Weekend With Heather

Our 3-year-old granddaughter Heather came over Friday afternoon to spend the night and Saturday with us. Here are some of the best shots of her weekend.

First up is Friday afternoon playing on the living room floor with her building blocks. She finally sweet-talked Granddad into building a castle for her.



Next up is from Saturday morning right after breakfast with Granny, Grampy, Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Wendy, Aunt Amber and cousins Rhyan and Townsend; Heather is holding the huge lollipop/all-day-sucker that Uncle Jeremy bought for her.



After breakfast we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. Here is Heather holding the stuffed panda bear toy that Grandma and Granddad bought her.



Here's a photo of Heather taking a rest on a stone bench before we left Animal Kingdom.



After we left Disney's Animal Kingdom we went to visit our friends George and Caroline so Heather could enjoy a pool party with their daughter Rowan. Here's Heather after some fun swimming.



I'll be uploading more photos of our Weekend With Heather to my Flickr page in the next few days.

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Sheepback Mountain Cabin Progress III

We're very fortunate to have our realtor, our contractor, Art who visits from Orlando and Rebecca in the Maggie Valley, North Carolina area to keep us updated with photos of the cabin on Sheepback Mountain as it's in the process of being built. The three of them have been kind enough to capture various stages of our dream as it becomes real and we are very grateful.

Just to update you a bit; after talking with the road-naming officials we discovered we could not have our little road named either Mountain Creek Trail or Enchanted Forest Drive (nor any variation of those) since there are already an abundance of streets and roads with similar names. We submitted several other possible names we would like and were told that Candlemaker Trail (in recognition of Cindy's business, Mountain Creek Candles) was acceptable and so the official petition has gone out to the other 5 owners whose land touches the road. We need three of them to sign off as having no objection and then the road will officially be named.

Here are some photos that Rebecca took this past Sunday. As you can see, the outer walls of the basement are up now and our little cabin is taking shape.

This first photo shows the view from the top of our property and what I call the "REAL" road (an already named, and graveled road that our property touches) looking down on the property. The road you see in front of the cabin basement walls (below the trees and nearest to you) is what we hope will be named Candlemaker Trail. We were happy to see how sunny the cabin area is (though sorry to lose the trees that had to be cleared for it) since we're hoping to use solar panels on the metal roof to cut our electrical costs.



This next photo is from the top of the road we hope will become Candlemaker Trail looking down on the basement walls. The area around the wall nearest you and to the right will be backfilled at some point in the construction, leaving only the driveway side on the left and the farthest side which faces the creek below open and visible. Inside the basement, the right half will be Cindy's candle and incense shop where she will create her wondrous wares. As you can see, she has a door leading out to the creek and, for when the weather is inhospitable, a window next to the door to look out to the creek. The left half will be our one-car garage and a utility room. Stairs from the first floor will come down right in the middle and there will be a wall dividing the candle shop from the garage.



The last 2 photos are taken from the driveway and garage entrance. On the right, out of frame, is what we hope will be Candlemaker Trail and on the left, out of view because of the steepness of the land, is the creek that flows through the property. The pile of wood on the left is most likely the framing for the ceiling of the basement and the floor of the first floor. The cabin will have 2 floors above the basement, so even though the footprint is small because we did not want to disturb any more of the land than necessary, the actual square footage of living space will be more than enough for the two of us and any family or friends that visit and stay for a while. As an added bonus, the view from our upper porch area facing the mountains to the south should be spectacular, especially in the fall and winter when the trees are bare of leaves.






Cindy and I are very excited to see the work being accomplished and thankful to our friends for making sure we have photos to look at since we can't be there.

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The Art Of Life 2

Before I begin, Happy 30th birthday to my step-son.

I should catch up on my life here a bit over the past week or so. Part 1 is here and this is part 2.

This past Friday I took my friend Dave to lunch in honor of his birthday. Thankfully, he picked one of my favorite places, Gator's Dockside, (I love their Gator Chips!) in West Orlando to eat at AND as an added bonus asked if his brother Dan could join us. Like my own brother Mark, Dan seems to always be able to make me laugh so I welcomed his company. That's Dan on the left and Dave on the right, or as he said to me after he saw the photo, "We look like those prawns in the District 9 movie!" Sorry buddy, I can't do anything about your genes.

Dave is a big fan of the comic book character Hawkeye. For the past few years I have actively searched for an affordable statue of Hawkeye that Dave could place on his shelf. This year I finally found one at Coliseum of Comics in Fashion Square Mall. Much like my lunch on Monday with Denise, we spent our time catching up with each other's lives, though since Dave doesn't do much e-mail, doesn't read my blog and doesn't use Facebook or Twitter we had a lot more ground to cover. Dave's kind of a slow adopter. He didn't really start using e-mail until a couple of years ago and still only uses it sparingly. He'll probably get around to Facebook and Twitter in a few years, after they've been replaced by the next big thing.

Friday evening after she got off work, Cindy and I went to a quick dinner at The Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney, then to see "The Time Traveler's Wife" at the AMC theater in Pleasure Island. I read the book about 4 years ago and enjoyed it. In what is a very rare occurrence with me, I actually enjoyed the movie version more than the book version. The film handled the sometimes confusing time shifts in a very understandable manner and stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams truly made this movie and story have the emotional impact that touched the hearts of the audience. Cindy was crying, but as we were leaving one poor woman was sobbing.

While we're on the subject of leaving the theater, here's a mildly amusing story at my expense. It was raining Friday evening, so when we sat down in our seats I leaned our umbrella against the back of the seat in front of me. During the previews it fell and made a loud "thud" when it hit the floor. Cindy was watching the screen and didn't see that happen. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Was that your iPhone falling out of its holster?" and I told her, "No, it was the umbrella." When the movie ended I picked up the umbrella and when we reached the exit doors I, as is my habit whenever leaving someplace, reached to my hip to be sure my phone was there and found my holster empty. I turned to rush back into the theater as Cindy called out, "I TOLD you I heard your phone fall!"

Pushing against the flow of people still filing out of the theater, I made my way to our seats in the still-darkened room and first felt the seat itself, hoping the phone had not fallen through to what I knew would be a dirty, nasty floor. But no such luck; the phone was not in the seat or in the area between the seat and the armrest. That meant I had no choice but to get down on my hands and knees to feel around the area under the seats, which was not just dark but pitch black...the same color as my iPhone and its rubberized case. After blindly feeling every square inch of yucky floor under each of our seats and coming up, well not exactly empty-handed but with no phone, I expanded my hand-feeling to the floor on each side and behind our seats. Still no luck with the phone but I did find a wad of gum, a puddle of sticky coke (the drink, not the drug) and a quarter with some kind of crusty material on it as well as several other items of indistinguishable origin. It's just about this time, as I'm thinking, "I wish Cindy would call my phone so it would light up and I could see it" that my phone does indeed start ringing with her distinctive ringtone. I hear it and it's nearby, so very close judging by the volume, but still I cannot see the face lighting up in the darkness. I'm just about in the middle of asking myself, "Did it fall face down...?" when I suddenly realize why the ringing is so close. It's because the damn phone is in my shirt pocket where I ALWAYS put my phone during a movie so I can retrieve it quickly if a call or text message comes through. It's been in my shirt pocket the entire movie and, of course, during my entire frantic search through a darkened floor area that is almost too nasty to even walk across with shoes on.

This getting old and forgetting things stuff really sucks.

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The Art Of Life

I should catch up on my life here a bit over the past week or so. Here's part 1.

Mikey came to spend Friday night with us last week. His dad dropped him off on the way to work and Mikey and I had a few hours to ourselves before Grandma got home from work. We went through some computer magazines I had on hand and I introduced him to the digital versions of some, plus I gave him some Photoshop lessons on certain procedures.

When Grandma got home we went to Mikey's favorite restaurant and my least-liked...McDonald's. Saturday morning we joined Granny, Grampy and Aunt Amber for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and had a very good time. We were going to go to the Science Center Saturday afternoon, but Mikey decided he would rather not do that activity, so we made trips to Barnes & Noble and to IKEA as we looked for some furnishing ideas for the cabin.

We had a good time looking at books and magazines at Barnes & Noble. We spent a lot of time persuing the computer magazines, heh heh. Here's an iPhone photo of Mikey and I with the books of the writing section on shelves behind us.

At IKEA we didn't come away with much that was helpful since IKEA seems to be geared more to furnishing college dorm rooms or starter apartments, but Mikey offered his thoughts and preferences on some of the beds and couches. After a lunch at Smokey Bones, we returned home for an hour or so until Daddy came to pick him up and take him back home.

Monday morning I had an appointment with my doctor. No good news there to share.

Monday afternoon I got to have lunch with Denise, a friend and co-worker (though we haven't seen each other in almost 2 years...wow, I can't believe it's been that long) who I really enjoy spending time with and conversating with. We spent an hour and a half eating and catching up on what's been going on in our lives (at least the parts that don't appear in our e-mails, blogs, Facebook posts or Twitter tweets) on the road and at home. Truly, there are very few people I enjoy spending time with and Denise is among that small number.

Throughout the week I did a lot of reading, some writing and a bit of work around the house such as taking down our old window blinds and hanging new rods and curtains that Cindy had picked out. We bought some of those "Eclipse" curtains and, let me tell you, they live up to their name.

More in tomorrow's post.

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Saying "Goodbye"

Well, not really, more like "See you later."

Tomorrow morning our friend Rebecca and her mom will be leaving Orlando and moving to Waynesville, NC. The movers came this morning and picked up all their furniture and belongings. Earlier this evening Cindy, Amber and I took pizza over for a farewell dinner. The house looked very different and empty with nothing in it, but Rebecca looked full of happiness and anticipation.

It's not Ireland, but it's damn close, lol.

Safe journey.

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Atlanta Braves Baseball Game

Last Friday after work, five co-workers and myself got on the MARTA train and rode down to Turner Field to watch the Atlanta Braves take to the field against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Even though the braves lost, we had a great time...along with peanuts and cracker jack.



Photos are up on my Flickr page.

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A Delightful Dinner Visit

Tonight Cindy and I had the pleasure of dinner with our friends Kirk and Laura and Laura's parents who are in town from Michigan. Being on the road as much as I have been it's been at least 18 months since I've seen Laura's parents and almost as long since I've seen Laura. Kirk and I had the opportunity to get together for lunch the last time I was home for a few days.

Dinner was very nice, but did not last nearly long enough to catch up as much as any of us would have liked.

We exchanged Christmas gifts and Kirk gave me a book that caused me to burst out laughing right in the middle of the restaurant. "How To Profit From The Coming Rapture - Getting Ahead When You're Left Behind" and is described as "The investment guide the Antichrist doesn't want you to read." I can't wait to start reading it!

Hopefully we'll all have a chance to get together again before I get called out or Laura's parents return to Michigan in about 10 days, whichever comes first. We always have such a good time together it's a shame when there is such a prolonged period of time between our visits.

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Friday In Western North Carolina

Friday we drove to Maggie Valley with Cindy's parents to meet Art at Joey's Pancake House. Joey's is only open for breakfast, from 7am to noon, and is ALWAYS packed. When we had driven by on Wednesday morning at 9am the parking lot was overflowing, so we decided to arrive by 8am to hopefully beat the crowd, but that was to little avail. Every table was occupied and folks were waiting in the lobby area. When we left at 9am, the line was out into the parking lot on each side of the lobby and cars were parked in adjacent lots while their owners walked to the restaurant for breakfast.

Cindy's mom goes to a water aerobics class in Orlando and when she told one of her classmates that we were buying some property on Sheepback Mountain, the classmate told her that her son Art had recently purchased some property there also. Cindy's parents met Art a few months back, visited his property and wanted us to all get the chance to meet, so a breakfast at Joey's was arranged.

We had a great time at breakfast and afterward we drove up to see Art's property and what he was doing on it. I thought out property was steep as far as the layout is concerned, but Art's has us beat. He has cut out a road and had it graveled up to a certain point. We walked approximately a half a mile up the steep road from the base of the property, since he was the only one with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. At a more or less level area he has set up a lean-to and has been working on building a primitive log cabin using the trees he has cut down on his property. At this point he has the 10 foot by 15 foot area staked out and is drying the tree trunks he has cut down in preparation for erecting the walls and roof. There will be no electricity or running water, but the cabin will provide shelter as he continues to clear and level his land for the eventual construction of a more conventional cabin or house in a few years. I salute his initiative and told him that while I admire what he is doing, I don't think I would ever have the character to stick with such an undertaking. He has my utmost respect. I also took a couple of picture with my cell phone of the view he has from his planned primitive cabin site and of Art with some tree trunk logs behind him.



Afterward, Cindy and I drove to Sylva, Dillsboro and Bryson City to walk the downtown streets of each town and see what they had to offer for both tourists and locals. Suffice it to say that I still prefer nearby Waynesville.

Friday evening, Cindy's parents joined us for dinner at Bogart's in Waynesville. This was my first time dining at this restaurant (Cindy and her parents have been there previously) and it may well end up being one of my favorite places to eat when we move up here. This was another place that was packed; we waited about 45 minutes to get a table, but it was worth it in food quality, portions, prices and service.

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Blast From The Past

I was kicking around my friend "LilDabster’s Blog" the other day and came across a page she had created to memorialize the surprise my staff had prepared to welcome me back to work upon my return from Scotland in May of 2006.

Yeah, I know it says "Bruce's Return" but it IS about yours truly, who had gained the nickname "Bruce" thanks to a total mix-up of my name by a "customer" of ours the year before.

I remember I got a real kick and a good laugh out of their surprise when I walked back into the office for the first time in two weeks that morning. It took me a few days to eventually get the foil off of everything they had wrapped, and then they took the foil and compressed it into a solid ball of aluminum about twice the size of a standard softball and all of them signed it. I still have it in my office at home. Thanks to Natasha, Rebecca, Heather and Denise for the fun and the thought. It will always be a good memory for me.

And thanks to LilDabster for the Blast From The Past. Catch her writings about being in Houston helping to recover from Ike.

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Disasters, The Economy, Politics & The World

Just a few stray thoughts to sort of "clean out" the dustbin of my mind. Thanks for indulging me.

My friend Denise is down in Texas helping in the aftermath of Ike. Working 12 hours a day and driving an additional hour each way to get to your work site is difficult enough; being sick on top of that makes things even harder. Hope she feels better soon

Up here in Iowa one of my co-workers had to go home when she came down with strep throat. Another one is currently on the job with bronchitis and a sinus infection. I'm told that in another office in Iowa there is a "creeping crud" going through the entire office, which is not a rare occurrence. I've had it happen in offices I've been in before. One person gets sick and then it just passes around to everyone until it comes back to the person who originally had it and had recovered but gets sick again and it starts its circuit all over again.

Another co-worker whose home on Galveston was destroyed while she was here in Iowa left to go home this past Wednesday and see just how much there might be that can be recovered. Judging from the photos we've all seen, I have to sadly think that there won't be much.

Between natural disasters and the economy, 2008 has not been a good year for America.

Like most people, I think, this whole bailout issue leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Still, I'm not sure we're left with much choice if we don't want an even worse domino effect to take place. I woke up Thursday morning to find that my main bank had collapsed and been purchased overnight. My deposits are safe, but I still had to fight the urge to go move what I had there into another bank I use. There are plenty of people who did not fight that urge and watching them on TV was reminiscent of watching old footage of bank runs in the 1930's. These types of actions lead to even worse scenarios and create a panic effect, and panic is the last thing we need right now.

Speaking of panic...

I watched the Presidential debate last night. Nothing that was said made a difference in how I plan to vote. There were no spectacular gaffes or knockouts, other than McCain's mispronunciation of the Pakistan president's name and what has become his SOP of misrepresenting statements by Obama, but we're all used to that by now. He also completely ignored the moderator's repeated entreaties for each candidate to address the other and not the camera; it was as if he almost absolutely refused to acknowledge that Obama was there. Obama's tendency to give thought to his answers (NOT a bad thing) showed up less, meaning he was prepared for most questions and issues that came up (and cognizant of the time restraints on answering), but he still seemed tentative at times. I would have liked to have seen him be more forceful in his rebuttals to McCain's misrepresentations, but I've read that he is desperately trying to avoid looking like "an angry black man" to skittish white voters. Funny how McCain can be a grumpy old white man, but Obama can't appear to be an angry black man. I hope by the time my grandson is an adult we will be past these silly racial issues. I tend to think that backers of each candidate will feel their man did the best, but obviously the real question will be how undecided voters viewed the whole thing and if they are swayed yet toward any particular candidate/philosophy.

This is, in the scope of the whole thing, a very small matter but one of the many things that irritated me throughout the debate was McCain's pronunciation of "Taliban." He kept saying "Towel ee ban", which made me think of the Day-o song chorus:

Come mister tally man, tally me banana,
Daylight come and me wanna go home,
Come mister tally man, tally me banana,
Daylight come and me wanna go home.

Then, in what my friend Michelle twittered to me as the "McCain hooked-on-phonics osmosis" effect, Obama used the same incorrect pronunciation, but thankfully only one time.

For the record, here's the link to Dictionary.com with the pronunciation guide for Taliban and, for those who don't know what that is or how to read it, they even have an audio example.

The shine has quickly worn off of McCain's VP choice, Sarah Palin. When I heard McCain wanted to postpone last night's debate and reschedule it in place of next week's Vice-Presidential candidate debate, I could not help but think the ENTIRE reason he was postponing last night's was so that Palin would not have to participate in next week's debate against Biden. Her interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric were train wrecks. She doesn't take questions from reporters when she makes an appearance (sometimes the campaign even tries to ban reporters as it did when she was at the UN), won't release her financial statement until AFTER the election and she declined to join Biden in responding to questions from reporters and offering an appraisal of last night's debate when it was over. Instead, Rudy Giuliani stepped in to substitute. She has been kept on such a tight leash by the McCain campaign that, whether she is or not, it makes it seem that she is totally out of her league on this national political stage.

Even conservatives that hailed her as an inspired choice are rethinking this move by McCain and supposedly so are those within the inner circle who are frantic that she cannot present an informed picture to voters. Now I can't help but wonder if the maverick will regretfully accept his running mate's resignation from the platform in the next few days and choose a new one, rendering next week's scheduled VP debate a moot point. Unlikely, I know, but so was asking to delay last night's debate.

News came this morning that Paul Newman had passed away at the age of 83 after his battle with cancer. I don't know what he was like personally, but he was a good actor and a great philanthropist. And he made a damn good salad dressing.

Yesterday, three Chinese Taikonauts lifted off into space and today one of them performed a 20-minute spacewalk. This might be an event to raise our admiration of the Chinese...if it wasn't for the high probability that they accomplished it by stealing US technology. Added to the fact that the Chinese government already had a news article prepared, including conversational quotes by the Taikonauts during the liftoff, BEFORE the rocket even lifted off and you can see how this whole thing is as scripted as a Hollywood movie.

Hey, thanks for letting me get those thoughts out of my head and into digital print and thanks for reading. My head is much clearer now.

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FriendFeed Frenzy

Hand in hand with my Twitter use is my FriendFeed. FriendFeed is a social networking tool that allows you to aggregate all the online activities of, who else, your friends!

I find it especially useful for keeping up with those who I don't follow on Twitter. For instance, John Frost of The Disney Blog (I had hoped to meet him at last year's BlogOrlando event, but was out of state at the time) is a frequent blog and Twitter poster. If I followed him on my BlackBerry, my phone would never stop making that "Star Trek transporter" sound I use to alert me to incoming twits, so I find it helpful to have him on my FriendFeed and follow his postings through that medium.

At the end of the day I receive a FriendFeed activity report on what my friends who are online have been up to that day. This includes blog posts, Twitter posts, Flickr uploads, additions to their Amazon WishList, items shared on Google Reader, Facebook activity...just about anything done online. Plus, sometimes friends of YOUR friends will have their activities show up, in case you see something of interest from them and decide to add them directly to your feed. That urge hasn't struck me yet and probably won't.

FriendFeed is a great way to see what all of your online friends and acquaintances have been up to, and keeps you informed about their online lives.

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I'm Blushing, Part II

I was checking my friend Denise's website today, catching up on all her posts and photos since arriving in West "By God" Virginia, and was greeted with a Birthday Wish to me...and a promise of an arriving gift. Go check it out for a good laugh.

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"It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's...Zengrrl!"

A week ago today my brother and I met to visit our mom. Mark and I hadn't seen each other in about 18 months, I think, when he was in Orlando for a job interview and I picked him up at the airport. The drive between OIA and downtown Orlando was all the time we had together for that visit, so it was nice to get to spend a few hours together last Tuesday, visiting our mom and catching up on each other's lives.

While we were driving to the store to buy a new mouse for our mom's computer, my Blackberry buzzed on my hip, indicating I had received an SMS message from someone. When I pulled up the message it was a photo of the Superman statue in Metropolis, Illinois and text that read, "It's a bird...It's a plane...It's a 30ft tall concrete Superman! @ Metropolis, IL - detour just for you, Jeff." from my friend Zengrrl who was driving down to Orlando from Wisconsin and made the side trip to take photos of the self-proclaimed "Hometown of Superman" because she knows what a fan I am of The Last Son of Krypton.


One day I've GOT to visit Metropolis, preferably during one of their Annual Superman Celebrations.

Thanks for being so SUPER Zengrrl!

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