Cap'n John's Blog

Saturday, April 30, 2005, 06:02 a.m.

He was a younger Dad

He walked with just a walking stick. He boarded a double-decker bus and climbed the stairs to the top deck. For someone with a walking stick he made it look easy. When we called out to him that he was on the wrong bus he practically ran back to the stairwell and headed back down. I thought he'd slipped and fallen, but he had deliberately slid down the steps; he had a look of glee on his face when he straightened his legs and stood up. I remembered in my dream that he'd done that before, but that first occasion had been in my dream too.

Was that just a dream? Or was it a message? Is he somewhere now where he can run and play? And although we're not there with him, can he somehow visit us to let us know he's ok? Was it just a dream?

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Thursday, April 28, 2005, 09:47 p.m.

Frustration is...

playing Lemmings and running out of time just before your last couple of lemmings dive out the exit AND YOU NEEDED TO SAVE EVERY SINGLE LEMMING!!!! NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!!

Thanks to Eccythump and the clever programmers who coded a javascript version of Lemmings Liz is experiencing that exact level of Frustration, yes, that's Frustration with a Capital F ;)

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Wednesday, April 27, 2005, 08:49 p.m.

It's just a jump to the left...

Liz is in for a treat.

I was channel surfing and thought I'd stopped on Halloween:Resurrection. It didn't look right though. For starters, Charles Gray, who played Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, was narrating the story. It looked kind of right though when the young couple's car had a flat and they sought help at the castle they'd passed back away. But when they entered the castle's grounds and the young lady (who looked a lot like a young Susan Sarandon) burst into song, I realized what movie we were watching. You should know what movie it was by now too ;)

Liz, however, has never seen this classic movie of yesteryear. So, guess what we're watching tonight ;)

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Monday, April 25, 2005, 12:23 a.m.

Capn's Blog 4-25-2005

We managed to sleep in this morning until 8am, on account of JE staying with the in-laws last night. However we also managed to somehow invade each other's dreams this morning. Our dreams were uncannily similar. Almost as if they were two sides of the same story.

After a leisurely morning where I changed the light in the stairwell for a wall sconce that isn't brass, we set off to drop Amber with the in-laws as well. Liz was concerned about the delivery of hardware we're receiving tomorrow, as she said she has to take JE to school in the morning, and if the delivery is in the morning then she might not be home when the truck gets here. I finally had to inform her that I was taking the day off and I would be taking JE to play golf in the morning before taking him to school. So much for surprising her ;)

After ~~dumping Amber on the MIL~~ leaving the little angel with her grandma, we did some grocery shopping, took everything back home, then headed out once more; destination: Oldtown Pasadena, specifically, The Cheesecake Factory. Crowded? Yes. Overpriced? You've got it. Very good food? Of course. Decent sized portions? If they weren't, we'd never return.

We ordered an appetizer and an entree and split them between us, then each ordered a cheesecake. Liz got the plain old Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake. I got the White Chocolate Mousse Chocolate Cheesecake. Mine was delicious, I expect Liz's was too.

Now it's late. In fact it's so late that it's now tomorrow, and it's now seven years to the day since we've been married. How about that :)

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Saturday, April 23, 2005, 9:37 p.m.

Capn's Blog 4-23-2004

I'd just like to thank my father for giving me supreme confidence in myself. And he knows that, assuming the knowledge acquired throughout his life didn't die along with him. I believe I can do just about anything around the house. There's just one little problem with that. While I can do a lot of things, I can't do everything, but that doesn't stop me from attempting something I really shouldn't be doing, and that's when trouble rears its ugly head...like getting 1,000 pavers and 2-ton of sand delivered to pave the backyard, and thinking I could do it myself, and then leaving everything there for a couple of months because it was not really a one person job.

Getting back to the stuff I can do :)

I just finished replacing another faucet and drain pipe thingamajiggy, this one in the downstairs bathroom.

We went to the Homestyle Cafe this morning, my boss flaked. I tried to call him, his cell phone was off. We stuffed ourselves with loads of yummy food, then headed for the Lowe's store in Pico Rivera where I finally managed to track down the correct sized connector valves for under the sink. Back home I turned off the water and quickly switched the connector valves over. I did this quickly because even with the water turned off at the mains there was still a trickle of water coming in. After the connector valves and pipes and faucet were all hooked up I turned the water back on and discovered everything worked like it's supposed to...without any leaks, like there shouldn't be :) I also pulled out the old plug thingamajiggy, because it was a brass-gold color, and Liz doesn't like brass-gold colored fixtures...that's why I'm changing the faucets over too.

Liz found me the chuck key for my drill late last night...it was on the table pretty much right where I left it instead of snapping it into the holder on the drill. In my defense, it was buried under a pile of magazines. I attempted to drill a hole in the garage window sill, but it appears to be solid masonry, and my one & only masonry bit is too big for the screws I have. I worked out that with a few pieces of the correctly sized wood attached to the back of the planter, the correctly sized bits of wood would slip under the window sill and hold the planter in place. The planter cannot tip up and fall forward off the window ledge now, it can only slide forward, and I can't see that happening. I planted the two bean plants JE brought home from school in there, along with the seedling from a delicious purple grape I ate which was so delicious that I decided to cultivate the seeds. Several of them grew and sprouted, but when I was in Australia I guess we had a warm spell, and I hadn't watered the plants for a few days, then I was in Australia for over a week, and the plants all wilted. They all recovered except for the grape seeds; only a single, surprisingly strong, stubborn, seedling survived.

Two of Liz's cousins invited us all out for dinner, so the whole family (or at least those of us living here in the San Gabriel Valley area) convened in a hotel in Montery Park for some rather ho hum Chinese food. I don't know if it's the restaurant's fault, or the local water authority, but I was not impressed at all. The soup smelt and tasted of bleach, but I think it was actually chlorine in the water. One of Liz's cousins thought perhaps it was the bleach they used to wash the bowls to keep them pristine white. Apparently someone complained because suddenly the beer was free and we weren't being charged for the soup.

Despite that, it was an enjoyable evening. Made even more so because the MIL took Amber over to the old-folks table, where everyone ooh'd & ah'd over her because she's so gosh darned cute (did I just say that?). Meanwhile, Amber wailed her head off because she was tired and it was past her bedtime. We let her cry for a while, the in-laws asked if she was hungry. No, we told them, she's tired. Finally we relented and we gave the MIL a bottle. Amber drank the whole lot, the little pig. Sometimes I don't know if she's a monkey, a bunny, or a pig. The in-laws got their revenge by passing Amber back to us and she promptly barfed all over Liz's jumper. Lucky it was an old ratty jumper.

Finally we got away, said our goodbyes and headed for home.

The End.

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Friday, April 22, 2005, 11:13 p.m.

The weekend begins now

As we lay in bed this morning Liz pondered as to why JE gets up at 7am on my Day Off, but sleeps in every other day. Perhaps he wakes at 7am on those other days as well, but without Dad there's no point in getting up to play, so he goes back to sleep.

We took JE to the local McD's before school this morning, and got him to school right on time to have his class photo taken. There's another parental rip-off; school photos. JE has had three class photos taken (that I can remember) since starting Preschool. Do we really need photos of our 2 year old in Preschool? Then again, do we really need to have semi-professional, rather expensive photos taken each year while they're in school?

Amber had her 6-month check-up today. Liz dropped me at the Doctor's office while she went shopping. The nurse checked Amber out, she's doing well, if getting a little plump. Can we say a child is getting plump w/o sounding like the wicked witch in Hansel & Gretel? She's in the 80th & 85th percentile for height & weight now, stretching out to 27 1/2" and weighing in at 17 lbs.

After the checkup (where Amber got two shots) we set off for Lowe's. We ordered some lattice sections to increase the height of our back fence, as well as picked up some other bits & pieces for general work around the house. I got faucet connector bits to finish the bathroom sinks, but after we got home I found out that the measurements on the box are not exact measurements. Now I know a piece of 2x4 is not really 2" x 4", and that a 6" stainless steel pipe is NOT 6" in diameter (or circumference, or anything else for that matter) but I foolishly thought that a 1/2" nut really would be a 1/2" nut; it wasn't, it's smaller. Where's the truth in advertising laws when you need them?

So, as I couldn't finish the sink job, I spent the afternoon out in the yard. I mowed the lawn and weeded the back garden. I cut back the small hedge in the front garden, so now our front tap is not hidden behind spider infested leaves and twigs. I then dug up the small stunted tree thingy growing in the backyard but realized it was just another hedge thingy, so it went in the trash. A couple of pretty red & white flowering plants went in under the tap instead.

I was going to attach the planter to the garage window sill, but I was a bit of a silly a few days ago. Today I remembered an exchange between my father and I which occured when I was just a wee young lad. I'd removed the chuck key from Dad's electric drill, and I can remember Dad telling me that w/o the chuck key, the drill was useless. A few days ago Liz had found the chuck key for my drill, it was still sitting on the kitchen counter from when I'd installed those sliding basket thingys for her last weekend. She gave the chuck key to me, and like a big silly (I'm being polite here, ok) instead of putting it in the holder on the drill, I sat it on the kitchen table. At least I thought I did. I couldn't find it this afternoon...coz I didn't look hard enough. Liz found it for me later. So, I was going to attach the planter to the garage window sill, but because my electric drill had the screwdriver bit in it, and because I didn't have the chuck key I couldn't use the drill as a drill; it was now a turbo-charged screw driver. Great for screwing scress in and out...not so good for drilling holes.

I finished off the evening by winning an eBay auction for one of Games Workshop's Venerable Dreadnoughts. It's brand new and still in the box; the cost to me was �26 + �7 shipping. GW rip you right off by charging you for these babies, so I saved myself �12. I've bought a few other Space Wolves models on eBay this week, for at least half price. I understand that GW are a monopoly; they let practically no-one else sell their product, and they charge whatever price they want, so I have to say this, eBay is fraggin' brilliant for scoring cheap, new GW models.

Well, that's about it from me. Tomorrow we're planning to meet my boss out at Guasti for breakfast. This is the boss who told me about the Homestyle Cafe in the first place. He invited me & the family out to his Ranch afterwards. Not sure if that invite is still open or not. We'll find out at breakfast tomorrow ;)

G'night, all.

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Thursday, April 21, 2005, 08:18 a.m.

I've got a Blue Ukelele

To the naked eye it looks light brown.
Light brown is the colour,
Deep Blue is the sound.
- - - - -
From Blue Ukelele by
Prozac Blues

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Sunday, April 17, 2005, 08:47 p.m.

Another weekend bites the dust

Not a very exiciting weekend. Decided to install the new water filter under the kitchen sink, which meant pulling the old one out. We hadn't found anywhere that stocked filters for the old filter system, and as a dual-filter unit was just �60 at Lowe's, Liz decided to buy a new one. That will make changing the filters a darn sight easier next year. I spent the morning unhooking the old unit, disconnecting pipes, etc, and then went to install the new unit.

The plans called for the new unit to be screwed into the cabinet wall under the sink, that's inside the cabinet. The filters would then fit into the bits screwed to the cabinet wall. I decided to put together a frame work which the unit would be attached to, and slide that whole thing in under the sink. Sounds like more work, but it will make changing the filters in the future a whole lot easier, plus I didn't relish crawling in under the sink and trying to screw things to walls while I'm all nice & cramped...nope, didn't want to do that for the filter...I did that later for these stupid sliding baskets Liz wanted installed.

I was having trouble getting one of the filters inserted into its unit. Filter B went in just fine, but A just refused to insert properly no matter how much I tried. B went into A's unit just fine too, while A also refused to be inserted into B's unit. The problem was Filter A. It was only after I'd had a shower in preparation for going back to Lowe's to exchange Filter A that I took a closer look at A...and realized it had these little grey caps on its two nozzles...Filter B didn't have any little grey caps. I took off the little grey caps...they were solid grey caps...there was no way Filter A would have filtered water with these little grey caps on...there was no way Filter A would ever be seated in its unit with these little grey caps on...I removed the little grey caps...and Filter A went into its unit just fine. Filter B did the right thing and slid into its unit just like it had been doing all along.

I slid the whole unit under the sink, hooked up the water hoses, turned on the water and turned on the filter spigot. The water sputtered and spurted and started flowing. I put a glass under the spigot and filled it up...it was all white and bubbly. The bubbles rose to the surface as air bubbles are wont to do when immersed in liquid and the water cleared. I took a taste. It tasted like crap...actually it didn't taste like crap, it tasted like rubber. Yay, I thought. I've replaced our water filter with its 4 year old filters with water which (to me) tasted just fine, with a filter which makes the water taste like rubber.

I opened the filter unit's instruction booklet to the Trouble Shooting section. It recommended running the water and flushing the new filter for 5 minutes. I saw a note on the old unit's filter which recommended 10 minutes. I set the oven timer for 10 minutes. Then I noticed the next line in the Trouble Shooting section. It recommended NOT drinking the water before flushing the water filter for 5 minutes. No wonder it tasted like rubber. Fortunately I've visited a lot of websites featuring stupid people who've eaten and drank things never meant to be eaten or drunk by people, not even stupid ones. I figure with the crap those people have eaten and drunk, a little rubbery tasting water is not going to hurt.

Liz then produced these sliding basket thingies she bought at The Container Store in Pasadena. I had to crawl into the bottom cupboard shelves to screw in the frames for these things. I was lucky. The electric drill fit with just enough room to allow me to screw in the screws. I installed all the frames and put in the baskets. Liz decided I'd installed them too far back. I crawled back in, unscrewed the frames, moved them forward, then screwed them back in again.

After that my day was over, at least as far as I was concerned. Liz went on to restock the shelves & sliding basket thingies AND with the newfound space (the old filter unit had a 10-gallon tank labeled "Reverse Osmosis") totally reorganized the space under the sink as well.

Sunday was a relaxing day of sorts. We went to the Santa Anita Mall in the morning where I used two coupons to get �40 on my Dave & Busters' Powercard using just �20 of my money. I then played the kiddy slot machines and scored a bunch of tickets. JE should be able to get a neat toy the next time we go. We then hit Party City where Liz bought a bunch of party supplies for JE's next party. Then it was time to come home and relax and wait for the in-laws to bring JE back.

Thus endeth the weekend, and not a moment too soon.

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Saturday, April 16, 2005, 01:18 p.m.

Decisions, decisions...

Cast your vote.

While the nine naked men causing a Heap of Trouble is a higher quality production, this little gem, a blatant rip-off of Heap of Trouble, is set to what is arguably one of the greatest songs of all time, and because of that could just be better than the original.

Man, this is a tough one.

Oh, and I apologize for the naked boobies (& god knows what other body parts) visible at the second clip's website.

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Friday, April 15, 2005, 05:42 p.m.

Yep, I thought as much

This doesn't surprise me.

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Friday, April 15, 2005, 12:53 p.m.

Depression is no laughing matter

Sometimes I'm depressed. Today is one of those days. It's not just that I've been thinking about my Dad and all of the things that I'll never do with him again. Of course that can't be helping, but it's still been a depressing day. It started out depressing, amost from the time I woke up.

Probably doesn't help that I've tuned in to an online Country station, but I was feeling depressed before that, thus I chose to listen to Country. Misery loves Company ;)

You'd think I'd be happy though. I had an internal interview yesterday, spoke to my supervisor today, and a promotion and a 5% raise are an almost guaranteed part of my immediate future. I've got a beautiful wife who loves me, I've got two beautiful kids who adore me, I've got a house and a good paying job that lets me take care of my family.

Perhaps I need Cher to smack me in the head and say "Snap out of it!", a la Moonstruck.

Seeing as that's not going to happen any time soon, there's only one solution!

It's Shania Twain TIME!!! I sure hope my coworkers like Shania as much as I do ;)

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Thursday, April 14, 2005, 06:00 a.m.

Thar She Blows!!!

What do you do with an 8 ton, 45 foot long, decomposing Grey Whale carcass?

If the year is 1970 and you're the Oregon Department of Transportation,
you place half a ton of dynamite underneath it, and...

BLOW IT UP!!!

I bet it seemed like a good idea at the time ;)

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Saturday, April 10, 2005, 11:26 p.m.

Saturday, what a day ! Waiting all week for you!

Today was an interesting day. At 7:30 We dropped Amber at the in-laws for the day, then Liz and I raced out to Ontario. Yes, once again we were having breakfast at the Homestyle Cafe at Guaste. This time we met Chris, a coworker of mine, and his son, Sven, for breakfast. After noshing out on some delicious grub, and lots of it, for bloody cheap, I left Liz & JE and headed for the Ontario Convention Center with Chris & Sven to attend the 2005 Los Angeles Games Workshop Convention.

Liz & JE headed back home to prepare for their day at Universal City Walk where they were going to see The Wiggles.

Meanwhile, back at Ontario, Chris, Sven and I checked in and received our free Space Marine Veteran figure. Ok, so it wasn't quite free as we'd paid �40 to attend this convention. Being a metal miniature, GW proably would sell it to us for about �12, so we were only out of pocket �28 :P

Once inside the hall Chris went off looking at the many, various gaming tables while Sven and I made a bee-line for the giant Space Marine Dreadnought at the back of the hall.

This thing stood close to twenty feet tall and it was here that we joined perhaps 100 other gamers in a Mega-Battle where the valiant Space Marines were fighting the repulsive bug-like Tyranids (think Starship Troopers). Unfortunately, because this Mega-Battle was a continuation of Mega-battles from previous conventions in other cities, and because the Tyranids had won the most recent battle, they got unlimited reinforcements. As soon as we killed a bug it went to the back of the board, and once a "squad" of five or so bugs were at the back of the board, the Tyranid player was allowed to redeploy them and they'd rejoin the fray. Of course once a Space Marine warrior was killed, he was dead, and that was it. We learned that at the end of the day, despite the overwhelming number of Tyranids, the Space Marines had captured and held enough strategic points throughout the day's four battles to win this chapter of the war. The gamers at the next convention in Baltimore will appreciate that, for our victory means their Tyranid opponents will not get unlimited reinforcements like the ones we faced.

During this 2-hour battle, at the start of each Space Marine (& Tyranid) turn, the officials would pull all of the Space Marine players aside (& the Tyranid players at the start of their turn) and with the offer of free stuff, get us all screaming "WWWwwwwaaaaaauuuuggghhhh!!!!" at the top of our lungs. Despite being perhaps one of the oldest gamers there, I still scored some free stuff. Bonus! Perhaps the staff took pity on the old geek surrounded by screaming youngsters...or maybe they thought I would have a heart attack from screaming so they gave me some free stuff so I'd stop ;) Either way, I got some free stuff and at home that evening I checked GW's online store and discovered my free stuff, a Space Marine Tactical Squad, was valued at approximately �35. I'd spent �40 to get into the convention so now I was in front by about �5 to �10 ;)

I also visited the conversions tables, where small mountains of plastic sprues held the body parts & weapons of many, various GW warriors. I stumbled across a sprue of Space Wolf accessories, and decided to create a Space Wolf Captain. As my model was supposed to be a conversion, I gave him one cybernetic arm with a Chain Sword (not saw, sword) and one elvish looking arm with a Rune Sword. I also glued a Long Sword on one hip and a Combat Knife on the other. Space Wolves like to get in close and personal, so I figured such a warrior could never have too many blades. If I were to buy such a model, GW would be asking me for at least another �10; I got him for free ;) I didn't make out as well as some other greedy bastards. I saw some "conversions" which were nothing more than a single character standing on a pile of bodies. I'm sure the creators of those monstrosities spent their evening applying liberal doses of glue solvent and rebuilding their models into more usable soldiers. I even overheard one lad bragging to a friend that when staff dumped a fresh load of sprues onto his table, he'd grabbed a Command Squad sprue (valued at �35) and stuffed it into his bag. Such dishonesty! But when you charge people �40 to get into your convention and give them a �12 model in return, then sell convention t-shirts at �20 a pop, and your convention store's prices are the same as your regular store prices (expensive!), I guess you're just asking for people to try and grab as much free stuff as they can.

The most enjoyable game of the day was not the Mega-battle where Sven and I, novice gamers both, had played opposite a kid who'd recognized our naivety, knew all the rules himself, and wasn't afraid to bend or break them in the name of victory. But what else would you expect from the honorless Tyranids?

No, our most enjoyable game was played in the afternoon we joined a small 3v3 game of Orks vs Tau. Chris and I joined another Ork player while Sven took charge of one/third of the Tau. Sven and I ended up battling it out at one end of the table while Chris and the three others shot it up at the other end. Sven and my whole skirmish really hinged on just one dice throw after my Ork warriors engaged his Tau soldiers. Softened up by a devastating barrage of heavy bolter fire from my two Ork War Trucks, and then seeing many more of their brethren cut down by my Ork warrior's axes, Sven's Tau needed to pass a morale check. If they failed and fled, my Orks could cut them down then engage a squad of near-by Tau snipers shooting up Chris's end of the board. Without the support fire from those Tau snipers, Chris's Orks could potentially have the upper hand and the battle would be ours (Wwwaauuugghh!!!!)...but none of that came to pass. Sven's Tau held their ground, and after a brutal hand-to-hand fight, finally cut my Orks down (Wwwaaahhhh!!!!).

Coincidentally, despite the separation of our two battles, Sven destroyed the last of my Orks and War Trucks on the same turn as Chris's last Ork was killed. Yes, the Orks lost, but it was still a very enjoyable game, and overall, it was a pretty fun day.

Was it worth the �40 admission? This time around, I'd say yes, it was.

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Wednesday, April 6, 2005, 08:51 p.m.

Found this, and had to share ;)

Once upon a time I looked like this :)

I was going through my psychopathic serial killer phase :P

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Sunday, bloody Sunday, XX:YZpm

The Weekend - Part III of III

Sunday I woke up at 7am...wait, it was really 8am!!! Curse Daylight Saving Time. And no, I didn't forget an S. It's Daylight Saving Time, not Savings, feel free to look it up.

I rousted Liz and we started packing. The MIL hit on the most awesomely good idea of taking Amber back to L.A. with them so it would be just JE, Liz and me at Legoland. Bloody good idea, that. We took her up on that offer and I had Amber's car seat out of our car and installed in theirs before they could change their minds.

While giving the FIL directions on how to get back to L.A. he confessed that once more they had gotten lost on their way both to dinner last night, where ever that was, and on the way back to the hotel...and yes, we trusted them to get our youngest back home safe and sound. They did...somehow :)

Legoland wasn't too bad. Despite it being open for some time now it really hasn't caught on as a popular tourist attraction, so it's nowhere near as crowded as Disneyland or Universal Studios. The wait time at most of the rides was barely 15 minutes. We took JE on his first real roller coaster ride and he enjoyed it somewhat, but decided he didn't like going that fast. He might have liked it better but he bumped his lip on the restraining bar.

I think JE's highlight was nothing to do with Lego, but just playing in the water area. He got soaked. Like wet through. He had a blast until it was time to settle down for lunch, and then the wind cut through his wet t-shirt and really cooled him down. I got him out of his wet t-shirt and into a dry one, and after lunch changed his wet shorts for dry ones in the nearby toilet. The socks and shoes just had to stay wet.

The little guy is not so little anymore. He's finally big enough to ride all of the rides at Legoland, albeit with an adult, but he can still go on everything. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. I took him on the Lego Racer Roller Coaster and we got a nice picture taken by the Lego cameras at the bottom of the big drop. The camera captures his "I'm not happy!" expression beautifully, but he's a brave little guy and he didn't freak out, much ;)
He just repeated that he doesn't like the fast rides. The Knight's Ride was more to his liking ;)

And yes, that's Sir Batman, the Dark Knight behind JE ;)

With close to a 2-hour drive ahead of us, we left Legoland around 5pm and headed north, back home. JE fell asleep in the car and we actually had a smooth drive most of the way. Once again, I was glad to be home and crawl into bed. I was not so glad to have to get up at 5am the next morning for work, but I guess we've got to pay for this trip somehow :P

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Saturday, April 2, 2005, ??:??pm

The Weekend - Part II of III

Saturday was San Diego Zoo day. The FIL had booked our hotel rooms through a travel agent he used to work with when he was a hotel manager himself, and he insisted we stop at the travel agency on the way to the Zoo. I relented as the travel agency was not too far away from our hotel, although it was in the opposite direction to the Zoo, but first Liz, JE & I wanted breakfast. The in-laws didn't as they'd brought breakfast with them. Liz had planned for us to breakfast at "The Waffle Spot" but it appeared to have become a Mexican night-club called "The Amigo Spot", so we ate at a local 24-hour diner instead while the in-laws looked after Amber back at the hotel.

We finally got to the Zoo without the in-laws getting lost this time. It helped that they stayed with us all the way. We decided to rent a wheelchair for the FIL to help him get around (and because he'd been a big old sourpuss at Sea World "Slow down for the old man, you young whipper snappers, you!"
The MIL started pushing him around but had trouble on the first hill...going down it, that is, not up. I put her on stroller duty and took over from her, and discovered just why she had trouble going down hill. Ok, so I only had trouble because Angel-John on my left shoulder has a louder voice than Devil-John on my right shoulder. If I weren't deaf in my right ear Devil-John might win a little more often, and the FIL would have been going downhill mighty fast in his rent-a-wheelchair ;)

I'm glad we also bought tickets on the tour bus, because I was bloody tired when we got back to the hotel Saturday night. If I'd pushed the FIL for the whole day instead of having a 40 minute reprieve on the tour bus, I don't think we would have made it to Lego Land on Sunday. Yes, you read that right. We went to Sea World on Friday, the Zoo on Saturday, and Lego Land on Sunday.

Highlight of the day at the Zoo was the gorilla enclosure. SD Zoo have modeled their gorilla enclosure after the Sydney Zoo (one of them came first, ok?) and have put all of their gorillas in one big exhibit. It's just one big ol' happy gorilla family on a nicely vegetated (it's a word, I looked it up, although I'm not sure I used it in its correct context) island...mostly. Just as at Sydney, there was a show of dominance by the biggest Silverback among the family. As the Silverback ran around waving a palm frond and intimidating the other gorillas, a lady in the crowd cried out "Oh no! Someone needs to call the Zookeeper!" Talk about people unclear on the concept. I guess she liked Zoos back when every animal was stuck in its own sterile, concrete enclosure, and was unable to interact with any of its own kind. Yeah, Zoos were much better back then. Now there are too many trees and the enclosures are too big and you can't see the animals!

JE got his face painted at the Zoo. He got a spider, of all things. This is the kid who freaks out at bugs of any kind and he got a spider painted on his face...and here's a picture...

And here's a picture of a guy who's gf was also getting her face painted. He was wearing a t-shirt with a witty phrase, so I took his picture ;)

We finished up our day at the Zoo with the FIL whining that he still hadn't seen the travel agent. We'd got to the travel agency at 9:45am that morning, but it didn't open until 10am and Liz wasn't waiting. In the parking lot the FIL said the travel agent had invited us to dinner. We declined the invitation. The in-laws got pushy, Liz told them to push off. The in-laws went to dinner, we went back to the hotel. JE and I went in the spa, then in the pool. There were a ton of kids (maybe not a ton...no...maybe there was...after all, you only need enough kids to top the 1,000lbs to have a ton of kids...maybe there was a ton of kids in the pool...but then you weigh less in water than you do on land, what with displacement and all that...so maybe there wasn't really a ton of kids in there after all...anyway, the water in the spa was warmer and it wasn't crowded, so JE liked it just fine. Afterwards we had dinner at the hotel restaurant then went back to our room...where I collapsed into bed exhausted. Sure, we'd got a wheelchair for the FIL at the Zoo. It's got wheels, right? It should be easy to push around, right? It wasn't, believe me. I was beat.

I'd planned to type up a blog entry at the end of each night but that didn't happen Saturday night and it sure didn't happen Sunday after Legoland either.

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Friday, April 1, 2005, LA:TEpm

The Weekend - Part I of III

The day started at 7am, then started for second time at 7:07am when Snooze kicked in. Why is that on my day off when we need to get up early, JE stays asleep, and yet on any other day off, JE would be up at the crack of friggin' early preventing any chance of sleep in.

Liz's parents claimed they'd be around at 8am, but of course they weren't. Not that we were ready to head for Sea World at 8am anyway. At 9am, our scheduled departure time, Liz's parents pulled up outside. We loaded our luggage and JE into their car and off we went.

The FIL sat in the back with JE, so MIL drove, on the freeways, which she never does. They passed us momentarily on the I-5 but we quickly got back in front of them. I had my window down and as we passed them I hollered "Helloooooo" a la Mrs. Doubtfire. MIL saw me but didn't look too happy. We left them way, way, behind, got to Sea World and called them to find out where they were...and to inform them that when they got to the 5/805 junction they needed to be in the right lane for the I-5. Naturally they stayed to the left, missed the 5, and ended up on the 805.

They stopped at a Nursery (for plants, not kids) and asked a Chinese guy for directions. The FIL spoke Mandarin, coz he's Chinese, although apparently to Chinese people he looks white. In typical Chinese fashion the Chinese guy asked the FIL where he learned to speak fluent Mandarin. The FIL answered the Chinese guy's question in typical Chinese fashion by once more asking for directions. In typical Chinese fashion, the Chinese guy refused to provide directions until the FIL told him how he learned to speak fluent Mandarin. I don't know how long they would have continued to play this game if the FIL hadn't needed directions so badly. In the deed, the FIL gave up, confessed that he was Chinese, and got his directions. I think he should have let the guy think he was white and just told him he was born and raised in Shanghai :P

When Liz called the in-laws and found out how close they were, she told them to pay the extra for Preferred Parking, on account of the FIL having a bum leg and not being able to walk great distances. In typical Chinese fashion, they refused to pay the extra and parked out in the BFE Parking Lot. We, however, paid the extra and parked at the end of the row closest to the front gate.

Once inside Sea World we made a bee-line for the Dolphin show, as it was the show with the next starting time. At the start of the show they introduced their guest family, mum, dad, and 6 (& a 1/2) year old daughter. Mum had the honor of feeding the first dolphin a big, slimy, handful of squid. The trainer with her told her not to worry about the smell, it would go away in a couple of weeks. The daughter then donned a pair of gumboots (wellingtons?) and waded out with a trainer to meet another dolphin. The trainer told the daughter her job was to put her arms up above her head, and on the count of 3, she was to dive into the pool and the dolphin would swim past. She was to grab onto the dolphin's fin and he would tow her around the pool. The girl nodded her head that she understood, so the trainer started counting as the dolphin looked on. 1...2...3 and the girl started to fall forward into a dive, but of course the trainer caught her and said he was just kidding. He then gave her a big handful of squid and let her feed the dolphin as well. She washed her hands in the water but of course they still stunk of squid and fish, so the trainer told her to just wipe her hands on her top, which she did, to the obvious dismay of her mum. Dad stepped forward to take her photo with the dolphin, but managed to slip and fall into the pool. As he swam for the edge of the pool one of the trainers called out to him and told him not to worry...just as one of the Beluga Whale's surfaced in front of him. Dad began treading water and making little "go away" gestures towards the whale. The trainer called out and told him to turn and swim towards the glass side of the pool, but as he did so, the Beluga came up under him and began pushing him around the pool. It became obvious that "Daddy" was a plant, that he was really a Trainer, but it did make for a good show.

Following the Dolphin show, Liz took JE & her parents into another show. I hung outside with Amber in her pram as she'd fallen asleep and prams have to stay outside most of the arenas. Plus having been to Sea World before I've seen most of the shows there. After that show we headed into the Shark Encounter, where we got to walk through a glass underwater tunnel and see the sharks from below. It was pretty cool.

Lunch was "Dinner with Shamu" which was pretty cool. It was a decent buffet lunch (although at god knows how much per head, it needed to be something special) at tables next to the pools where Shamu and his (or her) buddies hang out. We had Orca swimming by very close to us at several times during the meal. Let me see if I can upload a decent picture.

Ok, it's not a great picture of either JE or the Orca, but it shows you just how close we were to them.

After lunch/dinner we went on the Shipwreck Rapids ride, per JE's request. Really, it was him that wanted to go on it. We were in line for over half an hour for a couple of minutes ride, and of course once it was over JE wanted to do it again.

Now we were nice and wet, and the sun was going down fast. We had a couple of last things we wanted to see. One of them was the penguins. Word of advice. Do not enter a penguin exhibit at dusk if you have WET CLOTHES ONE! It's bloody cold inside.

Following the penguins was the Arctic Encounter: a Virtual Reality ride where you "ride" a special helicopter through the Arctic, over the ice and under the water. JE thought it was cool, especially as it's a fairly convincing bit of gadget trickery. I think the MIL enjoyed it too. I'm not sure if she's been on anything like that before. The poor old FIL was left outside with Amber during this ride, for over half an hour, by himself...and Amber started crying. The FIL had no idea what to do other than call us, repeatedly. Being inside the Arctic Adventure ride we didn't get any of the calls until we got back outside where the old FIL was going nuts.

Although it was barely 7pm, it was very dark by now as we were still pre-Daylight Saving Time. We stopped at one of the many restaurant/diners within Sea World and got some hot water to make a bottle for Amber and some food for us before leaving Sea World.

On the way back to the hotel we got off the freeway an exit too soon but we still managed to find our hotel. We checked in, moved into our room, then called Liz's parents. They'd also got off one exit too soon as both exits are called Hotel Circle, the second has one difference, it's Hotel Circle S. The in-laws did pretty good. They drove almost all the way to our hotel before deciding they were going the wrong way and turning around. By almost all the way I mean there were two hotels between them and our hotel. If those two hotels hadn't had such huge signs out the front they would have seen the sign for our hotel. I got them back on track and back to the hotel and we all settled down for the night.

After messing around with the Laptop in our hotel room I even got us online using the Wireless NIC, so I started typing up my Blog :)

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