Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Just when you thought it was over...

Tomorrow, November 30th, is officially the last day of Hurricane Season...

So what is THIS ??!!!


ZCZC MIATWOAT ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM

TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
100 PM EST TUE NOV 29 2011

FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC...CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO...

1. A WEAK AREA OF LOW PRESSURE IS LOCATED A COUPLE HUNDRED MILES NORTHEAST OF THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLANDS. THIS SYSTEM IS PRODUCING A LARGE AREA OF DISORGANIZED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS AS IT INTERACTS WITH AN UPPER-LEVEL LOW. UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE NOT CURRENTLY FAVORABLE FOR SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT...AND THIS SYSTEM HAS A LOW CHANCE...10 PERCENT...OF BECOMING A TROPICAL OR SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AS IT MOVES  NORTHEASTWARD OR NORTHWARD AT AROUND 15 MPH.

ELSEWHERE...TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

$$
FORECASTER BRENNAN
NNNN

Someone show The Powers That Be the calendar, please.

At least we didn't have any rain today so we were able to apply the finishing touches of epoxy to the mast. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, but right now we are happy campers.

So it goes!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Animal Rescue Site - Give via Facebook, too

The other day I wrote a post (see HERE) about the Animal Rescue Site and mentioned how you visit their site and press the Purple Button to give food to animals for FREE, plus there are other associated sites that have a similar themes such as free meals to Veterans, for example.


Well, there is now an additional way for you to give FREE food to animals via their Facebook page. We do not "do" Facebook but this is an excellent opportunity for those who have a Facebook account.


What's not to like? Get yourself some warm & fuzzies :)

So it goes!


Thursday, November 24, 2011

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

One of our charter yacht friends, Marolanga, a 44-foot catamaran, told us this cute Thanksgiving story...
John & Mr Smee of Antillean
This story is not about them :)
A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.

Every word out of the bird's' mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.  John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The  parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet.  Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.  The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.  I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. 

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke-up, very softly, "May I ask what the turkey did?"
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Gus & Marcella

If you are interested in a yacht charter or barge cruises in Europe, visit Paradise Connections.



Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie is a Thanksgiving classic which we will be listening to while preparing our Thanksgiving dinner...
Don't have a copy??? Well, you can download the mp3 from Amazon for only $0.89. Good deal for a 15:52 song!



HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE EVERYWHERE


Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Animal Rescue Site

Hopefully you have all noticed the link I have to the Animal Rescue Site in the left hand column of AllAboutBoats. Please visit their site daily and click on the big purple button to provide FREE food at no expense to you.

They sent an email out this morning to announce that they are having a PURPLE Black Friday Sale which, like everyone else, is starting early :)

The Animal Rescue Site - A Good Cause

I'm thinking about the fleece jacket for only $18. A couple of years ago I bought their fleece vest and I'm very happy with it.

I wonder if Bob would go for a purple watch? Sure he would... purple is cool.

Remember to click on the other charities, too, that are on the menu bar at the top of the page. Such as the Veterans site which provides free meals to homeless and hungry veterans...


Be thankful for sites like this and give your support. It only takes 2 minutes or less (if you have decent internet service) to click through all of the buttons.



Just a thought...

I think that it might be a good idea if police had their badge number prominently displayed on their flak jackets and riot helmets, sort of like football players, for easy identification.

They might give pause before pepperspraying a row of people like they are applying insecticide in a flower bed or striking a pregnant woman in the stomach with batons if they are not anonymous figures.

So it goes...



Thursday, November 17, 2011

MAIL CALL: New keyboard cover, Kindle, and DVDs

Yesterday we stopped by to pick up our mail. One package was my new keyboard cover and it is so pretty (it is a darker blue than in the photo below).


My computer looks new again... although I have to put some new tape around the edge of my MacBook's top case where the edge has broken away. This is due to Apple's design fault where the two little ridges above the monitor will eventually crack the case where they touch when closed. I should have had Apple replace both of our top cases last year when they were still under AppleCare but I thought our policy had expired the year before. It can be difficult to keep track of things when you are on Island Time.

The protective cover only cost a couple of dollars... Well worth the investment to keep my keyboard clean and DRY! The skin is very thin and doesn't cause difficulties in typing. No problems installing it either. It fits over the keys without any problem. The letters on the keys below do not show through. It gives the impression that the keytops are blue. You cannot really see that it is a covering... Very cool...

I ordered mine through "Listen Up" and received it via 1st class mail within 3 days to the USVI. It came in a perfectly-sized manilla, non-padded, flat envelope.  I am very happy that it was OK because one of the DVDs we received has a big dent in it.

See the dent at about the 5 o'clock position?

My picture to show the bump on the opposite face didn't come out too well but you can see that it is definitely not playable.

Since this was ordered through Amazon, I'm sure we will have customer satisfaction and either receive a refund or replacement. (UPDATE: Received my refund the same day I notified them of a problem! Unfortunately, the seller doesn't have a replacement)

I sure love my pretty keyboard... it is helping to keep my mind off of the ^%#&^% wifi "service".

The Kindle is also very cool but I'll talk about it in another post.

The swell has calmed down a bit this morning but it is picking up now after the RAIN! OK, so we can't epoxy because of the threat of rain, but you cannot go on to a different project that requires the use an angle grinder when the roll is tossing you from side to side. I'm more into the "safe and sane" firework mindset rather than "dumb and dangerous"... What's another day... especially when our internet service is so slow and time consuming :)

We'll go into Christiansted this afternoon and get a couple of jerrycans of water and check the mail for more DVDs.


This water is the "good" water (left) we get from the Bucaneer Yacht-less Club on the boardwalk.  A little bit brown and we need to backflush the filter as it is clogged, but it is much better and cheaper (10 cents/gallon as opposed to 15) than the water we would get at St Croix Marine fuel dock (right).  Gives the coffee a nice, rich color :)

Speaking of clean water, you might be interested in Gifts of Hope on the PlanUSA.org site
.

So it goes...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Get up Stand UP!

Today, November 16, 2011, is American Censorship Day. Read about it HERE.

This from H-Online :
"Mozilla has joined with other leading Internet organisations such as AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo, Zynga and public interest groups in opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Also known as H.R.3261, SOPA was introduced in the US House of Representatives in October. The organisations have sent Congressional leaders a joint letter expressing their concern with the legislative measures that are being introduced."
As they used to say on Hee-Haw: SALUTE!!!

Words from the great philosopher, Mr. Robert Marley:


and get the T-shirt:
I must say that I really admire what Makana did at the APEC dinner performing his "We Are The Many" to various world leaders and found this short video interesting. I understand how he feels. We should not be afraid to demand our American values & freedoms that the Powers That Be keep trying, and too often successfully, to take away from us.


Here's a video of the song "We Are the Many" (Occupy Aloha). Not a great video but he has a nice voice and a good message.


And to ALL of the Occupy supporters, on the front lines or not...
a giant SALUTE!

Here's some words from another great philosopher that died too young... John Lennon:




I'm on a rant & roll... Are you still here?  If so, check out this music video...

James McMurtry - "We Can't Make It Here"

Bob on Boat Bits mentioned this very interesting article today: The Bonus Army: How A Protest Led To The GI Bill. Read it... it's about a group of WWI veterans demanding what they were due back in 1932.  SALUTE !

SO IT GOES and the beat goes on...

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Amazon : Countdown to Black Friday Sale

I've been meaning to get this in the blog so you can take advantage of some great deals that Amazon will be having for their Shop Amazon's Holiday Countdown Store

We like shopping with Amazon as we find their customer service top notch. Last week I ordered some memory for our computers and I made a mistake (yes, I admit it... sometimes I do make a boo-boo). I ordered DIMM and not SODIMM... No problem though. Circuit City gave me an RMA number and said to send it back for a full refund. Cool...

So it goes!