Monday, December 31, 2012

Getting ready for a New Years festive feast

Well, we finally found some sour cream. We tried three stores over the past couple of days and finally found one container at a small convenience store. HURRAY!

Every New Years Eve we have blinis with smoked salmon and sour cream (it's one of those French things) along with other tasty tidbits and cheesy-whatsits.

Last week we scored on pastis.  Our local Pueblo supermarket had Pernod on sale for $10.99/liter.

I took this photo yesterday with our new phone. Came out much better than expected as I had to zoom, the dinghy was rocking, and Roseway was moving out of the harbour.

Schooner Roseway leaving Christiansted on a sunset cruise

Here's an app that you might find interesting... It is for the Time Square 2013 Ball Drop event. Some of the things are Apple only but the app on the whole still could be cool for some of you Android folks.

I love our new Samsung Galaxy smartphone. It's so nice to be able to check our email from time to time when we are out and about (but we are not a slave to it and have a Borg-like interface stuck in our ears!). Quite often when we are having our sundowner (especially if it's pastis) we have the phone using TuneIn Radio Pro app with our cool little speaker and listen to one of the Radio Nostalgie Best of the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc... Ahhhh, Johnny doing Elvis... C'est super!

Now that we have decent internet service (ChoiceWireless.com) I hope to get our web stuff caught up and do more blogging. There'll be more time for boat projects, learning more about and effectively using our ASUS tablets, developing new programming skills, playing with the cats, playing our guitars... Having more quality time and fun!

So it goes... indeed!


Sunday, December 30, 2012

Simon's Cat: Icecapade

Here's a new episode of Simon's Cat (Icecapade, December 7, 2012). Our Caribbean cats didn't understand it though :)



Simon's Cat on YouTube: Icecapade

The water seemed really cold when I went for a swim yesterday but at least it wasn't solid!

So It Goes...


Monday, December 24, 2012

4th Christmas Carol

Wait!  Here's a Christmas Carol that I missed out of yesterday's blog post...

Last night when I was listening to the fabulous Little Steven's Underground Garage, he played a clip from a film between two songs, as he frequently does, and it was Bill Murray from the 1988 movie, Scrooged.


What a wonderful film and definitely one that I'd like to watch this holiday season.

You can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray and get it in a couple of days or watch it on Amazon Instant Video.

Super cast, including: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum, Michael J. Pollard, Jamie Farr, Robert Goulet, Buddy Hackett, John Houseman, Lee Majors, Pat McCormick, Brian Doyle-Murray, and as the street musicians: Miles Davis, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn, Paul Shaffer...

I just discovered a bit of trivia. The sound bite at the end credits of Little Steven's Underground Garage, "Go back to Jersey, you moron!," is from Scrooged.... said by the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by David Johansen.

So it goes...




Sunday, December 23, 2012

3 Christmas Carols

Last night I started reading Charles Dicken's The Christmas Carol. And, probably since I haven't watched TV in a long, long time, I'm not picturing Scrooge as Mr Magoo or having Jim Backus' voice.


One cool aspect of this Kindle Book is that it is FREE.  Read (or reread) this classic Christmas Story.


Or, if you need to get your traditional Mr Magoo fix, you can get it on Amazon Instant Video.

And, for our third version of A Christmas Carol, there's Henri the Existential Cat...


Henri says he must have eaten something disagreeable. The subtitles then go on to say, "There's more of whitefish about you and tuna in gravy than of grave about you".  To my surprise, I read in the Dicken's novel last night "there's more of gravy than of grave about you". Clever cat :)

December 23, 2012 - St Croix @ 10:00 am

It is quite a wintry-looking day here in St Croix.  We are going to walk up to Pueblo this afternoon in search of Egg Nog.

So it goes... and Happy Holidays!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Five Years

It has been five years since we met these little kittens and invited them home.


They accepted and we're a happy family...

So it goes...

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Feel much better now

I'm not as ratty as I have been.  We have new internet service and that has made us happy campers.

At the beginning of November (election day), the day before our monthly subscription with BroadbandVI our frustrating ISP (INTERMITTENT Service Provider) for a couple of years expired, we went shopping for a new service.

  ===>
 
BroadbandVI was just getting worse and worse. One day we tried and tried to get online all morning and finally did after 1:00 pm and then only for 45 minutes. Very stressful. Such a time waster and a good cause of rattiness. When I called their office I was told that we (hotspot users) were no longer "part of their reality"... We are real enough when they take the $60/month! So, we were as mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore.

Over a year ago when I called BroadbandVI to complain about their crappy service, the technician told me to check AT&T.

We went to Sunny Isle shopping center and stopped first at Radio Shack to find our internet solution. They only had plans that required contracts, while we wanted month to month service. The lady at RS told me that she uses Choice Wireless at home and she was happy with them. She suggested that we go a few doors down and visit AT&T.

So, off we go in search of the internet grail...

At AT&T I only had to wait about 30 minutes which wasn't bad as they had a display with the names of waiting customers and you could see your name rise slowly to the top. Nice feature. The lady I had was very nice and helpful. She showed me their MiFi device that was the size of a credit card that could connect up to 5 computers. It was only available if you took a 2-year contract and had a pretty hefty early termination fee. She suggested that I try Choice Wireless. She even hunted down a phone book so I could get their number.

I called Choice and talked to someone in the States. We were happy with their no-contract plans and we had a nice walk of a mile or so to their local office. We had to wait a bit but that was good because we could see what sort of service and care they gave the customers. They did not seem in a hurry which is good as I'm always nervous that I'm taking too much time and there are so many people waiting behind me.

It was our turn. You have to buy the modem/radio/antenna (call it what you will) but it was on special offer at only $10 instead of the normal $99 AND the first month of service was only $10. Such a deal. We opted for their middle plan of $55/month (up to 3Mbps and yes, we have downloaded files at that speed) with UNLIMITED usage.

The Greenpacket 4G Modem has an omnidirectional antenna so it works well at anchor. It allows for 5 devices to be connected via wifi. We are getting such great service. Sometimes it's so fast you don't realize that the page has changed, and at the slowest times, it is running at about the best speed that we received with a BroadbandVI hotspot. They told us we have two towers near us... one at Hotel on the Cay which is the resort on the little island in Christiansted and another at Mount Welcome. When I was at the charter yacht show on St Thomas last month, the boats who had the same plan as ours were very happy with it.

While we were at Choice, we decided that we should get a smartphone so we could check our email & do other stuff when necessary when we are off the boat. The sales rep told us that they were going to have a Black Friday sale so if we could wait we could get another great deal.

So, with a few days left on our AT&T GoPhone plan which was $50/month for unlimited long distance, texting, and dumbphone data (which I never used), we went back to Choice Wireless and bought a Samsung Galaxy II (50% off) and their monthly smartphone plan (50% for 1st month). The smartphone plan is $65/month but has UNLIMITED data. With AT&Ts plan, it was also $65/month but with only 1GB of data and then $$$ for each GB thereafter. We lucked out again because Choice was offering a free month of service if you kept your old phone number. Such a deal...

This has made our lives a bit easier... and every little bit counts. Thank you Choice Wireless and keep up the good service.

So it goes!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Latest book cheap today on Amazon

We picked up the first two books of Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Chronicles series at the flea market but, unfortunately, never found the next two books in the series.

Well, today, 12/12/12, Amazon has the latest book of the series, number 5, Death of Kings: A Novel (The Saxon Chronicles) [Kindle Edition] for only $1.99.  Even though I don't yet have books 3 & 4, I know I'll never see such a good price as this again so I snatched it up. It goes with the cruising the Caribbean philosophy of "if you see it, need it, buy it" because it most probably won't be in the store next time you shop.

 BLOGGER IMAGE UPLOAD NOT WORKING

Bernard Cornwell (Author)


If you are a Bernard Cornwell fan, GO FOR IT !

So it goes...

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Hurricane Season is officially over!

Today is December 1st which means that hurricane season is officially over in the Caribbean & Atlantic. On So It Goes, this is an important holiday... Let's do the happy dance!

WAIT
WHAT'S THIS ???

Invest 91 L
Didn't he get the memo?


SPECIAL TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
830 AM EST SAT DEC 1 2012

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

1. SHOWER AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED OVER THE CENTRAL ATLANTIC OCEAN ABOUT 1150 MILES SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES HAS NOT BECOME SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER ORGANIZED SINCE YESTERDAY. HOWEVER...SOME DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOW IS STILL POSSIBLE BEFORE IT MERGES WITH A FRONTAL SYSTEM IN A COUPLE OF DAYS.  THIS SYSTEM HAS A MEDIUM CHANCE...50 PERCENT...OF BECOMING A TROPICAL OR SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AS IT MOVES GENERALLY NORTHWARD AT 10 TO 15 MPH.

IF NECESSARY...ANOTHER SPECIAL TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK WILL BE ISSUED FOR THIS SYSTEM LATER TODAY OR THIS EVENING.  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND IN HIGH SEAS FORECASTS ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.

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

At least it's not in our neck of the woods.

So It Goes...