10 weeks and 1 day to Angela's "Senior" trip

It's 10 weeks and 1 day until Angela's trip to Ireland/Scotland/England and how much to I have planned - well, not a lot.
I have the flight scheduled. 28th departure - 29th arrival into Dublin
The first hotel booked (in the HEART of Dublin)
The LAST hotel booked. Why, you ask? A 10am departure on June 11th will make you think twice about WHERE you are staying just before you bail out of town. We're staying a bit out of town but will have an airport shuttle (plus) so that we can get up at a good time of the morning - take a shuttle to the airport and be whisked back home after our whirlwind tour.

What are we seeing? So far all we have that is definite is:
Stonehenge
Bath (to SEE the baths)
Cardiff to do the Dr. Who experience and look around.

See some castles along the way - see the Blarney stone if not KISS the blarney stone (the thought of kissing it along with THOUSANDS of others makes me ill)

Goodwill Paintings

Two paintings were located recently at Goodwill. I'm still iffy about the frames. The info behind the paintings that I know.


Signature on the smaller painting.


The reverse side of the larger unsigned painting.


The lighting where I plan on hanging them. And, well, I overestimated the size of the wall I would put them on. Not sure I'll be able to hang them both on that wall or not. It's a debate that may rage on for a while.

Proud momma moment

Liz is getting a departmental award!
What's funny is she has class during that time so won't even be going. Silly girl!!

Way to go Liz!!

A mothers insanity (updated with Title list!)

So a discussion with a kid (Liz) revealed a desire for her to collect Laser Disk movies. Who remembers those?  I remember there was a "kid" in his 20s in Missouri who opened a little video store at the freeway there at Buckhorn exit (yeah, I had to look that one up!!). He not only rented the laser disks he would rent you the players too. That was in 1985ish. So, fast forward and laser disks fell out of fashion QUICKLY with VHS and the DVDs following suit. 

Liz found two disks at my favorite junk store a few months ago but put them back with a comment that the players were cost prohibitive. Ok case closed, right?  

Fast forward to this week at work when the discussion focused around a coworker whose mom stated "come get this stuff or it all goes to Goodwill". He talked about all the albums they took from her house and the reel to reel tapes (THAT will take some of you back!!). He and his wife are musicians. So these made sense to them. Then he mentioned she had a ton of Laser Disks that we're going to Goodwill. I commented that Liz had toyed with the thought of a collection but didn't have a player. Well ANOTHER co worker said she had a player she didn't want. The two discussed the types of laser disks in question and we determined the player would play said laser disks. 

So the laser disk player was delivered. It's a Pioneer from Japan - switchable dual voltage. It's in very good condition. 

So the decision was made and a deal was struck to pay for some laser disks to help out "Mom" the timing was good too as her heater just had issues so this will offset the cost of her repairs. Win/Win. 

So how many disks are we talking??  See for yourself. 

Are you floored??

Me too!!!  I regretted this decision after I had to carry them all into the house!!  The boxes are loaded light as she was loading them up to allow her to get the to her car. 

How many of them are there??  I have not done a physical count however have been told there are 235 of them. Yes, you read that correctly. 

I will be doing an inventory this weekend to document the titles of all of them and will have an official count them. (I'll update this post when I get it)

A bit of fun history. There were a few IBM instructional videos in there. The prior owner was involved in the creation of the first personal computer from IBM. He was a technician for IBM for years. He was also a professional photographer and would take pictures of food in Japan for the businesses to use in advertising. Interesting life, eh?

1	The Greatest Show on Earth	1952
2	The King and I	1956
3	The Time Machine	1960
4	Pippin	1972
5	King Kong	1976
6	Annie	1983
7	Patton	George C Scott
8	The Think	John Carpenter
9	10	Bo Derek
10	Bolero	Bo Derek
11	Tarzan the Ape Man	Bo Derek
12	The four Seasons	Carol Burnett
13	Things are Tough all over	Cheech and Chong
14	Up in Smoke	Cheech and Chong
15	The Man who fell to Earth	David Bowie
16	The Black Hole	Disney
17	Sounds of Dolphins	Jacques Cousteau
18	A View to a Kill	James Bond
19	Dr No	James Bond
20	For your Eyes Only	James Bond
21	Goldfinger	James Bond
22	Moon Rakers	James Bond
23	Octopussy	James Bond
24	On her majesties secret service	James Bond
25	The man with the golden gun	James Bond
26	The Spy who loved Me	James Bond
27	Thunderball	James Bond
28	you only live twice	James Bond
29	Rear Window	Jimmy Stewart
30	To Roast a Chicken	Julia Child
31	Theres a meeting here	Mary Trane
32	Avenging Force	Michael Duskikoff
33	Elephant parts	Michael Nesmith
34	Nutcracker	Mikhail Baryshnikov
35	Zombies of the Stratosphere	nemoy
36	zapped	scott bayo
37	Everything you always wanted to know about sex	woody allen
38	2010
39	A Shot in the Dark
40	9 to 5
41	Airplane
42	Airplane 2
43	Alien
44	All that Jazz
45	Amityville 3D
46	An American in Paris
47	Android
48	Back to the Future
49	Bananas
50	Bang the Drum Slowly
51	Barbarella
52	Battle Star Galactica
53	Beetlejuice
54	Best Little Whore House in Texas
55	Blade Runner
56	Blue Thunder
57	Brigadoon
58	Bugsby Malone
59	Bustin Loose
60	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
61	C.H.U.D.
62	Caddyshack
63	California Suit
64	Cannonball Run
65	Casablanca
66	Casino Royale
67	Cat People
68	Cloak and Dagger
69	Close Encounters of the third Kind
70	Conan the Barbarian
71	Conan the Destroyer
72	Dances with Wolves
73	Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
74	Deal of the Century
75	Death Hunt
76	Death Wish 4
77	Demon Seed
78	Destination Moon
79	Dirty Harry in the Dead Pool
80	Doctor Zhivago
81	Dumbo
82	E.T.
83	Escape to Witch Mountain
84	Evening with Ray Charles
85	Exodus
86	Fahrenheit 451
87	Fantasia
88	Fiddler on the Roof
89	Forbidden Planet
90	Foul Play
91	Galaxina
92	Gandhi
93	Ghostbusters
94	Godzilla
95	Gone with the wind
96	Good Fellas
97	Greystoke the Legend of Tarzan
98	Heman and the Masters of the Universe
99	Herbie Rides Again
100	Herbie the Love Bug
101	House Call
102	Ice Pirates
103	Iceman
104	Inner Space
105	Itzhak Pehana Beethoven
106	Jazzercise
107	Jim Fixx on Running
108	Judy Garland in Concert
109	Jurassic Park
110	Key Largo
111	Little Darlings
112	Ma Vlast
113	Manhattan Transfer
114	Mary Poppins
115	Mash
116	Mel Torme and Della Reese
117	Mission Galactica the Clone Attach
118	Monty Python and the Meaning of Life
119	Murder on the Orient Express
120	My Bloody Valentine
121	My Favorite Year
122	Mystery Disk "Murder Anyone"
123	Mystery Island
124	Notorious
125	Oh God you Devil
126	On the Town
127	Oriental Dreams
128	Outland
129	Pavorottie in London
130	Petes Dragon
131	Photographs by Kinshin Shinoyana
132	Pirates of Penzance
133	Plan 9 from Outer Space
134	Play Misty for Me
135	Popeye
136	Psycho 2
137	Psycho 3
138	Quest for Fire
139	Red River
140	Revenge of the Nerds
141	Revenge of the Pink Panther
142	Robocop
143	Rocketship X-M
144	Rostropovich with the London Phil Harmonic
145	Rough Cut
146	Runaway
147	Saturn 3
148	Scannerds 2
149	Scanners
150	Shane
151	Short Circuit
152	Silence of the Lambs
153	Sinbad and the eye of the tiger
154	Slapstick of the Other Kind
155	Slovanski Tance
156	Smokey and the Bandit
157	Smokey and the Bandit 2
158	Smoking How to Stop
159	Solarbabies
160	Some Like it Hot
161	Spacehunter
162	Star Trek 2
163	Star Trek 3
164	Star Trek 4
165	Star Trek Generations
166	Star Trek the Motion Picture
167	Star Wars
168	Star Wars Return of the Jedi
169	Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back
170	Starman
171	Sudden Impact
172	Superman 2
173	Superman 3
174	Superman 4
175	Superman The Movie
176	Swampthing
177	Symfonice c9
178	Takanaka Would
179	Tank
180	Tess
181	The Ambushers
182	The Beastmaster
183	The Beatles Yellow Submarine
184	The Big Sleep
185	The Bionic Woman
186	The Blue Lagoon
187	The Boarder
188	The Conversation
189	The Curse
190	The day of the Dolphin
191	The Deep
192	The First National Kidisc
193	The Fog
194	The joy of Stocks
195	The Kmikado
196	The last Starfighter
197	The Nutty Professor
198	The Odessa File
199	The Patriot
200	The Pink Panther
201	The Pink Panther Strikes Again
202	The Producers
203	The Rating Game
204	The Razors Edge
205	The Sender
206	The Shaggy Dog
207	The South of Music
208	The Sting
209	The Stranger and the Gunfighter
210	The Verdict
211	the Witness
212	The Witness for the Prosecution
213	Three Men and a baby
214	Time Bandits
215	Treasure of the Sierra Madre
216	Tron
217	True Grit
218	Twilight Zone the Movie
219	Videodrome
220	Vladamir Horowitz in London
221	War of the Worlds
222	Westside Story
223	When Worlds Collide
224	White Music by Talizman
225	Winnie the Pooh
226	yentle
227	Yor
228	You Were Never Lovelier

Old fans and rehab (not want it sounds like!)

Back in February of last year I found two old fans on the side of the road. They were in rough shape. The plugs were cut off they were grimy and dirty and really u didn't know if they would even work. I didn't care. I picked them up to clean up and use for display. Here is how they started.


This one is the Art Deco one that is more "complete" with the front badge on the fan cage.


This is the homely twin.








Front of the Art Deco one


Love it's foot!!

Flash forward to this year and Butch puttering with the engine, ordering a new retro cord.

That old fan works and looks pretty to boot!!





What a difference, isn't it? Butch did a great job on it. Next up is the Deco one that I have requested stay with its natural patina. We'll post more when it's completed.

Presidents Day weekend - aka Winter Break

Angela and I had a four day weekend this weekend, but the REST of the family did not...  Liz had said she was coming home for the weekend to do volunteer work.  Well, she didn't make it home on Friday night and finally showed up on Saturday - only to announce she was just TIRED and didn't want to DO anything but sleep and rest over the little time she had at home.  Well, being the sucker I am I said "sure" ... and off to bed she went to catch up on rest and enjoy her little time at home.

I on the other hand chose to get motivated and did some crock pot assembly this weekend.  I did the recipes for 6 different dishes.  I went to the store on Saturday morning and gathered all I would need to get it done.  It was only $137 inclusive of meat which really surprised me as there was two different sections of beef and steaks in there... and they are NOT cheap!!

I did:
Quick Beef Stroganoff
Moroccan Chicken (looking forward to this one)
Honey Chipotle Chicken
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Beef and Broccoli
Fiesta Chicken with Rice and Beans

We have had the Chicken with Rice and Beans already and I'm not impressed... I don't know how to do rice in a soup without making it just too much rice and it taking over and making everything mushy apparently.  it tasted good, just too mushy.

So - with 12 of these now assembled and ready to go I offered 1/2 to Liz - she took a few with her on the way back to school, however her freezer won't hold them all - so she will pick them up on occasion when coming home.  Unless we eat them all first :)

Sunday we went to Sam's club.  I swear that is my $200 store anymore.  I did remember to get some items there too and split them up in the freezer (mostly cheese - we go through a lot of shredded cheese and I like having them in the freezer).  Lizzie left for home while we went to Sams - when I got home she called to tell me she had JUST left and managed to lock her keys in her car at the gas station up the road.  I chuckled and went to rescue her :)

Monday found me going with Mom and Dad to Columbus to check it out.  They wanted to go to the National Civil War Museum there.

What I didn't know is I was in charge of figuring out where everything was but I didn't look anything up prior - we first started at the chamber of commerce

(http://www.columbusgachamber.com/history)  It's a converted Train station and very pretty on the inside.  The lady there was helpful and gave me the address for the Museum and the visitors center.  YAY

What we didn't know was that the museum didn't open  until noon - whoops!!!  Even with my late start to the day it was still way too early and they were closed when we got there, so we headed to the river to see what we could see with the rapids and such.  There were really NO good areas to park and see the rapids for Dad - drat it.  We drove up and down the river front trying to find a good spot as well as drove over to the other side - no such luck.

As it was noon, it was time to eat and finding parking in the little narrow streets was hard, but I pulled over when I saw a spot and we debated what we would do for food, looked for things we knew, then decided to just go to the little coffee shop we were sitting right in front of - it was there, we were hungry so that's what we did.  It was OK and filled the spot :)

From there, we looked at some nice old houses off of the river and then made our way to the museum.

The National Civil War Naval Museum (http://www.portcolumbus.org/) was a nice size little museum and had a wheel chairs for dad to use while there so we took our time and wandered around looking at the remnants of old civil war ships - one is the hull from an old iron side type boat - VERY big and quite impressive.  It was the CSS Jackson and was 225 foot long and 54 foot wide.  all that they have from it is the bottom of the hull - VERY large chunks of it - almost the complete thing - the only chunk missing is about 10' or 15' in the middle .  They have a nice display that took me a minute to realize was the OUTLINE of the exterior of the ship as it would have been when in commission.  (The gray scaffolding you see below)

It takes up the WHOLE room they had it displayed in.  They are very shallow draft boats for sure! 

what you can't see in the picture is where the name of the boat is would be the bump up for the wheel house and there was another 20' of smoke stack up there too!  BIG.

Check out the exhibits in the link above - there are some good ones to include some HUGE flags on the walls as well as parts to one other boat and a few more mock ups of others.

We headed home from there.  A nice drive home in the warm sunshine!

And not ONE picture that Mom or I took - even though we BOTH had cameras on us - we just didn't think to take a single picture - shame on us!!

Tuesday (today) is my LAST day off ... as well as Angela's last day.  She chose to say home and sleep and bum around the house.  I chose to get mom and head on out to the consignment store.  I gathered all the excess Easter from upstairs (and honestly I didn't take everything I could, I was waffling on a few things).  I ended up taking a box of Easter to sell as well as three bags of other things; one of girls clothing, one of odds and end lunch bags, thermos's that we don't use any longer as well as an older clock radio that has been phased out for a new variety and an old pen/pencil desktop organizer that was positively childish for my girls ages.  All in all a good haul to take in and I came home with nothing but $$ from the last time I dropped stuff off :)  BONUS!!

So - it was a staycation of sorts.  I miss the days of travel hither and yonder to get stuff done at the little house... but with Butch not having the extra days that the kid and I had it was hard to get away.

Christmas 2015

Road trip to Grandmas house!


Liz and Angela slept at Grandmas house and called us when they got up.


Well, more when Liz got up ;)











She's starting to come around!!
































Guam items are a hit.














Later that day we had a late lunch/early dinner if Brontosaurus steaks.





We had shrimp, Steak and crab legs to eat. Yum!!





A great day was had by all!!

The Trip Home...(sniffle, sniffle, sniffle)

one more random shot of the baby hermit crab

The flight.  I had grand hopes that I would get a BIG bonus and get bumped from my flight home.  they did ask on the kiosk as I was signing in if I would be willing to take a different flight and I said "no" there, but when I got up to check my bags I asked what they were offering but they assured me they had all the seats they needed.  DRAT IT.  Oh, well.  So my flights were: 

Guam - Narita Japan

Narita - LAX

LAX - ATL

The view as we took off from Guam - I didn't have a window seat, but they did put me in to the emergency row.... middle seat and it was only a 4 hour trip, so I was OK with that.  The guy with the window closed it and slept through the flight.  (they close windows for the movies - sigh)

I tried to get onto the direct flight to ATL from Narita - no such luck - the standard answer was "it will be $1,000 to switch.  Urm, No, that is what my ticket cost to begin with, thanks.  It was sad because that flight was two gates over from mine and left 10 minutes before mine but got in a full EIGHT hours before I arrived in ATL.  Drat my layover in LAX (6 hours, I wasn't paying attention to THAT when I booked it!)  So - I settled in and watched some movies on the way home.  I watched Cinderella,  Mission Impossible and Max (dog show).  That combined with Train Wreck, Scorch Trials, Jupiter Ascending and  Jurassic World have made for some good movies to watch on planes!!  Fun to binge watch them when they are free on the flights!!

Coming into California!

 Up near Santa Barbara area

 LA Basin now!

So, after sitting in LAX all day, I finally got on my 5pm flight to home.  It was fun flying over places at night.

 
Albuquerque is BIG when all lit up at night!

I was surprised OKC wasn't much brighter from the sky, but it was pretty spread out as well, so maybe that's the difference.

 And with that I made it home to ATL.  I got in just before midnight, but the shuttle wasn't there... they were scheduled to be there at 1am sigh... so I waited, charged my phone and waited...
made it home by 2:30ish, went home, took a nice warm shower (it's stinking COLD here) and went to bed... zzzzzz