Category: Family

Tripod Happenings – The Sunday before Colombus Day, The Wife, MIL, and I trekked down to our preferred cat shelter. We decided that after Lola’s passing, we would try and get a kitten, or at least one under a year. The reasoning was this would probably be the last one we deliberately get as it’s going to get harder and harder to keep up with a kitten as we get older. Plus, we were already discussing that in the future the clowder would have to decrease.

There was one we were looking at on the website, but it was adopted the day before we went to the shelter. Darn. The lady took us to the next pod. Running around was this little cat. A little three-legged cat who was just a ball of energy and charisma. We were both willing to look around, but we knew that this little tripod was going to end up coming home with us.

Of course, neither of us had a tripod before, so we were a little cautious about letting her run around a two-story. We were quickly disabused of that notion on Day 2. When we couldn’t find the little devil until she came trotting down the stairs like it was nothing. She is a little ball of energy and curiosity with a burning need to find all the kitten-sized nooks and crannies. Sh

The other cats are still figuring out what to do with her. A couple just ignore her. Our next youngest, Freya, is not happy that something has come and taken The Wife’s attention. I figure things will settle out in a few months.

I present – Minerva.

Disney Happenings – Last week, The Wife and I took The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece to Disney World. It was Grandniece’s first trip to the House of Mouse. The plan was to pick them up on Sunday, hit Disney Springs on Monday, hit Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, and then hit a cat cafe on Wednesday before coming home.

On the trip over, we were discussing previous cats when the Grandniece informed us that she knew how our cat Bella died. “She fell off a bridge.” WTF? How did she come up with that? Then it hit us. The Wife had told the Grandniece that Bella “went over the rainbow bridge.” The things kids come up with.

I was inordinately happy that my new “theme park bag” didn’t even flag security as we walked into Disney Springs. Our first stop was the Lego store. The Wife bought me a gingerbread AT-AT set. I’m trying to be more “Christmasy” for her. We had lunch at the T-Rex restaurant. The Grandniece was highly amused by the animatronic prehistoric creatures and the fish tanks. From there, it was walking around the various shops. Often at things we couldn’t afford. We ended the day with the Grandniece and me building lightsabers. From there, we went to the resort. We were originally supposed to be at one of the All-Stars resorts, but they “upgraded” us to a Lion King suite at the Art of Animation. The room was good for four people, but I’m not a fan of the resort overall. I dislike that there was only one food option and the layout meant we were walking around a lot to get where we needed to go. The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece loved the pool and the arcade. We all have our priorities.

With The Wife’s recent surgeries, we were forced to bring the rollator to Magic Kingdom – which was fun carrying in a very full bus. This time when we went through security, my bag got flagged. Okay, maybe it was the pins we put on it. (The trade-off for me getting to build the bag was The Wife got to put pins on it, as long as I agreed to the pins). The nice security lady mentioned things shifting in the bag could have caused it to flag. She chuckled when I pulled out my “Oh Shit” IFAK and commented “Let’s just hope you don’t need to use that today.” One of the things I like about Disney security – they always appear happy that they have prepared guests. From there, we went to the breakfast buffet and gorged ourselves while engaging with Winnie The Pooh characters. The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece went on a bunch of the rides. The Wife and I joined them on the Peoplemover and Small World. Yeah, let’s just say getting in and out of rides with recovering knees wasn’t easy on The Wife. Rain in the afternoon sent us back to the resort before our dinner reservations. The other bad thing about the rain? Disney’s photo people aren’t out, which meant we didn’t get as many nifty pictures as we expected. The ones we did get were worth the price we paid.

Wednesday it was still raining. The Wife and I were dealing with the aftereffects of running around after a six-year-old. We had reservations at a cat cafe that specializes in Maine Coons. We should never make plans for the day of return. We were hurting and exhausted. Instead of cat cafe, we braved a very rainy I-4 and made our way back to Ward Manor. I kinda regretted not seeing the Maine Coons, but not as much as I enjoyed resting on my couch. And my nifty pins.

HVAC Happenings – We had some travel plans in the spring. Note I said “had.” The rental needs a new HVAC system. It’s Florida. HVAC is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. Fortunately, it came in a lot less than we feared.

Shortly after moving to Parrish, I was surprised to find a large flock of these ducks that would invade our old neighborhood eating the bird seed. Large flock as in anywhere from thirty to forty ducks. Doing some cursory research resulted in finding the Wikipedia article.

They’ve been showing up at Ward Manor for the last several months – most likely drawn by the cornucopia of bird seed we set out for the birds. They’ll come pretty close to the house.

What gets me is their bright orange beaks with that gray spot that looks like the paint’s worn off.

The other thing that surprises me about them? They don’t really quack like the mallards.

Safe Happenings – A couple of weeks ago I tried getting into my big gun safe. Spun the dial. Nope. Grunt. Try again. Nope. Again. Nope. WTF? Try several more times. Finally call the place I bought the safe from. Owner says to retry with numbers one up and one down. Oookay. Did that. No joy. Y’know what? Screw it, let’s swap out with a new digital lock.

“Sure, can I swing by tonight at 8 or 9?” Um no, Ward Manor is an early to bed, early to rise place. Originally, we planned for him to come down on Sunday, but he called and asked if we minded him coming on Friday. Nope. Not at all.

He opened the safe. It was one number off. Not sure how that happened since the combo worked the last time I opened it up. I’m going to blame it on the fact the lock was made in 2020, and a lot of stuff made that year had “quality control issues.” Anywhoo, I have a brand new shiny keypad.

Screen Door Happenings – Since the temp on Sunday dipped below 65, The Wife thew open the screen door for the first time since February. This also means we had to monitor which cat was by the front door to avoid some of the more spectacular furballs.

Backpack Happenings – I picked up this new pouch for my EDC backpack, mostly because I was trying to meet the free shipping threshold. But, it looked like it would at least replace one pouch that I was never really happy with. I get it in and there’s a small problem. It’s supposed to attach via hook and loop (e.g., velcro). Well, the pouch has the loop portion (aka, the fuzzy part) and the backpack has the loop portion. Looking online I couldn’t find a double-sided hook adapter. I did find a suggestion to take some hook and loop tape and essentially create an adapter. First prototype created and now we test!

Backpack Happenings – Much to my surprise, I find myself going to theme parks more and more often. Usually it’s just our normal trip to Disney World with The Wife’s co-workers, however, there’s been more and more “side quests” at other times. While my normal EDC backpack is technically TSA-compliant, I’ve run into issues with the theme parks. They really don’t like you bringing in trauma shears – which I don’t understand – among other things.

So, I’ve decided to use a spare backpack to create my “theme park” bag. It will have what I consider the essentials for a day in the theme parks without causing undo issues with security. The other benefit is because I’m limiting what goes in the bag, it’s going to be lighter for the walking. Right now, I’m trying to build it with as much of my spare gear as possible. Apparently, I have a lot of spare gear because I’ve only had to pick up a few things as of right now.

Transformers Happenings – Last Saturday, The Wife and I trekked up to our preferred cinema to catch a screening of the 1986 “Transformers The Movie.” Hasbro was really pushing this 40th anniversary “Apology Tour” with the screenings and associated merchandise. Expensive merchandise. Feck it, I’m just there to see the movie. It started with a tribute to Peter Cullen, and damn it if there wasn’t dust in the air in the theater. The movie, was well, the movie. The same one I’ve been watching for forty years. Then came the short, which was heavily promoted as Peter Cullen’s last performance as Optimus Prime. Let’s just say I found it disappointing and a good example of what happens when you let writers get too philosophical with material that should have just been a damn tribute to a beloved series / character / voice actor.

At least The Wife got a nifty cup.

Here are at Ward Manor, we have a nice pond / small lake in the back. It’s why we get some interesting water birds.

One joke about Florida is that our mammals are small, but our birds are big. Which is true for the Great Blue Heron.

Image from Wikipedia.

Every so often, I will see one of these with it’s wings akimbo and ready to fight.

I’ve seen one of the great blues take on another or some of the other birds around the lake.

In addition to the great blue herons, we have a couple of Little Blue Herons running around.

Image again from Wikipedia.

I really don’t have any good pics of the little blue herons, but it’s fun to see them perch on top of the arbor.

Computer Happenings – Last week, we had some nasty thunderstorms roll through Ward Manor’s AO. One decided to lay down some lightning nearby. As in a few houses down the street. It caused some nasty flickering at Ward Manor, which resulted in the death of The Wife’s work dock. As you can imagine, this caused some calamity. We managed to get The Wife’s work laptop hooked up to her personal workstation, but that was, shall we say, limited.

Anywhoo, we were already discussing consolidating her home workstation and personal workstation when we redid her office. We just decided to go ahead and do the consolidation on her current desk. We had this curved widescreen monitor bouncing around, and The Wife made envious looks at my widescreen every time I had Excel on it. So, we set the big monitor in the center and flanked it with a couple of others. We also got to use this Anker monitor stand/dock I’d had hanging around. Which gave The Wife a great place to charge her work phone. Took us a couple of hours, but we got the basic set up done.

AI Happenings – Do I use AI for helping me with my writing? Yes. Do I find AI to be helpful? Yes. Do I probably have more fun than I should by having AI create fake reviews and podcast transcripts featuring famous writers and thinkers review my stories? Yes. Do I think AI will replace good writing or good editing? Nope. I have seen it make shit up that didn’t happen, misread whole passages, and other hallucinations. I’m still having way too much fun with my fake reviews and podcasts.

First Date Happenings (plus nine years) – The Wife and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date the Sunday before Labor Day. It’s just easier for us, and makes sure we generally have the time to go out and enjoy ourselves. This year, we went up to the EBISU up in Tampa. When we went up for the grand opening, the line to get in was too daunting. Much to our surprise, there was still a line to get in. After about ten minutes, we entered. Um, how to describe it? Imagine a Japanese arcade, toy store, and grocery store were jammed into the same area. It was fun, but crowded. The staff recommended we should come during the week if we wanted to avoid the crowds. Much to my surprise, they had some Macross.

If it wasn’t $400, it would have probably followed us home. At any rate, we stocked up on Kit Kats and Pocky. Which was why we brought the cooler.

After EBISU, we went to the restaurant. The same restaurant we met at nine years ago. We enjoyed our food, reminisced on all the life events we’ve experienced since that night nine years ago. Then, unlike that night, we went home together.

Grandniece Birthday Happenings – Last Saturday, we had a small birthday party for the Grandniece. It was just family, as she was having a larger party with her friends on Sunday at Chuck E Cheese. She seemed pleased with her present haul, but had the most fun when she went up to my office. I have a small bin with some of my toys – I mean, collectibles – that I don’t have a problem with her playing with. She calls them puppet shows. The grandniece also loves talking to Alexa – which I’m not sure how I feel about that. She thought it was really neat when I had my office lights cycle colors. And, as always, when she left, so did the last of our energy.

Conversations at Ward Manor – As The Wife and I were coming back from picking up Grandniece’s birthday cake, we were discussing the need to hide somethings because we have an upcoming surprise for the Grandniece.

The Wife: How likely is it that Grandniece won’t want to go upstairs and see our offices?

Me: It’s possible. Granted about as possible as a meteor hitting the house.

The Wife: Can we not put that kind of thing out to the universe?

Me: Can we not indulge in magical thinking?

The Wife: Meteors are not magical.

Me: No, the concept of putting things out in the universe.

The Wife: Oh, I see. No.

Obviously, this week’s entry is overshadowed by the loss of Lola as detailed in Monday’s post, but I did want to comment on some of the more mundane items.

Shoe Happenings – I used a pair of Sketcher slip-ons for walking on the treadmill, but it felt like my feet were “rolling” with them. After talking with The Wife, we decided that I should upgrade my footwear. Now, I hate laces. Absolutely hate laces. So, I ended with a pair of Hoka laceless shoes. It’s weird getting used to a tall, springy shoe. On the plus side, I went through a good portion of my morning without needing my standing mat.

Recovery Happenings – The Wife continues with her recovery, with a focus on getting her extension to full. Good days and bad days, which is frustrating because her bad leg is a lot more painful than her good leg. It’s just going to be a process, which she understands intellectually, but it’s trying her patience. Good days and bad days. At least she’s met her out of pocket maximum.