bobmacliberty

We drove halfway home today from Cincinnati to Florida, stopping in Spartanburg, SC. I-95 didn’t look very good on Google Maps today so we plan to leave here tomorrow around 6am to see if we can beat the heavy traffic. Today reminded me of both the best and worst of winter. I love the sunny, bright days with pristine white snow after a storm. Although very cold, it was like that in Cincinnati a couple of days ago. Today though was the gray, overcast, misty kind of day with dirty, slushy snow. Yuck.

Fun day today. My daughter and her fiancé, who have the cat named Goose, decided that they wanted another cat. We all went to the Kitty Brew Cafe. It’s a local place that is half a typical cafe that sells Starbucks like drinks and food (but with a cat theme and some proceeds going to cat organizations) and half a big open area where you can interact with a bunch of kittens for adoption. It’s essentially a retail store front for cat rescue agencies. They got Goose from this place and are already “registered” with them. They found a great kitty that they named Roo. If you ask my daughter, Roo is short for Kangaroo and they name their cats after other types of animals. If you ask her fiancé, Roo is short for Rooster, and the cats have father and son TopGun call signs. I don’t have any great pictures of Roo yet but Goose is carefully checking him out while Roo checks out his new surroundings.

Check out the Scenic Travel channel on YouTube. They create awesome aerial view videos of beautiful places. Most are in 4K and are 3+ hours long. They are great for background videos while doing something else.

Kirkland also makes good golf balls, believe it or not. They perform almost as well as expensive balls, but are a lot cheaper. They’re a great value for people who lose a lot of balls.

I’ve said it here before a few times, I-95 in SC is the absolute worst. Two lanes aren’t enough when there’s traffic, which is often the case. Holidays can be horrendous. Seeing those extra lanes in Georgia is such a huge relief. Glad that you finally made it.

This is Florida:

Turned on the news just now and there was a reporter standing next to a highway that had been shut down. Within seconds, she told people to stay off the road, and mentioned the station app. When she tossed it back to the studio, the anchor told her to stay warm and then said they’d have full team coverage. Bingo! Took less than 30 seconds. What do I win? -8F, feels like -32F here. I lived here almost 30 years and don’t remember it being this cold. I think I’m Florida soft already.

I guess now I can officially welcome you to the neighborhood!!! Glad to hear that the cats made the trip successfully. While it looks like you’re experiencing weather in the 50s/60s, we’re expecting a high of 4F here in Cincinnati on Friday. Brrrrrrrr.

What a great final. I wasn't rooting for either team and could just enjoy the match. I hate to see it settled by penalty kicks, but that tells you how evenly matched the teams were.

Our preferred plan would have been to have the kids come to Florida. They don't have enough time off this year to make that work. Time to dig out whatever warm clothing we still have. My brother still lives in Buffalo and has had season tickets for more than 30 years. He said last night was one of the best/most fun games that he's been to. Low temps won't be a big deal. Both teams are used to that. I think Allen has an advantage in higher winds. His arm is strong enough that he can throw through all but very windy conditions. I agree though...will be a lot of running from both QBs. Allen's huge body is much better suited to taking hits in the cold than Fields.

We're leaving tomorrow to spend Christmas with our daughters in Cincinnati. They both have smaller two bedroom condos so we booked an AirBnB house for a week. Will be a little strange being right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, but it will give us a lot more space for everyone to get together. One of the family activities that we'll try is a game from Hunt A Killer called Death at the Dive Bar. They give you a story and a bunch of clues and you're supposed to work as a team to figure out who dunnit. Sort of a cross between a mystery and an escape room in a box. Anyone played a game from Hunt A Killer before? Looks very interesting. This also has me thinking about getting everyone together at some point for a virtual escape room. Some escape room companies created a virtual version during Covid where they have a employee/guide in the physical room with a camera and you give them directions about where to look and what to do. All participants, plus the guide, are together on a Zoom call.

Great game last night, although I much prefer when they don't need last minute heroics to win. Took me at least an hour to calm down after the game before I could go to sleep. Good to see that the offense has some spark again. Looks like Josh's elbow is feeling better. Assuming they get by the Bears, the Bengals game will be huge, although all 3 remaining games are huge if they're to hold onto the #1 seed.

Congratulations! Quite a score...and a VERY nice Christmas gift to yourself. It's good to have friends like that. If I remember correctly, you had (still have?) a bottle of Old Rip 10 year. I'd be interested in your thoughts on how the two compare. Looks like it's lower proof than the Rip.

Interesting that this happened to you. Before replying to that post, I went to the Mpix website to confirm that it was the site that I used. I tried to log in but couldn't remember my password and gave up. I then started receiving emails from Mpix. I assumed it was from trying to log in with my email address. I wonder if it was from posting here???

Went to Jersey Mike's a few minutes ago to get subs for lunch. This was hanging on the wall. I thought it was an interesting way to display a picture printed on canvas. We might "steal" the folding beach chair frame idea. Posting in case anyone else might want to use the idea.

Sam the Cooking Guy:

Glad that the move went well for you! That's definitely a stressful time. Hopefully your cats had an easy trip also. Now the fun part of unpacking and arranging everything. I don't know about Easy Canvas Prints, but we ordered some 8X10s a few years ago from mpix.com. They turned out great. They were printed on standard photo paper but Mpix also does canvas, metal, framed, etc. I chose Mpix because a lot of professional photographers supposedly use them and they get great reviews. I agree with Mark though. Be sure that any pictures that you want to print are high resolution and are very much in focus (i.e. "sharp"). Any slight blurriness that you can barely see on your phone's screen will be magnified when blown up to a larger size.

Graham - You just reminded me of this web site that got sent to me: Facts About Geography That Will Change How You See The World (buzzfeed.com) Mostly US focused but some interesting facts involving other countries as well.

Drives me crazy. I get the important safety aspect, and I understand that weather is what these people do for a living (and are obviously VERY excited about it), but don't they realize that they are interrupting my TV show???? 😁 Our Hawaii cruise departed from Vancouver. I just checked old email and we had an arrival time of 11:00. No idea what time I checked in to get that arrival time. We were in a GS and allowed to arrive an hour early, so I probably was not too worried about getting the first time possible. I looked back over my review and we left our Pan Pacific Hotel room (port is in/below the hotel) at 10:30. I'm fairly certain that no one bothered to verify what arrival time we actually had as there were already a lot of people there. I think that's the case in many ports now...just show up and they won't turn you away.

That means that she will need more frequent medical attention. Does she need a personal physician? Might be good travel opportunities. Not sure if being on call would be better or worse. She doesn't seem like the needy, hypochondriac type.

It's tough leaving your old life, but I think you will really enjoy life here. This weekend was the Dickens on Centre festival. Lots of fun. We missed the Parade of Paws this year (someone else's video from last year), but it's a dog parade during the Dickens festival that benefits the local Humane Society. This place is incredibly dog friendly...you may need to get a barking friend for your cats. 😉 Weather has been perfect lately...mid 70s and sunny. Weeks like this is one of the big reasons that we moved here. Here's a view from the golf course on Thursday. IMG_0010.MP4

I'm here and all is well. Thanks for the concern. I've decided that I'm spending too much time online...not just here but on YouTube and other forms of social media. I want to significantly reduce my online time and focus on other things. I'm not quitting cold turkey and will stop here periodically, but not nearly as often. We'll see how long that lasts. 😜 Oh, and Go Bills!

@Ozark_Kid John - We used Native Choice to visit the Chacchoben ruins in 2018. I wrote about it and posted some pictures in a review. Click here and scroll down to post #61. I'd recommend it.

Is this you MJ? 😁