Dolphin Love

Getting to Orlando from San Diego on New Years Day was a bit of a pain. Lindbergh Field was shrouded in fog, and had been all night. Nothing was flying in or out and travelers all over the country were delayed. Our 8:50 flight finally took off at noon!
My niece, Julie, and her beau, Scott, picked us up at MCO turned over the keys to my brother's car, with the GPS preprogrammed for me with directions to our resort, their house, and Discovery Cove. We were finally checked in at 10:30 pm EST, after traveling 13 hours! Treklet was exhausted, hungry, and headachy to the point of tears. I ordered pizza delivery, which she ate in her PJs, and she was snoozing by midnight.
We were up early at 7:00 ( 4 a.m. CA time!) and I called Julie after I made some coffee. Her offer to pick us up, instead of us meeting her at Discovery Cove was appreciated more than she'll ever realize!
Our tiring journey was soon to be rewarded....
We checked in, had our picture taken, got a complimentary breakfast, then we're given wetsuits and snorkel gear. We changed and headed for the Tropical River where we swam through an aviary! We got out of the water and were given cups of pellets and fruit to feed the exotic birds. Treklet and I were able to get a few of them to step up onto our arms, and I even had one stay on my shoulder for a time! A beautiful tame fruit dove tolerated me stroking its back as it ate from the cup. There were spoonbills, ibis, touracos, hornbills, doves, conures, lorikeets, hammerkops, toucans and many, many others.
Our next adventure was at Grand Reef, which features a white sand beach, and the opportunity to swim with bat rays and colorful tropical fish. Sometimes the rays would brush against us as they flew by. It was very cool.
Finally, the event we were looking forward to--our dolphin encounter! After a short orientation in a heated cabana, our group of 9 participants followed a trainer into the saltwater lagoon where we each got lots of opportunities to touch two bottlenose dolphins, Ipanema and Yoko. We were shown hand signals, which the dolphins obeyed, we each got to kiss Ipanema on the beak, get a ride from Yoko from the deep water back to the shallows, and feed her a fish. AMAZING.
After 30 minutes in the cool 72 degree water (which was warmer than the air temperature!) we were ready for a hot shower. We cleaned up, turned in our equipment, and filled up on a complimentary lunch before browsing the gift shops.
After a short visit at Julie's lovely house she took us to the grocery store then back to our resort. What a grand adventure. I must add that the day was made even more sweet by the huge discount we got on our tickets thanks to Julie's friend who works there.

Dangerous Gifts

I bought this cute set of Karate Santa ornaments on eBay to give to Treklet's Taekwondo Master.

On the back of the box there is a warning label:

What the heck??

Inside the box there is list full sheet in tiny font listing the Terms and Conditions of use:

Are you freaking kidding me???

Wow, I sure hope Master Truscott is careful using these dangerous ornaments. Maybe next year we'll get him something a little safer, like a pack of razor blades or a bottle of muriatic acid.

Stingy Jack

I usually carve an elaborate design, but this year I tried something new. It was easy and fast.
OMNOMNOM

The Irish brought the tradition of the Jack O'Lantern to America. But, the original Jack O'Lantern was not a pumpkin.The Jack O'Lantern legend goes back hundreds of years in Irish History. As the story goes, Stingy Jack was a miserable, old drunk who liked to play tricks on everyone: family, friends, his mother and even the Devil himself. One day, he tricked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree. Once the Devil climbed up the apple tree, Stingy Jack hurriedly placed crosses around the trunk of the tree. The Devil was then unable to get down the tree. Stingy Jack made the Devil promise him not to take his soul when he died. Once the devil promised not to take his soul, Stingy Jack removed the crosses and let the Devil down.

Many years later, when Jack finally died, he went to the pearly gates of Heaven and was told by Saint Peter that he was too mean and too cruel, and had led a miserable and worthless life on earth. He was not allowed to enter heaven. He then went down to Hell and the Devil. The Devil kept his promise and would not allow him to enter Hell. Now Jack was scared and had nowhere to go but to wander about forever in the darkness between heaven and hell. He asked the Devil how he could leave as there was no light. The Devil tossed him an ember from the flames of Hell to help him light his way. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed out Turnip, one of his favorite foods which he always carried around with him whenever he could steal one. For that day onward, Stingy Jack roamed the earth without a resting place, lighting his way as he went with his "Jack O'Lantern".
On all Hallow's eve, the Irish hollowed out Turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes and beets. They placed a light in them to ward off evil spirits and keep Stingy Jack away. These were the original Jack O'Lanterns. In the 1800's a couple of waves of Irish immigrants came to America. The Irish immigrants quickly discovered that Pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve out. So they used pumpkins for Jack O'Lanterns.

(I did not write this) CREDIT: pumpkinnook.com

Dropbox

I use Dropbox every day. It's very useful, especially when needing to access files between multiple computers/devices. I seriously use it every day. 

Our lesson plans our there--I can access from laptop, desktop, iPad or phone.  Copies of tickets or reservations I bought online? In the Dropbox. Backups of my Quicken files? In the Dropbox. Pictures I want to move to my other computer? In the Dropbox. Pictures of my insurance cards? In the Dropbox. There are a million uses for it. You can even share files with others.

What's the best thing about Dropbox? It's FREE! If you sign up for your free Dropbox, I will get extra storage for FREE, and when your friends sign up from your referral link YOU will get extra FREE storage--up to 8 MB!

My Dropbox is FULL! Oh noes!! I only have a 3 MB dropbox, so won't you give it a try and help me get more storage in the process?

Get your free Dropbox here:

http://db.tt/0KSYMDjE

Aunt Ruth's Fruit Salad

I wasn't planning on blogging today. I haven't blogged in MONTHS and there is so much I could write about, but several tweeps asked for this recipe, so here is a quickie blog post.


I am homeschooling Treklet now, and we had very little to do this morning and finished very early. We were having a lunch guest, so I added a cooking lesson and had her cut fruit and help measure the ingredients for the sauce in the recipe below.


My Aunt Ruth was my mother's sister. She's been gone several years, after a depressing several years with Alzeimers. My mother and her were both adopted, and were not blood-related. They were opposite it many ways, and bickered  constantly when they were together. I don't mean that in a bad way, they just did, but they were very close. I miss them both!!

Me, Aunt Ruth and my eldest, Katie
12 years ago. She didn't remember the day we
spent at Navy Pier when we got back home.
Alzheimer's SUCKS

Aunt Ruth and I visited often. As a matter of fact, it was her that I stayed with the night I left my 1st husband the manic-depressive, alcoholic drug addict. :-0.  We smuggled my 80 pound German Shepherd into her 3rd floor (no pets allowed) condominium and I slept on the couch. The next day my sister-in-law drove down from Madison to get me and I lived with my brother for almost a year before moving back to CA. 

After my mom died (1991) my Aunt & I grew very close.My mom's memorial service was at her church. I talked to her at least weekly on the phone. She came to CA and visited once and I went back and stayed with her several times at her condo in suburban Chicago.

WOW!! WHAT A RABBIT TRAIL!!  All that because of fruit salad. 

Aunt Ruth gave me this recipe about 25 years ago. My family loves it. Use any fruit you like, just mix it up! It's good with or without the Cool-Whip. Use SPARINGLY over your fruit because it's very sweet, and frankly, not very healthy with all those marshmallows in it. ;-) 


I serve this over any kind of mixed fruit. Today I combined cut up banana, apple, peach, plum, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries! I did not add the Cool Whip. 

FRUIT SALAD DRESSING

from Aunt Ruth

Ingredients:

2 T. flour

3/4 C. sugar

pinch salt

2 eggs, beaten

2 T. butter                                          

1 C. pineapple juice                

Juice of 1 lemon                                 

18 marshmallows       

Cool Whip (optional) 

           

Directions:

            Mix flour, sugar, salt, eggs, and butter. Add juice and cook slowly, stirring constantly, until it just begins to boil and thicken. Beat in marshmallows while mixture is warm.

            When cool, add Cool Whip, if desired. Keep tightly covered in refrigerator.

            Serve over fresh mixed fruit.

Are you ready for the Khan???

I know, I know...there have been at least a dozen blog-worthy things in my life the last couple of months, but I have FAILED in documenting them.

I had a blast at Phoenix Comic Con with Treklet, took an 18 day TwroadTwrip with her and met up with 7 Tweeps along the way, and made a huge decision--we're homeschooling now! Perhaps I'll get around to writing about some of the details in the near future. Right now I'm struggling with organizing my thousands of photos from the trip!

I'm uber-excited to have TrekJen visit in a couple of weeks during San Diego Comic Con! I've got my w00tstock and Roddenberry Dive Team Mixer tickets, and look forward to seeing more tweeps, old and new.

Soon it will be time for the Big One--the Star Trek Las Vegas Khan!!! Are you going? I know I am, and I'll be dressed for it! Here is the info on this year's customizable Star Trek Tweeps gear:

"You're not ready for Khannnnnn without your Trek Tweep PERSONALIZED gear! T-shirts and more with the Trek Tweep TWOCK on the front and YOUR Twitter handle on the back! Ordering is easy as 1-2-3:

1. Visit http://www.cafepress.com/kwamsrantshop/7876885 and choose the item you want. Be sure to note it's name and item number.
2. E-mail kwamster@me.com with the item you want, and your Twitter name.
3. I'll e-mail you back a link to your personalized item(s), then you can order!

Also: 

• If you don't want personalized items, visit http://www.cafepress.com/kwamsrantshop/7876879. 

• Discounts- Here are some codes to use:

1. 15% off (until 7/7) code: JULY15
2. $15 off $50 or more (until 8/31), code ANN0623
3. 15% off (Not sure of exp. date), code: LIVELONG"

Ode to Ernie

(sing to the tune of "The Candy Man")

Who can take a drear day
Add a cup joe
Cover it in chocolate
and a Trek reference or two?

The Ernie Man
The Ernie Man can
The Ernie Man can cause he mixes it with Trek and makes the world feel good

Who can take a starship
Set it on the floor
Pose it with a pig
and make a photo I adore?

The Ernie Man?

The Ernie Man!
The Ernie Man can
The Ernie Man can cause he mixes it with Trek and makes the world look good

Ernie_five makes
Every pic he takes
Satisfying and surprising
Talk about the ratings rising
They all become Enterprising

Who can take tomorrow
Dip it in a dream
Defeat Cardassia
And collect up all the Breen?

The Ernie Man

The Ernie Man can

Ernie_five can cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world feel good
And the world feels good cause the Ernie Man thinks it should