Friday, January 16, 2009

Aboard the Queen Mary 2 -- Our holiday, or vacation from retirement life, Part One

This is a part of a work in progress, more will follow (I hope). Click here to read what else I have posted about our Holiday at Sea.
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Days one-five of an eleven day Caribbean cruise, January 3, 2009: Travel to Miami and registering on our ship, the Queen Mary 2. You can see there was a long line. After all that I had to rest my feet.

Notice my life preserver, not that I don't know how to swim, rather, we had just finished with our drill to find and wear those preservers after assembling at our point of egress from the ship in case of emergency.



[click on any picture to enlarge]

Day 2, January 4: A day at sea. We ended with a dance in the ballroom. Full dress (formal) was required.



Day 3, January 5: Still at sea. Every day we started our day with a good meal. Most every day I had raisin bran with skim milk, a stewed fruit compost, a glass half prune juice and half cranberry, an egg over hard, two blueberry pancakes, and coffee. Besides that I had some whole wheat toast and a roll, each of which I ate some or none.

This one pictured is not my typical breakfast noted above. On day three (3) we ate at the Kings Court, a buffet. These were plain pancakes, without the blueberries.

Oh yes, I didn't gain any weight.



This is the view from our bathroom door, looking toward the window. It was a sliding glass door onto our 'bulkhead balcony.'





Later we lounged around. There aren't any pictures of me swimming in my new swim suit. We didn't get into the pool this nice day. Instead we just laid around like those others.

Mrs. Jim and I attended a bridge lesson in the morning and she played bridge with some ladies in the afternoon.




Day 4, January 6: We made it to Curacao. Mrs. Jim and I had been there at this lovely Dutch island before so we didn't take any excursions. It was nice to get our feet on the solid ground and we just walked around town where we had gone before.

First, take a look at our view of the town as we docked. The homes are all painted bright colors. This has been a tradition since early on.




We walked around until lunch time. Of course we couldn't miss any of those good ship's meals.

Mrs. Jim never gets lost. I think women have an acquired sense of getting back from where their guy took them. Warning to all women, be sure you have enough mad money to get to where you need to be.

The fishing fleet is in. In our walk to the end of the street for this photo we passed a nice fish market where a person could buy a fish just off the boats.

We didn't get any fish as we weren't sure that our cook would cook them up for us. Did you see the BBQ grill on our deck? There wasn't any.



Day 5, January 7: This day found us in Grenada. Since we hadn't been there before we took the 'Island Tour.'

To get ashore we had to tender.

Can you spot Mrs. Jim in the second picture? She says these guys are reggae singers. You couldn't prove it by me as that word wasn't in my vocabulary before.




As I said, this was a ten day cruise and we headed early for home on the eleventh day (January 13) I hope to put up something about the other five or six days soon. Then I may post more about some of our activities as (my) time permits.

I have started working on Mrs. Jim's annual performance evaluation (link). It seems to be fairly good, I thought it might.

This year I will include an examination of her body as I have noticed a few irregularities here and there.

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Friday, January 06, 2017

~~ Friday’s Hunt v.3.01 -- "A" is for ...

Friday's Hunt for the week of January 6th: 1. Starts with A; 2. Week's Favorite; and 3. Beginning
 
2. Week's Favorite:  We had a "friendly stranger" take our picture but I didn't find it very quickly and I'm running late tonight so I put this cute one of Mrs. Jim instead. 
 
She is standing in a field reserved for Penguins.  We were on the Johnson Farm at Volunteer Point in the Falklands.  We were advised before we left to get some foot protectors for keeping our shoes clean from the Penguin manure, as their habitat is very messy, messier than a chicken house.
 
The Falklands visit was a part of the second half of our South American Cruise.  We left Los Angeles on December 4th and left Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 4th, getting back to Houston on the morning of January 5th. 
 
The cities we visited on the second half were Santiago, Chile; Punta Arenas, Chile (Google); Ushuaia, Argentina (Google)-nicknamed "the end of the World."; The Falkland Islands (Google); Montevideo, Uruguay (Google), Buenos Aires (Google); and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Google).
 
The boggy ride I told of last week was of our ride out to Volunteer Point to see the Penguins.  I'll more about the Penguins later ("P's" perhaps?) and maybe show more ride pictures.


 [Click on pictures for larger viewing, they should get really large if you click again.]
Note:  The King Penguins' little ones are Brown during their first year.  Like most humans are born with blue eyes but change them to blue or green the first week or so.

 
1. Starts with "A":  Amethyst gemstone (Googled: https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS574US574&q=amathist#q=amethyst)

The Amethyst here is the pink quartz rocks.  We found these at a table vender in a park, located in Montevideo, Uruguay.  Pink Amethyst is the national gemstone of Uruguay.  Amethyst is also the state gemstone of South Carolina.  The hollow stone is also quartz Amethyst stone.  I think the vender said that all were Amethyist but I'm not sure.  I am sure that I didn't buy any although I believe they weren't very expensive.  Or of very high quality.



3. Beginning: This afternoon I stopped at my friendly NAPA auto parts store in Montgomery, Texas, and picked up my 2017 NAPA Classic Car Calendar.  The car for January is a 1967 Pontiac GTO Convertible.  You may remember these, I do.  I have a collection of the NAPA calendars dating back to the second one in the 1970's.



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The Fine Print:
 - Teresa of Eden Hills, (click) is running this meme, Friday's Hunt.  Her rules are: "Welcome to linkup for Friday’s Hunt. It’s very simple. Anyone can participate. The link opens at 7pm Friday Central time and will close Sunday at 7pm." 
. http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=688948

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Saturday, January 27, 2007

Question: What does a tree hugger do on Arbor Day?

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Photo Courtessy of Karen and Billy
Please click on it
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"Answer: She gets in her hybrid car (Prius) and drives to Will Clayton Blvd to help plant trees!!!
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Doesn't that sound like fun. Rain or shine, that is what I am doing tomorrow morning from 8-12. I am w/ a BP [British Petroleum] Team. Billy is supposed to be playing golf, but might end up w/ me if golf gets rained out!"
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Posted by Picasa
For three more "Karen Plants" pictures, go here.
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Get your TreeHugger Newsletter here:
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http://treehugger.com/
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Trivia Question: When is Arbor Day in Texas (Houston, at least)?

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Answer: January XX. ***
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**Got this in an e-mail:

Date: Fri 26 Jan 08:28:47 CST 2007
From: Karen
Subject: Question: What does a tree hugger do on Arbor Day?
To: Jim and (Mrs. Jim)

***From Plant Answers (link) on the History of TEXAS Arbor Day:

"In 1949, the state legislature adopted a resolution designating the third Friday in January as Texas Arbor Day. That date changed, when, in 1989, the legislature designated the last Friday in April as Texas Arbor Day in order to align the Texas observance with the traditionally observed national Arbor Day." [The article says the first Arbor Day was officially on George Washington's birthday but that law expired in 1949.]"

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Just a whole lot of Texas still observes Arbor Day in January. January is a much better month than April to plant trees down here.


Saturday, January 11, 2014

Six Word Saturday


my Six Words:
Only one is the birthday girl


 [click on any picture for larger size viewing]
 
Mrs. Jim's birthday was on January 1st.  KP and her daddy made the nice chocolate cake for her.  The three of them, KP, Billy, and Karen, stayed in our home and the other grandparents' home for almost three weeks.


On January 2nd Mrs. Jim had her right foot operated on for bunion surgery.  This involved straightening her big toe and shortening the second toe.  A week later, she had a cast put on.  You might notice that the colors are her purple and yellow LSU school colors.

But the bandage was rubbing her suture area so this Friday we returned for the cast to be removed and refitted.  The second one fits much better.  It is colored all purple with no yellow. 

Her cast is to remain on for three weeks, starting Wednesday this week.  So it will come off the 29th of January.  While there at the ortho doctor she also rented a scooter to help her become more mobile.  I may show it here at a later date..
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Six Words Saturday:

Describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words for Six Word Saturday. Click the box at right to visit Cate's blog with Mr. Linky showing all the other blogs participating this week. Cate is the boss at Six Word Saturday. She would like for you to participate.

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Monday, January 29, 2007

June Bug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No, It's January Bug

Posted by Picasa
A slug-bug at that!
This one's a 1955 Volkswagen
1:18 die cast toy car.
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Yesterday Seeker (link) wanted to see some January Texas pictures to see what it looks like down here. Dallas gets nasty but things are pretty nice here most of the winter(s).
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Go to JIM'S LITTLE PHOTO HOLDER, today, January 29, 2007, at http://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/
to check out our South Texas winters, at least here in Montgomery.
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You can go here to see the rest of my not-June Bug posts.

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Friday, February 26, 2021

Letter "I" -- Weekend Roundup and Reflections

Mrs. Jim feeding the roo at the wildlife refuge in Tasmania,  Australia 
[Dec 2012 - Jan 2013; https://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-alphabe-thursday-2nd-letter-k.html?m=1
and Search for More ] 
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The ninth issue this week of my 2021 WEEKEND ROUNDUP postings. 
(THE NINTH LETTER FOR THIS SERIES)
 - the Letter "I" Prompts are: (A) Starts with the Letter "I"; (B) "Ice" (Tom's Choice); (C) A Favorite; (D) Reflections; and (E) A Lagniappe. 
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(A) Starts with the Letter "I":   Investopedia. com starts with an "I".  Our newly elected State Representative left the county and state flying in his Private Jet when his power went out last week (ours was out 48 hours and 30 minutes,  then it was on and off, up to twelve hours lost at a time).

My newspaper, The Katy Rancher, a Wednesday insert to The Houston Chronicle, reported,
"After losing power Tuesday,  G a t e s  left his home via his private jet Wednesday night and traveled to Orlando,  Fla., . . . "I guess G a t e s took Senator Cruz's lead," one Facebook user wrote. . ."  
Oh yes, he told a reporter, "I was able to meet with (one of my major venders) . . . and have dinner with their office personnel."

G a t e s ' s  supporting  business is a large flock of rent houses.


Our Attorney General also left,


(B) "Ice" (Tom's Choice):   Ice and snow last Monday morning (2-15-2021).  Our older daughter slipped on the ice and broke her femur, up high near the joint.  But she was able to have it pinned, screwed together, and a rod inserted inside, so that she was only in the hospital three days.
(C) A Favorite:   After our New Zealand east and south side cruising we headed west to Tasmania.  We loved petting and feeding the 'roos', and seeing all the other animals.


This was our last picture (I think) that we took in Sydney where we spent four days.  Our plane left in the afternoon so we spent a very nice morning in a beautiful garden.  If you guess the warm January breeze was blowing fairly hard you are correct.


(D) Reflections:   My oldest granddaughter sent me this photo, it was taken at the O'Reilly Houston Auto Show.  This yellow 1995 Mustang may have been her college car that she sold to a fellow in Florida.  

For her it was a hand-me-down old yellow Ford given by her mother. She cared for and kept it all five college years while getting her BA and Master's Degrees in Accounting, and even several more into her working life and marriage.  The buyer restored it and added the roll bars.


(E) A Lagniappe.  
It's a bird!  
It's a plane! 
It's NOT Superman! 
What is it?  
What are they? 
Like clouds in the sky, what do you find in these vegetables?
(I see a few animal forms but like the clouds in the sky, my lamb can be your unicorn.) 
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Bonus Questions: 
 
(1)  Tell about your last experience in a Foreign country (if you haven't been yet tell about where and why you might go--or about the last state or Provence other than your own).   We came home from South Africa  January 2020.  It  was a thirty day cruise from Dubai to Cape Town, we were gone from December 3 to January 10.   We were aboard the Oceania small ship Nautica and stopped along the way.  Read more here, Labels: ,  

Oh yes, we had to cancel a May Transatlantic cruise from Miami to Barcelona due to the COVID-19 mess.  It would have visited places we hadn't been including North Africa, Casablanca might have been our favorite.

(2) What is your favorite Word starting with  "I"?   Mine today will be "Igloo".   When  it got so cold, even in our house with no heat or electricity for 48 hours straight, our noses and ears got very cold, Then I thought of the Eskimos who live in their small snow/ice igloos all winter long.  Yes, some still do that.."

(3) Anything else you were reminded of here that you  would like to tell about? 

My going blogs:

Jim's Little Blog, http://jimmiehov.blogspot.com/

Jim's Little Photo and Picture Place, http://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/

Jim's little Christmas tree farm,  http://jimmiehov7.blogspot.com/, and  

Ask Dr. Jim (blog), http://jimmiehov8.blogspot.com/ 

Cars I have owned (32 including the Golf Car)  http://jimmiehov3.blogspot.com/2021/01/cars-i-have-owned-toy-cars-not-listed.html 

Adi Pictures and Information.   Click here, Link to Adi's Meme   Adi died in 2012.

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 Fine print stuff: 

 - [Click on any picture for larger, click it again for extra large]

 - I am linked with Tom of "Backwoods Travel" (Link here to click for Tom's Weekend Reviews) 

 - I am also linked this week with James of "Weekend Reflections" (click here for his Reflections Photos).

 - The pictures mostly are all mine and rights are reserved to me under Copyright Law. 
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Scoreboard:
..Heater [#1] wins
..A/C [#2] distant second
..Water softener to the showers
..The others, also ran
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Heater vs. A/C--how exciting--our house has two units, one [#1 here] for each side or end. Our bedroom, the living room, dining room, and Mrs. Jim's study are on one.
The kitchen, my office, and two rooms upstairs are on the other [#2]. For a couple of months we keep #1 on heat, mainly for evenings, and #2 on A/C for the day. This week the heater, set on 66 for day, 65 or 64 at night, has been running quite a bit at night. The A/C comes on the warm days only. We have it set for 75 or 76. Today outside will only get to 68 here. This way we are all comfortable because our house is fairly open.
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The big action this week was with the water softener. It produced the most horrible salty water you could imagine Sunday morning. Worse than drinking from the Great Salt Lake and almost as bad as from the Dead Sea (I may mention that one day).
Good news, the water softener was under warranty. So the five-dollar microswitch was free. We ONLY had to pay the $94.50 service charge, $74.50 for a new drinking water filter, and $6.15 tax.
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Also ran:
Not so good news--our kitchen sink faucet is leaking. Just a little drip, drip, that I found when we, Mrs. Jim mostly, cleaned out under the sink for the softener tech's access. We might send it to the showers. Our plan is to (1) buy a new faucet from Lowe's or Home Depot to Mrs. Jim's liking. Then (2) call the plumber who will charge another huge service call fee. Let the (3) plumber assess the situation, hoping it can be (a) soldered for a long time repair, but being ready for (b) the new faucet installation.
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How to rationalize all this. If it had been a six-year-old car surely the A/C or transmission would need work after 90 to 120 thousand miles. Or if we were realtors or builders we would have been in new digs three years ago.
But we are here. Somebody has to be.
That reminds me of when I was a college dropout working in the Elgin Watch factory in Lincoln, Nebraska. The older married guys had a saying: they would leave town and go to Denver, the land of opportunity, if they could afford it. That wasn't my worry, I liked it there, away from the farm.
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The dog, an also ran. Adi missed her bath yesterday. It was plenty warm and we had our hour walk after Mrs. Jim dropped us off near the pro shop. Incidentally she had a good, for her, game. Adi is due for her Bordetella vaccination and nail clip, first I need to bathe her. We are also ready after my knee workover to start visiting at the assisted living home, first I need to bathe her.
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The computers, other also rans. This one, a one year-old laptop, needs antivirus update by January 31. That has paid for itself. It got a Trojan horse the other day. The antivirus warned me, but said it couldn't remove it. I didn't panic, didn't go to any other web site. Other site because this one is on-line any time it runs with our DSL wireless always on. Norton GoBack more than paid for itself as I just picked a save point from yesterday before the nasty horse and went back, no problem after that.
Old standby laptop just goes and goes. It uses GrisSoft, free version, for antivirus. A Trojan horse would get it but that is about all. We cleaned it out last January after getting this newer one. My desktop in the office has been down for a long time. A Trojan horse got it. Microsoft Windows software wouldn't work in going to any earlier save points to avoid it. After I save--one day--all the goodies on it I'll restore it. Tim and Billy helped us with the older laptop, I might call on them again.
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The cars. Mrs. Jim's, our family car, is ready for oil change. I have never changed that, I'm too old and it is too hard to get to. I sometimes change the Mustangs and always will the 50'. The golf cart has nails in two tires. So far it has been easier to add air before using it than to take tires to town. Now though, our pro shop has started tire repair so that will come soon.
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My knee. I go to my orthopedic doctor this morning for the final checkup after my arthoscopic surgery in September. He should give me passing marks, but not perfect. The last time I visited he said to just 'live with it' and see what happens. His prediction is that it will need a knee replacement by ten years.
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The son-in-law, Anthony. He got a good checkup from his cardiologist yesterday. Doc said he could go to work January 20. Also said 'after six weeks.' Doing the math says he needs to go back to school. Anthony's quadruple bypass was December 15, five weeks and a day before the 20th.
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That will be the end of this exciting update. Remember SOME of my students called me Mr. Excitement and SOME of the other teachers called me Dr. Excitement. How exciting!!
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ps--had an interesting visit from Chance, last night. His blogs,
On a Quest...(link) and The Church of the Great Oval (link), seem pretty different. Also had a nice visit from Paula with her GraceReign (link) site. There were others too, not new, some are listed as 'Fellow Bloggers I Read' on my sidebar. When I ran for office my yard signs said 'I Support Jim Hov. . . for . . .' I wouldn't put one unless the homeowner said I could. Same for 'Fellow Bloggers.' Right now I read some I haven't listed. Just lurking?
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Congratulations: three of our friends, L.A. B, John K. and Diane D, had hole-in-ones listed today in the Houston Chronicle. Mrs. Jim said she would keep trying! She said 'that would knock the socks' off a lot of people here.
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The end, Jim

Friday, January 01, 2016

Friday’s Hunt v1.1 -- "A" is for

Starts with A…Anteaters, aardvarks, and Australia

Mrs. Jim and I had this 'discussion' about the comic strip in Saturday's Houston Chronicle (Friday, January 1, 2016).

Old people don't have too many worldly things to worry about, like ISIS, Mexican immigrants, who will be our next president, etc.  Except that neither of us are for Trump or Cruz.  We think either would ruin our country.

Our discussion about the comic strip was about the creatures in the strip.  I called them Aardvarks, Mrs. Jim knew the weren't, just merely Anteaters.  My position was that they were the same creature by another name.

I was wrong.  Read on. Sorry I have no personal pictures.
BTW, January 1 is Mrs. Jim's Birthday.  We have had a nice day.

Anteaters -- They are cute (?) smallish creatures originally from Mexico, Central America, and South America. [picture from today.com, Feb 21, 2014](Anteater Wikipedia link)

A distinguishing feature they have is a long tongue which can wrap around an ant or termite.

Other species are commonly confused with the anteater, including the common aardvark featured below.

The aardvark doesn't have the pointy nose like the anteater but does have a long tong to catch the insects. (See the baby's long tongue in the picture above.)

Aardvarks originated in Africa.  They are often confused with the other similar animals with anteater characteristics. [picture from Wikipedia, a commons release (link)]

This chart from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anteater_(disambiguation) , helps distinguish the various animals similar but not related to the African Anteater.

Australia is a nice place to visit.  One of my favorites was the wildlife animal rescue and reserve that we visited in Tasmania, Australia in 2003.  I blogged about this, click here.  I am sure that they had a Numbat or two there but I can't find a picture of any of them.  By going to the 'disambiguation' link above and clicking on the Numbat link you could see one. 

Below is Mrs. Jim feeding a kangaroo on our Australia visit to the state of Tasmania.

  
I did have this picture (below) of what I thought might be a Chinese Pangolin, scaly anteater common name (link), but now I think he was more of some species more like an Iguana.  I sure wish I knew what he is.  I spotted him at the Tasmanian wildlife rescue center also.
Perhaps maybe you know?
 
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 The fine print:  Teresa of Eden Hills is running this meme, Friday's Hunt. She has three alternatives for us to post about but this one, Alphabet series, will be the one I will try to follow and post about. 
 - Her rules are: "Welcome to the first linkup for Friday’s Hunt. It’s very simple. Anyone can participate. The link opens at 7pm Central time and will close Sunday at 7pm, so you have plenty of time to enter."
 - The Mr. Linky address here has others who are participating if you would to read what these folk are doing for the Friday post.

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