Travel

Have a Great Weekend!

rmiles7721February 14, 2008Travel

I’m off to bed. We are getting up early tomorrow and I may post a bit but probably not. We are spending the weekend in Nassau and I don’t know that I will have a chance to get online although I am sure to have some good pictures to post when we get back Sunday evening.

I do have the usual weekend stuff lined up though. Some open trackback posts (if you get thrown in the spam folder I’ll fix it Monday), Saturday photohunt, Green Thumb Sunday, that sort of stuff and if my brother is cool he might even stop by to say hello, although I haven’t had the chance to ask him so I don’t know what he’s doing this weekend.

Getting Packed and Ready

rmiles7721February 14, 2008Travel

I ended up not going down to Grady to see my friend. They won’t let anyone in as she spent the morning in surgery and is in ICU waiting for another surgery. Her husband said she is doing terrible. That sucks. I ended up calling my bosses’ boss to see what we are going to be able to help them out with and am just going to have to wait for an answer on that one. I looked at my local paper’s web site and haven’t seen anything there

I napped for awhile and then went and picked up a new pair of jeans and a shirt for the trip. Unfortunately none of my jeans fit me comfortably anymore. I think that perhaps the Marine snatched the wrong pair before he went to California and I need at least one pair of jeans for the trip and a sleeved shirt for dinner one of the nights. Nothing fancy certainly but it can’t be jeans and a t-shirt. I am just about ready to go, just need to gather a few more things.

I didn’t realize that you can’t do the online check-in for international flights, so we are going to have to push it and be driving away from the school by 6:30 tomorrow morning so that we have a couple of hours before the flight. It will take at least an hour to get there at that time of the morning and our flight leaves at 9:40. Kind of pushing it but the airport shouldn’t be too busy at 7:30 in the morning.

90 Hours

rmiles7721February 11, 2008Parenting/Family, Travel

It was a pretty uneventful day. I spent the great majority of the morning running around and didn’t make it back to the house until early this afternoon. I actually had written a couple of posts on my phone but for some reason Pocket SharptMT keeps losing my darn settings and won’t post. Guess I need to look into that before the weekend. I won’t do a ton of blogging but I am bound to post at least something from the phone. While I won’t have any cell phone service on the island there is bound to be someplace with wireless I can upload a couple of offline entries.

That’s what I am referring to in the title. 90 Hours from now the wife and I will be on New Providence Island in the Bahamas hanging out on Cable Beach. I don’t see us doing much of anything on Friday after we get there around noon other than hanging out at the resort, although I do want to check out the Crystal Palace Casino on Friday night. Saturday we’ll go into Nassau and do some sightseeing and shopping as well as head over to Paradise Island and check out Atlantis.

We were going to rent a car but the wife has pretty much talked me out of it. I am still pretty hesitant about not renting but since I don’t know anything about available parking downtown I suppose we’ll be fine. If we get stuck somewhere there’s always the taxi. There is some type of pretty cheap bus service (privately, individually owned) that costs a buck according to Fodor’s we will most likely use.

I think we are pretty much decided on taking only carry on bags, maybe with a cloth bag stuffed in there in case we buy a bunch of junk and need to have it checked on the return trip. The less time I have to spend in the airport the better I will feel about the whole trip. Jeans and T-Shirts are going to be the order of the weekend, with shorts during the day. I guess I need to take my camera vest too but that will be about it. If it were later in the year I could probably pack even lighter but I have to dress for Atlanta weather and since we have to leave the house at 6 a.m. Friday it’s sure to be pretty cool.

Anyway, I started the post writing about my day. I spent the greater part of the morning at Douglas County Dodge. My airbag light has been coming on constantly since the day after I bought the thing, so I set up an appointment at CarMax to get it looked at. It’s still under manufacturer’s warranty so I was only there long enough to get directions to the Dodge dealership. Why they didn’t fucking send me there in the first place I’ll never know. Ends up they couldn’t do anything today. They have ordered a part and are going to call me when it comes in. Something about a spring. All I could picture in my head was this big old bed spring pushing out this little airbag into my damn face when I hit the breaks…

I also had to stop by one of my stores and leave my expense report for my boss to approve. He and all of the great muckety mucks and the rest of the dog and pony show are going to be in Colorado for the next two days for their annual meeting and I start my vacation the day they come back. I thought that was good planning on my part even if I wasn’t aware of it. That means I won’t get hassled too much when I have a cook in my restaurant on Wednesday morning. I may run one tomorrow as well if I can get in touch with the girl. I have a ton of stuff I need to get finished between now and then.

I went ahead and had a tasty cheese steak and hash browns for lunch while I was there dropping off my paperwork. Sitting in the damned waiting room was famishing. I did type a couple of posts but as I said above the stupid program lost them.

I also had to stop at the vets and make an appointment for Riley on Thursday morning. His ears seem to be bothering him lately. Most likely he’s got another infection and needs some antibiotics. I don’t particularly want to leave town with him sick.

That’s about it for today. I have to Blogs for Borders thing to post after this but I think I am going to hit the sack early. I didn’t sleep for shit last night and am nodding off sitting here at my desk. Me drooling on my desk is not a sight anyone needs to see.

Worn Out…

rmiles7721February 9, 2008Travel

Today was a pretty long day. The girl that was supposed to cook with me got sick and called me yesterday afternoon so I ended up having to use probably the weakest cook in my entire district as my backup cook today. I couldn’t leave my two managers that worked with a weak staff so I left the good cooks at their stores. Not to say I wasn’t sorely tempted to call one of them and make them send me someone but that just wouldn’t be right. Heck if I were them I would have just told me to fuck off anyway.

He didn’t do as bad as I thought he was going to but I also ended up running most of the grill and did most of the cleanup as well, so by the time I had been there eight hours and the next shift started I was able to BEGIN my paperwork and pulling food and operating supplies to get through the next day or so.

I don’t know what the hell has been going around but this stuff needs to stop. The local middle school had 200+ students out one day this past week. About halfway through last week the attendance office at the girl’s school called me. Most of the time when your kid is out they are pressing you to get the kids back in and not miss any school but all the woman would say to me is to make sure NOT to bring them back until they were over it.

I’ve now had about 40% of my staff get sick with either the flu or a stomach virus at one point or another over the last two weeks. The big problem is that when you are most contagious you most likely don’t know you are sick. Too fucking late then. Not only that but most of these folks make between minimum wage to a couple bucks over, at least the cooks do. If they are any good the waitresses make $12-15 an hour. What that means for most of them is that if they miss a day they miss a bill or the kids don’t get snack or they have no gas for the car. Therefore most of them come to work, sick or not and it’s our responsibility to catch it and send them home, particularly since the health code changes last December.

Speaking of the health code, back last fall my company was all about  "NOBODY works sick, including managers". What a crock of fucking shit. Being out of work is frowned upon and if you are sick you are expected to handle taking care of business from bed (which is as it should be) and you HAVE to make up the loss in productive hours that week. So if I were to be out sick tomorrow I would be expected to work my day off on Monday or work a double on my first day back. Spend the day in bed worn out and you expect to go back and try to take it easy. Not in my fucking world.

The main reason I mention that is that I’ve had the damned sniffles all day, a runny nose, and the shits. I’ll tell you one thing, I had damn well better be over this shit before next weekend! I don’t particularly want to spend the weekend in the Caribbean fucking blowing my nose and generally acting like a dumbass.

Just a Sickly Bunch

rmiles7721February 7, 2008Parenting/Family, Travel

I woke up this morning seriously hurting. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was my chest or if I had pulled something. It was actually closer to my back but every time I coughed (or moved for that matter) I had a seriously sharp pain. Ends up I have pulled a muscle or something. I don’t know if it’s something I did at work or if I just slept wrong but it’s been a pretty rough day at work. I picked up some Alieve, which helped to dull the pain somewhat, but it’s still pretty sore.

This has just been one of those months I suppose. I was somewhat sick a couple of weeks ago, the wife had a cold for a while, both girls have had the flu and Pete’s turned into pneumonia, and even the Marine had a cold or the flu his first week at Twentynine Palms. Good thing we have insurance. A couple of folks I work with have individual health insurance but it looks to be as expensive as the group health policy we are covered under through the state (the wife is a teacher).

I have about five more days of work until my vacation. It would be six but I’m taking Monday off if I can get away with it. I will have worked six days and I’m only taking three or four days off in the month of February not including my vacation so hopefully nobody will mess with me for being off. Starting to count the days until I fly to Nassau.

Breezes Bahamas

rmiles7721January 24, 20082Travel

So I’ve booked the hotel for next month. I got one of those all-inclusive packages because, well, alcohol can get mighty expensive and it’s included as well. Not that I am a lush or anything, that’s only when I am on vacation.

Oh, wait, that is my vacation. I have permission to be a lush then.

The Breezes is on Cable Beach on the main island rather than Paradise Island but it is also several hundred bucks cheaper than Atlantis or Paradise Island Resorts. Except for the whiners most of the reviews I read have been pretty decent and there are even a couple of video reviews on youtube. It looks more like a resort where old people and middle class people that can’t afford Atlantis stay, so I should fit in quite nicely.

Bon Voyage et al.

Darn, That Was Fast

rmiles7721January 18, 2008Travel

I arrived home this afternoon to find that my passport had arrived. That was quick. The check hasn’t even cleared the bank yet!

I just applied for it like a week ago I believe. Maybe I am a dumbass and it’s been two weeks but even so that was extremely fast. I paid for expedited service and the woman that processed it told me it would take three weeks. Hopefully the wife will get her’s soon as well. She actually applied the day prior to me.

29 days ’til the Bahamas…

Getting all my ducks in a row…

rmiles7721January 8, 2008Blogging, Parenting/Family, Travel

I have spent the great majority of the morning going between reading news sites and fooling with paperwork. Since the wife and I are going to the Bahamas next month and I don’t have a passport, while her’s expire ten years ago, there is quite a bit of stuff to do.

It takes two or three weeks to get one if you are willing to pay out the nose, which we are having to do. The first thing we had to do is get online and order our birth certificates. We got hers this weekend but I didn’t get mine until today because a signature is required and of course I am at work during the day. Fortunately I am off today and tomorrow. My first two days off in a row since December 8th. I feel it too.

I was supposed to go to the doctor today at 9:30 or so but they have moved the office and I misunderstood where the location was. Needless to say I missed my appointment. They were nice enough to reschedule it for tomorrow morning for me. That’s cool because I have some writing to do today anyway. Tomorrow I am keeping RePete home with me as she also has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon.

I have to go pick up another copy of my auto insurance policy as well. We have decided that the time has come to get new automobiles and as much as I am a fan of driving a car until the wheels fall off and hate car payments, it’s not worth the inconvenience when one of them breaks down and that will be at some point in the near future. We both take good care of our cars and have over 200k on both of them, but with my job I can’t be car-less. Since I donated the van a few months ago to the Alzheimer’s Association I don’t have an extra vehicle in case something happens with one of these.

I prefer to go through 99% of the car buying process online. Financing all the way up to finding the car. All I should have to do at the dealer is take a test drive and if I like it, drive it the hell out of there. The last car I bought was in 2000 and we ended up spending about 30 minutes in the dealership. The only reason it took that long is that I had not arranged to have it added to my insurance ahead of time. I won’t make that mistake this time. I have to stop and fax my license, insurance and references to the financing company in the morning and then I can start looking at cars. I was hoping to have everything taken care of by yesterday morning so that I could pick the car up today but no such luck. That’s OK, it will give me time for a bit of research. The wife can go get her car this weekend and I will go on my days off next week after researching a few. I still haven’t decided what I want anyway.

Traffic has been pretty heavy (for me) at the site over the last 72 hours, mainly because of the Meredith Emerson posts I put up. Somehow I have landed fairly high at Google and Yahoo! (number 2 and 4, respectively) and I have had something like 16,000 visits on those two posts alone. Several comments as well, which is nice because it means that someone is actually reading it and not just breezing through. If I could just bottle that and figure out how Google picks the top stories I would retire my happy ass tomorrow.

 

The Alhambra

rmiles7721January 2, 20081Travel

I think that eventually I would love to go to Spain. Heck, I would love to just take a few months off and see all of Europe for that matter. I have always loved architecture, particularly old stuff and I am into history as well. I originally was a History Major in college and the two loves combine well. Europe is the perfect place to delve into those hobbies as well as combine them with my other hobby, photography. I would love to go visit some of the Spain attractions such as the Alhambra in Granada.

alhambra

Photo Courtesy http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com

The Alhambra is a vast Moorish fortified palace. It’s so big that it takes up a pretty big portion of the city center itself. At one point it was the residence of the Muslim kings of Granada and later a renaissance palace was inserted by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

I would also like to check out other areas such as Madrid attractions as well as get to Paris. A good friend of mine got to go to Paris somewhat recently and I am very jealous. Of course that would mean flying, which I hate. I need to take it baby steps at a time. The flight to Nassau next month is about two and a half hours and that’s about all I want to fly any time soon.

In 45 Days I Will Be Here…

rmiles7721December 30, 20075Travel

nassau

I had almost forgotten to post about it but that last review I did on Costa Rica real estate reminded me.

I booked our flights to Nassau, the Bahamas this morning prior to going to work. I start my vacation on February 14th and I was actually looking for flight information to Key West but after looking around several sites as well as Clark Howard’s (one of my heroes) I discovered that I could fly to Nassau cheaper than I could to Key West. WTF is up with that?

I don’t have a passport or anything and the wife’s is  long expired so I sent off for our birth certificates (actually she did) this morning and I should have them back by the end of the week. Tomorrow morning I will get my passport photos done and then send off for them prior to the end of the week. It’s kind of expensive but you can get expedited passport delivery in something like three weeks. That should give me a couple of weeks to spare.

This is Atlantis, one of the resorts down there…

atlantis

I don’t know that we will stay there but it’s one of the places I have been looking at.

My natural instincts are to get something cheap and deal with that but there are a couple of the all-inclusive resort deals that look interesting. All food, alcohol, activities and gratuities for one price. Not too bad. I am looking forward to the trip as I have never been outside of the United States. Might as well make the first trip to the Caribbean. First I have to deal with the down side though…

What’s the down side you ask?

Getting there.

I would just as soon drive to Miami and then take a cruise to Nassau but since we are going in the middle of February the wife is going to have to take an extra day off of work as it is. We are somewhat limited on time.

Damn.

As I said at the top, I booked our flights this morning.

I hate flying.

The last time I flew was in February 2006 when I went down to the Gulf Coast to work for a week in one of our restaurants.

I hate flying.

I may ask my doctor for a couple of valium just so that I can make the flight. Maybe not Valium, but something else to tranquilize my paranoid ass so that I can make the two and a half hour fucking flight over the middle of nothing but sharks.

Did you know that hitting the water from 30,000 feet is just like hitting cement?

It may be safer to fly than to drive but at least when I am driving I am in control and can pull the fuck over.

It’s not even a matter of facing your fears. I have faced my fear of flying before and every time I do it again it’s worse.

Anybody have any tips?

I don’t want to get so drunk that I’m chasing dwarves around the airport or anything, they might throw my ass out before I ever get on the plane.

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