Starting The New Year Off On The Right Foot

That would be both feet, I guess, as we went for a hike in the desert to get 2015 off to a healthy start.  The sun was shining, we had blue skies and even though it was cool with no wind at all it felt very comfortable for hiking in shorts and a sweatshirt.

Before we headed out for our hike though we had some phone calls to make to kids in Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria. We also had a very fun video chat with our little man Mason. He is determined to reach right through the computer screen and try to grab us to give us a hug.  We’d love to be able to do that but it was nice to see him and at least talk to him for a while.

By the time we finished all the phone calls it was close to 10am and we had about a 30 minute drive over to La Quinta east on I-10 and then south on Washington St. for several miles before we arrived at the parking lot of the Cove Oasis Park.  It seemed that lots of other people had the same idea of a hike to start the new year as the small lot was full. No problem though as there was lots of street parking available.

It was a perfect morning for a hike and we headed out into the desert on one of the many trails that traverse this part of the desert. Due to Bighorn Sheep in the area the trails where dogs are allowed is limited to mostly the desert floor. That was o.k. with us as we’re not quite ready yet for a rigorous hike up into the hills.

It was good to get some exercise as on New Year’s Eve we went out for dinner with 3 other couples from here in the park. We enjoy going out for dinner but we are determined this year not to head home packing extra weight so I guess we’ll be doing lots of hiking and exercise. 

We spent about an hour and a half walking out in the desert and it felt really good.  The temps are still a bit cooler than normal but it’s expected by the weekend we should be back up into the 70’s and next week looks even better.  By the time we got back to our truck and then drove back into the Sands it was nearly 1pm and only an hour away from the Oregon Ducks college playoff game against Florida State.  I was looking forward to that game!

Oregon crushed the defending national champion Florida State 59-20!  Way to go Ducks!  Russ and Donna up in Eugene are probably still duck-walking around their home in celebration as they shout out their secret duck-calls!  Last night I watched Ohio St. beat #1 Alabama so it’s going to be Oregon vs Ohio St. for the national championship on Jan. 12th.  Nice to see the SEC reign come to an end!

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My Favourite Quote Of 2014

Over the past year, I’ve read and heard hundreds, maybe thousands, of comments from politicians, celebrities, athletes, friends, bloggers and acquaintances. Some, I couldn’t remember even an hour later while others seem to stick in my mind a lot longer. For this past year, the one remark that has stayed with me is one I saw on a Facebook page written by our daughter Carrie.  She left these simple, heartfelt words in response to a comment left by a friend:

Carrie:  “Mason has made my dreams come true!”

That pretty much sums up everything in just 7 words. What Carrie wrote on Facebook pretty much goes for our whole family with regards to our little man.  Mason is a dream come true for all of us.  There’s one more thing though that I’d like to add and it’s if Mason could talk right now I know he’d be saying:  “I am such a lucky little boy to have such a wonderful, loving and caring Mommy to constantly look after me and make every minute of each day full of fun and hugs….it’s a dream come true”!   

 

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Microsoft Will Ship Windows 10 With New Web Browser

Wow!  After 20 years, we may be saying goodbye to the venerable, yet often hated, Internet Explorer. With the arrival of Windows 10 in 2015, Microsoft is said to be building a new lightweight browser code named Spartan that will be the default browser for Windows 10.  Spartan will look and feel more like Chrome or Firefox. IE 11, the current Windows 8.1 browser, will be included with Windows 10 but only for backward compatibility.

Spartan will probably not be the final name for Microsoft’s browser

Spartan is still going to use Microsoft's Chakra JavaScript engine and Microsoft's Trident rendering engine (not WebKit).  If that’s so, then it’s unlikely the new Spartan browser, just like current IE, will be available to run on iOS or Android devices. Microsoft has repeatedly said it has no plans to port IE to any non-Windows operating systems.  But, IE isn’t Spartan is it? More fun and games to come and we may find out more on January 21st when Microsoft is scheduled to unveil more on Windows 10 from Redmond, WA.

When Spartan debuts, support for these 2 IE versions will go bye-bye!

Internet Explorer 11 is an excellent browser.  It’s fast, reliable and dependable but it suffers a lot from its name. Microsoft was slow to respond to faster, modern browsers like Firefox and Chrome.  It was Google’s Chrome that really stole the thunder from IE with its blazing speed, auto-updates and clean, minimal look. Some analysts think that Microsoft simply needed to change the name of IE just to get rid of the bad vibes folks had about it. Maybe…but Spartan will be completely new too!

Windows 10 – we’ll see this in the fall of 2015

What does this mean for us bloggers?  Well, if you do use Internet Explorer you’ll need to update at some point in the future to a version later than IE 8 as when Windows 10 hits the shelves late in 2015, it won’t be long after that until Microsoft drops support for those older versions. 

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Idiot Of The Day – Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Last week, Politifact, one of the most highly regarded media fact-checkers, labeled former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani a “Pants on Fire” liar for stating that President Barack Obama said “that everybody should hate the police”.  The truth, as Giuliani knows full well is that the President said no such thing – not even close.

Politifact, another top media fact checker gave Giuliani its highest liar rating of “Four Pinocchio’s” for his outright false statements.

The sad part of all this is not so much Giuliani’s outright lying but rather how typical it is of the kind of race-baiting that right-wing conservative wing-nuts have engaged in for the full six years of Obama’s Presidency.  They take every opportunity available, true or not, to play to the worst fears of older, white Americans about a black President. It’s disgusting.

Here is what Politifact wrote about Giuliani:

Throughout all of his comments since August, when the latest unrest over racial disparities in the criminal justice system began, Obama has continuously encouraged working with police to find solutions and make change. He has also repeatedly emphasized the importance of law enforcement in communities of color and the fact that police officers have a dangerous job.

Giuliani’s claim is an outlandish distortion of what Obama actually said. We rate this Pants on Fire.

As for Fact Checker, here’s their take on what Giuliani said:

The burden of proof rests with the speaker. We combed through Obama’s speeches and can find no evidence of “propaganda” that “everybody should hate the police.”

Giuliani suggested that the president actively launched and promoted anti-police rhetoric — and that is simply Four-Pinocchio false.

Thankfully, after his disastrous campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008, Giuliani has mostly disappeared from the political scene except for the odd appearance on Faux News or radical, wacko conservative talk radio shout-a-thons. For that, everyone should be thankful.

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A Day Of Quilt Shops And Pacific Ocean Beaches

We were on the road just before 8am Saturday morning heading south towards San Diego.  Our destination though wasn’t the big city on the border but rather two other cities just north – Vista and San Marcos.  What was the big attraction in those two places?  Two of Paulette’s favourite quilt shops - The Fat Quarter and Grand Country Quilter were having their post-Christmas 50% sales on fabric. Traffic was light and we arrived at the first shop in Vista at 10am just as the doors opened!

The beautiful beach of Carlsbad, CA

If you happen to be a quilter or a person who is interested in quilting shop bargoons then head over to Paulette’s blog and she’ll show you all her great deals.  If not, then I’ll show you what Rylie and I did while Paulette was busy bolstering the US economy. 

Paulette said she’d like an hour at the Fat Quarter Shop in Vista so after dropping her off, Rylie and I headed west for the 10 minute drive to the Pacific Ocean and the city of Carlsbad. The beach promenade was pretty busy but luckily I found a parking spot right away.

I hustled Rylie out of the truck and we set off on a 30 minute walk along the sidewalk high above the beach.  It was a sunny, warm morning with the temperature in the high 60’s and it was only 10am!  The beach seems to be a popular place for people of all ages to enjoy a walk and see the ocean.

I could only imagine how busy this beach must be in the middle of summer. It seems to go on for miles and miles. 

A very nice hotel facing the ocean in Carlsbad

Carlsbad is one of those clean, remarkable looking spots that dot the southern California coastline. There are many beautifully restored old buildings but also a lot of tacky looking restaurants and surf shops. I imagine its a pretty expensive place to live if you’re anywhere within a half-mile of the beach!  After our walk, Rylie and I headed back to Vista where we met Paulette right on schedule as she left the quilt shop carrying 2 large bags of loot.

View from Double Peak Mountain in San Marcos

After leaving Vista we drove about 10 minutes south to San Marcos for another 1 hour pit-stop for Paulette at the Grand Country Quilter. This time, I didn’t head for the beaches, instead I took the short drive to a famous landmark in San Marcos - a place called Double Peak Park.

Double Peak Park affords a 360 degree view

Double Peak is located just south of San Marcos and the elevation at the summit is 1,646 ft.  On a clear day, the peak offers views of distant places such as Mexico, Downtown San Diego, San Clemente Island, Catalina Island, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Santa Ana Mountains, and the San Bernardino Mountains. It was a pretty clear day and I was able to see downtown San Diego’s buildings and I imagine some of the islands as well if I knew where they were.

I could see downtown San Diego off in the distance (but not Russia!)

Again, we had lots of time to explore Double Peak and still get back to San Marcos to pick Paulette up at noon.  On the way back to Desert Hot Springs and the Sands, we stopped off at an In-N-Out for lunch. The burgers were good and with not too much traffic we were back at the Sands not long after 2pm.  We just took it easy for the rest of the afternoon and watched a movie on TV after dinner. Life is good!

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A Nice, Leisurely, Enjoyable Day In The RV Park

While Paulette left at the crack of dawn to head for the big mall in Palm Desert looking for Boxing Day sales, even though there is no Boxing Day in the USA, I stayed home with Rylie to take it easy and have a nice quite morning – which we did!  The wind blew pretty hard overnight and was steady up until about noon when it pretty much stopped leaving us a nice afternoon with sunny skies.

Mason with his Uncle Kevin on Christmas Day

Carrie kindly sent us a bunch of photos of the family get-together on Christmas Day in Victoria. It looked like everyone was having a great time and one that we sadly had to miss.  We’ve already made up our mind about next Christmas and are having a big family Christmas reunion dinner at our home in 2015.  All 5 children have committed to being home so we’ll be heading south around New Year’s.

Oh good – Mason got drums for Christmas!

Granddaughters Mikayla with boyfriend Cody & Jessica with husband Carl

Mason giving his new baby cousin a kiss

It was great to see all the photos of the family on Christmas Day and then last night we got to enjoy another video chat with Mason which is always fun!

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A Christmas Day Hike In The Hills Of Palm Desert

When we were having such a great time enjoying all the wonderful food at our Christmas Eve Pot-Luck Dinner here at the Sands we never even gave a thought to how we’d feel on Christmas morning.  We felt like stuffed Turkeys and one of the main reasons was this delicious but very decadent home-made Trifle:

This ‘Trifle’ was every bit as good as it looks!

To pay for the sins of eating the Trifle as well as all the other great desserts, not to mention the turkey, ham and all the fixin’s dinner before, we figured we’d have to do a Christmas morning penance of some kind. That turned out to be not so bad as we decided to hike up in the hills of Palm Desert just north of Hwy. 111 off of Monterey Ave. 

What a wonderful way to spend a Christmas morning!

There were a lot of people, including many families, that had the same idea as us about going for a hike on Christmas Day.  We also encountered a lot of dogs on the trail which was a bonus for Rylie.  I’m not sure whether it was the hot weather, the altitude or just the plain old uphill slog that made us feel a bit light-headed at times but I’m sure we’ll get our desert legs under us soon.

The long twisting trail we took to get to the top

By the time we leisurely made our way down the mountainside and back to our truck we’d been on the trail for 2 hours so it was a pretty good first hike for us. We’re going to try and do this a few times a week if we find the time. 

I can’t believe all these presents are for me!

After we got back to the Sands, we phoned all the kids to wish them a Merry Christmas and to see how their day was going.  Our first video chat on G+ with Mason was a huge success.  He was smiling and laughing and clearly enjoyed seeing us on the computer screen.  It’s sure going to make being away from him a lot easier with this technology.

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