Sitting at work on a Saturday night

Who in their right mind would volunarily be at work on a Saturday night?

Well, given that I have not had power for going on 2 days, and it's warm here, me. A huge wind storm blew through on Friday and knocked over 1 million meters offline. That's meter count, not people count. The whole city of Redmond, including the evil empire, was offline for about 24 hours. Last night about 11:45 the city came back on line. I know this because my power kicked back in at about that time. Unfortuantely, it went back out 2 minutes later. And has stayed out. At last check the room temperature and fridge temperature were narrowing in on each other, Room 51, fridge 45. I'm hoping the power will come back on before I lose the several hundreds of dollars of frozen dinners in my freezer.

So after wandering around for a while today shopping and being warm in various retail spaces, I'm taking advantage of the network and power at work. At least for a few minutes more while the electronics finish charging. Then I'm going to go pick take out chinese and go home and light several dozen candles. I've had several offers of staying on the couch of people with power or generators, but I'd rather stay home with my boys. Besides. Every once in a while its fun to snuggle in with a book and read to candle light. But I'm thinking the shelf life on that one is exactly one night. But this gives me a chance to burn some of the several hundred candles I have.

I'm particularly frustrated that I will not be able to make a promised dessert for a party tomorrow. Unfortunately all the grocery stores were offline long enough that they tossed their soft cheeses. So marscarpone is not to be had. So no Eggnog Tiramisu Trifle for the college crowd. Luckily I have been able to get the ingredients for the Mocha Raspberry trifle. I'll head down to Chez Carter a bit early and put it together down there.

You can thank Rkimedes for this entry. She called earlier while they were out running errands and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't blog about being isolated by the power outage.

First, a few news items.

Here are a few news items of interest over the last week:

A week ago:
377 Ill on Freedom of the Seas, Norovirus blamed


And today:
Norovirus Attacks Royal Caribbean's 'Freedom of the Seas'
Second Outbreak prompts cruise ship scrubbing

First, we're all fine. But it made for an interesting week. Much more info to come.

You can go Home again

D-8 and counting.

Me Padre(MP) is having a significant natal celebration this weekend, so I'm back at the family homestead for the holiday weekend. A little down time and Battlestar Galactica will do me good.

Flying the day before Thanksgiving is never terribly smart, but given the other significant travel in my immediate future, I was not inclined to extend this trip. I don't know what it is with me and interesting trips through Seatac, but this one had its moments.

MP has a particular affection for the salmon pate from the grocery store formerly known as Larry's. Luckily, I have access to the one remaining location. I packed 2 4 ounce containers of the salmon around a pint of frozen Marionberry jam, and zipped them up with the bell from hell. Yes, I decided to buy MP a very large, very heavy windchime for his birthday. This sucker weighs at least twenty pounds and I was not looking foward to carrying it, but putting it in my luggage was guaranteed to throw my bag over the weight limit. Plus I wanted it to arrive in one piece.

Traffic was fine, and my preferred parking lot still had space. Amazingly enough, curbside and ticket lines were short. TSA has done one smart thing, they've put an officer out in front of the security line to answer questions about the 'liquids and gels' limitations. Which, it turns out, also applies to food. So I was left with the choice of tossing the salmon, or checking it. Of course, my checked back was long gone by this point. So I had to check the bell and the salmon in the large tapestry shoulder bag I was hauling them in. The curb guy was very helpful and put it in a large plastic bag, so I crossed my fingers that it would make it through in one piece and waved it off into the dubious care of the baggage handling system.

Let me point out the irony that once I was behind the security check point, I could go buy a small fortune's worth of Body Shop products and carry them right onto the plane, along with a sealed bubble tea cup of Kathy Casey's Pomegranate Lemonade. Go figure. Mmmmm, love Dish D'Lish. Mmmmmmm.

Oh, where were we? Oh yes. The state of modern airport Security *rant warning* All of this fun and excitement because of a plot that turns out to have been COMPLETELY OVERBLOWN and not technologically possible. *sigh*

At least this was a proof of concept that I can still carry my personal version of the Roaming Gnome, an EB waterbottle, as long as it's empty.

Of course, in the end the tapestry bag was fine. I wish I could say the same for my large rolling duffel. I clearly had a more eventful trip than I did, as it arrived on the baggage conveyer sans a significant section of structural strapping on the top. A week before the cruise. And when I toddled over to the luggage claims desk to report this, all I got was a 'We aren't liable'. Lovely. Thanks.

Luckly Costco came to my rescue and I have a new replacement with even more fun compartments.

Time to see if the howling of the windstorm will put me to sleep.

Tomorrow: Hopefully surprising MP with one of his b-day gifts.

Of fashion shows and media cards

Departure -11 and counting.

I was started to get panicked about the packing. What with being gone for the holiday, time is short!

My old friend PNF(Pink'N'Fluffy) is in town for the weekend, she ran errands with me this afternoon and was treated to a cruise fashion show this evening. Quite useful comments on the possible choices and options. Now I have a table full of clothes, which is quite a step in the right direction. :> All but a couple of the dresses from my last cruise still fit, happy day! My EB sprees over the summer paid off as well. My favorite sarong is missing so far, but I found everything else I went looking for.

I think I finally have all the camera media I need. The 1 gig card I ordered from Costco either didn't work or the camera wouldn't read it. Luckily Best Buy had 512 cards on sale and I managed to get 3 of those for the same price as the 1 gig. It's a swap I'll take.

ToeCat keeps worming his way between me and the laptop, but so far he seems willing to let me type. Skitterbidge that he is, if I so much as twitch the wrong way he's off like a shot.

Passport and Ipaq Keyboard should be here tomorrow, so that's the last of the out of town guests.

PNF bought me a lovely wind chime for a delayed birthday present. I've hung it in the front walk way so have a winter sound garden instead of my summer baskets.

Tired. Must sleep.

Adding some links

Gotta love it when I find a new toy --> New links on the right. Might be more general posts soon.

Spinning up again

The next Criuse is about 4 months away and the planning is spinning up again. Cruise V 2.0 is also to the Western Caribbean. Freedom of the Seas this time. Yep, that's the big boat in all the RCI ads. There will only be one port repeat, Cozumel. Plane tickets are lined up, and as of today we also have our hotel room for the 2 nights before the cruise. We're going to stay a little closer to the Art Deco district this time at the Marseilles hotel. Anyway, you might see more content here again as I plan.

Hm....its still here...

So the blog is still here, despite long neglect. Perhaps I'll get back to this in '06.