All About Boats... So it goes...

Cat Blogging Friday: St Thomas Disney Cruiseship

2009-11-27T02:11:00.001-04:00

On Wednesday, the Disney cruiseship Magic was in port at Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

The Disney cruise ship leaving St. Thomas, USVI

Our cats, Buffy & Willow, don't like it when the megayachts sound their horns when they pass through the bridge in St. Maarten. Car & truck horns don't phase them, but boats make them go below.

I wondered what their reaction would be to the Disney's annoying "When You Wish Upon A Star" horn... sort of like mine... run below :)

Willow & Buffy hiding

Poor things... Hopefully we'll be gone before Disney comes back to St Thomas.

Must Have Thanksgiving Music : Alice's Restaurant Massacree

2009-11-26T08:55:00.004-04:00

This is such a classic and I'm surprised we don't have it... Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Massacree

"This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant.... Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant..." - Lyrics from Alice's Restaurant

Arlo Guthrie's Thought for The Day is:
"If they're only going to play one song of mine on only one day each year, it might as well be the longest one I wrote" - ADG

This album came out in 1967 and my brother had it recorded on reel-to-reel tape! I loved it then and I love it now.

You can buy Alice's Restaurant Massacree through Amazon.com's MP3 download... I just did. It is only 89 cents and it is almost 16 minutes long... SUCH A DEAL!

Happy Thanksgiving!

St Thomas USVI - Lunch with Hanalei Bay

2009-11-25T18:12:00.002-04:00

Yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, the charter yacht HANALEI BAY invited us to lunch at Coconuts in downtown Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

Franz & Diane of Charter Yacht HANALEI BAY

It was nice to see Franz & Diane again. We have had many charters aboard Hanalei Bay, plus we have clients aboard for New Years! We know that they'll have a wonderful sailing vacation and an excellent celebration to bring in the New Year.

For information about chartering Hanalei Bay, contact Paradise Connections Yacht Charters.

I had the grouper salad which was very nice. I've been wanting fish for a while.

The waiter took a group photo and said it would be up on their website next week. Franz had twisted my arm to have a Bushwacker so I hope I don't look too whacked out :)

BLOCKBUSTER closing St Thomas US Virgin Islands store

2009-11-25T17:54:00.001-04:00

Shame on you, Blockbuster!

I was VERY disappointed today when we went to Blockbuster. We have $7+ credit and we wanted to use it up before leaving. They have $.99 DVDs Monday to Wednesday. We had already selected 3 movies and a clerk came up to us and asked if we were renting. Yes, of course... that's the normal activity at Blockbuster :)

Well, she said they are no longer renting DVDs, but we can buy them if we wished.... WHAT?!

Turns out that Blockbuster is closing down the store in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands and also some in Puerto Rico. Bummer!

Big Bad Bummer for the employees who I think just found out about this as they would have mentioned this to us when we were just in the store a couple of days ago.

I felt so bad for them (and that we couldn't rent movies & use up our credit). To lose their jobs especially during the holiday season... How awful.

Thumbs down for Blockbuster. Boo Hiss.

St Thomas - Thanks Promenade

2009-11-24T09:53:00.001-04:00

Yesterday morning (Monday) I sent a quick email to Lisa of the charter trimaran Promenade asking if she could pick up 6 12-packs of Coke for us when she goes to Cost-U-Less. I thought I was probably too late and that they would be gone before receiving my request.

In the evening we were pleasantly surprised to see Rich & Lisa dinghying over to us with a stack of Coke Zero and Fresca boxes. That was so nice of them and we really appreciate it.

Here are a few photos that Lisa took of us...

Caught relaxing on the foredeck

Buffy was being very sociable

Even Willow came out to say hello

Thanks for the photos. Have a safe trip back to Tortola and hope to see you soon!

St Thomas Sunday - Promenade is here!

2009-11-23T17:32:00.001-04:00

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the local K-Mart and bought a few things, then we went to the fuel dock at the Yacht Haven Marina. They are open until 4:30pm on Sundays so that was useful.

We got a couple jerrycans of water ($0.20/gallon) and some gasoline ($3.37/gallon). This time we asked for a receipt :)

We also went to Wendy's because we wanted a Chili & Cheese baked potato. Again, they didn't have chili... I don't know about potatoes :)

Just as we were returning to So It Goes, Bob sees a schooner and then he recognizes that it's the trimaran Promenade... COOL!

My camera was having problems, but you can still make it out OK

They were anchoring right behind us so we told Lisa who had just dropped the anchor (of course) that DPNR made us move from there and they should move up a bit. I hoped they didn't think I was trying to get rid of them :)

Later, Lisa & Rich came over in the dinghy. Buffy was very friendly and played with Lisa. Willow even got up the nerve to come out a couple of times and check things out.

By the way, Promenade is still available for New Years!

PROMENADE (trimaran)
10 guests maximum
Open for New Years on or after Dec.28th through Jan.4
Rate: $15,990/wk for up to 10 guests - Lowered rate!
Brochure: http://www.viewyacht.com/promenade/

This low rate is also in effect for open dates in January 2010.
Contact Paradise Connections for details.

St Thomas USVI Saturday: Tutu Park Mall

2009-11-22T10:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Saturday, we went up to the big "country" K-Mart at Tutu Park Mall.

Again, it was a bit of a disappointment... at least it wasn't as busy as I expected for a Saturday. The only thing we bought there that we couldn't get at the smaller "downtown" store at Lockhart Gardens was a couple of pairs of shorts for Bob. They have more magazines at the big store but not really any more products that we could get excited about.

We walked down the mall and went into FootLocker but there's one across the street from where we are anchored... need new sandals... Bob's Columbia Sportwear sandals fell apart before their time awhile back and I noticed that mine have just (I hope) started to have that sandal smell.

We went to the video/music/game store near the end of the mall but we were not really in the mood. We get most all of our DVDs and music from Amazon.

The food court was sad. Only two choices and neither were appealing.

We then went outside and around to the Plaza Extra supermarket. We were told that they were better/cheaper than Pueblo, but we didn't find that to be the case. We did buy a pumpkin pie ($4.99) and enjoyed that for our lead up to Thanksgiving.

We popped in and out of Western Auto and also Office Max. Boring!

We caught a ViTran bus back downtown with our one shopping bag.

At least it is nice to know that we haven't been missing anything :)

We'll hit Cost-U-Less for a bit of provisioning the day before we leave towards Antigua.

Friday CAT BLOGGING ... Friday again?

2009-11-20T16:54:00.000-04:00

Can't believe it's Friday already/again and that we've been in St. Thomas USVI for 8 days (although my feet know it!)

Here's a picture of Buffy trying on her Halloween costume.

Willow had one, also, but was too excited to hold still for a sister picture.

My brother sent me this photo today of Edgar the Basket Case :)

He loves sleeping in baskets and he barely fits in this one. Edgar is a Ragdoll. He sleeps there just about every night now. Too cute. One of their other cats, Aquila who is larger than Edgar, likes to sleep in it during the day, but Edgar sleeps there at night.

St Thomas USVI - Cost-U-Less & Home Depot

2009-11-19T15:02:00.002-04:00

This morning we went to Home Depot and Cost-U-Less... but first a bit about yesterday's water run.

We went to the Yacht Haven Grande marina in Long Bay, St. Thomas, USVI to fill two jerrycans of water. They are the blue 5-gallon ones (6 gallons if you fill tiptop). The guy at the dock was very nice. He told us that water was 20 cents/gallon and that we had two 6-gallon jugs. He asked if we wanted a receipt and we told him it wasn't necessary. He then used a calculator to figure that 12 gallons at $0.20 = $3.60. I had $2.50 out and then gave him $3.75 instead. I was a bit confused but didn't want to make a scene... I don't think he did it on purpose. He probably charged us for 3 jerrycans or entered 30 cents instead of 20. Next time I'll ask for a receipt.

This morning, DPNR asked us to move. They didn't ask the boats in front of us so we moved up with them. The DPNR officers seemed surprised that we didn't make a fuss... we said OK no problem... He said you must move immediately... OK. He hesitated and then told us Thank you for your cooperation and have a good day.

So, after sorting that out, we hung up the rest of the clothes to dry and then dinghied into the Coast Guard dock near the green Legislature building. We crossed the street to catch the bus and dropped off a small bag of trash into one of the three small garbage cans they have there at the corner of Vendors Plaza and the Fire Station where the traffic lights are.

We caught the VITran Bovoni bus and he dropped us off in front of Home Depot's parking lot (we didn't have to walk up the hill). It only cost $1 (exact change for the machine) each, while the safari/dollar bus is $2.

Home Depot was a bit of a disappointment. You can tell as we only spent $17 there :)

Cost-U-Less... No tortillas? darn! Didn't see the guacamole either. We bought one of their roasted chickens ($5.99) for lunch and now have some nice leftovers. Buffy thought it was pretty tasty, too! Coca-Cola products were a bit cheaper there at $4.39 a 12-pack but it is easier for us to walk over to the Long Bay K-Mart and pay $4.99. Good price on potato chips (same as St. Maarten Cost-U-Less). The corn chip strips they have at this store are good ($4.95?) but really bulky to carry on the bus unless you scrunch them down in your bag :) Price on an 8-pack box of S&W corn was good ($6.95?) so got one. Bought the box of Crystal Light which is cheaper than the tube. Only place we've ever seen it is at Cost-U-Less. We might get a blue water jerrycan from them for about $12 which is much better than the marine stores. They didn't really have anything super special though :(

Maybe we'll go up to Tutu (hopefully on a ViTran bus as I'm cheap) and check out the big K-Mart and see what Plaza Extra has for food shopping. We've been told that they are less expensive than Pueblo. The thing about Pueblo is that they are closer and easy to get to by dinghy.

Laundry & Prices on St Thomas, USVI

2009-11-18T13:53:00.001-04:00

This morning we went to Crown Bay Marina to do our laundry to find that they are closed for renovations for another couple of weeks. So, we walked our clothes to the laundromat right across from Nisky Center, which worked OK as we wanted to go to Radio Shack to buy a new multimeter.

Speaking of multimeters, we went to Radio Shack the other day to buy new batteries for our current Radio Shack multimeter but the set of three cost $15. The new unit we bought today (batteries included) came to $23.

Back to laundry...

This laundromat was very clean and airy. The machines appeared to be in good nick and they have several large tables for folding. There is a soap dispenser, too. The manager was nice and helpful but a bit tedious with his instructions on how to use the machines but I understand that...

The machines take quarters and they have 2 change machines that will change up to a $20 bill.

They have 5 or 6 standard top-loaders in the back for $3.50

The front loaders:

small = $5.00
medium = $6.75
large = $11.75

Unfortunately, they didn't say how many pounds or kilo machines these were, so I can't tell you.

The dryers were $0.25 for 4 minutes. Worked well.

We then stopped in at Gourmet Gallery to pick something up for lunch. I was thinking about lettuce for our sandwiches but at $2.75 for an iceberg lettuce, I passed. We got a dozen large eggs for $4 and a 6-pack of pita bread for $2.

Prices in general are higher in St Thomas than St Martin. Beef is cheaper.

Tomorrow we plan to go to Home Depot and Cost-U-Less. Not sure if that will be $1 or $2 on the safari bus. Where is the breaking point? I know Tutu is country, but is that the beginning of the country designation? We'll see.

Going to return DVDs to Blockbuster and get a few more. Monday through Wednesday if you rent three or more "non-new-release" DVDs (the DVDs in the center part of the store, not including TV shows) they are only $0.99 each. Such a deal!!!

We are also going to take jerrycans for water and gasoline over to Yacht Haven marina to top up.

It is a nice sunny day to hang out our laundry.

St Thomas - Mail Call

2009-11-17T15:25:00.000-04:00

Today is a much nicer day in St. Thomas USVI weatherwise.

Although, Bob did have to go and rescue a tiger that was swimming in the bay.

We hope to find it's owner. If not, we'll adopt him.

This morning we went to Reefco Services and picked up our treasures! Many thanks, Edy, for being our mail drop. We didn't go to St Thomas in May as we had planned so our Amazon, Harmony House, Animal Rescue Site, etc orders kind of built up and it was like Christmas with all of the goodies we had waiting for us.

These DVDs will last us several months, especially since we usually watch at least the previous season of a series before watching the new one. Books, too!

Lots of dried vegetables & dried meat-like substances from Harmony House (see link in the left column).

So, now we are off to Radio Shack to buy a spindle or two of blank DVDs and go to Pueblo to do a bit of shopping for dinner.

Tomorrow might be laundry day at Crown Bay Marina.

Stormy weather in St Thomas this morning

2009-11-16T10:41:00.004-04:00

It has been a pretty crappy morning weatherwise today in St Thomas US Virgin Islands. The radio said we received 1.5 inches of rain in 90 minutes and the weather station shows a gust of 30MPH. They are forecasting more funkiness for this afternoon.

In the wee hours of the morning between 2-3am, a sailboat anchored near us in Long Bay, "downtown" Charlotte Amalie STT. They were flashing a spotlight around so I put on our deck lights for about 15 minutes to help them see us.

This morning when the alarm went off at 7am I was tired and thought about delaying putting on the coffee for a half hour... This was not to be. There was a strange noise that we recognized as being a motor and then Bob saw a pair of masts through the port above our bed.

Our new neighbor was motoring to keep off of us. This was a bit worrying, so Bob put on foul weather gear, let out some chain, and stayed outside for about an hour until the weather let up a bit.

This photo was taken at 9:45am... MORNING!!!

I must mention that the crew from our new neighbor dropped by and apologized for being so close to us after the wind had shifted this morning. That was a nice gesture.

The water is very brown from the run-off from land. There's also lots of stuff floating in the water that comes from the "guts" or ditches that collect lots of trash and branches, then gets washed out into the bay during heavy rains. Quite often when this happens, people see all of this garbage floating in the harbour and blame the boats for it when in truth it is from the land dwellers... So It Goes :)

We still have a light drizzle, so we are staying put on the boat rather than collecting all of the treasures we had sent to our friends at Reefco Services. Thanks again for holding our mail, Edy. We are so looking forward to our DVDs, books, and whatever else we ordered :)

Haven't blogged in a bit. We left St Martin on Tuesday and arrived in St Thomas USVI Wednesday, cleared in on Thursday morning. More on that later, maybe.

We are out of Simpson Bay Lagoon HURRAY!

2009-11-08T14:29:00.000-04:00

This morning we left the Simpson Bay Lagoon (St. Martin) at the 8:15am opening of the Sandy Ground (Marigot) bridge.

We are back at our spot in Marigot Bay and what a difference both Bob & I feel. Freedom! The water is such a light, clear blue and such a nice breeze. Just feels clean and fresh. HAPPY!!!

If you are entering the lagoon, we are on the right side of the channel to the bridge, all by ourselves.

No problem seeing the chain.

We plan to sail to the Virgin Islands tomorrow morning to attend the St. Thomas charter yacht show. This is the way to St. Thomas...

Got a few more things to do and then it's time to go swimming!

Cat Blogging Friday: Wacka

2009-11-06T14:15:00.001-04:00

Thank you Derek, for scanning and sending us photos from the Black Moon era. We really, really appreciate it... they're priceless!

This is Wacka. We found her through an ad at the American Church in Paris (France). She came from the Paris suburb of Sceaux.

These photos are when Bob & I lived on the River Seine aboard the barge Black Moon in Le Port Marly, downstream and to the west of Paris. We used to see the actor Jean Reno when we went shopping at the Monoprix in Saint-Germain-En-Laye where we'd catch the train into Paris :)

Here's me and Wacka at the kitchen window watching the ducks.

This is Wacka sitting on the ledge of our bedroom window.

Fond memories... Has it been 25 years?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN - Boat Cat Blogging etc

2009-10-31T10:30:00.001-04:00

Well, we don't expect to get any trick o'treaters out here in the middle of Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Martin, but Willow & Buffy are prepared to keep away all boarders and things that go bump in the night.

Would you want to tempt those evil eyes?

We plan to watch Blood: The Last Vampire tonight.

Maybe we'll prepare this:

(Meat Loaf Hand Recipe at http://www.notmartha.org)

and have dinner while watching George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead :)

I know what else we should watch... Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 2 Episode 6: "Halloween". Don't have it? You can get it from Amazon's Video On Demand for only $1.99

Keep Safe!
-------------

WARNING: MacBooks Don't Accept Small mini CDs

2009-10-30T18:52:00.004-04:00

I think I already knew this, but.... duh!

This afternoon we bought an ALFA USB Highpower Adaptor as a backup to our Engenius Bridge WiFi system. It came with a mini-CD with the manual and drivers. Hmmmm, can I put a small, mini-CD into my MacBook optical drive slot? Nothing on the box that says not to do so... It says this disk is for a bunch of Window OS and Mac OS... OK, let's give it a try...

Now, in hindsight, I think I had a situation like this once before and I had looked it up to see if I could put one of these little cute disks into the CD slot of my Apple MacBook, as I realized that there is no paperclip emergency pop out hole to use if/when the eject button won't work and I didn't do it.

So, back to the a few minutes ago... I kind of went, it should work... let's see if it will suck the disk in. No, it's not in far enough to suck it in so push it in a bit more... maybe a bit more. I now have the little CD completely in the slot and nothing is happening. No sucking in the disk sound, no spinning sound, no CD icon on the screen.... Oh Shucky Darn! So, maybe if I use the DVD we just rented and try to push it in a bit further... duh! That was a dumb thing to do. Actually, I was probably lucky that I didn't get it onto the spindle (I assume there's a spindle that the hole goes onto).

So, for some reason I'm actually calm and not TOO panicked. I go to the apple.com site. I think their support & troubleshooting system sucks but it seems better than when I've used it in the past but no help here except it says only to use standard sized 120mm optical disks.

So I Google "macbook manual eject small cd". This gives me a few possible good leads to forums where people have asked about mini-cds and MacBooks. One asked "can I insert a mini-CD in my MacBook" and someone answered "yes but have fun getting it out".

Oh, yes indeed, I did try the Restart computer and hold down trackbar to manually eject CD, but that didn't work as the CD wasn't really mounted. Since it's not mounted I couldn't use the helpful Go to Disk Utility, select the disk and eject. Oh yes, the eject button itself didn't work either...

Fortunately, the 3rd choice I clicked on was helpful. It said to shut the computer down. Hold it up so the CD slot is facing down and gently, very gently, shake the computer and hopefully the disk will slide out with gravity.

This didn't work.

So, we got out one of those thin plastic disks that come with blank DVDs as we didn't want to damage a DVD with a movie on it, and this protective disk is thinner. Bob cut the disk in half and gently inserted it into the optical slot. He tried to pinch it with both halves (I'm holding the flashlight... I'm good at that... must be from doing time in the Emergency Room). We then try tweezers but they are too big/thick to open in the little narrow slot. He does some more manipulating with the plastic disks. It seems to have moved toward the opening but you can't see it due to the velour/pile at the opening. He then gets this other tool from the manicure set that we don't know what it is for... maybe it is the special removing disk bonus tool! Anyway, he used this to try and maneuver the disk closer to the front and out.

Then Bob asked me to get our Radio Shack electrical leatherman tool. Where is it? In the electrical toolbox. But, before I had time to find the tool, Bob gently shook the computer as he was setting it down on the table and the CD dropped out onto the floor. Buffy pounced on it!

HAPPY DANCE TIME !!!

Standard-size DVD - Mini CD - Manicure Mystery Tool - Tweezers 7 - Plastic Disk Halves

Well, not too fast... Let's start up the MacBook and see if it hasn't suffered from the "gentle shaking"... I just inserted the new DVD it loaded up DVD Player but dark screen... I pressed the Play button and everything works. I quit DVD Player and ejected the DVD... Life is good...

and now it is sundowner time, althought the sun has been down for more an hour... So It Goes...

I hope this helps someone!

Another method to try is to put a post-it or some double-sided tape onto a thin card and put it in the slot so it will stick to the disc...

It's snowing somewhere? Not here!

2009-10-29T14:56:00.000-04:00

We just received an email from a charter client who told us her husband was delayed in the Denver snow storm. It is difficult to imagine a snow storm when you look outside and it looks like this...

I just took this photo and decided to post it for all of you who might be wearing socks :)

Enjoy!

Pass the Pepper Please

2009-10-29T09:02:00.000-04:00

I saw this interesting post mentioned in either Lifehacker or Boing Boing...

It is from the blog WiseBread, Living Large on a Small Budget, and the post is titled: Bioavailability: How to Get More Nutrients from Your Food

I LOVE pepper and I'm going to have to make a point of using it more often :)

Here's an excerpt:

Black pepper isn't just for seasoning
Sprinkling a dash of black pepper does more than please your taste buds. The piperine in it increases the bioavailability of many substances through a bunch of cool processes, which results in more nutrients reaching your cells. Not only that, but did you know piperine can act as an anti-depressant, pain reliever, and antacid, boost brain functioning, and help you sleep?! Can someone please pass the pepper STAT!

Hmmmm, pepper-flavored Rolaids perhaps?

Special opening times Dutch St Maarten bridge Nov 6-14 2009

2009-10-28T13:13:00.001-04:00

This morning's newspaper announced that the Dutch-side bridge to Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Maarten will be having a special opening schedule between November 6-14, 2009. Basically, it will open at 6:30am and 6pm, except for the Sunday which will be normal times.

You can see the article online or read below:

THE DAILY HERALD, Sint-Maarten Netherland Antilles

Bridge repairs resume Nov. 6 (2009)

~Road traffic not affected~

SIMPSON BAY--Repairs and maintenance on the Simpson Bay Bridge will resume on November 6 and continue until November 14, announced Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation (SLAC) Managing Director Russell Voges this week.

Vehicular traffic will not be affected, but maritime traffic will have to work with two opening times daily during the work period. Openings will be at 6:30am and 6:00pm for outbound and inbound vessels.

The bridge will be opened for short periods of no more than 15 minutes during the late evening hours to finalize the conservation of the underside of the deck.

For Sunday, November 8 only, the bridge will open for the three regular hours: 9:30am, 11:30am and 5:30pm for outbound and inbound maritime traffic.

From Sunday, November 15 until Monday, November 30, the bridge will open during the three regular hours.

As of Tuesday, December 1, the opening times will go from three to six per day for the high season which runs from December 2009 to May 2010.

The daily seasonal openings will be: 9:00am outbound, 9:30am inbound, 11:00am outbound, 11:30am inbound, 4:30pm outbound and 5:30pm inbound.

Contractor Hofman Sliedrecht NV will be carrying out the maintenance that entails the strengthening of two main girders and subsequent conservation of the structure; the repair of the bridge fenders, finalization of the electrical circuits and the standardizing of the traffic lights for maritime and vehicular traffic.

Motorists are advised to pay extra attention while crossing the bridge. A bucket truck will be parked on the sidewalks of the bridge deck and motorist should exercise caution when passing.

Considerable investments have been made to the bridge and everyone has a role to play in the longevity and safety of the bridge structure including those who transit in and out of the lagoon, according to SLAC.

After all repair and maintenance are completed, representatives from the Dutch Ministry of Water Management will inspect the works that have been executed and prepare a report for SLAC.

By the way, last we heard, the French-side bridge is only opening at 8:15am & 5:30pm until mid-November. See post.

BoatBits: "I Have A Cunning Plan" contest

2009-10-26T09:56:00.001-04:00

Just realized that some of you might not be aware of the BoatBits contest: I Have A Cunning Plan.

Boat Bits Blog

Put on your thinking caps!

New Hotel Barge Cruise Vacations website uploaded

2009-10-26T06:45:00.003-04:00

What did I do this weekend? I did the happy dance!

After a couple of years of good intentions of creating a standalone hotel barge charter website, I finally did it and uploaded it. You can check it out: www.BargeCharters.Com

Of course, it's not completely finished yet, but the important bits are there and I can tweak it and add more information later.

I have also had to modify links to "European Barges" and "Hotel Barges" on the ParadiseConnections.com website, plus our various blogs. And, then there is the task of submissions to search engines.

Still more to do, but So It Goes...

Hope y'all had a good weekend, too!

BEATLES themed Monopoly & Trivial Pursuit board games

2009-10-23T08:50:00.004-04:00

This morning Amazon.com sent me an email as a "get a free game" promotion. One item in the email was a Monopoly Star Wars Clone version. I found that interesting so I went shopping to see if Monopoly had any other themes.

I found this:

USAopoly The Beatles Monopoly Game

Wheeeeeeeeeee, that's really cool!

Product Features (from the Amazon site):

Six custom pewter tokens including: The Walrus, Here Comes the Sun, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Strawberry, Octopus's Garden, and Rocky Raccoon
The familiar Monopoly game play allows Beatles fans to own and trade some of the greatest icons in Beatles history.
Traditional Houses & Hotels are renamed Listening Parties and Concerts
A must have for any Beatles fan

So, all of you BEATLE PEOPLE go and check this out!

Oh, here's something else I just stumbled upon:

Trivial Pursuit: The Beatles Trivial Pursuit

Product Features (from Amazon):

2,592 questions with various degrees of difficulty 33% Easy, 33% Medium, 33% Hard
6 categories include: history, songs, albums & singles, movies, the Beatles in America, on their own
All-new game board bonus track creates more strategy, more interaction and more fun
Custom game board features iconic photography of the fab four
Custom die features beatles logo and other icons

Get your's here

Outasite! Right on!

French St Martin Sandy Ground Bridge October 2009

2009-10-22T12:35:00.000-04:00

We went to get some water at the Marina Port La Royale this morning (French-side marina inside of Simpson Bay Lagoon) and asked if the bridge is working again.

Yes, but no mid-afternoon 2:30pm opening, like the Sunday schedule... He thought it would probably be this way until November 15, 2009 as they are working on the road.

The Sandy Ground Bridge is back together and opens at:

8:15 am (outbound traffic first)
5:30 pm (outbound traffic first)

Rejoice!

Faxing services while cruising, working nomads

2009-10-21T11:30:00.003-04:00

I've been using eFax for the last 5 years. Nowadays, I send less than 5 faxes a year so the $16.95/month just didn't make sense anymore.

Over the past couple of years I started searching for other services but got distracted or discouraged or something and just stayed with eFax.

eFax is good in that you have a fax number that people send the fax to and then it is emailed to you in pdf format. I love that. We have had many times when people could not send us faxes though. I would tell eFax about this but not get a response. To send a fax, you just send an email with the fax number in the "To" address... something like "19999999999@efaxsend.com The file you attach to the email gets sent as a fax. You can also use their web interface but I've never done that but could be handy if using someone else's computer.

So, earlier this month after getting billed another $16.95 for a service I don't really use, I went on the hunt for something that suits our needs better and decided to go with MaxEmail.

It is very similar to use as eFax. I signed up for their free trial and sent a couple of test faxes between MaxEmail and eFax. MaxEmail worked just fine so I signed up with them.

MaxEmail LITE costs $24.00/year (as opposed to 12 months of eFax at $203.40). There was a $10 set up fee and they gave me a $2.95 promotional credit.

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With this plan (MaxEmail LITE) you get 100 pages of INbound faxes/month. (I turned off the voicemail feature but you might like it). Outbound faxes are $0.05/30 seconds which means the $2.95 of credit almost gets you 10 minutes of faxing... Now, even if my fax takes 3 minutes that's only $0.30 and let's say I do that 5 times a year which comes to $1.50... Let's get silly and double that figure all the way up to $3... $24/yr subscription and $3 fax fees is now $27/YEAR which is still a lot less than my eFax of $203/year.

With the MaxEmail Lite plan you cannot choose your area code. Ours is now a Chicago number but it really doesn't matter to me. This plan is affordable, some might say "cheap", and it meets our needs.

I wish I would have done this a couple of years ago... So It Goes...

I received a contract from a client yesterday via MaxEmail and the quality was just fine. No problem.

I had a bit of a problem cancelling / terminating my eFax service. I wrote to them three times and did not get a response. I couldn't find anything on their website pertaining to this subject. Today I tried their "Sales Live Chat" and got a quick message back saying contact our special support team at http://www.efax.com/cancel

So that's another thing off "The List" HURRAY!!!

Hope somebody will find this helpful.

DIY Camera strap - Another project on the list

2009-10-19T13:09:00.000-04:00

Here's another project I'm going to put on "The List". It seems relatively easy though and not too time consuming.

It is a hand strap for a camera, rather than the long, over the neck sort of thingy.

Check out the instructions at PhotoJoJo.