I was in Annapolis all last week and went up there Monday afternoon and didn't get back until about 10pm on Friday - at least that was after picking up my pup and finally getting home again. Oh, and that pic is of the restaurant that we went to on Wednesday night and was called Buddy's Crab & Ribs joint which is in downtown Annapolis right near the docks. At least they had some super duper crabs and think that I tried my first blue crab too.
I was up in Annapolis attending a Starwood training class at my Sheraton and I even got the same room that I had the last time that I was there. It was a long class which went on for four days but there sure is a heck of a lot to learn about the new computer system where that was almost not enough time. The weather was beautiful as well but started to get a little warm on Friday - but no where near the heat that we have here. We also found out last week that we are assuming the management of the Palm Springs Wyndham in a couple of weeks so that might be my next trip - CA might be kind of nice this time of year!
But traveling so much sure is taking a wear on me but I'm doing ok, again I spent most of today trying to get caught up but didn't come close - I did ok on the day by day stuff but didn't make a dent in another of the other projects that have been backing up. At least my e-mail box should be fairly clean to start the new week. I had been griping about how much of a waste of time it is sitting on airplanes doing nothing and one of my co-workers suggested that I get a book - and while I was up there I picked up CIA Double Dealer (Las Vegas) and read that on my way back home on Friday. And I can't remember the last time that I read a book (that wasn't required for work) but dang if that didn't do the trick - it was like watching a movie on tv ..... just a little slower and I had to rewind it a few times to try and comprehend what I just read .... but it was pretty great. I also did a little work on the laptop although that's kind of a pain - but at least the three hours that I spent didn't seem to drag by quite as slow. And for some reason the flights on Friday were all running ahead of schedule, we left MD like 10 minutes early and got to Memphis like 30 minutes early ...... to bad that there was a plan sitting at our gate that made us sit on the tarmac for for just as long so we ended up getting there slickly late. I had to kind of rush through my home port - and didn't even get a chance to eat at my normal Backyard Burger :(
This weekend has been busy not having a Friday night, I kind of slept in yesterday morning and then hit the lawn, got my hair cut and that was about it. Today I didn't get up that early either but early enough - worked and did laundry but didn't even worry about cleaning the house (that's one good thing about not being home for a week!). The weather here is the usual - 90' during the day and 75' at night - haven't seen any signs of rain around these parts neither.
Well, I guess that's enough for another day so I'll end this here, have a great week as we slide into the holiday! Talk with you later - night!
Here it is another Sunday night, at least I think that it is as this month has been flying right by! I was in DC last week and went up there on Tuesday and came back on Friday at stayed at one of our new hotels called the L 'Enfant Plaza in downtown DC. The place was pretty cool and you couldn't even really tell that it was a hotel as most of it is an office complex - and dang if there aren't some back hallways in that place I kept getting lost. And being gone two weeks before that and then again in the near future and I have no time to do any of my regular job and it's kind of wearing me out. I spent quite a bit of the weekend just trying to get caught up, I even woke up early this morning to make sure that I had a couple of extra hours. And between the laundry and the house cleaning that was pretty much my day.
I didn't do all that much yesterday either, it started out pretty cloudy and I thought that it was going to rain again and my lawn mowing was gonna be a wash out but by noon or so the sun was a shining and I went out and worked on that for a few hours ..... dang thing is growing like a weed! Montie sure could use a buzz cut too and is long overdue but I'm never home to think about it half way through the week to get him an appointment ...... one of these days for sure though.
Not much else to report though, I got my pc all back in tip top shape (for the most part), and realized that I have almost a half a terabyte on this thing .... guess that I've still got lots of space to grow. It has been acting up every now and then though and I'm not still totally convinced that I can trust it but it's at least been working very well since i got back on Friday. My brother called and thanked me for his Dad's Day card that I sent to make sure that he at least got one :) and he also asked me about the underwater camera photos that I got developed last week. I don't really think that any of them were all that great - a couple of fish and the likes and that was about it. I'll have to look through them again some day and see if I can salvage any of them but I don't think that there were any that were all that great.
And I guess that it's only a couple of more weeks and the 4th of July will all ready be here - did I hear that yesterday was the first day of summer or something like that? Seems like it takes forever to get here and will be gone before we even knew what hit us ...... but I'm all ready kind of looking forward to cooler weather. Have a great week and I'll talk with you again one of these days.
Here it is another Sunday night in the middle of June and dang if it doesn't all ready feel like summertime! Close to 90' today so I guess that it could have been worse and I'm sure that it's going to be before it gets any better. We had that storm come through yesterday afternoon and I was thinking that I was going to get the day off from mowing the lawn but by about noon it was clearing up and by 2pm it was dry enough so I headed out. The storm was nothing for us, I don't even think that it rained all that much other than a drizzle but it was windier than normal and my poor tree out back lost another limb - he's not doing so well.
I also never got around to mentioning that I lost my "c" drive the Thursday before I went on vacation and lost all of my programs so instead of being way ahead I ended up even deeper in the hole than being gone for a week alone. I never did get around to replacing the drive that came the Friday before but ended up doing that last night and reloaded windows and then everything else. It took me most of yesterday morning working on that so I was glad that it was raining out but guess that I was about done by the time the sun came out. It gave me a few challenges but I think that it's now back better than ever, at least a lot cleaner. But dang if I've only had the dang thing for six months and for it to all ready fail a drive kind of sucks.
Not too much else going on here, the lawn is looking great but the house could use a wash. I think that I'm going to be traveling again in the next couple of weeks but at least I should be home to enjoy the weekends. I guess that's about it for today, have a great week and I'll talk with you soon.
Sunday night here, the party is over and it's back to work again in the morning ...... kind of depressing that my vacation has come to a close. I finally got home about 9pm last night traveling from Cancun to Memphis and then here and it was just a long day overall. Late night late night and then got up and worked for a while, at least digging through some of the unread e-mail in my in-box. And it was messed up coming through Customs yesterday and they make you get your luggage off the international flight and then have it rechecked - but the bag belt was broke so they were just flying up from underground and going now where. We finally had to end up doing the human chain thing off passing the bags to the next person. At least I had lots of time, so no worse for the wear.
And my vacation was great, I left last Saturday morning and got back late Saturday night. I'd have to say WOW, and I realized that of all of the resorts that I've worked at in my day I've never actually took a leisure vacation in one. The all inclusive thing is even better than sliced bread, the weather was hot and humid but there was always a breeze blowing off the ocean. It was great, it was great weather and rained a couple of times but nothing that got in our way. But as I said earlier the party is over and I realized that today.
My brother and I did pretty well hanging out 24/7 (as we only had one room key and never bothered to ask for another one) for the last week. I think that we are alike in more ways that we know and found enough to talk about to keep each other amused, didn't get on either one's nerves (I don't think anyways), and even ended on a good note of a 12 noon Corona (at the airport as technically we were still on vacation). It was fun, I think that we were both blown away to see how the other half lives and decided that we might just have to take more of these type vacations.
I got up this morning and have been running all day long. I worked for a few hours, then had to mow the lawn as the front was huge and the back hadn't been mowed in more than two weeks. And it's hot here - close to 90' and all ready feels like summer. I also did a bunch of laundry and worked on my pictures, went and got groceries and now I'm beat, ready for another week of vacation I think. Well, you can check out the pictures that I posted from the trip
here - I took my underwater camera to Wally World today but they won't be ready for a while. I guess that's about it - have a great week and I will talk with you soon.
Here's a pic of me and Tim having dinner Thursday night ...... and I think that I just realized that it's the only picture of the two of us together :?)
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My Mexico Vacation ...... pictures
hereSaturday, 05/28
I left the house at 4:45am to head to the airport and got there around 5am and dang, I've never seen it as busy as that even for that hour. But after an uneventful trip I made it to the Cancun Airport around 1pm and after about an hour or so of getting my bags and going through Customs we began our world tour of Mexico! I ended up waiting outside of the Customs area and my brother was about an hour or so behind me and I walked up behind him as he was just leaving the airport. I had ended up booking transportation on the Barcelo website so we had a van waiting for us but it sure was a zoo at that place so I'm glad that we had some directions to follow. The hotel is about an hour or so south of the airport in a place called Riviera Maya and it sure was a strange trip seeing Mexico for the first time. Rocks, and lime stone and piles of stuff, men walking up and down the roads and there wasn't all that much to see. We ended up dropping off a few other people at some area hotels before getting to Barcelo and after about 10 minutes of trying to find my name on the list we went in and checked in. Soon after check in we went to our room, we were in building #3 which out of the five total that they have we were in the middle of the complex, first floor with a walk out patio and just steps from the pool with a view of the ocean. This place is paradise, palm trees and perfectly manicured landscaping, it reminded me of some of the hotels that I have worked in where the surroundings make the place, and this place certainly wasn't any different.
We ended up walking around kind of in a daze not knowing where we were or what to expect but it didn't take us too long before we were down by the pool sipping a cold one - and then it didn't take long for us to throw on the bathing suits and get into the pool. And this isn't just your normal pool, the thing goes from one half of the property to the end and is free flowing so you can swim from one end to the other with a big botany on one end and a swim up bar on the other. We ended up doing that till it was time for dinner, then went and feasted our first meal of the week. We also ended up stopping by one of the evening shows that is nightly in the theater but we didn't stay long so I'm not sure what the theme was but there was a bunch of people singing and I think that it was Mexican.
Sunday, 05/29
I think that the biggest decision that we have had to make all week is to figure out if we were going to lay by the pool or lay on the beach. We started out by the pool and did that for a few hours, then went down and checked out the water sports and got a two man khaki and took that out in the ocean for about an hour with Tim in the front and me in the back. It was a nice workout to say the least but it was fun just the same and gave us something to do. After we got tired out from doing that we ended up going for a swim in the ocean, I at this point was getting pretty good with my goggles and air tube thingy although there wasn't much fishy's to see ..... at least not there.
And after a full day at the pool and beach we ended up doing dinner again, and then we went and checked out the Miss Barcelo Beauty pageant which was rather humorous, then we the went down to Captain Morgan's "disco" but never did end up staying long enough for the party to begin. And dang if the music from that isn't loud until 2am, it's woken us up on more than one night this week and we are half the property away from the thing. I'm not sure why they offer such an outlet and must get tons of noise complaints as it doesn't open until 11pm and goes to 2am and so far we haven't seen what actually goes on in the place.
Monday, 05/30 ...... Memorial Day actually although it didn't seem much more out of the normal than any of the other days. Again, we had to decide if we were going to lay out at the pool or on the beach and we ended up doing both with the pool being first. I tried out my snorkeling gear in the pool and did ok but had a hard time going under water and blowing the tube out again. We again went kiakiing for an hour or so and this time did it in single person boats which was a little easier to control and again a pretty good work out. My brother ended up falling out of the boat I think three times that day and while he had a really tough time getting back in the first couple of times he ended up getting pretty good at it. I of course was laughing my butt off at him as he struggled to try and keep the boat afloat without rolling it over. We also ended up walking most of the property to try and get a better lay of the land and checked out the miniature golf course and putting green, the business center and the health club which was a good way to kill some time before dinner. We also had a chance to try out the scuba diving thing in the pool as they were offering it all week and they showed us how to use the equipment and it was really cool that when you let all of the air out of your lungs you sunk right to the bottom of the pool. That was fun, and it king of made me want to try it out for real and just might have to some day.
Our seven night stay also included two nights at the fine dining restaurants and Monday night we chose the Mexican restaurant which was a really good meal, both Tim and I had the shrimp thing as our main entree, shared a sampler platter thing for an hors dueve and salads in between. For desert we had this really cool cup of fruit that was made out of chocolate that was also pretty good, we discussed how they made the things and decided that it must have been made over a blown up balloon. After dinner we checked out the Mexican Feista which was a music show in the theater and hung out there until 11pm when it ended and then headed down to Captain Morgans but never did make it to the opening of the disco ...... but it certainly was open later on as we were awoken by the bass of the music pounding our walls until 2am again
Tuesday, 05/31
We decided that we probably should go off property at least a couple of days that we were there even though it would have been very easy to just hang out by the pool and do nothing all week so we booked one of the tours to the Tulum Ruins and the Xma-Ha Eco Park which was really cool. We ended up having to get up really early that day ..... well about 6:30am as the bus picked us up at 8am for about a 30 minute trip to Tulum. The ruins were ok and we walked around there with our guide while he explained all of the history of the place which is actually beautiful, built on a cliff that is like 40' high above one of the most beautiful beaches that I've seen. They have a set of stairs running up and down the cliff so that you can go down and go swimming which a lot of people did, but we walked around and took lots of pictures. There were also iganna's running all over the place and we ended up getting a few good pictures of them. But it was HOT and humid so after about 2 hours of that that was about all that we could handle and then it was time for the second part of our tour.
We also booked the Xma-Ha package which is kind of like a natural water park, an eco-park as they call it and is right on the ocean but also has fresh water inlets. They offered snorkeling with tons of the fish, swimming with dolphins and they also let you run free to explore with cliffs to jump off and caves to explore, you can even rent bikes or just lie around in one of the hammocks. Tim and I ended up deciding to go Snuba'ing which is a mix between snorkeling and scuba diving but because the tanks are above water on a little boat you don't need anything more than a couple of minutes of training in order to do it. We booked it for an hour and that was plenty of time, the guy that took us out also brought food for the fish and they were just swarming around us. After that we ended up having lunch which was all included and a really good steak type thing that our guide recommended and it was great. We also walked around for quite a while and think that all in all we spent about five hours roaming around the place.
Once we got back we both napped on the hammocks out by the pool for a little while and then had dinner in the main restaurant which was always good, then went and checked out the Carbea on Broadway show in the theater and at about 9pm or so it started to pour rain and that lasted for quite a while. I don't think that they even opened up the disco that night which wasn't so bad by me.
Wednesday, 06/01
I Woke up at 7am and Tim was gone, I kind of looked around for him a little and walked down to the beach but never did end up seeing him. I guess that he woke up early and couldn't sleep and he decided to take a walk up to the north end of the beach checking out more of the property. Barcelo is in the process of doubling in size and are building an entirely new complex next to the hotel which might be about half way complete, they've got the pools and building up and were tiling the pools and guess that they might be going from like 1,100 rooms to 2,500 which is huge although I'm not sure when they are set to open the hotel but it's still going to be a while. I also starting to think about the things that I still wanted to try and get done and came up with shopping off property and maybe ATV riding through the jungle but I wasn't too sure if we were going to get around to it.
Thursday, 06/02
Tim woke me up about 7am and again he went for a walk as he wanted to show me the rest of the north side of the property so we did that before heading out to breakfast. While Tim was in the shower I went up to the tour desk and booked an afternoon of riding ATV vehicles and speed boats for Friday afternoon which I thought would be real cool. And then after we were both ready it was off to the pool, and by now we were really starting to develop a routine, strawberry daiquiris at noon, and then lunch and then off to the beach for another swim. We ended up going off property again and went to Playa de Carmen which is a small shopping district about 15 minutes north of the hotel and we took a taxi up there and spent a few hours looking around. Neither of us ended up buying anything but we stopped and had a couple of cocktails and window shopped for a while and dang if it wasn't a unique place.
For our second night of fine dining we decided to do Captain Morgan's which is also the hotel's steak restaurant and that was great - Tim had the strip and I had the filet and it was yummy, another fine choice. After dinner we ended up going back to our room for a while and sitting on the patio and then went up to the theater for another night of Mexican singers and dancers which lasted until 11pm. We also ended up getting smarter with the disco and decided that if we "can't beat them we might as well join them" and ended up going there after the theater got done and hung out watching all of the crazy kids dance their socks off. And although we probably only made it to about 1:30am before we headed back to the room both of us sure did sleep a lot better ...... or was it the Corona's that did that?
Friday, 06/03
By this point we are both fried rather crispy and probably shouldn't have been out in the sun any more than we all ready had but what the heck, you only live once right? So as a change of pace we ended up going to the beach first and swam and laid around for a couple of hours before heading back up to the pools (remember, noon daiquiris were on the schedule!), we laid out there for a while and then had lunch. We had a van pick us up at around 2pm for our afternoon in the jungle which turned out to be really cool - I'm still not sure if I liked the ATVs or the speedboats better but they were both pretty cool. They kind of lead you around on this sand path through the woods for about an hour and dang if those things don't move pretty good. After we got done with that we moved over to the speed boats and it seemed like we did that for a lot longer than the ATVs and those little boats cruise right along - we were even speed jumping waves as you got airborne for a couple of seconds. It was a great time had by all and well worth it and a great way to end out the week.
I was in Annapolis all last week and went up there Monday afternoon and didn't get back until about 10pm on Friday - at least that was after picking up my pup and finally getting home again. Oh, and that pic is of the restaurant that we went to on Wednesday night and was called Buddy's Crab & Ribs joint which is in downtown Annapolis right near the docks. At least they had some super duper crabs and think that I tried my first blue crab too.
