Entries Tagged 'travel' ↓

This trip was a bit of an experiment: we’d booked a room in a B&B in a very small town and the website pictures made it look like things could go either way. Thankfully, The Hotel DeFuniak was quaint in the best way possible. Granted, it was a little odd to have the sink in the bedroom (next to the bedside table) instead of a separate bathroom area, but it was easy to get used to. (The shower and commode were in a small–very small–room of their own.) The restaurant, Bogey’s, was very nicely decorated, took a good 2 hours plus for dinner, had jazz singer that did more current standards but did them fairly well, and served very good food and drink. Bought a mixed case of wine along with some other tchotkies at the Vineyard and then a bunch of assorted goodies at the Little Big Store which is like some country general store from ages ago. Too much fun!

The only down side, because with every high there is a low, was the attempt at letterboxing. There was actually a letterbox listed in DeFuniak Springs so we thought we’d give it a try. Having done a little research we knew where to go (a park next to the Municipal airport) and found the location of the box, just didn’t find the box itself. Sigh… it was fun, but no real payoff, you know?

Oh! There was one other thing. We’d found a barbecue place online that we wanted to try for lunch, Pig Daddy’s. I was so looking forward to making fun of their name and slogan (”our butts smell good”) while raving about the food because, really, something that tacky had better be tasty! Couldn’t find it. Ended up eating someplace that was seriously having an identity crisis (listed as Busy Bee Cafe online but the building said they’d moved; we found the now Smokey J Cafe in a building that still had Mamie’s Cafe on the roof–see what I mean?) that was okay, but not rave-worthy. Asked about Pig Daddy’s at the Vineyard: turns out it had just closed. And when I say JUST closed, I mean within the week. How bizarre?

Those two hiccups aside, totally a great weekend. Got a little past tipsy at dinner and Spectrum had fun being amused by my giggly, silly drunkenness. I even drexted someone!

Now, I have to say, aside from raising prices here and there I haven’t really been affected directly by most of the stuff going on. I don’t have a mortgage, etc. and while I do have credit cards and a bank account, none have been bought out or bailed out that I’m aware of. So while I’ve heard the horror stories abounding, I never really had anything to do with it.

Until 401k quarterly reports came out and now several employees are growing concerned, wanting to opt-out, and all sorts of things. In the 8 years we’ve had the program I’ve had more questions asked of me this week than any other given period of time, including open enrollments! The worst part is? I really don’t know much more than anyone else (and less than some, because I’ve never been a stocks-watcher). All I can do is give basic information, tell them what is not allowed (i.e. closing out the account, changing payroll deductions anytime other than open enrollment periods every 6 months, etc) and give them a phone number to call to talk to people who actually know what’s going on.

It also makes me almost regret not getting my securities license way back when. Granted, the life insurance license is still causing me grief as I’m on countless mailing lists even though I never used it (or the mortgage license) and both have long since expired. Still, if I’d at least taken the courses and tests I’d be better equipped to answer questions. But it’s a fleeting half-regret at most.

Spec and I are taking a bit of a mini-break this weekend to a local winery and B&B. We shall see how the latter holds up it’s “Romantic Getaway” claims. It’s almost spontaneous, or as spontaneous as I get, lol. Less than a week of planning certainly counts

I go away for a weekend and all I can think about upon my return is the tightness in my calves, thighs and butt from climbing those 3 flights of stairs over and over again. Well, not the only thing, but it’s the most pressing right now.

Spec and I went to the Big Bend Ghost Tracker’s Windsor Hotel workshop and investigation and it was really interesting. The 3 seminars were actually what we’d seen at Wrath of Con (just really, really condensed at the time due to schedule issues, etc.) but this time around it was a lot more relaxed and well-presented. After dinner we got to participate in an investigation of some of the known hot-spots of the hotel (they’ve investigated there before).

It really was a phenomenal experience overall. Not sure yet about the EVP work or photos/video they might have captured but we also did scrying and even used a Ouija board with rather surprising results. If you don’t believe in this sort of thing it’s okay and I’m not going to go into details but those of you who do and are curious, feel free to email me and I’ll tell you what happened

Tags: haunting, ghosts, BBGT

Shopping recap for the weekend

10.75 spent on a pink martini glass lamp for the bar

79.57 total spent on shoes
 (4 pairs, average 19.89 per)

26.30 total spent on accessories
 (5 items, average 5.26 per)

317.36 total spent on clothing
 (23 items, average 13.79 per)
    1 dress
    5 jammies
    1 pr shorts, 3 pr pants, 4 skirts
    9 shirts

And that’s what I did with my weekend. Not including a trip to the grocery store, a stop at the liquor store and 2 meals out.  But you get the picture. After a whole month of not shopping, I suppose I was due for a splurge. Granted, of the above, most of it was on store charge accounts (nice to have for the few times a year I go and refit my wardrobe, lol).

Most of the clothes are work clothes (obviously not the jammies, those are for recuperating from surgery and so forth) that will get me through quite a while. The shoes were an attempt to find comfy sandals/casuals with mid-height heels for walking around in at DragonCon and I think I finally managed to cover those bases (I can’t do 3 days in flats or tennis shoes without serious tendinitis pain and my current heeled options aren’t con-floor friendly).

And speaking of jammies! Even though I was specifically looking for nightgowns and sleep shirts I saw this one tank-and-short set that I _had_ to have: it’s got martini-swilling monkeys on it, hello?!?

Tags: clothesshopping, monkeys, jammies, martinis, dragon con preparedness

So. This weekend was my first Con and overall it was a very pleasant experience. As usual, the trip over there was half the fun in itself, but that’s a road trip with Palmie and I.

We finally got to Panama City and had dinner in a Pirate Ship (that the 70s forgot) before heading to the hotel. Palmie’s all like ‘I see nerds, we must be in the right place’ and right until we saw the land speeder and I braked to stare at it, we seemed fairly normal. SO much for that! I also ended up with the first guest sighting (Brian from Ghost Hunters) as we entered our building.

The Con Registration Desk had closed by the time we wandered over there (right around 8:00). And, well, this is the one main issue that I had this weekend: a lack of organization. Now, no registration hours were posted on the website prior to the Con BUT since there were film screenings going on into the wee hours and a poolside mixer that evening until around 10 or so, it seemed logical that reg would be open later in the evening. Uh, no. We were told to come back in the morning, 8am to be specific. (Found out later that the volunteer that told us that was supposed to have gone to get one of the head people to check-in “stragglers” but was too lazy. Regardless, it was an issue.)

Saturday morning we make sure we’re up and dressed and headed over to the Con area right around 8am. Yeah. No one there. Finally a staffer walks up and we ask about picking up our badges and she rummages around a bit and tells us that Reg won’t be open until 10am. Uh… the first panel starts when? Oh, right, NINE. See the problem? Turned out to be some sort of mega-miscommunication and it was 2 minutes to 9 before they finally got the box of badges and list of pre-regged sheets (because yes, we were prepaid, all we needed were our badges and bags). It wasn’t just us, of course, there were some vendors who couldn’t get into the dealer room yet, either.

Thankfully this was the only real hiccup. They could have used a tighter ship when it came to scheduling and making sure the panels ended when they were supposed to, but they were pretty good about posting revised schedules as the day progressed. Palmie and I have different opinions on this matter. She says that all cons run this way (though that’s not entirely true as Spectrum had a different experience at GenCon, but whatever) but I look at it from a basic, event planning 101 stand-point: you set a schedule and you do your damnedest to stick to it. You have people available to get your attendees what they need to enjoy the day they paid for. I don’t care if some actor is running a workshop that people paid $20 a pop to attend. They paid for an hour, clear the room after that so the next group can get in. Also, having planned wiggle-room to change over areas is a really good idea–think back to high school when you had so many minutes to change classes. It is, literally, textbook.

Okay, now that that’s done, let’s get to the fun stuff. The hotel was pretty nice, not too crowded despite the various things going on (if there were more than 200 people at Wrath of Con I’d be utterly shocked), and the restaurants never had a wait (which was crazy… I don’t know exactly how folks managed that). The only panels I was planning to attend were the Ghost Hunters panels at 9 and 10 on Saturday. Everything after that were stars of shows I didn’t watch. The Ghost Hunters were fun though did start (and end) about 30 minutes late. Ended up going to the Jerry Doyle Q&A with Palmie and Spectrum and it was an absolute riot! Man! I sorta want to watch Babylon 5 now. Later that day I took in the rescheduled Art, Comics and Manga panel which was pretty cool and chatted with the moderator afterwards, being brave and self-promoting a little bit Not sure how many of my flyers got picked up, but a few did. Hey, they aren’t exactly my target audience, not really, so it was cool.

The dealer room was jam packed and kinda small BUT very fun to browse. I ended up buying a set of marabou-trimmed horns and had a watercolor caricature done on Saturday and then picked up some books on Sunday, signed by their respective authors. Not exactly sure when I’ll have a chance to read them, but I’ll add them to the stack. Also picked up a lot of cards and flyers of things to check out later and follow up on if they prove interesting.

Sunday morning I really didn’t have anything I wanted to do other than that last trip through the dealer room. That accomplished, I found a comfy chair to commandeer, took out my art supplies and penciled two pages of a Random Acts… side project (more info when there’s concrete data on that, I promise) while Spectrum and Palmie did their thing for the morning and early afternoon. Due to some interesting schedule issues and a missing Jerry Doyle (temporarily) we didn’t end up hitting the road until 4ish. Later than I’d wanted to leave, but I was getting so much work done and they were having a blast so it really didn’t hurt anything.

After stopping at IHOP for an early supper we rolled into Tallahassee a little after 7pm, exhausted but happy. Nice first Con. And I know, I know, Dragon*Con will be vastly different. I’m looking forward to it.

So, Wrath of Con is weekend after next and it’s being held in Panama City. Even though I’m really not much of an ocean person and am in no hurry to don that bathing suit I bought last week (doesn’t hurt to be prepared) still, I like the idea of keeping my options open. And since we’ll be right there on the beach, might as well not glow if I DO wear that suit.

In other news. I wore some fun new earrings today that I made totally out of the blue yesterday. They started as an example for an eHow article and then the wire just started talking to me, urging me to stitch into here and there and suddenly i had a really interesting shape. I’ll be including the pattern as part of the article but they were really fun and quick to make. I plan on experimenting with different wire and bead combos and seeing what else I can do with it, when I get the time.

And speaking of time, mine was spent quite wisely today. Not only did I kick butt at work, just getting stuff done right and left, but I managed to get a ton of work done on the comic tonight so that I should have this week’s comics done by tomorrow night. Which is how it should be. I really didn’t like having to work every night before it was set to upload just to keep up. That’s why I really want that buffer built up! Of course, with the other projects I’ve got, an actual buffer might take a little while, but at least I’m on the right track.

Probably because it us. Had a great weekend visiting Drew in Orlando. Spent a pretty penny at IKEA for some organization stuff, kitchen supplies, and some more linens and such. Lots of fun and we apparently lucked out crowd-wise which was good on several levels. Saturday night we wandered through Downtown Disney, which Mom had never been to in it’s current incarnation (the last time she was at Disney there was a small shopping area known as Lake Buena Vista that we _think_ is what is now The Marketplace) before getting a late supper at Outback.

You’d think that living and working in Orlando would be hell as far as traffic and such goes. For some, maybe, but Drew managed to find an apartment that is right next to a major shopping center with just about anything you’d need on a regular basis (and then some) and is within 3 miles of work to the point that he doesn’t have to get on any toll roads or the Interstate for his usual business. Go him!

Since Mom wanted to drive, I got to spend the trip down there and back blocking the pages and panels for the Script Frenzy project. Now just to transfer them from the scrawled notes into Celtx and I should be able to reach goal with no problem. But first, time to finish the comics for next week and work on the next eHow article. Back to the merry-go-round!

Last night I managed to format all of the pages I had pre-blocked (up to 52 physical pages of the graphic novel) so it’s good that I planned to block in the car while Mom drives us to Orlando.

And, wow, tonight was just a whirl. A very good question was posed over at the A&E forum of eHow and it sparked an instant article. As soon as it gets approved (tomorrow if I’m lucky) I can post it as a reply instead of just a well you could do this, this and this. But it was just something I hadn’t thought to do an article on and there didn’t seem to be one already written on the site, so it was providence, indeed. That’s four of my 7 for the month

Also put my new tag on the car, today. Sweet! I wasn’t really “sold” on the State of the Arts plate but it really does look nice when it’s actually on the car, goes well with the blue. Then there was the SCA meeting, amusing as always, come home and pack my overnight bag, start the dishwasher, and worked on next week’s comics. Whew! Busy night!

K’s boyfriend managed to pull off an early surprise birthday dinner for her tonight that Mom and I went to. Quite, quite fun and I purposefully only ate half my steak and loaded potato so I’d have lunch for tomorrow. Such good birthday cake.

Before dinner we needed to kill some time and pick up K’s gift certificate for a pedicure so at the Mall I found something majorly surprising: a denim skirt, knee length, in a blue that doesn’t look dirty or stone washed. ON SALE. Rock on! There was also a funny moment when Mom and I picked up identical jackets from across the room. The hounds tooth pattern was too large to look right on anyone our size but still, that was a bit too freaky.

Palmie has also informed me that our travel plans for next year will preempt the Memphis road trip in favor of hostel-ing it in England for a week. Hey, who am I to argue?!?

Made my connection home so wasn’t delayed (actually I think we ended up coming in early) but I don’t think I’ll willingly schedule a 40 minute layover in ATL again. Vegas was a blast, meeting everyone rocked, we essentially got kicked out of Quarks (as Dino says: think about it…) and Spectrum had a bad experience with a chorizo omelet. Still, it was a cool weekend overall. Even if I never did get around to gambling.

I spent almost all of my working hours on a US Dept of Commerce Census. What a pain! But I got it finished and will get it mailed tomorrow and be done with them for another year. Or, well, until the next version they decide to concoct.

At home I did at least make it through an article and a half draft. This is good, this is progress, this will keep me from actually having to work while in Vegas. Woot! Of course, I do still need to get 2 comics done tomorrow night in order for my plan to work. We shall see. Oh, and at some point I really do need to pack! And, you know, clean out my purse for contraband (extra lotions, Jimmy Hoffa, nail files, that sort of thing).

Having someone (professional) do my taxes this year. A rather expensive experiment. Granted, I came out ahead by a little bit when all is said and done and I did learn some things from the tax dude and got to ask some questions about the self-employment tax estimates, etc. The system wasn’t set up to prepare those forms so I still have to do that on my own, but he gave me pre-addressed envelopes. (*mutter* for what I paid them they should be pre-stamped and filled with cash */mutter*)

Will I do it again? Not sure. I feel slightly more comfortable about my ability to do it myself but I really do like the fact that someone with WAY more experience than me is the one who scheduled the business deductions, etc. And at least I know now what this sort of thing runs and won’t face the same sticker shock. Not to mention I get to take today’s fee as a deduction NEXT year. I suppose it all washes out in the end.

In other news. Yay for a weekend spend mostly snuggling with Spectrum. Despite the rain we did manage to hit all four comic shops on Saturday along with Word Traffic. A couple of ethnic restaurants and Comedy Zone Saturday nights, some movies at home and dinner Sunday night with Mom and Molly rounded out our long weekend together. Oh, but I hated to see him drive away this afternoon! He did make it home safe and sound, though, so all’s well. And Vegas is only 2.5 weeks away

Coverage of my glorious weekend away is suspended for a bit to announce that I have a new baby sister! (No, y’all who know Mom haven’t missed a major occurrence) Her name is Molly, she’s 8 weeks and 5 pounds of Buddah-ful-bellied French Bulldog. I’d post a picture of her but my transfer cable is missing. I think it’s actually at the office, attached to the computer from when I brought it instead of the iPod cable.

The weekend was just absolutely lovely, though. New Orleans is as charming as ever and I’m definitely looking forward to my week-long excursion come May. Hopefully by then I’ll have some of the rewrites done and know more of what I need shots of. I also hope to get an interview or two with some gallery owners, so I can understand how they work in general and put on shows. Of course, I could do that here, too, I suppose. And may well.

And Spectrum was charming, too. We had a wonderful time just hanging out, wandering the city, and his work party was fun, too. You know, sometimes they can be odd if you don’t know anyone or your date abandons you (which he didn’t), yadda yadda yadda. But it was fun! Of course, some of his coworkers wanted to check me out, make sure I was making him happy, etc. I think I passed muster And then there was the food: Friday night we wandered into Cuvee for dinner, Saturday lunch was at the Lazy River (which is, apparently, an offshoot of Pat O’s), and Sunday brunch at Palace Cafe. It was really tough to leave but we managed to tear ourselves apart long enough to drive to the interstate where he went west and I east.

After stopping to meet Molly I finally got home just after 9ish. Long weekend. But I think I’d do it again in a heartbeat. A very particular heartbeat.

But now I am cold and alone in my apartment where the ambient temperature is so low that the liquid ganache in my truffles has solidified. Off to upload tomorrow’s comic and then to bed.

The nap took a 2-hour chunk out of my evening but I think it was worth it since concentration level prior to was next to nil. So only the comic and a smidge of editing got done, but that leaves tomorrow night free to finish up two articles for eHow, pack for the trip, and tidy up the apartment so I’m not coming home to chaos on Sunday night. While I was drawing I watched the first disc of the Disney Rarities set that Amazon delivered last night: oh the joy of Lambert and Ferdinand and the Adventures in Music shorts! Whee!!!

And yes, the leaky ceiling was fixed when I got home.

As of mid-morning today. Whew! That feels good. What’s weird is that I am only making one gift this year. This has a lot to do with the fact that I am still not finished with some from last year. Seriously. So this year I chopped the gift list to pretty much family and near-family and skipped everything else. On the one hand I’m kinda eh about the abbreviated plans but on the other I like it. The simplicity appeals to me, and we know that’s an aberration of ginormous proportions.

Also, tomorrow is the 52nd strip of Random Acts… TaDaa! I did what I set out to do and its still fun so I’ll be continuing. I would have celebrated more but I’ve managed to screw up my writing plans for the first half of the month so the deadline is pinning me down seriously. It’s okay, I’m on, like, Plan C at this point, but I think it’ll be the best of all of them and I should have no problem completing them before leaving town Friday morning for my weekend away.

My goal is to be totally caught up so that I can have 3 days without thinking about any of my work things–any of them! Not going to think about them replacing the office carpet while I’m gone. Not going to think about my articles. Not going to think about the comic. It’s a weekend of not thinking. Well, okay, not much thinking. I will only dally by taking pictures, if plausible, of the Arts District in NOLA for future reference for Wedding Tarot. And since I haven’t had time to ‘work’ on that in ages, it doesn’t count against the not thinking about works. I love my logic!

Seriously, folks, totally ADD tonight. The day started with a trip to the vampire’s; maybe he withdrew my attention span in the process?

Mom was completely unsurprised about me running into KB last night. I walk up to her and say ‘You’ll never guess who I saw at the coffee house last night?’ and she guessed. It’s not supposed to work like that! Then she tried to come up with other people I could run into this week out of nowhere, including the first husband and an even older high school boyfriend. If I do, I may just have to go hide somewhere.

Speaking of going somewhere, Palmie and I have picked our destination for the bribery trip in December. See, Palmie has promised she’ll complete NaNo this year and I told her if she did we’d go on a mini-break to St Augustine and the Jacksonville Zoo! Well, today she emailed me a link to the very kitschy motel in St Aug. and I’ll be making the res tomorrow. It’ll be Zoo, hotel/dinner followed by sunrise on the beach then Old Town and outlet shopping. A fitting reward for being tied to ones computer all previous month, no?

Tonight I tried to do research; that lasted about an hour or so. Then I tried to read. No go. Then I played solitaire (this time with a full deck), couldn’t even concentrate there. I’m just restless and scattered tonight. So many things to do. So many things I /want/ to do. None of them happening. Which means this weekend will be workiful, but that’s okay.

Nothing else planned and the PiC is out of town.

And way too freaking early to rise! Tomorrow morning is going to come dangerously soon as tlh_in_tlh will be heading down to Weeki Watchee for Summer Art/Sci round about 5am-ish. Crazy is one way to put it.

We’re just day-tripping because, well, it seemed like a good idea to me at the time and she asked for a ride and I was welcome for the company. I managed to get another week of Random Acts… nearly finished but I’m heading to bed as soon as I print out driving directions so inking the last two panels will wait til Sunday.

No, that’s not my Script Frenzy! wordcount, it’s the number of emails I have yet to wade through (down from about 10K when I started this evening). And no, that doesn’t include SPAM… I’ve already skimmed that folder and deleted it all and still had the 10K of group emails, etc. to sift through. But it’s okay, I’ll get caught up, feel organized again and be able to maybe unsub from some of the lists that I just never read.

In other news, I finally made it to the grocery store after work so no more panic about not having actual food in the house. I admit, I get a bit uneasy when the stock runs low and the necessity of shopping sometimes has that anti-progress effect of not wanting to bite the bullet and shop. And I love shopping, so that should tell you something. It’s that whole concept of being forced to do something rather than just doing it because I want to or because its a comfortable part of the routine. I am a creature of habit and my habits are way off this week–happens every time I travel.

This was not the only such task on the list and I’m slowly working my way through some of those lovely mental roadblocks I like to erect. I swear, if it wasn’t for myself I’d get so very much more done on a regular basis. That’s okay, though, I have this weekend mostly to myself (SF! write-in for 3 hours on Saturday) to tackle projects. I see a large to-do list being written so that I can cross things off with vigor as I complete them. Such a lovely feeling, that.

And in good news I think I’m close to ridding myself of the ennui that descended on Sunday. It’s difficult when you realize that there’s something on your mind, something you need to work through, and said working through might involve being very emo and teary for a bit just to release the pressure built up, but being on a boat with 2000 other people who you’d rather not have that happen in front of prevents you from actually doing so. Such was the case (after my facial of all things) and I had to wait another 36 hours before I finally was back in my own private space and could let go. Not that it’s that easy, no, it took a couple of days to really get there but right now I’m feeling pretty okay about it. Not good, because it’s a tough pill to swallow and all, but okay. The important thing is the improvement, right?

I think yes.

The cruise was incredibly fun, only a few minor complaints overall, and Mom thoroughly enjoyed herself which was the most important thing. She took today off as well and I sort of wish I had as I seem to have a touch of vertigo today stemming, most likely, from the exhaustion of the constant activity of the last several days.

I honestly don’t even know where to begin as far as recapping the trip. I’m sure I have tons of fodder for Random Acts…, just under 200 pictures and a few souvenirs to act as reminders, but for now I’m just sort of in a post-vacation-let-down. All good things must end, right? Back to the grind stone. I’m going to go back to my veg-post on the sofa and makes some notes for the strip and for some articles that I hope to put together into a readable format tomorrow night when I plan to not be so exhausted.

But before I go: Hearty Congratulations go out to Steve and Best Wishes to Izzie on their recent engagement! I’m just so happy for Izzie as she truly deserves to be happy and while I don’t know Steve all that well (yet, I’m sure) I do know that he’s doing a wonderful job of that so far. Time for a manicure, Iz, as everyone is going to be paying a lot of attention to your hand now that it’s spoke for!

Woot!

I have unpacked and repacked my luggage and think I just might be able to get things to work. I really wish I’d been able to get more done before leaving, around the apartment and on the script and on other writing projects, but I’ll have The Book with me while I’m gone and can make notes and plot things out for a fabulous restart come Tuesday when I’m relaxed and rested from vacation. This is the plan!

I have a few goals over the next 5 days:

1. Not to stress about anything. I know for me this is a biggie, but its vacation, everyone is a grown up, and I’ve done all I can to arrange a wonderful weekend for Mom’s 50th. I can do no more than what I’ve done and it’s my vacation, too, so I might as well enjoy it.

2. Talk to strangers, appreciate the differences in random humanity, and think happy thoughts. I’m going to be in the middle of the Gulf, what do I have to be bitter or uncharitable about? Hmm? This does not mean that snark is forbidden. After all, I do plan to come back with some great material for Random Acts…

3. Wear as few constricting clothes as possible. Basically I mean bras. Oh, sure, at dinner certain outfits will require underpinnings (though one dress actually has it built-in) but during the day? Tank tops with built-in shelf-bras will be my friend. No underwires. No pinching. Pure bliss.

4. Actually be IN some pictures. Seriously, I usually end up behind the camera and I would like that to change. Obviously the formal and ship shots I’ll be in, but I will make a point to hand my camera to someone else from time to time so that I can have some proof that I did not spend the entire vacation hiding behind the lens.

Bon Voyage!