Category: Family

Orlando Happenings – Last weekend was the annual Disney trip. Some of The Wife’s coworkers do this marathon at Disney, and for the last few years, we have gone over to give her time to hang out with folks she normally only sees virtually. It’s also time for us to hit some of the Disney parks. This year, her boss, who is a dear friend to The Wife, was going to be flying in to Orlando from a conference out west. So, we offered to pick him up so he didn’t have to get a rideshare to the resort. At least that was the plan.

Thursday, The Wife and I packed up, ran a couple of errands, and went to Disney Springs to kill some time before Boss Of Wife (BOW) arrived. The Wife has been going back and forth on getting Magic Bands, so she wanted to see the selection there. I wanted to go to the Star Wars store to see if they had the Vader lightsaber because it wasn’t showing up on their online store. I was happy to find one in the case – and they had the pack with the blade and the stand. We had a pleasant walk around the complex and decided to head over to the airport early to beat commute traffic. That’s when the fun started. Anytime I have to go to an airport other than Tampa, it shows me how spoiled I am. Trying to find Orlando’s cell lot ended up with us in the economy lot. Then, BOW’s plane was delayed 90 minutes and there was even more uncertainty as to when he would actually get in. After going back and forth for a bit, he finally convinced us just to go to the hotel, and he would grab a rideshare to the resort. That going back and forth put us three minutes over the 10 minute grace period, and we had to hand over five bucks. Annoying, but that was on us. The transit back wasn’t bad traffic wise, but the GPS just wouldn’t find our resort. It would find the one next to it, but then default back to just finding Walt Disney World. Then, we had multiple instances of “take the next exit to your right” which would involve having the ability to swing across multiple lanes of solid traffic. Stress level increased. Then finding parking. Yeah, I was annoyed, tired, and stressed by the time we entered the hotel. We did end up meeting with BOW later that night to hash out plans and to hand over the shirts that The Wife made for him. She was pleasantly surprised when he showed up with a stuffed animal he picked up for her at the conference he’d attended. We finally crashed into bed much later than normal.

Friday’s events started with the adrenaline inducing sound of the smoke alarm going off. We learned that Derek cannot enjoy his normal scalding long showers without the steam causing issues. We managed to get things settled down, get dressed, grab a bite to eat before meeting up with BOW. From there, we hailed an Uber. Slight hilarity when we saw the same make, model, and color before we found our actual driver. Apparently, silver Toyota Siennas are popular. We were dropped off at Universal’s new Epic park. I was kind of meh when they asked if I wanted to go a few months ago. It was more, I’ll go if everyone else goes. We meet up with another Co-Worker of The Wife (CWW). At this point, we go through security. And of course, Derek takes forever because security gets antsy about my trauma shears. They take them and say I can pick them up after I leave. Then their sergeant proceeds to tell me that they have trained medical staff and paramedics, and yada yada yada. It was clearly his opinion that I didn’t need to have an IFAK while I was in his park. I kept polite and semi-obsiquious because I didn’t want to cause a scene, but in the back of my mind I’m thinking Dude, if I need a tourniquet, I’m not fucking waiting for your myriad of medical people. I need one RTFN. Which is why I keep that red bag in my backpack.

We made our way to the Harry Potter section, and I was very disappointed when we walked onto a facsimile of a Parisian street instead of Diagon Alley or something else. Before I could really get annoyed, we get herded into a hallway, which turned out to be a line for a ride. Of course, we didn’t realize it was a ride until we were well into it. It was just having to follow a mass of people that I originally thought was going deeper into the world. Anywhoo, we ended up on the Harry Potter and the Battle At The Ministry of Magic ride. Okay, it was neat seeing a bunch of stuff I’d seen in the movies, and the ride itself wasn’t bad. The storyline they were pushing made no fucking sense in canon, but the group enjoyed it well enough. From there we decided to go to the Super Mario world. Holy hell that was a very crowded and loud area. We did a look around, and then went to the “Dark World” section, which was based on old monster movies. BOW went on another ride while we rested. At that point, I was kinda done. Honestly, I wouldn’t go back to Epic unless there were strong extenuating circumstances.

Saturday we went to Magic Kingdom. What I knew is that The Wife had booked a breakfast buffet. What I didn’t know was that it was a Winnie the Pooh themed breakfast buffet. The food was excellent, and we got pictures with some of the characters. From there, we walked around the park. We did the Monsters Inc show in Tomorrowland and rode It’s a Small World. The Wife and her coworkers split the cost of a photo package where we could get photos taken at several areas. If you can afford it, I would highly recommend it. We got lots of really good photos, and the photographers are really good at making things amusing. We also got a lot of compliments on our shirts that The Wife made for the team.

We met up with another co-worker of The Wife who was running in the marathons (aka Running Co-Worker, RCW) and RCW’s husband. The plan was to go to Hollywood Studios. Since this blog post is already going to be long, suffice to say that RCW insisted that we needed to go one way to Hollywood Studios, and we all followed because she was the Disney veteran. It turned out not to be the case and we spent an extra half-hour getting to Hollywood Studios and required me going through security twice more. As we walked into Hollywood Studios, I was tired and my feet hurt. I just wanted to get to Galaxy’s Edge, see some neat stuff, and go back to the hotel. RCW sort of made up for the inconvenience by getting me on the Millennium Falcon ride. That was truly awesome. And we got some decent photos. Not as many as I would have liked, but a few.

Sunday was our EPCOT day. The Wife and I love walking through the World Showcase. We met up with the rest of our party at Space 220, which is a restaurant with the conceit that you are eating at a space station. The food was good, the atmospherics were interesting, and the conversation was excellent. The Wife and I had a plan to “eat around the world” instead of drink around the world, but lunch was good enough that we sort of, didn’t.

I did find a ceramic parrot in Mexico, which was cool because I couldn’t find one last year and thought they’d been discontinued. So, I now have a pair hanging in the home office. We skipped Norway because it’s less Norway and now Frozen with a taste of Norway. We introduced BOW and CWW to the China film that Disney’s been using for at least the last 40 years. BOW got a grapefruit beer in Germany that he said was surprisingly good. I’m not a big drinker, so I’m taking his word for it. Japan was the normal “go through the big store and get my supply of Kit Kats.” This year they had orange, a cinnamon roll, and I think a dark chocolate (haven’t opened it yet). They also had macha, but I hate macha. BOW also got a purple sake drink he said was good, but too sweet. The Wife and I also took CWW through the Kawaii display, and she really enjoyed that. By that time, we were all flagging, so we agreed to go through England/Britain before heading back to the hotel.

Monday morning, we agreed to take BOW to the airport so he wouldn’t have to spend money on an Uber. It wasn’t a bad drive over, but again, reminded me how much I prefer TIA’s layout. Anywhoo, then it was make the trip across the state. We’ve had worse traffic coming back, but it was still annoying. What was more annoying was coming back to find the home offices without power. First thought was a breaker decided to die since we had one flipped. Electricians came out. Not the breaker. They went into the home offices and unplugged everything and then went one-by-one to find out which one was causing the breaker to flip. Turned out to be an old power adapter to a dock we haven’t used in a while. It looked like there was some melting and was drawing enough power to flip the breaker. So, a quick fix.

TLDR – We had fun, but some of our planning did not stand up to the rigors of the real world. We need to have better checklists and planning for our trips. We still had a lot fun. I also much prefer dealing with Disney security instead of Universal. The Disney folks always seem either appreciative or understanding of why I have an IFAK, while the vibe I got from Universal Security was “only ones.”

We had a flock, um flight, um maybe a half-dozen of a new bird floating in the pond. At first I thought they were the hooded mercasers from an earlier post. Yet, the more I looked, that didn’t sit right. So, I pulled out my handy-dandy guide and found them. Ring necked ducks.

Image from Wikipedia

One of the nice things about the pond in the back is the variety of birds, including those that come and go.

Night Startles Happenings – There is nothing like waking up in the middle of the night from a weird dream that you can’t remember but elevated your adrenaline, walking into the bathroom, hitting the tap light next to the toilet, and seeing this large gray blob in the middle of the toilet. Adrenaline spiked before I realized it was the ass-end of our hairless cat who was drinking out of the toilet. I may have woken The Wife with my yelling at the cat.

Bag Happenings – We were coming back from someplace and I noticed the strap on my sling bag was starting to fray. I’ve been thinking I should really switch from a sling to a straight backpack. Not to carry more stuff, but to help with my back and shoulders. On Valentines Day, we went down to 5.11 and found two backpacks that I liked. I really couldn’t decide, but with them both on sale, we ended up bringing them both home. One is replacing the sling bag. The issue is that with the sling bag, all of my stuff was right there without having to dig down. With a backpack, somethings are going to have to be at the bottom. Thankfully, the new pack uses a bunch of “hook and loop” (i.e., velcro). So, I’m arranging my stuff into velcro-backed pouches. So, this one is going to be kind of a bag of bags. The trick is to make things I need frequently easily accessible.The other bag is replacing my work backpack. I love my Maxpedition backpacks, but they are clearly tactical. This one looks more like a regular backpack.

Cold Happenings Cont’d – Apparently Derek has a hard time with the cold, and I felt kind of crappy all last week. The Wife and I had a long talk with our budget, and I did end up getting my new coat. Which performed really well on its test run from the house to the mail kiosk. Particularly against the biting wind. I’ve also noticed when I’m feeling cold and not well, my willpower plummets. I didn’t even bother getting on the scale this week.

Cat Injury Happenings – Early last week, The Wife and MIL noticed Freya, our youngest cat, was favoring her eye. A trip to the vet revealed she somehow managed to get a cut on her eye. This resulted in us having to give the cat eye treatments – which she didn’t like one bit. There was much chasing and trapping to give her treatments. It was somewhat ameliorated with offerings of her favorite treats, but Freya still was none too pleased with us.

Board Game Happenings – Mom and The Brother came down over the weekend. Mom, The Wife, and MIL went over to a nearby place for pedicures. While they were doing that, The Brother and I did some work on the NAS and then played a couple of board games. The one that was interesting was Sky Team, at least in terms of concept.

Book Happenings – I decided that it was a good idea for me to keep some physical entertainment media on hand. The Wife needed to pick up some things on Amazon, and needed something to close the same-day gap. Huh, Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy is in the same day store.

Cancellation Happenings – I was expecting that the top entry in this week’s happenings were The Wife’s and my adventures going to see Penn & Teller. Unfortunately, a few days before, my ticket vendor informed me the show had been rescheduled to the end of April. Well, darn, but okay. Then a couple of days later, I’m perusing FB and the top article is that Sabaton is postponing their North American tour due to health issues with one of the band members. The tour I have a ticket for and a hotel stay booked because it’s in the middle of the week. The hotel stay that is non-refundable. The Wife is working on seeing if they will let us rebook for the when Sabaton is coming – assuming the new date doesn’t fall on when we already have things scheduled. Stupid event clusters.

Veggie Tray Happenings – Since Ward Manor is on diet mode, we’ve been picking up a veggie tray for the weekends to snack on instead of chips, dips, chains, whips. Anywhoo, I got it into my head that maybe we should get a refillable veggie tray and just get the stuff we like. Because the veggie trays inevitably have at least one thing that no one wants. The Wife finds one she likes, and we order. Amazon tells us it was delivered, but it was after we went to bed, so we never went out to check. Yeah, no it wasn’t there. Go to the pic. That’s not our door. Well, fuck. Ask about it on FB. Crickets. Finally, I contact Amazon. They helpfully agreed to send out a replacement. Later that day, The Wife runs into the neighbor and finds out he has it. Just picked up the package off his stoop without looking at the label. Understandable. And now we have two.

Grandniece Happenings – The Wife’s niece wanted to go out to celebrate a recent life event, so we agreed to take the grandniece for a sleepover. This started with breakfast at Cracker Barrel for the family before taking the grandniece for her first trip to Hobby Lobby. It was like trying to corral a gas particle. She kept bouncing from shiny object to shiny object. From there, we took her to Five Below, because that is her favorite store. The only issue is the local Five Below is in a shopping complex that is notorious for bad parking. As in, you grab whatever spot you can find and just hope it is in the general vicinity of the stores you want to patronize. At any rate, we got the little tyke back to the Manor, and she went through her normal run of wanting us to build her new toys, do her arts and crafts, and wanting to go upstairs to play and look at all of my toys. There was a bit of pain when she asked to use some of my GI Joe Classified figures to do a “puppet show.” Overall, she had fun and we enjoyed having her.

Tea Happenings – When I go to the office, I generally take a large bottle of sweet tea. It’s a bit of a process to make them all on the weekend, so I went looking for a better process. We are experimenting with one of those ice tea brewers and some loose leaf teas. I wanted to go to loose leaf because while I like the bagged tea just fine, I want to be able to switch blends or try some of the boutique blends we run across. So, we’re experimenting with properly brewing my normal Earl Grey and]]s well as chai tea.

Cold Happenings – This past week has been the coldest temperatures in this area for a long time. Enough that the local electric cooperative was sending emails asking everyone to conserve electricity to only essential stuff and bundle up. There were flurries reported in Bradenton to our south. For natives, we were kind of at a loss as to how to properly prepare. The FB page for the neighborhood was kind of like – hey, all you Yankees who came down over the last couple of years, do you remember all that advice we gave you about hurricanes? Now’s the time to repay the favor. I broke out pretty much all my cold weather gear. I also lusted after one of 5.11’s jackets, but I don’t have the spare three hundred to buy. And it won’t come in until well after the current cold spell. I’ll look when they do their next outlet sale on jackets to see if I can pick one up on the cheap.

The real fun was dealing with our backflow preventer outside. We ordered an insulated cover. It was supposed to be here Saturday before all the really bad weather. Then Amazon said it wasn’t going to be here until Tuesday. So, we grabbed an old blanket that was already on its way out, wrapped the pipes and duct taped it down hard – while standing in the frigid temperature with even colder wind. Then the cover showed up on Sunday. Which meant cutting the duct taped blanket free, putting the cover over the pipes, and zip tying the cover – while standing in frigid temperature and nastier wind. I have the jacket I bought for going to Idaho in ’24, and while it’s warm, it’s very short – which doesn’t help against the wind. We rushed hard to get back in, which resulted in me accidentally tossing my cheap Gerber box cutter knife into the trash with the blanket. Eh, I can pick one up for less than twenty bucks, so I wasn’t going to go digging in the trash.

Japanese Happenings – For the last year, I’ve been doing Japanese lessons on Duolingo. Am I conversant? No. Do I understand more when watching subtitled anime? Yes. Am I going to keep doing it? Yes. It’s fun and it helps me understand. I still wish it were easier.

Computer Locking Happenings – I have an Excel workbook that I use for blog-related stuff. Keeping track of the Metal Tuesday songs and anime recommendations for instance. Well, I came into my home office this week and found that my workbook suddenly had four new tabs. And charts. I was glad to see that none of the other worksheets were deleted or edited. Of course, this means one of the clowder (we have a couple of suspects) got up on my desk and walked across the keyboard. Which I never thought about before because the desk used to be raised to standing level and inaccessible. Now, I just need to start locking the computer when I’m done. Stupid cats.

Battery Station Happenings – We now have all three OStations up and running. Plus another bay. Plus sorted out battery caddies for all my rechargeables and “one-shots”. Then, The Wife helpfully added some labels.

Weight Happenings – I still haven’t fully recovered from the damage I did over the holidays. On the plus side – or minus side – I was down a couple of pounds. So, I’m holding at 272, which means 22 lbs until I hit my next tollgate.

Conversation Happenings 1 –

The Wife: Are you coming downstairs for lunch?

Me: Yeah, why?

The Wife: You might want to bring a jacket.

This is what happens when we have a cold day and the doors get thrown open while Derek is upstairs in his office with the space heater running.

Conversation Happenings 2 –

The two dominant males in the clowder have been circling each other for the last couple of weeks. It’s seems like every other day we’re hearing their war cries before the fur starts flying. From one of their latest bouts:

Me: You two assholes are why we’re having to buy canned air by the case.

Canned air is about the only thing that will break them up when they’re in their war cry phase. When the fur starts flying? It sometimes helps.

Unusual Lighting Happenings – We recently added UV light to the HVAC to help keep the handler cleaner. The side effect is that coming out in the morning the vent has an eerie glow. It’s like the aliens are living in the handler closet.

Storage Shifting Happenings – Over the long weekend, The Wife and I, along with BIL and SIL, unloaded the old storage unit and moved it all over to the new storage. Good thing too, because the old storage place is too close to the really good ice cream place. Anywhoo, the shifting of stuff between the storage units resulted in finding things we forgot we had put in storage, and the need to re-organize and repack stuff. We also pulled a bunch of stuff out of the garage and donated it. There’s still a bunch of shifting that still needs to be completed. And purging.

Purging / Decompressing Happenings – We are in the process of shifting our storage unit (or more to the point, the contents therein) as well as doing a purge. This weekend was the first step in acquiring a new unit in a closer location as well as doing some shelf assembly in said unit. The new unit is closer, bigger, less expensive, and run by a local firm. The only bad news is that the units are not as well-lit as the old unit. Which, gave me a reason to pick up another Streamlight lantern. Which, since Amazon had them on sale, meant I could pick up two.

Birthday Happenings – Last weekend we celebrated MIL’s birthday and five-year cancer-free anniversary. The Wife really wanted to go all-out, so she arranged a surprise party at our favorite restaurant. Lesson one of surprise parties – the person who needs to be coordinating with other attendees should not be the one driving to the party. There was a lot of talking in code on the ride over, and a five-dollar fill up at a gas station to burn time. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. MIL was surprised and a great time was had by all.

Weight Happenings – Yeah, I did myself no favors over the holidays. Ain’t good, but I’m back on track. Current: 276; Tollgate: 250; Goal: 200

Petty Amusement Happenings – Sometimes, the simplest and most inane things amuse me. Such as figuring out how to get my laptop to rotate colors on the keyboard and alien sigil on the lid. It serves no function other than personal amusement.

Writing Happenings – I finished the first “finished” draft of my isekai story and sent it off to my alpha reader. At some point, it will show up on the blog. Honestly, I’m treating this one as pulpy serial fiction. I’m sketching out the second story, but I really need to finish up the fourth installment of the Irregulars. That one is almost done, but I suck at endings.

Battery Charging Station Happenings – Saturday, I received my kickstarter from Olight for their Ostation Pro. It also included some of their AA and AAA batteries, a headlamp, and some patches. The last item(s) resulted in the Grandniece discovering Derek’s Patch Board. I have way more charging capacity than I need, but sufficient to what I want. Plus, the plan is for when the next storm is approaching, I can cycle all the batteries through. I have noticed that the batteries Olight sent me prefer to be charged in their Pro charger.

The Wise Man Saga – Let’s go back to July of 2021. Before MIL moved in, the downstairs bedroom was planned as the guest room and we wanted a sleeper sofa in there. We found a nifty one that instead of pulling up the bed, you kind of rolled it out. MIL slept on it for a couple of years after moving in before deciding she would like some more room in her bedroom. (Rolled out, the sleeper did dominate the room). The sleeper sofa then moved to BIL’s and SIL’s house. About a week before Christmas, SIL showed up with a little figurine that looked like it was out of a nativity. She was wondering if it was ours. We don’t have any nativities at Ward Manor. At that point, the family started running down every possibility of where this little figurine could have come from to no avail. It is the mysteriously appearing Wise Man.

Tech Support Happenings – The Sunday before Christmas, The Wife and I went over to her BFF’s place so I could help set up BFF’s new computer. The whole thing went together fairly well with minimal issues. It was kind of fun introducing the BFF to the wonder of velcro straps instead of zip ties for cable management.

Christmas Eve Happenings – The day of Christmas Eve was The Wife and I making some excursions. For some reason, I got a wild hair up my butt for some mead. I don’t really drink, maybe a glass or two a year. But I felt the desire for honey wine. So, we went to liquor store to find no mead. Can’t really complain, as demand spikes up around this time of year, and I can’t see it being a high-volume item for a liquor store. Surprisingly, I found some on Doordash and picked up two varieties. There are days I love living in the future.

After dinner, we opened our advent calendars. The Wife and MIL found one of those “men’s advent calendar” that had a bunch of little survival tools. Some of them will end up in my sling bag or work bag. Most of it will end up in the hurricane kit.

Christmas Happenings – Christmas started with our normal pancakes and relaxing. Then it was doing some prep for our overnight guests, whom we had to go pick up before dinner. The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece agreed to stay over Christmas night so we could get an early start to our Day-After Christmas adventure. The main course for dinner was a very good lasagna made by SIL. There was a lot of food, a lot of chatting, a lot of the Grandniece opening presents and playing with her new toys. And a lot of left-overs.

The Wife Is Best Wife Happenings – Earlier this week, one of my coworkers sent me a text asking if an address in Parrish was near me. My response was Yes, if I was at home, but I’m at the office right now. Seems there were a pair of bikes being offered for free at the location, but since the coworker lives in Tampa, she was hoping I was at home and could just swing by to make sure the bikes were still there. Since The Wife is off this week, I asked if she would be willing to swing by and check on them. The Wife graciously agreed and then brought the bikes home so the coworker can pick them up from Ward Manor. She is the best wife.

Zoo Happenings – The Grandniece has been asking to sleep over for a while. So, we agreed on them sleeping over Christmas night, and we would take Niece and Grandniece to ZooTampa the next day. The Wife and I wanted to go back since our excursion last summer was cut short and I missed the Florida section. When we got there, we opted for ZooTampa’s “pay-for-a-day-get-the-whole-year” special for all four of us. Heck, even if we go just once more, it’s kind of paid for itself. The neat thing is when we were driving in, the was a big panel truck with the ZooTampa logo on the back. Turns out it was a manatee being delivered to ZooTampa for rescue/rehab. This time we brought our collapsible wagon, on the idea that the Grandniece would be riding in it. She did a little, but it was nice being able to drop all of our stuff in the wagon and cart it around. It did mean there were times we had to swap off so everyone could go see the animals. It also meant that I really didn’t need to swap out my sling bag for the backpack. But lessons learned. Needless to say, by the time we dropped Niece and Grandniece back at their place and made it home, we were exhausted.

Weight Happenings – Not happening. I overindulged pretty badly over Christmas week. I’ll get back on the scale after New Years. I always hate the first week getting back on program because I have to retrain my stomach that it doesn’t need to be full all the time. Although it was well after Christmas that I realized I never had my usual chocolate orange this year.