Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[brillohead]

1 hour ago, HBE4 said:

 

+1.

 

For some reason, I think it would fit your personality, based on what I've read online. 

 

It might not seem like a compliment, but I meant it as one. 🙂

Oh, the salty DEFINITELY fits my personality!  LOL  

[dbancroft]

We had a hard time deciding on what calendars to hang up in the house. Granddaughter wanted cats so she has a cat calendar.  We decided on a dog calendar for us and look what April's pic is

[Coralc]

1 hour ago, dbancroft said:

We had a hard time deciding on what calendars to hang up in the house. Granddaughter wanted cats so she has a cat calendar.  We decided on a dog calendar for us and look what April's pic is

 

That's cute! The Dollar Tree (now $1.25) has lovely calendars. We used to buy expensive ones, and sometimes really expensive ones. 😃 But theirs are perfectly sufficient. And a little double sided tape holds up floppy photos, should that occur. They are full sized with great photos of all sorts of beaches and other things. 

[A&L_Ont]

Finally settled in our room.  Been a long day, up for 22 hours. 
 

Edited April 6, 2023 by A&L_Ont

[h20skibum]

7 hours ago, Husky1987 said:

 

I think that may be #2 on my all-time comedy series scene list after Taxi's "what does the yellow light mean?"

That is one of my favorite Taxi episodes also. 

[dani negreanu]

9 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

I vote for SaltyRN 

If not available then Cruz RN

 

Debbi, @brillohead + 1, if you can do "small letters".

[Lionesss]

Good morning. Yesterday was a challenging day. When I left Oxford Ohio. It was windy and a light rain. 
Once I got in I75 a monsoon. Traffic still going 70-80 in a 65 mph zone. 
 

Soon I joined the after work crowd on I675. And they meant business.  Visibility was only a few car lengths ahead but that did not stop the racing of cars. 
 

Slowly maneuvered onto I70 overall drivers were very kind during the high winds and constant heavy rain. 
 

Now the rain was intense as I put my turn signal on to go onto I270 and some kind soul blinked his lights and let me move to the proper lane. 
 

A break in the rain. I was so relieved. Wait. 6 miles to  bypass Columbus and get on I71 north. Wait. Traffic at a standstill. Cars parked on a 4 lane, every lane  on freeway. 
 

(Waves)puts an alert on. 3 traffic crashes ahead. 6 lanes closed. Wait there are only 4 on our side. Later I found out they closed lanes on opposite side of road to rescue wrecks. 

Almost 30 min later traffic started moving. Inch by inch step by step. 
 

40 min later I traveled the 6 mile and got on I 71. Now those drivers were not as friendly. 
 

What should have been a 4 1/2 hour drive took 6 1/2 drive. 
 

Was exciting finally get home after traveling in non stop rain, monsoon , winds, lightning. If it was thundering I did not hear it. I was praying and zoned out to only driving and not listening to anything but weather alerts. 

Today. Church potluck dinner and Lenten service.  I will be thanking the powers that be for my safe travels. 
Thank you God! 
 

To all be safe. 
 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Lionesss

[dpostman]

Here I am, sitting in my office at 8am, having my second coffee and catching up on CC.  And Andrew @A&L_Ont has posted 3hrs ago 😲 ouch!

 

I wish you a great trip Andrew... and a good nights sleep😉

dp

Edited April 6, 2023 by dpostman

[bobmacliberty]

13 hours ago, Momof3gurlz said:

We have friends coming for dinner Friday night. This is the same couple we visited NYC with back in December where we went to Gallagher’s Steakhouse for dinner. I’m going to try to recreate that meal (pictured below) using my cast iron skillets and oven/broiler.  I have two 24 oz Porterhouse steaks. Anyone ever done this or have any input?

 

It's not Gallagher's, but here's how they do it at Peter Luger's.  We do the Sous Vide to medium rare and then finish in a very hot cast iron with butter technique.  Perfect every time.

 

[aussielozzie18]

Bought raffle tickets in the Easter Raffle, hoping to win a small basket of eggs…I won BIG 😳

 

10kgs of chocolate. Got my workout carrying it up 3 flights of stairs to the  car afterwards.

 

Had fun tonight being the Easter Bunny with the first of the 5 golden bars (2kgs each).  Only problem is I managed to set off the security spotlight at the front of my friend’s house…

 

Feels like I have the Willy Wonka golden ticket x 5 in my hands

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by aussielozzie18

[grapau27]

Good afternoon.

55°F and cloudy here.

We have the conifer guys trimming our 15 foot conifers in our back garden.

I hope everyone is well.

[bobmacliberty]

One more Pinehurst story...the story of Payne Stewart.  Payne was a very successful golfer who won the US Open at Pinehurst in 1999 (along with 2 other previous major championships).  He was part of the 1999 US winning Ryder Cup team a couple of months after his US Open win. He was known for his traditional golf attire with a flat cap and "plus fours" pants. 

 

Shortly after the Ryder Cup win, his jet was flying from Orlando to Dallas and lost cabin pressurization.  It's believed that all on board were incapacitated from hypoxia.  The plane flew off course on a northwest track.  Air traffic control tried to contact the plane but there was no response.  The jet flew for several more hours before running out of fuel and crashing in South Dakota.  I remember watching this play out live on TV for a couple of hours.  It was almost certain that all on board were dead, but there was still hope that something could miraculously happen, until the plane crashed.  It was a very spooky thing to watch, especially being a golf fan and having Payne Stewart, one of the best golfers in the world at the time, onboard.

 

Pinehurst has a statue behind the No. 2 course 18th green showing Payne in his celebratory stance after sinking a 15 foot putt to win the 1999 US Open.  

 

 

Here's an 11-minute documentary about the plane crash.

 

 

[Sea Dog]

14 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

One more Pinehurst story...the story of Payne Stewart.  Payne was a very successful golfer who won the US Open at Pinehurst in 1999 (along with 2 other previous major championships).  He was part of the 1999 US winning Ryder Cup team a couple of months after his US Open win. He was known for his traditional golf attire with a flat cap and "plus fours" pants. 

 

Shortly after the Ryder Cup win, his jet was flying from Orlando to Dallas and lost cabin pressurization.  It's believed that all on board were incapacitated from hypoxia.  The plane flew off course on a northwest track.  Air traffic control tried to contact the plane but there was no response.  The jet flew for several more hours before running out of fuel and crashing in South Dakota.  I remember watching this play out live on TV for a couple of hours.  It was almost certain that all on board were dead, but there was still hope that something could miraculously happen, until the plane crashed.  It was a very spooky thing to watch, especially being a golf fan and having Payne Stewart, one of the best golfers in the world at the time, onboard.

 

Pinehurst has a statue behind the No. 2 course 18th green showing Payne in his celebratory stance after sinking a 15 foot putt to win the 1999 US Open.  

 

 

Here's an 11-minute documentary about the plane crash.

 

 

Thanks for sharing. Great guy as I have done many interviews with him being from Springfield, Mo. Loved his sense of style.

[xpcdoojk]

22 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

The Masters is definitely in my future.  Getting tickets is the hard part.  You need to enter a lottery and get lucky, or buy scalped tickets.  My parents used to live in Aiken, SC, just across the border from Augusta.  They'd enter the lottery every year.  I think they got practice round tickets a couple of times and tournament day tickets only once.  It used to be that if you get caught using someone else's tickets, they'll kick you out and ban the person who you bought tickets from.  Not sure if that's still true.

Went for Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds in 2010, such a beautiful place.  I was the guest of a large company, I have no idea how they got the tickets, I assume scalped, it was all a package.  We had dinner and lots of drinks with a member of Augusta National one night at the Bonefish Grill on the main drag.  He told us stories about the place.  When we had cocktails last Saturday night in my 2010 Master’s beer cups.  I think the beers then were $2.  I think they are $5 this year.  I remember the egg salad and pimento cheese sandwiches were less than a $1 in 2010.  Very cool to walk the course.  

[brillohead]

2 hours ago, dani negreanu said:

 

Debbi, @brillohead + 1, if you can do "small letters".

Unfortunately we can only do uppercase/capital letters on the plates, but it looks like I'll stick with my SALTYRN -- it seems to be the winner!  

One of the few nice things that came out of COVID (the e-muster being another one), our Secretary of State now does appointments instead of "first come, first served" -- which could be a wait of anywhere from ten minutes to three hours!  They've also increased the services that can be done online or at their "self-service kiosks" in the lobby, so that also reduces the number of people needing an in-person appointment.  

After I get all Michigan-legal, I have to go to my college and get an unofficial transcript, then this afternoon I have to go to northern Indiana to get "health-screened" for the new ER job (drug test, draw blood for TB test) and show my employment paperwork (college transcript, nursing license, CPR certification, identification papers, etc.) 

Then tomorrow morning I have to go get fingerprinted to complete my background check.  For someone who hasn't ever been in trouble with the law, I sure have been fingerprinted a lot -- back in the day for my bank teller job, for nursing school, for my TSA/Global Entry application, and now for my ER job.  At least it's all digital these days, so there's no ink to wash off. 

 

I got a text from my Uncle Jack yesterday as they were driving back to Alabama.... he was complaining that my father was abusing him, making him eat at McDonald's!  🤣  Jack is a heck of a character, always with a joke or a story.  And when Bill called me to let me know that they got back home, he was on the speakerphone in the car, and Jack was hollering, "He's trying to kill me!  He made me eat a double cheeseburger from McDonald's, and I had to eat it in the car!"  It's a wonder they didn't tease each other to death on the drive!!!

[Ozark_Kid]

I needed a new screen saver for the MBP.  I am later going to see if I can set up the screen saver to rotate pics like iPhones.  For now I am going with this.

[xpcdoojk]

22 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

You can use a Apple Magic Wireless Keyboard with your MacBook. It has the numerical keyboard on the side as well as Touch ID which is real nice to unlock your computer without putting in a password.

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMMR3LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-touch-id-and-numeric-keypad-for-mac-models-with-apple-silicon-us-english-black-keys?afid=p238|soDtC4tah-dm_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_648918799898_pgrid_45850389289_pntwk_g_pchan__pexid__&cid=aos-us-kwgo-btb--slid---product-&fnode=fc74d500ab7898eeaf89d8eebea8dd01372d0129cab4df39be789dae3946edd6aa55515bfbccee981c466d4175872818a1a902ba429939d8c3058ec3b6b724c7145183b20cd31416972ab65ad93f4a672523a6090e389f4c7650c32caacc1cd5d28f3cca8c54d504dc66b656b8e0dd5b

You guys are killing the purpose of a laptop.  If you are going to buy all of these add-ons just buy a mac Mini.  

[Sea Dog]

1 minute ago, xpcdoojk said:

You guys are killing the purpose of a laptop.  If you are going to buy all of these add-ons just buy a mac Mini.  

Just giving options JC not trying to kill anything. I know of several people who use a Mac Laptop as their main computer at home. Using a keyboard and external monitor as a workstation than having the ability to take it on the road just as a laptop.

[xpcdoojk]

15 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Nice looking potatoes, garlic mashed? Love a bechamal sauce.

Bernaise?

[Husky1987]

38 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Thanks for sharing. Great guy as I have done many interviews with him being from Springfield, Mo. Loved his sense of style.

 

58 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

One more Pinehurst story...the story of Payne Stewart.  Payne was a very successful golfer who won the US Open at Pinehurst in 1999 (along with 2 other previous major championships).  He was part of the 1999 US winning Ryder Cup team a couple of months after his US Open win.

 

I've always thought Payne Stewart conceding the putt to Colin Montgomerie on the 18th at Brookline in the 1999 Ryder Cup was one of the most wonderful displays of sportsmanship ever.

[A&L_Ont]

2 hours ago, dpostman said:

Here I am, sitting in my office at 8am, having my second coffee and catching up on CC.  And Andrew @A&L_Ont has posted 3hrs ago 😲 ouch!

 

I wish you a great trip Andrew... and a good nights sleep😉

dp

Well, we are up. Beat, but up. Owen asked where the balcony is and we informed him that many Vegas hotels don’t have them.   I’m also not so sure I could go out on it being 35 stories up. 

[Momof3gurlz]

13 hours ago, Jimbo said:

If not in a rush and have the time take the Skyline Drive from Front Royal, Va. and then get on the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way to North Carolina.   It goes through the Shenandoah National Park. It's an amazing drive with beautiful scenery. Plenty of chances for amazing pictures.

We keep saying one of these trips down to FL we’ll take the inland I-81 route just for something different than I-95.  Would love to do this as well. 

13 hours ago, Ozark_Kid said:

That looks great.  If I was cooking it I would sous vide it then finish it off by searing it in an iron skillet.  Once you try sous vide cooking its hard to give it up especially with meat.

 

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

It's not Gallagher's, but here's how they do it at Peter Luger's.  We do the Sous Vide to medium rare and then finish in a very hot cast iron with butter technique.  Perfect every time.

 

Thanks for the Sous Vide suggestion, unfortunately I don’t have time to get one and get a handle on the technique before tomorrow night.  I think I’m going to go with Bobby Flay method which is sear in cast iron, remove and cut from the bone and slice (as pictured in my original post), then reassemble it in the pan and finish under the broiler.  🤞

[bobmacliberty]

25 minutes ago, Momof3gurlz said:

We keep saying one of these trips down to FL we’ll take the inland I-81 route just for something different than I-95.  Would love to do this as well. 

 

Thanks for the Sous Vide suggestion, unfortunately I don’t have time to get one and get a handle on the technique before tomorrow night.  I think I’m going to go with Bobby Flay method which is sear in cast iron, remove and cut from the bone and slice (as pictured in my original post), then reassemble it in the pan and finish under the broiler.  🤞

 

That's similar to the Peter Luger method.  They do 4 minutes on each side under a broiler to give it a good sear, take it out and slice it up, then 5 minutes under the broiler to cook through.  Of course they have a wall of industrial ovens set at specific temps to ensure perfect internal cooking temps.  

[#55worktoplay]

43 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

Well, we are up. Beat, but up. Owen asked where the balcony is and we informed him that many Vegas hotels don’t have them.   I’m also not so sure I could go out on it being 35 stories up. 

I was shocked the first time I was there when I found out why there were few balconies in Las Vegas.

[NHProud]

6 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

Finally settled in our room.  Been a long day, up for 22 hours. 
 

That is a great view of The Strip . Are you staying at Caesar’s Palace and if so which tower ?