Always proud to show off our decorations…
Outside
Left side of the path
Right side of the path
The path
The door
Inside
The tree (flash on so you can see the train!)
The tree (no flash)
Dana’s Village
The nativity scene
Hope you enjoyed the decorations… we do the best we can with limited space outside.
I have moved all of my tech topics to it’s own blog. This is so this blog can be about anything personal that I want to share. Trips and other random thoughts. I also have re-named the blog again… Something more “normal.” 🙂
The new blog is here.
We got a package with a room, tickets to the Fantasy in Lights, and a day pass to the gardens. It is pretty reasonable. Check out the Callaway Gardens webpage for more information about that… I am not a salesperson for them, but since we did enjoy our stay, I’ll give them a plug!
Wednesday
We got there in plenty of time to check-in to the hotel and grab a bite to eat before our Fantasy in Lights tour (we got the trolley ride). We ate at the country store restaurant. Dana had the meat loaf and I had the catfish. Dana did enjoy her meat loaf. I liked the catfish, but to be completely honest… tasted kind of like what you would find at Folks Southern Kitchen. The biscuits and hush puppies were however, really good. The setting was really nice.
Then we went to the Fantasy in LIghts. We went into the Christmas Village. They had more than a dozen Christmas trees. They were all loaded with ornaments that were for sale. Santa was also there for the kids to tell him what they want for Christmas. No, I did not get my picture taken with Santa.
We then stood out by the lake and took in the Nativity scene. It was somewhat animated, but had music and narration to accompany the decoration.
Finally, it was time to hop the trolley and head into the Fantasy in Lights… (It was really hard to take night pictures of lights while moving… so the pictures aren’t great, but the experience was. I did take some video that I may edit and post to my MobileMe account.)
It was divided into several scenes. Such as Winter Wonderland. Mrs Claus’s house. 12 days of Christmas. And more…
It was really beautiful. I think the most most impressive part was the incorporation of sound into the display. It really adds quite a bit of depth to the display.
The worst part: It was COLD. I shouldn’t have wore my Chucks. I should have worn my boots. My feet got so cold. I was happy to get back to the Jeep and warm up my feet!
Thursday
We got up and had breakfast at the breakfast bar in the hotel. It was pretty good. Also a part of the package. That made it even better! 🙂
Then we went back to the Country store to make a few pictures around the store before heading into the gardens.
We went to two major places:
Day Butterfly Center
On the way to the Day Butterfly Center, we stopped at a Pioneer cabin. That was really cool.
This is a glass building that has tropical butterflies. They don’t have any domestic butterflies. Butterflies can be so beautiful. We sat in a presentation about the lifecycle of a butterfly. We learned quite a bit about butterflies.
Birds of Prey show
We went to this show. They showed a few large raptor birds. A hawk, an owl, and a vulture.
The hawk was my favorite. It is a beautiful bird that is an excellent hunter. They let the birds just fly around. They were not tethered. So, one of the times it flew from the back to the front of the amphitheater, I felt the talons on my head! That is a favorite memory from the trip.
The owl was really cool. We learned about how it hears and how it hunts. My favorite line from the presentation was “if you are smaller than Juniper [the owl], you are possibly prey for Juniper”
The vulture, well, we did not as excited about, but once we learned about vultures, we were fascinated. Vultures can ingest all sorts of diseases but they never come out. We learned about their eating habits. They aren’t the best fliers and are ground nesters. So, instead of always flying from the back to the front of the amphitheater, it would walk. Was almost a waddle. Vultures are good for our environment and people shouldn’t just think of them as dirty birds.
After the show, we ate lunch and then drove around the park. We really want to go back in the spring/summer. The beach will be open and the flowers will be in bloom. It was also not be so COLD.
This was a very enjoyable trip. I would recommend that everybody go at least once.
Check out the rest of the pictures on my MoblieMe account. Dana took 99% of the pictures on her Nikon DSLR camera. I took the other 1% on her camera as well. She makes really great pictures…
It sure isn’t what it used to be…
The HOA installed a couple of speed bumps. One of these is at a stop sign because people cannot seem to stop at stop signs. Some do the “California rolling stop” while others seem to disregard them altogether… Watching people at this particular intersection, the behavior hasn’t changed. The speed bump doesn’t get them to stop, but do get them to slow down more when running the stop sign.
There have been instances where I have almost been hit by people rocketing off of streets where they just dismiss the stop sign and just go… Dana has had this happen to her as well.
This makes me feel unsafe driving in this neighborhood. Since the HOA “owns” the property, the law cannot do anything to help us. I guess it’s up to the HOA to do something about it and speed bumps are apparently not the answer. It would be nice to find the answer, but that really lies within the driver to actually stop where it says, “STOP”.
In addition to the stopping issue, I found this lovely display of trash at the visitor parking area across from the mailboxes as I retrieved the mail this morning…
It might have been a visitor… it might not have been. There are a number of residents who use the visitor parking as overflow parking. This is against the HOA covenants, but what do they care? People just do what they want.
Another neighborhood might be better and we could move into one that is worse, but I would like to see this one become a better place to live. We will not be able to get out for another year or so or whenever the housing market makes a decent comeback. Not even the experts can predict when that will happen.
As many of you know, I was laid-off recently. It has not been an easy transition from working every day since I was 16 (with the exception of a few weeks in my early 20’s) to nothing. I have been having my struggles with it. I had many feelings that were not healthy. Yes, I am depressed; however, I am getting better. It has taken a while for me get through this situation. I feel as I have wasted days away doing almost nothing. Hopefully, those days are behind me.
It really does seem easy for management to just let somebody go. It’s just “business.” Maybe, it is to them, but to me it’s life. I am lucky that my company gives a nice severance package so that I can put off the financial worries that come with being laid-off. In fact, I have basically been on “vacation” since my last day in the office. My official termination date is the 31st.
I, however, found out yesterday that they actually HIRED a new person (i.e. brought in somebody new) for a department that I was working in part-time. How does this make sense? By the time this new person gets up to speed with how to do the job, the person that I was taking over for will be back. But you know, “it’s business.” Well, I am going to move on. Clearly, they have.
Come next month, I will be hitting the job trail. I am not totally sure what I want to do. I am not totally sure that I want to be an IT person. I feel like I want to do something creative. But my education and job skill set are not of the creative variety. It is in this, that my conflict arises. I would love to write for a tech focused website or magazine. I would love to edit video or audio. These are where my passions lie, but I am trained to be an IT guy. I can’r really afford to let the conflict continue, I must make a decision and find a job. This isn’t just about me. I have a family now. I have a wife, whom I love very much. I have two awesome cats. I have a house and all the bills that come with it. I must not lay around too long or my severance will be up and then, the financially struggle will really begin.
I am taking some time during my “vacation” to get a few things done that I did not have time previously to accomplish. That feels good. I will continue to use my time wisely. I have a few projects that I would like to finish while I have some free time.
Job hunting can be a job in itself. But, you know, I am looking forward to the next chapter in my life. This might end up being a good thing. Only time will tell…