after a 2-week absence, trying to remember what exactly I do. I’m temporarily training a new dispatcher over the weekend, which is a first for me, so I hope I teach her good things and don’t lead her astray. Many thanks once again to the wonderful friends who helped us move!