The Best Vacation EVER!

The Emerald Princess, our home away from home for a week!

Length: 946. feet
Breadth: 118.1 feet
Draught: 27.8 feet (only!)
Built: 2007 - Italy
Max capacity passengers: 3573
Crew: 1227
Propulsion: Diesel electric!
Max speed: 23.5 knots

We flew United from Denver to Houston, and left from the Port of Houston on Sunday, February 8th, 2015 @ 4 P.M.

Returned Sunday, February 15th.


I had roses delivered to the room and they were waiting for my Sweetie!




The first two days we were at sea, and they had a formal night, so we got dressed up.  I was given a rose to wear in my lapel, and I was the only person that we saw that had a flower!  We is a good looking couple!

I had a chance to chat with the Captain of the Emerald Princess and pick his brain about the ship.

Roatan from the top of the ship!  While there we went on an expedition known as the BOSS, which means something like Breathable Observation Submersible System.  It was almost fun, but there was problems, and they tried to drown us.  Well, me.  But that's another story.

It was amusing getting to the boat to go on the BOSS.  We rode in two "large" vans, and went on the smallest, narrowest two-lane roads to get there.  The drivers were crazy, and the neighborhoods were shacks.  Poverty-ville. Thank God for our blessings.

The next stop was Belize!







They don't have a deep water port, so we had to be shuttled from the ship to shore.  The pic is the newest area of town.

We went outside the secure port area and shopped around, getting Tee shirts and chatting with people.  Had a nice conversation with a shop owner and her brother about beliefs and religious differences.  Said a prayer with them before we left.

Next day we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico.









You know the stereotypes about shop owners hawking their wares and trying to get you into their shops?  It's true!

I did find two (2) matching rings with six-sided stones, and a really cool pentagon shaped ring!  My Sweetie got that one; it's her birth stone for November.  The two hex rings are going to be eyes for a silver dragon I've been wanting to build, but that's another story.

The U.S. D.O.T would have "fun" in Mexico. Check out where the muffler is on this fuel tanker!

And of course you can get Cuban cigars there from our buddy Fidel!

I don't know anybody who smokes cigars, so I didn't get any to bring back.

I did find a couple of really cool switchblades, but also found out that, for the most part, are illegal in the U.S.A.  So I decided not to tempt fate, get them, and possibly lose them.  Later I found out they would have been confiscated before getting on the ship. Oh well.

I thought this fountain just outside of the port was pretty.






What a glorious day!  The weather and seas the whole trip was fantastic.

Wouldn't have mattered much; the ship was so big and had gyroscopic stabilizers, we probably would not have felt anything anyway.

After we got to Cozumel, our ship, in the foreground, was joined by a Carnival ship.

Of the ships to the right, the left one, Allure of the Seas, is the second largest cruise ship currently sailing!  HUGE!  Can accommodate over 6,000 guests!  That's way too big.




There was a "statue" that scared the willies out of unsuspecting guests.  My Sweetie is hiding behind him in the first pic.  The second pic he's holding me hostage!

The reason there are more pics of Cozumel is because there was actually more to see that was worth looking at.

When we got back to Houston, we went to the Johnson Space Center and looked around.  I liked it because I like that kind of stuff, but it really wasn't worth the price of the ticket.

For Valentine's day my Sweetie got the ring, and she surprised me with an Amish quilt for my bed!

The pic doesn't do it justice.  It's about twice that size.
Beautiful!   Hand stitched, very intricate design.

She spoils me!

Well, that's all for now.  The vacation is over and I have to go back to work Wednesday night.

Keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your ... tail.

And keep the rubber side down.  

Making a Difference

I had gone this morning with my Lady and friends to the breakfast buffet on 23rd Ave. here in Greeley, aka "The Trough", for the Sunday morning brunch. 

While cruising the line for food, a young lady popped up into my field of vision and asked with a big smile on her face: "Remember me?"  She proceeded to tell me that she was part of the group the Drive Smart Weld County coalition presented to at Valley High School in Gilcrest.  I chatted with her for a couple of minutes and she told me that we had been quite an influence on her and her classmates.  She then referenced a lady standing there and said: "I've gotten after her about some of the things she does!"  It turned out to be the young lady's Mother.  Mom told me that the girl had made her change some of her habits! 

It's a start.

Drive Smart Weld County is a group of people, or coalition, from various organizations that give presentations to High School Freshmen and Sophmores (and other groups) who are either going to get their driver's license or already have.  We tell them about the dangers and pratfalls of being a driver on todays roads.  My being a Professional Driver with oodles of years and miles, I give the presentation of "Driving and Surviving Around Big Rigs".  

Over the years I have admonished a number of people about their reckless driving, although I do try to be civil.  

One guy, a fuel tanker driver, told me, in no uncertain terms, where I could go.  A couple of days later the same guy came walking up to my truck at the loading dock.  I figured "Oh boy, here we go", expecting the worst.  He told me that he had been thinking about what I had said, and wanted to thank me for probably saving his life!  He shook my hand and walked away.

Another person I had admonished got me a ticket for harassment! 

But I won't stop.
  

I had read a book called "The Five People You Will Meet In Heaven".  The gist of it was that we may never know the impact we have had on a person's life. 

It's good to know that Drive Smart Weld County is making a difference!

Have a Great week and keep the rubber side down.

It's Been A While

My daughter, Tanya, text me the other day and asked if I had not posted since February, or if she had missed getting the blog notifications.  I told her that I had not posted.

Life has a way of getting in the way.

At my job as a Fuel Tanker Driver, I work long, hard hours.  Then, with having a house to take care of, there is always something that needs to be done.  Top it off with being in a FANTASTIC relationship with a FANTASTIC Lady, well, when there is available time, I'd rather spend it with her than doing much of anything else!  As I have said, I waited 35 years to find her, and she has been worth the wait.

So let me update all y'all with what happened today, and work my way backwards.

This time of year is great, what with being harvest time, et al.  The local apple trees are shedding their fruit, and I, being a Professional Scavenger, look for the opportunity to gather the apples for cooking and eating.  Now I digress a bit.

My Lady didn't have much of a childhood, and you can read about her melodrama in her book:
FATLASH! Food Police & the Fear of Thin   So when I told her about taking my kids, Tanya & Terence, when they were young, out to the parks and gathering apples with them, she was intrigued.  The kids were small and nimble enough to be able to climb most trees without hurting themselves.  But there were many apples that they couldn't reach.  And besides, other kids had the same idea.  So I had made an apple picker with two pieces of aluminum tubing so that one slid down inside the other for easy transport, but had a  reach of about 15 feet.  Add that to my height, and there were a lot of apples that we could get.  When I unhooked the apple and it fell, the kids would try to catch them.  Great eye-hand coordination exercise!  If you didn't catch the apple, you got bonked on the head.  Hmmmmm, that explains a lot.....   So I made another one on Tuesday, and My Lady and I went out apple gathering.  I have apple butter simmering in a crock pot as I write this!

For a couple of years now, Gray Oil Company has been wanting me to go to work for them, but I've declined.  They run bobtails, or as we call them, "short trucks".  As the joke goes, I used to have to ride the short bus to school, so why would I want to drive a short truck for work?  Well, they merged with Rex Oil in May and had a transport, or tractor-trailer combo, come available, so they asked me to go to work for them.  They made me an offer I couldn't refuse!  So I put in my two weeks notice with Brad, and started working for them.

I took a week off before starting with Gray Oil to build a shed that we desperately needed for storage.  Since I had built the "chicken coop from hell" at the ranch, I had a good idea what to do.  We had checked in to buying a kit from the big box stores, but then you had additions such as paint, shingles, floor, etc.  For what we would pay for a kit, I built ours from scratch using steel siding, such as they use on big industrial buildings.  There was/is a concrete slab which I built upon.  It's a combination quonset hut and conventional steel building.

I decided to take my years and miles of driving experience and put them to good use, so I joined a coalition called Drive Smart Weld County  Just click on the link and it will take you there.  We go to schools and give presentations to the Freshmen about the dangers and pratfalls they will encounter when they get their Drivers License.  Since I am the Professional Truck Driver, I get to tell them about the etiquette of driving around big rigs.

Then, before all this came down, I acquired a '98 Jeep Wranger!!!  I missed my Jeep of yore.

Back in February, My Lady & I went to Florida to visit my Sister, my Nephew and his wife, and to thaw out.  While there I was able to eliminate one of the items on my "bucket list"; we went deep sea fishing.  Caught lots of fish and had a great time!  Had a wonderful visit.  Always too short.

I have pictures of most of what I've told you about, but for some reason they don't want to download.  If I can get it done, I'll update the blog.  Or E-mail me and I'll do what I can to send them to you.

In the meantime, keep the rubber side down and your head up!

The Diet

At 250 pounds, I should have been about six-foot tall instead of my 5 foot 9 inches. Or as I’ve heard, “I’m not over weight, I’m under tall!” Regardless, news came out that the Department of Transportation (DOT) was going to pass regulations for truck drivers to be height-weight proportional. So I started praying for help.

I’d been stable at 250 pounds for years, and an attempt at losing weight failed miserably. I went on a vegetarian diet for thirty days. At the end I had lost a grand total of two pounds! I went out and got me a Big Mac.

I considered myself healthy. My job wasn’t sedentary and I was otherwise active. I thought I ate well, and drank lots of tea that I heard was good for me. My blood pressure was a bit high, but my cholesterol was excellent. So the DOT news didn’t really faze me. But, getting up in years, it probably wouldn’t hurt me to lose a few pounds.
This isn’t the first time: a number of years ago a doctor told me that I had to lose 125 pounds. The divorce was almost painless! (joke!)

For the past couple of years I would occasionally have what felt like gas, with gut pressure that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did. But after a few hours it would, and all would be well again. Then one day it all came to a quick halt.

It was a Sunday in October, and I had gotten up at my usual late afternoon time. The night before I had the gut pressure while working and had ignored it. As I was coming home I ate the raw carrots that I had with me. But when I got up, I felt worse than before, and it quickly escalated. There were three indicators that I was in bad shape: I didn’t want to cuddle with my Lady, I was considering going to a doctor, and was bad enough to call in sick. With no immediate care center open at that hour, I opted for the hospital emergency room.

I don’t know about anybody else, but my opinion of a hospital is that when you go there, they are supposed to help you feel better. That’s not what happened; the things the doctor did to me made me feel worse, and I even told her so! My apologies to women, but I felt like I was giving birth, to something.

Eventually the meds took effect, I calmed down, and the doctor figured out that the half-inch-size gallstone didn’t cause the pain.

I was put on “the diet”. No red meat; drink juices, no soda, caffeine, tea; no greasy foods like potato chips and no popcorn; no spicy foods; nothing with tomatoes, such as Italian and Mexican food. The objective was to avoid foods that would irritate my stomach or were acidic. I should eat chicken, turkey, fish, and pork sparingly, with lots of veggies; no onions, peppers or carrots.

I told my Lady to “Shoot me now and get it over with!”

The first four weeks I lost 20 pounds! “At five pounds per week”, I proclaimed, “y’all would be rid of me in less than a year!” My Lady didn’t think that was funny.

I then had to get my DOT physical. My blood pressure was perfect, and I felt good. My pants were baggy, but that’s what belts are for.

Then phase two of the diet kicked in: I got the flu. That week I lost another ten pounds. I have no butt, which is a blessing in disguise. While delivering a load of fuel, I had made a customer mad because I was blocking the driveway with my truck. He threatened to kick my butt. I grabbed the back of my pants and told him: “I’ve lost 30 pounds in the last two months. I have no butt for you to kick!” He just walked away shaking his head. When life gives you lemons…

I now weigh 220 pounds! I haven’t weighed that since third grade!

I hadn't intended to be so compliant, but God had other ideas!

(Submitted to Prairie Times & Rejected!)

Drivers License Renewal

It's that time again where I have to renew my Drivers License.

Having a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) means that every four (4) years I have to jump through the hoops to get 'er done. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have the Hazardous Materials (HazMat) endorsement on my license. But, I do, so let the games begin.

First off, I had to go online and register with the Transportation Safety Administration, or TSA. Here is where the fun begins. There are two, count 'em, TWO websites! The olde one and the new one. The olde one is supposed to direct you to the new one, but it doesn't. They ask all kinds of questions and for $86.50 give you the right to then go down to one of three fingerprinting stations in Colorado: Denver, Colorado Springs, and someplace on the Western Slope.

Part of my frustration is the fact that the rules have changed, which the olde website doesn't reflect. Case in point: they require two forms of identification; I chose to use my Drivers License and Birth Certificate. Nowhere in the olde site does it stipulate that on the two forms of ID the name has to be EXACTLY THE SAME. That wasn't an issue four years ago, but it is now.

So after paying my $86.50, I drove my personal vehicle down to Denver to do the fingerprinting. I was denied, because my two forms of ID didn't match, and they advised me of such. So back to Greeley I go to the Department of Revenue to get things corrected. I actually did that a couple of days later because I was so mad!

At the Department of Revenue, I decided that while there, I would also take the HazMat written test. This has to be done to renew said Drivers License also. I missed four; not bad for not having studied! Considering what transpired at the Fingerprinting place, they were somewhat stumped as to how to give me an updated Drivers License with the correct information. It seems that there are a lot of considerations that have to be dealt with to accomplish what I needed done. BUT... They did.

The next day I drove to Denver early with the truck, had a friend pick me up and play chauffer, and got the fingerprinting done.

Now I wait for my letter from the TSA that says I'm a good boy. When I get that, I can OFFICIALLY get my Drivers License renewed for another four years.

Considering what I went through, it is no wonder that so many drivers are giving up their HazMat endorsement on their Drivers License. For many, the hassle just isn't worth having it.

Oh yeah! I forgot! I've got hair! There's a story behind it. You want the long version, the short version, or the Reader's Digest version? How about the latter: It's warmer and I can!

Holiday Decoration

I don't agree with the commercialization of Christmas.

My Lady is Jewish.
 
We both don't like Christmas decorations and light displays because many are just plain obnoxious.  We do like the Holidays in general, since between the two of us there are quite a few!  So we decided to put up a "Holiday Decoration" of our own!  Singular.  Uno.  One! 

This is also a carry-over from the previous blog post about the church. 

So now this is our new Christmas tradition!

Happy Holidays!

House Hunting

My Lady decided to get out of Denver City and County due to all of the political wrangling that was going on. She was looking from Texas to Wyoming, and many places in between.

I off-handedly suggested she check out Greeley and vicinity.

One day while delivering a load of fuel to a gas station in Gilcrest, I read the local real estate magazine and noticed a church for sale in Gilcrest. The next day I was off work, and while chatting with her about local houses, told her about the church. She mentioned that she had also seen it listed. With that she called the realtor and requested to see the property. When he asked her “When would you like to see it?” she told him “Now!” So off we went to Gilcrest to look at a church, at 5 P.M. 

It was in need of some work. There is a wide ramp and double doors for access, with little to nothing on the main floor. Behind the dais was a small walk-through room. At the other end, near the entrance, is a coat closet on one side, and two confessionals on the other side. This was a Catholic church! The basement had a kitchen, the bathrooms, and a couple of classrooms with some marginal cabinetry. Basically it was an empty shell. As a tinkerer, I could have been in pig heaven! My Lady asked me questions about this and that, and I briefly explained to her the way I would fix or upgrade it. She was impressed by my “Can Do Attitude”.

Afterward we went and looked at a house that was totally stripped and trashed. Whoever had been in it had taken the wiring, plumbing, and heat ducting out and probably recycled it. It was a bit pricey for being trashed, but the real killer was the room layout was not convenient and the rooms were small.

So back to my apartment we went. That was about 10 P.M. We finally went to bed about midnight, and laughed and giggled until 3 A.M. about the church! I told her we had to get to sleep, since I had a headache and bellyache from laughing so much. She concurred.

The next day, while I slept, she was out and about looking at houses again. There was a HUD home that was just put back on the market; the previous buyers had backed out. She went and looked at it, and about that time I awoke. She called me and told me to get over there right away. It turned out to be about six blocks from the apartment in a very nice neighborhood. As I walked in the front door, looking around, my first comment was “Oh my!” She told me that was exactly hers also!

She put a bid on the place, it was accepted in short order, and she requested a quick closing. The end of April she bought the place, and I moved in the end of May. Had to give my apartment manager 30 days notice. She moved in a couple of months later.

She went from living alone in a spacious house, to moving in with somebody with less than 1100 square feet of space. She got rid of a lot of stuff. Since I work nights and sleep days, we organized the house so that she has her bedroom and I have mine. That way we can move about in our respective time zones without disturbing the other.

I had to rebuild the kitchen floor because it had a slope in it from the weight of the refrigerator and water heater. Older house, what do you expect?!?!? Well, "had to" is subjective. We could have lived with it the way it was, with two layers of vinyl flooring, a layer of warped plywood, and the other stuff that was there. But I made a judgement call and dove in. I installed an I-beam under the floor and lifted it up about an inch. From there I finished leveling the floor and installed 16” ceramic tiling. What an educational experience!

The house had been empty for about a year, and previous occupants had made “improvements” that need fixed. Slowly we will get it done.

As for my being a “tinkerer”, I’m in hog heaven!