7-24-10 Saturday (To The Caribbean)

Jim suggested we dine at Fuel Pizza Cafe in Uptown Charlotte again.  Why not?  We liked it last week and we had another coupon.  Aside from that, there’s a Caribbean festival going on that we can check out.  FREE parking was a little challenging probably because of the festival so we had to drive around looking for a spot.  Once we got lucky we had to walk several blocks.  It’s in the high 90’s this weekend but it certainly doesn’t feel like Florida’s high 90’s so I was happy with that.  Toward the end of the walk, sweat started to take over.  We made it to Fuel, ate our yummy pizza (1 slice each) and then walked over to the festival.

The music was very loud.  There were many vendors peddling their Caribbean wares.  The food stations appeared to house possible tasty foods but we just ate.  We walked around the festival for a short time and then hit the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drove around town, exploring some more.  Where’s that road lead?  Off we went to find out.  We drove through several neighborhoods checking them out.  Eventually we want to buy a house again.

Perhaps because we had a light lunch, we were hungry early.  We had some TGI Friday’s Stripes reward coupons ($8 off) so we headed over there for dinner.  We ordered some crispy green bean fries.  We like those.  We don’t usually order them because of my dieting but we misunderstood the usage terms of the coupon.  It read “Get an appetizer, get a dessert, just get here.”  We both read it like they meant whatever, just get here and use it.  The server said no.  Ugh. Jim had my favorite burger.  I had grilled chicken sans the Jack Daniels sauce, broccoli and a veggie medley.  Just because I don’t constantly post my point intake doesn’t mean I’m not on Weight Watchers anymore.

After dinner we settled in for the evening watching Tooth Fairy and finished off this past season of Desperate Housewives. 

6-26-10 Saturday (Please Don’t Touch The White House)

The gang headed into DC via cars for our 9 am White House tour.  Luckily parking in the area wasn’t as difficult as we were prepared for.  With extra time at hand we stopped at a Subway for breakfast.

  Above: Laurie stays connected via her iPhone.

Onward to the White House!  White House tours have to be reserved well in advance.  It takes contacting your Senator’s office to coordinate a tour.  Once we went through various security check points, we were in!  No photos were permitted.  We walked through or past several rooms reading information boards.  Tim touched the walls in one room and was scolded.  I had to put that in the blog because it became a running joke for several days.  The walls he touched weren’t traditional.  They were made by fabric stretched between wood frames instead of drywall.  Tim saw the abnormalities and investigated with his fingers.  Bad Tim, bad.  No damage was done.

After the White house tour we made our way (or tried) to the Capitol. 

Above: Pearl answers that ever so important question – how the hell do we get there?

 

Above: Tim says, “Let me know when you’ve figured it out.  I’ll wait.”

 Above: Tim and Jim at the Metro station.

Above: Laurie & Pearl at the Metro station.

Above: Tim – that’s our train!

Above: Pearl & Laurie ON the Metro.

Above: Tim & Carl.

Above: Tim & Carl.

Above: Pearl & Laurie.  We made it!

We missed our appointed tour time but were still able to get in!  We were able to take photos here.  Beautiful.  I must say – personally, I think the Capitol has got it goin’ on. 

Above: Jim and Garret at the Capitol!

  Above: Jim stands on the 4 quadrants of the Capitol.

 

We departed DC.  Jim and I returned to the RV while the rest of the gang napped.  Later we met at TGI Friday’s for dinner and then drove back into DC to see the various memorials and monuments at night.

Above/Below: Lincoln Memorial 

Above: Washington Monument.

Above: Korean War Memorial.

Above: World War 2 Memorial. 

We saw more than I photographed but the darkness made for poor quality in some cases.

So what about Weight Watchers point break downs?  Well, I just haven’t had the time.  Looking up foods is time consuming.  I’ve been doing salads and chicken as possible.  I’ve made good choices.  The points will have to wait until after this trip.  I can’t keep up.

We strolled around an old village.  We then went for lunch and off to some water gardens.  We actually spotted an old Cadillac with cattle horns.  Next off to the stockyards.  Damn it was hot!  See it all here.

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6-3-10 Thursday (A 5 Star Entry)

Let’s get the hurray’s out of the way, shall we?  Check out these screen shots:

 

That’s right – Thursdays are weigh-in days.  6.6 pounds off so far!  I’m proud.  Please send a cyber-pat-on-the-back. 

While Mike and Dave were in the midst of departure procedures, Jim’s Grandma called that she’d be here in town in 5 hours.  That put her arrival at about 3 pm.   The guys departed at 1, and I did a 2 hour cyclone of laundry, linen changing, general cleaning, a shower and a shave for Grandma’s arrival.  Phew! 

Above: Dasher enjoyed the canine company.

Above: Mike

Above: Sugar.

Above: Little Bit.

Grandma arrived, we chit-chatted and eventually Jim came home.  Off to dinner at TGI Fridays.  I had the Jack Daniels chicken, sans the Jack Daniels.  For my 2 sides I chose double broccoli.  Yum.  I ended the day with 7.5 points left over!  I don’t know how that happened.

Above: Betty Ann (Grandma)

 

Here’s my Weight Watchers recap for the day:

 

Today we arrived in Roswell, NM.  Check out our foil hat fashion show here.  Read about our alien encounter!  This post is full of FUN photos.

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4-10-10 Saturday (Stale Service)

We took the RV out of storage and brought it to Tire Kingdom for 8 new tires.  The tires were old and chopped up.  Jim had negotiated an excellent price on new Michelins.  The worst thing for an RV is old tires.  Can you imagine a blow out while driving a big ass motorhome with a vehicle in tow?  Jim has dealt with poor handling, vibrations, and the like for a long time throughout our year of futzing around.  It was time to get new tires and next weekend an alignment.

Allow me to interrupt for a minute.  Ummm, it’s my blog.  Watch this 20/20 report about old tires.  Glenn shared this with me March 17th of last year.

Recently, Jim’s “RV advising friend” John, helped Jim out with choosing tires.  John cautioned Jim about old tires.  He said age is very important for the motorhome because they’ll be replaced due to age before wear in the future.  For cars, tires don’t have to be brand new because they’ll get worn out faster than they’ll age.

I can tell you that most tire places don’t care about tire age.  They don’t look.  They don’t rotate their stock.  I speak from experience.  I sold tires at a dealership.  Me, nor the techs, ever looked at the date.  Oh, and in case you didn’t know, it’s Federal Law that tire dealers register or provide a way for you to register your tires in the event of a recall.  This started after the whole Firestone tire recall years ago.

OK, now that I preached I want to again thank Glenn and recently John for their advice.

Above: John.  We met through blogging and then met he and Derek in person while in Texas.

  Above: Glenn from Fort Myers.  He makes really yummy cakes!

OK, let me get to the Tire Kingdom story.  We arrive with the motorhome.  We got to the counter, explained we had a price quote with Andrew, the clerk went to get Andrew.  He called for him.  We stepped out of line awaiting him.  Someone came from the shop and said Andrew was out and would be back in about 20 minutes.  I got back in line and told Jim, “I’m not waiting.  One of these guys can check us in.”  We got the same guy who wanted us to wait for Andrew and made me feel as though we inconvenienced him.  At every sentence, this guy found some reason why we possibly couldn’t get helped.  Negative.  Jim becomes furious and storms out stating “you guys just lost $2,000 worth of business.  We’ll take our business elsewhere.”  I stay behind and finally leaned across the counter and told him that he will write us up, and Andrew can call us.  The guy comes out to the parking lot, Jim has already gotten the RV headed out of the lot.  Andrew pulls up.  Amen.  We told Andrew what happened and he was apologetic.  My main thing was customer service.  It seemed like the guy didn’t want to be a team player.  That’s the gist of the situation. 

Jim told Andrew about the tire date issue.  Jim and I personally checked 4 of the 4 tires.  The other 4 were in a different area.  We repeated our tire age issues to Andrew and left.  Andrew called back.  He doesn’t have enough newer tires and was working on getting some from another store.  His oldest was from 2005!  Yes, 2005!  He was able to find more newer tires and even got another $400 (we negotiated down to $360) from us for brakes that were down to hardly anything.  Oy.

To pass the time, we went to Ikea.  Here’s a sign we saw:

Above: Is it 7 pieces or 4 pieces?  Maybe it requires assembly and they count the handles?

We went to lunch at Friday’s.   I had the 3 course meal.  A salad wedge with bleu cheese, sizzling chicken and cheese with broccoli in lieu of mashed potatoes and I gave up my dessert to Jim.  He selected my favorite – peanut butter pie.  It didn’t bother me in the least and I didn’t even take a taste.  Will the diet Gods, please take notice! … damn you…

 

Today was our last day at the Calico Ghost town.  On the way from Barstow to Death Valley we saw so many real ghost towns.   Click here to see last year’s happenings!

3-3-10 Wednesday (Job Warnings)

For the first time, I’ve looked for a job using craigslist.  Can I just tell you that there’s a lot of scariness on that site? 

Above: The warning by craigslist (click to view).

I’m on so many different sites.  I have them all bookmarked.  It’s a nice feature to “open all in tabs” and have every job seeking related site open up for me to review.

I just deleted two paragraphs.  I got all sad and whiny about the job thingy.  I’m strong, I’ll find a job, I’ll love my job, I’ll be happy, it’s all me.  Thanks.

Eventually, I decided to take a ride to Monro which is the place I had the steering line replaced at.  I’ve been seeing oil/fluid on the garage floor again.  They took the Jeep while I browsed around BJ’s.  They determined it was probably engine oil.  They did have some engine oil leak recommended repairs from the prior visit but I really don’t want to spend the money.  I think I’ll live with and monitor the small leak for now.

Jim got home, we skipped the gym and did not pass Go.  We went to TGI Fridays.  Appetizer, meal and dessert for $12.99.  Our server, Chance, was perfect.  He remembered everything.  Our drinks never ran out.  Perfect meal, perfect price, perfect service. 

With food settling in our guts, Jim read a few blog entries.  Apparently I had some errors to correct.  I corrected a bunch of errors from the previous posts so you should go reread them all and make sure.  I’ll wait here.

1-31-10 Sunday (New Pet Meetings)

Happy end of month which once again means absolutely nothing to me.  It used to be important when I was working… same thing for Jim.  Jim is still in a 7 week training class so perhaps it will be important in the future.  End of month always meant getting the books cleaned up and squeezing every last dime penny from it. 

The weather update – It’s showing freezing rain for Tuesday and Friday so far.  We still need to get rid of the crap on the roads from Friday and Saturday’s storm.

We decided to go out to IHOP for breakfast.  As we drove through the winding neighborhood, at the top of this hill were several stopped cars.  We stopped on the incline and slid backward slowly about 20-30 feet.  Once we reached the bottom, the cars atop moved and then we climbed the hill again with more speed.  We almost went home – giving up on it and deciding to skip the dangers.  Nah, that’s too easy.  Off we went.  We went here, there, and everywhere.  Shortly after noon, the road ice melted pretty substantially.  In fact, on the way home the same troublesome hill was ice-free.  Tonight, everything will probably refreeze, but with the layer being very thin, it shouldn’t be too bad.

We drove around looking (the exteriors only) at some houses for sale.  It’s much too early for that but it got us out of the house, got us to explore the area, and see other neighborhoods.  We even drove up a road that we’ve passed and wondered where it lead to.

Tonight we had dinner with Doug and Bill.  I’m so grateful for the internet.  Jim met them through a gay Charlotte networking site.  They’re from Florida and have been here 2-3 years, and are in banking.  We’ve all got a lot in common.  We met at Friday’s, enjoyed their 3 course meal for $12.99 special.  We each had the same deal.  We all picked different appetizers and shared with one another.  We expected the portions to be small but were shocked at the size of the appetizers and entrees.  Too much food, really. 

I didn’t take any photos since they didn’t even know about the blog.  I’d hate to be snapping all sorts of photos and posting them without them somewhat knowing us. 

We had dessert wrapped up to go and went back to their house.  We met their large cat and their Boxer, Chloe.  The house was in a neighborhood we drove past earlier today.  What a beautifully decorated house.  I’ll get pictures next time – if they don’t mind.  We ate our dessert and talked about the ups and downs of Charlotte.  Good neighborhoods, bad places, etc.  It was great to compare notes. 

3 out of 4 of us have to work tomorrow so we said our goodbyes and tentatively planned something for Saturday.