Small Talk: The Welcome Mat

[mpstar]

Seeing the news of the S26 teams made me miss all my Meet Market buds, so happy new year and glad to see so many familiar names.  Netfoot, I had hoped to hear that young master Bud had settled down a bit, but obviously not.  I was chilled reading about his being attacked by a gang of canine thugs - so glad your attire scared them off.  

 

Well, it's been a bit over a year since I retired from the world of academia, and what a great year it was.  I took two cruises - the first being the one last January where many were felled by the norovirus, causing it to be cut short.  I did not get sick, which I attributed to never taking the elevator.  The second was to Bermuda, which was mostly courtesy of Royal Caribbean making up to those who were on the ship of gastriointestinal fright.  I flew to California to visit friends; a few days in LA, followed by a drive up the coast to a bit north of San Fran.  I flew to Chicago for a few days of merriment with several college friends.  AND I DID MY 10 YEARS IN THE PLANNING CROSS COUNTRY TRIP!  8,964 miles in my trusty forester with my dear friend Nancy.  As we had determined in February of 2004, we left the day after Labor day in the first year that we were both retired.  It was amazing.  We saw snow, we saw Bison, we saw friends, we saw shopping malls - it was magic.  Nancy and I got along so well in the 7 weeks of travel that we agreed we will do other driving trips - we have a system of working out the finances that we used before;  when we added it all up to settle up the differences in what we spent?  I spent $6.00 more, so she took me out for coffee.

 

I also fulfilled my long standing desire to work as an extra on TV shows - my friends have been playing their own version of Where's Waldo trying to spot me.  While most of the time it is a blink and you'll miss me, the episode of "Forever", an ABC show, allowed me to be seen chatting and looking concerned in the episode "the man in the killer suit".  It's the scene about 40 minutes in at the cemetary, where Blair Brown is mourning her dead husband.  My last role of the year was as the principal in an episode of Mind of a Murderer on the ID channel.  It's a new show airing sometime in March.  I scream, I cry, and eventually get strangled at the hands of my son.  It was great fun, particularly since they moved the shoot from 3 hours away to a quick 20 minute drive from my house.  This was awesome, as it was 3 days.

 

I have maintained the 100 pound weight loss I achieved since I had weight loss surgery 2 1/2 years ago.  I am currently gracing several billboards showing off my before and after.  I almost went off the road the first time I saw it.  It is terrifying to see yourself on something quite that large.  Here's the write up on their web site

 

MissStar is living in Philadelphia, working for an advertising agency.  We see each other every few weeks, and she is still dating the wonderful boy she met at camp when she was in Junior High.  No, she hasn't been dating him since then, but it has been since she was 18 (she's 25!).  They plan to marry at some point, but they are in no rush.  That's fine by me because it's fine with them.

 

And, I started working again.  15 hours per week at the local Jewish Resource Center.  I do a little of this and a little of that, and it all goes towards my travel fund.  Next trip?  Miss Star and I are doing a 12 day Alaska cruise in mid May.  I wanted to do the Galapagos Islands, but it was too much money for me to swing both of us.

 

So, I will try and stay in touch with all of you with more consistency this year, particularly once TAR goes back on the air.  I do think about all of you often, and I do keep up with some of you on Facebook (hint, hint, Netfoot)

[Netfoot]

So nice to hear from you, mpstar!  I delayed posting a reply because I wanted to follow that link you posted, but for the last few days, there has been no response from the website. 

 

Budweiser is a little cutie, but still ultra wicked.  Latest thing is he wandered off up at the club and came back some time later with something in his mouth.  "What's he got there?" says one of the lads.  "It looks like a lucky rabbit's foot," says another!  Well that's exactly what it was, only it wasn't lucky for the rabbit!  It was the entire foot and leg, up to the knee, of one of the wild hares that hang about that place, that Bud loves to chase. No, he can't catch one, but he obviously found a dead one and helped himself to a tasty bit!  It was all dried up and leathery, but still it's sort of icky.  So, that was just another day of Buddy being Buddy.

 

I'm so glad to hear you're having fun as an extra in various shows!  I actually watched the episode of Forever you mentioned, and I certainly never spotted you.  Remember that your transformation took place since we last met.  And honestly, especially with the change to your hair, the change is dramatic.  Next time, pop in and give us the heads-up before the episode airs! 

 

I'd like to do a road-trip around the USA and maybe up into Canada as well.  And I've got a buddy picked out to come along.  I'm not sure how well it would work out, because, well, nowhere around here is more than 20 miles away.  But when we were involved in motorsport, we'd spend 10-12 hours a day in the car, several days a week, for months, preparing for an event.  So, I think we'd be OK over longer distances.  We'd like to travel around Europe as well, but that involves more in the way of visas.  I'd like to get as far East as Constantinople, and as far North as Tromsø, and there's weeks worth of stuff I'd like to do in the UK alone!  Maybe some day we can get something arranged.  Of course, little Mr. Wicked will be a problem, since he behaves so badly that nobody will volunteer to look after him for me while I'm away...

 

I'm glad you keep in touch with MissStar regularly.  I hardly see any of my few remaining relatives any more.  My sister becomes more and more objectionable every time I encounter her, and since she thinks there's an on-going plot against her by her daughter and I, I avoid spending time with my niece so as not to trigger crazy conspiracy rantings, and general demented and asinine behaviour.  My only other close relatives are my brother's kids, who are really great, but live in Canada, so I don't get to see them much. 

 

Social Media isn't really for me, alas.   The very term causes my teeth to hurt.  I'd rather give myself a frontal lobotomy with a plastic spork, than sign up to FaceBlot.  And it's getting thrust down my throat more and more every day.  You just try to upload a photo to Picasa and it automatically switches you to Google+ and asks you if you want to shaaaaare!  No.  It takes an enormous amount of energy to prevent my photo being automatically sent out to all the people who I'm pretty certain won't be interested!  Anything that requires me to accept that the word "Friend" is a verb... will probably have to manage without my participation. 

 

I wouldn't mind doing a cruise myself, but I don't want to go look at tropical islands, and while Alaska sounds like it would be visually stunning, I'd probably freeze my jewels off by mid-day on day two.  So, I can't think what cruise would be right for me, unless it was the Med. or something like that.  Also, it probably wouldn't be much fun going on my own, so which ever weird cruise I decide to go on, I'd have to persuade a friend (noun) or two to come with me!

 

You must pop in here now and again and post an update.  For some reason, there is hardly any "Small Talk".  Every so often I post an update -- usually some new injury suffered or wickedness performed by the cute, furry devil sleeping on my foot.  Very often my post is the first in weeks, and the previous one from weeks ago was from me as well!  Hopefully, S26 won't kill TAR totally dead, and hopefully some of the old-timers and some of the new blood will start having conversations here.  Fingers crossed!

[redlaces]

Sorry, didn't mean to like that post, just to reply to it.  As a "PC" (as in actually for real medically diagnosed) sufferer of celiac disease, which is neither new world nor a fad, but in fact a real, auto-immune depressing, disease, where one G-D stray crumb can screw up my entire digestive tract for days, I am still aware of the straight up nasty shite I come into contact with everyday.  This includes the legion of people who do not wash their hands in public restrooms, making opening the door problematic for the rest of us.  This includes the people who walk through crap and track it in to other places.  Cholera, typhus, typhoid, even tetanus, are nasty bugs helped along by poor hygiene.  

 

 

If gluten doesn't give you the runs, if nuts don't make you break out in hives, if you can ingest anything and everything, yea you.  If other people actively seek to NOT trigger biologic responses that they know are the effect that goes with the cause, yea them.  If being in the presence of such people gives you the hives, do what they do - make a different choice.

 

 

I understand that the way I phrase things can be very offensive. I am not trying to be. My whole confusion comes from the fact that these problems are becoming more commonplace than not. I tend to look at it as to WHY these things are happening as to how we can soften up more and more to cater to the human race just weakening in the oddest ways. Something is happening, and, for some reason it's just becoming normal. I don't agree with that and find it highly disturbing. People who suffer from all of these first world problems can also make a different choice instead of expecting the rest of the world to cater to their every need. Along with your special little snowflake child. I went to an urban school setting my whole student career and not once heard of a child with a peanut allergy. Now it's one out of 2 or 3 that are either Autistic or allergic to something that will kill them. Nothing is alarming about that?? It's never ending. Only point. Something is going seriously wrong, and, it needs to be changed, not drugged up. It's astounding, it really is.  Oh well, this will get deleted anyway. Just have to make that point when I can. I know it's not popular, but, for some reason people just want to be catered to for their lame problems instead of really taking a look at so called problem and putting on grown up panties and dealing with it. We are a nation of fat whiners. We just add the oh so dreaded "ist" to things and all of a sudden it's a disease or an insult. Blah blah. This is coming from a fat Un PC lesbian. Our brains and immune systems are vanishing. All of your ribbons and bracelets and 2k runs aren't going to change that.  If opening a door is so problematic for you in life, than Jesus Christ, I want your life. 

[kassygreene]

This will probably make no sense, but there's a thread in the 26.02 recap where someone is implying that people with environmentally-aggravated health issues should basically shut up and deal.  Yeah, the world is full of people.  Everyone hurts in different ways.  I too remember that no one was allergic to peanuts when I was a kid in the sixties.

 

I also remember the people who preferred that polio survivors Be Somewhere Else.  I remember teachers who didn't give a damn about diabetic students and actively hated dealing with insulin.  I remember when "cripple" was a description, and not considered politically incorrect.  I have lived for fifty years with society's not really changing attitudes to autism since my brother's diagnosis.  BTW, he didn't choose to have autism.  The choice my family made was to ignore the "wise doctors" of the day and NOT dump him in an institution and walk away.  Guess what?  The world would have preferred that outcome, and we got to deal with it with a little bit of support from a very few people, and f-all from the world at large.

 

In fact, when I was a kid, there were no homosexuals.  At least not in any adult conversation I ever heard or even eavesdropped on.  The world where everyone who had a problem also had the "civilized decency" to shut up about it, well, happily that world is no longer PC.  I have gay relatives.  I have gay friends.  I know people who crossed racial "boundaries" when they married.  I know people who crossed religious divides (oddly, that is usually harder to do). I even know people who have switched political parties (recently!).  

 

It is possible for people who are not "normal" to live in a world that doesn't ostracise them for it.  And if you take advantage of the fact that one ostracism is no longer PC, you don't get to credibly ostracize others.

 

It's a weird day here. My 81-year-old mother just found out that one of her childhood friends (and college roommate) has died of natural causes.  And Leonard Nimoy has died (not unexpectedly since Tuesday's tweet, but still suddenly).  Which kind of brings me around to diversity.  We aren't cookie cutter people (and we wouldn't be gluten-free if we were), but anyone who wants acceptance or toleration of their own differences can extend the same back, or suck it up and deal.

 

Off to view an online video obituary now.

[Netfoot]

Know that i'm not wreaking havok on the world with a pissy, goody-two-shoes attitude. I may be a bit OCD but i manage to keep calm and carry on.

 

I find it helpful to remember this:

 

The entire planet is made of dirt!  And our bodies are finely tuned and equipped to survive in just such an environment. 

 

My mother once said "Do you know why we don't get as sick as foreigners?  It's because when we pick dunks we don't clean them with alcohol.  We just wipe the lizard-shit off with our fingers before we eat them!"  Yes, ugh!  But the idea is that exposure to mild amounts of yuck acts as a sort of vaccination, and toughens our immune system, so we don't die of something horrible just because a burger-flipper fails to wash their hands after a bathroom break.  I believe there is some validity in this, although, of course, you can take it too far the other way.

 

So do what you can to avoid the nasty in this world, but if your noodles falls on the table (or the floor) and Phil is waiting for you to eat them, don't sweat!  Chances are you'll be just fine.  And little moments like this will make you stronger, for when the noodles fall on the floor in the kitchen and you don't even know about it!

[chaifan]

I'm not sure if this is the place to post this, but... does anyone know if any sites other than tvguide.com carry post-elimination interviews?  I see a few random interviews here and there, but does anyone else do them regularly?  Thanks! 

[panthergirl13]

I understand that the way I phrase things can be very offensive. I am not trying to be. My whole confusion comes from the fact that these problems are becoming more commonplace than not. I tend to look at it as to WHY these things are happening as to how we can soften up more and more to cater to the human race just weakening in the oddest ways. Something is happening, and, for some reason it's just becoming normal. I don't agree with that and find it highly disturbing. People who suffer from all of these first world problems can also make a different choice instead of expecting the rest of the world to cater to their every need. Along with your special little snowflake child. I went to an urban school setting my whole student career and not once heard of a child with a peanut allergy. Now it's one out of 2 or 3 that are either Autistic or allergic to something that will kill them. Nothing is alarming about that?? It's never ending. Only point. Something is going seriously wrong, and, it needs to be changed, not drugged up. It's astounding, it really is.  Oh well, this will get deleted anyway. Just have to make that point when I can. I know it's not popular, but, for some reason people just want to be catered to for their lame problems instead of really taking a look at so called problem and putting on grown up panties and dealing with it. We are a nation of fat whiners. We just add the oh so dreaded "ist" to things and all of a sudden it's a disease or an insult. Blah blah. This is coming from a fat Un PC lesbian. Our brains and immune systems are vanishing. All of your ribbons and bracelets and 2k runs aren't going to change that.  If opening a door is so problematic for you in life, than Jesus Christ, I want your life. 

There are many possible reasons why more children/people have health problems like asthma, celiac disease, ADHD, autism...and much of it may have to do with all the chemical crap we ingest in our food and in our environment. It's not about being whiny bitches.

 

I'm always fascinated by people who have made a determination that some health issues are real, while others are made up. Do you believe that people can actually have cancer? ALS? Parkinson's Disease? (I've got that... but maybe I'm just a whiny baby who thinks my right hand shouldn't shake uncontrollably...god, what a princess I am!)

 

If you've got none of those health issues, either the real ones or the "fake" ones, you're quite lucky. But when my son was in pre-school there was a child in the room who had a deadly peanut allergy. The school simply asked that people not pack PB&J for their kids, and one parent said "Screw that. If that's what I feel like making for lunch that day, that's what I'm making."

 

Seriously, who's the asshole in that scenario? The parent with the child who wants to be in pre-school and normalized as much as possible, or the parent who doesn't give a shit if another child DIES because PB&J is what's on the menu for Tuesdays?

 

Back to TAR, the OP who said she was grossed out by saliva in the noodles or eating them off the table probably wouldn't chew someone else's gum either. Can't say I blame her.

[backformore]

There are many possible reasons why more children/people have health problems like asthma, celiac disease, ADHD, autism...and much of it may have to do with all the chemical crap we ingest in our food and in our environment. It's not about being whiny bitches.

 

Thanks for saying that.   I'm the parent of one of those kids whose face and throat swelled up the first time he tasted peanut butter. And I've been told that his allergy was really my over-protectiveness, my insistence that he not eat something that might give him a little rash, not believing that he could die.   I had to protect him from family members who wanted to test out if he was REALLY allergic.  People have no idea the seriousness of sending your kid off to school or camp when a cookie or sandwich could make them stop breathing. 

[Christina]

There has been some research into peanut, soy, and wheat allergies that suggest mutations to the plants over the years are responsible for more people having adverse reactions. I was reading about it at Ohio State University Medical Center while taking part in a nutrition study. There was also mention about people with milk allergies possibly having allergies to something in the milk or the cleaning product used in dairies as opposed to actual milk.

 

I've had a food intolerance (not allergy) to fructose since childhood. I had seen several doctors throughout my life who decided I was anorexic, before being diagnosed in my 20s after my small intestine would not quit blowing up like a balloon from the frequent inflammation and one doctor wanted to put me on a feeding tube. The swelling decreased after being on IVs only, so they knew it was food related. The fact I could name foods that made me sick, caused me pain, and I had avoided since preschool helped narrow the field.

 

I'll never forget my preschool insisting I drink apple juice before I left the table, even after I told them it made my stomach hurt. After the THIRD time I vomited all over the table, and my mom was called to come get me, they stopped insisting I drink it. They seemed to think I was doing it on purpose. Now, there would have to be a doctor's excuse, which I couldn't even get back then, because my intolerance wouldn't have been recognized. We have come a long way with schools now asking parents to not send peanut butter when a kid has a serious allergy. It really isn't too much to ask.

[oldgearhead]

I am so happy that there are no retreads from this or the other related shows.  So sick of seeing the same people 3 and 4 times.  There are hundreds of million people in the US.  Why have they insisted on dipping into the same shallow pool so many times before?  Do they really think that we want to see the same faces many seasons?

 

But this season, so far, the shows (S, TAR and we have to wait for BB) are giving us fresh people.  And I don't mind the D-listers, just as long as they are not retreads.

 

I for one, welcome the novelty of this.

Edited March 18, 2015 by oldgearhead

[Netfoot]

Why is it that medical science has reached the point where they can transplant a human heart, but they can't design a robe that doesn't leave you feeling mortified?

[auntlada]

They let the Project Runway contestants make them?

[mamaT]

Netfoot, dear friend, why are you wearing a hospital gown?  Is everything ok with you?

[Netfoot]

I am well, MamaT!  There was some concern in the medical camp, a few weeks ago.  This required a Nikon with a large lens be pushed... I won't say where.  All clear, recommendation:  No further treatment -- repeat test in 10 years.  You don't often hear a doctor say "Go away and don't come back for a decade!"  Not when they got car-payments to make on their Merc.

 

Speaking of cars, my own 25 y/o chariot died and the mechanic has spent weeks on it without success. Haven't been up to the club in ages, and Budweiser is going stir-crazy.  He just got spanked for eating a hole in my brand new trousers.  Then he got dried beef-liver treats.  He is the sweetest little fellow, with cute, unruly ears.  But he is hell-spawn on the inside and an exorcism should be performed.

 

How about you, sweetie?  It's dead quiet in here, so there's probably enough room for a paragraph on your most recent exploits.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

I'm back!

 

What?  You didn't notice I was gone?  Typical!

 

Last night, the hard drive in my netbook started moaning and groaning so I did a quick shutdown.  Gave everything a chance to cool down, and rebooted.  Lilo got to LI and stuck.  Uh-oh!   As an IT professional I never backup, so this will not do!  Tried again, and she began to boot, so I killed the power.

 

This looked like an opportunity to upgrade from 500Gb, so I bought a 1Tb drive this morning  Put the old and new drives in USB 3.0 enclosures and plugged them in to the shiny new desktop I only assembled Saturday (fortuitous) and used dd to perform a block-by-block copy of the old drive to the new.  (Yes, dd the disk destroyer!  I typed very carefully and read back the command twice before pressing enter.)  It ran all day, while I bit my nails in case of an I/O error on the old, failing drive, but it finally completed without drama.  Put the new drive back into the netbook and Voila!  Up she comes!  You don't get rid of me that easily!

 

Now I just have to resize my LVM partition to take advantage of the extra 500Gb of disk.  (That's a lot of pr0n!)

[hincandenza]

A real IT professional would have an external RAID 10 array.  Just sayin'... ;)

[Netfoot]

I don't use RAID-10.  I prefer RAID-5, which is tricky to implement in a netbook!  :-)

 

I have three arrays, one with three drives, one with four drives and one with six drives.  I've got to rationalize that tho...

[Netfoot]

The infrequency of the posts leads me to believe that nobody is bothering with this particular forum.  So, why don't I just use it to post occasional boring stuff from my life?  If there are occasional readers they will soon enough be forced to make a "Shaddup!" comment.

 

I'm planning a trip to Trinidad.  Five days, four nights.  I'm going with a buddy.  We are both ex-pat Trinis who left in our youth, and would like the opportunity to go and really have a look around once more.  We're not really interested in the tourist spots.  (Trinidad isn't exactly a tourist destination in any case.  Who needs tourists when you've got oil!)  We're more interested in those places we used to go when we lived there (my school, etc) and then going to those out of the way spots people don't usually find themselves going to.

 

We've made some plans, and calculated roughly where we want to go, and roughly how much driving is involved.  We were up over 1,300 Km, but we've been rationalizing and refining, and we're now back down in the mid 1,200 Km mark.  Doesn't sound like much, but most roads are out in the countryside, and anything but straight.  We've been studying maps in an effort to avoid getting "lost" in the bush.  The last thing we want is a burst tyre in some wrong-turn dirt road miles from anywhere with night closing in and the cicadas (cigale, in Trini-speak/creole) starting to sing.

 

The trip is planned for a month from now, and I intend to record our "adventures" with plenty of photos, but I don't expect the trip to be all that adventurous, nor the photos all that wonderful.  The places we want to go are places with personal meaning to us, rather than any general photogenic appeal.  Not to say that there won't be some nice shots,  seeing as we're planning to go everywhere, literally to the four corners of the country!   But if anyone is interested in hearing about the trip (assuming there is anyone left reading this forum), let me know. 

[kakiphony]

I would love to hear and see pictures. It's even more appealing because you're not focusing on tourist places! It's not a place I know much about, and I'd love to learn.

[Netfoot]

Well, we'll probably be going to various tourist places, but not in the usual way.  For instance, we plan to go to Maracas Beach, famous for Shark & Bake (or Bake & Shark, depending which vendor you buy it from) but we'll be going there early in the morning, not at lunch time.  We want to see Maracas, but we also want to go on to Blanchisseuse (which I've never seen) and especially to drive the road south through the Northern Range to Arima.  Then we'll go via Sangre Grande to Toco and Grande Riviere and even Matelot, all famous for turtle-watching.  But we probably won't spend the night on the beach watching turtles laying eggs and baby turtles hatching, because we've both seen that before.

 

If you're interested, we've got this google map that we've stuck a lot of pins in as part of our planning, and you're welcome to have a look.  When we get back, maybe I can add pins for places we actually went, with photos, comments, etc.  Maybe even KML data, if I can remember to turn on my GPS tracker app. 

Edited May 3, 2015 by Netfoot

[flowerchild]

Sounds like the absolutely best way to do any country...avoid the tourist traps, and if you do cross paths with the tourists do it at a time that will keep impact to a minimum.  But...is Bud coming along with you?  If not, who is being cursed by having to watch that cute but crazed fellow?

[Christina]

But Netfoot, you didn't mention buying a FitBit. Do you really plan on traveling without one? I think it may be a necessity.

[Netfoot]

Alas, Budweiser can not come with me.  Trinidad is not rabies-free, so while he could go, he wouldn't be able to return without being incarcerated for six months, in quarantine.  Instead, he will stay in the RSPCA kennels, which have been recently renovated, and are very spiffy.  He will have a two-room suite, with a sunny living room and a less bright bedroom to sleep in.  He will get walked daily, will be seen by a vet daily, and apparently, kids go daily and play with the guests.  I will have to investigate to see whether I should opt for this or not.  I'm missing him already, and I haven't gone anywhere yet!

 

Right now, he's outside in the car.  He likes it in the car, and he's always in (or on) it.  I believe he has come to think of it as his own room!  I keep telling him it isn't, but he doesn't pay much attention to anything I say.  I don't really mind him going in and out of the car.  What I don't like is when he decides to redecorate, and starts digging up the carpets!

 

No need for a FitBit, because I won't be walking at all!  Other than from the plane to the SUV when we get there, and the SUV to the plane when we leave five days later, the only other walking I expect we'll be doing is when we walk from one side of the vehicle to the other, to switch out driving duties!

 

If you go look at the map, you may notice we've been collecting coffee houses, roti shops, and doubles men.  That's because we plan to eat nothing but doubles and roti, and wash them down with coffee and Solo Apple-J.  Because Solo Apple-J was our favorite soft drink when we lived in TnT and we haven't seen them for decades.  They recently surfaced here, and taste as good as we remember, but it's only available in cans.  We are going looking for the original Apple-J experience -- glass bottles with a crimped, steel cap!  Well, truth be told, we will probably eat some aloo pies and pholourie balls and at some stage we will have to go looking for genuine hops bread, but you can get usually these things at a roti shop, or doubles man.

[Honeycocoa]

I look forward to hearing about your adventures in Trinidad, Netfood..And I'm glad to hear Buddy is behaving himself.

 

We recently took a trip to Yosemite (National Park) . given that we only live 31/2 hours away, it's somewhat inexcusable that we haven't been back in a decade. In my childhood we went up at least every other year.  Yosemite is a very popular park and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with the Lodge being crowded. So I was very pleased to learn there are houses you an rent very, very close to the park. They aren't actually in it, but the only way you can get to the residential area is through the park.  Yosemite West is off of Wawona Road ( also know as highway 41) So we got a three bedroom house, which was much more convenient for my octogenarian parents. My dad had somewhere comfy to hang out while the rest of us went on a mule ride up to Mirror lake, etc.  Since we were half way to Glacier Point and the Wawona Hotel and Mariposa big trees, we went there too - normally  we just stay in the valley. There was snow in the high country when we got there and we saw lots of coyotes and deer. My mom has so many memories of traveling there when she was a child. and my son had done a report on Yosemite last year - in fourth grade they all study state history and  famous places, so he was very impressed. The views are just so incredible. It was a great trip.

 

I hope everyone is well, I miss hanging out on line with my old Meet Market friends.

[Netfoot]

I look forward to hearing about your adventures in Trinidad, Netfood..And I'm glad to hear Buddy is behaving himself.

 

Just a little over three weeks to wait!  (Getting excited!)  Having some difficulty renting a vehicle, unfortunately.  Booked an SUV online, and now I'm stuck in a "Waiting for Confirmation" limbo. 

 

Buddy never behaves, but he's cute enough and sweet enough to get away with it!  I just checked -- he's outside in the car, which he believes is his own room.

 

The views are just so incredible. It was a great trip..

 

Sounds fabulous.  One day maybe I will get to do the road-trip across the USA that I've been dreaming about.  Yosemite park is on my list of places to visit.  That list is still short, given the size of the USA, and yet huge, given my meagre funds.

 

I also dream about a road trip in Europe (London to Constantinople), but I could spend a month in Britain alone...

 

 

I hope everyone is well, I miss hanging out on line with my old Meet Market friends.

 

Me too.  I wonder where they all went?

 

I've recently started having difficulties with this site, regarding the display of certain icons/symbols, like the line of options above the QuickReply box, the little icons on the bottom right of each post, etc.  They either appear as some sort of Sanskritty looking character or as the dreaded box-with-four-hex-digits.  I think the site delivers these as a custom font, and that has suddenly stopped working here.  Both Firefox and Seamonkey have this problem (Mozilla source), but Konqueror does not.  And it's the same on two separate machines.  Anybody else having this problem with Firefox?

 

ETA:  Ok, apparently the missing icons under Firefox is widespread and the Big-Ups are arranging for it to be fixed, so I'll just have to be cool and wait a couple of days.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Netfoot

[auntlada]

I look forward to hearing about your adventures in Trinidad, Netfood..And I'm glad to hear Buddy is behaving himself.

 

We recently took a trip to Yosemite (National Park) . given that we only live 31/2 hours away, it's somewhat inexcusable that we haven't been back in a decade. In my childhood we went up at least every other year.  Yosemite is a very popular park and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with the Lodge being crowded. So I was very pleased to learn there are houses you an rent very, very close to the park. They aren't actually in it, but the only way you can get to the residential area is through the park.  Yosemite West is off of Wawona Road ( also know as highway 41) So we got a three bedroom house, which was much more convenient for my octogenarian parents. My dad had somewhere comfy to hang out while the rest of us went on a mule ride up to Mirror lake, etc.  Since we were half way to Glacier Point and the Wawona Hotel and Mariposa big trees, we went there too - normally  we just stay in the valley. There was snow in the high country when we got there and we saw lots of coyotes and deer. My mom has so many memories of traveling there when she was a child. and my son had done a report on Yosemite last year - in fourth grade they all study state history and  famous places, so he was very impressed. The views are just so incredible. It was a great trip.

 

I hope everyone is well, I miss hanging out on line with my old Meet Market friends.

 

Were you the one who rented an oxygen tank (or something like that -- it's been a while) for your dad? I think that was in the TWoP days. How is he doing?

 

I enjoy hearing about everyone's travels. I don't ever have much to contribute. My only trip in the last few years that hasn't been to family (in the same state) was a recent trip to Columbia, Mo., for an Altrusa conference. It's a nice place, but not really a tourist hotspot.

 

For Mother's Day/my birthday, my husband (and son, but he's 3, so really my husband) got me a Nikon camera. We have one, but now I can have my own, and he can still use the one that I kept telling him was ours, not his. He doesn't normally combine Mother's Day and my birthday, but this was a big present. Apparently, Nikon is discontinuing the D3100, so it was on sale also. My son gave me a rose from our rosebushes (I cut it and gave it to his dad, who gave it to him to give to me) and a dandelion. He picked the dandelion. I keep telling my husband this is why I don't want to spray to get rid of the dandelions and henbit and clover. My son picks them so he can give me flowers.

[Netfoot]

Trinidad in two weeks!  I'm getting excited!  We stuck a lot of pins in a map, and drew lines connecting the pins in various ways until we covered most places without too much overlap.  These lines are our projected routes for the various days.  It may look like we're over-planning, but I assure you, we won't allow these routes to dictate where we go -- only to be a guide as to generally what we want to do, with plenty of diversions and excursions discussed.

 

We wanted to see as much of the place as possible, so we looked at all sorts of routes.  The way from Point-A to Point-B is hardly ever a straight line.  Actually, it's been fun zooming the map in on Satellite view, and trying to decide if the road looks useable.  We've had to re-route several times because Google Earth indicates the road has ceased to exist.  Of course, that won't stop us trying it when we're actually there...  Did I say we're hiring an SUV? 

 

Meanwhile, as I have been researching various things on the net, I found this cheeky photo on FaceBlot.  Heh!  Zaboca BTW, is Trinispeak for avocado.

 

Poor Budweiser!  He has to spend a week in the RSPCA kennels.  But I hear they've been recently renovated and are quite spiffy!  Have I got any recent photos of that naughty little devil?  I'll go look.  Waitaminit...  I took some today!  BRB.

 

ETA: Some nice, new photos of Buddy, taken this afternoon.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Netfoot

[Lamb18]

When you leave I expect to see a yellow or red line from Bridgetown to Piarca and Phil's voice in the background saying "Team Netfoot departed Bridgetown at . . . "

[Netfoot]

Heh!  It's Piarco...  but you've got the 'dialect' just right!

 

No problem with Phil's voice-over.  I've got his number right here.  I'll give him a call right now!

 

ETA:  AYL now in place -- not quite as impressive as when Phil does it, I'm sorry to say.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

There is bugrall to watch on the telly!  At this point, I'd welcome a new season of "State of Affaires"

[Netfoot]

Editor screw-up  (or maybe mine) resulting in a double-post, so I'll edit the second one to say:

 

I was pretty sick Wednesday and Thursday, with bad-feels and a high fever.  The doctor was all "Chikungunya!  Maybe Dengue!  No Trinidad for you!"  and I  was going "<¡wail!>".  But then she said "just kidding -- It isn't serious."  And so true, I'm feeling better already.  And with Buddy acting as a very aggressive nurse-maid I'll be back to normal in no time.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

Only a few days to wait before our trip to Trinidad, and I'm!  All!  Excited!  Truly, I'm looking forward to this an awful lot.

 

I've started working on a web-page with a Google Map that shows our basic travel plans.  We will be adding photos and comments to the pins on this map when we get back home again, while adding and removing pins to match up with our journey.  And the routes will change from proposed to actual.  Probably won't be able to do a great deal during the trip because we aren't taking a lot of computing horsepower with us.  But we're taking five cameras, not including what is on our smart-phones and tablets.  Unfortunately, neither of us is much of a photographer.  But we've got something like 400 gig of memory cards, so the one thing we won't do is run out of space for photos.  Surely we'll get a couple good ones out of the 400 gig?  (This is where you mumble, encouragingly.)

 

Apparently the equipment for the flight is the Caribbean Airlines ATR 72 which is a little puddle-jumper rather than the 727 I'd hoped for.  Worse, the commercial pilots at my club have been crying down the ATR as a PoS for months and months now, which doesn't help settle the mind.  Fortunately, I am a good flier, so I'm still keen as ever!

 

Everybody says we're nuts, going to T'n'T and not planning to par-tay!  But we know why we're going, so don't worry about that.

[mamaT]

I'm so happy for your trip, Netfoot!  It sounds wonderful.  I hope you have as much fun doing it as planning it (because...damn!  You have this thing planned out!)  Sounds is if you should be ok on photo memory,and I cant wait to see pictures of your adventure.    Buddy has certainly gotten big.  Nice to hear that he is still keeping you on your toes.  Im hoping that he will also enjoy his vacation (and who knows....maybe you will come home to a mellow, well behaved lad who eats only the food you give him, comes when called and doesnt bring you half alive "presents").

 

It's hard for me to remember the last place you know of us living.  We've moved so much lately, that I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with it myself.  Let's see....in the 4 years since me and R have started our adventurous phase, we have lived in New York, California, Playa del Carmen Mexico, Massachusetts, a small town in Texas, the Seychelle Islands (HATED IT!), and for the last 8 months in Dallas.  We leave Dallas on Tuesday for a nice 3 week long vacation in Playa, and then we are moving (again) to Salt Lake City.  R's kids and grandkids live there, so it will be nice to be around them for awhile.  And we are kind of planning on settling there for awhile (although for us "awhile" is a relative term).  Im going to get my real estate license again.  We feel it's maybe time to settle in and have a "real" job for a bit.  As much as I have LOVED our traveling, Im getting tired of feeling so transient, Im looking forward to being in one place for a spell.  

 

I miss you and all of the Meet Market gang and think fondly of you all often. It is my goal to one day convince you that FaceBook is not the work of the devil (well maybe just a little) and that you should break down and play with us there!

[Netfoot]

mamaT!  Come wid us!  We got room in de back fuh wan mo!   

 

The routes we've drawn up are just an idea where we want to go and what we want to remember to see along the way.  We fully intend to stray off in any direction that takes our fancy, at the first sight or sound of anything interesting enough to warrant a diversion.

 

So come go!  We goin' feed ya 'pun dhalpuri roti an' doubles an' gi' ya nuff rum to drink!

[Netfoot]

I am a terrible person.  I just took my sweet, devilish, Budweiser off to jail!  He didn't know what was coming, and the whole way I was apologizing and he didn't understand, so he was giving me kisses on my neck the whole way.  There was chaos when we got there, and Buddy slipped his collar and made a break for freedom twice, but was apprehended both times and ended up behind bars.  Mind you, it's quite a nice set of bars, and the resident gaoler was very pleasant and treated him with affection from the outset.  But imagine the poor boy's dismay to realize that his daddy has abandoned him in this strange place, where there is no bed to lie on, in front of the fan, there are no bagpipes to play squeaky tunes on, and there is no warm daddy to snuggle up to when it's time to sleep.  

[Lamb18]

I hope you are having a fun trip, Netfoot!

[Netfoot]

#1 Trinidad traffic is epic!

#2 Trini drivers are insane!

#3 I am exhausted and ache all over.

#4 I'm having a ball.

#5 Believe it or not, I found an Apple-J in a glass bottle!!! It was delicious.

#6 Two more days, then home for a fortnight laying in bed recovering. With Buddy nurse-maiding. There are strays all over the island, and they are as blasé about the roads as the Trini humans.

#7 Absolutely beat. Crashing.....

[Netfoot]

Budweiser is two years old today.  

[Jobiska]

Netfoot, I don't pop into this thread much, but I've just caught up on the last page or so. 

I lived in Trinidad in the late 1960s when I was 8-9 years old.  I went back with my husband in 1991 for a week.  Now it's my dream to take my (almost) 21 year old son there.  

In 1991 I went to Maracas Beach and got a shark & bake and the shark fell out into the sand!  Can you imagine the horror of waiting for that taste for over two decades and then having that happen?  I washed it off in the ocean and ate it anyway (!!!).

We also got a special permit to sit on a beach at night to watch leatherback turtles come in to lay eggs.  This also harked back to a formative childhood experience.

What school did you go to?

[Netfoot]

I left TnT in the early sixties.  I've been down many times since, but usually for a specific purpose -- which didn't leave much time for actually visiting Trinidad!  This trip, I went with my friend -- another ex-pat Trini -- and we went everywhere and looked at places we hardly remembered and places we'd never seen.  

 

We went to Maracas on Day Two, going north from PoS, up through Maraval to strike the north coast, then east to Maracas Bay itself.  (By the way, do you know what this is? Heh!)  All the Shark & Bake shops were preparing for the lunchtime rush, but we were too early, which was OK with us, because neither of us actually like shark & bake very much (heresy!).  I like the bake ok, but the shark... not so much!  Last time I was there I got shark & bake from Richards.  He gave me so much shark I went around and bought another bake, so I ended up with two lots of shark & bake.  Which I didn't finish...   

 

Not to say we were eschewing the pleasures of Trini cuisine!  Here is my buddy in Blanchicheusse with his fingers red from eating pepper-mango, and it not even ten o'clock in the morning!   From here, we went south on a lonely road, 45K through the northern range, with the clouds low over misty peaks and the poui trees flowering.  I love them for some reason.  They only flower for a couple days a year, and they were flowering for us when we visited.  Wasn't that nice?
 

Next stop:  Toco, and the lighthouse at Galera, which is the easternmost point of Trinidad.  From here, we went west 38K, all the way to the end of the road at Matelot. All along from Toco to Matelot is where the turtles come in by the hundred, to lay eggs in the season.  We didn't stay for nightfall, because we've both seen it before. (Funnily, two weeks after I got home, I was visiting some friends from California who were visiting here, and one night a turtle decided to lay eggs just yards from their patio!)

 

After Matelot it was time to head home, as directly as possible, along the Churchill-Roosevelt highway, and crash out.  I think that night was the tiredest I got.  By the next day I was starting to get accustomed to it!

 

I've tried to put in links to photos along the way, but Google Plus has "improved" upon Picasaweb to the point that I'm not sure they will show.  Here is a link to the album itself which also may or may not work.

 

If you get the chance, take your son and go.  I wouldn't suggest you spend five days in the car, racking up 1,307 kilometers of bad road, but I would suggest you get out of PoS and see some of the country.  We went everywhere, and now, when next in Trinidad for a quick visit, if I have a few hours to spare, I can quickly think of a few places I'd like to revisit.

 

ETA:  I went to Dunross Preparatory School, but that was before it moved from Long Circular Road to it's present location near the Deigo Martin river.    I did visit the school late on Day One, and met with the headmistress.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Netfoot

[Jobiska]

Cashew fruit and nut.

I and my brothers went to Dunross in 1968-1969 (still Long Circular Road) and to the Baker Street School AKA University School in St. Augustine (we moved there from Port of Spain) from 1969-1970.  I guess we missed each other at Dunross by a few years.  I suppose you've seen the school has a website!  

My husband and I drove around too in 1991--Asa Wright Nature Center, down to the tar lake, various beaches, Caroni Swamp (not the best time for the scarlet ibises, but there were some) etc.  We actually stayed in St. Augustine but did make it into Port-of-Spain.  I couldn't find my house on Cascade Avenue there but eventually while walking around St. Augustine found my second house.  

I too remember the poui trees (and others--Royal Poinciana, etc.) and smaller shrubs such as plumeria and hibiscus and ixora (we used to suck the blossoms like honeysuckle) and so forth and so on.  And heliconia.  I love heliconia!

I was there at just the right age for it to be an extremely formative experience for me that affected my whole approach toward life.  

(And yes, your link worked, for me anyway!  Thanks for sharing the photos!)





 

[Netfoot]

Cashew fruit and nut.

 

Heh!  Just testing...

 

We used to live in Cascade Road as well!  I visited and took photos on Day One.  We moved from there when I was 2-3 so my memories are few and fragmentary, but I found the house easily enough, because it was right next door to the School for the Deaf.

 

Also visited Asa Wright Nature Center which is halfway along the Blanchisseuse / Arima road.  We got there at exactly the wrong time.  We would have had to wait 2 hours before we could begin a hike, and we just didn't have the time to spare.  But it is on my list of places to revisit if I ever have a half-day to spare in Trinidad. Also, didn't go to Caroni swamp.  I went as a kid, and when the Ibis took flight, the sky turned red.  You literally couldn't see any blue for birds.  Went past it several times on the Uriah Butler highway, but it was never the right time to go in.  We did visit the pitch lake but we didn't explore it thoroughly.  I wouldn't mind going back there again.  

 

Yes, you can suck nectar from Ixora, one tenth of a drop at a time.  :)  Once a Trini, always a Trini.  Do you find yourself mumbling under your breath, "I wish they'd put some pepper in it..." when you go to eat something you didn't cook yourself?  When you hear that a burger is 100% Beef, do you think "...and 0% flavour?"

 

I'm glad the photos worked for you.  I must go through the 2,449 photos and 20-ish hours of video and select a few items to show you, from the other four days we were there!

Edited August 17, 2015 by Netfoot

[Jobiska]

Yes, you can suck nectar from Ixora, one tenth of a drop at a time.  :)  Once a Trini, always a Trini.  Do you find yourself mumbling under your breath, "I wish they'd put some pepper in it..." when you go to eat something you didn't cook yourself?  When you hear that a burger is 100% Beef, do you think "...and 0% flavour?"

 

We were all so young (and maybe my parents weren't into it) that we didn't go much for hot foods, but I remember the best mangoes, avocados, papaya, etc. ever.  And Indian sweets.  I can't even bring myself to buy a papaya here, little measly wrinkled things.  

[Netfoot]

I can't even bring myself to buy a papaya here, little measly wrinkled things.  

 

And the zaboca!  All black and warty like a frog and tiny!  We had a tree by our door that grew zaboca over a foot tall, sometimes as big as 15 inches!  When one fell, it was a race to see who would get to it first, one of us, or our dog Shylock (Doberman/Alsatian cross,  pound of flesh, etc).

 

I'll tell you something about going back:  It's OK to go back after twenty five years, because everything will have changed, but at least you'll recognize what you're looking at. But if you wait fifty years to go back, almost everything will be unrecognizable. So be ready for that.  

[Honeycocoa]

Netfoot, I really hope you and buddy are surviving this hurricane ok. They say it's really bad in your islands and I'm concerned about you. I'm also glad to hear you had a good trip.

So glad to have a normal TAR season again!

[Netfoot]

Barbados is clear of the danger area, and Budweiser and I are safe and well (except Bud has fleas).  Our weather here is still and hot.  Uncomfortably hot.  Just had a midnight cold shower, except the cold tap now delivers lukewarm water.  Going to retrieve Buddy now, and go back to bed.

[Honeycocoa]

Glad to hear it! And embarrassed I once again confused Barbados and the Bahamas.... ( it's in the Caribbean! it starts with a B!- oy...) On the other hand my father in law kept asking if we were affected by the wild fires north of Napa.  Which is a couple hours north of us.  We weren't affected except our sunsets got really orange and there were a few spare the air days. ( no un necessary  driving etc)  Geography, one would think us TAR fans would know this.

 

Stella takes Trifexis for fleas, which is a pill.  - the topical stuff just washed right off of her.  - it works great for my cats, but they don't get bathed like my white hairy dog.  A new dog ( and family ) have moved into our neighborhood  - Stella loves their dog  and I have re discovered our local dog park - it's actually a baseball field but on weekday mornings, it's all neighbors and dogs.  Nice people to chat with. I certainly get more exercise when we just walk. so I'm working out how many times a week to go to the park and how many times a week we just walk.  This is my bad news/ good news joke about Dog as Personal Trainer - the bad news is, we have to stop for all the pee and sniff breaks, the good news is, there is no skipping the walk - twice a day at least around the block,  no matter what.

 

 Wishing you some cool breezes, Netfoot! Hope everyone else is doing well too

[Netfoot]

Wishing you some cool breezes, Netfoot! Hope everyone else is doing well too

 

Thanks.  It's terrible.  We just had a thunderstorm that was located about 200 feet directly over our house.  It was some of the loudest thunder I've ever heard, and the house itself rattled and shook.  Proud to announce that Buddy wasn't in the least bit cowed by it.  No running away, no trembling.  Like it was no problem.  He was totally blasé about it.  There was also intensely strong rain for a while.

 

Unfortunately, it's about 110% humidity right now, and I just wish I had a way to measure the heat, because it is at a miserably uncomfortable level again today. Earlier,  Bud and I had to drive to the center of town, battling the traffic both ways in the blazing heat.  When we got home I gave Bud a bowl of iced water, and had a large glass for myself.  But the humid heat is very uncomfortable.  I'm sitting here in a pair of naughty shorts, and I am soaking wet.  I couldn't be more wet if I'd just walked out into the rain.  Normally, I'd have considered it, but with the cold water in the pipes being lukewarm this last week, the rain would probably have been warm too.  

Edited October 5, 2015 by Netfoot

[Netfoot]

<¡groan!>  Is there nothing worth watching on a Saturday night?  

[Honeycocoa]

Happy Belated Birthday NetFoot!  I hope you had fun with Buddy and all your flying friends!

We're good, getting ready for Thanksgiving and all. Then the kid goes off to science camp for a week which will be weird.

Hope everyone is doing well!