Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[Sunshine3601]

3 hours ago, firefly333 said:

There is talk that texas did not buy the carbonized blades for the wind turbines is why they failed. They work in canada, but texas didnt foresee winter. Today they can see oil coming out of them so repairs will need to be made. They didnt plan well. Texas has it's own power grid, not part of national grid.

I feel sorry for all the texans stuck in this situation.   Sounds like the state infrastructure just wasn't prepared for weather events such as this.   The good news is the weather will be improving real soon which should definitely help everyone.

[Sunshine3601]

1 hour ago, Ocean Boy said:

We have another 4-6 inches coming between Thursday evening and Saturday morning.

Monday night we had sleet/freezing rain start around 1 am and turned into rain early morning.  Still have lots of snow on ground.    Tomorrow we expecting 4 to 6 inches throughout the day.   

Definitely a snowy winter this year.     Makes me truly miss the Caribbean even more

[A&L_Ont]

A few pics from the day. 
 

Started like this. 3 hours later all done.  
 

Mom’s done too. 

 

Action shot. It’s flying around 80’.
 

 

 

Lucy took in the sun while I topped up the bird feeders. 

 

 

Then she decided to watch me from afar cleaning out the sump pump drain pipe. The end was full of snow. If it were to get wet it would will turn into a ice plug. Delt with that once, and it was enough. 
 

Lucy came part way and stopped where the snow was well above my knees. I captioned the picture to what I guess she was thinking. There’s a few memes out there with a cat saying something similar, but with a F word. 

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by A&L_Ont

[Ocean Boy]

45 minutes ago, singinalot said:

 It tastes like we’re in Rome again. I can close my eyes and picture us sitting in the piazza outside the Pantheon 😭

 

 

 

 

 

Ok you got me with the pizza. It looks really good.

[A&L_Ont]

4 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Ok you got me with the pizza. It looks really good.

It looked great.  I bet the best is your mom’s. I’d take either along with the Pantheon view.

Edited February 18, 2021 by A&L_Ont

[Ocean Boy]

31 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Monday night we had sleet/freezing rain start around 1 am and turned into rain early morning.  Still have lots of snow on ground.    Tomorrow we expecting 4 to 6 inches throughout the day.   

Definitely a snowy winter this year.     Makes me truly miss the Caribbean even more

Oh no kidding!

[Ocean Boy]

1 minute ago, A&L_Ont said:

It looked great.  I bet the best is your mom’s. 

Yeah but if I called her right now and said I want some I suspect I wouldn't get the desired response.😐

[Ocean Boy]

7 minutes ago, singinalot said:

 

 

Formaggi pizza. I ate the whole thing...being here and so close to the water has made me tear up several times!

 

yessss gimme that Pantheon view again 🙌🏻😭

When it comes to pizza and me there is rarely any left overs. And if I do manage to control myself the next day's breakfast typically takes care of it.

[Ocean Boy]

25 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

A few pics from the day. 
 

Started like this. 3 hours later all done.  
 

Mom’s done too. 

 

Action shot. It’s flying around 80’.
 

 

 

 

With all of your toys, for some reason I suspect you have generator capable of lighting up a small city?

[Sunshine3601]

44 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

A few pics from the day. 
 

Started like this. 3 hours later all done.  
 

Mom’s done too. 

 

Action shot. It’s flying around 80’.
 

 

 

Lucy took in the sun while I topped up the bird feeders. 

 

 

Then she decided to watch me from afar cleaning out the sump pump drain pipe. The end was full of snow. If it were to get wet it would will turn into a ice plug. Delt with that once, and it was enough. 
 

Lucy came part way and stopped where the snow was well above my knees. I captioned the picture to what I guess she was thinking. There’s a few memes out there with a cat saying something similar, but with a F word. 

 

 

 

Lucy is definitely Canadian!  Always love seeing her.  

[Sunshine3601]

1 hour ago, singinalot said:

we spent the day driving around familiarizing ourselves with different neighborhoods, but we also went out to Clearwater beach for a bit. We later spent time at the hotel gym and are ending our day at a restaurant recommended by my cousin. It tastes like we’re in Rome again. I can close my eyes and picture us sitting in the piazza outside the Pantheon 😭

 

Looks delicious!  How is the house hunt going?

[dbancroft]

4 hours ago, island lady said:

 

So cool!  Yeah, those "jumping off the dock" skiing days have long since gone.  Many, many  years ago...but makes me smile still though.  

You could always show off on the flowrider

[A&L_Ont]

29 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

With all of your toys, for some reason I suspect you have generator capable of lighting up a small city?

It will run everything here, just as though the power was on. Was just thinking we should add a pizza oven. 😋

[Ourusualbeach]

3 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

Barbecuing sausages tonight. Not because we have no power, we do. It’s because it’s almost above freezing and worth being outside for around half an hour. Nicest day in weeks. 
 

 

If you ever want to know when it’s going to rain or be well below 0 just ask Vikki.....it’s always the days we plan to BBQ when we plan our meals for the week. 

[George C]

1 hour ago, Ocean Boy said:

Ok you got me with the pizza. It looks really good.

There is a new series on cnn where Stanley Tucci travels to all the different areas of Italy, first episode was Sunday and it was on Naples area and they went to Brandi’s which opened in 18 century , had the most amazing pizza there , this episode is repeated Saturday morning. We order pizza every Sunday 

[HBE4]

5 hours ago, xpcdoojk said:

That really can’t be true because we are doing rolling blackouts to help Texas with additional power.  While Texas may have a self-supporting grid, they assuredly are attached to the grid with the rest of us.  

 

4 hours ago, George C said:

Texas does have its own grid , the only other grids are east coast and west coast, from what I understand and Texas can’t borrow or sell from west coast. 

 

A map is worth a thousand words.

 

http://www.ercot.com/news/mediakit/maps

 

El Paso and part of far west Texas is attached to the west coast grid. The rest of the state is on it's own.

 

3 hours ago, firefly333 said:

I'm sure we all will hear more than we ever wanted to know about electricity.

 

Just heard there is a panel of 15 overseeing the reliability of texas grid? Anyway, 5 dont even live in texas, one lives in Michigan. News of the lack of winterizing will go on. ..for weeks and maybe months. I'm non tech, oh no. Covers ears. 

 

Let's see if that talk has staying power.  Once the temperature hits the 70's and the anger subsides, many people may chalk it up to it being of those "once in a 100 years" storm.

 

Stay warm and safe.

 

[lenquixote66]

1 hour ago, George C said:

There is a new series on cnn where Stanley Tucci travels to all the different areas of Italy, first episode was Sunday and it was on Naples area and they went to Brandi’s which opened in 18 century , had the most amazing pizza there , this episode is repeated Saturday morning. We order pizza every Sunday 

You order pizza from Naples ?

[xpcdoojk]

4 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

I thought your wife is a nurse?🤔

Yes, she is the director of Wellness and other stuff and she is one of two RNs at the utility.  

 

A short bio of my DW... graduated nursing school, worked in the Neonatal Nursery here.  We got married.  I went to Gradual school at UNC, she went to work at Duke in the NICU... she paid our bills...  She worked in a super high stress unit for 6 years....  She began to burn out a bit, and transferred to Radiology for 1 year. We moved back to MO.... I had failed to get my PHD in Economics and I was ABD (all but dissertation which basically meant I had wasted a lot of time), and she wanted to get her BS and it was going to be easier here than there.  I went to work where I am now the VP and GM in a family business, unfortunately not my family. 😉. She finished her BSN while working in the other local hospital in their NICU.  Due to her amazing personality, the hospital put her into an outreach role... where she went out into the rural areas and got the local hospitals to send their patients to her hospital.  We used to wine and dine them with a suite at the local college for football and basketball games (her and my alma mater).  She was very good at this, then the hospital got a grant to teach drugs sex and rock and roll (we called it) to the rural schools and keep the docs happy.  She excelled at this too.  So, when the hospital wanted to go to ELMER (electronic medical records) they wanted to keep the docs happy so, they trained her in project management ( during all of this she got her Masters in Hospital Administration).  So, she learned about IT and managed the introduction of the system into the hospital records.  This was a 3 year project putting in Cerner (during this time I was progressing to become the A hole I am now), and when we absolutely knew they were not ready to go live, I bought a 5 day flight and hotel package to Paris for Valentine’s Day.... the CFO absolutely would not let her go.... I was slightly PO’d since we knew they were not ready to go live and we hadn’t really had a vacation for almost a year.  

 

During this time, she was playing with a bunch of highly educated women Bunco, 1 night a week... a couple of them were big wigs at the utility.... they figured out what she was doing and they thought they needed her.  So after the project finally went live.  They offered her a job which she turned down.  They then doubled the offer... at which point I said you can always go back.  

 

Thus she became the project manager at the utility.  Eventually the IT department at the utility blew up because these women who recruited her didn’t like competition... and she went to their records department, her boss got demoted in the chaos.  She was frozen salary wise.  Eventually she reinvented herself to become the director of Wellness.  It was not a happy decade.  She taught Zumba, and became a physical fitness guru.  Her life long dream in school was to be a PE coach, so there were some upsides. 

 

On the upside due to Covid she is the most beloved person at the utility now.  

 

She is amazing.  Truly I am a lucky dude

[George C]

22 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

You order pizza from Naples ?

Yes it’s one of the most famous pizza places in the world it opened in 1780. Food was amazing.

[grapau27]

8 hours ago, singinalot said:

we spent the day driving around familiarizing ourselves with different neighborhoods, but we also went out to Clearwater beach for a bit. We later spent time at the hotel gym and are ending our day at a restaurant recommended by my cousin. It tastes like we’re in Rome again. I can close my eyes and picture us sitting in the piazza outside the Pantheon 😭

 

Lovely photos.

Great views from the room window.

[Ocean Boy]

9 hours ago, xpcdoojk said:

Yes, she is the director of Wellness and other stuff and she is one of two RNs at the utility.  

 

A short bio of my DW... graduated nursing school, worked in the Neonatal Nursery here.  We got married.  I went to Gradual school at UNC, she went to work at Duke in the NICU... she paid our bills...  She worked in a super high stress unit for 6 years....  She began to burn out a bit, and transferred to Radiology for 1 year. We moved back to MO.... I had failed to get my PHD in Economics and I was ABD (all but dissertation which basically meant I had wasted a lot of time), and she wanted to get her BS and it was going to be easier here than there.  I went to work where I am now the VP and GM in a family business, unfortunately not my family. 😉. She finished her BSN while working in the other local hospital in their NICU.  Due to her amazing personality, the hospital put her into an outreach role... where she went out into the rural areas and got the local hospitals to send their patients to her hospital.  We used to wine and dine them with a suite at the local college for football and basketball games (her and my alma mater).  She was very good at this, then the hospital got a grant to teach drugs sex and rock and roll (we called it) to the rural schools and keep the docs happy.  She excelled at this too.  So, when the hospital wanted to go to ELMER (electronic medical records) they wanted to keep the docs happy so, they trained her in project management ( during all of this she got her Masters in Hospital Administration).  So, she learned about IT and managed the introduction of the system into the hospital records.  This was a 3 year project putting in Cerner (during this time I was progressing to become the A hole I am now), and when we absolutely knew they were not ready to go live, I bought a 5 day flight and hotel package to Paris for Valentine’s Day.... the CFO absolutely would not let her go.... I was slightly PO’d since we knew they were not ready to go live and we hadn’t really had a vacation for almost a year.  

 

During this time, she was playing with a bunch of highly educated women Bunco, 1 night a week... a couple of them were big wigs at the utility.... they figured out what she was doing and they thought they needed her.  So after the project finally went live.  They offered her a job which she turned down.  They then doubled the offer... at which point I said you can always go back.  

 

Thus she became the project manager at the utility.  Eventually the IT department at the utility blew up because these women who recruited her didn’t like competition... and she went to their records department, her boss got demoted in the chaos.  She was frozen salary wise.  Eventually she reinvented herself to become the director of Wellness.  It was not a happy decade.  She taught Zumba, and became a physical fitness guru.  Her life long dream in school was to be a PE coach, so there were some upsides. 

 

On the upside due to Covid she is the most beloved person at the utility now.  

 

She is amazing.  Truly I am a lucky dude

I guess that over all these years I never progressed beyond her being a NICU nurse. Thanks.

[Sunshine3601]

Started snowing here between 5 and 6 am.  Here is today and a past picture from october as well as pic of where I would rather be...

[A&L_Ont]

9 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Started snowing here between 5 and 6 am.  Here is today and a past picture from October as well as pic of where I would rather be...

 

Your yard looks amazing, but I bet your and my choice is the same spot.

[Ocean Boy]

10 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Started snowing here between 5 and 6 am.  Here is today and a past picture from october as well as pic of where I would rather be...

 

 

 

I am somewhat partial to the last of the three pictures.

[Lionesss]

I just love seeing all the pictures from the snow to the sunny scenery.

 

Yup, you guys are good at sharing.

 

Just taking the time every day I look forward to what new postings there are that keep me enlightened.

 

When my boring life becomes interesting again, then I will hopefully share some fun things.

 

But for now.

 

Stay healthy

Stay warm.