Where Have I Gone?

This blog has been neglected (as many of you have noticed). I suppose there are three main reasons that I have not been posting.

1. I am busy at work doing actual work and can not even think about blogging not to mention the fact that they block access to the blogspot website.
2. Little H has taken over the home computer M-F doing "home work" so it is near impossible to get any computer time at home.
3. My mind has been focused on adjusting to my new job so I have not had time to come up with witty commentary.

And as someone pointed out, the season has turned and the weather warmed so more and more time is to be spent outside in healthy pursuits. I guess that is 4 reason but who is really counting.

As I type I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Atlantic City N.J. I am watching CNN HN and I just learned that someone in New York purposely put a penny into circulation that is worth a $1000 dollars. It is a rare 1909 penny so watch your change. I guess they think it is fun to throw away a grand.

I flew in to Philly on Monday and drove down here Monday night. I was supposed to return today but a twist in the job made me stay another day. Now you are thinking, extra day in Atlantic City cool! Well if you are a fan of games of chance then I suppose that would be the case but those of you who have been lucky enough to play Yahtzee with me know that I am no fan of games of chance. Now I will put a friendly wager on a sporting event but feeding quarters into a hungry slot machine does nothing for me. So while the crowds are gambling away their retirement money or their next car payment I sit here in the lobby typing.

I may venture back down town later out of shear boredom or I may just stroll up the road to the little Italian restaurant and have another go at the shrimp scampi pizza I enjoyed Monday night. If you have never travelled alone, it can be both stressful and boring. Stressful as you have no one else to help navigate or help with the job at hand and obviously boring as you have no pals with which to hang. Luckily there always seems to be another lad in a similar situation at the local watering hole with which to strike up a conversation.

So there you have it. A new post. Read it slow as I don't know when the next one will come.

Into Spring We Go

Though March 20th was the official start to spring we would have to say yesterday the 25th would be our official first day of spring. The day was marked by many firsts for 2006. The first dog baths, the first motorcycle ride the first day of trying to reclaim the yard from a winters abuse. Of course the real mark of spring is trying to rid the yard of a winters worth of dog do do. You would be amazed how much do do that two hundred pound dogs create. I thought of taking a picture of the wagon full but I spared you that post.

The motorcycle is out and running just as good as when I put it up last fall. It felt good to be on two wheels again and though the roads are still full of pot holes and monster frost heaves the ride was way enjoyable. There is still a lot of sand on the roads from winter and one must be very careful on the corners. I hope to drop the bike off at the shop this week for a little TLC and then she should be good to go for a long season. With my commute down to under 20 miles I will miss those nice long rides on the way home from work, unless I take long way home.

This is the earliest I can remember cleaning the yard and having the motorcycle out of storage. Usually at this point we are still buried under a foot or more of snow. Though it is still possible that we may get a good sn0w storm, it does not seem that this is the year for it to happen.

Now I just need to to get my fat but on my bicycle and loose this extra layer I put on for the winter.

Big Brother is Blocking

Today at my new job I attempted to check my blog and see if anyone had left any witty comments (I am a big fan of witty comments). Even though I was on my lunch break and was not "wasting company time" I was unable to view my fine blog. When I typed my blog address into my browser I was greeted not by my pleasant blog but rather by a message saying that the website I had requested was not allowed to be viewed as it was deemed to be inappropriate for the work environment.

I now will only be able to check and post from home. Not that I am complaining as I am happy to have a job.

They Have It All

A sign on International Blvd. Orlando, Fl. Am I the only one that sees humor in this?

Dog Man in Florida

Does this really require a caption?

Color, Color, Color

I promised some color would be found and here it is. By June we should have some pics of H's garden as it starts to come into bloom. For now this garden in Orlando will have to do.

Warm Nights

A spot light illuminates a palm on the way home from Universal Studios. It was a comfortable warm night for a walk the kind of night that is months away in Maine.

Finger Printed in Florida

Somewhere in Florida in an air conditioned space a computer contains the digital images of my right index finger print, H's right index finger print and H's left thumb print. I wonder if on our next trip to the sunshine state they will be performing retina scans. You may suspect that reason for this may have been a little too much tequila and sunshine that lead to a visit to the local authorities but that is in fact not the case.

If you purchase a multi day pass to Universal Studios, upon your first entrance, you will be subjected to a finger print scan of your right index finger. This is to prevent you from giving your pass (or selling it) to another individual. This must have have been a major problem for Universal to invest in all this fancy equipment. If you leave the park and re-enter later they will scan your index finger to make sure it matches the original scan.

OK, I guess that is reasonable but what about the thumb scan? Well, most of the "cool" rides at Islands of Adventure or Universal Studios do not allow any backpacks or items to be carried on the ride so they require you to place the items in a locker prior to entering the ride line. (Some times they don't tell you until you have waited in the line for 30 minutes). In the old days you would get a key to lock the locker or possibly a combination number. Those days are gone, now they use a scan of your left thumb recorded into the computer to provide you access to your stored items. I don't think we will be seeing this at Fun Town anytime soon.

So, is the FBI, CIA or the National Security Council really behind all this finger scanning? Are they also recording images of our faces and storing those with our finger prints? You know they do take your picture on every ride under the pretence of trying to sell it back to you! Is Bush secretly listening in to our conversations as we wait in the 45 minute line for the Incredible Hulk roller coaster? I doubt it, but somewhere in me the sceptic in me wondering just how much "Big Brother" is watching and how much of our privacy we have given up.

I wonder, if an individual is wanted for a crime, and they rent a locker at Universal, do they let them finish the ride before the Feds show up and arrest them.........?

On the Road Again

I was not happy! It was 1 AM and we were somewhere near Logan airport in Boston (we hoped). We had arrived in Boston two hours ago we still were no closer to finding our bed for the night. Holly had heard me use all the colorful language in my vocabulary and we were lost.

It had started out just as planned. We left Maine at 8:30 and had headed for Boston where we were to spend the night before our morning flight to Orlando. We had the directions to our hotel that we had printed from the hotels website (or so we thought). The first thing we noticed as we arrived in Boston is that our directions abruptly ended and left us on 93 heading north with no further guidance. But that didn't seem so bad as we saw our hotel (so we thought) from the interstate and we just had to figure out how to get there.

We took the next exit and began winding around trying to figure out how to get back to the hotel. It took only a few minutes and a couple of turn arounds but we found it and we thought we would soon be drifting off to sleep. Our first clue something was not right was the puzzled look on the hotel clerks face as he looked for our reservation number in the computer. Lucky for us I had our confirmation number and I knew we would be all set even if they had lost the reservation. Well..... not exactly, having given the clerk the reservation number he told us we were at the wrong hotel. We were at the correct chain, just the wrong location. The internet direction have sent us to the wrong hotel in Boston.

The clerk provided us with new directions and an assurance that it was only a few minutes away. So off we went again in our quest to find a place to sleep. All we had to do is get to the airport (where our hotel was, go figure) and that should be easy right?

We missed a turn. Damn! Ok, ok, we will just circle around and try and get it from the other direction. Well if you have ever been in Boston you know it is just not that easy. I got back on the interstate heading in the opposite direction and the next thing we know we are passing the "wrong hotel" again. Ok, that is easy then, we will just start over with the directions and this time we will not miss our turn.

We didn't miss our turn. We couldn't have missed it because there now was two police cars, lights flashing and a big illuminated arrow blocking our intended route. They had closed the ramp for construction. We would have to seek an alternative route.

Holly asked the cop for directions. He said it was easy. "Take the second right and follow the signs to the airport". We took the second right. There were no signs. It was now midnight. We drove, we looked, we drove some more. I needed gas.

The Iranian at the gas station told Holly "take thee street". Huh?
"Take thee street"?
"No, take thee street"!
"Thee street"?
"No D!! street, it is right there" pointing
"ohhh D street, thank you"

Refueled we were off again. We turned on D street and low and behold after a few blocks there were signs showing the way to the airport. Yeah, we would soon be sleeping. We went to the airport. We didn't see our hotel but we remembered the clerk told us we had to go past the airport and get on 1A.

We went past the airport, we found 1A. We had a choice, 1A North or 1A South. Fifty-fifty chance, ninety percent chance we will choose wrong. We chose wrong. We went south and that is how we found ourselves in some dark part of Boston at 1AM trying to figure out how to get back to the airport. We drove, I swore, we drove some more. Not a hint anywhere on how to get back to the airport. At times, I could see the airport but there was no way to physically get there.

Then in an act of incredible male humility I did the unthinkable, I stopped at a police station, went inside and asked for directions. OK, we both went inside and asked for directions but the fact that I actually went in also was incredible. After a conference of Boston's finest and new set of directions we were off again.

One turn on a non-descript small street, one on ramp and we were on 1A North and heading to our hotel. I have never been so happy to see a Holiday Inn sign.

We checked in. No problem. We went to our 11th floor room. Our key didn't work. We went back to the lobby and got a new key. Back to the 11th floor. Our key didn't work. We considered sleeping in the hall. I called the front desk from my cell. They decide to move our room. They came with the key, it actually opens a door. We see a bed and we are happy.

Signs Spring is Coming

I went looking for some color during my daily dog walk and I discovered that everything is a shade of brown or grey. I did spy these maple taps and buckets a sign that spring and some other colors are just a month or so away. They say the sap is running early this year on account of all the warm weather we have had this winter. Notice all the snow? I suspect we may see some other colors this weekend in Florida.

Wishful Thinking

A house down the road has this battered old snow-blower sitting in the front yard. If you can't read the sign it says "$100 for the plow, $200 for the snow-blower". The plow may be the better deal. It always amazes me what people will try and sell.