What's a Delmer Look Like?

March 10, 2008

The Trip Out West Part XXX: Will it Never End?

Yep, today.

If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning. (For the newer readers, there's a little bit of sex in there.. Probably a touch of rock & roll. No drugs… well, a little bit of beer.) 

When we last left off Tom and I were in the San Francisco area. We'd gone there to visit with this sister. I believe we stayed for a week or two. 

Memories of the way home include: 

Stopping in Reno, Nevada: We gambled a bit and one night we met a woman our age who was an assistant of some sort to Stefanie Powers. Tom, who was still working hard at developing an ulcer, spent that night throwing up a bit of blood out the car door.  I picked up a shirt for an Ohio girl while I was in Reno. 

Cheyenne, Wyoming: I called home from a pay phone to let the folks know we were OK. I recall Cheyenne as I always thought it was a cool name. I'm pretty sure we stopped in Wyoming to visit a sight-seeing opportunity called Boot Hill (which I'll blog a bit more about in the extended entry.) 

Nebraska: Is a long freaking state to drive through. Some Googling shows that it's about 454 miles, or just over 6 hours to get across at its wider bits. Back then the speed limit was 10 mph slower so it would have been a theoretical hour longer to drive across. We stopped at a gas station and picked up a couple of hats that said, "Nebraska is Big Cock Country" on them; mine blew out the window just a couple miles down the road. (Per a search I've just done, this is only the second entry that "Nebraska has appeared in."  So the number of entries per number of Nebraskans appears to be in perfect one-to-one harmony.) 

Iowa, Illinois, Indiana: Are all states that begin in an I and have high vowel-to-consonant ratios. Going through Iowa was the key to avoiding Missouri and the bench warrant that was waiting for me there.  Nothing particularly exciting happened on the drive home through the three eyes. I'm guessing the locals would say "that's par for the course." 

Ohio: We were back home. 

The stop to see Boot Hill is in the extended entry… 

Prior to Googling I'd written: I believe Tom and I were in Wyoming when we saw the sign advertising Boot Hill.  (Of course, I also thought I'd already told this story.)

I now think we were in Nebraska, right near Ogalalla.  The name has a ring to it, and it's off 80. And there is a website.

The sign was small, I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, we thought it would be cool to get off, visit Boot Hill, and take a look at graves of famous dead cowboys.

We pulled off the interstate and stopped at the first gas station we saw. We asked the two gals working there for directions to Boot Hill and were met with blank stares. While this seemed odd, given that Boot Hill was certainly the greatest local point of interest, well, they were women; maybe they lacked the fascination with famous dead cowboys that Tom and I had.

One of the woman finally said she thought she knew what were talking about and after asking, Why would you want to go there,  pointed us down the road.

After a bit we saw a guy out on the sidewalk and asked for more specific directions. He paused and said, "Go up here to The House of Bottles and take a right. At a place called Carl's take a left. Go about a mile and you'll see The Cottage Inn. Just after that is Boot Hill.

It was as we approached The Cottage Inn that Tom pointed out that all the landmarks the guy had given us were bars.

And then we were there. Boot Hill. Right in the middle of a grassy  cul-de-sac among a group of houses.  It was certainly hill-like as we had to climb up it to see the grave markers… and the gas meter that was up there.

We didn't have the sense that these were actual graves of anybody, let alone famous cowboys.  We may have been wrong. While there are two links on this page, the websites they link to do not provide an accurate picture of the area surrounding Boot Hill. (Much like, from the photo's I've typically seen, a person would never guess that a Holiday Inn is a stone's throw from The Alamo, you'd never know from these links that Boot Hill is in a cul-de-sac.) 

Posted by delmer at 12:06 AM | Comments (2)

January 28, 2008

The Lamest Thing At Disney

In all the things I've mentioned about Disney, I think I've failed to talk about one or two really cool things. 

While the boys and I were there we went to

• Mickey's Philharmagic
• It's a Bug's Life
• Muppets something in 3D
• A live evening show that featured fire on water. I don't remember what it's called.

The first three items in the list were 3D presentations and were incredible. You really need to see them. The last thing was really cool, but in that list of four things it's listed fourth for a reason.

The Indiana Jones Stunt Show was very cool as well.  I knew one guys was going to get chopped up by the airplane props and when it came time to happen I was looking for the magic that would allow him to disappear. And I still missed it.

In the Haunted Mansion there comes a point where the room you are in is being lowered into a basement area. Even though I knew it was happening I was unable to detect the motion of the room we were in. It didn't jerk to a start or a stop. It was a great effect.

All of this would make Sounds Like Danger (or whatever the Drew Cary thing is) seem lame by comparison ... if it weren't for the fact that it need not be compared to anything else at all to appear lame. It stands alone (like the cheese in The Farmer in the dell) in its lameness. I love Drew Carey, I think he's funny, I think he's a good guy, I know he's an Ohioan. I'm certain that as soon as he saw Sounds Like Danger that he thought it was lame. Any one of my children could have taken a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a webcam and made a similar item as a school project and when any one of my children presented it to his classmates they'd all have screamed LAMO-O.

It was so monumentally bad that when I got back to work one of the guys I was talking to asked, as he made a sour face, "Did you see that Drew Carey thing?"

Anyway. How about some more photos.

 

A street performer.

 

The Indiana Jones Stunt Show.

 

Betty White's bust. Because I know Dave stops by.

 

Some sort of Mickey Mouse Evening Show. They eventually set the pool afire.

Posted by delmer at 9:55 PM | Comments (3)

January 27, 2008

Expedition Everest

I can't remember if I've said that almost any "fun" ride I got on at Disney made me sick or not. So I'll say it here:

• Space Mountain
• The Aerosmith Roller Coaster
• Tower of Terror
• Cinderella's Bordello
• Space shot mars

All made me ill.

Most of the time I became just a little bit motion sick though one time I required the smallest pit of penicillin.

And so when talk turned to climbing aboard Expedition Everest I decided against it as I really wanted to end one day without any stomach greenness.

Then, as time drew near, I had a what-the-hell thought and decided to go for it.

Up, up, up we climbed.  Down and around. Maybe up and down some more before we stopped on a hill and beneath an overhang where it looked like the track was ripped up.

So far, no motion sickness.

As we sat there we could see a shadow of a Yeti (the Yeti? how many are there supposed to be?) on the overhanging rock. He made some noise, danced around, and we started moving backwards.

And I got a little green.

After the ride, and as we were walking through the park, some of us had our picture snapped by a Disney Photographer with Everest in the background. I went to the Disney site yesterday and collected some of the prints and as I looked at them I noticed that some of the people in our group had their very own Yeti traveling with them.

 

Me. 

(Also in the photo: Mr. Orozco (Tony's dad), Michael (Tony's brother) Samson, Tony (the World's Best Brother-in-Law), Jack and David (Tony's brother).

[I would be such a bad witness should I ever see a crime. If a cop were to ever ask me to describe a fleeing criminal, I'd say, "He looked average. About my size."]

 

There are 17 of us in this photo. Depending upon the day of the trip there were as many as 25 of us. On the bus from Disney World to the ship my sister introduced us to a woman she worked with and her family (not pictured).  She pointed the boys and me out as being her brother and nephews and then said "Everybody else is part of Tony's family."  I followed that up by saying, "Later in the trip we'll play 'Guess the Catholics'."

 

The boys and me in front of the giant Epcot ball.

  Millie (my sister) and me.

Posted by delmer at 8:34 PM | Comments (9)

January 23, 2008

Least favorite vacation things

Recently the blog has been about the fun the boys and I had on vacation.

As you are probably aware nothing is fun all of the time (though I come close) and there were one or two things that happened that were not fun at all and really sort of sucked royally.

I'm going to say there were two things and both things happened right at the end of the cruise which isn't really too bad considering the vacation was about ten days long.

Sucky Thing Number One:  And this requires some setup. The ship we were on had something like ten or eleven floors and our stateroom was on the second floor.  Second floor, aft, to be precise.  Depending upon which elevator we got off of the walk to the room, after we entered the hallway, might be rather short or something a bit longer. Once or twice, depending again on the elevator we exited, we'd pass through a bulkhead doorway each time we went to our room.

If you find yourself on the Disney Wonder and you're walking toward the aft staterooms, and you pay special attention as you come to the last bulkhead doorway before the hallway that contains stateroom 2147, you'll notice a sign just above the doorway. That sign says "Watch Your Head," and right under the word "Your" you'll see a piece of my scalp.

I'd walked through that doorway many many times without banging my head and didn't have a problem with it until I'd noticed that the ceiling in the part of the ship that would be mid seemed taller than the aft ceiling.  As I walked that part of the corridor I noticed I didn't have to duck to avoid knocking my head into the overhead lights; I'm not sure I had to duck in the aft part of the ship to miss the lights but it seemed like a good idea each time I tooled down the hall.

Despite my confusion over the need-to-duck with respect to the aft lights, I knew, without any doubt, that I had to duck every time I went through the doorway. And still I ran my head into it the morning before we sailed home.  And it hurt a lot. Bulkheads have no give at all.

Sucky Thing Number Two: Change And still I ran my head into it the morning before we sailed home to And still I ran my head into it the night before we sailed home and you've got it.

That's right. Twice in one day. It probably won't surprise you to find it hurt a lot more the second time. And not only because there was a guy coming toward me who saw the whole thing. (By the way, Sam witnessed me banging my head both times; Jack was on hand for the second show.)

I'm not sure if it was paint or dried blood I felt as I washed my hair the next morning.

Time for a photo:

 

From the Arabian Nights show.  This is the giant hair-removal tool the performers use to give their bodies that oh-so-smooth look.

Posted by delmer at 5:16 PM | Comments (5)

January 21, 2008

On the way home

I set the alarm for 2:30 a.m. and left a message with The Mouse for a 2:30 a.m. wake-up call. I figure anytime you've got to meet The Magical Express at 3:35 you can't be too cautious.

In true Disney-Magic fashion both the alarm and the call worked as one would expect and the boys and I were downstairs and waiting with time to spare.

Rodney, our Magical Express driver, was very pleasant and quite the humorist. After we were all loaded up he gave us a two-minute Welcome to the Magical Express greeting that was friendly and funny.  He got us safely to the airport in plenty of time for our 6:55 flight.

The first leg of the flight took us to Charlotte, North Carolina.  The boys and I managed to sleep for most of the trip.

We landed in Charlotte sometime very close to 8 a.m.; our flight to Columbus was to take off at 11:55.

That's about four hours.

When we made it to our gate I noticed another flight leaving at 9:55, or two hours earlier.  I checked with the gate and the attendant said he might be able to get us on the plane, but that it would be a $25 per-bag (I think) charge to change the bags over and he may not be able to transfer the bags at all. I told him I wasn't worried about the bags and that I'd rather make a second trip to Port Columbus airport rather than fork out $75.00.

As the flight was almost full the attendant asked that I check back in 30 minutes to see about the status.

In the 30 minutes that had passed the flight had been moved to another gate.  The attendant there said it might be too late to get my bags and that since they wouldn't be on the same flight as I was the boys and I wouldn't be able to switch planes.

Really, it wasn't a big deal. We were hungry anyway and decided to get some food.

We left Charlotte at 11:55 and arrived in Columbus around 1 p.m.  We made our way to baggage claim and while we waited for our luggage we heard a page: "Will passenger Wells please report to someplace."

I wasn't sure what the last bit of the announcement said but I was pretty sure I was a passenger Wells. I took a look to the right and noticed what appeared to be my luggage sitting outside an office.  I walked toward it and the attendant there told me my bags had come in on an earlier flight.

I believe that had I gone back to the first gate attendant the boys and I could have made the same flight my luggage did.

I was napping by 3 p.m. or so.

 

Jack at the airport.

 

Different child. Same airport.

 

Samson took this picture of a plane marked "Philadelphia Eagles."

Posted by delmer at 6:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2008

Off the boat and to Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas

Today the plan was to have breakfast at 7 a.m. and then roll off the boat. I, honestly, had some concerns about being able to mobilize everybody in time to make breakfast and was tickled when I woke up around 6.

Without getting into all the magic (some of it Disney, some of it mine) involved I'll skip to the part where the boys and I decided to scoot off the boat at 7 in an attempt to avoid the going-through-customs crowd.

Around 7:15 the all clear was given to exit the boat. As fast as we could walk we had our luggage, cleared customs, and were sitting on our butts drinking pop. It couldn't have taken five minutes.

When you compare this to the fear I had of standing in a customs line for an hour, with 2000 other people, with three boys poking and prodding each other … well, there is no comparison. [I have no problem waiting in line with other travelers as I have a full awareness that the line will eventually wither to nothing and I'll get to where I'm going. Teen and pre-teen boys lack that awareness.]

The downside to the whole thing is that we haven't eaten. Fortunately, we've been storing about 10,000 extra cruise and park calories per day for the past week and we're unlikely wither away to nothing.

Let's do a travel recap:

In Columbus: 

• At the airport early
• Zipped through security (Samson declared it the most fun he'd ever had)
• Had a great flight to Philly
• Great weather

In Philly: 

• Made it to our connecting flight without a problem despite the fact its gate was in a different county that the plane we flew in on
• Zipped through security again
• Great weather

In Orlando: 

• Took a train to get our baggage
• The World's Greatest Brother-In-Law picked us up at the airport

Getting on the Cruise: 

• We took a chartered bus
• Disney had plenty of people to help with check-in. It was painless
• As you know, the cruise was great

Getting off the boat: 

• Well, you read about it earlier in this entry

Things could not have been better, and this is a problem.  My kids have no appreciation for how rough traveling can be. (My niece, who joined us for the cruise portion, had her 6 a.m. flight canceled the day the boat was to leave. Naturally, she found out about it only after she drove, in the snow, to the airport.)

[Later that day, and too tired and lazy to care about tense change and opting instead to insert a blurb in brackets, he typed…]

The latter part of the day was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas. We got there some time before noon (via chartered bus) and had the boys swimming in the heated pool shortly thereafter. It was rather chilly out, though the boys didn't seem to mind.

I ordered pizza for dinner and had a moment of pause when I said, "We're at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas" and the order taker asked me for the cross streets so the driver could find it. I thought maybe I'd called the wrong Papa John's; I'd thought correctly.

 

Samson and Jack swim. You'll notice the lifeguard is all bundled up.

 

Haydn crashed before the other boys. He'd been up late the night before and was going on four hours sleep.

 

A shot from my sister's room.

 

Zebras.

 

A shot from the pool area.

Posted by delmer at 11:52 PM | Comments (1)

January 19, 2008

Castaway Key

Today we docked at Castaway Key, the island Disney owns.  It was windy and the water choppy enough that glass bottom boat tours and some other things were canceled.

They were not things the boys had an interest in so we were unaffected.

And, despite the wind, it was still almost 80 F (very close to 28 C and, as I don't have Internet access at the moment I'm unable to check and I'll likely forget to proof this before posting ... 82 F would be 28 C).  And, (to throw another italicized "and" your way) the beach was in a protected area that didn't suffer from out-of-control wave action.

All the boys got off the boat and went to the island. Only Jack, Sam and I stayed to swim, dig in the sand, and drink beer. I did a lot of the swimming and all of the beer drinking. Jack and Sam did most of the swimming and all of the digging in the sand. (Haydn returned to the boat as he's 14… parents of teenagers will know what I mean and will understand it was best for all involved.)

We were all back on the boat by 4:30 and cleaned up and pretty for 5:45 dinner. (I forgot my camera, but I had duckling. We all had snails.)

When dinner ended Jack asked if he could go to Oceaneers Lab. 

Samson, despite my best efforts to enroll him in something, resisted and asked to go swimming.  He and I went to the Goofy Pool where he joined another boy in the water.  I joined another father who was sitting with hit back to the jumbo screen and using the light from one cartoon after another to read.

Samson grew tired around 10:15 and I had him tucked in in front of the TV by 10:30.

I was having an Amber Bock in the Promenade Bar in time to hear the duo there sing Come On Eileen.

 

This guy sounded just like Captain Jack Sparrow.

 

Samson, Donald, and Jack.

 

Goofy and a guy we don't know.

 

Goofy acting like he's just been caught by a big fish.

 

Boys in the ocean.

Posted by delmer at 7:38 AM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2008

Nassau

We arrived in Nassau early this morning.

We rolled out of bed several hours later.

Haydn got it in his head that it would be beneficial for all involved if he had on/off boat privileges independent of mine. That seemed like a really, really, bad idea to me and I opted for the you-stay-with-me model of visiting Nassau. (In all fairness, Haydn was more concerned that I might want to go off the boat when he didn't want to.

Yesterday, Jack heard an announcement in which a Del Sol stuffed dog was going to be raffled off. In order to win the dog, which changes color in the sun (sort of like a Wells without sunscreen, only more colorful), we had to attend a Shopping In the Bahamas meeting. Coupons for freebies were given away at the meeting and today the boys took me from jeweler to jeweler to collect free jewels.

Just about everything they got had a "value" of $50; the boys had trouble seeing it.

We are currently underway and heading toward Castaway Cay which is the island Disney owns. The ride is a lot smoother than it was last night.

 

The boys in Nassau

 

A cool looking boat with Jack's name in it.

 

The appetizer I had tonight: Salmon trio.  I had grouper for dinner.

Posted by delmer at 10:24 PM | Comments (9)

January 17, 2008

On the boat

This morning we climbed out of bed and set about packing up our stuff. The World's Best Brother-In-Law climbed out of his bed earlier than anybody else and used the remaining parts of our meal plans to get breakfast sandwiches.

Our bus arrived at 10:30 and whisked us away toward Orlando and The Disney Wonder. We must have arrived by noon though I'm not sure; there was a lot going on, I had three boys to take care of, and paperwork was involved.

I want to start right off by saying that everybody involved with the Disney Cruise has been wonderful, helpful, patient and, in many cases, in possession of exotic accents.

That almost makes it sound like there's a "but" coming. There isn't. It just needs to be said.

Our luggage was taken at the curb and would eventually appear at our staterooms.  The check-in process was painless; there were some forms that needed filling out, but not too terribly many and in cases where I made errors I was given polite help.

I needed to wait in, I think, two lines; one of them moved very fast and one of them moved so fast it never backed up far enough to really become a line.  The point being that Disney has hired enough staff (Cast members) to take care of the people they are serving.

We were on the boat and eating at a buffet in pretty short order. (Having been a Baptist in a previous life I totally kick ass when it comes to working my way through a buffet line. If I currently had reasonably-priced Internet access (instead of 75-cents unlimited access or 40-cents a minute in 100-minute blocks I'd post a link to the quote "Nobody works a buffet like a Baptist.")

I thing we cast off around 4 or 4:30 p.m. We were eating dinner at 5:45 and Haydn had motion sickness to the point he wasn't able to order dinner with the rest of us — after a couple sips of ginger ale he was able to order and was fine.  Samson had to leave dinner early due to motion sickness; after some Dramamine he was fine and I checked him into Oceaneer's Lab with Jack (where the two of them stayed — a mere beeper beep away from me — until midnight).

Haydn went to an age-appropriate activity as well.  I went to a bar with Michael Connelly's new book and had one beer an hour for three hours.

 

The World's Best Brother-In-Law, Tony.

 

The Disney Wonder

 

One of the kids asked for some catsup (ketchup) [that's one messed up word no matter how you spell it]. At Disney it pours right out of the bottle looking like Mickey Mouse.

Posted by delmer at 9:45 PM | Comments (1)

January 16, 2008

Almost Paradise

My children who, as you know, are incredibly adorable and, generally, the best kids in the world, have never known the thrill of driving from Ohio to Vermont in an air-conditionless mid-60's-era van.  A van in which the only form of recreation was coloring fast with Crayons. Fast because it was hot enough that the Crayons were not so much melting as going straight to vapor.

There may be just the smallest bit of exaggeration there.

Still, my kids know the life of DVDs playing or X-Boxes X-boxing while they are driven, in air-conditioned comfort, from point A to point B.  And if point A to point B are too far from each other — as Ohio and Florida often are — they fly.

And this trip they are staying "on property" at Disney. This means they get to partake of extended hours (that is, the park closes at 8 p.m. and we get to stay until 11 p.m. some nights), they get bussed to and from the parks and they get to make use of Fast Pass.  They are at Disney in January when the place is all but deserted (and Fast Passes aren't really needed).  They were also taken out of school for a week for this vacation. Tomorrow they hop on a Disney Cruise Ship (and, I'm pretty sure, they get to drive it out of port).

Sounds like a little bit of Heaven on Earth, eh?

And yet, they can't leave each other alone.  At times they bicker, poke, prod, and do anything else they can think of to get on each other's nerves. Normally they succeed in getting on my nerves.

And this led to today's end-of-day corrective measure that featured Jack and Samson.

The day was over, the park had closed and we were on our way to the bus and then dinner and swimming. Not the bus and then an evening of breaking giant rocks into smaller rocks with a sledge hammer.  Bus, dinner and swimming.

Somebody poked and prodded for the billionth time on the trip which led me to grabbing him by the collar and pulling him toward me. He received a micro-correction and was told to stand at a particular point near a building. I had the second boy stand next to him and I then proceeded to read them the riot act. As I made my point, which involved some hand gestures and mean looks, I noticed I had them in front of a window and that I could detect movement on the other side. I was a little curious as to what our conversation might have looked like to people on the other side of the glass.

After the correction-session ended I turned and, as the boys walked away from me, a woman walked, handed me a card and said, "I'm so proud of you."

"Why?" I asked, "Because I didn't beat them?" (And the tone was "because I resisted the urge to beat them?")

The card said, "God Loves You and God has a Plan for Your Life."

(The impression I got was that she was happy to see someone discipline their children during these times in which it seems to have fallen out of fashion.)

I'm not sure what God's plan is. I just hope it's not being in charge of the Heaven's Daycare.

Posted by delmer at 10:33 PM | Comments (7)

January 15, 2008

Epcot

We all went to Epcot on Tuesday.

I could go on and on about how Epcot is all about the future and making the world a better place through technology, but I, as a person, lack that depth.

Instead I'll tell you about a couple of the rides and attractions I visited.

One of the first rides I heard about was something called Sauren, which I assumed would be some sort of roller coaster featuring a dragon in a Middle Earth setting. I was pretty sure Samson would take a pass even as I did my best to get him interested.  He'll ride a dirt bike all day, or snowboard down steep hills, or jump his bicycle over ramps, but he isn't much on riding (much safer) things over which he has no control. 

As it happens the name of the ride is Soarin' and it's an attraction in which you sit on something that is lifted off the ground and taken toward a giant screen. The seat tips back and forth to simulate flying. It is really super cool.  And David Putty gives the pre-flight instruction.

What is even more awesome about this attraction is that during the wait you spend part of your time standing in front of a big screen. As Sammo (who was convinced to go on the ride after the tameness of it was described to him) and I stood there he looked over and said, "I've figured out which ones are us." When I asked what he meant he pointed to the outlines of people on the screen (and when I waved my arms I became aware that the outlines weren't just random outlines but those of us in line) and said we were supposed to hit that balls that were bouncing around.  So, I started swatting at balls.

And it worked.  A ball would come by and I'd swat it. I was like a humongous Wii.

Later in the day we took a ride in which Lt. Dan gave us our pre-blastoff instruction before we were to shoot off to toward the Mars (via slingshot around the moon).  Pre-blastoff instructions included keeping our eyes open and heads back and steady if we started to nauseous.

My sister, Jack, Samson and I strapped in and the car leaned back for launch mode. As we 'blasted off' it felt like my nose started to run (sorry for the imagery) and I was a little surprised to feel the trickle of moisture briskly move down my face and under my chin as the G-forces increased.  Even as I got more and more nauseous I couldn't help but wonder how the Gs could increase and decrease depending on when we fired our booster rockets. I mean, we were in a car in a room.

Well, the room was a centrifuge.

We also went on a ride in which we traced the history of man and what life might be like in the future. At the very end a snapshot of Samson was integrated into an in-car on-screen display which depicted what a typical day in his future life might be like. Bond's M voiced this ride (I'm pretty sure it was her.)

 

The giant Epcot Center Golf Ball

 

One of the bonuses of Disney in January is that the place is not all that crowded.

 

From Epcot's greenhouse: The pumpkins of tomorrow will look like Mickey's head.

 

I had this for dinner; I was sure you'd want to know.

Posted by delmer at 6:54 PM | Comments (2)

January 14, 2008

Old Key West Resort

The boys and I are staying at Disney's Old Key West Resort.

It is very nice.

It offers:

• Heated outdoor pool
• Outdoor hot tub
• Restaurant
• Bar
• The best fitness center I've ever run across in a hotel/resort
• Tennis courts 
• We have a kitchen in our room
• A washer and dryer as well
• Great view
• Free bus service to and from the Disney Parks
• Many other cool things

It does not, however, have free Internet access. The access it has is wired and costs $9.95 per day.

As you know I would easily pay $9.95 to spend a day with any of the WADLL readers. I'd likely go as high as $15.00 and a foot massage for the female readers. (The usual rule about unmarried women and women not related to me applies.)

What I won't do is pay $9.95 to connect a rather expensive room to the Internet for 24 hours when I'll only be using 10 minutes, or less, of connect time. Especially as the rather cheap room I stayed in not long ago had free access … as does almost every bar, restaurant and gas station in North America.

It's the principle of the thing; if I were to pay $9.95 a day for Internet access I'd feel like I was supporting a racket of some sort.  I'm already supporting the Disney pin-collecting racket my kids have become a part of (and it's costing me more than ten dollars a day … but, it's for my kids, and at their ages they're not held back by principles).

If you're reading this you can assume I've left the resort area and have stumbled across a free hotspot.  

[We needed Internet access for something else, so the room sprung for it.]

Posted by delmer at 12:45 AM | Comments (4)

January 13, 2008

The Magic Kingdom

The boys and I checked out of the Radisson this morning and had breakfast at the IHOP with the World's Best Brother-in-Law.  We then picked up our Disney tickets and shot off the The Magic Kingdom to meet up with the rest of the group;  there will be between 17 and 25 of us depending on the day of the week.

At the park, we took the Monorail from the parking lot to the Magic Kingdom. The sky was overcast and a raindrop fell here and there but the temperature and humidity were pretty much perfect.

The first thing we did as a group, to get our initial taste of Disney Magic, was to step into some sort of Lilo and Stitch attraction where we pretended we were space cadet trainees at a detention center who encounter Stitch as a new detainee. 

And magic it was. We exited the attraction to find it raining impossibly hard considering we'd had no indication whatsoever it was raining at all when we were detaining Stitch. My first thought was that the storm was part of the attraction and I had just an instant of wonder about how it continued the storyline.

That instant was followed by a longer period of wonder about what I was going to do to keep three boys entertained during a typhoon.

Rain does not do much to stop the Disney Magic — mostly all it does is make you aware of the low spots and the spots that don't drain well — and we were able to find plenty to keep us occupied dispite the fact the rain came and went the rest of the day.

 

While this blurry photo shows Jack and Tony, The World's Best Brother-In-Law, this ride was, in fact, Sam's favorite ride and we returned to it several times over the course of the day.

 

This is Samson in the Tea Cup ride. I am not the best Tea Cup rider as spinning around will make me sick faster than almost anything else. This is a condition that seems to affect many dads as when we were getting in line we were passed by a dad on his way out who said, "I can't get on that. I'll be sick all day." Samson was kind enough to keep the spinning to a minimum and I was smart enough to keep my eyes focused opposite me and on him rather than trying to look around.

 

Windsor Castle in England is based Cinderella's Castle (shown here). Cinderella was in this day, her flag is flying, and she was easy enough to spot rumbling around the Magic Kingdom and hitting on hot dads.

Posted by delmer at 11:08 PM | Comments (4)

January 12, 2008

Dinner

The boys and I are in Orlando "Bloom" Florida.

Actually, we're in Kissimme, but it's hard work anything to do with an actor into the name.  I guess you could go a little Colin Farrell with Kissimme-ass Florida, but that's a stretch.

We're safe and sound.

Something interesting happened on the first leg of the trip — the flight to Philly.  The stewardess asked me to give her a hand with an overhead compartment door and when the task was done said, "You've taken this flight before ... a couple of months ago."

And I thought for a second and said, "You're right, this past summer." 

It was late July to be exact.

I'm not sure that I knew that the same flight crew worked the same flights for such long periods of time before today.

We went to something called Arabian Nights for dinner this evening. It's a sort of dinner theater with horses. If it isn't odd enough that a stewardess remembered me from a flight this summer, the gal on this horse seems to own the same pair of pants I do.

 

Posted by delmer at 11:18 PM | Comments (6)

Through security

The boys and I have gone through security.  Samson said it was the most fun he's ever had (I'm not kidding).  I'm thinking I could have saved a bunch of money and just brought Sam to the airport and run him through the security checkpoint a couple of times rather than take him on a cruise.  We'll have to see how Disney stacks up to going through a metal detector and having his shoes X-rayed.

I'm plugged in and recharging and thought I'd post the photo of the boys I took earlier.

 

Haydn and Jack are giving their iPods a workout.  Jack is reading a gaming magazine I bought him.  I'm drinking a $2.10 Diet Coke.

Posted by delmer at 9:54 AM | Comments (3)

On the way

I bounced out of bed this morning at 6:15 a.m. and had the boys bounce out of theirs fifteen minutes later.  I made quick trip to Micky D's while they got ready and we were all fed, dressed and ready for our pickup at 7:15.

My friend, The Dark Haired Girl, who, at some point in the past made the mistake of telling me she's in the habit of getting up around 6 a.m. regardless of the day, scooped us up around 7:30.  We were at the airport by 8:00 (and that included a stop for a Diet Coke).  The boys and I had our bags checked curbside while our ride took off to her Yoga class. 

We are three hours early for our flight.  This might seem absurd to many, but parents will recognize the wisdom of mobilizing the troops first thing, before they have time to dig in and settle in front of televisions.  And there's something about rolling them out of bed early, for a 7:30 pickup, that creates a sense of urgency that a 9 o'clock pick-up lacks.

And I prefer to be early as much as anything.

The boys are doing a fine job.  Haydn and Jack are watching movies on their iPods.

My battery is dying.  I'll have to post this without the photo. Sorry.

Posted by delmer at 8:45 AM | Comments (2)

October 31, 2007

The Trip Out West Part XXVIII: I Show Off My Roman Numerology

If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.

Tom and I were in the San Francisco area for a week or maybe a bit more.  His sister showed us around some and there were times we did some running around on our own.

We went into San Francisco proper at least once by ourselves. The cable cars weren't running so we took the bus to get around.

One of the places we wanted to see was Chinatown but we weren't sure how to get there.  Tom said, as he pointed to the Asian fellow next to me, "Ask him." So I did and, just as you'd expect if you've ever seen a sitcom in which something similar has happened, he didn't know where it was.

I know, I know, I know. Expecting an Asian guy to know where China Town in is somewhat similar to expecting me to know when the next KKK meeting is. But, in 1983 it made a lot of sense to two young guys from the midwest.

I've no recollection of Chinatown but I seem to recall someone on the bus telling us we should have gotten off at the "last stop," and that we got off at the next stop and walked back. 

I'm pretty sure that it was during this stroll that Tom said, "See those guys over there? They're a gay couple.  Those guys too."

"What makes you think they're gay?" I asked.

"Well look at them. Two guys. Walking together."

"We're two guys walking together. What do you think people are saying about us?" Before he could speak up I finished, "Wait, I know. 'How did he get such a big, beautiful blond guy?!" 

Tom, I should point had brown hair.  He was also not a homophobe.

Above I say I have no recollection of of Chinatown. That may not be the truth.  At some point Tom and I found ourselves in a shop that sold things like porno flicks and three-foot long two-headed dildos. That shop may have been in Chinatown.

(Is it dildos or dildoes?  I did some Googling and the place that sells the high quality version spells it dildos. The place that sells butt plugs along with the item spells it dildoes.)

I can't leave you with that, so let's have one more bus story.

The bus was packed and Tom and I were seated.  Some more people got on, one of whom was an elderly lady. I told Tom I was going to give the lady my seat and stood up to get her attention. Just after I stood some young guy took my place; Tom pointed out the error of his ways and the older gal ended up with a seat. As she was arranging her bags at her feet I couldn't help but notice she had a three-foot long kielbasa I suspect she was taking home for dinner.

Posted by delmer at 7:14 PM | Comments (6)

October 30, 2007

The Trip Out West Part XXVII: In San Francisco I

If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.

Tom and I went to San Francisco to visit Tom's older sister.  I can't for the life of me remember her name or the name of her boyfriend.

I do, however, remember this story that her boyfriend told us.

At the time he lived in a duplex: two houses joined together. 

The boyfriend had a nice collection of tools and came home one night to find that his home had been broken into and his tools taken from his garage.  The police were called, a statement was given, and the boyfriend eventually asked, "Do you want to know who did it?"

"What makes you think you know who did it?" asked one of the officer.

"The footprints," the boyfriend replied.

It had been raining and was a bit muddy outside.  The criminal had to make several trips to get all the tools and when he did he left a muddy trail leading from the boyfriend's patio to his patio and house  -- which was the adjoining house in the duplex.

Posted by delmer at 9:53 PM | Comments (5)

October 29, 2007

The Trip Out West Part XXVI:

If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.

When we last left off, more than a month ago, Tom and I had rolled into Stanton, California, and had auditorally witnesses a drug deal gone bad (probably).

As I pointed out in the last installment, Tom and I were staying with one of my relatives and making use of his fifth-wheel camper in front of his house.

I'm not sure how long we stayed in Stanton though I don't think it was as long as a week.  It may have been just a couple of days. I remember one day we went to Huntington Beach (and that on the way we passed a sign promoting Sammy Hagar putting on a concert someplace locally) and goofed off in the ocean. And one night we went to Denny's and had dinner with my relatives.

 Let's say we pulled out of Stanton after three days. Whichever one of you is writing my biography be sure to record it that way.

The next stop was going to be San Francisco, to visit Tom's sister.

Pulling out of Stanton we decided we'd shoot up the Pacific Coast Highway so we could enjoy the view as we drove.  After a while, and having noticed the view didn't really change (the ocean and pounding surf) we decided to cut over and catch 101 (most likely)  for the rest of the trip as we thought we'd make better time. (Thanks to Google Maps we now know that the PCH would have taken 8 hours and 28 minutes and would have been 478 miles; going up 101 was 457 miles and 7 hours and 33 minutes.  So we would have saved about an hour had we taken 101 the whole way.)

Before we got off the PCH we stopped at Malibu Beach, unless of course Malibu Beach isn't on the PCH. The thing I remember about the Malibu Beach was that it had too much trash on it (the problem with beaches is that they let people on them) and that I cut my heel on a broken bottle buried in the sand.

What I remember about getting off the PCH is that we did it via some small road that went up into some hills. It was well maintained but looked like one of those roads nobody used.  As we popped up over the crest of a hill we came across an incredible view with a gorgeous golf course in a valley.  It was one of those scenes that should be on a calendar someplace.

We eventually hit 101 and blew into San Francisco.

Posted by delmer at 9:17 PM | Comments (5)

October 20, 2007

I *heart* all of you

I believe it is obvious … that it goes without saying … that it's as plain as the noses on your faces … I love each and every one you. Other bloggers may say it; but I mean it.

It's a very healthy love. A non-threatening love. A non-mess-making love. The kind of love you wish you could bottle and give away free late at night in an infomercial (plus $10.99 in shipping and handling; must be 18 or older to call).

Sure, sure, sure. I love some of you more than others, but only because it's the right thing to do.

For example, My Family is at the top of the list.Way way at the top. So far at the top of the list that I had to get up on my tippy toes to write them in.

Next on the list are Single Women My Age That I've Met. I'm no fool. If I've met you once, I'm likely to meet you again and when you read this I want you to know just how much I appreciate you being you. (For the record, this is a much wider age range than you might expect. I explain more below.) 

Then we have Single Women My Own Age That I've Not Met.  This group includes women 37 to 57 years old; that is, 10 years on either side of where I am. I'm guessing that women on the younger side of this range might be a bit offended. Let me assure you that there's nothing to worry about. I, as a guy in his 40's, am able to identify attractive women in all the age groups. I, as an emotionally mature guy in his 40's am uncomfortable ogling attractive women under a certain age (I'm the anti-Rod-Stewart). Thirty-five is the actual age, but that screwed with the bracket. And really, I guess there's no upper age limit (how old is Diane Keaton? 61?).  The point is this is my comfortable to ogle age group. (Taking into consideration there is really no upper-end to the age group and the lower-end is actually 35.)  

Then comes the Single Women Younger Than I Am. And for all of my faults and for all of the oddball things I put in this blog, I feel just a little creepy typing that.

Next comes Dudes. It doesn't matter how long I've known you, this is where you rank on the list. I think we're both happy about this. And by the way, the love I feel for you is the group of guys playing basketball love. I don't feel creepy about typing this at all.

And rounding out the list of How I Love My Readers are Married Women. You are one big group. You are very nice. Many of you smell nice in elevators. You are all hot beyond words. However, you are married and other men should be leaving you alone.

So there you have it.

I love each and every one of you in a healthy, non-threatening way.

And you know I'd do almost anything for you.

One of the things I won't do, however, is pedal my bike 80-miles, one-way, away from home when it's windy as hell out. The wind will either be at my back all the way up meaning I may have to pedal into the wind on the way home Sunday; or it will be in my face or blowing across me all the way up and sucking the spiritual life out of me.

So, no heading out, spending the night, and then rolling home tomorrow.

Posted by delmer at 8:08 PM | Comments (13)

October 19, 2007

Crooked Man

This is a Stile. And this one happens to be across the road from Stonehenge.

Lady Penelope pointed this out to me when I visited. On my own I'd have been able to figure out what it was used for (a person can get in and out of the field using it but animals, most likely, can't), but I'd have never come up with what it was called. When Lady Penelope mentioned it was a stile it triggered a memory, but one that didn't fully form.  It seemed I knew a song or poem involving a stile, but I wasn't able to pull it out of the memory banks.

Today, as I rode The Mighty Schwinn through the country, I rolled by a fence (miles and mile of fences, actually) and a portion of it reminded me of the bit in the photo — even though the bit I rolled by lacked any stile whatsoever.

As the word stile popped into myconsciousnesss I caught myself thinking:

There was a crooked man,
Who walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence
Upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat,
Who chased a crooked mouse.

And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.

I just think it's interesting how the mind works. I wish mine would work to help me find my better camera. (For the record, I think it's in the back of the van somewhere.)

Posted by delmer at 7:58 PM | Comments (6)

September 24, 2007

The Trip Out West Part XXV: We Roll into Stanton

If you are just coming in to the story, and you want to read all the good stuff about my stint in jail, you should really start at The Beginning.

When we last left off (way back in mid-June) Tom and I had tried out, unsuccessfully, for The Joker's Wild.

Well, you can't win them all.

Our next stop was Stanton, California, not too far from Disneyland. 

Tom and I were going to stay with a cousin of my mother's. A person I'd never met and who my mother had not seen in years. And yet they were happy to have us stay with them. Everybody should have relatives like I do.

We arrived in Stanton most likely in the midafternoon.  I remember we were in our host's house before the local school let out. I also remember that just a few minutes after we stepped through the front door (in a house in a nice, residential neighborhood) we heard what could only be described as gunshots. A single shot and then several in a row that came pretty close together.

I don't remember if we actually saw the police running around outside across the street or if I'm combining memories. (I remember a friend of mine, he comments here as Buckeyedoc, telling me once that SWAT had been running around in his backyard when he was a student as The Ohio State University. Maybe it wasn't Buckeyedoc that said that, but Ming. In any case I may be adding SWAT running through their backyard to the Stanton memory.)

Anyway, I asked  Tom, "What do you think that is?"   To which he replied, "A drug deal gone bad."

It wasn't long before our hosts came home from their jobs. As it happens, Tom and I would not be staying in their home with them, but in their giant fifth-wheel camper out front; they thought it would give us more privacy and freedom.

It was really, really sweet.  

Posted by delmer at 9:28 PM | Comments (4)

September 21, 2007

Final Observations: III

There  are some things that caught my eye, were pointed out to me, or that I noticed and think are true (but may not hold up under close scrutiny), while I was in England. 

This was, originally, one very long entry. Now it's three. Today:

Things that I noticed on my own:

Motorcyclists wear leathers and helmets. Most of them anyway. I believe I saw but one person on a motorcycle who wasn't wearing appropriate safety gear. It's worth noting, as well, that motorcyclist don't always feel inclined to follow the rules of the road and aren't above scootching around cars as space permits. I'm not just talking about lane splitting, and I don't know if it's legal in England or not, but other things like sneaking around a car at a light. British drivers didn't seem to mind.

Bicyclists don't seem to wear helmets. I saw more guys on bikes in London than I expected, and other bikes elsewhere, and I'm not sure anybody was wearing a helmet.

There aren't all that many insects. When we first arrived at Lady Penelope's she opened the back door.  I stuck my head outside to pull the screen door shut only to find there wasn't one. None of the windows had screens either. This held true when we went to London to visit her folks and to the country to visit her sister.  The doors were always open, there were never any screens, and there were hardly ever any bugs. I did see a couple of flys while I was there and the last night I caught and released a couple of moths. Generally speaking, however, there were just no insects.  No flys, none of those little white bugs that fly around light bulbs, just a few moths.  I have more flys in my home and I have screens in every window.

The Brits often drink beer cold. Or at least their version of cold. I'll bet I could have gotten a really cold beer had I been at the right place at the right time. One night I had something (Old Peculiar) that Lady P said is typically consumed at room temperature.

The whole accent thing is fake. And put on for tourists to bring in more tourism dollars.  I overheard a group of guys talking — sounding just like me — around the corner from where I was. When I turned the corner and they saw my I *heart* Dubya T-shirt they got all cockney on me. This happened more than once and I eventually got pretty good at sneaking up on people. Once, at the Home Base (like a Home Depot) I overheard on of the employees say to a coworker, "Hey, Gary. Can you cover this register for me? I need to go to the bathroom."  When he saw me he got a startled look on his face, developed an accent and said, "Uh, I mean… I say Nigel, could you watch my station for me? I need to go to the loo."

My superpower works across the Atlantic. My super power is that I never have to wait in line (or wait in line too terribly long). This doesn't sound all that impressive until you add to it that just moments after I take my place in line it will grow to many times its original length and often extends out the door. There were several times in England that I'd get in line one or two people back and then turn around to find a dozen or so people behind me. (It's handier than it sounds and even works at the Department of Motor Vehicles and Post Offices.)

British toilets can't be flushed until the tank fills. There's no way to do a partial flush and I think this might lead to fewer clogs.  The water in home toilets, at least the five or six I had the opportunity to check out, doesn't come up as far as the water does in our toilets — it stays in the very bottom all puddle like. For a man this means less splashup on his legs if he's standing before it in shorts.  I don't know what women get out of the arrangement.  Due to the fact the water is so low it does lead to skid marks on the side of the bowl in instances of a high-fiber number two; the flushing doesn't always produce enough water to take care of this.

In McDonald's and the mall (and therefore, I'm thinking a lot of public toilets) the men's urinal is more funnel shaped so that a guy is peeing down and not so much forward. Again, splashing is reduced to nothing.

One bathroom I was in, at the mall, had a trough in it that reminded me of a college bar I used to go to. There were little little bullseyes on the back of the trough that made me think Target had sponsored the toilet until I realized what an odd idea that was.

You can still get milk delivered.  I remember seeing metal boxes outside doors when I was younger that were for the milk man. Lady P didn't have the metal box, but she did get milk delivered (as well as groceries from Tesco… I'd pay for this,, why doesn't it work here) a couple times a week.

I'm sure there were other things I'd notice that I've forgotten.  I'll pass those along as they occur to me.

Posted by delmer at 10:45 PM | Comments (1)

September 20, 2007

Some Final Observations: II

There  are some things that caught my eye, were pointed out to me, or that I noticed and think are true (but may not hold up under close scrutiny), while I was in England. 

This was, originally, one very long entry. Now it's three. Today:

Things that were pointed out to me:

Gas is expensive. [UPDATED]  This is something I would have noticed on my own but what was pointed out to me is that the British are tired of hearing us complain about just how high our gas prices are. It's about $4.00 a gallon in the UK and has been for a long while.  (What the Brits don't tell you is that all their gas stations are old, converted castles and being able to pump gas out of one of these babies is worth a buck a gallon any day of the week.)  You know, I thought that sounded too cheap. I fell into two traps here; the first was a rounding error and the second was a conversion error. I rounded .96 per liter up to 1.00 per liter and then I converted .96 to cents forgetting it started out as pence. So, I had a buck a liter or $4.00 when it should have been a pound a liter.  Gasoline is $7.70 a gallon (roughly).  The joke about the castles stands. (My thanks to Lady Penelope for correcting this.)

The driver to the right of you as you enter a rotary has the right of way.  I didn't realize there were any rotary rules as we take a free-for-all approach here. Having said that, the rotaries that I encountered in England were a lot busier than the two I run across in Hilliard on a regular basis.

 

Even this rotary, which is nothing more than a dot painted in the middle of an oddly-shaped intersection of roads, is no challenge for the British driver. We would mark such an intersection with a sign that said, "Traffic Accident Ahead."

There are no billboards along any of the interstate-type roads.  And yet the British seem to know what to buy, where to stop for lodging, and where to get their adult sex toys without these obtrusive, gentle, reminders [You have to be familiar with the Lion's Den billboard to appreciate that last remark. Clink the link now to see their 20%-off Back to School special (I'm not kidding)].  As you drive along you get an unobstructed view of the English countryside.

The only in-your-face outside advertising I recall seeing was Piccadilly Circus in London and it had sort of a Times Square thing going for it (and absolutely nothing in the way of circus going for it. No three rings. No Animals. No trapeze artists. No Monty Pythons).

No tipping in Pubs, though you do tip in restaurants.

Tax is already added into prices. At least on the clothing I bought.

The national lottery is tax free.  I won 10 pounds and was pretty sure it was going to be tax free as I wasn't in the mood to do any paperwork.  I found out later that had I won one million pounds it would have been tax free as well.  (If only I'd known ahead of time I'd have tried harder.)

Posted by delmer at 9:20 PM | Comments (3)

September 16, 2007

Some Final Observations: I

There  are some things that caught my eye, were pointed out to me, or that I noticed and think are true (but may not hold up under close scrutiny), while I was in England. 

This was, originally, one very long entry. Now it's three. Today:

Things that may not hold up under closer scrutiny:

Their Salt & Vinegar potato chips have balsamic vinegar listed as an ingredient. Ours don't -- we have some sort of chemical thing that provides our vinegar flavor. You know, I've checked on this since I've been home and it may be a powder.  What I do know is that before I Ieft for the UK a coworker pointed out that the vinegar in our chips was not actual vinegar. (BTW, I'm pretty sure that when you see Blueberry Bits listed as an ingredient in something that they aren't actual bits of blueberries; Blueberry bits, I think, are a man-made product.)

The Pepsi and Coke in England contain sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.  Also, when Lady P asked me to get her a Coke she asked for a full-fat  Coke, which I thought she was doing to make fun of the fact I always drank Diet Coke.  Toward the end of the trip I ordered "A Coke" in one of the Pubs and the bar gal asked if I wanted "Full fat, or diet."  So, that may be how they say it.

(For what it's worth, neither regular Coke nor Diet Coke (the Pepsis, etc.) contain any fat here.  Since sugar has zero grams of fat it's my guess that the pop in the UK is fat-free as well.  Those Brits… they're a nutty bunch.)

People walk like they drive: As we strolled around London I kept almost running into people until I shifted to letting them pass to my right as we approached each other. This may have held true in the mall also.

A spirit walks the streets of London. As I was using Irfanview to look over my pictures in rapid-slideshow fashion I came across the following three.

Notice the woman.

Notice the truck.

Notice the woman is gone and everything else is the same. At first glance anyway. Sort of. The bus ruins the effect but it was pretty cool the first time I saw it.

Posted by delmer at 11:10 AM | Comments (4)

September 15, 2007

The Answer

I'd like to thank everybody who played along in yesterday's game in which I asked you to guess which English city, county, hamlet, village, burg — one I've mentioned in a recent previous entry — the following picture brings to mind.

Jack gets spiritual points for Kent, as the photo was taken in Kent. He may have recognized the fern in the background that is known, among botany enthusiasts, to thrive in only Kent county, UK. Or, he may have used his knowledge of Lady P's sister living in Kent to his advantage. Kent, however, is not what I was looking for.

My compliments to Dave for his Yorkshire entry.  Monty, the alpha dog in the photo, looks like me might have some Yorkshire Terrier in him. Yorkshire, again, isn't where I was going.

Buckeye Doc had me worried for a bit with his Penny Lane entry.  He's known me for 30 years and should know how my mind works better than most readers. His wife has known me for almost the same amount of time so, between them, they have almost 60 years of knowing me between them.  His later Peterborough entry bought him some WADLL Street Cred. Even though it was still wrong. [Edit: Buckeye Doc has received a Street Cred boost in the comments section of this entry.]

Mike O's Big Bone Lick was way off; he knew it and stated as much. His entry is appreciated as it proves to the rest of the world that Americans are able to come up with names just as eye catching as the one the above picture reminds me most of.

I was looking for Bagshot:

 

Posted by delmer at 12:02 AM | Comments (5)

September 14, 2007

Another Game

This one assumes you've been reading about and keeping up with my recent vacation in England.  (Feel free to take a minute and go back a few entries if you need to catch up.)

During my stay there I visited several villages, cities and counties and I made references to a few others. 

The Game:

Below you'll see a picture.  Based on the content in the photo it represents one of the villages, cities, hamlets, counties or booming metropolises I visited or made reference to.  Your job is to guess which one.  There will be no prize awarded past the satisfaction you get from getting the answer correct. (Hopefully that satisfaction will be enough to offset the dismay you feel as you wonder why you stop by here day after day.) I'll provide the answer tomorrow.

 

  

Posted by delmer at 12:22 AM | Comments (10)

September 13, 2007

Ten Things

Today folks, What's a Delmer Look Like is featuring a guest blogger.  Lady Penelope, of Being a British Citizen and Host During My Vacation Fame, has put together a list of 10 things she learned about me during my stay in England.  I promised I wouldn't change or add anything to the list.  You can read my comments in the comments section of the entry.

10 Things I learnt about Delmer by Lady Penelope

1. He is seriously scared of spiders, even dead ones!

Staying in The Boonies Delmer noticed a (dead) spider in my sister’s kitchen sink.  As he ran the tap (faucet) the water caused the spider to move and he jumped backwards, squealing like a girl!  We all teased him about that one for days!  He did point out that he squealed like a *big* girl though.

2. He can juggle

I think the juggling involved 3 lemons.  My children were very impressed.  He passed up the opportunity to demonstrate using a bowling ball, an egg and a chainsaw.

3. He can spin a basketball on the tip of his finger

Once again he impressed the children greatly.  On the day that we shopped for sports gear they found a ball for sale and insisted he demonstrated again right there in the store.  As basketball isn’t the big deal over here that it is in the States they ooooh’d and ahhhhh’d to the extent that Delmer felt he should buy the ball for them just to shut them up!  He very patiently taught them how to do it and we still have all the windows in tact…for now.

4. He can iron…and iron well!

In my experience there are not too many men who can do this, or at least not do it very well.  Not only can Delmer iron well, but he insists on his clothes being crease-free at all times.  I never iron if I can avoid it so this was a bit of a novelty, to say the least.

5. He does not believe anything I tell him!

Delmer needs to verify almost everything I tell him so that our conversations generally go like this:
Delmer:  Not that I don’t 100% trust you, BUT, I did just check this out to see for myself…
Me:  Well I did tell you!!
Delmer:  Like I said…I do believe you…now that I have checked the facts out…
(I am cracking up typing that one)

6. He has the driest wit of anyone I have ever met

We all know Delmer is hilariously funny, but hearing stories told straight from the horse’s mouth (umm, so to speak), you appreciate them even more.  He tells them in such a dead-pan manner that I cannot understand how he doesn’t crack himself up as everyone around him is crying with laughter.  His humour is extremely English in that respect, dry and self-deprecating.  He was a big hit here, not just with people I introduced him to, but bar staff, waitresses, store staff, even the supermarket delivery guy!  It seems a Delmer can charm the birds out of the trees! 

7. He snores like a train!

On our trip to The Boonies Delmer fell asleep in the car, head back, mouth wide open, and snored so loudly that we had to turn up the CD player!  The children, sitting in the back of the car, thought it was hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing!

8. He needs to eat and drink almost constantly

If Delmer is not eating he is drinking (water, diet coke, or the occasional beer…) and he seems to need feeding every couple of hours or so.  Think “Little Shop of Horrors”.  I do not know how he stays in such great shape, but then he is a tad taller than your average person.

9. Lucky Pennies and Super Powers

If we were walking anywhere and Delmer saw a penny on the ground he would pick it up and put it in his shoe.  How he can even see the ground from that great height, I do not know.  They did perhaps bring him luck though.  He has often mentioned his Incredible Line Avoidance Super Power, (and I did bear witness to this on several occasions), but his other super power is that he can control the weather!  After the worst summer on record in England, on the day that Delmer arrived the temperatures suddenly soared, the rain stopped, and it stayed that way right up until the day he left – incredible!

10. A Delmer is a gentleman.  (He will hate this)

This may not come as a surprise to anyone who has met, or spent time with Delmer, and it didn’t to me, but I wanted to just say a few nice things, seeing as I have teased mercilessly in the above statements.  Delmer hates compliments and will always do his utmost to change the subject, so I know that he will squirm reading this section.  He really is a true gentleman, in every respect.  He opens doors, carries bags, refills wine glasses (very important!), brings wonderful gifts on visits, helps around the house (and garden) and is indeed a delight to be around.  (That was a Delmerism I slipped in to see if anyone noticed!)  You could not meet a kinder, funnier, more generous soul if you tried.  It’s my absolute pleasure to call him my friend.

Posted by delmer at 12:29 AM | Comments (10)

September 10, 2007

Shirts

"Dad, you know that shirt of mine you sometimes wear? There's a dance at school tonight and I can't find it. Is there any chance you have it with you in England."  It was Haydn and he'd called me on my cell phone. And I was in England.

I told Haydn that I didn't recall wearing any of his shirts.  Our arms are of different lengths and the shirts I'd seen him wear were all long sleeved. I could never wear them.

Fortunately, Haydn's call had come in pretty early that Friday evening as later that Friday night this was going on.

And, speaking of Friday night… take a look at that shirt.  It may have been the only multi-colored shirt I packed for my trip.  When Lady Penelope commented that it seemed rather bold for a person who is as uptight as I often am I explained that it had probably been on sale. (I get a lot of my shirts from the sale rack at Target. As it happens, many of them are single-color shirts.)

Anyway.  Time passed.

Last night I had to take something to Haydn at football practice, the above shirt had come up again in rotation and I was wearing it.

"That's my shirt," said Haydn when he saw me. "The one I was looking for."

"Oooh. Sorry," I said. "It was in England with me".

"That's OK," he replied. "There's a dance this Friday though. Will it be clean by then?"

It will be.

Posted by delmer at 6:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 8, 2007

When in Doubt

The following blurry picture is of a guy on a motorcycle with some sort of sticker on the back of it. The sticker says, "When in Doubt, Brew Up."

I thought When in Doubt, Brew Up had a pretty relaxing feel to it and that the American version might be, "When in Doubt, Have a Cold One."  The Brits don't drink cold beer as a rule (Last night I had a Newcastle Brown Ale. It's imported from the UK and has a reminder on the label to drink it cool.  A reminder!) and "When in Doubt, Drink a Warm One" lacks panache. When in Doubt, Brew Up, has a nice feel to it, sounds a bit naughty, has a good beat and is easy to dance to… I give it an 82, Dick."

At some point I mentioned the When in Doubt, Brew Up sticker to Lady Penelope and how I thought it was kind of bold for a guy to be rolling around on a motorcycle encouraging people to have a beer.

"You know that sticker is about brewing tea, right?" she asked.

"No," I replied.

"Didn't you see the teapot and cup?"

"Yes. I wondered about that but I figured they'd had their beer on the stove to get it to just the right level of warm."

Alright, I never said the bit about having the pot on the stove but the rest of the exchange is pretty accurate.

Thank to eBay I was able to find a non-blurry image of the sticker (or, in this case a plaque.)

I've no idea what the British War Department's role in the whole thing is.  When in Doubt, Take a Pawn would seem to make more sense from a War Department point-of-view.  Maybe brew up  is a subtle way of saying kick ass.

We Americans don't mess around with subtleties. I'm pretty sure the bumper sticker on the back of the Presidential Limo says: When in Doubt, Invade. 

Posted by delmer at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 7, 2007

Relaxation

Today I decided I should take vacations more often. I'm still that relaxed.

Of course this feeling of relaxation has brought with it a sense of wondering. I mean, vacation is over and all I have are memories of it.

I like my job, the people I work with, and don't spend my days feeling as if I'm super stressed out.  Yet, today I noticed I'm more relaxed, I feel more focused, and at the end of the day I had a sense that I'd gotten a lot done.

How does this happen?  How do I go from being generally happy, not noticeably stressed to the point of wanting to kill people, to being very relaxed?

I'm not saying that well.

How does taking a vacation have such a lingering affect? 

I may not be as relaxed as the dog in this photo. But who knows, maybe I'm just a tickle under the arm away from getting there.

This certainly requires more research.

Posted by delmer at 8:40 PM | Comments (2)

September 5, 2007

Leaving England

I had a 2 p.m. flight from London's Gatwick to JFK in New York City.  As every good traveler should I arrived at the airport three hours early. Thirteen and a half hours later I was in Columbus, Ohio.  

Oh, I could take this time to tell you that nothing went wrong, that all the flights went well, and that the food on the plane was better than I thought it would be, but I think I'll go a different direction.

I had the best time while in England.

I am not one of your better vacationers. I miss and worry about my children when they're not with me and I miss and  worry about work and computer crises that might pop up that I won't be able to fix from the road.  I'm also afraid I might wear out my welcome when I visit people; as they say, guests, like fish, often start to smell after three days.

I can't remember the last time I've taken a vacation that was more than a week long (though I lean toward 1988) and I don't think I've ever taken more than a couple of days vacation without my children in the time that I've had them (14 years tomorrow). 

In an incredibly rare move for me, this trip I was able to push work worries into one of the dark corners of my mind. I replaced them with a worry that went something like this: The sign says cold beer … I wonder what that means here. (There were a couple of work calls that came my way, but nothing too big or troublesome.)

Worries about my children were put to rest by the fact my mother and father came up to watch the boys the Friday I left and the following Friday through Wednesday when they returned to me from their mother's. I never worry about my children when they are in the care of my parents. Mom and dad are a very young 70-ish couple that my brother, sister and I broke in pretty well when we were younger.  The folks made sure the boys got to school and sports appointments, kept them fed and made sure they washed behind their ears. (Dad chauffeured me to and from Columbus International Airport as well.) As I've said before, they are Trophy Parents.

And so the two US-based (vacation-wise) worries were addressed.  All that was left was the worry about smelling like fish.

England is very close to France — some might say too close (I believe those some might be British) — and it was my hope that the smell of cheese wafting across the English Channel would mask any fishy smell I might put off after three or four days.

As it happens, my worries were all for nothing.

As I say above, I had a wonderful time while I was in England. A lot of the credit for this goes to Lady Penelope. She was kind enough to pick me up from and return me to Gatwick Airport and in-between those trips acted as tour guide, chef and chauffeur.  She took me to London, Kent, Stonehenge, Windsor and to see Spamalot among other places. 

While we saw touristy things like the 'henge, The Globe Theater, Big Ben, Windsor Castle, etc. we also did normal human-being things like grocery and school-uniform shopping (which gave me the opportunity to say to a customer service clerk named Carol, "I used to be married to a Carol. Would you like me to give you half of everything I have in my pocket?")  We went to McDonald's and several pubs that were off the beaten path and seemed to be frequented by locals. 

I don't know how to explain it, but when you're doing the touristy things (which really have to be done) you're surrounded by tourists and there is just something very neat about being in a Tesco (why can't our aisles be so wide?) looking at freakishly large carrots.

There is also something very neat about having a backyard to sit in while drinking tea, wine or Diet Coke and we were able to spend the lazy days and many mornings and evenings hanging out in Lady P's garden (backyard) doing just that.

I've written and deleted so much stuff trying to say just the right thing.  I've, honestly, been editing this entry for hours. When I reduce what I'm trying to say down to my simplest thoughts what I come up with is:

Lady Penelope gave me the chance to see bits of England that I would have never seen on my own and for this I am extremely and eternally grateful. (I'm just as extremely and eternally grateful for her taking me around to see the bits I would have seen on my own.)  While it has been my intention to go to the UK for years I never would have gotten around to it this summer without Lady P's suggestion. And had I gone on my own I would have spent all my time in London riding the London Eye and taunting Royal Guardsmen.

This vacation was so much better than that one would have been.

Thank You, Lady Penelope.

Posted by delmer at 12:25 PM | Comments (4)

September 4, 2007

The Last Two Days

Yesterday and today have been lazy days with today being the laziest.

Yesterday we did a bit of shopping for school supplies for Lady P's children and I picked up some things for me. While shopping I had the chance to help some of the other patrons by getting things off high shelves and I'm pretty sure one lady thought I worked there (I was lugging a ladder around at the time.).

Today we spent a lot of time in the backyard (garden) enjoying the sun and taking it easy.

Some things I've forgotten to mention:

One night we had pizza from Papa Johns. We ordered something that had meat and sweet corn on it. I'd never had sweet corn on a pizza before; it wasn't bad and provided a means of tracking just how far down the digestive tract the pizza had progressed.

I've had potato chips (crisps) that are chicken and something flavor and lamb and something flavor and some other uncommon flavors.

I did some driving. It was just about 1/2 mile and was accompanied by a lot of "You're pretty close to the curb. You're pretty close to the curb. You're pretty close to the curb." And then, of course, I hit the curb. Twice. I never felt close to the curb … well, except for when I was bouncing off it. (Notice how narrow the road is.)

I got Lady Penelope's computers networked together and made it so both could access the Internet.

I've said in the recent past that the Brits don't tip in pubs and restaurants. Lady P has corrected me and says they do tip in restaurants and I had a big, long explanation here that I've omitted and will restate more simply as, non-pub-like restaurants. They also tip for lap dances (it's only polite).

Something I noticed today (and it is important to note that while this appears as a September 4 entry, it was written September 8): There is a KFC commercial running in which a woman is eating chicken using the upside-down-knife-and-fork method.  There is a very good chance that I am simply a heathen.

Posted by delmer at 8:27 PM | Comments (7)

September 3, 2007

The rest of the Stonehenge Trip

As we were driving to Stonehenge Lady Penelope made a navigational decision that took us off the M-whatever and onto a road with an A designation. We got the tiniest bit lost.

During our bit of being lost we were never really too far from our destination we just weren't taking the shortest route to get there. We got unlost well before hitting the Welcome to Isle of Wight sign.

Speaking of signs, and I'm sorry I don't have photos of these, we passed a couple of "Tank Crossing" signs (we were near a military installation of some sort) and a sign that seemed to say "Beware of Elderly People." (Do we really need signs to mark tank crossings? Don't you think you'd notice a tank if it was coming across your lane of traffic. Do we really need signs warning us to beware of the elderly. Doesn't everybody know an old person and have an awareness of just how beware of them we should be?)

As we took our alternate route we passed through some really cute little villages.

We drove by this thatched-roof cottage while we were lost and I got out and snapped a photo; just the day before my mother had requested pics of thatched-roof homes for a painting project.

While in England I saw quite a few phone booths — they seem to have all but vanished here in the US. This one was sitting away from anything else.

On the way to Stonehenge we passed by The George Inn and decided to swing by it on the way back to Crowthorne.

It was while we were at The George Inn that it hit me that just about everywhere we'd gone that had beer had had (that's three hads in pretty short order, yet it works) the alcohol percentage information pretty close at hand. When I was making my beer selection the bar gal told me I could have Beer A with 4% alcohol or Beer B with 3.4% alcohol. I eventually had one of each.

I also eventually bought a beer for the road and when I did was asked if I wanted it opened (I did). This was another thing I found interesting. There were signs in some of the pubs stating children weren't allowed in the pub but drinks could be taken outside and sold to go in an open state.


Lady Penelope and I had Baitfish as an appetizer. Lady P feared it might come looking like small, breaded, whole fish but the bits we received had been beheaded and gutted.

I ordered Fish & Chips as a main course but there was some sort of mistake with my order and I received something else instead. We mentioned this to the waiter (just to make sure I hadn't received someone else's food) and, following an apology, he offered to take it back. I explained that I was all about trying new things and was happy to keep what I had. It was very good.

You'll notice the Guinness in the above picture (Lady P was drinking it); it reminds me of another story. While at dinner Friday night one of the guys told of being in a pub when three or four American's strolled in. One of the Americans approached the bar and ordered black and tans for the group. The bartender was unfamiliar with the drink as was the other British guy at Friday's dinner. After the first Brit explained a black and tan both guys made you've got to be kidding me faces.
This is the garden area of The George Inn. Monty is keeping an eye on our drinks.

Posted by delmer at 2:02 PM | Comments (0)

September 2, 2007

Stonehenge

Today Lady P, Monty (her dog) and I went to Stonehenge.

Prior to the trip the only thing I'd known about Stonehenge had come from Dr. Seuss's One Henge, Two Henge, Fun Henge, Stonehenge and Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill video. While both sources made Stonehenge sound impressive, in a rhymey sort of way in one case and in a tearfully funny way in the other, neither captured the true coolness of Stonehenge.

It's hard to explain. Well, maybe not hard to explain: It's a bunch of rocks in a field with sheep nearby in an adjacent field.

The rocks are massive and were carved from stone several hundred miles away and then henged (Druid-speak for schlepped) by Druids to their present location. According to Wikipedia, "The Druids were polytheists, but also revered elements of nature, such as the sun, the moon, and the stars, looking to them for "signs and seasons." I imagine the Druids were quite buff as well and suspect, and this is revolutionary people, that Stonehenge might have been sort of a home gym for the local Druid society. (Others have suggested that Stonehenge has something to do with ceremonies centered around the two equinoxes. Any fool knows that working out twice a year is not nearly enough to maintain a level of fitness and I believe the Druids used a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine or possibly a 4-day a week schedule working upper body and lower body/back on alternate days. As always, consult your physician before starting any exercise regimen; if your doctor is unavailable you may consult a Druid.)

Photos:

A friend of mine has a picture of him, as an infant, sitting on Stonehenge with his parents (back in the 60s). You can't get very close anymore and these tourists aren't as close to Stonehenge as they may appear. You still get a pretty good feel for just how big the rocks are.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge and tourists

These guys were across the road with one of those gizmos that shoots a beam of some sort into the ground to determine what might be below the surface. The gizmo looks sort of like a walker and is used the same way over a grid-like pattern.

Monty the Wonder Dog. What makes him a Wonder Dog you ask. He's 14 but still very young at heart. He likes to have you throw the ball so he can retrieve it, but not so many times that it drives you crazy.

A rock off to one side. To add some perspective it will help you to know that Monty stands about 12 to 16" off the ground, maybe a dog-hair more. I stand just a bit over 6 feet 4 inches.

Posted by delmer at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2007

A Day of Rest

Saturday September 1 was a day of rest, what with it coming on the heels of the Friday Night Dinner and Wine Party.

Still, even when one is at rest he needs to eat and 4 p.m. seemed like a good time to get around to doing it. Lady Penelope and I went to The Prince Pub, in Crowethorne, for our first and only meal that day.

I ate the above. It is some sort of steak pot pie. Steak and ale pie? That doesn't sound right. It was very good as was all of the food we had in the thousands of pubs, or three, maybe four, we visited.

Lady Penelope had this and was kind enough to give me a bit of the sausage.

A shot of The Prince from the outside.

Posted by delmer at 5:15 PM | Comments (3)

England -- The Boonies

Tuesday and Wednesday (August 28 and 29) were spent in the county of Kent in Southeast England visiting Lady Penelope's sister, brother-in-law, their towheaded boys and their black lab.

As you know, I typically try to hide the identities and locations of the people appearing in this blog (all except for me — I'll be at Mel's Diner later tonight). I really, really, really wish I could give you the address of Lady P's relatives just so you could see how interesting it is. It's almost poetry and if you were to read it there'd be no doubt in your mind that their house used to belong to Bilbo Baggins.

Most of Tuesday was spent relaxing in the garden (Americans would say backyard) with some cooking activity later in the day (I helped just the smallest bit. Mostly by lifting hot items out of the oven. It seems I did some stirring too.).

(I really need to read up on punctuating parenthetical phrases or get out of the habit of using them. I'm not happy with the above, but not unhappy enough to do anything about it. Anyway…)

Lady Penelope's sister and brother-in-law were wonderful people and terrific hosts.

(I'd like to take this time to apologize for something I said while in Kent: I said, "I'm going to try one of those Smarties," when I meant to say, "Would it be OK if I tried one of those Smarties." I believe I've already been forgiven for my candy-grabbing boldness, but I still feel a little bit troubled by it.)

Here are some photos of Kent:

On the road to The Boonies.

A view from the backyard.

This is not the picture I was trying to take, but I thought it looked sort of cool. I snapped it shortly after we left Lady P's sister's.

The backyard neighbors.

We have plenty of open fields in Ohio but I felt compelled to take a picture of this one. When I rolled down the window it became apparent (and it would have become apparent eventually, even with the windows up) that the field had been treated with something. It didn't smell exactly like manure, unless it had come from very sick animals, although manure was certainly part of the mix. If it were possible to guess a field's crop output based on smell alone — and the badder the smell the better the crop — this baby would be kicking out Jack-and-the-Beanstalk-like vines.

Um. It's a cow folks. This one turned to pose just as I went to snap it