Really...unless I've been consuming mass quantities of alco-beverages, which I really don't do anymore, I'm a person of very few words. That's no indication of a lack of activity within my cranial cavity, I just don't deem most of the myriad of thoughts and opinions I'm processing at any given time to be pertinent for oral or written expression. I figure when someone wants to know what I think, they'll ask, and until then, I'll keep it to myself.
When I do opt for unsolicited sharing lately, updating my Facebook status does the trick. It's designed to be kept short and sweet, and your post only goes to the people who have added you as a friend, thereby indicating that they are at least somewhat interested in ANYTHING you have to say, regardless of its profundity or absurdity.
That, and the fact that I was informed by my employer that they were monitoring employee blogs they became aware of, has pretty much killed my interest in blogging. Hence, my first post in over a year, and probably my last for a while.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I'm going back some day, come next May, to Cozumel
Think we'll go a little earlier in the year next time, before it gets so blistering hot and humid (although it was not nearly as hot as Houston there) or maybe a little later this year after it's cooled down -- since we upgraded our timeshare membership and have more "bonus time" now. (Ha, they saw us coming -- Mister just can't stand not being VIP-Elite-Platinum, if it's for sale...and, it was kinda worth it, just to have access to the better booze and food in the clubhouse.)
I hadn't realized previously that Cozumel was SUCH a diver's spot. I just wanted sand and sun off the Mexican mainland. Mister was a little disappointed that I wasn't prepared to engage in voyeurism of the deep (and wouldn't just go on without me). But, I've promised to buy my very own gear, get in my pool, and practice the unnatural act of mouth-breathing until I'm an expert at it, so I can snorkel and possibly go scuba diving next time -- instead of just gazing down at the water thru the center of the Hobie Cat while Mister works the sail and rudders.
I did manage to hang with snorkeling for a few minutes here and there, and it made me wonder why anyone would go to such trouble to see that they are swimming in fish poop soup. (I think I'm going to need a wetsuit to get past my contamination hangups.) I did see some actual fish, but they were acting like Piranhas at the time and freaking me out, until Mister told me they made good sushi. Then apparently, I was freaking them out because they left.
Generally, I was too busy relaxing and just enjoying myself to be a "photo-whore" (as someone put it today) so there are only a few...
COZUMEL 2009
I hadn't realized previously that Cozumel was SUCH a diver's spot. I just wanted sand and sun off the Mexican mainland. Mister was a little disappointed that I wasn't prepared to engage in voyeurism of the deep (and wouldn't just go on without me). But, I've promised to buy my very own gear, get in my pool, and practice the unnatural act of mouth-breathing until I'm an expert at it, so I can snorkel and possibly go scuba diving next time -- instead of just gazing down at the water thru the center of the Hobie Cat while Mister works the sail and rudders.
I did manage to hang with snorkeling for a few minutes here and there, and it made me wonder why anyone would go to such trouble to see that they are swimming in fish poop soup. (I think I'm going to need a wetsuit to get past my contamination hangups.) I did see some actual fish, but they were acting like Piranhas at the time and freaking me out, until Mister told me they made good sushi. Then apparently, I was freaking them out because they left.
Generally, I was too busy relaxing and just enjoying myself to be a "photo-whore" (as someone put it today) so there are only a few...
COZUMEL 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Ooooh Pretty....
Yea! The pool is in and functioning at Cangarew Court. Although, as it turns out, it is not yet ready for group swimming. In fact, my beloved SALT WATER pool is in actuality a chlorine pool for the first two weeks of its life. WTF? Nobody told me that was how it worked. But apparently, the plaster has to be cured for 10-14 days before the salt can be introduced.
Speaking of the plaster curing...OMG, what a t-total pain in the ass it is to have a new pool. Nobody told me about this little tidbit either -- in order to get rid of mortar residue and excess plaster, I have to brush/sweep/scrub the holy hell out of the entire pool and spa (every square inch) twice a day for 10 days!
Like I friggin' have time for that? However, I guess I will make time, since today when I asked about it -- I was informed that scrubbing would re-expose more of the green flecks in the plaster, and that is what achieves the appearance that the water is the glorious Caribbean Green color I asked for (as it was on Friday when first filled).
Speaking of the plaster curing...OMG, what a t-total pain in the ass it is to have a new pool. Nobody told me about this little tidbit either -- in order to get rid of mortar residue and excess plaster, I have to brush/sweep/scrub the holy hell out of the entire pool and spa (every square inch) twice a day for 10 days!
Like I friggin' have time for that? However, I guess I will make time, since today when I asked about it -- I was informed that scrubbing would re-expose more of the green flecks in the plaster, and that is what achieves the appearance that the water is the glorious Caribbean Green color I asked for (as it was on Friday when first filled).
Hell of a workout though. And what a cruel joke...I'm "priviledged enough" to afford my own swimming pool, but I have to spend the first 10 days of ownership scrubbing the damn thing like a scullery maid.
There was one very pleasant surprise: the lights! I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about or studying up on pool lights, so I expected plain jane white or just one color lights. Delightfully WRONG! It seems the trend now is to have color-changing lights. Kinda reminds me of the color wheel that goes with my aluminum Xmas tree, so it goes without saying that I'm completely fascinated.
Look, I took a video so you can go "oooh aaaah" too.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Too Busy to Blog...February 23 through March 08
Will add to this later.
Cliff notes:
February 28 -- Drove to Fort Worth to catch another Rick Springfield concert at Billy Bob's
March 02 -- Reserved cabin for November cruise with Rick Springfield and friends
March 04 -- Bought flights and reserved hotel to go see Rick in Milwaukee on May 8th
March 06 -- Went lunar and dyed my hair black
March 08 -- Second Sunday Dinner #3
Cliff notes:
February 28 -- Drove to Fort Worth to catch another Rick Springfield concert at Billy Bob's
March 02 -- Reserved cabin for November cruise with Rick Springfield and friends
March 04 -- Bought flights and reserved hotel to go see Rick in Milwaukee on May 8th
March 06 -- Went lunar and dyed my hair black
March 08 -- Second Sunday Dinner #3
Too Busy to Blog...February 13 through 22.
So let's see, what have I been doing that keeps me away from my computer except for a quick check-in before bed time to get my email, see who's doing what on MySpace, catch up on the blogs I read, and update my checking account spreadsheet...
Well, after my last entry on February 12th, Mister and I headed to Nashville for the weekend to catch a Rick Springfield concert at the Wild Horse Saloon on Valentine's Day. It was well worth the trip -- Rick rocked the Saloon. OMG...he is still just too gorgeous and astonishingly vigorous and vibrant for a man his age (60 next August). More amazing yet, is that he really is more than just a pretty face. He really is a fantastic musician. He won Mister over as a fan when he launched into a cover of "Crossroads" and now we know why the audience was equally male and female, and not all the males were escorting their wives or girlfriends.
If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see that Rick was wearing green Mardi Gras beads. Guess who has those beads now!
We met an interesting couple seated next to us at the table who had a similar age difference between them as Mister and I have. We ended up meeting them at another club after the concert was over, having a couple drinks too many, and then she and I left my mister and hers at the club talking for an hour or so while we toured downtown Nashville in her limousine. Can't say I saw much out the windows -- we were too busy fogging them up! "And that's all I have to say about that"...other than I had an unexpectedly spectacular Valentine's evening. Mister and I were slightly concerned over how we would amuse ourselves all day Sunday in the hometown of C&W music, since we just aren't that into it; but sheer exhaustion and moderate hangovers from the activities of the previous evening answered that question for us -- we stayed in bed.
We got back to Houston on Monday, and only had time for a "last supper" together before Mister had to be back at IAH, catching his flight to Taipei. (Last supper is what we jokingly call getting that last fix of good ol' authentic TexMex before leaving the country - because you know you won't find it anywhere but here.) So, I sent him off for his two week around the world trip (Taipei - Shanghai - New Delhi) and headed home to get started on my list of things I can't seem to get done with him around.
That list, among other things, had me getting very little sleep for the next few days. Without him here to insist on me putting him to bed (and ending up crashing myself), I stayed busy until 2-3 in the morning before I noticed what time it was. The back yard - what was left of it -- was a total wreck. The plumber had not come to put in the new connectors before he left, and the concrete/rebar crew couldn't finish their part until the plumbing was done. Never mind the part where I haven't been able to use the kitchen sink drain, nor my washer and dryer, for almost a month now because the wastewater pipe got crushed again during removal of the old garage slab. So I sent the plumber a nasty-gram (via email) and got the ball rolling again. One plus is that I found a really nice laundromat over here, and I'm getting kind of spoiled to being able to completely do all my laundry in under 2 hours by using 4-5 washers and dryers.
Of course, the following Saturday was my annual pilgrimage to Mardi Gras Galveston. My aunt and two cousins came down from Cleburne (near Fort Worth) to go with me, my sister and brother-in-law, and my mom. Unfortunately, my mom got sick, and my daughter was too busy being a putz, so they didn't make it, but my stepdaughter came along for the third time, and her mom (my "sister-wife" LOL) had her introductory trip. We had fun, although not as much fun as I've had some years. Guess I just don't drink that much anymore, and with the stockpile of beads I have, I just don't get into the bead-catching as aggressively as I used to, so that kind of reduces the excitement to some degree. Besides, once you've caught beads thrown to you by Rick Springfield, why bother with any others...
The parade was very entertaining -- lots of "marching" bands who did anything but goose-step. A couple of them stopped right in front of our spot and totally jammed out "Drumline" style. (Love it when they do that!) But the most hilarious thing of all was the three middle-aged (at 40 myself, should I be calling them that? oh well...call 'em as I see 'em) biker mamas just down the sidewalk from us who didn't bother with flashing anymore once the parade started. They just let it all hang out the whole time. It worked - they got lots of beads and attention. We all got home without incident, in spite of the State Troopers lying in wait every mile or so along 45 going north.
Again, total exhaustion solved the dilemma of what to do with myself all day on Sunday. I slept in, woke up and had a snack, yapped with Mister on Yahoo for a bit, took a nap, then repeated the sequence a couple more times.
Well, after my last entry on February 12th, Mister and I headed to Nashville for the weekend to catch a Rick Springfield concert at the Wild Horse Saloon on Valentine's Day. It was well worth the trip -- Rick rocked the Saloon. OMG...he is still just too gorgeous and astonishingly vigorous and vibrant for a man his age (60 next August). More amazing yet, is that he really is more than just a pretty face. He really is a fantastic musician. He won Mister over as a fan when he launched into a cover of "Crossroads" and now we know why the audience was equally male and female, and not all the males were escorting their wives or girlfriends.
If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see that Rick was wearing green Mardi Gras beads. Guess who has those beads now!
We met an interesting couple seated next to us at the table who had a similar age difference between them as Mister and I have. We ended up meeting them at another club after the concert was over, having a couple drinks too many, and then she and I left my mister and hers at the club talking for an hour or so while we toured downtown Nashville in her limousine. Can't say I saw much out the windows -- we were too busy fogging them up! "And that's all I have to say about that"...other than I had an unexpectedly spectacular Valentine's evening. Mister and I were slightly concerned over how we would amuse ourselves all day Sunday in the hometown of C&W music, since we just aren't that into it; but sheer exhaustion and moderate hangovers from the activities of the previous evening answered that question for us -- we stayed in bed.
We got back to Houston on Monday, and only had time for a "last supper" together before Mister had to be back at IAH, catching his flight to Taipei. (Last supper is what we jokingly call getting that last fix of good ol' authentic TexMex before leaving the country - because you know you won't find it anywhere but here.) So, I sent him off for his two week around the world trip (Taipei - Shanghai - New Delhi) and headed home to get started on my list of things I can't seem to get done with him around.
That list, among other things, had me getting very little sleep for the next few days. Without him here to insist on me putting him to bed (and ending up crashing myself), I stayed busy until 2-3 in the morning before I noticed what time it was. The back yard - what was left of it -- was a total wreck. The plumber had not come to put in the new connectors before he left, and the concrete/rebar crew couldn't finish their part until the plumbing was done. Never mind the part where I haven't been able to use the kitchen sink drain, nor my washer and dryer, for almost a month now because the wastewater pipe got crushed again during removal of the old garage slab. So I sent the plumber a nasty-gram (via email) and got the ball rolling again. One plus is that I found a really nice laundromat over here, and I'm getting kind of spoiled to being able to completely do all my laundry in under 2 hours by using 4-5 washers and dryers.
Of course, the following Saturday was my annual pilgrimage to Mardi Gras Galveston. My aunt and two cousins came down from Cleburne (near Fort Worth) to go with me, my sister and brother-in-law, and my mom. Unfortunately, my mom got sick, and my daughter was too busy being a putz, so they didn't make it, but my stepdaughter came along for the third time, and her mom (my "sister-wife" LOL) had her introductory trip. We had fun, although not as much fun as I've had some years. Guess I just don't drink that much anymore, and with the stockpile of beads I have, I just don't get into the bead-catching as aggressively as I used to, so that kind of reduces the excitement to some degree. Besides, once you've caught beads thrown to you by Rick Springfield, why bother with any others...
The parade was very entertaining -- lots of "marching" bands who did anything but goose-step. A couple of them stopped right in front of our spot and totally jammed out "Drumline" style. (Love it when they do that!) But the most hilarious thing of all was the three middle-aged (at 40 myself, should I be calling them that? oh well...call 'em as I see 'em) biker mamas just down the sidewalk from us who didn't bother with flashing anymore once the parade started. They just let it all hang out the whole time. It worked - they got lots of beads and attention. We all got home without incident, in spite of the State Troopers lying in wait every mile or so along 45 going north.
Again, total exhaustion solved the dilemma of what to do with myself all day on Sunday. I slept in, woke up and had a snack, yapped with Mister on Yahoo for a bit, took a nap, then repeated the sequence a couple more times.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Haulin' Arse
My sister, Cyndi, called me a couple of weeks ago and invited me to go with her to a an event sponsored by Marlboro -- her brand of cigarettes -- at MSR. It sounded fun so I agreed to go and took this afternoon off from work. What a blast. Upon arriving at the track in Angleton and getting through registrations and signing a few waivers, we got all suited up in race car driver jumpsuits, took pictures (I guess for a "before" reference if we needed to be glued back together and reshaped later...just kidding), then fitted for helmets. After that, they gave us a short orientation schpiel, and we were off to the track to load up in a Panoz race car for our first shotgun encounter with speed and lateral G-force.
Reportedly, if you don't do thumbs down signal to tell the driver to slow down, he'll take you around the curves and straight aways at about 115mph. Of course, I was all thumbs up, and my 2 laps were over too quickly for my liking. My cheeks hurt from the irrepressible grin that kept spreading inside my snugly fitting helmet. This ride was very enjoyable, and a little like riding with John when he has to go to the bathroom ASAP; but the next ride was the best!
After we removed our jumpsuits and grabbed a snack and beverage, we went over to a different track and loaded into Mustangs for some "drifting." Now THAT was an awesome thrill ride. I giggled the entire time.
They didn't allow us to bring cameras in the car with us on either ride, so I took video while some of the other riders were having their turns. Enjoy!
At the end, there was pretty good food to eat, which was good because somewhere around the second lap of the first ride, my stomach noticed it was empty and wanted to be fed. Also, we left with an armload of cool freebies, although strangely, no cigarettes - much to my sister's disappointment because she had accidentally left hers in her car back at my office parking garage.
And, to add a fittingly comical ending to the outting, I got a ticket as I was hauling ass back home in my TransAm, doing 80 in a 60. Oh well, it's been about 2 years since I got one. No biggie.
Reportedly, if you don't do thumbs down signal to tell the driver to slow down, he'll take you around the curves and straight aways at about 115mph. Of course, I was all thumbs up, and my 2 laps were over too quickly for my liking. My cheeks hurt from the irrepressible grin that kept spreading inside my snugly fitting helmet. This ride was very enjoyable, and a little like riding with John when he has to go to the bathroom ASAP; but the next ride was the best!
After we removed our jumpsuits and grabbed a snack and beverage, we went over to a different track and loaded into Mustangs for some "drifting." Now THAT was an awesome thrill ride. I giggled the entire time.
They didn't allow us to bring cameras in the car with us on either ride, so I took video while some of the other riders were having their turns. Enjoy!
At the end, there was pretty good food to eat, which was good because somewhere around the second lap of the first ride, my stomach noticed it was empty and wanted to be fed. Also, we left with an armload of cool freebies, although strangely, no cigarettes - much to my sister's disappointment because she had accidentally left hers in her car back at my office parking garage.
And, to add a fittingly comical ending to the outting, I got a ticket as I was hauling ass back home in my TransAm, doing 80 in a 60. Oh well, it's been about 2 years since I got one. No biggie.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Psychadelic Pslyde Pshow
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm about to make up for months of blogger-block! Was just uploading some new pics to my slideshow for MySpace, when I noticed some new (to me) effects available. So, having applied the "prism" effect to my slides, I decided it was way too fascinating for just my MySpace page. Of course, it IS much cooler on MySpace where my profile playlist provides a suitable soundtrack.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)