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Vacation part 2: Carnival Destiny

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When we got on board the Carnival Destiny, we got a good table by the window and had lunch. It was a nice view but the windows were very dirty. It looked like Godzilla had sneezed on them and nobody bothered cleaning them. The curse, of course, was that since we could not go to our cabins until 1:30 or so, we were tethered to that table, lest we lose it to someone who was not as prompt as us.

Our room was actually ready after 1:00 but our luggage did not arrive until 5:30.  Despite the late luggage arrival, we managed to get to dinner almost on time. Fortunately it was casual night.

After dinner Rose wanted to gamble, so I gambled too, even though I have no luck for games of chance. Rose won a little and I, of course, lost almost as much. This was how it went the entire trip except sometimes Rose would lose too.

I must say that, for me, playing the slots is about as exciting as watching grass grow, and significantly more expensive. I usually played video poker. At least there was some strategy to that and I could keep my losses to a minimum. Between the two of us, I don’t think we lost more than $50 the entire trip.

The next day we sat through a show about the shore excursions and other things to do which was basically a big pitch from Carnival designed to steer your money towards them and their affiliates.

Every cruise has at least one formal night and our cruise was no different. It is something that I hate because I am on VACATION and I shouldn’t have to lug a bunch of extra clothes with me so I can pretend I am at a business meeting.

They do it for one reason only. THEY WANT TO SELL YOU PHOTOGRAPHS. So even if I do not want photo of me, I still have to dress up or I wont be allowed in the dining room. I would only be allowed at the buffet upstairs, which is fine by me, but the formal dining does give you a better opportunity to meet new people.

After the formal dinner we went to the theater to see the show, which was singing and dancing. Rose loves that stuff but she actually found it boring and I was more than happy leave.

Next time I will talk about our first stop in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

New Kitten

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Rose’s sister, Felice, was recently given a very young kitten that was near death. She has become known as the go-to person for hopeless cases like that because she is very good at nursing kittens.

A few weeks ago she told us the kitten was healthy and nearly ready for adoption. She almost talked us into taking him but we couldn’t with a vacation coming up. We also did not want to upset Abbey since she was so sick.Now that Abbey is gone, we had no more excuses and even though it seemed a little soon, we dicided to get the kitten today because we had to bring the car to New Port Richey, which is not far from Felice’s house.

As soon as we got him home, Tigger ran upstairs and Chris had to smell every part of him. Chris wasn’t mean to him but I think he was so annoying that the kitten spent the next few hours hiding under the bed. He only came out to eat and then back under the bed. Unfortunately I was not able to show him the litter box and he pooped on the carpet. Hopefully that won’t last long.

As I write this he is out from under the bed and stepping on my keyboard.

Chris and new Kitten

Chris greets new kitten

Give me five...

Give me five…

Kitten eating

Got any more?

Our Vacation – Part 1: Miami

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We drove to Miami early last Friday in a Ford Taurus that we rented. The reason we rented a car is because our car has an issue that nobody can seem to fix but they still manage to extract huge sums of money from us.

View from Miami Hilton

View from Miami Hilton

We booked a room at the Downtown Hilton and were able to check in early. We were in room 1423 which had a pretty decent view. After we arrived we were hungry so we had to find a place too eat.

We ended up taking the free Metromover or whatever it is called and got off near Baywalk or Baypark or something like that. It is a big shopping area with stores and restaurants. We walked there in the rain and had lunch at Trader Jack’s on the water.

It was a nice lunch but the walk back was long and very humid with no breeze. The only reason we walked was because the tram smelled like dirty ass. At least what I imagine dirty ass smells like.

We didn’t do much else while in town. We did go to the hotel pool which is on the roof above the parking garage. It was a good spot to watch the sunset.

The next day we just had breakfast in the hotel and then checked out and went to the cruise terminal where we were booked on the Carnival Destiny for a five night cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

We arrived 45 minutes earlier than planned, around 10:15 but it turned out to be a great time to get there because we did not have to wait in any lines and were completely checked in ten minutes later. They started boarding at 11:00 (not noon like I expected) and we were aboard at 11:15.

More to come…

Rest In Peace Abbey

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As some of you know our cat Abbey has been sick for a while. She has actually held on longer than expected and we were hesitant about leaving her to go on vacation but a cruise is not something that you cancel without good cause.

She made it through the week okay but she had lost even more weight and it looked like she was starving to death even though she ate like a pig. It became clear that because her liver was not working right, she was literally starving for nutrition. So we decided it was her time to go.

We put her in the cat carrier and made the long drive to the vet. It was long because we brought her to the vet that Rose’s sister, Felice, works at.

She cried for half the trip and I felt very guilty because it seemed like she was asking us to go back home. I opened the door and started petting her until she was crying and purring at the same time. I then felt even more guilty.

After we got to the vet we were ushered into an exam room where the vet looked at her and confirmed it was time. We said our goodbyes and Felice took her in the back. We did not want to be there for that part but Felice said she would stay with her, which made us feel better.

Not exactly the best end to our vacation.

Abbey

R.I.P. Abbey. We will miss you.

How I Started Blogging

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I am not sure when I first thought about putting content of mine on the internet but it wasn’t until around January, 2010 when I actually started doing something. I started uploading pictures to my Flickr account (flickr.com/charleshuss) that I had since 2008.

Around that time I had a few ideas in my head for t-shirt designs, bumper stickers etc., but I had no real outlet for them. Then came the oil spill in the Gulf when I designed a shirt that said “Free Oil, You Pick Up. Call BP for details.”

I had a good design but it was time sensitive and I had no outlet for selling it and I didn’t want to put out a bunch of money up front to have it printed. Eventually I discovered sites like Cafe Press, Printfection, and Zazzle, that do print-on-demand services. I decided to build a store on Zazzle and called it Working Cat Studios, but by then it was around August and the Free Oil shirt had passed its prime.

Even so, I kept adding content for a while until we moved back to Florida a few months later. After that I had other things going on and my designs slowed down. Eventually money started trickling in at the rate of about five dollars a month, which was another reason the designs slowed down. I haven’t given up on it though because I think there is potential and because I enjoy doing it. I just recently added another design which is a good example of my crude sense of humor.

Sometime around May of this year a rooster showed up on the property that my wife, Rose, manages. I took pictures of him and put them Flickr where the marketing director of Rose’s company saw them and suggested she start a blog about “Rocky Rooster.” Of course, that job was passed on to me, but I was reluctant at first because I had no idea what to write about.

I jumped in anyway because I wanted to help but I did not know which blogging platform would be best. I knew about Blogger, WordPress and Typepad and eventually chose a free account on Blogger, simply because my son, Chris, had experience with it and I thought he could help me if I needed it.

Rocky Rooster was taken so I started RomeoRooster.blogspot.com. I thought Romeo was appropriate because he seemed like a ladies man, so to speak. I decided it would be better if I blogged as Romeo himself and just to add a little humor to it, I made him a bit arrogant, or “cocky” might be a better word. I had fun doing the blog and even though I knew I enjoyed writing, I somewhat rediscovered that fact.

I then decided to start writing about our cat Chris who is the most troublesome cat I have ever seen but he is also very funny and loveable. This time I put it on wordpress.com (which I like better) and bought the domain BadCatChris.com.

Shortly after that I bought a recumbent bike because I wanted to start riding to work but didn’t want to ride ten miles on my old bike because I was afraid my back wouldn’t like it. As a way to motivate me to actually use the bike I started a blog about that too at newlybent.wordpress.com.

Recently I discovered that I could upgrade my hosting plan at godaddy.com and get hosting for unlimited domains. That prompted me to get this website and another on about minimalism called beaminimalist.com. It is a subject that interested me for awhile and one that I have experience with after moving four times in five years. Rose and I want to someday live on a boat so I have been downsizing to make that transition a smooth one when it actually happens, which won’t be for awhile, but you can never be too prepared.

For now, I think, I have bitten off more than I can chew, but if I ever find myself with more free time I may start another blog.

Amazon “Associates”

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I recently joined the Amazon affiliate program which they refer to as “Associates.” With it I will get about four percent of anything that someone buys when going through my link. It’s not much but I am hoping to at least pay my web hosting bill.

The biggest problem is that I can’t get a commission on anything that I buy. I don’t like it but I understand that they do it that way to keep people from signing up just to get a personal discount.

I recently bought Rose a Kindle and signed up for the Amazon Prime membership. With it we get to borrow an e-book once a month and we get free 2-day shipping on anything that is fulfilled by Amazon. Now I’m tempted to just order everything I need instead of driving around town looking for it. I was looking for cat food online yesterday which I would never do if I had to pay for shipping.

Prime also allows you to watch free movies like Netflix but there is two walls between my television and my router so the wi-fi connection is not good enough for streaming video. I ended up ordering a wi-fi repeater and hooked it up in the middle room but the signal is still barely under ideal. I guess I need to figure out a new strategy.

Clint Eastwood For President

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Clint Eastwood has always been one of my favorite actors. I never knew (or cared) what political party he belonged to until yesterday. This morning I heard about all the people who were making fun of him and the embarrassing speech he made last night. The news people said he was talking to an empty chair like he had gone insane.

I had to see for myself so I watched his speech online this morning. The empty chair represented Obama and was a prop for the speech, probably written by someone else who thought that was a good idea. Clint also seemed to forget at times what he was supposed to say, which was hard to watch but it was hardly bad enough to make fun of him like he was going senile.

The man is 82 years old. I would be lucky if I could remember half of that speech he gave at half his age…okay, maybe a little more than half. I guess my point is, I would hate to see a great man’s reputation ruined because he forgot his lines.

What You Notice While Cycling

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I love riding my bicycle, partly because it is a slower pace and it gives you time to notice the world around you. The other day I was riding past a nice apartment community and saw this alligator.

Alligator

I assume he lives there because there is a large supply of yipper dogs.

Check out more of my bicycle stories at newlybent.wordpress.com.

Abbey Update

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Skinny Abbey

Skinny Abbey

Our cat Abbey was diagnosed with irreversible liver failure about four weeks ago. We did not expect her to last long but she seems no better or worse today than she was when we brought her to the vet.

She still acts like she is okay. She eats, she purrs and she jumps on the counter. Unfortunately, she has become very skinny and has not put on any more weight since the vet visit. She also looked like she had jaundice then which seemed to diminish and come back.

I have been feeding all the cats more wet food and have been mixing a little milk thistle in her food. The problem with that is, the more I try to mix in, the less she wants to eat it.

I also bought something called Nutri-Vet Multi-Vite Paw-Gel
which are vitamins in a tube. I put some on my finger and she licks it off. it is actually meant to be put on their paw but if I do that, it always ends up on the carpet.

One of Abbey's new hiding places.

One of Abbey’s new hiding places. Now she can fit under there.

The biggest problem with the vitamins is that it tastes good and when I try to give it to Abbey, Chris and Tigger are right there pushing Abbey out of the way so they can get some. I have no problem giving the other cats vitamins, it just becomes a hassle trying to make sure Abbey gets some.

I still hold out hope that she can get better, despite what the vet says, but I am also realistic and know that she probably won’t.

Cats, Cats Everywhere

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Today we planned to take my son Chris and his wife to The German Restaurant (that’s the name) but Chris must have been up all night and didn’t want to go. Since it is one of our favorite places, we decided to go without them. When we got there was a sign saying they were closed until the 26th. We knew they were going to Germany but forgot about it.

Dagmar, one of the owners, is a cat lover and feeds several strays. While we were there we saw a couple of cats waiting next to empty food bowls. We walked around and saw at least four more cats and more empty bowls.

They had water but no food so we went to Publix and bought a bag of cat food. We then filled all the bowls and left the bag for the next person that came along. I just hope they don’t come back to shredded bag on their front patio.