Tiny Tim Meets Tiny Judy

Yesterday I walked off the sidewalk at Culver and rolled my ankle.  As soon as I did it I heard the bone snap and by the time I got to my car a softball had formed on my ankle...YIKES.  So, I drove myself to the ER at Blessing and got it Xrayed...and of course it was broken.  That means a cast, crutches and a wheelchair.  I am home from work the rest of the week and will be trying to figure out how to be mobile on one leg.  Not the easiest thing to do.  But, I have my Mother-in-Law's old wheelchair and I am wheeling my way around the 2nd floor of our big old house.  The doctor told me today I should be as good as new in about 6 weeks...not a serious fracture...thank you Jesus.  Watching me hobbling around on one crutch has been more than Doc can take...shades of Tiny Tim...

Figuring Out What to Do in Chicago

Peggy is in charge of our itinerary in San Francisco and Chicago...but, I am in charge of finding an Indian Restaurant in the Loop.  So, I started cruising around this morning looking for some place that was not tabuli to go...but, rather a tablecloth kind of place.  I think I found one...if anyone has any suggestions for a restaurant in the loop, please post....

Tiny Judy Gets Dusted Off

My brand new laptop shot craps this weekend...that was a disappointment.  Joe, in our IT department at Culver, has promised to look at it on Monday.  He is a lifesaver, alright.  However, this turn of events has forced me to dust off Tiny Judy and get her out and ready for vacay.  Tiny Judy took us all around England, Wales and Ireland last year, so she deserved a rest until today.  My friend, Clairece, has a Tiny Judy, and she has showed me how to upgrade the memory so TJ will be running alot faster when we take her through the Inside Passage.  I ordered the upgraded memory this morning and Clairece will help me install it when it arrives.  Jezzzzz....I am becoming a computer nerd.

Peggy bought a new Kodak mini camcorder so she can take videos of our trip to Alaska.  She sent it to me so I can figure out how to use it.  Then, I will teach her how to take videos and we will download them onto Tiny Judy every nite. Hopefully, we can upload them to You Tube and then just post a link on our blog for everyone to see.  You can only imagine what these videos are going to look like, can't you?  

So, today I loaded all the Kodak software onto Tiny Judy and also connected her to our new wireless printer.  I also registered the camcorder online.  All of these things have to get done before we go...there seems like a million of them.  

Staying at the Palmer House

Searching and searching trying to decide where to stay downtown Chicago...most of the big hotels are about the same price.  So, I thought to myself, if we are going to be spending that kind of money  WHY NOT THE PALMER HOUSE?  Everyone needs to stay at the Palmer House at least once in their life.  Brian and I stayed there for a weekend a few years back when we attended the Borlas family reunion.  We had a great time.  There is history lurking everywhere with this old gal...and it is located so well for shopping and seeing the sites.  So, that is what we are going to do.  Here we come Palmer House...

Trying to Blog From My IPhone

I am hoping to be able to do this so when we are in Alaska that I can use my IPhone as much as I use tiny Judy (that's the name of my Netbook). I also hope to be able to upload pictures right from my phone. Let's see if this works. The image loading isn't working yet. Sigh.

Train to Chicago

My favorite thing to do is to take the train to Chicago into Union Station.  Most of the time I am usually going onto other destinations so I get to hang out in the Metropolitan Lounge.  This trip will be no different except I will be meeting Peggy in Chicago and we will be spending 2 days shopping, doing the museums and eating good Indian food, I hope.  Then it is off to catch the California Zephyr to San Francisco.

Now I am on a Mission

The reason I was on this ticket jag was because my sister couldn't sleep one night worried about where these tickets were...so I had to find them...and I had to get them in my hot, little hand and send her ticket to her. So, after the trip to the station and finding the broken machine and the sleeping weird guy still in residence, I had to come up with another plan. I dropped Linda off at her house resolute to find a different way to get our tickets. Then it came to me...I would just call AMTRAK...simple enough....and I was sure that they would help me. An hour later and after meeting a WONDERFUL woman named Candy on the other end of the phone...I am getting the tickets mailed to me. AMTRAK got things right Saturday afternoon. There is a reason I don't fly anymore. Candy, I salute you....many thanks.

Scared out of my Shoes

That guy sleeping in the train station scared me because he just popped up out of nowhere...so I called my girlfriend, Linda, and asked her to go back to the train station with me. I picked her up and when we got there he was still there sleeping on the bench. Linda kept her eye on him while I tried to get my tickets to print. Of course, the machine wasn't working...so all of this for NOTHING. Thinking back on it I shouldn't have asked her to go with me...that guy could have turned out to be a big monkey nut instead of just some guy sleeping it off. Now how am I going to get these train tickets? Are we ever going to get on that train?

Trying to Print out Our Train Tickets

Yesterday, after finally finding my email reservation slips from AMTRAK, I dropped by the Quincy train station to get our train tickets printed. The Quincy station doesn't have an agent so you have to get your tickets from the scanning machine. The station looked deserted, so I opened the station door and walked into the building...and lo and behold, some guy jumps up from the bench where he had been sleeping...scared the bee-jesus out of me. I certainly didn't expect to see anyone. I turned on a dime and hotfooted it out of there in a flash. I really wanted to get those tickets printed yesterday...and had to think about what I was going to do....stay tuned.

Our Ship

This is the ship we will catch at Pier 32 in San Francisco. The Sea Princess is smaller than the Queen Mary2 and we are anxious to get aboard to look around. Our friends, Joannie and John, who we met on the QM2, are joining us on this cruise to Alaska. We will be 10 days out and back. Our first stop is Juneau, Alaska where we will be going on a whale watching excursion.

Finding Our Tickets

Peggy and I are taking the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco to catch the Sea Princess for our cruise to Alaska. So, I think it is fitting for my first blog post to be about trying to find our train tickets I bought back in September. I thought Peggy had them, she thought I had them...so I finally remembered putting them away somewhere. Of course, I couldn't remember where. Natch. This is only the start of the ticket adventure today. Stay tuned.