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An All Around Good Day

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I don’t know what it was about today but it was a generally good day where most things went right. I don’t know if that means tomorrow will be horrible or if it is to make up for the late night call from work yesterday and the briefly being sick on Sunday. Either way today was all about things coming up Scott.

I went to Starbucks and they forgot my drink so i had to wait an extra 5 min. WIthout asking they gave me a card for a free drink, score! Hey it is an extra $4.

Went to the doctor and I am in generally good shape. He also said I could try skiing and roller blading again after being restricted from it for a while for a problem I had last year. That was an unexpected turn of events so another plus.

Last Minute Plans With Friends

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I went into the city this afternoon to do some shopping. I hit Macy’s and finally broke down and bought a new dress shirt. I had needed to get a few for a while, or wanted to so I finally went. if i like the way this new shirt fits I will get a few more. I looked for a bunch of other things but didn’t find anything I liked so I called it a day.

I was wet from rain and doing grocery shopping for dinner when I got an unexpected call from Jayson. Apparently him and the wife (and Seth) were in for Gretchen’s birthday and wanted to goto dinner. I put what I was shopping for back and decided to goto dinner with them since even though I saw them twice in Dec, I don’t normally get to see them that much.

We went to dinner at Carmines. Jay loves that place. The food was good. 4 of us split a 40oz steak, among other items. It was good seeing them. Seth was a super well behaved baby too.

New Years

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For new years I made plans to goto Jayson & Gretchen’s for the night. Originally we had thought about going to a restaurant near them and get a group of people together. The group didn’t materialize so I went anyway. We had a lower key night. We bought steaks and cooked and stayed in. Dave also came over, but I don’t know what is wrong with him. He is always such a buzkill and needs to control his emotions. Other than Dave being a bit crazy we had a good time. I stayed over and we went for breakfast and then I headed back to the city in the afternoon.

Other items of note on this trip was I ended up breaking down and buying a pair of boots. I had needed after all the snow, but opted for the less water proof ones and went with the more comfortable ones. I got a pair of Doc Martin boots that feel really comfy. My mom said I can do something to them to water proof them a bit. They are still a step up from the shoes I wear when it snows!

Groundhog Day

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My return trip home was not as uneventful as the other legs of my trip this week. Actually so far it has been a disaster. I got to the airport over two hours in advance like the resort and the airline suggested. I got through customs and security pretty quick, even if security had me take my belt off and swapped my entire bag. The lines werent horrible. Then I sat. There was no free wifi like the Jetblue site suggested there was and I couldn’t get the pay WIFI point to take any of my credit cards.

This is where the fun began. My flight got delayed. At first just an hour. Then that hour past and a flight that was supposed to leave at 2:10 got moved to 6PM. They claimed that they needed a part from NY that they had to fly in. This would have been ok if there was a place to eat (I don’t count a skeevy cafeteria that only looked like it had fried chicken and rice) and the fact that they are doing construction in the small terminal. That mean drilling and other loud banging sounds all day. Top off the no WIFI, power outlets, and the terminal was packed. it was not pleasant. Then we hear the flight was canceled. There would be no flight until tomorrow morning.

Thankfully they put us up at a decent hotel. Unfortunately getting to the hotel was not fun. First we had to wait on line to get travel vouchers. Then we had to wait for luggage while the bus drivers waited to take us to the hotel. For about an hour no one knew what was going on. Then the luggage shows up and we have to claim it, then put it on a van for the hotel. Thankfully I got a seat on one of the first bus’s. Then it was waiting at the hotel for a room. Thankfully again I walk fast and actually got to the head of the line for rooms. I have been in this situation before and kinda knew what to do. After a wait for my luggage to show up I headed to dinner.

There was a decent steakhouse in the hotel so I went there and had a nice filet. Half of it was paid for by Jetblue. On the plus side at the restaurant there was an acapella group from stanford that held a small performance for the guests. It was pretty good and something nice to break up the crazy day.

My luck didn’t hold out and I walked out of dinner without my Kindle. I didn’t realize it until I was back at my room. I ran back to the restaurant and thankfully the waiter found it and held onto it. That would have been really bad if that was lost too.

I took a quick shower and am getting ready for bed now since I need to be up at 4:30AM to catch my flight. Apparently Jetblue is flying out a plane for us and we can leave tomorrow morning. I am not happy about the events of today, but in context it could have been (and still may become) much worse. Right now I am worried that we may be delayed again and have problems getting into NYC since a storm is supposed to be on its way. We shall see what happens. Right now I am thankful I have an extra change of clothes for tomorrow.

No one likes being stranded. Jetblue did the right thing by putting us all up for the night, but overall the entire process was horrible. There was very little to no communication about what was going on. It looked like Jetblue staff wasn’t communicating to each other because no one had the entire picture of what was going on. In the end things worked out but during the entire situation it was frustrating not know what was going on.

Off To The Bahamas

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Today I was off to the Bahamas. I thought long and hard about this trip but in the end I decided to head out on vacation by myself for a few days. I didn’t really want to but timing, funding, and other issues prevented anyone I wanted to travel with from being able to actually going. SInce I hadn’t had a real going away to a resort vacation in years (around 4) I figured what the heck. So here I am sitting at Atlantis in the Bahamas.

The flight down was ok. There was a slight delay due to a flat tire. That made us lose an hour. The seat was nice. I am glad I paid a bit extra for the extra leg room. I would do that again if given the chance. I don’t like the charge, but the space is nice.

I just got back from a deep tissue massage and dinner. Man the massage hurt. I seriously needed it but I have never done a deep tissue one before. You really get beaten up.

For dinner I hit the steakhouse. The food was really good, but really over priced. I was a bit saddened that they only had 12 year old scotch. For a fancy place you should carry better stuff. I stuck with Jack and Coke instead. Can’t go wrong with Jack.

Tomorrow I look forward to doing pretty much nothing. The joys of vacation. In fact I am doing so little that these posts will most likely get post dated since they wont make it online until after I get back!

Lull Day

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Today is my day of rest between my first scheduled vacation and my second. With the delays yesterday I am glad I baked in a day to relax. I thought I would have to do my laundry today but it turned out I had exactly enough clothes to go on my second trip. I will have to do laundry when I get back. I didn’t do much today.

I was going to head into the city for a bit but the weather wasn’t too hot and I was tired, so I just cleaned up around my apartment and relaxed. I also had to re-pack for my next trip. Otherwise not an eventful day.

On The Third Dav of Vacation…

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Saturday it rained. It wasn’t a typical southern rain. It didn’t rain for a few minutes and be over. It rained all day. We were pondering making the drive to New Orleans but the rain totally ended those plans. Instead we went to the shooting range. I had only gone shooting once before at Gretchen’s dad’s place but this was my first time at a real range.

Joe and Chris brought an assortment of weapons. Some would say a small arsenal. Others would say they were not waiting in the car while they went and got a few things from a store (that someone was me). We were only kidding but Joe loads up.

I got to fire a 45 and a 9mm. I even got to use a laser sight. For someone with as poor vision as I do, I (and everyone else) was amazed that I wasn’t a half bad shot. I naturally aim a bit high but with practice that I wont get I could compensate for that. I wasn’t as impressed with the laser sight as I thought I would be.

After the range we headed back to Joe’s place to relax for a bit, and then we went out to a really nice dinner. Joe and Karen (mainly Joe) does know how to find nice places, and I am amazed that the staff knew him! The meal was great. Afterward Chris headed off to a bar, but I was tired so I headed back to the house with Joe and Karen.

What was funny was Karen was prodding Joe to find stuff for us to do so I wouldn’t be bored. The fact is what we did do was inline with exactly what I was looking for. Minor activities, but nothing too crazy. I even got to goto Waffle House for Breakfast this morning! Vacation was almost perfect! Points were lost for the weather.

Day 2

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Friday was low key. Joe, Karen, & Chris had to work. I slept in and thankfully slept off the drinking from Thursday. I didn’t drink a lot but for me after one or two I start to feel it the next day. Getting old stinks sometimes!

I went to Joe’s office. Hung out for a bit, they ordered lunch for us and some of his guys that were in the office. I then took a quick run on two jobs with him to just tag along. We got to drive around the wet and dreary Baton Rouge for a bit.

For dinner Joe grilled up some steaks from some place they order from a lot. They place seasoned everything in some special seasoning and sauce. It was really good, even if Joe did over grill the steaks.

After ward we played some xBox. I hadn’t played anyone on xBox in a while. I forgot how fun it is. I didn’t forget how bad I was at it though.

The New Monitor

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Friday my new HP 30″ monitor arrived. It is pretty huge! I am glad I thought it through and ordered the quick release mounting bracket or else I don’t know how I would have screwed in that monitor on the LCD arm. Removing the base and putting on the mounting brackets were relatively simple. Getting the monitor onto the arm took 2 try’s since I had trouble visualizing how it connected. In the end I needed more time working on the cable management than I did on mounting the LCD.

So far the Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI adapter from Apple is working ok. I can see some slight “shaking” of windows near the edges, but only of certain colors. I barely notice it so I am not worried about that. What I don’t like is every so often when I wake the display from sleep it displays garbage squiggly lines on the display and I have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in. When I do that everything resets back to normal. Thankfully it has only happened a two or three times in two days. I may just have the monitor stay awake all the time but goto screen saver. I know that isn’t the best thing to do but I will give it some time to figure out what my plans are. I am just thankful that so far (knock on wood) the entire setup is working. I want to take photos of the entire setup after I clean up all the clutter, but that is for another day!