Mostly about my amusement
For Christmas the kids had each gotten Disney digital cameras. These were okay but needed special software, a non-standard USB cable, and had no preview window.
Yesterday Lily and I got the kids inexpensive affordable low end HP digital cameras. I’ll post the best pictures they take over the weekend here.
Every year Lily’s company nominates about 100 employees or so and sends them to a company paid vacation/off site meeting. These nominations are to reward them for outstanding achievements. The employees get to bring their significant others and this year Lily was selected to go.
This is the second time Lily and I went and we had a great time. The company sent us to Cabo San Lucas and Lily signed us up for the spa.
I’m not a sophisticated person. The barber is about as pampered as it gets for me (and it shows). So with some prodding from one of my friends we signed up for a pedicure, a manicure, and a massage.
It was a weird experience for me. Overall it was fine but I’m ticklish and kept laughing during the pedicure. During the massage I was asked if the pressure was too much. I said “No, it’s a little light” and she really worked on me. It did not quite hurt exactly but I now know what it’s like to go through a meat grinder.
Going to Mexico was a breeze. We had no hassle from the TSA, the transfer at Dallas was uneventful, and customs in Cabo was a snap. The most telling part of going was that we could not take water through the screening gate but we could buy bottles of water after the TSA and carry those potentially lethal water devices onto the plane.
(The TSA at the metal detector said we were allowed to buy water from the stands near the boarding gate, yes we took water on that way, and yes TSA war on liquids is too stupid for words).
Coming back was crowded and a little chaotic. We went through US customs and immigration screening at Dallas and once we were screened we got our luggage and went to the TSA guard like everyone else to go to our connecting flight. They do what you expect; they ask some questions and “randomly” select passengers for additional screening with x-ray of the luggage and some more questioning. We thought they picked us because we had a company provided lunch box with chicken inside.
Random, oh yeah, right. When we got into the waiting area and were lined up behind some people I told Lily “It wasn’t the lunch box”. They picked out every Asian passenger in the crowd. The only non-Asians were people like me who were traveling with an Asian (Lily is Chinese). Not a small amount of people either. That delayed our getting to our connecting flight in another terminal and we ended up racing to the plane.
At the gate I mentioned that we were delayed because of the TSA. The attendant said they screen randomly to which I replied “Yeah they randomly got every Asian”.
I did not complain to the TSA. They are not really law enforcement professionals like police officers, they don’t necessarily have an education past high school, and operate underneath secret and unpublished laws. Per other accounts they don’t have to explain to you why they abuse their authority or even really justify that abuse.
At Dallas they were not rude or unprofessional to us at all and aside from the obvious discrimination and delay I have no complaint. But had I made an issue of their “random” selections they could have gone nuts and I would have no recourse. See Homeland Stupidity for some better examples of problems with DHS. See Dr. Pournelle’s and others experience for more references.
Oh well. The vacation was great fun and like thousands of other travelers I just put up with this and hope that things get better.
5 year old boy to 3 year old girl at 5 am: “You HAVE to go downstairs and get my toy doggie.”
3 year old girl: “I’m scared! No one’s downstairs!”
5 year old boy: “HE-LL-O! I’ll be right with you!”
Lately he’s been picking up words and phrases from somewhere and it’s really funny. He sees an airplane and says “Look, it’s flying. How cool is that?”
I always know it. Be careful what you say around kids.
Today I took out the kids remote control airplane (graphic from Amazon) and gave it a whirl. Santa got it for them for Christmas.
It sucks wind loudly. It’s rated for 8+ year olds so the kids really can’t work it. I’m almost 5 times that old and I can’t work it either.
So I tell Lily “Honey, it’s a real P O S”.
Now my 5 year old son is saying “Daddy can I play with the POS?” and the girl is also saying “Daddy can you get me a POS? Please? I want a POS!”
. . .
“Maybe when you are older sweetheart, you can have a P O S of your own.”
Used the snow thrower on the driveway. The snow was actually not bad at all.
The snow thrower is all gassed up and ready to go. Supposed to get 2 to 4 inches of snow tomorrow.
Happy New Year to all!
Yesterday we went to Flushing to take the kids to see the dentist and have an early dinner with the family.
It was not a smooth ride. That was not a big surprise, it was Chinese new Year’s Eve after all. Lily’s brother called to give us a heads up; he could not get near Flushing. Main Street and College Point were not moving at all. So we came across Northern Boulevard hoping to turn south on Union Street. No joy there, the police closed Union in that direction.
We had to make a u-turn on Northern, drive to Parson’s, drive down to Roosevelt, just to turn up on Union Street. The graphic is close and does not reflect the joy of driving with so many other happy drivers.
The good news is that there were lots of parking spots since hardly anyone could get there. The bad news is we needed to be on the other side of town. Good exercise for everyone. It was so crowded on the street that I put my 36lb daughter on my shoulders.
One walk to the dentist, some shopping (my favorite hobby shop went out of business 🙁 ). Afterwards we had dinner near where we parked. It was all good.
The kids were rude to my Dad in the evening. When he came down to get something later they asked him
Kids: “Grampa are you feeling happy? Are you happy now?”
Grampa: “Why do you ask?”
Kids: “You were unhappy before.”
Grampa: “I’m happy.”
Kids: “Can you read us a story?”
On the way up my son asked me to carry him
Jan: “I’ve had a long day and I’m tired.”
Son: “Why did you have a bad day?”
Jan: “No one knows why.”
It’s that time of year again!
The kids love the Christmas decorations. Just like last year, my parents put up the lights in the windows and on the outside. The decorations are up right now and the house looks really nice.
Tomorrow we are having my son’s birthday party. This is turning into a really good weekend.
A few weeks ago I went to a friends wedding with my little girl. Lily was sick and I had wanted to go, so taking one of the kids was the right thing to do.
The little girl had a blast. I could not keep her off the dance floor and thanks to my friends I did not even have to feed her! A good time was had by all.
Yesterday the whole family went to a cousins wedding. The church ceremony was at 11:00 and afterwards we went to a reception. Once again both kids had a blast and me and Lily had trouble keeping up with both of them. Later on we went over to their grandmother’s house and dinner at 7pm at a Chinese restaurant.
Ever see people play mahjong? I mean the people who really play on a regular basis. The girl saw her aunt and uncles playing and watched very closely. My son wanted to play and started reaching for the tiles while they were playing the game.
That could have been very bad! Lily’s aunts and uncles are great and love the kids and I am sure if the boy ruined that turn it would have been fine. But some MJ players take that game very seriously and can’t stand slow players let alone outside interference.
Later on the kids were playing with the tiles. They would set up a line of tiles and pick up a tile from the pile. They’d look at it, either keep it or make a big show of putting the tile back into the pile.
Is there such a thing as a Tiger Woods for the MJ crowd…?
We left at 10:30PM and once again a good time was had by all.
