h20skibum

Last night, Susan and I had to split up.  She went to another of our granddaughter’s concerts, and I went to our grandson’s opening game for little league. 
 

He had a great night, and was starting pitcher for his team. It is always nice when they start out with a win.  Final score 12-2. 

So we did get a Ricky update yesterday from his blood test.  Numbers were up over 30, so that was good.  
 

Now he gets his steroid dose cut in half, and he just has to finish antibiotics.  Then, another blood test next week to monitor how things are going.  
 

He does seem to be acting almost normal.  (Well, normal for him)

After I got ducked yesterday, we made a trip through the mall near @LionesssSue’s house.  

Now, I have never been a fan of those generic mannequins with half a head missing.  Express seems to use them for all their displays. When I looked in their storefront window at the men’s shirts, I saw this. 

Now, something just seemed off.  Maybe if someone can figure it out, they could Point out what it is.  

Things got really busy yesterday and I didn’t have time to post.  
 

Maybe because I was here. 

This is a tropical pina duck

The collection grows. 

2 hours ago, jmh2006 said:

Hi CC friends!  It has been a rough 10 days.  As some already know from that other site that shall remain nameless, I lost my dear father very unexpectedly on April 18th.  He was in good health up to the very end and would have been 88 this August.  I returned home today after a week down in North Carolina, where he lived, to help my sister take care of all the "things".  My sister moved down there from NJ last summer.  While I am still a little bit in shock that he is gone (my mother died in 2014), I am so thankful he was living life to the fullest up to the very end and we were all together the first weekend of April for a fun filled time.  My father had moved into a lovely independent living community in the fall of 2022 so he had downsized quite a bit which was very helpful this past week as were emptying his apartment.  I also urge everyone to have all their important papers organized in a file for your loved ones, should anything happen unexpectedly as did for us.  Even though we knew where all the "stuff" was he still had little post it notes all over his desk of passwords for his computer.  😃  We will be having a Celebration of Life in the summer down in NC for him.  

I am sorry to read of the passing of your father.  Condolences to your family. 

Do any of you have a true home theater setup, and if so, what remote do you use?

I have an Onkyo 7.1 receiver (center channel, front L&R, side L&R, rear L&R, plus subwoofer). My Sony tv is connected to it, as is a dvd player, Apple TV box, and Roku box.  I have been controlling everything with a Logitech Harmony 650 programmable remote.  

The thing I liked about the Harmony is it made everything a one button operation.  Press watch a movie, and it would turn on the tv, change the source to the dvd, turn on the dvd player, turn on the surround receiver, and it would be ready to go.  Same with everything else, it would automatically switch inputs and power devices on and off. 

It always worked great when I had a cable box, but since switching to Roku and using the cable provider app, the remote occasionally gets confused.  I started looking for a new programmable remote, but it appears Harmony stopped making them.  Maybe with so many going with sound bars and smart tvs, there wasn’t a big enough market for programmable remotes.  

Just curious what others use.  

You may remember about a month ago, Ricky, my daughter’s cat ended up in the hospital for a blood transfusion.  He was diagnosed as anemic, and his PCV (I think that is the correct term) was down to 9.  When he was released, it was up to 22, which was still a little low.  

Today, will be the fourth time I have taken him to the vet for a blood test, as they continue to monitor how he is doing.  He is still on steroids, and a second round of antibiotics.  Tomorrow we will find out where his numbers are.  They have been up to 30 and down to 16.

He was not happy when I put him in his carrier.  

I am not sure, but I think this is his evil eye, once I brought him back home. 

2 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Weird pages 4809 and 4810 are a repeat !

On mine they are not. 

Sounds great.  I will be following 

5 hours ago, 2 to Sea said:

Afternoon was spent around the pool.  Tried several drinks.  My favorite was the Bahama Mama and Dirty Banana.

My wife can’t wait to get back onboard a Princess ship for one of their Dirty Bananas.  That is one of her favorites. 

So, how was the trail today?   Either we are getting a little older, or it got a little harder. We did about a five mile loop on the trails.  This is part of the North Country Trail. 

‘This part is easy

There is a trail in there somewhere. 
 

Lots of nice water views

With some small waterfalls. 
 

I am glad they cleared some of the downed trees. 
 

That isn’t too steep.  It is almost like a staircase

And speaking of cats, that looks like an old cat on the trail. 😂

And, a much slower cat. 😂

So if anyone wants to give their knees or hips a workout, this is the place. 
 

Afterwords, this was perfect. 
 

If anyone has watched “The Pale Blue Eye” on Netflix, with Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, and Robert Duval, you may recognize this covered Bridge and Mill that were used for some location scenes. 

Of course, the bridge signs were not present in the movie.  
 

Decided to go for a hike after church today, so we drove to McConnell’s Mill State Park.  With an 80° day, it appeared many had the same idea. 

There were several kayaks in the water. 

They had to pull out above the Mill dam and walk to the lower part of the creek.  A good place for a lunch break. 

The creek can get some fast moving white water, and the trail has several life preservers to toss to anyone who gets in trouble. 

We saw a few get turned around, and they ended up going through the rapids backwards or sideways.  These guys didn’t do too bad. 

5 hours ago, Luckynana said:

You seem to be a bit of a risk-taker, Mark!  Any misfortunes after visiting Otto's Robert the Doll?  I sure hope not!  When we were in New Orleans years ago, one of our daughters asked us to pick up a "mojo bag" for her, which we did!

No misfortunes, but we had to make sure we did some of the things to avoid bad mojo.

26 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

We drove from Amelia Island and broke up the trip with a stay in Key Largo.  Driving was fine and again I'm glad I did it, but if we were to go back it would either be flying or taking the high speed ferry from Fort Myers.  It's a long drive from Northern Florida just to get to the Keys, and then another long drive all the way to Key West.  Flying into Miami and renting a car could be a good way to check out various places in the Keys.

We only made the drive to Key West once, and that drive was from the Ft. Myers area.  It was even a long drive from there, and even longer when you consider we were driving back to Pennsylvania after that trip. 
 

All our other visits to Key West have been on cruise port stops.  One other unusual place to see is where they keep Robert the Doll.  It is a little hike from the cruise port, but we did that on one trip when we had a lot of time. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_(doll)

17 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Good afternoon.

After church today we had lunch at Wynyard Hall gardens cafe.

Wow, that looks good!  

Safe travels home, Sue and Rick. The weather will be a little nicer when you get back. A few 80° days in store this week.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law will board when you get off. Will be interesting to hear their tales of their first trip to the Caribbean. 

I am following along with your report.  Good to see you have your photo issues figured out.  It is always nice to have photos to go along with the narrative. 
 

I have done a few live reports, and I know the effort that is involved, so thank you for that.

Now, if I can offer a constructive comment.  I always find the photos are much easier to view if there is a space between them.  Not hard to do, just insert photo, hit return twice, then insert the next ones.

Enjoy your cruise.

I was up early this morning, and I came across My Cousin Vinny on Hulu.  It had been a few years since I watched it, and it is still good.  

What a beautiful, sunny day for us today. 

Enjoyed breakfast and lunch out with our grandkids, plus a little time exploring new life at the lake. 
 

Then, there is always time for ice cream. 
 

Meanwhile, our budding artist worked on her life size family chalk art.  There may have been some tracing involved. 
 

Looking forward to granddaughter’s first traveling concert tomorrow. 

4 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Agreed anything anyone can do to avoid knee replacement is good. While I don’t regret getting mine replaced it’s a hard surgery and a long rehab. You have to ready for a new normal. That being said I now walk 50 minutes a day without any knee pain. Before I couldn’t even walk. From the car to the store without pain and limping.

Greg, good to read that you are walking that long with no pain.  Keep it up, it only gets better, or so I am told.

I have found that taking off some excess pounds has worked wonders for the way I feel.  Now if I can just keep those extras off while my grandson is here for the summer.

35 minutes ago, Ozark_Kid said:

 

Wow, I forgot all about Sudoku!  I used to play it every day! 

 
I do one every morning. Just do a screenshot from the newspaper on my iPad, and pencil it in. They get progressively harder, later in the week. 

21 minutes ago, MJSailors said:

@h20skibum Both you and your wife participate in a very worthwhile and necessary program.

Our parish church has a monthly food drive where food is collected after every Mass. Monetary donations are also collected. All proceeds of the drives are given to a local food pantry. Each parish in our area takes a weekend to provide donations to the pantry so there is an almost constant supply of goods and money provided.

Every Christmas, there is a gift drive in our church where presents are collected for children in need as well as gift cards for seniors to use at CVS and our local supermarkets and there are also  payments towards home heating oil deliveries for those who could truly benefit.

My husband and I participate in the drives  throughout the year.

It is a simple thing to do, but it benefits many who need some help.

We also live in an affluent area, but there are people who are stretched to the limit with their financial resources living here.

From a distance, our area looks like an upscale place to live. Scratch a little under the surface and there are people who are struggling.

Thankfully , there are programs and people who support the programs that make it a bit easier for our neighbors.

Take care

MJ🙋🏻‍♀️

 

one of the newspapers I read this morning covered a fundraiser for a local food pantry, plus a food backpack program for one of the other school districts.  They had a large turnout.  
 

We also usually buy cases of snacks at Sam’s Club, and give them to our daughter to take to her classroom.  She gives them out to any of her students who don’t have snacks during the day. 
 

She was telling us that 40% of her class are on the list to take food home for the weekends. 

It is 5:40 am.  I have been up for two hours, read three newspapers, done the morning Sudoku puzzle and am on my 3rd cup of coffee.

No school today, so we are taking our grandkids out to breakfast and spending the day with them

We got the card, only for the purpose of getting the OBC, and will cash it for our January cruise.  As a bonus, they are currently giving 5x for purchases made before 5/15.  Don’t know if that applies to all card holders, but that was in an email we recently received on our card.