There’s Evidence Of Life Out There Beyond Blogland

To those who have been wondering, and there have been a few, I’m just fine and thanks for asking. For the past several days I’ve been busy enjoying the great weather here in Desert Hot Springs by going for swims in the pool, long soaks in the hot tub, reading outside our rig in the sun or the shade, going for long walks as well as having dinner at a few of our favourite Palm Springs eateries like the Olive Garden. It’s been fun and definitely relaxing but not overly exciting to blog about in my mind.

So rather than simply chronicle the routine events of my days I simply explored areas beyond Blogland and discovered there is indeed evidence of life beyond the borders of cyberspace.  Some of the bloggers listed on my sidebar may have also noticed my absence from commenting.  My apologies for that but I have to say I’ve read very few blogs in the past week but I’m sure that will change and I’ll be back to my normal blogland activities pretty soon.

Along with normal routine activities, I’ve also been quite busy here at the Sands helping a few friends with computer issues.  That has taken up quite a bit of my time as the issues have ranged from very simple to exceedingly strange (i.e. Croft’s friend who had his laptop hi-jacked by Russians) – first time I’ve ever worked on an actual Russian language issue so there was a lot of hopeful guessing going on there. I was the happiest (and most surprised) guy in the room when it all worked out perfectly!

Gee, Uncle Kevin – you can build blocks higher than my Grandpa!

Meanwhile, back at home on Vancouver Island, we’re happy to report that Mason is doing great and we’re really enjoying our twice a week video chats with him even though he tends to want to click all the computer keys thus managing to disconnect us now and then.  He’s still smiling and laughing and having a great time and we sure enjoy our visits with the little man.  He just loves playing on his Mom’s laptop!

One last thing, we enjoyed a great visit here at our site last Sunday morning with Sue (MoHo Travels).  She also took the photos of both Paulette and myself at the top of this post (I ‘borrowed’ them from her blog – thanks Sue).  Sue is a new quilter so her and Paulette talked up a storm about quilting techniques and stuff.  Thanks for dropping by Sue, we really enjoyed your visit.

Thanks for visiting!

Forget Algodones, We Got Our Glasses At Costco!

Paulette and I each bought a set of progressive, transitional eyglasses and frames at Costco here in Palm Desert for the bargain price of $249 each. We each also get a $200 refund from our Canadian health plan so our cost for new eyeglasses comes to only $49 each.  I don’t think we could have got a better deal even by travelling down to Algodones, Mexico which is about an 8 hour round-trip. So, it looks like once again we won’t be going to Mexico this year!

Ever since we’ve been coming down south for the winter we’ve been somewhat intrigued by the stories of relatives, friends and fellow bloggers who have told us about money-saving deals to be had on eyeglasses in Algodones. In the eight years we’ve been doing this not once have we ventured across the border mostly because we’ve never been in the market for dental work, prescription drugs or, until this year, eyeglasses.

Mason helping his Mommy celebrate her Birthday this week

We’ve been very busy this week here at the Sands RV Resort but I really couldn’t tell you about anything all that exciting.  Mostly, we’ve been enjoying the great weather, going to the pool and taking walks while Paulette is busy again with the group of women quilters here at the park.  We’re connecting back home on extreme-speed broadband via Google Hangouts to video chat with Carrie and Mason.  I’m working on getting Mason to say ‘Grandpa’ and he’s getting the ‘G’ sound out pretty well.

The mystery of these gawd-awful pancakes last year has been resolved

If you happened to read my blog last year then you may remember my complaints about the horrible white, uncooked pancakes served at the Pancake Breakfast here at the Sands. This breakfast on Saturday morning is about the only organized event I attend here in the park and the breakfast was always good – until last year!  They never did seem to figure out the problem. How does one mess-up pancakes?

This year, I’m happy to report the pancakes are back to normal

Anyway, the mystery was solved. Apparently, prior to last year someone decided to put the pancake mix (just the powder) into the freezer in April so they could use it that coming November when the breakfasts started up again. I’m not sure of what exactly happened but it’s safe to say the pancake mix was rendered inedible. This year they bought new mix and voila!  The pancakes actually look and taste like pancakes should!

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Idiot Of The Day – Gretchen Carlson of Faux News

Surely, the individual who thought up the first infamous “dumb blonde joke” had Faux’s Gretchen Carlson in mind as the perfect mould for this genre.

She is dumb beyond belief and on any given day easily qualifies as both an idiot and a “pants on fire”  purveyor of un-truthiness.

Carlson was at it again on Faux yesterday when she attempted to use the horrific killings at Charlie Hebdo in Paris to launch totally false attacks against, you guessed it, President Obama and his administration. 

Forget the killings, the horror, the assault on freedom of speech.  To Carlson this was simply another reason (anything will do) to enhance her ratings with the crazies who watch her show.  While the smoke from machine guns was still clearing in Paris she couldn’t wait to begin politicizing this tragedy with outright falsehoods:

Carlson: "It is what it is. It, meaning terrorism. Terrorism is what it is," Carlson said. "So why does the administration continue to have such a problem telling the American people and the rest of the world just that? …. That since our own leaders don't see any of these attacks as terrorism right away, neither should we?"

The problem with Carlson’s statement is that she’s dead wrong. Fantastically, ineptly and perhaps deliberately wrong – a true, first-class idiotic statement.

Here’s exactly what President Obama said in an official statement about this terror attack in Paris prior to Carlson’s commentary:

President Obama: “I strongly condemn the horrific shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris that has reportedly killed 12 people. …… France is America's oldest ally, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorists who threaten our shared security and the world. …..France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers. We are in touch with French officials and I have directed my Administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice.”

Also, prior to Carlson’s comments, Secretary of State John Kerry:

John Kerry:  "The murderers dared proclaim, 'Charlie Hebdo is dead.' But make no mistake: They are wrong," Kerry said. "The freedom of expression that it represented is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror."

Carlson, like most other talking heads on Faux News, will never pass up any tragedy or horror to try to make political gain by attacking President Obama. They love to play to the worst fears and prejudices of their older, white audience.  To Carlson, and the extreme right wingnuts she courts while trying desperately to portray Obama as somehow, incredulously being weak on terror, here’s all I have to say:

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Canada Wins World Junior Hockey Gold & Whitewater

Canada defeated Russia 5-4 Monday evening to win the World Junior Hockey Championship at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.  It was a tough, rugged game but the Canadian boys deserved the Gold as they went through the tournament undefeated winning all seven games they played.  Looks like Canada will be in good shape in hockey on the international stage for several years to come as these kids are good!

Canada defeated Russia 5-4 in the Gold Medal game

The weather is heating up fast here in Palm Springs and it sure feels nice. Sunday morning was another beautiful day and we took advantage of it by heading out to one of our favourite local spots here – the Whitewater Preserve just a few miles west on I-10 from our location in Desert Hot Springs.

Following the well-marked trail out into the desert at Whitewater

There are a lot of hiking choices at Whitewater from fairly mild to rugged climbs up to the crest of the mountains. The trails go on for miles – thousands of miles actually as the Pacific Crest Trail runs right through the preserve so one could hike all the way north to Canada or south to Mexico.  We didn’t do either of those.

Instead, we just chose a leisurely hike along a trail that followed the Whitewater River. Calling it a river is a bit of a stretch right now because there was barely a trickle of water and we could walk right across to the other side without really getting our feet wet.  When it does rain out here I’m told the river turns into a raging torrent as the water flows down from the mountains and roars across the desert floor.  That would be fun to see from a safe vantage point.

Even though we didn’t hike for hours and hours on Sunday morning it was still nice to seed the end of the trail as we arrived back at the Ranger Station.

The huge fish ponds behind the Ranger Station at Whitewater

All I can say is it was another beautiful morning spent at the Whitewater Preserve.

Thanks for visiting!

A Long, Early Morning Walk In Rancho Mirage

On Saturday morning we took a drive and stopped for a bit at one of our favourite small parks in Rancho Mirage which is just a few miles east of Palm Springs.

The park has an official name which escapes me but most folks seem to refer to it as Frank Sinatra park as there is a commemorative plaque honouring him and he lived on the same street as the park - Frank Sinatra Drive – of course!

The last time we were at this park we noticed a sign for the Butler-Adams trail.  This trail followed a deep wash (sort of like a ravine) that is built to carry water in the case of heavy rains as there don’t seem to be many storm drains in this area. 

Most times these washes are bone dry.  The Butler-Adams Trail was built high on the bank of the wash and a few hundred yards along the trail it careened down into the wash and across where it followed a golf course for quite a distance.  We decided to walk the entire trail to see where it led.

This is typical of the dry washes in the Palm Springs area

You may be able to see our silver Chevy Duramax parked above in the wash. This was the start of the trail with the Frank Sinatra park on the right.  One thing we really enjoy about walking in this part of town is the variety of fruit trees compared to home in BC. At home, Apple, Pear and Cherry trees are very common but not the Lemon, Grapefruit and Orange trees we see everywhere in Palm Springs.

One of the loaded Grapefruit trees in the park

It was another beautiful, warm morning and just perfect for a hike. This is another very popular area so we met many other folks along the way plus a lot of dogs out for walks as well. 

It wasn’t very long before the dry wash of the ravine turned into a lush, green golf course.  In Palm Springs they seem to build golf courses anywhere they can and if a wash never gets water in it then turn it into a golf course!

The hike turned out to be quite a nice walk that took us about 2 hours to get to the end and back.

It was lunchtime by the time we got back to the RV park.  After a quick bite to eat we just went out back and settled into our gravity chairs to soak up some sunshine.

It’s been 2 weeks since we arrived at the Sands and I still haven’t unpacked my golf clubs.  They’re still in the basement storage area where I put them when we left Desert Hot Springs late last March.

Who knows – maybe I’ll just leave them there and skip golf this year.  Then again, I just may get the urge to give it a go one of these fine days we’ll see.

Yesterday, Sunday, we drove out to the Whitewater Preserve for another hike this time out into the desert.  We really expected to see some water in the Whitewater River given the storms that passed through this area a few weeks ago.  The river was barely a trickle.  In face, we were able to tip-toe right across it but I’ll leave that hike until my next blog probably tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting!

Apocalyptic GOP Predictions (Hopes?) For 2015 Fall Flat

Since we’re only a few days into the new year of 2015 and many of us are looking forward with hope to a year filled with promise, hope and good times, It might be worth looking at a few of the dire predictions made by several GOP talking heads (including perennial presidential hopeful Mitt 47% Romney) and ask yourselves how accurate they were?  My belief isn’t that these were the honest predictions of these folks but rather their fervent hopes of what might happen.  As usual, they are dead wrong!

What top Republicans predicted for 2015

Thankfully, gas is at its lowest price in years, the stock market is setting record highs, unemployment is down and the US economy is surging again.  There is no collapse occurring as loud-mouth Rush hopes for, gas is not $10 a gallon as Newt hoped for and the stock market has not crashed as Bozo the Trump predicted. As for 47% Romney?  Who cares what he hoped for!

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Another Nice Day And My Roam Mobility Verdict

The temps are beginning to slowly rise back to normal here in Palm Springs but even though it’s still a bit cooler than usual it was warm enough for me to get back into the outdoor pool this afternoon.  Blue skies, bright sun and no wind at all made it seem a lot warmer than the actual 60F.

Mason snuggling up to his Uncle Kevin (our son)

We had some chores to take care of this morning with Paulette handling the laundry while I drove down to Blair’s RV to get one of our propane tanks re-filled. Other than that and a swim, all I did was do some loops in the park and later in the afternoon, Paulette and I took Rylie for a walk around the exterior of the park.

Since we arrived at the Sands back on Dec. 21st, I’ve been giving our little Roam Mobility ‘Liberty Hotspot’ a real test everywhere I go to see what the cellular reception is like and what kind of performance I get when we connect our iPhones to the hotspot.

I’m pleased to say that the service and performance here in the entire Palm Springs area has been excellent. Whether I’m walking around the park, at the pool, in downtown Palm Springs or simply driving anywhere in the Coachella Valley the Liberty Hotspot has maintained a strong 4G LTE signal.  It’s so small I can just slip it into my pocket!

For us, it’s the perfect lo-cost addition to the Time Warner broadband cable we have at the Sands RV Resort. Could it replace the Time Warner broadband?  No, it could not do that anymore than we could cancel our Shaw Broadband Cable service at home to just go with our Telus cellular. The broadband has virtually unlimited GB’s and is extremely fast so the Roam Mobility service here is simply an add-on for when we’re on the move driving somewhere or just walking around in the park.  I’m happy with it and will definitely be using it again next year.

Thanks for visiting!