Carnival Fantasy Cruise

The family took a cruise over Thanksgiving from Charleston, SC on board the Carnival Fantasy.  We were told by a nice lady at the 800 number that we were allowed to bring 1 bottle of wine per adult over the age of 21 so I took this advice and packed a bottle of wine for me and one for my wife.  When the bags arrived at our room we discovered that they took all of our wine and left us a note indicating that we could pick up the wine at the end of the cruise.  So much for good customer service!  We were so rushed to leave at the end of the cruise that I forgot to go to pick up the wine.  I am picturing some of the crew chugging my very nice expensive bottle of Chappellet wine and having no idea what they are drinking.

We stayed in cabin E161 which is on level 7 on the Empress deck.  I have five in my family and we all fit but it was very close quarters.  There was one king sized bed, two twin uppers that pulled out of the wall and one trundle bed on the floor.  The bathroom was very small and smelled of urine- not so appealing.

The thing that was really annoying about the room was some machinery on the other side of the wall that ran during the night.  It kept me awake for the first two nights with the drone- it almost sounded like a washing machine.  I asked the nice Indonesian man who looked after our room what was on the other side of the wall of our interior cabin and he indicated that it was an air conditioning system.  I would recommend not staying in E161 for this reason- especially if you are a light sleeper.

Chinese Drivers

After spending more than 20 hours in a car riding in and around Shanghai and the adjoining countryside I can honestly say that Chinese drivers are a breed of their own.

The roads in and around Shanghai and probably most of the rest of the east coast of China are new, wide, smooth and well planned.  All of the highways have at least two lanes in each direction and usually three or four.  The pavement is all asphalt and there are guardrails on both sides all the time- not just along dangerous sections as in the USA.  Signange is plentiful and in both Chinese and English.

So the Chinese people have a great infrastructure on which to drive safely at high speeds.  The issue is that they don't.  I like to call them "wanderers."  For some reason they have a very difficult time staying in their lane.  If the road is open a good amount of the time many drivers will just straddle two lanes or weave back and forth between two or three lanes- continuously.  The do not stay in their own lane.  This applies even when there are other cars adjacent to them on the highway- they will creep over into the other lane forcing the driver in the other lane to avoid them by moving over or slowing down.

If they are driving a truck at 50 kph in a 120 kph zone, they will probably stay in the middle lane of 3 and go slow.  If they are driving a car at 50 kph a 120 kph zone they will stay in the left hand lane no matter how many people are behind them blowing the horn and flashing their hi-beams.

Most don't use turn signals.

In the slower speed areas many people will just pull out without looking what is coming and expect the oncoming traffic to swerve to miss them.

I am truly amazed I have not seem many accidents.  I think these people are worse drivers than Hondurans.

Adventures in China

Have you ever been to a hospital in China?  I developed a sinus infection my second day here so my host took me to a hospital in Lianshui county to see a doctor.  It seems that everyone likes to hang out in a hospital.  There were people everywhere.

The place had a strong smell of urine.  My host paid the doctor bill of 30 yuan (about $5) and i was seen immediately by the "doctor" who looked to be about 22.  He asked many questions and my host let him know that I would not agree to an IV (what looked to be the normal course of action for all patients for any illness) so he wrote me a prescription for  Cefaclor.  I filled the prescription at the hospital pharmacy for about $3.

Then I made the mistake of going to the bathroom.  This bathroom was worse than any nasty truck stop bathroom I have been in.  I almost passed out from the smell.

Then I tried to get some ibuprofen our acetaminophen for my sinus infection induced splitting headache.  No one I spoke to had ever heard of either and they suggested that I not take anything for my headache but were gracious to attempt to find the drugs for me.  I figured that I could tough it out instead of trying to find it.  When in Rome!

Jet Lag

I find myself in China again for a sourcing trip.  I haven't been here since early 2011 and I had forgotten how much the change in time zone screws with you.  I woke up at 3:30 AM yesterday to catch my flight out of Charlotte.  I arrived here in Shanghai 22 hours later at 1:30 PM local time with maybe one hour of sleep on the 14 hour flight from Chicago. 

I waited over an hour for my contact to pick me up at the airport and then an hour drive to the hotel -Sheraton Pudong - Shanghai.  Two hours to settle in the room- I didn't sleep.  Then dinner and walking to the street along the river where there were literally hundreds of thousands of people looking out over the river at the lights.  The streets were so crowded with people it was difficult to walk and cars had trouble passing.

I went to sleep last night at about 10:00 PM or 10:00 AM EDT so that was about 29 hours without sleep.

I woke up this morning at 4:00 AM and couldn't sleep.  I am assuming it is because my body thinks it is 4:00 PM.  So I am running on about 7 hours of sleep in the last 35.

Anyway today is going to be fun as in tiring.

Leaving the kids alone at home for the first time

after all the flooding and mayhem from yesterday there's a shitload of stuff for me to clean up.  the blower is out of gas and I don't have any 2 cycle oil to mix in the gas.  so I need to run out to the auto parts store to get some 2 cycle oil.  the kids are laying around the house watching movies and being themselves pretty much lazy.   their mother was out getting her nails done ahead of our trip to Napa Valley. so I decided it was time for me to leave them there by themselves for the first time.

with a little luck hopefully the house will still be standing when I get back.

Stupid dog

Stanis the dog is not over his chewing yet.  Left unsupervised he will chew everything.  My flipflops have been recently ruined.  We have painters who are painting our cabinets and somehow the dog has managed to make off with all their painter's tape and chew it up.  Every day there is a fresh batch of small chewed up papers, toys plants or other miscellaneous debris. I guess it is not the dog's fault- he is bored, but I am ready for him to be out of this stage.

London went to camp Seafarer today a day late due to the fact that she had been running a low-grade fever.  She was so excited to go.  Atticus had his last All-Stars baseball practice before the first game on Friday.

Adrienne still likes to look through my hair for dead skin.

Sugarsync vs. Google Drive

I just dropped Sugarsync cloud storage in favor of Google Drive.  I used Sugarsync for over a year and I originally selected it above others at the time because I could configure it to use my current folder structure without having to move everything to one folder and because it was reasonably priced.

I was happy with it for about a year until their price increased and then with the release of Sugarsync 2.0 I started having crashes constantly and customer service was of no help.  I sent them a .dat file as requested repeatedly but they never could seem to fix the crashing problem.

Then suddenly it went away- it must have been an update that solved that problem.

Then other thing I disliked about Sugarsync was their subjugation of a drive letter.  It installs a S: drive titled Sugarsync drive the just confused me.  Despite Sugarsync's insistence of the Sugarsync drive being a benefit, I could not see the need for that drive.

Then last but not least was the price.  For personal users Sugarsync is $9.99 / month for 100 GB and Google drive is $4.99 for the same storage capacity- a difference of $60 per year.

So now I am moving all my files over to my Google drive which means now I have to access all my personal stuff under a folder called Google Drive but hopefully that will not be problem living with.

Tooth and M3

Atticus pulled out his second tooth on Friday morning.  It was just hanging by a thread and he twisted it and pulled it right out standing in the master bathroom.  Side note-  the kids are at the age where they have no use for their own bathroom- they want to bathe, urinate, defecate, brush their teeth and do other personal activities in mom and dad's bathroom despite the fact that we provide them with their very own bathroom.

I took Friday off work and Tamara drove us all down to Duluth Georgia to pick up my brand new 2013 BMW M3 Convertible.

I had been looking at M3s to replace my aging 2004 Volvo V70R.  I was looking at used M3's and last monday when Tamara and I were in Atlanta for the Fleetwood Mac concert I had found a 2011 white M3 convertible with manual transmission in Duluth which was on our way back on I-85.  So we stopped to see the white one and it was being repaired.  I proceeded to drive several other used ones- a 335i convertible with manual transmission, an M3 coupe with manual transmission and an M3 with the dual clutch transmission.

The white one was really what I had wanted but once I drove the dual clutch transmission I was a convert.  I had always been a traditional manual transmission sort of guy but then I drove that dual clutch- ain't nothing like it I have ever driven! Smooth, lightning fast shifts, and no hesitation - you don't even lift your foot off the accelerator.  Holy shit that car is fast!  It has the tightest feel of any car I have ever driven.

So we tried to come to an agreement on one they had on the floor but I walked out because they wouldn't meet my price.  They called me about an hour down the road and cut me another deal but then they kept saying the car I wanted was just sold.  They eventually found what I was looking for in Florida but it was black. So I settled for the Jerez Black Metallic.

I didn't have time to go pick it up until yesterday so we went.  I pulled out in front of a lady driving a 7 series in the parking lot of the dealer.  So I almost crashed the car before I got it off the dealer's lot.   Tamara has video of this and I will post it here later.

I  still cannot believe that I paid $82,000 for a car.  It almost makes me sick to my stomach.  In the back of my mind I have issues with with other people will think about me owning a car like that.  I worry about what my employees will think because the business owns the car.  Tamara tells me I deserve it because I work hard and am successful.  I agree with this, but I still have trouble letting go of the fact that I consider it unfrugal to buy a car like this.

The kids rode with me out of the lot and all the way to Commerce Georgia where we spent a lot of time at Chick-fil-a while Tamara shopped (mostly for me- clothes).  At commerce Atticus rode the rest of the way with me with the top up.  He had question, after question after question.  He is so curious about the world around him.  I keep having to remind myself that he is just a kid and curious.  Sometimes I just like the peace and quiet.  But I am thrilled that he is absorbing and learning so I continued to answer his questions joyfully and prompted him back when his questions were nonsensical to me.

We got home about 10:30 - really tired from the day.

Saturday London had two softball games with a team from Granite Falls who plays under different rules.  London's team is machine pitch- 3 strikes and you are out.  The team they played was coach pitch and they had 5 pitches to hit the ball whether or not they had 3 or more strikes.  London's team won both games.

We went to the pool at Catawba Country Club afterward and Greg and the cousins came and joined us as did Derrick Sweet and his wife Kelly and daughter Parker. The kids swam and played for several hours.

We then went to Mom and Dad's house to eat- we had pork chops and all sorts of vegetables mom prepared.  I finally ripped the kids away and got them home about 9:30 pm.

Concerned

Tamara seems to be sick a lot lately.  Right now she has a sore throat, headache, stomach pain and diarrhea.  She had a mini migraine today when i was at home for lunch.  She hypothesized that it could be from the fact tjat she took her prescriptions on an empty stomach,

she just seems to always have some sort of headache or pain.  her back has been really bothering her too lately.

Atticus' first lost tooth

So Atticus just got over strep throat.  He has it almost all last week and was out of school almost the entire week.  He went through two rounds of antibiotics because the first round was not working.

Tamara is out of town this weekend at Wild Dunes with her tennis girlfriends- she left Thursday morning.  Adrienne woke up Friday morning with a 101 degree fever.  I stayed home with her although she went with me to drop the kids off at school.

Adrienne laid around all day Friday and watched TV.  She said her throat hurt but it wasn't red so I decided not to take her to the doctor.  Tamara found out about her fever and to the doctor to call in a prescription.

I left Adrienne at home by herself for the first time (for me at least) when I went to pick up the kids from school.  She was asleep anyway.

Atticus had a baseball game on Friday afternoon so Mom and Dad took him to the game.  Mom then came over this morning at 8:00 so I could go bike riding with my neighbor  Brian- we did 30 miles.  Mom then took Atticus and London to their game and practice respectively.

At his baseball game Attics lost his first tooth- a lower incisor.  Mom brought the kids home and we went out to rent some movies and eat at Wild Wok and get some ice cream at Cold Stone Cramery.

We got home and watched E.T. circa 1982.  It was a little too scary for Adrienne.  She is sleeping in my wed with me to ward off scary thoughts.  Atticus is sleeping in London's bed with his tooth underneath his pillow.

Adrienne is asleep beside me in bed as I type this snoring like a freight train.

Adrienne and London normally sleep together in London's bed and Atticus normally sleeps in his own bed.

Challenges from Atticus

I helped the twins with their spelling words this morning: bumpy, puppy, funny, penny, sandy, bunny, sleepy, chilly, my, night, or, because, behavior, group, plead.  Adrienne got them all correct except for behavior and plead.  I told her the correct way to spell them and she corrected her work.

Atticus had problems with because so I helped him out by spelling it for him.  When we went back over the work he had spelled it becaus.  When I told him that he had spelled it incorrectly he started crying and complaining that I had told him to spell it that way.  He also missed behavior, group and plead spelling them behavor, graep and pled.  He kept saying that his mother told him that group had an "e" in it and that it wasn't his fault.

So he wanted to practice the words again so we did it again.  Once again he misspelled because (becaus), behavior (behavoior) and group (gruap) and when I corrected them he just broke down crying and went upstairs.

He wants to be so confident and he thinks he already knows everything and when someone calls him on it he just can't handle it.

Ahh the challenges of being a parent.  Hopefully this will be one of the largest challenges with him......

RIGHT!!!!

Snow Skiing for the kids

I took our three ankle-biters snowskiing on Monday.  We took them out of school when the slopes are not so crowded.  We went to Appalachian Ski Mountain outside of Blowing Rock, NC.

My brother brought his two kids with him and his doctor also came with his youngest daughter.

Well, Mondays are "Home School" days so there were a boatload of kids there and we had to sign the kids up for a group lesson- I hope it did them well.

It took forever to get the skies rented and fitted and to handle all the gloves, hats, helmets, boots and skis and the locker and the payment, etc.. We arrived at the lodge about 9:15 and didn't hit the slopes until after 10:15.

Atticus learned pretty quickly but he refused to turn.  He kept pointing his skis straight downhill and just bombed down the slope in a straight line.  This is fine for the bunny slope as he came to a slow stop at the bottom.  But he wanted to go to the steeper slopes where he did the same technique.

Of course this is absolutely dangerous and on the steeper slopes he fell.  When he got to the top of the lift and went to the slope and I was behind Atticus watching him.  As he pointed his skis straight downhill and started picking up speed to about 20 mpg, I started yelling "TURN, TURN, TURN" and of course he did not.  About half way down the slope, he just fell down in a cloud of snow with skis flying everywhere.  He started crying and screaming at me that him not turning was my fault.

After I got his up and his skis on and promising me that he would turn going down the mountain.  He stood up, I pointed his skis to the side of the side of the slope on a line that was not as steep.  Immediately after he began to go, he pointed his skis straight downhill and took off like a rocket.  Fortunately the bottom of the slope was flat enough and long enough that he slowed down without falling or hitting anyone.

I took him to the top of the bunny slope again and worked with him to try to initiate turns.  He watched his cousin Lucas do nice S turns and eventually did some himself.  So we went back to the top of the intermediate slope and he did the same thing- point the skis straight downhill.

Adrienne took to skiing pretty well.  She spent the entire time on the two bunny slopes and skiied a lot by herslef without me or her uncle around.  I got pulled in three different directions and thank goodness she didn't mind being by herself some.  I was surprised that she skiied pretty much all day with only one break for lunch.

London did well just like her brother.  She went down the intermediate slopes too but did turn.  Although she did fall and cry and got really frustrated trying to get her skis on and kept saying that she couldn't do it.  She eventually got her attitude adjusted and got her skis on and kept on going.

All three of the kids skied from about 10:30 to 6:15 and they had a great time.  Even with the cousins who they normally complain about being with, they really enjoyed it.  Atticus skied mostly with Lucas.

Overall it was a very successful trip and I have a deep sense of satisfaction that the kids had such a great time.

Microsoft continues to annoy

I just built a Home Theater PC and installed Windows 7 Home Premium.  I had intended to use the built in Remote Desktop access to control the PC but alas I find out that Microsoft left support for the Remote Desktop server out of the Home PREMIUM edition of Windows 7.

Of course all the switches are there and you can fully configure it and nowhere when you are doing this does it tell you that it will not work in the edition you have.

Thanks a lot Microsoft.

Dining out

I am with the the kids at the Mellow Mushroom in Hickory.  Just me and the kids.  The wife didn't feel like joining us.  We are sitting on the enclosed patio work the heaters blasting but it is still too damn cold.  I am drinking a Rogue Dead Guy Ale trying to stay warm.  The good is taking forever.  It is a Saturday night do WTF did I expect.

Can't Switch It Off

This is the second night in a row that I have woken up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep.

I just can't seem to be able to switch off my brain.  I have my procrastination to thank for this.  I have a person who will hold me accountable for my lack of progress on Strategic Planning coming tomorrow and i think that is why I can't sleep.

I was tired all day today and now I will be even more tired tomorrow.  Sucks but I have no one to blame but myself.

Sleeping Problems

Atticus can't sleep with his feet under the covers because he says they get too hot.  Last night he had his feet out of the covers but was whining because they were still too hot.  So I got a washcloth for him and wet it and put it on his feet.

Adrienne for some reason has suddenly not wanted to sleep in her room by herself- she says she is scared.  London doesn't want her to sleep in her bed with her and neither does Atticus want her to sleep in his bed with him.  Last night eventually after a lot of whining and crying from both her and Atticus we got Adrienne to sleep in her room.  The night before she slept in bed with Atticus.

Low White Blood Cell confusion

So I went back to my family doctor for my annual physical and the digital exam went fine - my prostate is good.  I had the blood test done and my cholestorol is over 200 - no so good but worst of all my white blood cell count is still low- just below normal.  It has been a year now with a low white blood cell count.

As a result I went to my Oncologist on December 4 where my white blood cell count was tested again and still found to be low and he suggested that I have another bone marrow biopsy like the one I had a year ago.

I have been in Honduras the past three days and this morning I noticed a bump right below my right ear lob where my jaw and neck come together.  I don't know if this is a begnin nothing to be worried about bump or not but considering the unexplained low white blood cell count, this will make me think a few more times than I normally would.

Call me Dagoo

For some bizzare reason London started calling me Dagoo.  Now Adrienne and Atticus are calling me that too

... kids.

Adrienne Loses Tooth

Adrienne lost one of her lower incisors yesterday in gym class.  She pulled it right out.  She couldn't wait to show me when I got home from work.  She ran to me and asked "Daddy, do you see anything different about me?"  I didn't see it and she had to point it out to me.